The Scribble Pad
The mental meanderings of a slightly loose screw.
APRIL 09
Monday April 27 - Not bad at all!
Just finished the galleys for Meet Me in Paris, due out in September from Kimani. When you've worked over a story, back and forth, making changes left and right, it sort of all starts to melt into a blur. But when you get it in galley form, where you can actually see it as a book, you get a little distance, and then you can assess it on its own merits, as if you aren't even the one who wrote it.
And you know what? Meet Me in Paris is good! Certainly one of my best! I like the characters, I like the humour, the pacing...I enjoyed it!
That's a good sign!
Saturday March 18 - My editor was right
Okay, I'm a big girl. I can admit when I'm wrong. There I was, whining about having to do massive rewrites on my new WIP (that's Work In Progress to you non-hacks)...again! Banging on about murdering my darlings. Groaning to myself about the terrible injustice of having to chop chunks out of my masterpiece.
Now, after more than a week of going through my story with my bullshit meter on high, I realise that my editor knows her job. Maybe that's why she's an editor. Sure, some of the stuff I wrote is pretty good. Some of it is pretty damn good. But some of it makes me sit back, editing pencil figuratively in hand, and say to myself...what he hell? Did I write that? What the fack was I thinking?
I put stuff in that story I'm too embarrassed to even tell you. Alright, alright, since you twisted my arm...I had my heroine kiss my hero's father! Yeah, I know. I need to stop sniffing glue. It ain't that kind of story I'm looking for! (Don't worry: I fixed it.)
So, bottom line, here's to my editor, and here's to my WIP. And may my bullshit meter always be set to "kill".
Thursday April 9 - A niche in time
I say so often that I can't work when my children are around that sometimes I sound like a stuck record-- that is, if anyone out there can remember what a record even looks like.
And it's kinda sorta true. When you have spawn as young as mine, they're always gonna want something: candy, help, attention.
But I realise that for this Easter vacation, I have a choice: I can sit around for 3 weeks, wiping noses and not earning any income (and bitching about it) or I can lay down the law. Mommy has to work. Go do something.
Yeah, I do feel a little guilty, especially with all the negativity surrounding us delinquent moms who let their kids play on the computer or - gasp! - watch cartoons on TV instead of spending quality time doing something good for their brains. But you know what? It won't kill 'em.
If only for 2 -3 hours a day, I get to work. I get to do what I love while I put food on the table. And it's working out okay. They're learning to be self sufficient. They get their own water from the fridge, (I can clean up the spills later), and I get to write this blog!
