write and publish a book

My last entry, I was anticipating moving out to the beach. Now that house is in escrow, and the plan is to move to Hawaii.

I’ll be adding a goal to my list: find a long term renter for my house in town

and

once we are away from our responsibilities here, ta dum ta da! This goal gets lots of attention.

If we do what we are talking about, we will find a renter for our house in town, and move out to the coast. I will quit my job, see if I can do some rental property management there, and finish The Spandex Capers, and maybe the Victoria Lee Murder.

Maybe, maybe. I am so infected with optimism today that I could almost … put out my arms, run really fast, and fly off the ground!

Probably the day after my last entry here, I tried a different approach to the novel.

I put up the redrawn chapter from the Big Sur Writer’s workshop last year, and brought over a second chapter from the original manuscript. But it was not chapter 2.

I began juxtaposing the secondary investigation with the first, dating everything, so the reader can readily understand who is doing each phase, and when. The parts are a year apart, until they grow together. It may sound complicated, but it works well. It’s tight and easy to follow.

Then I began asking myself how I could show certain things, and the whole thing began to flow.

I am up to about page 60 now, re-writing and inventing and having such a good damn, but hey.

I found out what NaNoWriMo is, and I cannot resist. Here’s the thing. My boss called this morning and he began telling me all sorts of reasons why I probably will not be issued a laptop, so will not be able to work until I can come back to work. And then he explained that my doctor will have to sign off on that, and my doctor has already told me I cannot drive for at least two months. That lets out going back to work, as I sure can’t hobble a few blocks to catch the bus!

So as to NaNoWriMo, see my other goal. I expect to work on this novel until November 1, then switch.

Wish me luck! Wish me success!

with the broken ankle right now, having to keep it elevated, I was thinking, since I’m not using the pain pills, I would work on the novel.

So I did today.

then I read the original draft, and it was better. I’m not in the groove.

And possibly the underlying pain is just enough to keep me from being where I need to be, to call on the energy needed for top notch writing. I was feeling my character, but there was an element of hurrying through the writing that shows in the two drafts.

So I need something less rigorously imaginative for my time on my butt here. The tree house design idea write up was about right for me, for now.

This weekend, I took the first steps in a year on this goal.

I invited my husband to participate in the project as co-author, so he would not be left out during my hundreds of hours of attention to the writing process.

I transferred the manuscript to the main home computer, and announced my intentions to resume writing.

Saturday, I reviewed most of what I had already re-written at the writers conference, and debated whether or not to review the old manuscript. Had no answers. Recognized I would have to redirect my energies.

Saturday night about midnight, I started downstairs to write my redirected intentions, and thus reshape this goal and bring it more into focus.

Four stairs from the bottom, I slipped.

Before my butt could crash harmlessly onto the padded stair, my right foot contacted the hardwood floor, the full weight of my hurtling body jamming it into the floor. I heard a cracking sound, and saw my foot twisted at a very bed angle against the floor. Then my foot straightened itself out and I lay on the floor contemplating and probably cursing and whining.

As I sit here Monday morning, my foot and leg propped next to me, all wrapped and splinted, I acknowledge that writing while on pain killers may not actually work, and although I have time to devote to the writing, it is not my best time.

So I do not recommend the broken ankle approach to finding more time to work on a manuscript.

But at the same time, I will give it a try.

I cannot remember how old I was when I decided to “be a writer” but I must have been able to read and probably write—although the last part may have been still in the works.

I finished my first novel at least 14 years ago. The computer I wrote it on is long gone, and the floppy disc too. But I still have the hard copy, a relic missing its top cover.

Books two, three, and four are housed on this laptop—all in various stages.

Last year, I went to the Henry Miler Writer’s Workshop in Big Sur and learned an amazing amount—so my recommendation to anyone with this goal is to attend a professional writing workshop.

Once I have quit my desk job, I am going to sign up for another workshop. The feedback is outstanding. Be open, take it in, try it out.

My book #1 already written in about divorce - a novel about going whacko in the course of divorce - a sort of humorous but serious story. Kind of whacky. I still like it, but then again, it’s out of my own head. So…

There is also “Living on the Volcano” and a murder mystery. I work in the world of organized crime as as investigator, and murders come across my desk. The one I chose to write about sits unsolved in real life. So, material abounds.

The only catch is, and the reason this didn’t hit my list first thing—I am so tired of sitting at a desk! I am totally devoted to getting off my ass, and do not want to commit to parking it in front of any computer screen more than an hour or two on any given day. and even that is excessive!