Editing Anyone?

In another attempt to earn some extra income at home, I've decided to go ahead and pimp myself out, offering my phenomenal Editorial & Mentoring Services to the world at large.

Because, of course, in "this economic climate" (I swear if I hear that phrase one more time, I might actually slap the person saying it to me) who wouldn't want to shell out their hard earned income to improve their home grown writing projects?

In family related news, it turns out that Lila is going to be in for a big disappointment when she realizes that this baby we keep talking about is actually going to arrive. She sat on my lap the other night and this conversation ensued:

Me: Lila, where's your baby brother?

Her: Uh, right there.

Me: No, that's your big brother. Where's the baby?

Her (quite huffy actually): The baby is all gone. So don't talk about it any more.

Yeah.

This is going to go real well.

Wants

I'm working five days a week now. The job itself pays very well and includes full benefits, even at my part-time status. And it's easy. Monkey work, really. Ok, perhaps a step above monkey. Maybe a trained monkey.

The problem is...I'm in a cube. I've never considered myself to be a "cubie" - as they affectionately refer to themselves here at this company. I'm in a cube, doing something that is completely uninspiring and/or interesting. Which has me thinking...

If I'm going to be spending time apart from my family, I should at least be doing something I'm passionate about. Something that I'd do with or without a paycheck and health insurance attached to it.

And so now I'm pondering the possibility of going back to school...yet again. Because I know that what my heart wants, is to teach writing. To be facilitating workshops and encouraging college students or MFA'ers, to be actually using my MFA degree myself.

What I need is a low-residency or distance learning PhD program that will still allow me to be a mother and "cubie" in the meantime. I've found a couple, have inquired. Will see what's to come...

Kidless

For convenience with our work and social schedules for this weekend, my husband and I dropped our kids off with my parents on Friday night. We tucked them into bed before the fireworks started and then drove home as kidless parents.

We've been without our kids before. Several times. We've even left the country without them in tow. But there was something so utterly lonely about getting back to our house that night and not having any sleeping children to unbuckle and carry in.

And rather than sleeping late the next morning and enjoying the rare silence of a kid free house, I found myself rather depressed about the whole thing. I went to the grocery store without having anyone to help me push the carriage or begging to play with the car keys or my sunglasses. I stopped at a gas station and didn't have voices chirping from the backseat the car is huuungry and there were no moon faces smiling at my through the back windshield as I pumped.

Rather than accomplishing great things with all that freedom I had, I was bored, fell asleep on top of my blankets and woke up still a little sad to be alone.

We went childless to a cook-out last night. It was nice to not be chasing after mischievous little ones and to not have to accommodate bed times and picky appetites. But still, I missed them. A couple of our friends brought their adorable 9-month old with them. She was cherubic and well behaved, with only one minor scream-fest.

During those few minutes of fussiness, a younger woman walked through the house, passing us on her way to the kitchen. She said, as a joke I can only presume, Now there's birth control - to no one in particular.

(Rude, much?)

This got my friend (the mother of the beautiful baby girl) and I talking about how it is impossible to put into words how having a child changes you, changes your perception of the world, of others, of life, of yourself.

Before having children, would I have been so different in thinking that a squirming, screaming, teething baby was a nuisance and a downer at a party? Yet now, my heart strings were pulled and I felt nothing but motherly compassion for the poor baby and empathy for the mother attempting to soothe her.

The world is different after having kids. You know, my friend said, I actually feel a little sad for my husband and I before we had our daughter - how we didn't even know what we were missing out on.

It's a strange way to put it, but I feel the same way. Coming home with only my husband on that Friday night felt, well, empty. And though having children has easily been the most challenging (and frustrating and exhausting) thing I could have ever imagined - it's easily the best thing ever we've ever done. We laugh more now than before we had kids (which I never would have thought possible) - I've written more (and better) since having kids - I've earned my master's and done all of my publishing since they were born.

And though I often come here to vent about them being distractions to my writing process, the truth is they're my inspiration.

And so last night, I felt a little sad for that woman who made the comment when she heard the baby crying. That there's this whole huge world that's not yet visible to her. Of course, I'm not saying that having children is the key to opening one's eyes to a greater awareness or that giving birth somehow unlocks the door to a land of great understanding.

But, I know I have been changed by motherhood. In all good ways. And for that, I am thankful.

Author-site

Well, sort of. Here's my attempt at something author-ish.

