Cultural Literacy.

Thinking a lot about engaging with our culture lately. I know people who don't read fiction (who don't know the difference between fiction and non-fiction) and yet attempt to change our culture.

Please excuse me while I go laugh out loud.

This is not the way to change anything. If you don't yearn for cultural literacy, and then seek to find out how people view the world (from their viewpoint, not yours), you'll get nowhere.

Please don't settle, people. When we think we've got a grasp on our culture and don't have to read fiction (and non-fiction) in order to know how to interact with other people . . . because we know it all already . . . we need to wake up. We are deceiving ourselves. I didn't say it. E.D. Hirsch Jr. did. Read the book.

Keep moving forward.

Striving For Perfect

So, hubby is finishing a class paper for his last class and I get to edit (I'm delighted to help him in this way; his professors have no idea that he's married to a professional writer and editor) and last night I started to edit his fine writing that talks about how Henry Ford exhibited or did not exhibit the 21 Laws of Leadership in building Ford Motor into a powerhouse company. I started to developmentally advise him on how to make this stronger here, how to soften his intention here, and he stopped me and said "hey, you don't have to make this perfect. I'll take a B. We don't have to get 100% every time."

And I took a breath and relaxed.

What is it with me? I am going to have to lower my expectation threshold significantly in the next few weeks due to a huge change in my business and focus. I'm going to have to calm down and quit trying to make everything perfect.

I run at such high levels that I am a bit concerned that I will know how to slow down.

As a writer though, especially one who HAS TO THINK to write, this is so vital. When faced with multiple projects and magazine queries and novel writing, it is so easy (for me) to just take it all on and try to conquer the goals I've set up by brute force. That is not the power of a writer.

Someone told me a long time ago, "If you can't beat it straight up, just be a heck of a lot smarter."

I think THAT is a writer. I can't do all the goals I have AND write amazing prose. I have to choose. Well, I've already chosen. And now in the next two weeks, I will be learning how to DO that. On a daily basis.

I learn something all the time. I'm so glad.

Keep moving forward.

A New Day.

No, I'm not singing Celine Dion songs on this blog. It really is a new day. Hubby finished the first draft of his final school paper. He's off golfing to celebrate. In the rain.

My writing work has begun in earnest again. Book reviews, essays, non-fiction, fiction. I'm excited and will be sharing more on this blog in the coming days.

Writing is thinking, you know. If you're trying to write something and you find yourself having a hard time thinking, you need to step back and think before writing. Does that make sense?

Especially in non-fiction, it's not so much about the news (I'm talking about expository or persuasive writing, not so much journalism) as about expressing your viewpoint about the subject. People appreciate a strong viewpoint that has something to say. Even if it's contentious, people would rather hear it said strong than "I think . . ." or "If I could say . . ."

So write firmly, with conviction, and keep moving forward.

I sure am.

Finally, it's Friday!

You've got to click over and see pictures of my girl, Allison Winn Scotch at her first Borders book signing. She wrote a great book! And she's a Mom! And knows how to juggle!

Allison's book signing in New York

I am so glad it's Friday. For one thing, the work is headed out of here! Woohoo! For another thing, the end is in sight.

I love the end. I love when the end is in sight and things are starting to wrap up. But, and this is funny, I also love thinking about the end when I'm in the middle of it all. You know "once I get all this done, then . . ."

I used to relish being in the middle of everything (I still do to some extent), but I'm changing. I love being in the middle of a writing project, I love the thrill of research and taking notes, but I have to have many endings. Short bursts of energy, followed by "wow, look what I finished."

It's kind of a curse, actuallyl. You see, I share Martha Stewart's birthday and she's the same way. She does projects and has short acomplishments that she calls instant gratification. When planting a new garden, painting a room, cooking a meal, when she accomplishes something, it spurs her on to accomplish more.

That's me! That's me! (waving my hand frantically at you)

I'm the same way. It's been interesting to apply that to life as a writer. I think it comes from the daily writing hour I get in the early mornings. (This week, everything is haywire!) I am already looking forward to Monday when I can get back to my WIP.

Have a great weekend! Keep Moving Forward!

