author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

No, that would not be the Dairy Queen ice cream treat. That would be the sort of all-day blizzard that dumps a foot of snow on Boulder and turns any day into a "why bother?" sort of day.

I was feeling fairly chipper, otherwise. More than chipper, in fact. Yesterday, I finally sat down with my much-marked-up copy of "First Breath" and completed work on a thorough revision. The result was 150 words longer, one character shorter, a bit more focused in, and hopefully less confusing at the end. The other result was me tripping along in a euphoric haze of "See? See? I'm a writer! I did writerly things, like writing!"

That evening I relaxed with a long-overdue reread of Margaret Mahy's The Tricksters. Its teenage protagonist is a secret writer, and the story she's writing becomes the vessel for a ghost to embody itself. And... huh. I only realized the overlap between that and "First Breath" just now. Ghost-like creatures needing an external vessel to embody themselves in, I mean. Neat. But last night, what kept catching my attention was the way Mahy's treatment of the magic inherent in the creative act of writing made me even more happy with having seriously written that morning.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that when you write a first draft, you're not stuck with it. You can go back and change it, make it better, make the story grow closer to being the reason you wrote it in the first place. I know this; you know this. Anyone who thinks half a moment knows this. But for me sometimes it takes actually engaging in a serious rewrite to know it, know in the bones and blood and gut and in the happy place. It's the difference between knowing you're capable of something, and then actually doing that something and reveling viscerally in your own capability. (This would be why writing is like rock climbing.)

So: Rawr! I rock! But there's nothing like a morning-after full of so much snow and wind that we can't even take out the trash to remind me not to get carried away in my euphoria. "Yes, very good. You rocked yesterday. But it's today now. Write the next thing."

*sigh*

It's amazing how "Just another half hour" turns into a day with absolutely no nutritional value.

Seriously. I know exactly where today went wrong. I can put my finger right on it. It was the bit where John left for work and I said, "I've set my alarm for 9. I'll get up then." And I went back to sleep. Somehow the alarm at 9 turned into another at 9:45 and another at 10:30, and lunch spent with a book* turned into going back to bed with the book and pretty much being worthless until I was done rereading the book and it was time to feed the cats.

I'm not sure if it's a symptom of pathological apathy or of a latent tendency toward the nocturnal. Probably somewhere in between. I know that if I sleep late I'm likely never to get anything of use done, and that I have my most productive days when I get up early and get right to work.

With enough willpower I can repair a late-start day, but it's not pleasant. Since I treated yesterday like the weekend day that it was, enjoying a Rock Band lunch with John and a Dominion dinner date with friends and an afternoon in between full of naps-with-book, I felt obliged to repair today. And it wasn't pleasant, because it involved turning down a friend's invite to hang out and chat and possibly play video games. But I did get today's quota of articles written, and while I didn't quite work on the novel, I thought about the novel.

Tomorrow will be better.

*Book: Sunshine, Robin McKinley. Predates Twilight and presents a more grown-up view than Meyer's book does of Life With Vampire. Doesn't jettison main character's mundane life as unimportant, for instance. Does spend a little too much time in the main character's head, though, to the point of interrupting dialogue every two sentences with a page or two of internal monologue; but still, Rae Seddon is no Bella Swan.

I've been working my way through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way lately. Today is Week Four, Day Two.

Why am I doing this? Mainly because it's been a long time since I could truthfully say, "I write every day." And that bothers me. At the very least, an honest effort to pursue Cameron's 12-week course will mean doing daily "morning pages" for at least 84 days straight. Morning pages may not be art, they may not be salable, they may not even be writing (Cameron says not; she says writers have the hardest time with her course because they do try to turn their morning pages into "writing"). But they are productive exercise. They're me thinking on the page, which is worthwhile; for having such a nonstop hamster-wheel of a mind, I have a tendency to avoid my own thoughts.

I'm trying to make a good faith effort on the weekly exercises, too. Stuff like "Describe your childhood room. Now describe your current room. Can you add anything to it from your childhood room?" and "Time travel: Imagine yourself at 80. What have you done since you were 50?" I often avoid these because they feel too twee, or because I'm sure I did them last time I went through the book (in, what, 2002?) and nothing's changed since (O RLY?). Or, worse, because I'm certain there's nothing there. I had a good childhood. My parents raised me to pursue my creative bliss. When I showed signs of wanting to be a painter, Mom bought me acrylics and canvas; when I started saying I was going to be a writer, Mom brought home a Fisher-Price typewriter. My teachers were all supportive and taught me how to submit fiction to paying markets. I've got a loving and well-paid husband who is happy to support my writing habit and likes me to read him my stories. Surely I have no "childhood enemies" stifling my craft, no super-ego foe planted by adult disapproval, no current environment devaluing my efforts. Surely?

