Okay so I wrote my goals yesterday and it was exhilerating. However, I never did make it out to the garage! Is that crazy? By the time I got dressed and walked the dog and did all those things I need to do before I can actually go out, some one called and then it was 11:15 and the parade of workman were due to come from 12-4 and I can’t be in the garage then. I made stew instead of writing, and I threw away all the fattening left overs.

While I waited for the repair men I did start a review of The March. I have a hair up my butt about it because the praise is so profuse and while I liked it, enjoyed reading it, it’s no Tess of the D’urbevilles and I don’t understand how I’ll ever succeed when literary books feel shallow to me and yet they win prizes. I just don’t get it.

I’m still working on the review to get the sarcasm out of it…or at least to justify the sarcasm and will post it on my blog sometime in the next couple of days. So I can’t really say “I didn’t write,” but I can’t really say I did.

Here’s a clarification. General fooling around writing counts 1/4 of a point compared to fiction writing on either a short story or the novel.

That way I won’t be saying I wrote a thank you note and using that as my “writing” for the day. That doesn’t count this year!!!!

Okay so the end of 2006 fell in a hole. It’s done, over, finito. Now for the NEW YEAR and a FRESH START.

January Goals

1. Write. I am a writer. My goal is to write every day, long and hard, and in a professional manner, so that I will actually finish my book and also develop and complete other writing projects.

I will think in terms of DAILY hours at the computer, not minutes, in order to complete my book as well as work on the thousand other writing projects I have.

2. Be accountable. I will report here every day even if my message is brief, even if all I write is “I didn’t write.” The reason? If I force myself to post about writing, then I will force myself to notice of the amount of time and effort I put into writing. If I don’t write, then perhaps I will get tired of typing “I didn’t write” and TAKE action.

3. Commit. Whether I write for five minutes or five hours,I will write EVERY SINGLE DAY. No missing. If I am pressed for time, then I will write with the egg timer set so that I know once I fulfill my commitment to write–even for 5 minutes–I can guiltlessly attend to “real life” business. No wasting time, feeling sorry for myself, wandering to the refrigerator to get a snack, doing a quick sudoku, taking the Spider Solitaire detour. I will get what I have to do in “real life” done, and get back to the writing.

4. Have fun. One of the reasons I write is because it’s fun. It is PLAY despite the fact that I am serious about it. But I often forget to allow the “fun” to happen because I am either worried about who will tell me it sucks–voices in my head as I type–or I go straight to the point, how useless this all is because I’ll never finish. I’m giving that up. Right now.

Actually. I think I have already given it up.

I have a right to write and to have fun. Give up the worry. Just do it. I often forget that nothing can be perfect the first time around, so I must insist when I get stuck to move on, change scenes, be creative about my approach.

5. Market. Continue on my quest to send out work. Use revising shorter stuff as a break from the novel but allow myself to use my hours to write and market rather than waste time with tv or computer games or visiting that big white appliance that lies in wait for me in the kitchen.

I did not achieve my goal of 100 rejections this past year. I will start fresh and send out again and again. I still have several prospects out in the market ether and perhaps one or two might yield something, but I will not focus on the result once the decision is out of my hands. What I will focus on is getting good stuff into into its best shape and continuing to put it out there. As I do this, hopefully I will learn what works and doesn’t work, not just through the rejections, but through the experience of shaping and reworking my stuff.

6. Read. Read long hard and well. Think about what I’m reading, why it works or doesn’t work for me. Read fiction and non-fiction. Explore areas of interest and non-interest because ya never know.

7. Explore. Explore long hard and well. Every experience will enrich my real life and my writing life. But don’t let the exploring take over the writing. Writing first. Writing first.

Okay I needed to get over it and I think I am…finally. I won’t list all the petty little things that are broken, malfunctioning, or just plain problematic, over the last week or so, actually they still ARE, but it’s time to let it go. The weather here has conspired to put me into a good mood, the scale has groaned to let me know it’s time to take charge of my hand-to-mouth hyperactivity, and reading JCO’s Will You Still Love Me has inspired me to get back to work.

