Craving a Coke and Thinking of Pizza

It is gray and dreary outside. And cold. Did I mention cold? I am sitting here in red wool socks, purple striped flannel pajama bottoms, a long gray nightshirt that comes below my knees, a long-sleeved denim shirt over that, and a baseball hat that once sported slogan buttons, but is now reduced to plain worn khaki.

And I am in desperate need of a Coke.

Which is why I am thinking of pizza. I don't really want pizza, but they will also bring you a Coke. Is that ridiculous or what? It's just that I don't want to change my clothes. I feel like a bag lady today and I am truly impressed by my outfit. Remember the old cowboy song? Something like: I see by your outfit that you are a house slut, let me put on everything in my rag bag and be a house slut, too. Well, maybe I've mis-remembered a few of the words...

And I have been writing, though not as much as hoped. A Coke would probably jumpstart me, though. Is two weeks on this damn medicine enough to let me swig carbonated brown sugar water? I hope so, because when I finish this, I am going to get in my car and drive to the Sonic for a Coke -- just as I am. Without one plea. But that thy Coke was bottled for me... Sorry -- had a brief Baptist hymnal flashback.

I said I was desperate.

But for the rest of the day I will dive back into finishing this thing. It is still flowing smoothly, frighteningly easy for this point in the story. I just hope I don't Coke...er, choke.

Mission: Reorganization

No one should die and leave behind some of the junk I have been carrying around with me for decades.

And no, Dr. Phil, I am not talking esoteric garbage here. I am in literal mode at the moment and speaking of the mounds and bags and boxes of junk that move with me from place to place. Not to mention that this junk increases each time I move as I cram all the last dribs and drabs of "what the hell do I do with this" items into yet another box or two that I will probably not touch again until my next move.

Can you believe I once lived from my car? That pretty much everything I owned at that time rolled around on four wheels with me? Unbelievable. Back then, if it didn't fit in my auto de jour, it didn't make the journey. In those days, my little Plymouth Horizon and its tattered cartop carrier contained my living quarters, clothing, food, cooking stove and utensils, books, and occupational wares -- with room left over for me and the occasional passenger.

There is a major freedom in carrying so few possessions. There is major inconvenience also. I am older. I like peeing indoors. I can no longer get up off the ground/floor without assistance. Electricity is my friend.

So, in preparation for finishing the current novel before the NoMo insanity, I have spent these past three days cleaning out my office -- not even my whole house, just the office (God forbid we even contemplate what is in the basement). The amount of trash is unbelievable. WHY do I have an entire box of old receipts from the past three years? And a traffic ticket from 11 years ago? Hundreds of out of focus photos, dozens of them people I do not even recognize anymore?

I need an empty cave in which to hermit myself away and write. So I am sorting and tossing and hauling away the paper remnants of my life. Maybe I'll get around to the rest of the esoteric garbage another day. If so, I'm not doing it alone -- in order to get it done in just two days, you gotta have a television crew. And a good editor.


And just in case you were wondering...

The revisions finally got to California just under the wire. Oh, and the USPS finally notified me that delivery had been made -- a day later.

When Bad Postal Service Happens to Good People

For once in my life, I think I am ahead of the game, making my revisions in a timely manner, mailing my entry by Priority Mail a week ahead of the date it has to be in hand -- life on track, as it were.

WRONG. Again.

I mailed the package with Delivery Confirmation, mostly for my peace of mind so I could see the exact date it was delivered. Starting Monday, the first day it could possibly be delivered according to the P.O., I checked the website regularly. Still showing only that they accepted it at the Asheville PO on Friday, the 14th -- nothing indicating it ever left Asheville.

Since all this following up was eating into my "re-organizing the office so I can slam out the rest of the book" time, I signed up for the USPS e-mail notification service. They did send me an e-mail a while later -- advising me the package was accepted at the Asheville PO on Friday, October 14th. Major bureaucratic DUH.

All day yesterday I waited -- nothing. Finally, late last night I called a friend who works at the PO's distribution center. Her extended "Uhhhhhhh..." before she started answering my question should have been a warning to sit down. Apparently the center is DAYS behind sorting and moving the mail. She checked with her manager who said the Priority Mail was not as far behind and it probably went out on Tuesday and would still make the Thursday delivery. I was told to check the website this morning after 6:00 am -- guess what?

My package was accepted at the Asheville PO on Friday, October 14. ARGGGHHHHHH!

Now I have just e-mailed the two contact people I know of in California to see if 1) they may have actually received the package and the USPS just hasn't caught up with itself yet, or 2) if they will be there tomorrow to accept an overnight FedEx Express delivery (do you KNOW how much that costs?!?). Time differences freak me out and these good people who volunteer to staff these competitions have their own lives and jobs, so who knows when I will hear something.

Had an untrasound scheduled for today which I have cancelled so I can work on this. No big deal. It would only have shown my guts tied in knots anyway. (Insert string of livid obscenities here.) On the bright side, got news yesterday that my 3rd and final entry has made it to the semi-finals and had the highest judges score for my category (one even gave me perfect scores across the board and said it would definitely get published, no problem -- apparently she does not know about the USPS). Finalists will be announced November 1.

See? The sun still shines. Of course, I just realized that "sun" is nowhere to be found in the old "neither rain, nor snow, or gloom of night" adage of the Post Office. Does that mean on sunny days they don't deliver at all?

I need chocolate...

I Swear, It's In the Mail

Woohoo! The revisions are done and everything's on it's way to the final judges.

Was still struggling with the whole thing yesterday when suddenly it all started falling into place and the revisions began sliding in seamlessly. So I am feeling pretty good about the whole thing and starting to believe the whole process has started accelerating.