I'm trying to keep anything with my real name separate from this blog...so that anyone interested in reading about my upcoming publications won't be forced to trek through my ramblings about poop, procrastination and the dead birds my cat drags in. (Then again, if they like my stories, these subjects would probably be of interest to them as well...)

Very Cool

I'm not typically a flash fiction (or even terribly short fiction) sort of girl, but I've made a few attempts recently - and elimae was cool enough to accept one of my experiments in brevity for their June issue.

If you've never been there, it's a great place to go for quick fiction and poetry that still feels polished and purposeful, though short.

I'll let you know when it goes live.

Also, I've updated the "About Me" section on the links up top. It's not like this blog is particularly anonymous anymore, so I figured, why not? (For someone who has been writing about herself on a blog for years now, I actually hate to talk about "me" - so you'll have to let me know: too cheesy?)

Working

I received another acceptance yesterday for a story I wrote in a hurry and then submitted simultaneously to three markets, without allowing myself a waiting period to go back and reread the thing for clunks. Apparently, it was ok enough for at least one of the journal's - hopefully it will be for me as well (I still have not gone back to revise...)

I'd say 2008 is going fairly well, publication wise, so far. Five months in, four stories on their way out to the world. With my resume slowly building, I feel an itch to start working on something larger again.

I think it may be time to return to Grace.

At least, that's what I'm attempting to do this morning, with the blank page open on my desktop, begging the question - where to go from here?

Status

So here's the shape of things. It's nine-thirty on a Friday and I'm working. And by working, I of course mean binging on dark chocolate (PMS), playing Scrabulous online and occasionally hunkering down and taking out the red pen on the never-ending editing project I (stupidly) accepted for way too little money.

Oh, and I check people in. Four so far tonight. No interesting customer's tonight though. No one lingering to talk about anything more than where they can get the best pizza locally, and how late do they deliver?

My son stuck his head in the toilet yesterday, after peeing.

I have no idea what goes through his little mind, how it brings him to these conclusions. I just don't see how, even a preschooler, can come to the conclusion that yes, absolutely, dunking my clean little face into a potty of pee is definitely the most logical thing to do at this moment. And then I'll go and climb up on Mommy's lap and hug her with my damp little hands and tell her all about it.

So yeah. Work isn't so tough. Aside from that editing project. I haven't spoken of it much, won't go into the gory details. But it's there. And it's a beast.

My alma mater is writing a profile about me for their quarterly publication. They contacted me a couple of months ago to ask if I'd be willing to be interviewed, as someone who is successful in their given field. I agreed, quite flattered and feeling a tad like a sham. I gave them the names of several of my close friends, fellow alums, who are just as creative and successful with their gifts than me. Moreso, even.

Still, they emailed the questions yesterday and I spent last night at work agonizing over how to best explain myself and my work. I'm very uncomfortable in the spotlight, much more now than I was when I was a student at this same school.

Even doing this whole 365 photo project on Flickr, I'm having trouble with having self-portraits up there. It's too much focus on me. I toy around with the idea of shutting it all down, daily. This blog too sometimes. Not that I update it nearly as much as I should anymore, but still. It's shadows of my life, out there, open to the eyes of the world. Very vulnerable, I think. Much like those pictures I keep taking. Not that they're all of me, because they're not. I would never do that sort of challenge (though many, many Flickerites do) - but even taking just "a photo a day" often leaves me scrambling at the end of the day for a subject to snap.

And when in doubt, there I am.

Balance, Persistence and Success

There was more poo last night, but thankfully it took place after my husband was home and able to deal with it. I was too pooped (yes, pun intended) to tackle it myself.

As far as the rejection I received goes, it's just another bump in the road. To quote the ever eloquent Nova, the universe has a way of balancing things and I don't fear that I'll die without having ever found a publisher for any of my full length projects. It's just a matter of finding the right one, at the right time, yada yada and so on and so forth. I spent my morning at work submitting samples to more small publishers, mostly for my story collection, but Phx, have no fear, I've still got Grace on the back burner (and have spruced up some sample chapters to submit as well...)

And now, speaking of both publication and Nova, you should stop over and give her a huge cyber-high five, as she has recently received some phenomenal publishing news. Bigger than anything I'm even aspiring to over here - larger than small presses and lit magazines - this girls going to be a star.

Writing Schedules and Scavenger Hunts

Just Me 25/365, originally uploaded by Mellahoney.

I've been trying to explain to my kids that I work from home. True, I am not getting paid for the majority of the "work" that I do here at the computer (yet - wishful thinking) - but I have to make this commitment to myself. To treat my writing as though it is a job, a career choice and not a hobby. If there's anything that will separate me from the other would-be-successful-author's, it's my persistence.