Except that I haven't written or submitted much since coming home from Viable Paradise back in October 2006. Clearly something's going on. And Cameron's course feels like a method of self-discovery I can have faith in. So I go through it in the spirit of play and, occasionally, surprise myself with an insight. "That voice in my head that wants perfection all the time, that needs to have its expectations met. Why's it there at all?" "Why do I so often say to myself in my morning pages, 'Yesterday I was a good girl; I did X, Y, and Z like I ought.'? Do I feel guilty about something? About having fun, maybe?"

And of course there's positive affirmations. One thing the student is supposed to do is listen for the Censor's "blurts" in the morning pages and come up with "positive affirmations" that counter the blurts. So if the Censor says, "Why do you even bother starting? You know you've got no ideas worth pursuing," I can grab that blurt and devise an affirmation: "I am a prolific writer. I write new stories every day. There is no end to the flow of story ideas." Then I can write it down five times in a row. Does it help? Maybe. It's too soon to tell. But it doesn't hurt, and it gets me closer to the end of my three daily longhand pages. So why not?

Do note that if you're the sort to scoff at exercises and "tricks to get you to write" that, y'know, real writers don't need, don't bother telling me about it. I don't particularly care.

In any case, I'm seeing real, tangible results in my "productive" (read: salable) writing. I'm rewriting and submitting again. Tomorrow evening, "The Impact Of Snowflakes" gets critiqued by my semimonthly writing group in Denver. And a few days ago I took the time to read through every version I have of "The Day The Sidewalks Melted" and began making mental notes toward a revision. I hope to submit both to commercial markets Very Soon. Also, I've been uploading to Constant-Content articles in my "Awaken to Dreams" series--and someone came along and bought the right to publish five of them on their website today. Which is another $50 in my pocket. Which is nice!

Only here's the snag. Week 4 in The Artist's Way is the infamous Reading Deprivation week. No reading. At all. No drowning out your creativity with the soporific effect of other people's words.

Sounds... easy enough. Well, it sounds painful. Reading at night is how I get to sleep. Reading blogs is how I stay in touch with communities I cherish; it's also my primary means of getting news of the world. But it sounds doable, right?

Except... I'm planning a series of pro-vaccination articles to make available for sale at Constant-Content. But if I can't read, I can't research.

Except... I was going to rewrite "Sidewalks," but I can't if I can't have the text-to-date open in front of me.

Except... there's also email! Instant messenger! Physical mail, including utility bills! Volunteer reading for AINC! And so forth! And so on!

So, I compromise. Today I wrote a rough draft of the pro-flu-shot article ("Ten Excuses People Give For Avoiding The Influenza Vaccine"), and it's full of red "[look this up later]" notes. I'll keep writing rough drafts all week, and next week I'll do the research and finish them. And the fiction rewrites can wait; I'll write new fiction this week and do the rewrites next week. And as for the reading that's necessary for daily communication... well, I'm not going to neglect my friends and loved ones by not reading their communications. And I'm not going to stint on the work I've committed to. But I'm learning that there's a lot more reading than I realized that can simply wait.

Truly this is the age of information. Written information. One can't get away from it entirely. But I guess one can take long walks, listen to music, knit more, and meditate.

And play more Puzzle Pirates! Right? Right?

(Seriously. Playing more YPP shortly. I've been a very good girl today. I deserve some fun time.)

It may not look like it from the word count, but I'm in the home stretch. I know where every one of those 4000-ish words left to write goes; it's mainly going to be a matter of writing down the facts already in my head and the citations for where I learned them.

In having finished this project late, I've gotten three days behind on the NaNoWriMo novel. But that's not my biggest regret. My biggest regret is having left myself no time to volunteer in this, an incredibly historic election year for the U.S.A. I didn't campaign for Obama, I didn't make GOTV calls, and I wasn't even able to work as an election judge between this and other obligations that kept me from attending the training sessions. I feel like a total bum.

I'm doing this much: I'm hosting an election results party for some friends. After everyone gets off work, they'll come over here to watch the news and tune their laptops to various liveblogging events. I'll be cooking stuff from our CSA-overloaded fridge - I'm thinking colchannon and stuffed acorn squash. And, if Nate Silver's election predictions are correct, I will finally have occasion to make Schadenfreude Pie.

(Why, yes, that was an unprompted suggestion in the Google search bar.)

All right, back to the grind. See you after the *thunk*. At which point I'm breaking out the Scotch. And yes, if you know me and you're within easy traveling distance of me, you're totally invited. But if you didn't vote, your role tonight will be piñata.

Stupid all-nighters. I hate all-nighters. Tell you what - it's about three hours until dawn. Dawn is when I get my second wind. If I go to sleep now and wake up three hours later, I'll have fast-forwarded to my second wind, and it'll be a heftier wind what with having gotten a couple of REM cycles of sleep. Clever me!

(Grumbles something about the whole Monday morning delivery thing getting less and less morning-like. Kicks self. Zonks.)

I am ashamed that yesterday, despite my 9K intentions, was a 3K day. The first 1K happened well-nigh immediately, and then the next 2K happened from about 8:00 and 10:00 PM.

