Sadie Jay

The plan starting December 1st was to take a week/week and a half, and give When Silverfish Dance  a read-through edit, and submit it to a few publishing houses and editors. Except, then I realized, most of those places have closed submissions until January! Oh, well. Anyway, then I was going to start the rewrites on Like Cracks In The Sidewalk -- really delve into it! Except, here it is the middle of the month, and I'm not even half-way through Silverfish (partly because I got to page 61 and realized I had to many 'had's, and started over). December is just a bad month for anything, really. So, new plan. Just do what I can do!

I did it! I made the 50K with one day to spare, and finished Like Cracks In The Sidewalk while I was at it! (and didn't totally lose my mind in the process!) Now the real work begins--editing! I haven't actually been able to sit and read it through to see if it's coherent. So...my plans at this moment are to do some edits on When Silverfish Dance and submit it to some publishers, then work on edits for "Cracks". And then...hopefully...start the rewrites on Headphones, the story that started it all! And if I manage all of that, I've got two untitled stories rattling around in my brain that I want to develop. Who says I don't have a life?!

10 days to go on the NaNoWriMo challenge. I'm just a few hundred words under goal, so I'm pretty happy about that. I've gone over the 30k mark, and my goal was to at least get that far, since this is my first time doing the challenge. Last week was rough--I had a couple of chapters that I reworked. I can't decide if what is going on around me is hindering me or if I'm using my writing as an escape. Maybe a bit of both! Anyway, I hit the 'bahm, bahm, bahm' moment of the plot, where my MCs have been torn apart, and now comes the part where I sew them back together. Fingers crossed, I might just do this!

So, the events of this week have me brain addled. Writing is sporadic. I've dropped behind by more than 2000 words. I'm going to try and push forward this weekend, make some of that up, but chances are I'm finger-tied and idea-paralyzed. But I'm not stopping and I'm not giving up.

There's this thing I do as I write, this little word game. I intentionally throw in a word or a phrase from The Mighty Boosh , as a sign, or maybe as a signal, to any Boosh fans who may be reading my work, that says "I'm like you!" It feels like we're in a secret society, one that first gave me the confidence and the will to even attempt sharing my words. So if you catch one of my little Easter Eggs, give a shout out--I would love to hear from you!

   In my head, I always give the different plot-points a title, just so I can keep it all straight. I plot very loosely because my stories are always so organic. No matter what idea I start with, once I start typing, things can easily change. So, while plotting Cracks, I had "Introduction", "First night" and then "Stay". I'm almost to "Stay". I started working on this seriously in the middle of August, so it's been two months. I wish I was a faster writer, I wish I had more time. Too often it's a half-hour in the morning, another half-hour in the evening. There are days I can measure by paragraphs, not pages. That being said, I'm over 33,000 words now. And that's the thing. My goal was 60,000 words, and I'm past the half way point, so it should be a reason to celebrate. Except, it seems to me that the first two sections have run over-long. This point is still early in James and Val's story. I'm going to push on and...

       Okay, it's still a working title. So, anyway, I've passed the 21000 word mark. Part of me feels it's moving too slowly, that the story should be further along at this point, but maybe it's not. I wish I was one of those writers that can go stream-of-conscious through the first draft and then edit. But I can't. I self-edit as I go. Each sentence is like Dumbledore pulling memories out of his head to put into the pensive. They're all fragile and have to be pulled out gently. I kind of want to print out what I have and read it all in one sitting, see if it feels cohesive before I move on to the next part, but then I think of all the paper and ink I'll have to use. Well, maybe another round of edits, then a quick print, and see where I end up.         I'm starting to get more comfortable with the first-person perspective, although I've got the feeling the biggest part of editing is going to involve cutting down on the use of "I". How do...