I try to write every day. Other computer stuff (blogs & email & freelance jobs - and Webkins for that matter - don’t count)… For me, the really super precious laptop time means geting some words down on one of the bigger projects I’m working on. I aim for 1000 words a day. Sometimes I manage nothing - sometimes 50, sometimes 500, and sometimes if it’s really rolling off of my fingertips I get 4000 words done. I guess it’s less about the words and more about the feeling I get if I write down what I have brewing in my head.
It’s a difficult thing to be disciplined. For me, the summer is totally the best because it offers up some time while I’m free from real-life working obligations. But I tend to get caught in the trap of setting ridiculously lofty goals and then making myself stay up until the wee hours of the morning (or awakening before the sun comes up) and squeezing in the time there. If I were excited about just one project it might be easier. But that’s not the way I’ve set up my writing life. People ask me how it is that a person can sit down a write a book. I tend to do it chronologically, doing the basic plot stuff first, adding details, and then revising about fifty billion times. And I like revisions. In fact, getting a sentence or a paragraph or an idea just right gives me a rush. But everybody does it differently. I have a friend who is a terrific writer who totally doesn’t do the chronological thing.
Currently I’m working on several novels. Here’s what occupies a good chunk of my brain right now:
a) My teen nonfiction project with my writing partner Kelly Talbot is taking up only a tiny portion of brain matter currently because it’s already been handed over to the agent. We’re working on some platform stuff (very important for nonfiction these days) and waiting for the next step. Bookends LLC has a great blog about platform. But I suck at waiting so naturally I have a few other things to obsess about.
b) My sassy teen fiction has also been handed over to my agent to look at. So no time or brain energy right now.
b) My teen psychological thriller. Work in progress. It’s dark (but not horrific or gory or anything like that. I don’t do gore) and kind of an on-the-edge-of-your-seat book. At least that’s what I’m going for. It’s fun to write - and different that things I’ve done before. But I’m forever looking for great young adult fiction that will keep my grade 11 & grade 12 male students into the book. Robert Cormier’s Tenderness has proven to be a good one… but there aren’t enough of these types on the shelves so I might as well fill a spot!
c) An adult women’s fiction that has huge crossover potential. (Cross-over in that it will appeal to women from 15 - 65.) I’m not talking about it too much right now but I’m already half-way done and currently this is the word doc that I go to first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
d) On the back-burner: A hilarious MG (middle grade) novel that I know would make my stoic-almost-9-year-old-son Sam laugh his guts out.
e) Another nonfiction project with Kelly just in the infancy stage.
It’s kind of cool because depending on what mood I’m in is what I choose to write. If I’m not really into the groove with one particular book, I can pick the character I’m really into at the moment. I guess for right now that gives me the choice of a freaky serial killer, a prickly plastic surgeon (or her hippy teen self years ago), or a ten year old boy with a mean sister (on the grandest adventure). It’s kind of fun living inside a whole bunch of different worlds…. but really, it’s no wonder I miss the turn-off to my house half the time…
What’s occupying your brain matter right now?
What’s in my brain you ask?
Should I clean the upstairs bathroom first or the downstairs bathroom first?
The vote is in….I’m gonna finish reading “The Select”
I can always clean later.
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:26 amI like your brain process. Cleaning should most definitely be down the list if there’s a good book to read… Isn’t that a good book!?
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:43 amHalf the time I don’t know what language is “occupying my brain matter”. Other than that, anticipation of the upcoming school year, my student loan payback, all my missed friends and family … and bed bugs have been on my mind!
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:28 pmI’ve finished the book. It was awesome, could not put it down even when it was 1 am. And I would have never choosen it without you because the cover (remember all of our cover conversations of a couple years ago) ..the picture is not something that would grab my attention. It actually looked alittle scary. I don’t do scary. And these thunder and lightning storms have been scary!
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:05 amCan’t judge a book by its cover, they always say… What’s the next book?
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:51 am