I've begun doing some for-profit editing and manuscript critiquing. My rates are ridiculously low, sure, but I'm just getting my feet wet and I don't want to overcharge someone on the off chance that my work is somehow less than they're expecting. Maybe I'll get the hang of it and charge more - or maybe I'll realize while spending my evening hours reading and editing other people's 100K-plus manuscripts, that I should have completed one myself. Something other than a short story collection. (Although, I do so love the medium of short stories - of just capturing enough of a glimpse into another world to satisfy.)

Or maybe I just like the feeling of completing something, and for now short stories are it.

Because the thing is, three year olds don't understand the difference between you working and you ignoring them. So, while he's perfectly capable of playing by himself or with his sister - and does so quite easily whenever I'm NOT on the computer - my son has begun a habit of whining at me and tugging on the mouse to get me away from here.

You can not be selfish and be a good parent. It's just impossible. So I relinquish some of my "me" time while he's napping to do things like draw makeshift scavenger hunt lists or print up activities for him to do at his desk while I'm working on the computer. It all sounded so good in my head - I had great visions of him sitting quietly, or so fervently seeking his plastic dinosaur to check it off of his scavenger list.

So far we've had only moderate success with this. Any activities that involve crayons or glitter or crafty-types of things, requires me to, at the bare minimum, walk over every few minutes and acknowledge the wonderful masterpiece he is creating. And the scavenger hunt is not the independent activity that I had hoped for. Seems my drawing skills are somewhat lacking and he'll wander around the house for ten minutes whining that he can't find the turtle, when in fact, he's supposed to be looking for his plastic dinosaur.

I'm looking forward to the great someday when it's springtime and we have a yard with a fence and he and his sister can play outdoors while I sip coffee and write on my laptop on the deck. Or the even greater someday, when we have a big 'ol house with a farmer's porch and we're in the country somewhere where I can just let them run loose (and we're also independently wealthy and there is world peace...it's really a nice little dream.)

Pimping

I may have officially crossed into the realm of pimping myself out. Or at the very least, I have certainly allowed my creative services to be pimped. And I'm not ashamed to admit, I think that I liked it.

I was asked to write an "about me" for someone else. Specifically, it was for a friend...who also happens to be my boss. And the "about me" article was for her online dating profile. And I worked on it while at work, with her giddy, giggling, blessing. So, in a sense, I was being paid to 'get idea's' from other people's online profiles (oh - my - goodness - was that fun) and then try to construct a witty, eye catching profile for her, sure to ensnare Mr. Right (or at least not Mr. Extremely Wrong - which I do worry may be a possibility after seeing some scary profile pictures.)

I also got my first glimpse into the world of online dating, which ultimately became more like a glimpse at how far removed I am from my 'peers.' Not because am married and they're single or because they're looking for relationships online (hello, I am happily married, yet still reach out to stranger's via the blogosphere, because we're human and connecting with other humans is, well, a very human thing to do...) but because these people don't use real words. There are thirty-something's out there using those little text messaging abbreviations that drive me completely insane. LOL. BFF. IDK. (Texting drives me nuts to begin with. Who can press those little buttons anyhow? And why even go through the trouble pressing them when you can just call the person and speak in the time it takes you to send the message?)

In any event, that night I went home and sat down at my own computer and tried to write something, anything, but my brain was acting like sludge. (A side effect of having spent my work hours reading online dating profiles...I think so too.)

In the morning, I finally pulled out something for my friend. Something so sweet and witty and silly that it could only exist in an atmosphere that appreciates the sugarcoated and airbrushed. I worried after I sent it, the same way I worry whenever I'm waiting to hear back from an editor about a story. I worried about wording, pacing, did I make sense? Was it enough? Was it too much?

She loved it. It took her all of a minute to shoot me an email back exclaiming that I rock.

And I thought - really? Is this on a very minuscule scale how it would feel if I 'pimped' my creativity out, if I wrote in the style of some unnamed big author's who have their latest novels everywhere and couch cushions waiting for them on Oprah? Would it be so hard to stop sweating the threads of constructing sound literature (trying to weave the plots and subplots of stories together like threads) - to stop caring so much and just write.

Write fluff. Get paid. And feel...meh? Slightly satisfied to have made someone else happy. Not entirely unhappy myself. A little underused, perhaps. Slightly "I sold out-ish." But, not bad.

