A root canal (and the reason one needs a root canal) is not conducive to writing

Also: I miss pizza.

A fail and a win

I failed to meet my self-imposed deadline for this revision this weekend. I'm committed to making it really fucking good, and it's still not quite there. Who knew that "non-polemical international geopolitical upmarket page-turners based on exhaustive historical research and analysis of contemporary foreign policy and events" were so hard to write? Sigh...

Anyways, in better news, I got this new sweatshirt on Friday. I'm really excited about it, which maybe seems weird unless you grew up in Ontario in the 80s and watched too much tv.

For my personal historical record

This is what Mischief Reef looked like when I started dreaming up this novel:

This is what it looks like now:

This is what I looked like when I started writing this novel:

This is what I look like now as I finish it:

We both look overworked. 

This morning's writing breakthrough was brought to me by NyQuil -- supplier of my first good night's sleep in ages.

I am a person who sometimes writes

No wonder I have nightmares... revision notes stalk me in my sleep!

In spite of those nightmares, the revisions are going well. I think this is the case for two reasons: 1) I love this book (even though it scares me) and 2) I only write for as long as it is fun to write. Then I pack up and get on with my day. After all, if it isn't fun, what the hell am I doing this for? Money? Acclaim? LOL

In my kid - teen years, I loved writing because it was fun. The most fun thing ever, actually. My list of fun went like this:

10) Singing along to The Beatles and Radiohead in my room

9) Painting murals

8) Crafting

7) Baking

6) Playing tennis

5) Reading Anne Rice and Maeve Binchy novels

4) Making movies

3) Watching TV and movies

2) Playing volleyball

1) Writing

As I get older, I sometimes find myself slipping into a sour mood due to the financial realities and the small heartbreaks of the fiction-writing life. But it's a privilege to have the time, health and passion to write novels, and I'm trying not to take that for granted any more. I think sticking to my "only if it's fun" rule will help me stay in love with writing fiction despite the challenges that come with it. Because really, in the grand scheme of things, these challenges aren't so challenging. And there is so much more to life away from the laptop. 

Writing is what I do in my free time and my (paying) career, so it's been easy to fall into the "I am a writer" identity trap. But exploring other facets of myself is, of course, important, and I plan on doing more of that once this novel is done. But until that day comes, I'll be mindful of enjoying the time I have with this manuscript.

On leaving our private circle

I loved and so related to this 2017 essay by Jonathan Lee (author of High Dive), "The Peculiar Power of a Zadie Smith Sentence." Here's a brief excerpt:

"Good fiction is often about connection, about feeling less alone, about imagining yourself into other people’s shoes and finding your own imaginative limits, as a writer and a reader. And in moments in history where communities come under threat, or are being be blasted apart, the written word has an even greater power to connect people: through a story, through a single sentence, through jokes, through anecdote, through the words painted on a protest sign. Words are one of the means we have to leave our private circle and discover something else: other people’s experiences, struggles, private and political histories. Words are, among other things, a form of transport. 

People often talk about books as facilitating “escapism.” But I don’t want to escape into vacuous nothingness. I have bad TV for that. I want to escape into other lives, their complexities. I turn to the writers who can do that for me."

Two dreams came true

Two dreams recently became reality: 

1) New bangs have taken me that much closer to my true form

2) Got my ideal literary agent

I'm so lucky to be represented by Hilary McMahon of Westwood Creative. She really gets the book, both what it is now and how I can make it even better. (Also: her team at Westwood is A+.) I'm excited to get working on some revisions. As a matter of fact, I should be doing that now instead of blogging so excuse me ok? bye.