Sugar-cube Empire

So guess what guess what I have an email, like an official you-can-mail-me@publisher.com email, and a blog and a Twitter.

I have my success fix for the week, which should be enough to stave off the looming cold sores and bring about some brutal glee-based insomnia, but I also read agent blogs obsessively enough to know that whilst being published by a legitimate house at all is a huge step, it is by no means the largest, especially considering that a blog and an email and a Twitter aren't investments for the publisher, and that the publisher is a startup, an indie, and not based in either the U.S. or Britain.

It feels like making an empire from toothpicks and sugar cubes.

My Deadline: IT LOOMS

Inspiration Strikes

Damn, I wrote a thousand words today. That's nothing. Nothing. Why am I so proud?

Writer's block, my friends. When it strikes it hits me in the belly, hard, and makes me feel nauseous, like I've been tossing and turning in bed all night with a tummyache. You think you're all better then something's a little uncomfortable, no problem, you just have to turn around, have to fix your pillow all better, but rrrrn still uncomfortable, curl up into a ball? Better? For a little bit, sure, but you still can't sleep so you turn over again, and nothing is ever achieved.

I was suffering from creative stagnation. Today, I gave up writing what I thought I should be writing. Instead, I wrote a crazy-ass scene that should never be in a fantasy novel at all, and by the way I love it.

Why can't I write the way I always do? Why do I have to chain myself down to plot, plot, plot, world-building, plot plot? Why can't I go into a strange deconstructed scene that switches between tenses and between first and third person as my character becomes more and more outright bonkers? Yeah! I can! Nuts to you, marketing brain. I can write what I want.

A thousand words is nothing but it was the best thousand words I've written in a while.

I am So Fucking Made for this Profession, or Maybe Something Else Comparable, Like Hermitting

So I was eating breakfast today and I overheard this woman telling this other woman that she, "was writing in a vacuum" and that she, "needed to get out more, get some critique, just go outside, you know?" and I glanced over and there was a single typed sheet on the table with "SO-AND-SO'S NOVEL" written on it in caps and in sharpie, I think blue or green.

So I went over and I was like, "This is really awkward, and uh, I overheard you, well I was eavesdropping really, and I'm really sorry... but I'm starting a writing group, and I'm going to be leaving flyers around. Maybe you'd want to come?"

They looked at me like I ground up babies and snorted them.

Then the one with the typed sheet said, "Yeah, I'm Some Name I Forgot Immediately and this is Another Name I Forgot Immediately, she's a writer too."

The other woman was like, "What's your name?"

And the presumption was, "Why the fuck are you starting a group? Who the fuck are you?" but I told them my first name.

And I was like, "Well I just signed my first contract so I thought, you know, since there are no groups around here that I can find, maybe I can start one, spread the love a little?"

And the woman with the first page said, "What was it?"

I said, "A fantasy novel?" like it wasn't as good as a self-help book or whatever but what can you do... and her eyes just light the fuck up and she says, "Oh, wow!"

And I said, "Um, I am really sorry I listened to your conversation..." and I thought, I could have just pinned a flyer up and they'd have probably attended the fucking meeting but now they won't.

And the one who'd done all the talking said, "No, really it's OK, I overheard this woman at the gym talking about adopting on her iPhone and I was like, 'Just finish your damn conversation so I can ask you about agencies!' "

And I laughed sort of awkwardly and was like, "OK, well, I hope you guys come," and then spent the rest of the time in the cafe looking at the floor pointedly so I would project the message that I was not in any way listening in on their conversation again, which would have been difficult anyway because they lowered their voices a lot.

I'm like a dog who's been raised alone and who freaks out barking around other dogs and who vets think "needs socializing".

I hated the Matrix trilogy apart from the

INTP - "Architect". Greatest precision in thought and language. Can readily discern contradictions and inconsistencies. The world exists primarily to be understood. 3.3% of total population.