Maybe there's room for (some) fluff. Not that I think I could read it myself. But from what this week has taught me, someone else might. And they might even pay me for it.

Staying Home

It's nice. Today is actually my first day without having to go to work at all, but the past two days I have enjoyed having my children all to myself while working shorter shifts, later in the day.

Today is the first time I've attempted to write something new -- in a long time. I've been stuck in a rut, using the whole 'working two jobs, my husband is out of work, I'm going crazy' thing as an excuse to not be productive. Until I learned last night that another of the stories I've been pimping to a couple of literary magazines has been picked up. Which is great, don't get me wrong. It's a fairly new magazine with a lot of buzz and the selection process for publication was quite competitive. So I'm pleased. But this also means that now I can no longer "waste" time submitting it to other journals.

And so now, it's on the shelf for me. Leaving me with a hole in my day. One less story to try to place. Back to the drawing board, so to speak.

I'd forgotten how difficult this is to do with the kids - fighting naptime and demanding things like diaper changes and lunch. Pshaw.

Even typing this - my daughter insists on squeezing herself between my knee and the keyboard and my son just burst from his room (where naptime has apparently failed...again) demanding a cracker - and now I feel terrible because in response to his plea for carbohydrates and artificial preservatives, I snapped at him with a resounding NO!

*sigh*

I'll be back. Maybe.

And in Morning's Light

I paced around the house last night, telling my husband about how good this would be, how good it would be to be around fellow writers, to be working with authors, to temporarily shrug off this forty-hour work week and the daily routines of childcare and housework, to simply write for a week, even if we can't afford it.

And in this mornings light, it feels somehow more possible. Or maybe it's that after finally getting some rest I can see more clearly the things that I want and I realize that this is a blessing of a problem to be facing. I'm in! afterall. For now I'll celebrate that.

Let the money take care of itself.

Yay?

Maybe I'm just plum tuckered (huh?) or simply to distracted by all the what-if's and who-know's in my life right now to really get myself enthused with the news I received today.

Or maybe it's that I applied on a whim, literally. I think I did it from work one afternoon.

At any rate, in my inbox this afternoon I found an email acceptance (official letter to be sent in January) to The Kenyon Review Summer Writer's Workshop.

Who knows. Miracles can happen. Maybe we'll actually be able to swing it.

Blar, Harrumf and Woo-Hoo

There's a man at the hotel (where I pass the time between paychecks,) who uses the expression "Woo-Hoo" endlessly. He is tan, horribly so. His skin has the sort of shiny, stained quality that happens when you've never even seen a bottle of sun screen. Darker than a well oiled, oven roasted turkey. And he stands at my counter chatting most evenings that I work. Woo-Hoo.

He bought a Tiffany bracelet for a former guest of our hotel. He brought it to me, to try it on before he shipped it to her overseas. We're about the same size, you see, this young woman and I. Woo-Hoo.

As the heavy gold links dangled from my wrist, I squinted down at the diamond tennis-balls, set neatly between the two solid gold tennis rackets. A charm bracelet for a princess. I told him it's far too expensive of a gift, for a loved one, let alone someone living on the other side of the Atlantic who barely ranks above casual acquaintance.

No matter. Good things for good people, he told me.

I think about him when I get home, not because he has taught me any sort of life lesson, but because he is, essentially, a character. I couldn't have dreamed up such a quirky individual. A once-upon-a-time minor league baseball player who walked away from the game for a woman. Twenty years and four nearly grown kids with his soon-to-be ex-wife, and a house fire later, he's now living in a hotel, imparting his life's wisdom on the captive audience of the desk staff and buying $2500 charm bracelets for near strangers. Woo-hoo.

And that's just the tip of it.

Such glorious fodder for fiction. Any single thread from the tapestry of my encounters with him could be wound around my fingertips as I type out a fictional masterpiece.

Yet, I'm not typing.

I've got a couple of stories "in progress" - one finished and awaiting revision, the other sitting about half way done, abandoned for over a week, probably wondering if it's been left for dead at this point.

Now that I'm working (more), writing has become (more) like working. The only difference being that I feel guilty when I don't accomplish enough writing, whereas I can go for hours distracting myself at the office and never even consider it as I'm wrestling to get my mind to surrender to sleep at night.

I'm groggy lately too, so that probably has something to do with it. It being this ho-hum feeling of meh when I should be writing.

I'm hoping that our upcoming vacation rejuvenates me. At the very least, it will be over a week of not waking up at 6AM with my son demanding crackers and juice. And maybe that's enough.

