I know it's been over a month since my last post on January 20.  That's because of too  much stuff and too little time.  The highlights: on January 19, I found out I would have to find a new host for my four websites (each with an embedded WordPress blog) and get them moved, by March 31.   I also had (have) a book to finish, one I was supposed to ( Read more... )

Before I was published, I had pretty much the same romantic vision of the writing life that I'd had in high school and college and after, based on books and TV shows like _Murder She Wrote_ (or, more recently, _Castle_) in which a writer had a nice house or apartment, always "interesting" in its location, design, or decoration, lots of friends, and ( Read more... )

Working on the revisions of Cold Welcome.  Rehearsals and services for Holy Week.   Getting sick on Holy Saturday and thus unable to sing Easter Sunday.   A little knitting (presently close to the end of the cuffs on a pair of royal blue socks, which will be the 4th pair of the year.)  A little (in the past two weeks) taking walks on the springtime ( Read more... )

Slogging along, making (slow) progress, a little more each day.  Energy returning much more slowly than I want.   Did get two loads of laundry done today, some other stuff sorted, linens changed, along with pages revised on Cold Welcome.  Made it outside to see the burgeoning spring (redbuds, rusty-black-haw viburnums, bear tree humming with bees, ( Read more... )

Writers do get used to this, but it's always a poignant moment.  You've birthed them, raised them up (you hope right),  dressed them nicely, polished their shoes, reminded them to clean their teeth and wash behind their ears and be polite, brushed their hair one last time...and then it's onto the train or bus (or high speed internet)  and away they ( Read more... )

Closing in on the end of the main draft of the new book, another Vatta book.  As usual at this stage I like some sections a lot--they came out doing what I wanted them to do, and they read well (not perfectly--more drafts to come--but well for this point in the process.)  Other sections are OK but in the wrong place.   Other sections represent ( Read more... )

Sometimes a book stalls because the writer's done something that derailed it, or didn't do something to keep it going.  I experience stall-effect in the middle of almost every book, so now I expect it (hope it won't appear, but am not panicky when it does.)  Doesn't mean I've lost my talent, can't write again, have utterly failed, etc, etc.  It's a ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

While doing online r/e/s/e/a/r/c/h/ goofing off today, I ran across something (now do not remember the train of hoofprints) that led me to Scalzi's blog post on George R.R. Martin's productivity.    He compared his own in the same period of years to Martin's, as one way of showing that the delay in presentation of A Dance with Dragons wasn't due to ( Read more... )

Just as I was ready to press SEND, however, I noticed two things--the filename of the book was still the unimpressive working filename it had all along, not its title, and the header line had the even more minimal working name of the whole thing: K-III.   So, sometime around 7 am, another bit of revision produced a filename consonant with the title ( Read more... )