I don’t know where or why these funks penetrate my psyche but they do and the whole time I’m experiencing them one little high-pitched voice in my ear is yelling, “Stop, you idiot! Stop acting like a suicide-bomber!” while another voice, lower, less shrill, decidedly more seductive whispers, “It’s okay, baby. Just let it happen. Whip up those pancakes. Take that nap. Who cares? No one cares unless it interferes with their agendas. You’re on your own. Do whatever the hell you want.”

Oh, that’s scary. Maybe I shouldn’t publish this. Kind of private. But I will because I want to continue going for the deep bone-scraping truth in my writing. Plus no one but my sister really reads this.

So I’m on the upswing for a while and since I recognize it as such, I must take advantage of it. I’m working on a schedule today, writing by the clock to insure I get things accomplished. I have been daunted by the task of the book. It’s so unwieldy, those 379 pages slip-sliding out of my hands as I carry it around the house–to the living room to read through and make notes, five minutes later to the dining room table to lay it out and stand over it, still with the phone ringing, out to the garage where it’s more private, then back upstairs to the computer with the internet, am I certain the bikini testing had happened yet?

So it goes. Today I’m staying in the garage, leaving for nothing short of an earthquake until I feel I’m am pulling up the glued edge at the corner of this story, have the task loosened up and can get a hold of it to rip.

I won’t dwell on this, but I do want it on the record. The post-partum of Landmarked has settled in. While I’m pleased I managed to write another story last week all the way to the end, I am disappointed that I didn’t use my time better and that what I ended up sending to the Writers Digest Pop Fiction contest won’t be really considered. Strong opening, but it’s very hard for me to write anything under 4000 words…even when I plan to write 4000 words. I made it: 3987, but the ending is so abrupt and so without finesse that it would be an embarrassment if I thought it was complete and done. My apologies to the judges at the WD.

However, if I remind myself of my original intent, I feel better. The intent was to write the story to the end and see what happens. And I did do that. I now know the ending. I know who the conflict comes from in the end. It just needs fleshing out and being this far now is a GOOD thing. Getting to an end, any end is really an accomplishment for me, because I am always putting it off. I love to spend time with the first part, the set-up, the build, but never seem to get to the end. A friend often tells me it’s the process I love, not the product.

Am I afraid of endings? I guess so. I mean, I force myself to write stories the first time through to the end, always doing exactly what I did with this short story. But then I put off finishing. I suppose it is the fear of not pulling it off that does it. And yet, why shouldn’t I pull it off? Most writers ultimately do, don’t they? Why do I think I can’t? I don’t have the answer to that question. After over twenty years of being serious, and five years of being dead serious, one would think…

So I go through my day plagued by this draining feeling. Let down. Slowed down. Dreading. The solution? There are only two: writing and napping. Three if you count eating till it hurts. But since it’s only 7:00 AM, napping seems just a bit ridiculous. So I’m heading out to work. To listen to my “Believe” tape (heavy on American Idol songs and Bob Marley) and get the lead out. Wish me luck.

Returning from the nether regions, my daughter comes home today. As a matter of fact, I’m just waiting for my hair to dry in the velcro rollers so I can take off. I’m very excited. Which is somewhat surprizing to me since she’s twenty-three and has lived away, first Davis, then up on the mountain, for the last five years. But there’s something about being half a world away that makes it harder. If she gets in trouble in Cali, I can jump in the car and rescue her. Not so easy when she’s so far away. But she seems to have survived jumping out of an airplane with what she calls “a hottie,” scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, and fulfilling the “Thrillogy,” which means she’s bungie-jumped THREE times, once from the highest bungie-jumping place in the world!!!! Arghhhhhh!