Publication and Rejection

After a long day of driving and working and then driving some more, this time with hollering, hungry and teething children kicking and screaming in my back seat, I finally returned home to find my contributor's copy of Quality Women's Fiction in my mailbox. And there was much rejoicing. Huzzah.



Or not.

Don't misread me, the magazine is quite lovely. The editorial is wonderful and the stories that share the pages with my own are each fabulous.

No, the or not, refers to how fleeting the sense of accomplishment is. It's the same feeling I dealt with upon the release of the Family Circle issue that featured my story. Sort of an anxiety, a sense of Hmmmm, so what's next?

And then this morning in my inbox were two rejections for two different stories, both from somewhat up-and-coming literary magazines, one still working on its debut issue. And, because I'm a nosey sort of writer who does such things, I had of course found various blogs relating to The Barn Owl Review - which, though it has not accepted my piece, still intrigues me. Having followed along with Mary Biddinger's blog for the past two months or so, I think that the poetry and stories that these editors do select will be solid, good reads.

Through Mary's blog, I also found the blog of one of the fiction editors, who posted about how he had started to send out rejections (um, yes, thank you) but also about how he doesn't feel particularly bad about doing so. I thought about this for a moment, not insulted at all, simply pleased with the honesty, I guess. I don't think it's cold, really.

If I'm being honest with myself, were I in the editorial chair surrounded by a sea of unsolicited submissions, yes, I would probably not feel badly about sending rejections either. Of course, there would be exceptions, if a story really struck a chord with me, but it simply wasn't right for the magazine I was working on, for example.

But ultimately, a rejection is such a small thing, in many cases a matter of a piece not fitting exactly right, like a puzzle, why spend time fretting about either giving or receiving them? Most editors are writer's themselves, each with their own history of rejection, so it's not as though they're unappreciative of the efforts of their would-be authors. And to be at least read and appreciated as a person willing to put their work out there, I suppose is good enough.

Well, not as good as a pat on the back and a Yes! Please, and send us more. But enough to keep one motivated to continue to find the space where her story is designed to shine.

(As I write this, my son is sitting at the kitchen table piecing together puzzles of his own, every so often calling out a triumphant "I did it!" - which is perhaps some of the best encouragement I can have as a writer, seeing my children working away at things until they master them.)

I came across this article yesterday by Jodi Picoult, about the trials of writing and publishing. It's not news. We've all heard the stories of various now famous authors who once collected their own stacks of rejection letters. Still it was reassuring, if for no other reason than because it serves as a reminder that this struggle to become an author is nearly equal parts talent and perseverance. And perhaps I'll luck-out and far more talented writers than I will fall to the wayside, unwilling to slog through stacks of rejections, thus paving the way for the likes of me. A woman on a mission.

And speaking of missions and challenges and such things - I'm doing well. Not writing daily though, due to obligations to my children and family and work - but when I am writing, it is hard and intense and for greater lengths. I'd say I'm at about 20,000 words, perhaps 25, I'll need to do an actual count.

Turning Stumbling Blocks into Stepping Stones

This is what I'm trying to do - as days go by without the peace of nap time - as nights go by spent away from home, working a job that will never be a career - as I try to find moments to sit and write.

If for no other reason than this - that I have never been so motivated to write and succeed at doing so, than I am at the moment - the entire MFA program was worth it.

Sure, my motivation is partially born from my natural inclination to scribble and doodle and spend time caring deeply about worlds that no one will ever know exist if I don't sit down and create them - but it is also born of a desperation and a desire to achieve that has not been there prior to now.

Perhaps it's from watching as Lila takes her first steps - how she falls and rises again and again. How she applauds herself in between, perhaps for learning better how to fall, for learning better how to anticipate and prepare herself for the inevitable, the soft bump of her bottom on the carpet, the tile, the wood planks of the floor. And there's the determination in her eyes as she pulls herself back up - focused only on using her strength, on straightening her legs, on balancing her weight, on doing everything in her control to reach her goal. She strives. She succeeds. She claps. And then her face pinches for a moment, as she prepares again for the fall, and we begin again. With applause.

I want to tell her that this is where I am too.

But there's time for that yet.

*Challenge update: Muddled. Been writing, not nearly enough, perhaps an average of 1100 words a day. But what has become interesting is how this (supposedly new) novel has begun to teach me about Grace - about her character and how perhaps there was more to her story that was waiting for the right quiet moment to present itself. And so, I say the writing is muddled, because, I'm not sure what it is that I'm writing anymore. Is it new? Or is it simply a back entrance to a work I thought I'd wandered too far away from?

