Deadline Week Rundown

This is what last (deadline) week looked like for me:

Monday - Friday:

6 am - Woke up, drank coffee, and worked on my revision for the new book.

7:30 am - Woke the kids up, drank coffee, and got them ready for school.

9 am - Returned home from dropping off the kids, drank coffee, dinked around on the internet and/or called my agent / editor to freak out over my impending deadline and book issues.

10 am - 4 pm WORKED WORKED WORKED on the revision, eating lunch at my desk. Also drank some coffee.

4 pm - Picked up my kids. Homework. Shenanigans.

6 pm - Threw something together for dinner and shuttled the kids to various activities and / or found a movie for them to watch so I could WORK WORK WORK on my novel.

8 pm - Bedtime for kiddos, which is always a circus entitled, Tricks My Children Do To Avoid Going To Bed. I should charge admission for this. . .

9 pm - WORKED WORKED WORKED on the novel.

12 am - Went to bed. Stared up at the ceiling thinking about the revisions.

1 am - Fell into fitful sleep in which I actually revised my novel in my dreams. All night long I wrestled with phantom lines.

5 am - Woken up by two cats jumping all over me who had decided it was time for the human to WAKE UP AND PLAY. Threw ungrateful cats out of the bedroom.

6 am - Started all over again.



Behold the oh-so-glamourous life of a writer! It went like this until Friday, where I'll add -

11:52 pm (8 minutes before my deadline) - Pressed send to give the draft back to my editor

12 am - Went to bed, stared up at the ceiling for no good reason.

3 am - Finally got my brain to turn off enough to fall asleep. But that's okay because it's Saturday so I can sleep in. . .

5 am - Woken up by my 4 year old because she was cold. Also, was it time for cartoons?


The weekend was a total blur- not even sure what I did there--maybe cleaned up the house and had some friends over for both me and the kids, ate donuts and pizza, played the game Munchkin for the first time, which was highly entertaining, but mostly just sat still with my brain going DUHHHHHH DOHHHHHHH DERRRRRRRR.



Which leads me to this morning, which went like this:

7 am - Woke up and laid in bed for a while.

7:30 am - Woke the kids up and got them ready for school

9 am - Returned home and threw myself into my To Do pile: finished several writer errands I've been procrastinating on, like signing up for YASH and filling out my author profile stuff they make me do for every book for the new book, sent a barrage of emails

10 am - Stared at the computer.

11 pm - Spent an hour making homemade banana bread. The house now smells amazing.

12 pm - Ate leftover pizza and took a shower so long it would have made Al Gore cry.

1 pm - Stared at the computer.

1:30 pm - Wrote a bizarre blog post about my schedule for the past week.

2 pm - Eyed the notebook for the next project. . .

2:03 - Picked up a pen.

Novel #6

So last Wednesday I finished the first draft of my sixth novel!!!!

 . . . which I can't tell you much about yet.

*frowns* Well, that's no fun.

What CAN I tell you?

Hmm, well:

-It is a stand-alone.

-It is NOTHING like my last (solo) standalone, (i.e. THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE) in that it is not a straight contemporary, and it will probably (hopefully) make you laugh more than it will make you cry. (I did sniffle a bit writing a scene or two at the end there, but that's just me. I'm emotional about the needs of my characters.)

-It is also nothing like my last (group) standalone (i.e. MY LADY JANE) in that it is not a fantasy, and I am not writing the point of view of a sixteen year old boy.

-It was a blast to write, because I've had this story in my brain for, like, three years now and it was awesome to finally get to write it.

-It was the fastest I've ever written a book.

-It's probably the roughest first draft I've ever produced, which is both exciting and terrifying for me, because, at this point, so much could change.

-The main character is EVIL. I love her so much. I also kind of hate her. She and I have a love-hate thing going.

-It is mainly set in Manhattan, and also a little bit in Malibu, and I listened to Taylor Swift's new album a lot while I was preparing to write it. Like, a lot a lot. Welcome to New York.

-It will (fingers crossed) be out Fall 2016.

These last few days I haven't even really known what to do with myself, because I have been working SO HARD for the last six months and my brain just wants to keepgoingkeepgoinsomuchtodo. I spent a few hours today playing SKYRIM, which, I kid you not, I have not played since May 2012. And the whole time I was playing I felt vaguely guilty, like I was betraying my writer self by letting my video-gamer flag fly for even a little while.

But that's how it goes.

If you need me, I will be over here either a) working on my mad-bow-skillz or b) pacing while waiting for my editor to tell me what she thinks.

Either way, it's always good to be at that place where I've written a NOVEL. It feels like a miracle every single time.

All the Pretty Notebooks

This week I've finally started drafting on my new project. I wish I could tell you more about it, I really do, but I can't. All I can say at this point is that it's a completely different world from my Unearthly universe (although, in some ways, not so much, as this new novel takes place largely in Idaho--at least the settings are similar) with a very different type of main character. Which is a good thing. I love Clara, and I've had so much fun with her for the past four years, but at this point I am getting a bit tired of her voice. It happens.

Love you, Clara. Now be quiet.

One of the things I love best about a new project is a new set of notebooks. These days I often write my draft zero out long hand, so I can get away from the computer and the allure of facebook and Twitter and the tons of emails that await me every time I sit down at my desk. I get a lot more done if I slip off to some quiet place with a notebook. And, like most writers, I am particular about the kind of notebook I work with. I like me a lined journal (college ruled or smaller, if I can find it) that will lay flat on a table. I like these pens I found about a year ago from Pilot that are made of recycled water bottles-- a gel roller with a super smooth line. I love those days when I go through all the ink in a pen in one day of work.

Yes, I'm a pen murderer. At least these pens are refillable.

I've found that one novel typically takes me 4 notebooks, to get from the first draft through the last draft of major revisions. I'm getting quite the collection, see?

Not all of my notebooks, but some: the bottom one is for Maggie's story, which I've been jotting down for a couple years just to understand Maggie and her past, the white and green is 2 out of the 4 of Hallowed, the 4 green with elephants is Boundless, the black and white composition book is--can you guess what that might be? If all goes well you might get to find this out in December or so-- and the top, my new project!!)

So, yay! New project! I have been refraining myself from working on this new book for almost a year now. The story is burning bright in my brain, and I only hope I can get it down fast enough, so it does not burn out before it's all on the page. I have about 50 handwritten pages of notes on the characters and their world so far, just waiting for me to pick it up for serious and draft.

I am so ready! Let the fun writing begin!