Where I've Been All this Time

Wow. It's been more than a YEAR since I last posted here!

Well ... I've been busy.

Let's see:

I had twins!
That was something. They are adorable. You can read more about them and the rest of the family here.

Both "Dirty Darlene" and "James Dean, My Love, My Copy Boy" became available for sale in actual words-on-paper print!
Yep -- Carve Magazine and Armchair/Shotgun published the issues in which I was included. If you wanna go buy them, you can do that by following the links in my sidebar ... Yep. I added links to my sidebar!

I finished the screenplay with Mr. Lovely and Amazing. 
He doesn't agree, but it's in his court for the moment. And has been ... for awhile now ...

I wrote and performed an essay for the Afterbirth reading series.
Have you read the book that spawned the series? You should. It's pretty awesome. Best collection of essays about parenting ever. I laughed. I cried. No, seriously, I did both those things. And I'm not even schilling for it because I'm in it -- 'cause I'm not. But I seriously dug reading for it -- and on my 36 birthday, even! (Basically a year from the last time I posted here.) There were 6 readers totally, and I think I fell somewhere around #3 in terms of entertainment value, so I was pretty jazzed about that.

I wrote a TV pilot spec ALL ON MY LONESOME.
It's a one-hour drama, I am very very proud of it -- and myself. Because, again: I wrote it ALL ON MY LONESOME. Which means I am the master of that particular domain -- which was a) the life-lesson learned with Mr. Lovely and Amazing, who is still both things but who has halfsies on the screenplay we worked on together, so I am not master of THAT particular domain (see the life-lesson?) and b) the advice given me by Ms. Fabulous TV Exec Old Friend, who said basically, I needed to prove I could do it ALL ON MY LONESOME.

Well -- I feel vaguely proven on that point now. That said, the spec I wrote, which satisfies all I love about television, is apparently, according to the production company and both agencies that have covered it, not sure whether it is a cable project or a network project. I sort of thought I was leaving the door open to whomever wanted it to develop it the way they wanted to, but apparently that's the wrong approach. So now I need to decide where to go in the next round -- network or cable. Which makes me think now I need a Guru to help me figure out WHAT COMES NEXT.

I started talking to a Preschool Parent about developing content for his very cool interactive iPad books for kids. 
He runs a very cool company -- their first book-app is based on a story his sister wrote for his 5-yo daughter called Penelope Rose. Check it out -- it's pretty fab.

I got a screenplay commission.
Generous Old Writer Friend started a production company and asked me to write the second project for their company. Working on that now -- and again: ALL ON MY LONESOME!

And I started Mommy-blogging.
No, really, I did. I figured I had a lot of kids, I might as well write what I know ... so now I do. You can find me at Checklistmommy.com, where I've actually been getting a ton of very gratifying traffic, and which has been keeping me writing very very regularly -- which is a good thing. And which has made me think that I ought to post over here more, too -- because sure, I know about kids. I know about being a Mom. And I REALLY know what it's like to try to be a WRITING MOM.

So check back here more often -- I promise to post more, because honestly, the more I've been writing-writing, the more I've gotten interesting in talking about the nuts-and-bolts processes I've been employing to DO all that writing-writing -- and the more I've gotten interested in finding out OTHER people's processes ... Anyway. More soon.

Come on back.

Inspiration

It's been awhile since I posted here, but to be fair -- and I am trying, more and more, to be fair -- I've been busy.

Way back in March, Big Shot Manager introduced me to Lovely and Hilarous Actor, and since then Mr. Lovely and Hilarious and I have been working on a screenplay that I am literally two hours of work away from completing the first draft of ... which explains what I'm doing suddenly blogging after all this time. Yes, I am my own worst enemy.

Anyway, more about the screenplay and Mr. Lovely and Hilarious if / when it becomes a movie. On to the other stuff I can dump here for now as a record that I really was, um, working, since last I posted here, and not just gallivanting about.

Around the same time as I was meeting Mr. Lovely and Hilarious, I was trying to figure out if the magazine that had bought a short story of mine, "Dirty Darlene," was, in fact, ever intending to publish it, or had just closed up shop for good. Eventually, I decided it had closed up shop for good, but then a couple of weeks ago the editor re-appeared and apparently "Dirty Darlene" will be up on the mag's site Oct 16. I will believe that when I see it.

Then I placed another story, "James Dean, My Love, My Copyboy," with a new mag called Armchair / Shotgun, out of Brooklyn, which believe it or not, is actually printed on PAPER. And BOUND. Like a real, live LIT MAG. That should be out later this fall.

And I got a little more serious about sending out "Nothing Will Prepare You," which involved, for about two weeks, employing a Virtual Assistant in India. This was not a great experiment -- apparently fiction loses a LOT in translation, and my goal of off-loading the soul-killing work of FINDING VENUES was never met. Instead, I spent twice the time trying to explain to the VA that I was not writing sci fi, or porn, or horror, that I would have spent generating my own venues lists. So that killed a bunch of time ;)

Oh, and I eventually got a truly wonderful rejection letter for "Nothing ..." from The New England Review, which was actually pretty thrilling because it was so personal and encouraging and made me think I might not be the hack I was beginning to think I was. (See "sudden interest in writing screenplays.")

