Saturday, February 16, 2013

Writing ADD

So lately I've been bouncing all over with my writing projects, which is extremely unlike me. After Pitch Wars and querying for Everdream, I started working on a rewrite of my first book, Countless, while I waited on agent responses. I did successfully change the book from third to first person, and cut about 15,000 words, and then worked on my plot significantly, and then decided on a completely different climax to the book. And I sat down to start working on the plot changes and just... totally wasn't feeling it. It needs a ton of work, and the hugeness of it looming over me was anti-motivating.

Instead, I decided to start working on the outline of a shiny new idea I had a couple weeks ago about an awesome steampunk middle grade. And I got about half way through the plot points and then just couldn't figure out where I wanted to go with it. So I procrastinated a few days and stared at my Pinterest inspiration board for the new book, and procrastinated some more, and then last night I had a really weird dream about drinking tea and souls, and today I wrote a 2,451 word short story about that.

Sooo.... I've decided that it's okay, for short spans of time, to jump around a little. I am extremely steadfast and meet my writing goals most of the time. It's fine to just let myself drift in the creative winds of my writerly soul for a bit right now. So that's what I'm doing.

What are you up to these days? Are you working on one project only, or dabbling in a few? I hope you're having fun either way :)

Monday, February 4, 2013

In Which I Don't Talk About Agents (Very Much)

So, ever since Pitch Wars, during which I got two full requests and a partial request for Everdream, I've been in this weird torturous limbo place. I mean, I am totally beyond stoked that real live agents have my book and are excited to read it. Holy shiz! But they've all told me it could take up to 10 weeks to read, which is normal stuff, I'm just a bit stir crazy. I've distracted myself a lot with undergoing a massive, epic rewrite of Countless, my first book, which has helped a lot. And this weekend I got to go down to the beach for a day, which was amazing.

Yeah, I know it's February. I do live in Florida though, so winter is substantially less evil than in other parts of the country. So, I headed down Saturday morning with my sister and some of her friends. Hubs stayed home with the kids. I arrived at about 3:30 in the afternoon and we kicked things off with some red wine out on the bluff over the beach. A couple hours after that the giggles set in, along with the dirty jokes and tears-pouring-down-my-face laughter. It reminded me of how infrequently I laugh that hard. A bit later we built a bonfire and drank more wine by the water. It got pretty cold with all the wind along the shoreline, and my sister said I looked like a middle eastern princess with a scarf wrapped around my head to keep warm. After a few hours I got too cold and went up to the house and read for a bit. Then we had some Prosecco I brought, which was extremely tasty, and I crawled into bed just before 1 AM. A few minutes later my sister woke me up because the moon had just risen over the bay. I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and waddled back down to the sand. There, just above the trees, was a perfect half harvest moon. It hung in the sky like a huge slice of orange and cast a wide beam of tangerine light over the water. I have never seen such a perfect half moon so big and seemingly close, and especially not when it's the bright orange of a harvest moon. It was incredible.

So, for almost 24 hours, I didn't think about agents one single time. I just soaked in the salt air and ate beachy snack food and drank entirely too much vino and had a gorgeous time. Sometimes you just need that total break from thinking about your real life. Of course, now that I'm back, I hope, hope, hope that I'll have good news in the near future to think about :)

How about you? What has monopolized your thoughts of late?