Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Butt in seat; brain on vacay


Um, is that the proper use of a semicolon?

See? I can't seem to get my brain in gear these days. I spent much of June and all of July on a summer hiatus. I spent time with the 12-year-old and we had a blast. Best summer ever, he says.

I agree.

But now, the time has come to put the butt in the chair and start writing again. Or, at least, start doing something again. But I spent today here at the old computer and accomplished .... nothing. Zip. Nada.

Crap.

I know I need to start querying again on TDYDK, even though I'm about this close to giving up on it and sticking it in the drawer. Still, I spent damn near three years of my life on it and I owe it to myself and my family (who stuck with me during the hard writing days) to keep on trying to get it published. Somehow.

And I need to finish planning my new book and get back to writing it. Every day. Like I used to.

But man, it's not easy. I know what I'm getting myself into this time -- months and possibly years of agonizing over every word and phrase, only to find myself right back here someday in the future.

Ah, the life of a writer. Great, ain't it?

But, as Scarlett O'Hara famously said: Tomorrow is another day.

Let's see if I can make it count.

How's your writing coming along during these Dog Days of Summer?

6 comments:

  1. Glad you made it home and glad your summer was great!

    Don't get discouraged. It takes a while to get back into the habit of writing. But I must tell you, three years isn't that long to spend before publishing anything. Check around. Some authors write five, ten, even forty mss before getting pubbed.

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  2. My writing is going slow as well. Writing is like working out, it's so easy to fall out of shape. It's not so easy to get back into shape. I just picked up a great book though that I hope helps bring my writing to the next level. *fingers crossed* You'll get back into it!

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  3. yeah, it's hard to get back into it when you've fallen out of practice. i think it was frank peretti who said that if you want to be a professional writer you have to treat it like a job. show up when it's the allotted time to work, and try. somedays you'll write a thousand words, some days you'll struggle for ten. just keep plugging away, and it'll work out in the end... though i'm certain he said it better than that- that's just vic paraphrase...

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  4. I sent you an email, Terry and I hope you read it and think about what it says. Never give up!

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  5. Hey! Chin up. I don't want to hear any of this "months, maybe years" stuff. You have to realize (it's taken me a while too) that this past time was sooooo tough, because you were learning AFTER you went. It's much easier to "learn while you go", but us writer types don't like the easy way for some reason. This next one will go MUCH more smoothly. I promise.

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  6. Quit smacking yourself around! Maybe you need a rest. We all go through that. Do something completely none-writing while you're not writing and querying. You'll feel like getting back to it sooner. At least, that's my experience. I've been dragging the kids on a lot of hikes lately.

    I'm getting ready to publish an enovel. I finally gave up on the whole query letter/rejection thing. Besides, have you read how ebooks are taking off? You may decide to go that way too. Who knows.

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