In my defense, here's some of the things that happened in between:

• Got some necessary paperwork signed
• Load o' laundry washed and hung to dry
• Handed off some NaNoWriMo stickers to the Colorado::Boulder region's unofficial Longmont-area co-ML
• Broke the bolt securing my bike seat
• Got said bolt replaced
• Cooked dinner
• Washed dishes
• Researched industry data points relevant to my current project
• Brought in load o' laundry

The thing that took the most time? The research. Duh.

Obviously I can't talk about this stuff in detail. But let me at least make some notes about the process.

Research in the Imperative. In other words, "Do this, do that, et voila, you're done." A how-to document. These are easy. All I have to do is learn how to do a thing, then describe how to do the thing. I can write a how-to without much trouble. The portions of these freelance projects that are how-to are fairly easy and quick (although this is clearly a relative term when we're talking documents exceeding 15K words). I've also been doing a bunch of how-to at the office as I prepare my co-workers for doing the tasks I did for the past 4 years that I've worked here. They're tedious, they involve constantly cropping screenshots in MS Word, but they don't require hours of research before writing.

And then there's research in the indicative. Research where I have to define terms or process industry statistics, and convert this into informative prose that hangs together and moves towards some sort of point. Defining terms isn't so bad, but statistics? Hoo boy. Not only is it tricky to get the Internet to cough up these data points without my spending money I don't have on professional reports, but then... well, it's just data. Percentages and stuff. It needs to be synthesized into some sort of story before I can begin writing. And, with the very rare exception pertaining to election years, I have this innate response to numeric data which approximates boredom.

So I end up spending hours searching, reading, searching more, reading more, and occasionally making a false start on the writing. Then erasing the writing. Then reading more. And while reading, feeling this helpless and desperate sort of "how the heck am I going to use this data? Can I use this? I can't use this. Ooh! I can use this paragraph--only, how? Crud I have no time to be reading this! Crud I'm sick of reading this! Cruuuuddddd!"

I think I must be doing this wrong.

Certainly it doesn't help to be ALT-Tabbing between the web page and my project every two sentences, viewing every sentence I read through the filter of "Can I use this?" The key, apparently, is to simply allot myself a few unpressured hours during which I have permission to be fascinated with what I'm reading, and the narrative will just sort of create itself in my head during this time. I am sure that given a good two weeks or more 'til deadline, I can relax enough to convince myself that I love statistical data. Yum, Bureau of Labor Statistics! Excellent, the U.S. Census! Feed me trade publications because I am hungry!

Obviously a conclusion I should have come to about two weeks ago. Oh well. However, there is this: the hardest 3K of the project is done. Also, I seem to have underestimated how much time I'd have to work on things today. Which is good, because I've done 15K in a day, but I don't like it much.

I hate that I didn't begin putting this story down on paper (electronically) until so late. I hate that I couldn't seem to get started on it for so long. The time spent composting seems to have helped, because the story has gone in an entirely different direction than I originally thought and this is certainly a change for the better. See? Better title already! But the late start means a late finish, because unlike some stories I've written, this one feels ... quantum?

No. The other word.

Fractal.

Every scene is not one scene closer to the end, because it reveals something else that has to happen before I reach the end. Look closer at one detail and many more details are revealed. It's turtles all the damn way down. Or sheep, really. It's sheep all the way down.

It feels like I'm building a goddamned house. Isn't it time to put the roof on yet? No! No it is not! And what's more, you forgot the insulation in this wall and the plumbing over here so you're going to have to tear down the drywall again. Dammit!

The result will be a better story. I have faith in this. But meanwhile the process of writing it seems endless. And I'm tired.

Hey, you! You little wide-eyed naive so-n-so who was all like "But writing's never really work, is it? Not if you really love it?" Remember? And I was all like, "Uh, yes, yes it is, actually," and she was all like, "I'm sorry you feel that way, maybe writing isn't really your calling"? Prepare for mental psychic slap-across-the-face number 417! You are my anti-muse and I hope your ears are burning!

I bet you pasted a little "lol" at the end of your post, too. Dingbat.

You know what that means. Only, minus the "much-extended" part and plus 10,000 words. I was a good girl this month.

If anyone needs me, I'll be on the Viridian Ocean terrorizing the natives. (Yarrr.)

Tomorrow, John and I are going to go to the gym and try to test positive for lead belay. (Tuesday morning we were deferred--the proctor wanted to see us improve at cutting each other slack. Er, giving each other slack. Y'know.) After that, I intend, as promised, to do some rewriting stuffs. Only I've got chores too. Grr. WHY DO THINGS NEVER STOP???

OK, not 6:00 AM, maybe closer to noon, because I am officially declaring my intent to have a couple hours' nap-time. Thththbbbp.

That's me: still last minute-ish. Only, the last minute is an overnight and no longer a month long. This is an improvement.

Because I'm tired. And I'm still not done. With the stuff I've been doing all freakin' day.

(Look! I made a nothing! Whoo! ...that trick'll only work once.)