High on Writing!

This is been a productive week. I have been working on the endless novel. Actually, what I’ve done is printed it out and I have been rereading it. Every day this week, from just after noon until four, I’ve tucked myself away and have thrown myself at the manuscript. It’s been more than three years since I’ve looked at it, and this is my perception so far: 1) It’s pretty darn good. 2) I need a villain. 3) The main character is not as in-focus as the secondary characters. 4) I’m surprised at how much work I had already done, well over 300 pages. And 5) What do you know -- I can write! 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but after the first day, I was really high about it all. Guess I was afraid if I sat down to read it, I would find it was trite and unorganized, or that I would see all the holes in it. But there aren’t many, and I’m delighted to find it’s not at all bad, and can probably be finished in short order if I just put my mind to it, and continue to work faithfully on it. Of course, once it’s done there’s no guarantee anyone will want to publish it, but that’s something I’ll worry about later.

In addition to reading the novel, I’ve also done some other things for my “writing career.” After a few back and forth emails with another writer-friend, I got online and researched getting the two books I have the rights on formatted for electronic readers like Kindle. Since neither one of these books is in digital form, it’s not an easy matter. They would have to be scanned and then converted, so I researched some places where that can be done. It isn’t dirt cheap to do, but I sent an email to one of the places inquiring about total cost. Haven’t heard back yet.

There’s something that bothers me about all this, though. Shouldn’t they be paying me, instead of the other way around? I’ve been paid for every other subsidiary right that was  sold on any of my books. There’s something about this that smells of vanity publishing, and it just isn’t going down my gullet well. I would like to get the books back in print, or circulation, of course, but do I want to do it THIS way? I can’t make up my mind.

I also found my old agent-friend on Facebook. He was once in hot pursuit of me, read the endless novel in an earlier draft, and also a YA I have a few chapters of written. I sent him a little message, just asking if he was still in the business. Might not be the right way to approach this, and I’m so anti-agent right now after my last one, but I figured I have nothing to lose at this point. Another writer friend of mine makes a trip to New York to interview agents when he finds himself without one. I think he’s probably got the right idea about the whole thing. But I’ve never had quite that much self-confidence. Probably that’s the reason I ended up with a crappy agent the last time. There’s just so much ego tied up with this whole business of writing, and I would really like to learn to separate that part. I imagine this is something all writers struggle with, though.

On the home front, my SO’s birthday is coming on the 30th. His son and daughter-in-law will be here this weekend to help us celebrate. I’ve been trying to decide what cake to bake. Probably a German Chocolate. I used to do those pretty well. Don’t know about dinner. I have a special gift to give him, and I’m trying to decide if I should give it while the kids are here, or wait until his actual birthday on Monday. I had a flag flown over the United States Capitol in honor of his father. It was flown on July 6th, and a certificate came from our Congressman with all this stated. Now, that I’ve done it, I’m not sure it’s such a great gift, and will probably find some other something to give on Saturday at any rate. 

Hummingbirds are trickling back. I have four feeders up and I hear them buzzing about when I venture outside, which I do very sparingly. It’s been over 100 degrees all week long! Will this summer never end?

Onward ....

Secret Writing, Fencing Out the Armadillo, and Undrained Sinks

An old friend called yesterday and we talked for an hour. I used to love to talk writing with her. She was in one of my old critique groups. But yesterday I found writing was the last thing I wanted to talk about with her. She was full of doom and gloom about the writing business, friends that we had with past published novels who could no longer find a home for their work, other friends who lost their agents, and on and on like that. She kept urging me to pull strings I might have to get my children's book read. I just don't want to do that and I could not make her understand. No one seems to get my disillusionment with the whole world of writing. I think that's what makes me want to write secretly without telling these people, or even my loved ones.

Back in the old days, when I was unpublished and sitting at my computer for hours in solitude, burning the midnight oil to use a cliche, I got much more kick out of writing that I do now. It was something that was only for me, and it was more fulfilling for me than now. This probably doesn't make sense and I wish I could explain it better. It was my dream and mine alone. I had things I wanted to accomplish, and it had nothing to do with fame and fortune. Once I had my first book contract all that changed. Everybody else got involved in it, watching from the sidelines, wringing their hands in solicitous greed, spoiling the self-satisfaction that should have come from that success.

I lost my way.

Spent $300 buying border fences for all the flowerbeds. We've given up on trapping the armadillo who has been rampaging every night. He leaves the beds looking as if they've been busted with a sulky plow. Hopefully, these sturdy little metal fences will keep him out of the garden. I hated having to do it. You don't see the flowers as well with the little fences binding them, but it was our last resort. As soon as it's light enough, I'm going out there to see if the fences worked to keep the critter out.