Oh, and I got knocked up while all this was going on, too. Twins. Boys. Like I wasn't already intent enough on tanking my own career.

Anyway, because I at least KNOW that about myself, I am going to go try to finish the first draft of the screenplay now. But first, the reason I started writing this post in the FIRST PLACE ... (aside from the obvious attempt at procrastinating):

Today I was reading the Oct 11 issue of The New Yorker, and I came across Nora Ephron's piece "My Life as An Heiress," which is about the weeks she thought she might be coming into money, and would be able to abandon the screenplay she was struggling with, and that she was just writing because it was a job. I would just reprint it here, but I can't now, because The New Yorker has a new digital edition that makes that too difficult, so I'll spoil the ending for you. Basically, she doesn't come into much money. Which turns out to be a good thing, because it forces her to finish writing "When Harry Met Sally."

Go figure. And with that, and the obligatory, "Because of GOD," or even, "It was this cold, Spanish tile," I head back to work.

** UPDATE! Two hours later: first draft screenplay complete! Woo-hoo! **

2009: AULD LAND SYNE

Every year, I have really high hopes for my work. Not necessarily that I’ll sell any of it – I am a realist, a pragmatist, first and foremost – but that I’ll write it. That I’ll get my butt in the chair, and the words on the page. And I try to be specific about my goals – which projects I’ll focus on, and what the true, achievable goal for each project really is. And I write all these goals down, too (a practice that isn’t just a work thing, for me, but a family thing—Husband and I make a one-page goals list for our work, our health, our family, our finances, and post it on the mirror in our bathroom).

Anyway, sitting down to make a NEW goal’s list requires reviewing the old one. Here’s the play-by-play of WHAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO DO IN 2009:

* Complete 2^nd draft of the novel by TAX DAY

Status: Absolute failure. Didn’t even LOOK at it in 2009. In the wake of Baby Gaga’s birth, the plot just started to seem totally empty and dumb. I did spend a little time completely re-imagining the entire structure, and considered turning it into 3 linked novellas … does that count as progress or procrastination?

*Complete 3^rd draft of the novel by LABOR DAY and send to friends.

Status: See above.

*Write one more script with Co-Writer / advance partnership another level.

Status: Sort-of / Yes! We didn’t write one more script. But we came up with two concepts, for two new scripts. And we got our Big Shot Manager. And we took some Big Shot Meetings—one in studio bungalow! So that was fun.

*Complete Client’s sample chapter.

Status: Done!

*Write Client’s book if offered contract.

Status: Client didn’t pursue contract, so this stalled out totally NOT on my watch ;)

*Submit “DIRTY DARLENE” to 60 venues.

Status: Sold (sort of). Went out to 57 venues. Finally bought by Carve Magazine, for the Fall 2009 issue. That said, there seems to have been no Fall 2009 issue … hmm.

*Submit “JAMES DEAN, MY LOVE, MY COPY BOY” to 60 venues.

Status: In Progress. I’ve sent it out to 23 magazines, and in December I employed a Virtual Assistant in India to come up with 40 more. So we’ll see about that …

*Re-write “ALBERT & NANCY” to completion.

Status: Abandoned. I tried, I really did. But nothing I did fixed it. And then I started to lose hope. So at the moment, this story has been abandoned, despite my sister’s liking it. Sorry, sis.

*Re-write “MAYFLOWER IS A TRUCKSTOP” to completion.

Status: Complete! It’s now called “Nothing Will Prepare You,” it’s in submission, and it’s the best thing I have ever written. Ever.

*Re-write “SEVEN” to completion.

Status: Abandoned. I tried. But there was no “there” there. There just wasn’t.

* Re-write “HONEYMOON WHERE THE SUN NEVER SETS” to completion.

Status: Back in play! Ok, so I didn’t work on this last year … but I’m already nearly done with a new draft of this story, 8 days into the new years … so that’s something …

... and it’s not a bad segue into next week’s post …

Things I Have Done This Week Instead of Writing (In No Particular Order)

1. Turned pre-school drop-off into an hour-long gossip-fest, instead of the 10-minute errand en route to work that it's supposed to be.

2. Gotten a manicure.

3. Taken Smaller Child to Music Class TWICE.

4. Attended a PTA meeting.

5. Taken my Mac to the Mac store to have things fixed and replaced, thus ensuring I will not be tempted to work for at least 3 and maybe 5 whole business days.

6. Sewn 2 Halloween costumes -- which counts as 3, since I'm re-doing the 1st one. And there's 2 more to go.

7. Celebrated Smaller Child's 1st birthday by actually BAKING cupcakes and hosting a brunch.

Still have, coming up:

8. Hair coloring -- and straightening!

9. Smaller Child's pediatrician visit

Ah. I may never work again. This all on the heels of me scrapping 2 stories I thought were close to fixable and just turned out to be truly and utterly fucked. So you can see why domestic goddess is a little preferable to writer girl right now ...

The Ups, The Downs

It’s been an interesting month, work-wise.

I sold a story called “Dirty Darlene” to Carve Magazine. That was a good thing – and totally unexpected. I wrote “Darlene” four or five years ago, and have been sending it out ever since. Sixty-seven magazines saw it – ten or twelve wrote kind, personal, rejection notes, and I had come to think that that was the best response “Darlene” was going to elicit (though Husband kept telling me it was the cover story at his imaginary, eponymous magazine).

