TRAVERSING Z

Process

goodbye, 2018

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we got in last night after a difficult flight (baby of maybe 12-14 months, screeching and cawing and crying for four hours with hardly any breaks … dear baby, I nearly joined in …) and this one crawled into my lap the moment I sat down, licked my nose, and held me tight. meanwhile our older sir just purred and purred for hours, purred while eating, purred while in the litter pan, purred while his people got into bed, and then settled, purring, in a spot where he could watch over us. that soft buzz still audible at 1 am, his eyes gleaming in darkness. it’s good to be home. here’s to more licks and love in 2019.

See you on the other side

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This week has been a week of winding down. The Painter’s Widow is drafted, though I am dissatisfied with it as I am dissatisfied with all very rough drafts. Next year’s writing plans are being adjusted as work and life commitments start coming in. The news is keeping me up at night. But enough, enough. It’s time to go. See you all in 2019.

end of the year, 2018

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I’m starting the painful process of migrating to a different email messaging service to reduce costs. This is an excellent problem to have, but I’m archiving old newsletters and tagging my list before I move it over and it’s also just work, the kind of work no one tells you about when you start this author journey.

But in going back through the 2016 newsletters (so long ago! such a different time!) I found this snapshot of my WIP list, and it made me reflect on all that’s happened between then and now … This was summer of 2016, so Harkworth Hall wasn’t even on my radar, as the election that provoked it was a vastly different race then. But what was encouraging about the list was how much of it did get written:

Talassio became Prima Materia, and while there’s still work to be done there I did indeed revise the Milan section and fine-tune the alchemy. Well Pt 1 has an outline now, and copious notes, but the voice is so particular to it I don’t see it happening until after the last Chase & Daniels novella gets written … so in the meantime I’ve taken a fancy journal I was gifted and I’m dumping everything Well-related in there, to keep it all in one place.

I don’t remember what IC project is. That’s gonna bug me now.

Al Niente got fixed, but then it got trunked. There’s a way to read that story which is the way I meant it, and there’s a way to read it which is harmful, and so it waits until I can tell it better.

Lissy Western became “To Us May Grace Be Given.” Spiders became “Gert of the Hundred” which is on submission now. Dummy was shelved because it was too similar to Westworld, but I keep returning to it in odd moments, so maybe it will happen after all. Writing as Painting was finished and published. X became “Xavier.” Magic/dementia became “The Sunrise Manor Routine.”

Writing takes so long you forget how much you’ve actually done, how many pages you’ve actually written and revised and revised and had critiqued and revised again and read aloud and polished and subbed over and over and over, until, at last, it’s out in the world.

Here, then, is my WIP list as of today (in equally dreadful handwriting, lol). Looking forward to revisiting it in December 2019.