Month: July 2014

Write. Revise. Repeat.

Update from the writing mines, my lovelies.

I’ve been home a whole week and am getting ready to leave again tomorrow. I’ve managed to make good use of my in-between-travel time by revising a short story, breaking a novel, and beginning revisions to said novel. I’ve actually been really struggling with the changes to the short story. I drafted it during the writing retreat I attended in Philadelphia last month and I’ve been tinkering with it ever since, trying to layer in nuance and still keep it under 5k (it keeps wanting to get unwieldy). I think it’s almost there, except I’m not loving the opening two pages. So, on the side it goes for a time out.

My big plan for this month is to get Project Awesome revised so I can send it to Beta readers before I leave for Norway in August. I think it’s a doable plan. There’s mainly editing needed in the first half, some new pieces to lay in the middle and final third, and a new ending to write. We shall see. I’ve got it all mapped out, so it’s really just a matter of finding time to get fingers on the keyboard. There’s today, some time on the plane tomorrow, a few days while in Seattle next week and then then about 2 1/2 weeks back in NYC at the beginning of August.

So, there’s no time to waste, is there?

Laters!

Homeward bound

Today (assuming Delta and the weather cooperate), I’ll be winging my way home to NYC. Goodbye, Missouri!

It’s been a trip with a lot of highs and lows. Spending time with my friend Bill and his wife Mary over the last two weeks has been awesome. I even got to see my good writer friend, Brent, who lives here in the KC area. Missouri is quite beautiful right now, all verdant and lush, and KC has a plethora of yummy restaurants. So, those aspects of the trip were great.

Don’t get me wrong, the dig had its highs too, but there were some lows, my friends. Indeed, there were. The work was challenging physically, and it was quite hot, quite buggy, and quite hard not to be able to go home (or even inside) when we were done for the day. Camping sounded like it would be fun (and sometimes, when the fireflies were out and it cooled down, it was), but mostly it just made things more difficult. And we didn’t find very much. The Steed-Kisker house we’d hoped to excavate appeared to have already been destroyed by modern farming activities. So that was a bummer.

But! I have new muscles and am rocking a farmer’s tan. And I’m excited to be heading home. I miss my husband and my cat and my friends and my apartment and…well, you get the idea.

So, today I’m NYC-bound and looking forward to getting in some writing time on the plane. Bon voyage!