Heads up!

Whew. Lots of phone time today. I'm worn out and ready to quit talking and start work. Yeah sure. It's only 2 pm already.

Anyway, lots going on, not much I can share about, but exciting and very cool prospects ahead for this girl. I'm really psyched!

Have not had writing time this week as a result of the chemistry textbook I have been buried in. Seriously, I edited all afternoon yesterday on it and when hubby came home I looked at him like "who are you?"

I'd forgotten what day it was. That's deep.

Just a few more chapters and it's outta here. I can't wait. Not that the author hasn't been a dream, but it's not my thing. Ugh.

I'll have progress on the WIP next week! Oooo, and news.

Here. There. Where?

So it's one of those days. I took a personality test that all of us writers are taking (some writer got a press release on it this morning) and I'm a full-blown visionary. Well, I knew that, but seeing it in print, knowing that it's true. Kinda takes the wind out of your sails.

I mean, it's a good thing and all, but gee, now I know why it's so hard to live day by day and to stick to a plan.

Sure, I can stick to a plan, but by this time tomorrow, I will have different viewpoints about how to go about that plan.

Being a visionary is necessary for my work: writing, planning, process management. But it's detrimental to getting that work finished. I get bogged down in the middle.

There, I said it. I'm bogged down in the middle of multiple client projects, ideas for multiple personal writing projects, and deciding the best approach to it all.

It wears me out. But this is me. This is who I am.

Today's question is no longer between a and b, but between c and d, dropping plan e, but thinking through what choosing c or d will mean to my plans for c.

Confused yet?

Me too.

This is my brain. Thus, I'm troubled by this visionary thing. It sounds all cool and inspiring, but try making decisions with this brain. Try getting ahead on your deadlines with this brain. Try keeping the plan the same from week to week with this brain. Impossible.

And they said my Myers-Briggs personality, INFP, was that of a writer who could change the world.

Inside my head is laughter. Sorry.

Keep moving forward.

Short-Term Memory

The attack of the short-term memory snatcher has begun in earnest. I am still juggling six projects, but making headway on them, finally.

However, I am working on this one project that has been going for a while and I look and can't remember why I handled those references that way, when I'm sure I knew to handle them another way.

Whatever.

The sunshine has been out now for over 24 hours and we are loving it. It feels so good to have the sunshine (warm sunshine) again.

I've been reading in snatches (just like the writing) and read Alice Hoffman's Incantation yesterday that I picked up at the Scholastic Book Fair over the weekend. Wow. Blew me away. A very short book that is packed full of the emotion of so much. A riveting and perfect coming-of-age story. Jodi Picoult reads Hoffman voraciously and I had started one of her books years ago, but never finished. I am now another voracious Hoffman reader. I recommend!

Writing is wavering between 11,000 and 12,000 words this week. We may get up past 15,000 rather quickly and end higher than anticipated. I've got to make Lenora and Cassie clash and "un-interact" this week in their peculiar mother-daughter way. I'm really feeling this story.

If you have a Twitter account, please friend me (see Twitter sidebar box). Just another thing to get addicted to, but addicted I am!

Keep Moving Forward.

Clarity.

So how come other people can point out in your life what you just can't see?

It's the theme of countless books, movies, plays (Two Gentlemen of Verona by Shakespeare), and everyday life.

I am bewildered and a bit overwhelmed with my to-do list. Six projects running concurrently and enough going haywire in them to completely mess me up on a regular basis. I keep revising my to-do list and figuring out exactly what I should do first: earliest due dates, work that I hate that is bugging me the most.

But I get into the middle of it and get muddled again. It is a hourly battle to stay on task right now and I'm not sure why.

I have seen a glimpse of where I'm going (writing and learning and limiting my copyediting), but I have to get through this to-do list first, before I can jump in gleefully to my next thing.

I think that may be the real problem. We always think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, don't we?

I know I do.

So my task today is to write, keep to my to-do list, and to floss. And to not pick up my tomorrow tasks, no matter how badly I want to.

Progress on the WIP continues, heading to 15k this week and beyond.

Keep moving forward.

