It's the end of May and in a couple days I'll send out the first 50 pages of my manuscript to the person coordinating an intensive writing workshop in Chicago in July. It's been a rough month. Three of the four weeks I've been sick with cold or flu. I'm so burned out from writing as well as frustration from lack of writing. It's also the end of the semester at the university where I teach. Exams are coming up, meaning hours of proctoring and exam marking coming up. Lovely.
Due to all the editing and cutting, I'm still hovering at 70K words. Once I get these so-called polished first fifty out, I'll begin concentrating on the rest. It's really getting scary how little time goes by before I look at a piece of writing that I once thought was good, and now think is horrid. Last year, it would take months for me to recognize a piece of my own crap.
I really need to start exercising again. My joints feel stiff when I stand up from my desk. Next week, after I send off those pages, I'll start the treadmill and yoga again. We're leaving for Mexico in less than 2 weeks to visit my mom and stepdad, so I need to be in shape for that. And then it's Pittsburgh for the rest of the summer.
I imagine my writing pace is going to slow down for a while. With that in mind, and knowing that I still need to write about 5-8 more good chapters, I won't be finished until the end of this year. I never would have guessed how much energy and effort writing requires!
In the next couple of days, I'll post my one-page synopsis here.
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