I am totally obsessed with this book. I think about it all the time, I take it out and poke at it with a pen, I have dreams about the characters and when I'm wide awake I think about them and what they'd be doing right now.
I have to back away from it for a couple of weeks.
I vowed that I'd get this thing ready to send out by the time the kids are done school. I've got a little less than a month. I do think I can do it because it's so close. But there's always that fear that I'll keep finding things to fix and it'll just never ever get done. I imagine myself ten years from now, hunched over my keyboard, prodding a new scene where MacFarlane knows Adam has a drug problem but he doesn't tell Katie, and Jenny gets checked into the looney bin, and the school blows up, and then I get checked into the looney bin...
I fear that even if it does get ready to read, I'll chicken out because there's drug use and thievery and underage drinking and really awful awkward love scenes between people who aren't old enough to know what they're doing.
Who the heck will want to read that crap?????
I hope lots and lots of people will.
I've gotten a pretty good balance to my work though. I go out to my coach's barn two or three times a week. I clean out her barn. We talk about horses. I ride. I groom. I help fix fences. Doing this makes me feel alive! Even though there are (gasp! shock!) no horses in my book, I feel inspired. I feel like I can work my way through the frustration and keep writing. It's still hard though. I'm not the most emotionally stable person in the world, and sometimes I wonder if writing keeps me sane or insane, but I really don't think there is any difference for me. I just have to write. And if I get to spend time with a horse I feel like I can breathe.
I'm taking my Level 2 Rider test next week.
Today I'm going to print this sucker up and get my first reader to take a crack at it.
And now, some photos I look at when I need a break:
And with that...back to work.
16 comments:
If your blog writing is any indication of your skills, then find a literary agent as soon as possible and get that book published. Pronto!
I tried the Barb needs thing...wasn't sure how it worked. The first thing was Barb needs coffee and I stopped right there. I was sitting with a strong, black coffee in my hand...the kind that would melt the spoon before the sugar, if I took sugar.
Thank you Barb. I'm looking. I have to make them want me. I have to write a letter that makes my novel sound irresistable. And of course I have to finish the damn thing, and make it so good so that when they do read it, they want it bad enough to take it!
You drink the same kind of coffee my husband drinks.
Heidi - It will happen. Are you visualizing it? Are you praying about it?
For what it is worth, I think you are an amazing writer!
Get to work!
(Can you hear me cracking my whip? I am still in my Cat Suit)
And then, enjoy your weekend.
i will promise to buy your first copy of your book when it is published, notice i said WHEN not if okay!!! have a great weekend
I saw Pirates last weekend. I liked it much better than number 2 but not as much as number 1. How long until 4 comes out?
PS. I love your writing too.
Cindy, yes, I am visualizing it- I have an empty space on my shelf where MY books will go! - and yeah I've been praying about it too. I pray about a lot of stuff! thanks for your encouragement!
Dilling, every time I feel like getting lazy I will visualize you in your Catwoman suit, cracking your whip. Hee hee!
Indoors, honey, I hope you like swear words, cuz I don't swear on my blog here, but my Fake People do!!!
Captain Corky, AGREEEEED. All guilty parties involved say they'd do another go-round in a few years maybe, but I think first they have to let Johnny's teeth recover.
ps I love your writing too. You crack me up.
That's funny about the empty space on your bookshelf for your novel...once, in quite possibly the most romantic gesture an aspiring novelist could ever be offered, my husband took me to dinner and Barnes and Noble, where he had cleared a space on the bookshelf for my first book.
How sweet is that?
Wow, he's a keeper!!!!!!!
You know, Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With The Wind while recuperating in the bed from knee surgery from a tennis accident. She was a reporter with the Atlanta Journal or the Atlanta Constitution (two different competitors back then.) She would not let anyone but her husband read the manuscript for several years because of her self-doubt. When she did allow a few close friends read it, they would rave about it and insist she get it published. But she was afraid it wasn’t that good and that they were being nice to her. Even after she gave her permission for a publisher friend to publish it, she phoned him in New Orleans to tell him she had changed her mind. But he prevailed in changing her mind and look what happened to that book. Don’t give up on your book or your dream. Your characters are waiting to meet the world. And I want an autographed copy soon.
Multi-tasking, multi-focused Heidi...sounds so familar yet so much to do. And another distraction on the way. Can tell you are a visual person...in so many ways!!!
And no pirate in your book either?! Hard to believe Heidi judging by the balance (or inbalance?) of pictures between horses and John Depp.
Coffeypot....I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing that info! Stories like that do keep me going. Self doubt is so powerful. It's hard to crush it down and keep going. I have not written another gone with the wind, I know that for a fact, but I will keep this in mind!!!
LeRoy, hard to believe, but my novel contains no horses, no pirates, no Depp!!! I'm really branching out creatively here, let me tell ya!
There will never come a time when you can read through your MS and not find something to change.
The key is to realize when you are just making changes for the sake of change. A word here and there. A turn of a phrase. If 99% of those that read the two versions could never tell a differnce than it is time to send that baby out.
Good advice, Travis. I'm still finding things that absolutely must be changed but I'll keep that in mind.
I think the frustration comes from thinking Yay, it's done, then realizing with a thud that I forgot a few things. But it's all part of the process.
My husband records music for a living and at some point he has to stop listening to the discs for imperfect edits and ever-so-slightly out of tune notes. He is a perfectionist and it makes him great...but at some point the artist or label is going to say, Dude, it's getting mastered tomorrow. Stop tweaking!!
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