So selling it was good.

Also good: The TV pilot I co-wrote is now represented by a dear friend and very connected manager in town, so it’s making the rounds to agents and production companies now.

Co-Writer Friend and I are getting ready to begin another project, too.

And, I’ve got two other short stories in submission, one called “James Dean, My Love, My Copyboy,” that I like a lot, and another, “Nothing Will Prepare You,” that I think may be the absolute best thing I’ve ever written. I am hoping some editor out there agrees.

All these successes are progress towards my big list of goals for the year – one of the biggest goals of which was, “Finish all the stories that are mid-third-and-fourth-draft that are sitting around the hard-drive.” “Nothing Will Prepare You” was one of those – it began life in 2002 as my thesis novel, coming in around 60,000 words. I winnowed that down to 17,000 words in 2006, then picked it up again this summer, and cut it to 12,000 words, then 8,000 … and now it comes in around 5270. And like I said, I love love love it. I am thrilled with how I worked through it, and how it turned out.

Anyway, I thought that somewhere in the process of fixing “Nothing Will Prepare You,” – I swear, even the TITLE makes me happy -- I had somehow drummed up the mojo to fix all the rest of the flawed work that’s been hanging around … so I turned to another story that has stuff I love in it, but is somehow lacking … and I wrote and wrote on it. Then I cut and cut. I wrote some more. I moved some crap around.

And it still sucks.

Which kills me. It’s got great characters, great relationships, some really lovely prose, if I do say so myself, and a killer last paragraph. But somewhere around the last third of the story, something goes wonky, and I don’t know how to fix it, and it’s driving me mad. Still, I don’t want to walk away from it … which is maybe the problem? Because strangely enough, that’s this story’s central theme …

Hmm.

Nesting again ...

The biological urge to nest is um ... well. Of all distractions a writing mother could face, the last months before arrival of a new baby are the worst. All I can / want to think about are:

-- new blinds for the room First Child will be sharing with Two-ie
-- slipcover for the upholstered glider
-- building Two-ie's crib
-- hanging art to reflect the new addition, including getting mats cut to match the existing art that will then be set into photo frames where I want pictures of First and Two-ie to go
-- hanging First Child and Two-ie fabric letters to spell their names across the window
-- going through First's clothes to get things ready for Two-ie, clearing space in the the closet, and the changer
-- getting a new, double unit expandable monitor
-- a toddler table for First Child, and getting her art supplies
-- a new rug for the play room / my office
-- a new, fancy schmancy diaper bag for me ;)

Yeah, I'm obsessed. Getting myself to actually WORK is getting pretty tough around here -- especially since the nesting isn't just in my head, but about to actualize itself in an 18 month reno of our house, and a new deck for the house we own (and are living in) next door to our house ...

That said, I am still managing to get things done, just more slowly.

For instance:

-- NOVEL -- I am halfway through Ch 9. I would really really like to think I can power through a full second draft of the book by DUE day ... but it will be a real push (no pun intended) and is getting less likely every day, honestly.

-- SPEC PILOT -- took my pass at the First Draft today, and think this is in pretty near ready-to-show-trusted-reader shape. Meeting with Writing Partner Monday night to discuss and um, come up with a title ;)

-- BOOK PROPOSAL FOR CLIENT -- finished a Rough First Draft a few weeks ago, and reading it yesterday am actually pretty pleased about the shape it's in. Just a few more hours on that and I think it's good to go ... which then, of course, sets me up to bid and write the SAMPLE CHAPTER ... jeesh.

And of course, if that weren't enough on the plate, what I really want to be working on is my short story collection ;)

But that's for another post.

Once again, MOTHERHOOD as the antidote to SLOTH

Well, Baby 1 got me to finish Draft 1 of the novel before she arrived in January '07 ...

Baby 2 (who arrives Nov 08) has got me pushing hard towards (1) completing Draft 2 -- I'm in the middle of Chapter 8, which is about halfway through the narrative -- AND, SOMEHOW, got me to (2) agree to write a TV spec with a Writer Friend AND (3) take on a new client, for whom I'm writing a book proposal.

1. THE NOVEL -- I'm writing this draft while semi-con-currently showing chapter drafts to my Writing Group, who are being incredibly helpful. I'm desperately trying to complete this draft before Baby 2, with an eye towards writing Draft 3 in the first part of next year, giving THAT to a larger circle of Trusted Readers, and writing the FINAL DRAFT in the later part of next year ... and sending it out into the world early in 2010. In practical terms, this means I'm writing a minimum of 500 words per weekday, and by October will probably have to up it to a seven-day-week if I really intend to finish before Baby.

2. THE TV SPEC -- Nearly 10 years ago, I met Writer Friend at a dinner, over which we discovered a great love for all television things Bedford Falls. By the end of the meal he was suggesting we write together. For the next nearly 10 years, he continued suggesting that. I assumed he was making said suggestions the same way people say "Let's do lunch" ... but this spring, he handed me the first 18 pages of a pilot he was kicking around, I liked it, we sat down to start writing despite ALL my reservations about writing with other people (short version: I HATE DOING THAT MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE ON EARTH ON EARTH ON EARTH) and it turned out to be ... fun. And surprisingly easy. Since the end of June, meeting for a few hours one night a week, and writing a little bit on our own time, we've managed to come 11 scenes short of a Shitty First Draft. By Monday, we should be actually FINISHED with said Draft, putting us well on our way to having something sort-of-readable by Labor Day. Who knew.