So I’m in a great mood having survived knowing all this has been happening. Additionally, I managed to complete another short story and shipped it off to the Writers’ Digest Pop Fiction contest at exactly 11:52 New York time to meet the 12:00 midnight deadline. The last three hundred words are breathless. It ends abruptly and I’ll probably have to fix that to submit elsewhere later, but I did it and I’m relieved. I think I’ve been worried that I couldn’t really do it again…at least so quickly in less than a month of mulling, and less than a week actually writing. I guess I’ve been thinking that “Leaving Slackerland” just might be all I have in me to complete, but this proves I can do it. Not that I’m saying it’s good. It takes a lot for me to say those words, but it has a story, I love the main character, so flawed but so dear, and I think it’s got the bones to work. Whether it works now, I can’t judge because it’s too soon after the “birth.”

Well, I’ve got an airplane to meet so that’s all for today. Oh, and I do love the title of the new baby: “As-Is.”

I started my first novel in the fifth grade puple ink on lined notebook paper about the Twellingtons. There were 11 of them, including two sets of twins. The story was told from the viewpoint of the 11 year old twins, Abby and Amy. Eventually, maybe by summer, I gave them a brother Bruce and made them triplets. Who know why except I had a crush on a boy named Bruce. I wrote many many pages of that story mostly about ice skating. Abby was a speed skater and Amy did figure eights. Of course they hit thin ice, one almost dies, but that may have been as far as I got because I don’t remember much else.

The novel wasn’t a fluke. I have spent a life time writing. I have written with many different attitudes–I suck, I’m terrific, who do I think I am, slow and steady wins the race, I need to be committed, I can do this, Just Do it, Keep it imple stupid, give up, don’t give, quit, stick it out–and turned out lots of lousy and sometimes evocative stuff, but never anything that anyone would look up at me and say, “Wow-w-wow!” So I kept working: six screenplays, two complete novels, 40 short stories in various stages of completeness and many many more unfinished pieces.

The reason I bring this up is that yesterday I celebrated my success twice. First at Vroman’s reading a flash fiction piece and second at a party given by two dear friends.

The Vromans reading was a result of taking Kerry Madden’s class. I don’t need to explain much about that having dealt with in on more than one occasion in this space, but the party that followed for me at a friend’s house to celebrate the publication of “Leaving Slackerland” in Landmarked for Murder was amazing. It was a simple Wine-and-Cheese and just a few friends, but it was so much fun because everyone was so happy for me. I’ve been writing for soooo long and they’ve all gone through the computer crises, the identity crises, the rejection crises, well, just about all those crises for almost twenty years and a few who knew me way way back, before that. So I want to thank Betsy and Gale for creating a time and place to celebrate and for supporting me all these years and to all my friends who are terrific people because, well, I picked them!

So although this is a milestone in my journey that started when I was 11, it hopefully won’t be the last. I’m working hard to get What Came Before (do I dare keep my title now that the famous Elizabeth George has abscounded with it?) finished before Landmarked goes out of print.

She IS charming. Trish and I drove down to the Torrance Borders to have coffee with her. It was fun to hear about her new book which is going to be an historical detective venture set in Boston in 1830. I don’t know how much she wants in the ether, so I won’t say any more but it sounds like a provocative story. Her lecture about her current release, The Mephisto Club, explored how she got the idea for the novel from an apocryphal text of the bible. The research she does seems exhaustive, but has led to some very provocative insights. I’m on chapter 7 and anxious to have time to read today.

Thanks, Tess, for taking the time for coffee and for the words of encouragement. May your new permanent address be The New York Times bestseller list.

I can’t believe how lucky I am, but then, I don’t think it’s really luck.

It’s one of those universal truths that most of us don’t understand until we’re spending a lot of time in the Preference by L’Oreal section of Target: It’s the little things one does everyday that often have a pay off way beyond our expectations. The key is to strive toward one’s goal with focus and determination and no matter how bleak the path may seem, keep moving, keep striving, and suddenly something will happen that one doesn’t expect. If I stick to the path metaphor: one will round the corner, the trees will part, and a golden meadow will appear. Yish. That was corny, but this is a blog. Remember what happened to Dorothy, her meadow was full of poppies.

