I feel that this is a fair description of the past few weeks, with writing escapades, the frantic dash to the end of a term of music teaching, and even the national state of things here in New Zealand - another election done and we're still not sure who or what our government is. Some people are feeling very happy, some are feeling very neutral, and some are feeling miserable, but no one knows quite what about - which is fairly usual in politics, but it is a situation accented by the current state of affairs.
In the meantime, I have been editing what I like to call a "real-life" fiction book of mine in between sorting out things to do with my writing contract for The Fledgling Account. Writing is never quite as cut and dried as people think. I like to treat my very young writing students as though they understand this, but really, they have no idea. Most first time authors think once they sign a contract that they've made it! It almost feels like the end of a journey. In reality, it is more like beginning a new journey. It is like playing Jeopardy. You could lose it all and win it all at any moment. It is a series of crazily high mountains followed by crazily low valleys. You get the print copy of your book - hurrah! The cover is curly from the long travel from the USA to New Zealand. Drat. Book sellers here will be put off by that. One more final print interior comes through - except the font still goes tiny somewhere around the three hundred page mark. Just for three words, mind you, but it must be changed. And therein lies the reason writers go through their work page by page, paragraph by paragraph for what feels like eighty years before it gets published. This has to happen at every single pass. Then Amazon gets confused by two editions of your book being out, so it removes the wrong one, and the publisher has to email back and forth with them. The publisher justifiably tears their hair out, and I am confused and deliberately over-caffeinated.
Sometimes an author feels like they're lost in a maze. Other times, you're standing on a high pinnacle.
But life, after all, charges on. It is nearly October now, and what will be will be. Books will be published. Governments will (eventually) be made. I will keep drinking coffee and working on literature with my dog snoring beside me on the couch. Life is made of the ordinary things, and even the extraordinary is much more ordinary than one thinks.
But ordinary can be very rewarding, and so much better than real life adventures, which is often the stuff of nightmares.
And in the meantime, this hilarious video with two wannabe writers moving from brilliance to burning in just seven minutes certainly gives an author the chance to laugh at herself. Do enjoy.
In the meantime, I have been editing what I like to call a "real-life" fiction book of mine in between sorting out things to do with my writing contract for The Fledgling Account. Writing is never quite as cut and dried as people think. I like to treat my very young writing students as though they understand this, but really, they have no idea. Most first time authors think once they sign a contract that they've made it! It almost feels like the end of a journey. In reality, it is more like beginning a new journey. It is like playing Jeopardy. You could lose it all and win it all at any moment. It is a series of crazily high mountains followed by crazily low valleys. You get the print copy of your book - hurrah! The cover is curly from the long travel from the USA to New Zealand. Drat. Book sellers here will be put off by that. One more final print interior comes through - except the font still goes tiny somewhere around the three hundred page mark. Just for three words, mind you, but it must be changed. And therein lies the reason writers go through their work page by page, paragraph by paragraph for what feels like eighty years before it gets published. This has to happen at every single pass. Then Amazon gets confused by two editions of your book being out, so it removes the wrong one, and the publisher has to email back and forth with them. The publisher justifiably tears their hair out, and I am confused and deliberately over-caffeinated.
Sometimes an author feels like they're lost in a maze. Other times, you're standing on a high pinnacle.
But life, after all, charges on. It is nearly October now, and what will be will be. Books will be published. Governments will (eventually) be made. I will keep drinking coffee and working on literature with my dog snoring beside me on the couch. Life is made of the ordinary things, and even the extraordinary is much more ordinary than one thinks.
But ordinary can be very rewarding, and so much better than real life adventures, which is often the stuff of nightmares.
And in the meantime, this hilarious video with two wannabe writers moving from brilliance to burning in just seven minutes certainly gives an author the chance to laugh at herself. Do enjoy.
