Whassup?

I’m trying to catch up with myself, and reassure myself that although I’ve been running about like a blue-ar**d fly I have managed to accomplish something, though it feels woefully like I haven’t.

We survived last week. That is a major achievement, given the level of stress, illness and activity we had to get through. We have done, between us, one gymnastics class, one music class, one toddlers christmas party, 2 kindergarten christmas productions, 3 primary christmas productions, 4 colds and 5 ballet exam coaching sessions. Minni Bellaboo has overcome 3 new teeth a cold and an MMR injection. Rumpus just is. Honey did her ballet exam today. It was lovely to have some her-and-me time on the way there and getting her ready. The school do such a fantastic job on them, getting them ready. Her hair looked absolutely stunning and I almost didn’t recognise her, she looked so ethereal – she wa impressed too, because she refused to take it all down when she got home . . . . of course, now she thinks I can reproduce it. oh dear. But she absolutely bounced out of the exam, so we’ll keep fingers crossed for a good mark. Another milestone passed. Rumpus announced that he wants to do ballet. I think it’s a fantastic idea . . . maybe he’ll be the next Adam Cooper (oh, be still my beating heart), though his daddy is not very happy about it, no matter how much I tell him what an incredibly demanding physical challenge ballet is for male dancers . . . we shall see. I guess he’ll do a couple of lessons, hate the discipline, and drop it. Still, he does Karate, so maybe, just maybe . . . .

On the textile front, I’ve shifted a huge amount in the last month or so . . . I’ve done an extra-large multi-pocket shopping bag with embroidered flower, a velvet lavender pillow with beading and embroidery for a 90th birthday, a number of small lavender pillows for the mill, a blue silk evening bag and one patchwork playmat for a baby. phew! Now I’ve just got one more project to do before Christmas and then I’m done and can please myself. I’m itching to do some experimentation – I got a fantastic book on manipulating fabric (Colette Wolff : The Art of Manipulating Fabric) and I’m desperate to experiment with some of the techniques in there. I need to take some time off and please myself, get some new ideas going with it all . . .

On the writing front, I have finally finished the edits on ‘Anneth’. I’m pretty pleased with it, and think it’s pretty strong. It’ll be up in my crit group from January, so I’m a bit nervous/excited how it’ll go down there, particularly as there are a number of non-fantasy readers in the group. When I look back on it’s first incarnation, when I had only the vaguest notion of plot, I am stunned by how far I have come in terms of my writing. It’s encouraging, but I fear I have still a way to go with it. Which is why I’m setting myself a target of finishing the disconnection rewrite for April, and the ‘Serpent’ edit as well. I desperately need to get some more work up out of the first draft pile and into some sort of productive state, and I’m looking forward to that.

‘in skin’ got rejected by the edge online. I have given it the quick once over and sent it straight back out again to Interzone. Fingers xxxxxxd

‘afternoon of thorns’, the shortlisted piece from MsLexia got the same treatment and is ready to go . . . to the Chattahoochee Review. I need to get into town to the big post office, as it’s the only place I can get IRCs. Such a pain in the a**e that I can’t buy it online, and that the USPO are not selling US stamps abroad. I bet I could get them on ebay, if I could be bothered . . . .

I’m reworking ‘pony of the north wind’ for les bonnes fees. It’s the only place I can see that does fairy tales, so it looks like a one-shot deal, there or nothing! So, it’s got to be perfect, and they set the bar pretty high. Wha’s good is that I can see the major flaw in the story – it lacks conflict – so I need to have a good long thing about who my protagonist/antagonist is, what they need and how it twists, all within the constraints of the genre. What I’ve got is well written, but there’s no real story there, and that’s what I need to dig up. I’ve got some ideas, tho.

It concerns me slightly that I’m not writing anything new at the moment – lots of ideas, but nothing concrete. I don’t know, though. I’ve got a lot of back-catalogue that I need to go through and either turn into active inventory (to borrow a Jay Lake term) or retire, permanently. Not just short stories, novels as well. I’m in a real edit phase at the moment, all very left brain, and I don’t have that spark for writing. After Christmas, I must reignite it and get back to the regular discipline of writing because I know I’m capable of indefinite procrastinating on this and that’s no good.

I’m glad I’ve been through this. It makes me feel less hopeless . . . and makes me realise that I’ve done quite a lot, because this doesn’t take into account any of the regular ’stuff’ involved in running a house and large-ish young family AND that I’ve had a stupid cough/cold/sorethroat/thing going on for the last two weeks as well. Sometimes I wonder if I’m forcing my body to make promises it just can’t keep up with the late hours, lack of serious exercise (beyond the school walk and the odd weights session) and total lack of relaxation.

I went to Nirvana Spa and had a total day off. I didn’t think I would enjoy it, was dreading it, really, because I couldn’t envisage a worse hell than doing nothing all day, but it was heaven. From the moment I got there and had my first dip in the pool, through the float (which, incidentally, unblocked a major sticking point in the planning for the new novel, SERE) and the massage, it was just gorgeous to indulge and not have to worry about anything or anyone else. I’m now counting the pennies and working out when I can do it again. The massage, particularly, was a revelation – the delightful Kelly told me she’d never come across such tight shoulders before, and spent a fair amount of time chasing a big lump of knotted muscle around. She had to give up in the end, but told me I needed to get it sorted. Humph. Like I have time . . . .  BUT, a reminder that I do need to switch off every now and again, and a big “hello, my name is ellsea and I’m a workaholic” moment. Even people with regular jobs get time off. I need to give myself a break, take some time off, kick back and relax. Maybe in the new year . . . .