Anway, to the point. Years ago, I asked a friend who had polio as a child to tell me what it was like. I had an idea for a story and wanted my character to have had polio and I wanted to get it right. She wrote me eight or nine pages of beautiful emotional prose. I was quite honestly blown away. I told her, “You should write this. You’ve got something to say.” So she joined our writing group.

She’s been a writing buddy ever since. Sensible, to the point, encouraging. We’ve gone to Iowa to write and learn about writing, to drink and kibbitz with other writers. From this, we’ve formed a group of writing friends from Chicago, Galesburg, Illinois, Milwaukee (Lakeport? I can’t remember. Someplace in Wisconsin), St. Louis, Boston. Then she decided to defect one year for Maui.

Maui v. Iowa. I sure didn’t get it, but it turned out terrific for her. She met Tess Gerritsen who happens to be a fabulously supportive teacher. My writing buddy came back with notes and praise for everything she learned and she kept in touch with Tess. She emails when Tess wins awards or writes a striking blog and Tess always writes back. (For more on TESS)

And my friend is generous. She’s taking me with her to have coffee with Tess. I am very excited about this. I have no expectations other than meeting her. I am not going to thrust a manuscript on her. But it’s magic to meet someone who has traveled the same path. (Trying hard not to mix metaphors here). She might happen to mention a ditch I won’t see. Or a shortcut I would never know about. One never knows what each little thing we do will lead us to. If I hadn’t encouraged my friend to write, I would have missed out on a years-long best-friend relationship that has helped me to be both a better writer and a better person. I would have missed out on Tess, too.

We have to be open and friendly and welcome those along the past. Most of all we should be humble. And not just humble at the feet of someone who is famous and respected like Tess Gerritsen, but humble with every person, in every experience.

Sadly the class I’m taking with Kerry Madden is over. All that is left is the reading at Vroman’s on Sunday at 3:00. The opportunity to read to an audience is rare for unpublished writers and it’s essential for writers to read to see whether or not what a person is writing actually works. So after six weeks of learning from Kerry,, playing, typing away, getting to know the writers in the class, we get the added bonus of reading at a real book store in front of a real audience. I haven’t decided yet what I’ll read, but more about that later. First I want to talk a little about what this class have given me.

Having Monday evening deadlines has been a god-send during a time when there are so many distractions. It’s fall already. That means HOLIDAY season. (Is XMAS a four-letter word to any one else out there?) There are the three holidays that prepare us for the big holiday: Labor day being the gunshot heard around the water cooler, Halloween being fun and fattening, reminding us that if we keep this up, by January we’ll have gained another thirty pounds, Thanksgiving being the holiday where we realize we must now ask for a whole new wardrobe for Christmas because we’ve GAINED that thirty pounds, and then the DAY. More food, more family, more work…well, I can’t stand to even type about it. The point is this is MAJOR DISTRACTION. Kerry’s class has allowed me to remain in blessed denial about that four-letter word (no disrespect intended against the original meaning of Christmas. I’m bitching about the trappings!)

Second distraction: the remodel. Yes, it is a small remodel. Yes, we do need to stop the Hoover dam above our breakfast room from leaking, but the timing!!! I quit my job so I could write and wouldn’t you know that after two years of searching for a contractor, he pops up NOW. I am grateful and Juan is so conscientious and reliable I want to clone him and turn him into doctor, lawyer, insurance salesman, etc. but I still have to listen to a daily cacophony of hammers and compressers. At least I think that’s some kind of compresser on my back porch. Soooo Kerry. Monday deadline. No time to really worry about the two x fours blocking my back door. I have to get another chapter polished for my class.

But now it’s over. And I have to rely on my own self-discipline to get my writing done. This could be trouble, but I don’t think so. I have such a buzz from all the good writing I’ve seen in this class, the kindness and astute insights from Kerry, and the fun of getting back into my book that I should be okay. That’s why I’m posting this so I can read and reread it to remind myself that I can do this thing.

