Tag Archives: deadlines

Quote: Can’t Look You in the Voice

It’s sometimes comforting to know that other writers, famous ones, wildly successful ones go through the same trials the less famous and less successful do.

Here’s a picture of a telegram sent by American writer Dorothy Parker to her publisher while in the midst of writer’s… block/angst/despond…

In case this comes up too small to read, here’s a transcription:

WESTERN UNION

1945 JUN 28 PM 4 37

NBQ209 78=NUJ NEWYORK NY 28 422P
PASCAL COVICI.VIKING PRESS=
18 EAST 48 ST=

THIS IS INSTEAD OF TELEPHONING BECAUSE I CANT LOOK YOU IN THE VOICE. I SIMPLY CANNOT GET THAT THING DONE YET NEVER HAVE DONE SUCH HARD NIGHT AND DAY WORK NEVER HAVE SO WANTED ANYTHING TO BE GOOD AND ALL I HAVE IS A PILE OF PAPER COVERED WITH WRONG WORDS. CAN ONLY KEEP AT IT AND HOPE TO HEAVEN TO GET IT DONE. DONT KNOW WHY IT IS SO TERRIBLY DIFFICULT OR I SO TERRIBLY INCOMPETANT=

DOROTHY.

—————-

I love “can’t look you in the voice.”  And, “all I have is a pile of paper covered with wrong words.” I can relate to that.

On that subject (that is, piles of papers with wrong words), I worked on Sky yesterday and today, and am slowly moving through ch 3.  I have LOTS of papers with the wrong words on them. My consolation is that I also have a few papers with mostly the right words on them, and also, that all the work I’ve done on worldbuilding here, will pay off later. And it is coming together if roughly.

Telegram image courtesy of Nancy Campbell’s blog

Potential Delivery Date — Meh

So I was going to use my progress the last week as an indicator of whether I should announce a potential delivery date for The Other Side of the Sky.

Clearly I did not announce one. The experiment was not a bust, but neither was it conclusive. I worked for 4 days. Then my hubby was off Friday and I had family things to do. On Saturday I installed an external hard drive on my computer to back up my stuff… supposed to be easy, but as with all things related to computers, it was not.

I barely had the accompanying program installed when an update announcement showed up. Unfortunately I had to somehow turn off everything that might require drive access — and I don’t even know what all that might be — and never succeeded. Not even with my antivirus program. As the hours drifted by, I finally gave it up. I didn’t have any external back up at all before. Now I have one. Maybe not optimum, but not worth the time of wading through obscure online instructions that never seem to actually represent what I’m seeing on my screen. Yes, I could call some  tech support person but…

Bleah.

I want to write, not spend all my time fooling with that. So I didn’t.  (Plus my printer’s pretty much just given up the ghost so I’m going to have to deal with that very soon..)

Sunday was church and an engagement party, from which I came home exhausted. For the first time, though,  it didn’t carry over to Monday. Lately I’ve been feeling pretty normal. Walking the dog again, doing my regular stuff. Or at least working back up to it. And I did no work on Sky during the entire three days.

Blog writing has also taken a hit as is obvious to regular readers. I wonder if it’s because I’ve gotten out of the habit.

Anyway, I have more to say regarding the  potential delivery date, but I’ll save that for another post.

A Potential Delivery Date?

Yes, really. I did write that. I like “Potential Delivery Date” better than “Deadline,” so I’m going to stick with it. And it may be that I have one.

Today’s been another decent day. I worked through some back story on one of my major characters and since he is the father of my female lead and the sponsor of my male lead, that has ramifications for everyone.

Part of my problems with trying to get my head around everything is that over time I have changed the set- up.  Is the person retired military or a government official? Or a successful business man? At one time or another it’s been any or all three. I’d decide one, write a bit and switch to another, forget there was the first, maybe after time forget there was the second and switch to a third. Then, on account of all the interruptions that have taken place in my life, I would forget even the third and go back to the work thinking the second was it, only to discover a reference to the first idea, and then get all caught up in trying to decide which was better…

Today I went through all my versions and distilled what I like best and now have three pages of consistent history for one of my main characters. Since this impacts the chapters I’m currently working on, that’s a good thing.

But… yes, I know: I said something about a potential delivery date.

That’s because, in addition to the Bible messages and personal conviction I wrote about in yesterday’s post, something else happened over the weekend.  On Saturday (two days ago, now) I got an email from my agent, forwarding a request from Bethany House for an update on me and this book. They asked for a delivery estimate. 

In the past I’ve felt like there was no way I could give them one. But this time the email triggered the thought that maybe I could. I’d said in my original synopsis that I could deliver a first draft by May of 2011. Well, clearly that didn’t happen, but now I’m getting the thought… why not May 2013?  Was that from the Holy Spirit, or just pure and simple wishful thinking? I don’t know. Quite possibly the latter, so at first I resisted. How can I say what’s going to happen next? How can I possibly give a date? You remember, I reminded the Lord, how much of  a fiasco the last one was.

Still, it seems to me He’s kept on nudging me with the May date. So I’ve decided to give it a week.  If tomorrow everything crashes back into what it’s been… maybe I’ll say nothing. But if the state I’m in right now continues and the conviction continues… well… maybe I’ll float the suggestion by my agent at least… That’s almost exciting.

But I’ll give it a week …