Editing day

I had the life changing opportunity to go study at the Banff Centre last April to participate in a workshop that targeted the first chapter of a novel. By then I was 'finished' Game Plan so I actually started my second novel while I was there and confident I had done everything I could to make Game Plan the best it could be (even the title sounded perfect). After about two days I realized just how wrong I was about that! It was disheartening at first, but after working through the intimidation it was really constructive and motivating to see a direction in which I could improve my story.

One of the most helpful hints that came out of that week was tiny but essential. Edit a hard copy. Call me dense but I would never have come up with that on my own! So I totally abused their free printing service and ordered a hard copy of my novel. I put book two back on the shelf and put pencil to paper (oh and highlighters and cool little sticky tags).

So now I'm editing a hard copy of book two. I've been through the file three times for editing but I still find things in the hard copy that need to be reworked. Tweaked. Omitted. Moved. There's something soothing about returning to pencil and paper to write. I'm enjoying it very much.

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Funding and Grants

Today's writing day was absorbed by writing a Grant application. I've applied twice before and received the same 'thanks but no thanks' letter six weeks later. This time I was able to ask for direction from My Publisher (teehee) and they have given me great suggestions. Who knew that a grant app for WRITING would have to be organized, specific, detailed and concise? You mean narrative reasoning and eloquent description doesn't work? I even dusted off my ancient Excel skills (thank you Acadia science labs) and made a 'Gantt Chart'. (I'm not going to tell you what that is, you'll have to google it yourself, just like I did).

My hope for receiving the grant decreases with each application but I still submit - they won't say 'yes' unless I ask, right? It would be nice to have some 'pay' for the time I spend writing instead of seeing my little pals at work, but in the end the pay is the least important part. (SHH. Don't tell Steve). Grant or no grant, I'm determined to find a way to spend two days poking at this laptop and creating worlds.

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UGH.

My days to write are Monday and Friday. I've dedicated those days to working on the outstanding editing, writing, grant prep, whatever needs to be done. It didn't get done today.

Have you ever read a book that took over everything? That you couldn't put down but didn't want to read because reading only brought you closer to the end and you really wonder what you are going to have left if you ever finish it? I'm reading one like that now, and did so until after 3am last night. Even after I forced myself to turn off the light my head was swirling with the heart ache in the story and it was a long time before I fell asleep. Then today, not only was I useless because I was tired, I was useless because I couldn't pull my head out of THAT story to work on my own. FRUSTRATING! I cherish my writing days, relish in the time I have to focus on it that when I lose a day to lack of focus... grrr!

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