The little wren with the nest in the baby's breath basket is starting to sit all day now, so I expect her babies to hatch while we're gone to the Coast. I have been trying to carefully water the plant with her and her darlings in there, but it isn't easy. She flies out as soon as the watering can touches the edge of the hanging basket. I can't see well enough to know if I'm watering right into her nest or not, but I have been putting in just a cup at a time and no more. Next year, I swear, I will stop the nest building immediately. Wrens have a tendency to come back to the same nest building place year after year.

The morning glories have begun to twine up and around the trellises I made for the two wall containers attached to the wellhouse. I imagine they'll outgrow those little trellises quickly, and then will either drape over the edge, or go up over the roof of the wellhouse. I'm anxious to see what works. I don't have much experience with morning glories. I planted some at the Coast, too, and am also eager to get down there to water everything. I imagine it's all thirsty by now, if not deceased already. Don't know why I persist in trying to make something grow down there, with us going no more frequently than we do. Most of my efforts die if it doesn't rain. And it hasn't in a week.

This coming Sunday is the SO family's cemetery decoration day. We're coming back early to attend that, and also to make food to go along with us. That's going to be a trick with the plumbing problems we're having in the kitchen. As soon as the SO's kids left last Sunday, the sinks in the kitchen and the sun room, which are all plumbed together, decided to back up. I brought home some gel type drain opener, but that didn't work at all. So yesterday, when I came back from buying the fencing, I brought sulfuric acid. My SO poured half the bottle down the little sink in the bar in the sun room, but it actually seems worse now. We've said before we call the plumber, we'll try pouring the other half down the side of the kitchen sink without the garbage disposer and see what happens. Now, when we run the dishwasher the sinks all back up, and that was not happening before. We may be making this situation worse instead of better with our stabs at pretending to know what we're doing. The soonest we could get a plumber out would be Monday, and I really hate to go away to the Coast with this problem on our hands. Oh -- sigh! -- the joys of homeownership.

Onward ....

The Business End

It's the business end of writing professionally that I find dispiriting. Will it sell? Who will it sell to? Why did that marketing strategy work, or not? How many copies to put in print, how much promotion to do, speaking engagements, book signings, agent hassles, subsidiary sales, contract negotiations. All of that and more, are some of the reasons I stopped writing. Everything about it works against creativity. It's why bestselling writers do their "search and replace" novels -- one so much like the last one that they later become indistinguishable in a reader's memory.

Paradoxically, as an aspiring writing, I believed the business end would be the part I would like, where I would excel. I daydreamed about sitting in a book store signing my name on the inside of my just-published novel. And in fact, there's very little like the anticipation of having a new book come out, the elation of seeing your work in its final form, typeface set so perfectly, the glossy dust jacket, your name in some fancy font. I never minded the process of getting something from acceptance to publication. I enjoyed dealing with all of my editors, appreciated their input, and truly believe that they all contributed to making each book better than it was before it reached their desks. But once the publication date arrived, deflation began.

I have sat in those book stores when nobody comes through the door. I've directed people to other books they were hunting on the shelves and I've had inept conversations with prospective buyers in the hope I could coerce them into purchasing my book before they left the store. I've sat in malls with people passing by, giving me an avoiding berth. I've whored myself to the process, and have yet to figure out the value in it.

To write well, a person needs solitude, quiet time to hear yourself think. If there's too much hustle and bustle creative brain cells are stifled. The racket of life can leave us feeling estranged from ourselves. We stop understanding what it is we want to say, or why we felt we had something to share in the first place. We detach. I've never felt as detached as I have on a book tour, putting my physical self on display, answering impossible questions from well-meaning people. And after all those months of quiet solitude, of getting in touch with yourself to create the thing you're sent out to publicize, the switch doesn't come easily. That first speaking engagement, the first time, after so long away, that you sit at the book store table, pen in hand, face set in a constant smile, all of those things run counter to the solitude. You feel sort of sleepy-eyed, like a mole emerging from its underground den. The publicity part -- the business end -- makes me feel inadequate. Some writers are good at it, but not many, and I am certainly not one of them.

Maybe I should follow the lead of my good friend in Boulder and write just for me. Maybe that's the reason I get such satisfaction from this blog. Maybe I should stop trying to get anything published, ever, and leave my pages for posterity, even if that posterity consists of family members only.

The truth is, I never stopped writing, I just stopped publishing. That's the fact of it anyway. I wrote my way through the pain of my last divorce, and through the wonder of reawakened love. I wrote all those book reviews so few people seemed to read. I wrote a fantastic number of emails and letters. Writing has always made me happy. It's the other part, the part that pegs a person a professional, that causes me anguish. At this late stage of life, I seem to be looking only for the joy. And maybe that should be enough.

Onward ....