3. THE BOOK PROPOSAL. Well, it had been awhile since I'd taken on clients -- before Baby 1, in fact. And I was approached by someone whom I like, with a project I find interesting, and some part of me, worrying I might never make a cent in my chosen profession again, agreed to take her on. It's been a learning experience, as I'm doing most of the writing, based on discussions and emails with her, and that's a little backwards for me, professionally -- usually, I edit more than write. And like all things of this nature, the further in we get the less simple the project is -- right now, in fact, I'm about halfway done with all the elements but have completed none. However, I'm shooting to have a First Draft of the proposal for her before we decamp for Colorado next week.

All this writing is a) great for my sense of accomplishment and therefore my scale of happiness and b) is making for a crazy-busy summer / ramp up to Baby 2. I haven't had a single moment to do any of the things I did the last time I was pregnant -- get my nails done, get massages, go to yoga, go to afternoon movies -- and I'm tired as tired can be.

All that said, I have discovered by necessity that I can accomplish an extraordinary amount of writing if I carve out 4 hours of working time a day. My basic working routine, in this four hours or so, looks like this:

-- drive to place where I can eat and sit for hours without disturbing staff
-- order a big enough meal to justify my sitting there for hours, and read while I eat
-- order a latte, write 500 words of my novel, then turn to either the TV Spec or the Proposal
-- drive home

Two nights a week, I take additional hours, which were meant to be Yoga Nights but have evolved into Writer Group meeting nights, TV Spec writing nights, or extra writing time ...

On nanny-days, I get a little more time. On no-nanny-days, it's a strict four-hour window, which I've negotiated thusly with Husband:

-- one of us gets 8am - to 12pm to ourselves, one of us gets 12pm - 4 pm.

So far, the system works great, and I'm hoping I can keep to it even after I become Mom of 2 under 2 ...

Famous Last Words

See last post, dated 2007.

This is, obviously, the first post I've made here in over a year. This is not to say I've been completely UN-productive on the writing front -- I am five chapters into the second draft of the novel.

That said, I'm also 16.5 months in mothering Child #1: 17 weeks into growing Child #2; 10 months into running new business with husband; and a couple weeks shy of moving house to prepare for 18 month renovation of original home (not to mention the fact that I spent most of last year renovating the house we're moving into). So it's been a busy year -- but that said, words need to keep hitting the page and I'm hoping, still, against all hope, to finish the second draft of the novel before Child #2 arrives in November. That'll be a push, of course, but hell, if I can deliver a baby in under three hours, I can finish 2/3 of a manuscript in five months, yeah?

(Closing eyes and moving forward with the same blind optimism that led us to think having another baby right away was such a grand idea :))

Ironically, demands of mothering INCREASE productivity!

I have returned to work. Small Child is now 3 months and ten days old, and I have been back at my desk for a few weeks now, having discovered yet another amazing talent Small Child possesses: she is about A THOUSAND ZILLION times more effective at rousing me from my warm bed than an alarm clock.

So for the last few weeks, I've been getting up to feed her around 4:30 am AND THEN GOING UPSTAIRS to the kitchen table to write until she wakes up for the day around 7:45. It's been an amazingly productive period, since none of the demands of Small Child, Husband, nor Things That Have to Happen Between 9 and 5 can claim me. In the last three weeks since I started doing this, I've made notes on my long story, "James Dean My Love My Copyboy"; read the first draft of my novel; and drafted the 30+ page notes memo for the novel, too.

I've loved working in the wee hours -- I've loved working! But a troubling thing has happened in the last couple of days ... Small Child has slept until 6. Which cuts my work time down by several hours, as that means I'm only alone at the kitchen table for about an hour before the household stirs around me ... Small Child is, of course, a rockstar for sleeping so well, and this of course makes me the one and only Mama on the planet who wishes her daughter would sleep LESS so Mama could be awake and working MORE ...

Resistance Resolved

I returned to the novel a few months ago, surprised to find that I had a lot less to accomplish in order to finish this draft than I believed. I quickly wrote Chapters 12, 13, 14, and 15 in less than a month, and assumed I'd motor write through Chapter 16 -- the final chapter -- in a similar fashion.

And then I stopped.

I finished Chapter 15 on a Thursday morning, so I took Friday off (I try to take a day off when I finish a chapter or story, a recommendation I picked up from Dorothea Brande's fabulous book Becoming a Writer). That evening, Husband and I headed off for a weekend getaway to Berkeley, our last shot at some vacation time before the two of us become three.

Monday I returned exhausted, so I took another day off. Normally I might have pushed on through, but again, "woman's work" intruded--the exhaustion attendant to the growing of Number Three won out over my work ethic, and even dulled the guilt a little bit b/c it's not just me I'm thinking about when I sleep most of the day now.