And We're Off...

Yesterday was day one of my writing challenge and I spent it, of course, avoiding all things writing related by going to a local amusement park - the same one that my parents took me to as a little girl. The Boss rode the same rides that I did in my childhood. He went in the same slow circles on speed boats and fire trucks and helicopters, ringing bells and firing wooden semi-automatics from the rear of space ships. Ah...childhood.

I'm going to give it to you straight...It was fun. Vastly more fun than typing.

So there.

(Ok, so I did manage to get down a little before we left.)

Total Word Count: 1531

Man. That's a L O N G way from 50K.

Darn you debt!

I've once again been forced to sell my soul to "the man" and interviewed this morning for an evening job that will help to recoup the money lost from the dissolution of my last one. The hours will be longer, the money not nearly as good, and the work more, well, work-like. I am not pleased.

Although, there is a slim, very slim, possibility that I might be able to sneak in a few spare moments here and there to sit and write, and this is what will keep me enthusiastic about the position. I long for a quiet place to write.

Speaking of which - Zhoen has challenged me to pound out 50,000 words in 30 days, sort of my own Nanowrimo (dubbed: Melnowrimo)

I accept the challenge - not without my doubts that it can be accomplished, but happy to have a goal. I'll post word counts here periodically, if not daily.

And so...back to the book.

Bolt, Boo-Boo and Me

It's official, Lila is getting ready to leave me.

She's taking steps, not entirely successful beyond that first one yet, but considering that she has only just gone from standing on her own to taking that step in the span of a week, I think it's safe to say that by her first birthday she will be asking for keys to the car and then giving me attitude when I insist on a curfew.

The Boss has been both helpful and difficult as Lila has begun showing an interest in walking. He wants to hold her hands and guide her, as I do, but this often turns into the two of them on the floor and both of them whining. Lila, upset that she has been seemingly mauled by her brother, and The Boss, because he wants the sympathy that I give to Lila.

Boo Boos! He cries umpteen times a day. (And most emphatically after he has popped his sister off the head with a toy or tumbled himself while climbing over her on the carpet...)

But I don't mind his asking for me to kiss for his Boo-Boo's. It's amazing to me how quickly a gently laid pair of Mommy-lips can cure anything that ails him. If only it could always be so simple.

In writing news - I was struck recently with a new idea for a novel. Something that actually kept me excited about the prospect of coming and sitting here to write. I'll be at work tomorrow - and I plan on utilizing the time away from being Healer of All Things Boo-Boo, to hopefully make some headway on the first chapter or two.

I feel the need to tackle this aggressively, as though it were as simple as a short story - just purge it all onto paper and then tidy it up later. The process of finding an agent or publisher seems like such a daunting and lengthy one, that I fear if I don't get something prepared to begin it soon, it might never happen.

And since school loans and mortgages don't care what your potential is as a person - only how timely you can repay your debts, I must begin to think the same way. That potential as a writer is not the same as being a writer.

Oh sure, there is personal success, and I won't take the title of 'writer' away from myself, should I never even achieve monetary success. Because more than money, there is the satisfaction that you have communicated and created and used the giftings given you in this life. And that certainly extends beyond any monetary gain.

That being said though - monetary gain would certainly do this writer no harm, but perhaps even speed the writing process by allowing less time to be spent with finger's plugging the dams and more time with them tapping on keys.

And coffee. If I had more money I could drink better coffee in larger quantities - perhaps on the porch of a farm house, as my kids play in a field and I write the afternoon away on a fancy new laptop.

I'm Procrastinating...Again

I sit like a reader before a blank page and wonder what will appear. Keys strike and I wonder what words they'll spell - what story is coming to life.

This is my process.

There is no preconceived outline of plot or characters or dialogue. There is no end in mind, no beginning either, really. The story is already there, and I'm simply typing it as fast as I can to capture it.

This brings me to wonder if perhaps this is why I'm struggling so much with sitting down and finishing Grace. It's a piece I've lived with long enough that I know the character, the settings, the supporting cast, the tensions, the peaks, the lulls and even the finale. I know where it's going, where she's going - I can see the end.

And I'm either scared by knowing this - afraid to misrepresent what I've known for years now. Or I'm bored. I'm worried it may be the latter. That I'm having trouble sitting down and just finishing the darn thing, because I already know the outcome. There is no excitement, no curiosity to keep my fingers moving.

Or is there?

With a few minor changes, the course could shift and I'd be on a new set of tracks...

Hmmm..