Word by Word

Part 1
We have another writer in our midst. Sophia recently won first place for the county for her grade in the Georgia Young Authors contest. Tonight we attended the school board meeting where she received her certificate. She's entered in the district contest and we're anxiously awaiting news about that. When it's all done, perhaps she'll let me post her story here. She wrote it all on her own, allowing me only to proof it for spelling and punctuation. I am so incredibly proud of her.

Part 2
I used my new writing schedule today, but I can see modification is needed. Waking up on time would be a good start, but perhaps I ought not go crazy.

I did do my morning pages, even if it was in a helter skelter fashion. I wrote about one third of a page then switched to capturing a dream I had. (Nan, you were in the dream). I could not escape my usual morning duties. I retrieved the brown bag lunch items from their super secret hiding place, managed the feline input and output, tossed in a load of laundry and made coffee. I went back to writing morning pages as soon as everyone left. Once complete, I worked out, drank a protein shake (blech!) and had a shower. Finally, nearing 9:30 a.m., I sat down to actually work on my manuscript. Right now, that consists of reading it aloud to myself and editing it.

It's closer, but it ain't no cee-gar. As much as I hate to do it, I'm moving my workout to later in the day. That helps me to write when my mind is less cluttered. A stringent limit on my online activities will be a major factor in getting work done. I'm moving my online allowance back to 1 p.m. or even 2 p.m. The time not spent checking Facebook, refreshing my twitter page (are you happy now, Utah?) and opening window after window of authors and agents blogs is the best gift I can give myself. Of course, things will get tricky when I start to research agents, which is done mostly online. I'll fret about that later. For now, I'm busy being sick of this story and the sound of my own voice.

Part 3
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Craig posted videos of Lev Yilmaz's work on his Facebook page. To illustrate their quality, I can tell you that they inspired Sophia who has been off and on cartooning. Nathan laughed out loud at them (a rare thing for a 14 year old boy when his mother is in the room). They cracked me up, too and there wasn't any potty humor involved. That is a mark of true genius.

In a lovely bit of life symmetry or as an example of how our world continues to shrink, Nathan Bransford, a literary agent whose blog I read, posted a Lev video over the weekend. After having to own up to my own procrastination, I found it both amusing and, well, honest......

Now I have to go drink a couple of shots of tequila to get inspired.