Tuesday, I forced myself back to my favorite table at my favorite cafe--and discovered another problem related to Number Three: I'm no longer comfortable for long periods of time in the cafe chairs, so after several hours of producing NOTHING I gave up and went home. I spent most of the afternoon working on transforming our office to Three's room.

Wednesday I woke up determined to work at home, in my far more supportive chairs. We all know how it ends when I try to work at home. More energy pumped into Three's room.

Thursday and Friday I decided that as long as I was resisting work, I might as well give myself REAL permission to do so--and so I poured myself into Three-related projects, with no thought to the novel at all. The only condition: Monday I would return to work.

And I did! Yesterday I made notes for what will be the last chapter of the first draft of this book, and today I wrote the first 500 words of it!

Despite the "lost week," I don't feel as badly as I usually do about walking away from my writing. Part of that has to do with listening to the David Allen podcasts at www.43folders.com. One, in particular, is about procrastination, and ways around it/through it.

Regarding working THROUGH procrastination, it was suggested that often the problem has to do with the task at hand not having been broken down to the most basic WIDGET property of itself. In the case of Chapter 16, then, I set myself the MOST BASIC WIDGET STEP of reading the notes I'd been gathering for the last several years regarding the ending of this book.

But easy as that should have been to do--the notes are very neatly collected in a binder that is tabulated into three acts, and the acts themselves are separated into chapter groupings--I still didn't wanna. Part of that, obviously, is my general weirdness about finishing things--I get a little wonky when the end is near. I know that about myself, which I why I am a hugely happy follower of the WIDGET approach--tiny little baby steps distract me from the finish line. I'm not COMPLETING THE FINAL PAGES OF MY NOVEL. I'm "preparing the chain of events" for the chapter; I'm "writing 500 words"; I'm "writing 500 words"; I'm "writing 500 words"; and somehow, 500 words from 500 words from 500 words from 500 words from now, I'll surprise myself by making it to the finish line.

Which is how, of course, I got back to work yesterday.

But last week, I resisted the WIDGET approach, and still, I got a lot done. I moved Husband's clothes in the master closet, and turned what had been his closet into Three's domain. I sorted all the baby clothes my mother had saved for 30+ years into bins by size, and laundered the clothes appropriate for Three's early months. I sorted through 6--count 'em, 6 banker's boxes of Husband's unfiled papers, and filed them. And I started selling books we don't want, to make room for Three's first library and storage system. I didn't write--but I did something important, and pressing, and this is also GTD-appropriate. Like Allen said in the podcast, if you're procrastinating one thing, then you better have a lot of other things you're doing until the resistance passes--and I did!

That said, by week's end I was near my usual "I haven't written in a week and I'm falling mentally to pieces" point--I do get crazed when I stop work. That was sort of a relief, actually--I'd been worrying that maybe I'd be okay, not writing, just doing house stuff ... and I'm pleased to report, I'm not. I can do it about three days before I start to ache for my writing. By a week, the ache is a full-blown "get thee to a word processor!" scream in my head.

I'm guessing the moodiness isn't easy on Husband. But he did get a fully organized, color-coded wall of the master closet in return for my week at home. And I got reassurance that despite the unbelievable amount of time and attention I devote to Three's impending arrival, I haven't yet completely lost myself.

So I'm happily back to regular programming.

Another one of those days & a new rule

I'm having another one of those days ... spent the morning waiting around at home for a package that UPS had refused to deliver to our empty house twice in a row. The last 2 days, they showed up at 11 or so ... so I stayed home, did laundry, sorted over 1000 (yep, 1000) Kenya & Tanzania pictures into the appropriate digital files, and waited for the truck ... which didn't show until 1.

So I didn't get work done this morning. Arrived at the office after lunch, meaning to dive right into the EdMoi essay, but of course I killed two hours surfing workarounds for Blogger categories ... for some reason, I really want categories.

I've killed a lot of time this week, working on things like that, so that the mid-week review of this week's projects looks like this:

Draft EdMoi 1.0: In process. Have the first couple of lines, and a working structure. Still, that's a hell of a long way from a complete draft 1.0.

Move sklevy.com to dreamhost: Complete. Took the better part of a week, but as of today it's all up and happy.

Integrate blog to sklevy.com: Complete. Hence the new simplified layout and color scheme.

Integrate services page to blog and sklevy.com: Complete.

Four out of five by Thursday afternoon is nothing to sneeze at. That said, the pattern here is one I struggle with a lot: using housekeeping to avoid the much harder, far more important act of creating. This is particularly annoying to me because for several months now I've been convinced that I have this issue under control ... I've been working working working like crazy at the office, at the expense of keeping things up at home, and as much as it kills me to come home to the mess each night, I've been patting myself on the back for not cleaning the mess at the expense of sitting down and doing my real work.

And it's been working. Since the last post about my progress, I've written both those letters I'd mentioned, and received replies; I've finished a workshoppable draft of "Seven" 4.0, overcoming the structure issue by working working working through it; and I've completed a workshoppable draft of "JD" 2.0, a feat I'm particularly proud of because it involved my cutting the story from 12000+ words to just over 9000 (go me). So it's not like I'm slacking on the work front.

