And So It Goes... [the parenthetical version]

[lagilman]

We all want to be brilliant right off the bat. The truth is, very few of us are. Madame Agent got back to me last night with the bit of TPEMB with some pointy comments [not bad ones, just pointy and not-brilliant-yet]. I snarled, poked back. Went away and sulked. Poked at it some with the comment-stick. Decided to come at it from another angle. Wrote 2,000 words of a new scene in an hour. Went to bed, woke up and thought the words were still okay. Not brilliant yet, but maybe getting there.

Absent an AWOL muse [I suspect eggnog abuse], a stick-pokey agent is a wonderful thing to have.

Fortunately, I am writing TPEMB for my own satisfaction right now, so I can take the time to get it right. Come February, when I start Bonnie #1 [currently churning in the back with the lizard brain], my writing-life will be a bit more frantic.

I can write two or more things at once. In fact, I prefer to multi-task, because that's how my brain is set up. It needs the constant feedback to keep going, and gets very bored when all the input is of the same type [learning this was very important to my survival, yes]. I just wish I could jigger the schedule so that they're at staggered production schedules. This year, writing two contemporaries [even if one was fantasy and one was paranormal romance and they ARE different critters] at the same time pretty much made my brain into flat gray paste.

And, having said that, I'm probably going to get wonked with some hot short story idea now, and have it competing for space with TPEMB, and make myself nuts [more nuts. Nutsier] over my 'vacation.' Wheee.

And in the meanwhile, Boomer is fascinated with the lump under the covers that happens to be Pandora. The fact that the lump growls every time he pats at it disuades him not at all. I think I may have to chase a cat around the apartment, soon...

Comments

[ex-fashioni.livejournal.com]

Yes—oh, a thousand times yes, about wanting to be brilliant off the bat. And that a stick-pokey agent is a lovely, wondrous thing.

The one difference is that we're hard-wired completely opposite with respect to the brain set-up. I can have something churning away in the lizard-brain—multiple somethings, as a matter of fact—but I can only actively work on one project or else my brain goes all mushy and stoopit. I learned that this fall when I had two synopses eating my brain and I wanted to work on both of them and Just. Couldn't. My brain flailed and thrashed and said, "Oh God, please, not to do this to meeeeeeeee!"

Luckily, that's when the revisions for the new novel came in, so I was able to shove both projects back to the lizard brain and now, I actually know which one I'm going to work on in the New Year, after the revisions are done.

Kidz, don't do this at home...

[lagilman]

My brain flailed and thrashed and said, "Oh God, please, not to do this to meeeeeeeee!"

When I was editing full-time, I was able to edit two books at once (we had to, in order to make deadlines) so long as they were both of different genres. Plus, I was always reading incoming manuscripts, and sorting submissions, and talking about half a dozen other books... if you couldn't compartmentalize projects, you didn't make deadlines.

This is probably neither normal nor healthy, but it is how my brain got trained. It's not so much "oooh, shiny!" as "ooo, variety!" Maybe never Master of One, but pretty damn good at a couple of things. I'm okay with that -- which is a good thing, since I suspect it's the only brain I'm going to get issued...

Re: Kidz, don't do this at home...

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that be cool though. A new brain for special occasions. Like changing handbags in the spring.