Juggling Multiple Projects.

That's a Civil War-era fort that guarded Maine's capital and Bath, the ship-building mecca during those years.

As for today's blog title, I sound like a broken record when it comes to juggling multiple projects and clients.

Perhaps because I'm learning it so much myself.

I think it's particularly relevant when one writes books. We all wish for sabbaticals or writing fellowships that would enable us to write, undeterred, for hours and days at a time.

That's the dream.

In truth, I think better writing comes from those quick moments snatched from the jam-packed schedule of daily life. Fresh inspiration, juicy dialogue, limited time . . . all these elements help to create. I think it was Annie Dillard and Anne Lamott who both stated that writers tend to start too big at the beginning. Anne L. talks about a one-inch picture frame. Annie D. talked about her time at a writing colony and how she just sat and stared out the window, or was that Flannery O'Connor? Anyway, the point is that we need to learn to take those half-hours for writing, even more so when there is just no way to take a month-long sabbatical. Some of the best prose and poetry was written in amazing situations.

How amazing is your life today? Anything like mine? Finishing up multiple projects, doublechecking and rechecking to make sure nothing is missed, and longing to just go sit in the sunshine and read.

That will come soon enough. For now, I'm snatching time to write. My WIP count is up toward 9k and will go over 10k today. I should update my WIP counters.

Keep Moving Forward.

Mid-week roundup.

A few things today. Links to books that you MUST read, interesting work tidbits, and progress on the WIP!

First up is my buddy Allison Winn Scotch's new novel that released yesterday.



What Came Down Today

From Publishers Weekly
Some side-effects of cancer treatment are pretty fabulous in magazine writer Scotch's debut novel. Natalie Miller, a driven 30-year-old senior aideto a woman senator from New York, is having a rough time: just days after she's diagnosed with breast cancer, her cheating live-in boyfriend ditches her. She's feeling gloomy, then, when she begins chemo. (Her hunky and sweet gynecologist, Zach, is a mitigating factor.) Though the election is six weeks away, Natalie is ordered to stay home, where she writes in her diary (excerpts appear throughout) and becomes addicted to The Price Is Right while an ambitious junior aide takes over her job. Natalie battles through rounds of chemo and a mastectomy until, out of the blue, an old love, up-and-coming rocker Jake, comes back to take care of her. He seems intent on making things work, but Natalie's long-simmering (and seemingly requited) attraction to Zach only intensifies. Meanwhile, Natalie's journalist friend Sally lands her first big story: an exposé of Natalie's boss. Her loyalties on the line and her cancer on the wane, Natalie makes some tough choices about the postcancer person she wants to be. Character development is secondary to the affirmative message in this bonbon of a cancer book. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I intend to post a review this month. Great book (I read an advanced reader copy) and a great Mother's Day, graduation, birthday, summer read gift.

Second item is that I have added a new author to my blogroll: Susan Wise Bauer, author of multiple books (I now work for her publisher; more about that in a minute), including world history, cultural literacy, and classical homeschooling. Her blog link is insightful, interesting, and Dr. Bauer is a writer worth knowing.

I'm currently reading her current volume 1 of her four-volume history series:
The History of the Ancient World.

For those who don't know, I was homeschooled for a while during my childhood, back in the day when it was illegal in Oregon! So my parents registered me into a Washington shelter school and I have a high school diploma.

However, I learned more during those five semesters than I did in the other 11.75 years of school. I don't think I'll homeschool my own children, but I will supplement their learning.

And I hope to never stop learning. I read voraciously (as you know from this blog) and I am beginning my studies to finish college. I don't have much to do before I can get to my goal (MFA from Seattle Pacific), but I have to study hard. Dr. Bauer was an motivating factor in my ability to start studying to return to school. Her book, Well-Educated Mind, provided the motivation, and the start of my desire to return to collegiate learning.

I'm working on a fun project for W.W. Norton (Bauer's publisher): collected plays of Shakespeare. I admit I've never read the Two Gentlemen of Verona all the way through before. It's a fun project and the Norton folks are great.

