lagilman | This post is about food. and work. and more food....

Peanut butter chips for breakfast seemed like a good idea when I woke up craving sugar.... but then I balanced it out with a homemade nonfat yogurt strawberry-banana smoothie. So that's okay, right?

Despite the meh yesterday overall, I still managed to get in about 1000 new words, and we're reaching a Turning Point. Yay. And there was Attempted Violence. And angst. Poor Bonnie. Life after college is just no fun at all. And then I did more words this morning, and then went off to do Away From Keyboard things, including having lunch with

kradical during which we bitched about how slow our respective work is coming, and then parted to go hammer out More Words. Isn't it so exciting?

There's the thing about writing being a job that you don't realize until you're actually in The Life: sometimes it's just as crap as any other brain-eating job. The plot isn't making sense, the characters aren't behaving, you hate everything you type and sometimes even when everything's flowing, you just don't feel it.

This is where storytelling differs from Fine Art. We can't wait for inspiration to strike. When it's your job -- be it your sole job or side job -- you don't have that option. There are deadlines, and production schedules, and a carefully arranged publication master plan that, when one author delivers late, or defaults, has to be reworked madly to keep the system intact [some day I may do a post about that, dredging up all my scheduling horror stories from The Old Days.... any interest?]

So anyway, even on the meh days, the ones where you just want to crawl back into bed, or play tetris all day, or photocopy your posterior.... the writing still calls. The job still has to get done. (Of course, there is still time to play tetris. Or take a nap. Or, y'know, photocopy your posterior if that's what warms your cockles. Just don't let the boss see you.) We're the same as any other clock-watching office-dweller, in that regard. It's sort of comforting to think about: from my point of view, anyway. Some of you may now be depressed at how unglamorous and drudging alleged 'freedom' can be....

This, by the way, isn't a rant or a whinge. I knew the job was a job when I took it, and I'd honestly be damned uncomfortable [and remarkably unproductive] as an Artiste. Just commenting on the mehness of this week, and how I'm getting through it, one word at a time.

And I just got to use "truthiness" in dialogue. Go me! Suddenly, it starts to click again. 1400 words and rolling....

If I can hit 2,000+ [and, really, even if I don't] there is chicken pizza in the kitchen, waiting for me to add roasted garlic and fresh rosemary to it for dinner, and a bottle of chianti that really does need to be consumed. The week is definitely ending on an up note with that, yeah. :-)

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If you can write a post about how the publishing process works, and the time it takes, and will allow me to use it, I would love that. My graduate students are librarians, teachers, and almost-librarians, and they have NO FUCKING CLUE how publishing works, and I don't really have time to teach them. So if I could point them to a post of yours, or if you would let me post it in class, that would be great.

ping me specifics of what you need, and I'll work something up for you under cc license, so you can use it in handouts without a headache.

This post is about food. and work. and more food....

and another thing

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