But that's no excuse for what happened this week. When I put all those site and blog tasks on this week's project list, I told myself that was "business development." Which, I suppose, it is. But it shows a bit of priority snafu-ness that I let myself put so much time into developing a "business" that is still damned short of work I consider strong enough to sell. So let's not sugar-coat it. This week's focus on my web presence wasn't so much biz dev as it was housekeeping of the virtual variety.

So, new rule:

WEEKLY "HOUSEKEEPING" TASKS (read: any task that doesn't involve THE ACT OF WRITING) are to be COMPLETELY IGNORED until WEEKLY WRITING TASKS are complete.

And with that, I seem to have worked up enough energy to dive into EdMoi. Onward!

Full stop? Or not?

Argh. Killed TWO WHOLE HOURS surfing the web today. Husband gave the best pep talk he's really ever given me, and I still didn't pull it together. This is so depressing to type about that hopefully it will kick my butt into gear now ...

In fact:

One of the main tenets of Neil Fiore's THE NOW HABIT is that you must never end blocked or down -- you must always manage a half hour of real work before giving up. So that's what I'm going to go do now.

The other night, a Friend pointed out that this blog seems to be a good way for me to work through my process, to get my head around my work. I'd thought of it, until then, as pure reportage--"here's what I'm working on, and how." But he's right--today, just venting about how un-focused I feel has me feeling a little less unmoored than I felt before I posted this note.

MORE ON THE PRINTABLE CEO ...

This new accoutability system rocks my world, plain and simple.

Last week, I set myself the goal of reaching 75 points over the course of the week. I so loved filling in all the task-tracking bubbles that I actually hit 110 points. Even more amazing: I let the laundry pile up, and we ate out A LOT. Husband even cooked. The world didn't end, and I wrote a TON, spending in excess of 12 whole hours TYPING. UNTIL DARK. IN MY OFFICE. I even found the time to do a little editing for a friend.

Prize: Levenger Pocket Folders for my work-bag. I've been jonesing on those for awhile.

This week I upped the ante to 100 points. Work continues hard and heavy, and I'm at 66 points as of this morning. It's shocking how motivating this all is.

Granted, it helps that I get fun prizes. This week I'm writing for a pair of noise-cancelling headphones like these, which are perfect for when I'm stuck working at Starbux or at home or on airplanes. (The price bump up from the Levenger Pocket Folders is determined by the fact that I actually FINISHED a damn strong second draft of "Albert & Nancy" in two weeks!)

Conclusion: Printable CEO rocks my world.

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH 2006

Finally back at work after a long holiday / travel hiatus. In the interim, I’ve bought a fabulous wonderful amazing new horse; packed up my childhood bedroom in preparation of pending sale of my childhood home; turned 30; and traveled all over Kenya and Tanzania for 5 weeks with Husband. All in all, not a bad way to ring out 2005.

But it’s now firmly 2006, and time to consider what I’d like the New Year to bring.

First step for setting this year’s goals is a look back at last year’s successes and failures on the same front. So, a quick re-cap of 2005:

Complete shitty start-to-finish draft of novel.

Reality check: Didn’t finish the draft. Did, however, write more than 200 pages of a draft I expect to run somewhere in the 350-400 page range. So that mitigates the disappointment of not finishing somewhat. Another consolation: I made it that far without once looking behind me and/or starting over, so that’s a big step, too.

Complete collection of stories.

Reality check: Didn’t finish the collection. Did, however, complete and submit one story from the collection, and complete a first draft of a second. Plus I brainstormed all the other stories for the collection, and have a working contents list.

Publish in three places.

Reality check: that didn’t happen at all. Which is not to say I didn’t make an effort—“Dirty Darlene” went out to forty-five venues over the course of the year. Still awaiting word from more than twenty of those publications, but my hopes for “Darlene” finding a home are not that high. It’s a pretty dark story. That said, the more high-profile magazines among my submittal list showed the most interest in “Darlene”—I had lovely personal notes about it from Agni¸ Zoetrope, and Esquire—so that’s something. Anyway, the lesson actually learned in this category is that I need more product if I want to publish, plain and simple.*

*That said, I did attempt to produce more than these goals make clear. Over the course of the year, in addition to my other work, I also wrote several drafts of a travel essay that it now seems clear is meant to be the germ of a short story, plus a novella-length story about a young acrobat struggling to fly free of her domineering dad.

Conclusions from 2005.

The failing on all counts is none of my projects progressed as quickly as I’d hoped. Mostly that’s because I let life sidetrack me over and over again at the cost of my work. At the end of the year, I had lots of good work in pieces, but no product.

Which is why I’ve decided 2006 is The Year Of Putting It All Together.

Putting the novel together.

I’ll complete that shitty first-draft.
Then I’ll complete the second draft.
Then I’ll hand out that second draft to friends and colleagues for critique.

Putting the collection together.

I’ll complete the collection, story by story.
And I’ll submit each finished story for publication.

Putting the miscellaneous pieces together.

I’ll finish the acrobat story.
I’ll finish the honeymoon story.
And I’ll submit both pieces for publication.

Obviously, to do all this, I need better work practices and strategies this year. As usual, I’ve gone looking for them in the GTD / Productivity websphere, and found a pretty cool framework I’ve decided to adapt for myself this year: David Seah’s Printable CEO.