In WIP news, heading up to 7k today. I had a brainstorm (inspired by Jodi Picoult) and I know what I want to do for the next 7k or so. A very cool feeling.

How are you doing today? I hope well! Happy Wednesday!

Keep moving forward!

I'm so glad I'm well.

It's very good to be well again. I feel so much better in body and in spirit. I'm so glad to be headed away from the illness rather than back to it, you have no idea!

Lots going on around here. I keep plodding through the piles of editing. The sooner I finish my daily tasks, the sooner I can read what I want. However, multiple projects are taking longer than anticipated. That's okay. I'll just keep at it.

Wrote yesterday on Chapter 2 of the WIP. I am just now headed to 5k words because I deleted multiple pages in a quick revision yesterday. I threw spaghetti up on the wall to see what stuck and some fell down. :)

I'm really enjoying the writing on this round. I did a major outline and spent months thinking about the story before writing. There is a great difference. I know many writers don't advocate spending months thinking, but I'm still new. I've written three novels, all unsold and being such a process queen, I felt that doing the same thing over and over without changing anything was a bit insane. Actually that is the true definition of insanity. So that change this time is making a difference.

My goal is to outline quickly (within 60 days) for my first draft on the next book and then write a first draft after letting it breathe for 30 days. A first draft will probably take two to four months in all. Thus, my goal is to write two books per year beginning in 2008.

I'll keep you posted on how I do!

Keep Moving Forward!

Update on my writing.

I wrote every single day this week (and flossed, which is a total coup).

I have 5k on the new WIP (Let Them Eat Cake) and I'm having a great time. Someone described writing a first draft as "throwing spaghetti up against the cabinets to see what sticks" and I LOVE that approach. It really makes sense to me. I'm totally exploring my story idea this week: pushing limits, testing theories, finding out how the people interact with each other. Great fun.

Next week, I'll be posting an updated Curio project space for the project and you can see how things have progressed.

Have a fun weekend. Do something creative and fun and don't forget to keep moving forward.

Busy Thursday.

I have been on the phone all morning it seems. Lots of appointments. So glad for a cordless headset.

Today I'm thinking a lot about change. As humans, we seem to run from change or we run toward change. I think everyone is a mix. Sometimes, we crave a chance to mix it up; other times, we just want everything to stay the same for awhile so life can calm down.

I'm feeling the winds of change over my business, as I've talked about here before. I've thought long and hard about it, because I would just hate to wake up one morning in the future and realize that everything is different, wishing I could turn back time. I think that's a real fear of mine. Is this the right decision or the wrong decision?

I think that's where faith really comes into play. (Faith in whatever; lots of people have faith, and not just religious faith. I do , however, mean religious faith for my particular situation.) Do I have the strength (faith) to make a decision about this issue? Do I have enough faith to trust that even if I regret it later, I can still live with the consequences? (That sounds so dire; it's just a change in my business focus, really, folks.)

So, big decisions and deep thoughts today. I'm grateful for the advice of friends and family, grateful for my own reckoning powers, and grateful that I believe that I will be guided in this decision. I'm not making it alone.

Keep Moving Forward.

Mid-Week Report.

So, this WIP is really running off the inspiration of George Eliot's Middlemarch.

I'm so inspired by Jane Smiley's example (she recently redid Boccaccio's Decameron in her recent book, Ten Days in the Hills), that I have been reading her 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, and I realized this week that my book is going to be inspird by Middlemarch. It's about people influenced by their community and what happens as a result. I love how Smiley juxtaposed Middlemarch against Vanity Fair.

I'm on track this week. Writing, flossing, editing, making progress. I am just doing a little each day and it's keeping me on track.

Don't try and do too much this week. I really believe keeping it simple and steady wins the race.

Keep moving forward.

May Day.

They are bringing VICTORIA magazine back.

At least that's the word on the street. PRNewswire reported it yesterday. Hearst wil co-publish with a smaller Southern publishing company. Do you know how glad I am of this? I am so ready for that magazine to come back. It inspired me endlessly and was each month, without fail, a thing of beauty.

I'm writing (and flossing) and taking time out to enjoy beauty today (looking through back issues of the old VICTORIA for inspiration). It is May. The warm months are here after such a long winter and we are ready.

