reasons i suck

Phew

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I met my goal for the day, which makes three days in a row. Jeez, this is almost like a job. And since I had some extra time, I took care of the three little revisions my editor asked for in Everyone Loves Blue Dog. And that’s where the crazy came in.

I know the book is going straight to the copy editor, and I was paralyzed by the knowledge that I wasn’t going to get a chance to revise it. I mean, I was inexplicably freaked out by it.

Still, it’s done (once again!) and sent off. Next for … Blue Dog will be the copy edit in a few months. Next for Man Bites World is another morning trying to hit my goal before my wife goes to work, which will be tomorrow.

I have twenty minutes to check out my library materials and hit the farmer’s market for some beefsteak tomatoes. Enjoy your day.

7 Things Make a Friday Post

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1) Dance craze outlawed because it caused “broken penises.”

2) John Scalzi rants lightly about fan “ownership” of public figures.

3) Russia accuses Poland of starting WW2. How dare Poland stand up for itself! They deserved to be attacked for not acquiescing immediately! Note the last paragraph in the article about pending legislation which would make it a crime to state that the Soviet Union occupied Poland or any other Baltic state, punishable by five years in prison.

Russia=still fucked up.

4) I’ve been invited to be on a panel at Comic-Con! More details when everything gets firmed up. In the meantime, let me share the advice my editor gave me: “Be amusing, dammit.”

:-)

5) “But watching conservatives mock liberals for being PC, is like watching the morbidly obese mock Weight Watchers for its system of points.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates (I suggest reading the whole thing, including the author’s replies to comments in the thread below).

6) Oh, God. As much as I’d love to see it revived, I’m not sure I can get behind this project. I mentioned last year that the gift I bought myself when I cashed my first check from Random House were the books I needed to complete my set of Chill, first ed. But they’ve been talking about this third edition for years, and I’m not ready to blithely accept that it’s the economy that delays the game. And $25K??? I dunno. I suspect I’ll pledge my forty-five bucks, but I don’t have a lot of hope.

7) And now, to bury the lede, Child of Fire has been accepted into the Amazon Vine program. Essentially, Del Rey will send 50-75 ARCs of the novel to Amazon.com, who will distribute them to reviewers with a lot of reviews and high rankings. They get to read the book early and their reviews will appear on the Amazon.com site two weeks or so before the publication date.

Normally, reviews can’t be posted until the book drops, so that’s a good thing. Also, Amazon.com rarely takes mmpb for this program because the profits are small per unit, but a sharp gentleman in the marketing department pitched it to them and they signed on!

So, that’s really good news. :D

There is also fun in the world

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1) It puts the lotion on its skin. Why Archie is smart to propose to Veronica rather than Betty

2) “… Where health care reform becomes entitlement reform.” Ezra Klein on the effects of giving power to experts. Please please please get this right, President Obama, you hold-without-trial bastard.

3) Rebooted movie franchises are the new black! What movie franchise would you reboot? Explain, if you would, what you change. For me, it would have to be THE ROAD WARRIOR, but I would set it in a future where no one talked funny. Oh, and instead of searching for rare gasoline, everyone would just ride bicycles or drive solar cars. And instead of shooting crossbows, they’d throw snack cakes. What’s your idea?

My last post was “This is tough” but this will be tougher

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Today I worked on Man Bites World for a little more than an hour before my day job began. On those days, my daily goal is 500 words–just enough to feel I accomplished something in a limited time. On bad days I can feel okay about barely making it; on good days I can double it (or almost double it) and feel pretty good.

Today I wrote 200 words.

There’s no excuse for it. Yesterday was even worse–near as I can tell, I wrote negative one words.

Last night, though, I sat and talked quite a bit with my wife. I’ve been avoiding the Starbucks near my home because some of the other customers are too close and too gross, but working at home isn’t cutting it. Even when I’m out, though, or at a different coffee shop, I’m daydreaming, distracted and generally zoned.

Not that this is new. I’m *always* daydreaming, but I need to get my head clear and focus my daydreaming on the characters.

My wife thinks its a lack of sleep, customary depression following the end (hah!) of … Blue Dog and some overly self-indulgent calorie consumption. She’s right, too. But the only cure I know of is to brow-beat myself into looking at the laptop and only the laptop.

It had better work, too.

This is tough

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My week is split in two. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I’m stuck at my day job, sitting at a computer all damn day. At those times, I have no problem keeping up with my internet reading.

On Saturday through Tuesday, though, I’m home. I run errands, watch my son, cook and clean, and I write.

At least, I’m supposed to be doing all that stuff. What I find myself doing instead is keeping up with the internet, with my LJ friends list, sff.net newsgroups, mailing lists, and all the interesting links and articles that branch off from there.

I’ve got to cut back and skim. I enjoy reading about everyone’s lives (in fact, most of my friends list is devoted to the way people live their lives, and the differing voices they have) but I’m sacrificing things I shouldn’t by putting in all those hours, like writing and exercise. That needs fixing.

On top of that, we’re about to start homeschooling.

You’re going to see even less of me for most of the week from now on. Sorry about that.

Why do I keep going there?

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Why do I keep going to the same breakfast place? I know part of the reason is because I don’t want another Starbucks sausage sandwich, and Subway, which I used to love, now fills me with apathy.

But I keep going back to the same cafe, trying different things on the menu. But the portions are either too large or too small. Overcooked or under-cooked. And how about a sharper utensil than this butter knife?

I probably wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I had been more productive on Man Bites World. Or if I had more choices. Ah well.

I’m about to head out to meet my wife and son for a nice picnic lunch. It’s sunny and in the mid-70’s here. I hope you all have a great day, too.

Tomorrow…

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Tomorrow, the whole family will be going to the Apple Store to buy some sort of iPod for my luddite, tech-phobic wife.

Amount of research I have done on this purchase so far: none.

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The world is not interesting today.

I don’t believe in favorites…

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… But I do believe I have a new favorite email subject header.

It’s “check to send.”

Please use this subject line in all future correspondence with me.

Sun!

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It is gorgeous and sunny right now. I’m sitting by the huge window at the library, thinking about the next step in Man Bites World.

When I came back to it a week ago, I jumped to about the 6K word mark, hit enter a bunch of times, and started writing a sequence that I’d been putting off but that really needed to be early early early. I wanted to keep it down to about twenty five hundred words, but it’s actually a little more than double that, because I can never seem to judge how much space and detail each plot beat needs. Hopefully, that will improve.

Still, the sequence has a great deal of suck in it. I know what’s wrong, but not specifically how to fix it. I’ll make a couple quick notes to myself, jump to the end of the draft, (which is now nearly 40K words) and push on from there.

Which means I won’t hit my new word goal for today. Ah well. I’ve reviewed the rest of the draft, changing things to accommodate the new section, so maybe that counts. Or maybe I should do a few hundred more words.

In other news, my buddy received his copy of Child of Fire yesterday, and so far he likes it. I’ll be calling him in a couple hours to coordinate travel plans for San Diego Comic-Con.

The organic open air farmer’s market started their season today. There are many more lunch and snack stands this year, and much less produce. Huh. I’ll still swing by later for fresh Basil and tomatoes.

Actually, I’ve just decided I don’t care about making my goal. It’s freaking gorgeous outside. I’m going for a nice, long walk.