And the whole experience ends with me having the opportunity to read for an audience! I have to admit, I love doing it. I love to read anything aloud, especially from great authors, but it’s okay too when I read from me. It’s a confidence thing because when you work on something, fret over it, rewrite every word, question every emotion, polish it until you’re ready to barf, then put it out there, you are giving something back to the world. (Yes, you may be giving something bad to the world, but they can at least see you are striving toward good), you are opening yourself up to others and saying, “Look, I trust you. I hope you can feel some emotion that with give you a start, a tweak of hope, a little reaction that all’s right with the world.” If I can get that sense, then I’ll keep doing it. And I want to keep doing it, so I’ll work hard to create that emotion in others. One of those vicious cycles I guess. But the good kind. I need a name for that. Visceral cycle? Nah. Something will come to me.

So, Sunday at 3:00, I think I’ll read “One Question.”

Of course I put myself there on the pool table when the felt was brand new. Now it’s full of rips and bald spots. And I like hunkering down behind the eight ball, putting myself in situations that take time I really don’t have and if I did, I couldn’t manage.

After I COMMITTED myself to being more responsible, timely, Johnnie-on-the-spot, to “Words in Place” way back when. Maybe I should call this “Words NOT on Paper” or “Words Missing in Action?”

And that’s not all.

Writing Life: I finally have something in print after years of slumping over a typewriter, and I still don’t have my novel finished to take advantage of the hype!

Real Life: I haven’t called to get the dead oak removed. Get the chimney repaired. I haven’t cleaned up my email address book. Picked up the dry cleaning or the dog poops on the driveway or returned my lemon of a vacuum cleaner to Pasadena Vacuum!

And most of the month of October is gone.

But it’s hard to blog when I have a novel to revise and a short story to promote. Yep that’s what I said. PROMOTE which means it is published and amazingly enough available at Amazon.com. I’m playing with the big boys now. Here’s the link Landmarked at Amazon.

Of course the only review out there I’ve seen doesn’t mention MY story or even MY landmark, but maybe that’s a good thing. I won’t take it personal. It was some Valley newspaper and I don’t think it was MY valley. No press is good press? Any one of you (that’s what I said, Jane, any ONE) who reads this and is willing to submit an Amazon review, please bring me up?

Enough clichés. You see, my mind is slightly blown so bear with me. What this post is about is how I feel about this whole “getting something published” thing. Because I’ve been writing seriously since 1987. Strange how my first publication is 20 years after my high school reunion where people came up to me and said, “Are you still writing?” “Have you published?” I had to say “yes, I’ve dipped my pen” a few times over the previous years. But nothing came of it but two beautiful children, a terrific husband, and a nice little Victorian house. I hadn’t published anything more than a couple of letters-to-the-editor in the LA Times about traffic. (I’m still writing about traffic. After all, they say “write what you know”). So back in ’87, I made a vow to get to work. I felt I had the raw skills and all I had to do was sit down at a desk and DO IT and all would be well.

Fast forward twenty years…almost. Is that possible? (Am I actually going to have a FORTY YEAR REUNION next year?) Has it taken me almost two decades to actually see my name on a published story?

Yes, I suppose it has. I guess what I saw happen was that a little talent doesn’t really get you all that far, if indeed you have that talent you think you have. The real key, the real test, is fortitude, conscientiousness, stubbornness, occasional rudeness, focus, vulnerability, and determination. All that to get one twenty page short story about a twenty-something slacker/pot smoker set in type. (I know. They don’t set type any more. Give me a break. I’m old.)

But I’m nothing if I’m not stubborn. I figure I’ve got a good twenty years left before my mind can’t get past my aching feet and I can still move my fingers to type, so I am committed both to this space and of course, to the forty or so novels and short stories that are floating around my head. If I believe in myself, and I accept the fact that I have to take each step one at a time, I’ll get somewhere. Life is like writing a novel. You may know what you want and you may strive for it, but that isn’t always what eventually comes to you. What comes, though, if you have worked hard, is enough. I am proud of that little twenty page short story. And it’s given me exactly what I need: confidence to write more.