Friday, November 6, 2009

Don't Dream It

I seem to be completely out of touch with reality these days. Not in a “tinfoil hat wearing” sense, just in the “unable to mentally connect with the rest of the world” kind of way.

Case in point: The girls and I sat in the car today because we got to Mandarin class early. We were there at 5:10, and class on Tuesday doesn't start until 5:30. So we dawdled, I didn't want to walk in during the middle of someone else's class. Finally at about 5:20 I decided that we could go on in, it wouldn't be too early. When we went in, our class was already in progress. Has anyone else figured out why? Because today is FRIDAY. FRIDAY. And class starts at 5:00 on Fridays. Sheesh.

Usually my problem is I don’t care what the date is, or what month it is. I care what day it is. Is it Wednesday? OK, then I’m working at 1:00... Is it Friday? OK, then we have Mandarin class at 5. Is it Sunday? Great. Work again. Is it Tuesday? Wonderful! Sydnee will be here soon. What month is it? What's the date? Bah! Who cares?

I’ve been working some on my next book. That’s coming along OK. I meant to do 1K words a night. Ha. I'm at about 8K right now, and have been for ages. I've been active with my crit group, which I think is more important right now. I sketched the sequel to Blink. I can’t help myself. Even if no one wants to publish book 1, I think I will write book 2 anyway, as the story is so stuck in my head. It simply has to come out, whether anyone prints it and binds it or not.

I’m just glad I tried. When I worked at K2 about a billion years ago, there was a guy that people talked about from time to time. He had worked at the factory and always said “you know, I’m going to write a book someday.” Well, he did. His name was Frank Peretti, and his first novel “This Present Darkness” became a phenomena, he’s still a popular author today. Not my style stuff, but whatever, doesn’t matter. The thing is, like everyone else in the factory, he said he was going to do something, something more than just make skis. Unlike almost everyone else, he actually did it. I want to be one of the ones that actually does it. Whatever “it” is. Frank became kind of a cult hero among the factory folk, not because he became rich and famous and all that, but because instead of just saying “someday I’m going to XXX” he said it AND did it. Good for you, Frank. I hope someday people will say the same thing about me. Good for you. Good for you for not dreaming it. Good for you for BEING IT.

3 comments:

  1. I hope that's me someday. You can almost feel people's doubt when you tell them that you're writing a book. Even the good friends. Blech!

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  2. I know!! And then I tell people I write YA, and immediately they expect me to apologize for it. As though it's not a valid genre. I'm sorry, teenagers are not allowed to read, and anyone who writes for them isn't capable to writing for adults. As if.

    Actually, I've tried writing for adults. It has never worked out for me. My characters inevitably become far too cool to be grown ups. :)

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  3. I think it's probably harder writing YA than writing for adults. For one thing, you gotta watch yer effin' language. That's hard for me to do. (My sister-in-law said she wouldn't read my ms. because of all the bad words. I didn't even ask her to read the frakking thing.) Anyhoo, about the only advantage I can see to writing YA is that the word-counts are lower than adult fiction.

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