What I like about the Printable CEO is that it’s big-picture organic to Seah’s larger career GOALS—the list of activities he deemed “Worth Doing” are all STRATEGIES that contribute to reaching his ultimate career goal. Even better, he took this list of things “Worth Doing” and assigned point values to each thing, so he could track the energy expended towards his goal—each day, he has to earn a set number of points pursuing things “Worth Doing.” And it gets even cooler than that! He’s even created a TACTICS tool, the Task Project Tracker, which breaks down those things “Worth Doing” another level. Now I can track my work by PROJECT and by WORTHY ACTIVITY! I told you this was cool.

So I got right to work brainstorming on his system. Here’s what I came up with:

MY LARGER GOAL

To answer the questions “What do you write? Have you written anything I’ve heard of?” with a confident, “Well, I’ve published here, and here, and here.”

HOW TO GET THERE

In order to publish my work, I have to write it. That means a lot of time alone at my desk. It also means a good deal of time face-to-face with friends and colleagues who can help me perfect my work. (Offering critique is also helpful in terms of honing my own work, and even better if I’m paid for it!) Ultimately, it means making sales by submitting to appropriate venues, which, of course, are made infinitely more “appropriate” by making myself known to them by previous, positively received work or social connections.

THUS, WHAT’S WORTH DOING?

[10] Words-on-the-page work
[10] Pen-in-hand editing

[5] Pen-in-hand brainstorming
[5] Submitting work for critique
[5] Submitting work for sale
[5] Reading / editing for money
[5] Posting to my blog

[2] Doing my morning pages
[2] Taking an artist’s date
[2] Reading / editing for friends
[2] Furthering social / business development

[1] Reading lit mags to find homes for my work
[1] Other market research to find homes for my work
[1] Maintaining old or making new relationships

So, as of today, I’m setting myself a minimum of 15 points daily, Monday through Friday. Any week I earn less than 75 points, I have to make up the points on the weekend. Any week I earn more, I get some sort of prize.

For What It's Worth, I'm Not the Only One

See the first paragraph.

The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem ...

... which I do. I can surf sites dedicated to organizational and productivity strategies for hours at a time. Yesterday, in fact, I killed FOUR HOURS doing it.

I know it was FOUR HOURS because one of the strategies I adopted to try to cut down on this time-vacuuming-career-draining problem was to begin a log recording how I spend my office time. Yesterday was the first day I did so, and here's what I found:

WEB & EMAIL & PLAYING WITH CALENDAR ON OUTLOOK -- 4 HOURS
WRITING -- 1.5 HOURS
READING MSS FOR FRIEND -- 1 HOUR
ORGANZING OFFICE (actually doing it, not just reading about doing it or making notes to do it) -- 15 MINS

So today's goals are to trim the surf time and beef everything else up. Granted, I still have a WiFi connection, so best intentions are pretty much poof so far ... though I kept my lit blog surfing to the 30 mins I'd planned for total web surfing this morning (and even managed to turn out the post below in that time), I couldn't resist quickly checking in on my favorite GTD sites.

And then it happened. There I was, minding my own business, procrastinating happily if guiltily, when I stumbled upon this take on writer's bl*** / debilitating procrastination in the most unlikely of places!

So sure, I may have a problem, but it ain't all bad.

Progress Report: Chapter 2

Despite losing insane amounts of time to researching and implementing David Allen's Getting Things Done system* -- an entire workday, in fact (yes, I am aware of the irony) -- I have completed Chapter 2 on, and in fact, just slightly before, scheduled (initial deadline was March 31). Many discoveries made regarding structure of the novel as I pushed through this section:

(a) I'm 50 pages and 2 chapters into the mss, and in "Real Time" we've just progressed through a single day. Initial outliney-treatmenty-notes mapped the story out in terms of months, which I assumed would be chapter units, but it's clear now they won't -- which means my 11-12 chapter structure is probably out, too. Assuming I'm going to be working in the 20-30 chapter range now.

(b) That said, I think I need to make some changes to the the initial deadlines. Original plan, at 2 chapters a month, was set as followed:

9/1/ 05: Draft 1.0 (the messy, forward at all costs draft)
-- submit to readers

12/31/05: Draft 2.0 (the messy, everything moved around, cut, pasted, noted but not "polished" draft)
--structural changes as suggested by readers and my own notes

6/31/06: Draft 3.0 (first polished draft)
--submit to readers

10/31/06: Draft 4.0 (complete, finished mss ready for agent submission)

(i) Obviously, since I'm probably writing 20-30 chapters, I may need to push all those dates back a bit, though perhaps I'll write with such speed and discipline I won't have to lose much time -- in fact, as my writing stamina improves I may up the REQUIRED DAILY WORD COUNT to 1000 words from the 500 I'm currently pressing upon myself -- it's more psychologically daunting, to be sure, but the fact is my average wordcount has been hovering in the 1000-ish range over the last month anyway, so I know it's possible without burning me out or turning me into horrible, preoccupied, exhausted, irresponsible wife/friend (always always I am worrying about the WRITER/PERSON balance, especially in the face of new and wonderful marriage that I want to honor and strengthen as much as I possibly can DESPITE my anti-social writerly tendencies).