I have so much weeding to do in the backyard, but now that May is here, it can finally be done.

There's nothing like May. It heralds the start of a brand new season. I feel the winter illness and cold beginning to melt away.

Keep moving forward.

Simply Monday.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Yes, I'm learning this lesson all over again. It is so easy to get swept up into the multitude of plans and events that life brings each day. All that matters to a writer is that I write. It is not a quick writing sprint that creates a book, but a daily pace won over many weeks and months of lap after lap.

How often we forget this? You cannot build a masterpiece (book, painting, business, city, whatever) in a day. It takes consistent pacing and time to build something great.

I can't believe how often I forget this and jump ahead, determined to finish something quickly. I always regret it. Always.

My lesson for today: just live today. Write today (and, just for me), floss today.

Keep Moving Forward.

A writing plan.

I think I have a plan for my writing.

I am preparing to receive the 2006 and 2007 mp3 cd collections from the American Society of Journalists and Authors annual New York meetings and am re-listening to the 2005 mp3s. I'm working out a plan! Nothing major, nothing fancy. Just a simple way to start writing what means a lot to me and to prepare the way for my future plans.

It's a great relief to know that I don't have to have a plan just like the next writer. Although I do have a plan similar to writers that I admire. I just know I can't do EVERYTHING. I have to pick and choose.

This week, I've realized that I am trying to do too much in a day. I continually cram in more and more and I'm wearing myself out too quickly. There is a time for everything. I will probably continue to copyedit by day and write by night (contrary to my prednisone-induced announcement of yesterday; never make huge life decisions while on high-dose antibiotics, remember that) and I'm okay with it. As long as everything stays within their boundaries.

My first phase of the plan is to continue writing and publishing book reviews for multiple outlets, while finishing a book proposal or two, writing and shopping a novel or two, and preparing for the next phase, which I'll explain at a later date.

That does not sound too hard. And it's a direction, which gratifies me to no end. When I get too tired, I tend to run around without any attention span. I need to learn to finish well and to plan well and to execute well.

So that's my plan. I'm pleased with it, and relieved that I am headed somewhere at long last.

Do you have a plan? It does not have to be fancy or complicated. Just set down on paper what you'd like to accomplish and then find steps to accomplish that.

And above all, keep moving forward!

Happy weekend! I'm going to be reading and writing for the first part of my plan and hopefully I'll be back to normal health by Monday!

Changes afoot.

Spring always brings new things, new decisions, new focus.

This spring is no different. I'm playing with some major changes for my business. Of course, I'm not going to jinx it by mentioning any of those here yet, but even the prospect of change gets me thinking.

The familiar keeps us where we are. By that I mean change is hard. I am experiencing a sort of separation anxiety with two important pieces of my life: my former home in Oregon and my copyediting biz.

That sounded strange, but bear with me.

It's a whole lot easier to dream a new life up and to wish for it and to wait for it, but when it finally comes, there does come a time further down the road that you suddenly look back and realize that your life has utterly changed and you won't be going back ever again.

I spent 29 years in Oregon, my home state, amongst family, friends, heck, I'm related to a lot of people in that state, and I was more than happy to leave it behind when I married Todd and we moved to Washington. However, in the past nine months, a sort of anxiety has reared its head in that I'm jealous of my family and friends there who get to live and work and play and stay there. It seems a bit ridiculous to me because I am very happy here in Seattle and I don't want move back. I know it's an estrangement of sorts, something I have to go through as I enter the next phase of my life, but all the pulling up of roots and long-held emotions is painful. It's the strangest thing I've ever gone through. (You also have to understand that my siblings and parents are my best friends and I do miss them daily. But I can't live there anymore. I know that.)

I am in a wilderness because of it. I am looking out toward the future, a bit apprehensively, and trying not to look back at Egypt too longingly. I know my life has a purpose and a plan and I know I'm headed somewhere. I think it may be a delayed reaction too. I don't let go quickly. Thus, I'm having to let go painfully.