Oh, and did I mention that Wednesday night I got THE CALL from another contest and I have finalled in that one also. Not bad for my first book and first contest entries, eh? Of course, now I'm getting cocky and figuring maybe I'll end up finalling in all THREE of the ones I entered. Wouldn't that be incredible?

Of course, if that happens, my reaction will probably get me arrested since we have started getting anonymous notes (just kidding) about the HEE HEE HEE -ing screeching out our doors and windows at all hours every time I realize that it's for real. Or when I am reading my own stuff and get blown away by a phrase or sentence only to realize I WROTE THAT! Down, ego, down.

So, that said, I have a major portion of book to finish and everything but the first few chapters to re-write and the Golden Heart deadline is only weeks away. If it weren't for the $50 I already paid them, I'd probably just forget about it. NOT!!!!! Ego can carry you a long way, even providing you with the audacity to enter the contest of all contests with your very first book.

Hee hee hee.

Wasting Away Again in More Revisions-ville

Not a pretty day. I am just now finishing revising the synopsis again and am heading into chapter revisions. The pace will probably pick up despite the fatigue and I hope to get a couple of hours in before I have to sleep.

Did a lot of "mind writing" today -- that seemingly blank, empty, wasted time when writers just sit and stare at the wall or the TV or the cat. Wandered into the other blog to empty some of my brain so I could get on with writing the book instead, so now I feel more like sucking it in and editing myself. Again.

Besides, tomorrow, as we all know by now, is another day.

Morning Sickness Redux: or No, You Can't Have a New Little Sister Because We Still Haven't Found Out What You Did With the Last One

I have come to the conclusion that my new diabetes medication is ground up pregnancy in pill form. No, seriously, all the symptoms are the same: morning nausea, sudden waves of total exhaustion, loss of appetite, and...did all my bras shrink at once?

Guess I could go metaphorical here and compare birthing a child to birthing a novel, but then we'd all be ill.

The only thing I am even going to try and do today is re-read the synopsis I wrote yesterday and attempt to eat enough to keep me conscious so I can drive to work. And that feels like a major accomplishment considering that just the idea of walking to the refrigerator and LOOKING at food makes me want to barf.

So I don't write anything on paper today, big deal: the head is still full of story. And I have two days off starting tomorrow to write myself silly -- if I can figure out how to duct tape the laptop to the toilet...

ADDENDUM

Okay, so I finish this and decide to Google to see if there actually IS a toilet/computer combo and one of the links that came up was for a Toilet Lock which intrigued me so I opened the window and it popped up a Target ad for breast pumps! HAHAHAAAAAAAAA...urp...excuse me, gotta run...

I Don't Have a Dog, So That Must Be Panic Nipping at My Heels

Okay. I am sitting here half asleep and out of glucose and my brain suddenly farts something about a Columbus Day holiday which I assume means Monday, October 17th -- the last day I have to get this revision in the mail. So I freak. Then I google holidays and find out it is tomorrow. I am too old for this...

Anyway, I spent today's writing hours revising and rewriting my synopsis, a 10-page limited mini-story about the book. Tried to take the preliminary judges' comments with a few grains of salt and my own observations about what does and does not work in the narrative and characterization . Hopefully, it is now stronger and tighter and will make revising the manuscript itself much easier.

After I finished it, I re-read the whole thing and e-mailed it to a friend for a read-through. We both cried. She re-read it later and cried even more.

Hell, it's my story. I know what happens. I've known for over a year. I've rewritten it a gazillion times. For goodness sakes, I made it all up.

But I still cried.

Is that cool, or what?

Deciding to Stay on the Pot

We've all heard the old adage that in times of stagnant indecision, we must choose between dumping our load of ca-ca where we sit or getting up from the porcelain throne and quit taking up time and space.

Recently, I was teetering on the brink of standing up and moving on from my hopes for a writing career. Everything in my little corner of the world seemed to be conspiring to once again postpone my plans for a literary life. It seemed much more feasible to just keep the writing filed away under its old label of "hobby," and get back to living a "normal" life that better suited the needs of friends and family. Same old sell-out, but, at my advancing age, it felt frighteningly irreversible and permanent -- like I was preparing for and participating in the death of my lifelong dream.

So I put away my work in progress, a novel with a planned completion deadline for the end of October, and instead began collecting paint samples and fabric swatches for remodeling projects. Weeding flower beds took precedence over revisions. It had been days since I picked up a book to read - the pain of a completed work was just too painful in light of my own miscarried creation. Is this sounding like the ultimate pity-party or what?

But then the phone rang.

And a stranger's voice informed me that I was a finalist in the Golden Pen contest, that my entry would be forwarded to the final judges -- a senior editor at Harlequin books and a well-known agent. I would have two weeks to revise and get the hard copies back in their hands. Two weeks. And then she offered me the possibility that should either of the final judges like my work, they could request to see the complete manuscript. Complete -- as in totally finished by the end of October.

Deja vu.

And just like that I am back on the pot. Taking the proverbial dump? Perhaps. After all, I have spent over half a century consuming a lifetime of experiences and people and emotions, digesting their essences into the creative guano that provides nutrition for my fertile imagination. And can I break through the accumulation of doubt into the freedom of free-fall writing? I hope so. The revisions have to be in the mail by Monday, October 17. The entire manuscript must at least be in draft form by October 31.

Did I mention the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart competition and its deadline of completed and polished manuscript in their hands by December 1? No?

Then on November 1, I begin the daily grind of participating in the Novel in a Month event which aims for completing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. After what I have to do in October, it should be a piece of cake. Or not. Either way, the journey will be recorded here for prosperity. And hopefully, by the time December rolls around I will have the basis of my next novel, and a new deadline looming.

Because regularity is a wonderful thing -- as is a dream resurrected.