‘Tis the season . . .

. . . of fake, forced jolliness, overconsumption, and school plays. How I hate it.

BAH, HUMBUG and all that.

It could be I’m a tad stressed.

Honey has a ballet exam on Saturday. This means exam coaching classes every day after school this week, which is no fun for anyone this close to the end of term – we want to be kicking back and enjoying ourselves, snuggled in the warm watching DVDs or equally challenging activities, not flogging across to the other side of town at the fag-end of the day. Honey is loving it, but the two little ones are getting pretty hacked off. Tea at a cafe and a visit to Mercedes-Benz world have just about sweetened the pill, but what I am going to do tomorrow I have *no* idea.

The problem is compounded by the evening performances of honey’s school play – Mary Poppins, this year. I can only admire and applaud the dedication and hard work of the teachers who cast, costume and stage-manage 250-odd 7-11 year olds, finding a part for each and every one of them, and making sure they are all more-or-less moving in the same direction at the same time and can remember their lines. As a parent, of course it is fantastic to watch one’s child performing on stage and enjoying themselves. But as an adult, to have to sit through such horrors for TWO HOURS, with NO INTERVAL and NO BAR is a novel form of torture, when one’s child finishes her scenes in the first 15 minutes (and apparently watched ratatouille backstage for the duration).

So, here I am at 10pm, just had my dinner, with a splitting headache because my blood sugar and endurance have run too low, faced with the prospect that tomorrow, I get to do it all again.

TRA-LA-LA-LA-LAAAA-LA-LA-LA-LAAAAAAAA

The slough of despond

I don’t know where the last month has gone. I honestly don’t. All I know is that I’ve been so scheduled, pressured and snowed under by work of so many different kinds, that I’ve barely had a moment to think.

I started using the MS Office calendar to block in the big rocks of my life, so I knew where I needed to be and when. It works much, much better than my written diary, though obviously is not quite so portable. Keeping the two broadly synchronised is a nightmare . . . but all in all a worthwhile exercise. I particularly like the ‘recurrence’ function . . . it’s magic when it comes to putting in regular activities . . . . hmmmm . . . I’m wondering if I could synchronise it with the calendar on my mobile? (Yeah, right, like I have time to play around with that . . . )

It is, however, a two edged sword. When I make a list of all my current projects and activities, and break them out and schedule them in, I’ve got work for the next six months just to manage the current pile. That doesn’t take account of any new and shiny exciting things coming through the door or into my head, and I *know* I’ve got a new novel to write. How that will fit with things like the regular non-fiction slot and the write/submit a short every other week I’m not quite sure. What I have found is that I’m immediately stressed if I start missing on the schedule. I’ve kind of addressed that by building in some time off each week, but I’m still slipping – at least in part because I’m not keeping to the schedule . . .

I’ve just done a big re-read and final tweak of the Anneth story, in preparation for it going into crit group in January. I only meant to do the final few chapters, but ended up doing the whole lot. I am pleased with the end result, I think it is much improved (again) . . . . each cycle through that story has showed me how much I’ve progressed as a writer since it’s sad and sorry first draft, when coherent plotting was a mystery to me.

And now I’m deeply involved in planning for the next novel, which I don’t think I will even start until April, but I *so* needed some playtime as opposed to relentless slog.

The non-fiction is kind of OK – I seem to have found a niche at Seven, but I’m not entirely sure that writing more journalistic pieces is really where my heart lies. I think I will continue to do one on a monthly basis, and perhaps trying to get round more markets, but I don’t think I have either the interest or dedication to pursue it.

Fiction is where my love lies.

Sadly, not even the faintest whiff of success around that.

The story out every other week is more-or-less on track, and has been going now since September. So, of course, I’m starting to get forlorn, broken-winged hopeless things crumpling through my letterbox and into my inbox. I know that the rejections are all part and parcel of the apprenticeship, but it sure is painful. I feel like a boxer who has been hit so many times I’m drunk on the pain, but I’m still standing there, weaving from side to side, with blood all over my face, saying “that didn’t hurt. you gotta try harder than that. Come on, hit me again”. It’s difficult to pick myself up, dust off the poor things and send them out into the big cruel world again. I hope I get a success soon. It’s getting a bit demoralising.

But, I’m confident that my writing is improving, and I got the merest sniff of hope today. I got a rejection from MsLexia for a short I sent in for their ‘New Writing’ feature. Yes, a rejection. But on the up side, I made the final shortlist of 60, of which c13 made the cut and will be published. It makes me feel just a little less hopeless, and that perhaps there might be a silver lining to this particular cloud of rejection.

Next step, review story, see if I can work out where it’s weaknesses are. Fix them. Send it out again. Forget it and move on.

Fingers crossed, eh?