As to the copyediting, I've done it for twelve years, going on thirteen years. I'm good at it; I get multiple job offers each day and turn most of them down. And I know that my copyediting days are coming to an end quickly. I'm being called on to a writing career. I can feel it. The entire idea of a writing business makes my eyes cross and confuses me to no end. I don't know how to run a good writing business. i don't know how to plan my day in order to get the most writing out of me. All this for copyediting, I know, and so I put one foot in front of the other and take one step at a time. (Lately, I've been going backward, however.) Again, I don't let go quickly. I'm having to let go painfully.

These are hard lessons to learn and they've got me tied up in some knots this week, especially because I'm still recuperating from a rather intense viral infection. But I'm going to post it here, send it out, and trust that just saying it publicly will enable me to do it. I know God will bring me strength to keep walking.

Thus, Keep Moving Forward, means quite a lot to me today.

How about you? Is there a change coming that you are dreading?

We're zooming to May!

Can you believe how quickly April flew by? I half-expected it to move just as slowly as March. For me, March was a perfect month. April has been too fast.

But one good thing, spring is here. The birds and the flowers and the sunshine! I am loving it.

Lots to keep me busy around here. The fiction work continues in earnest. I've been reading again in Jane Smiley's "13 Ways of Looking at the Novel" and soaking up Jane's descriptions of her reading 100 novels in 3 years time. Doesn't that just sound fantastic? It can be done. Once May sweeps are over that is. I plan to read this summer just like I did as a kid in summers. When I'd clear off entire shelves of books in the library and have them mostly done by that evening. Those were the days. Draped sidways across a wingback chair, a pile of books at your side, just reading and reading.

Reading is so important for fiction writers too. I hear horror stories of aspiring novelists who say they've not picked up a novel in a decade. It almost makes me want to run and hide. Don't fall for that purist trap. You will never publish if you do not also read and read voraciously. Poetry, plays, novels, non-fiction, cereal boxes.

A writer does not write from an empty space in one's head. It comes from literature. It comes from cultural literacy, knowing about things that can only be found in books. It comes from dreaming through another person's creation. It comes from being swept off to another world often and quickly.

Don't be a purist. Read and read well.

Keep Moving Forward.

Still here.

Who would have thought being allergic to sulfa drugs would bring on such reactions? Still delerious at night, even with prednisone and Benadryl. Still feeling under the weather and very drugged, but other than that, I'm doing great.

So, I've been thinking quite a lot about England lately, probably because I'm headed there with a friend in the fall for a week. We're set to spend time mostly in Notting Hill and Soho, and will definitely waste a day in Harrod's (I am so excited!).

It's a dream come true for me to go (for my friend too) and I'm pleased our schedules are finally aligned so that it can happen. Todd is a bit bummed he doesn't get to go, but once he figured it he could call it a scouting trip for the "big trip" he and I will take later on, he was okay. Plus, I think he's relieved to not having to shop with two girls (shopping with just me is enough for him!).

I've been ruminating on sense of place in fiction. Where a book is set often sets the mood, tone, theme, and ultimately believability of a story. I mean, had Daphne du Maurier not set her book at Manderley, would we really believe that a mere housekeeper could frighten the second Mrs. de Winter quite so terribly? Or the setting for the new very "Rebecca"-esque "Thirteenth Tale" that came out in 2006. It is a delicious setting: another fine house, where the story of a crumbling old house is told. I get goosebumps even now and my sisters have borrowed the book from me. I may have to get another copy soon! in Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian," her descriptions of Europe seen first through the eyes of a young girl and than her father years before just melt off the page and into your senses. You feel that you are there. I knew I could smell the dirt in the climactic scene when they climb down below the church, creepy and delicious as it was. Often, writers don't spend enough time luxuriating in a place so that their readers are drawn to spend time there. Even Janet Evanovich makes you feel the New Jersey heat rising from the asphalt roads, and you feel as if you too see the tired 1950s homes in her parents' neighborhood rising from your own imagination.

A good writer gives her readers just enough to dream for themselves. Thus, movies will never replace books. They'll just be a perfect complement for us book lovers who want to discover if what we dreamt matches what others imagined.

Keep Moving Forward.