(ii) Bigger issue: I think I need to add another draft to the process. It occurs to me there's no way in hell I can release Draft 1.0 to trusted readers, considering I'm not re-reading nor even spell-checking as I go, and considering even as I scan the pages as they come out of the printer I can already see the ways certain paragraphs need to move and certain motives need punching up. However, I don't want to make the mistake I made with Hart, refusing to release it b/c I was so overcome with the flaws, and thus entering into a cycle of "this is so unfixable" paranoia that had me starting over COMPLETELY all the time until everything good about it had been diluted and lost. So, I'm thinking in the wake of Draft 1.0 I will give myself 1 MONTH and 1 MONTH ONLY to do BASIC CORRECTIONS ON THE CHAPTER LEVEL before going to my trusted readers with Draft 1.1. By no means will I attack overall, holistic mss. structure changes on the page -- I can keep a "kill list" and "structure thoughts" list, but the basic holistic structure of 1.1 must remain unchanged from 1.0. All I'm allowed to do to 1.0 is spell-check, move things around WITHIN CHAPTERS, and make margin notes for POSSIBLE CHANGES. This should effect the draft schedule thusly:

Draft 1.0 -- the messy, forward at all costs draft

Draft 1.1 -- the first reader-ready draft, still messy but slightly "fixed" (not to be confused with "polished") chapters, not affecting the shape of the whole

Draft 2.0 -- the huge, heavily notated structural overhaul draft, as suggested by readers notes and my own

Draft 3.0 -- the polished draft, based on structure of 2.0, to be submitted to readers

Draft 4.0 -- the complete, agent-ready draft

However, I'm not changing initial deadlines yet -- I'm going to press ahead at 2 chapters each month and see where that gets me by summer's end.

(c) But overall, I'm basically happy with where I'm going, story-wise. It's not perfect, I'm already questioning the start point, and the emotional plumbing leaves a lot to be desired, but I've begun to read The Modern Library Writer's Workshop and I think Stephen Koch is absolutely right on when he quotes Paul Johnson thusly:

"A bad novel is better than an unwritten novel, because a bad novel can be improved; an unwritten novel is defeat without a battle."


* More on GTD and my debilitating obsession with organizing processes in upcoming posts.

Saturday Progress Report

Feeling good-and-focused enough that I dragged my ass to the office on Saturday, though that's not my usual plan. However, 2005 GOALS require I complete drafts of 1 chapter (2N) and 1 story (collection) each month, and while I think the chapter completion likelihood is mostly sewn-up, until this morning, I hadn't started doing the actual writing-writing of my story.

So I struggled for the last 3 hours with "Endurance" and came up with the first 500 words plus a semi-structure, but man o' man was it tough. I'd hoped to be out of here by 1 pm so I could spend some time on the treadmill, but it's almost 2 now, so time has run too short (aren't I so punny we could all die). Must go forage for nourishment then pretty myself up for multiple cocktail parties this evening beginning just after 4. Oh the life.

Plans for Sunday work session are slightly up in the air. I can't let another week happen in which I don't grocery shop and cook for my husband; the guilt as well as the discomfort not knowing how/what we're going to eat turns out to be too much for both of us. So tomorrow I have to plan our menus, get to the store, and then make something like soup I can freeze for quick dinner. Hopefully I can also get 500 words in, but I'm not going to beat myself up forever if it doesn't happen. I need some down-time, after all, and the real plan is only to write-write 5 days/week anyway.

I Am Finally Back

Work took a tumble when state of union seemed perilously close to disaster. Disaster not quite averted but it has been survived, so I am back at the office today with renewed vigor and focus and all those other wonderful things, which, in my case, are the product of a brand new candle burning on my desk, and a clearer sense of "office schedule":

90 minutes on the novel, in hopes of reaching min. 300 words ...
30 minutes lunch and surf internet and answer emails
90 minutes back to the novel, or onto poems, stories, or notes for novel #2
30 minutes blog and administer writing life (read for group, or read for other friends)
10 minutes clean up office and back up work on disc and paper

That schedule instituted with the help of a timer today, I have written 1400 words on Chapter 4! Yippee!

O Shaudenfreud, Shaudenfreud...

Writing Group #1 got back underway last night, thank god. Great to see everyone and get back into the work ... Mostly, though, it was nice to hear that two of the most productive people in the group recently suffered terrible crises of confidence, not because I wish them the brain-gnashing, pill-popping agonies that I experienced last week, but because it's a HUGE RELIEF to know people I consider together and motivated and talented -- hugely talented -- are feeling stymied in the ways that I so often let myself feel stymied. Crises of confidence make you feel completely alone, the least talented hack in the universe -- nice to know you have a group of comrades in the trenches with you, experiencing the same things. And nice to know they push through it. For this reason, I say, all writers: Get thee to a writing group! Even if you don't need deadlines, and feel completely comfortable with where your work is or is going, (and if so, you're lying, admit it), the comraderie and "been there-ness" is incredibly incredibly important for those of us who choose to work alone in our tiny quiet rooms.

And remember:

Crises of confidence are like depressive episodes, in that YOU ALWAYS GET THROUGH THEM and IT ALWAYS GETS BETTER, but it's impossible to know or see that when you're experiencing crises like that.