Maintaining Sanity

Nina asks: Have any pointers for a Corporate America Rat on how to maintain sanity as a writer?

First off, let's rid ourselves of any notion that writers are sane, okay? We live in the side of our brain that Corporate America rejects, the creative side that makes any authority figure cringe, the weird neurotic side that often causes alcoholism, drug addiction and lights the eyes of neurologists everywhere. We're weird, at the very least. We march to the beat of a different drummer--an often distant one.

Now that we've cleared that up---

There are some tricks to keep us functioning in a normal manner acceptable by most of society. We can set normal business hours--normal for us, at least. If that's from 8 in the evening until 3 in the morning, we can call it working the late shift and people understand.
We can try not to answer the door in our pjs at 3 in the afternoon.
If we're in creative mode, we can try to stay in front of our computers and not wander the aisle of Kroger's muttering, "He said it wasn't murder."

But I think the one big thing a newly full-time writer from Corporate America needs to work out is how to stay socially oriented. We have no water cooler, no break room, no cubicle row to wander through and pick up the latest gossip. We need to establish networks of communication with our peers, but we also need to Get Out of the House. Very important. Some people take their laptops to the coffee shop to work and interact with real human beings, just as if they were still in a cubicle farm. Others have a well established network of family and friends--exploit them, please. Go to the theater, visit, go shopping, anything to keep the creative well fed instead of letting it swallow you alive.

The business aspects of surviving as a writer--they're the pits. Make sure you have a spouse with benefits and a regular income or it's back to Corporate America unless you happen to have the luck of a lottery winner.

As for my contemp proposal, is this Day #8? My brilliant reader has returned it with tweaks. I've dutifully made my corrections but went back to re-read the last quarter of the historical today before sending it off to my historical reader. I think I'll give my paranormal proposal another brushing off on Monday. And then maybe, if I'm feeling brave, I'll send both off on Tuesday. And Wait some more. Knock wood.

Waiting Day #3

Still grubbing through the historical. Know the ending stinks, but I can see the whole thing and just think readers ought to imagine it the way I do. "G" Maybe I ought to be making videos, although this would be an extremely expensive one involving exploding volcanoes.

I have a pie to bake and a meeting to attend so I'm actually getting away from my desk early today. I still have your question in mind, Nina. Just need more time than I have to answer it.

Booksignings--Waiting Day #2

One of the things writers do while waiting for Things To Happen is to meet and greet the public. Meeting and greeting is fun. Being ignored isn't. So booksignings and other activities have equal potential for fun or disaster. I have two such events coming up over the next two weekends:

The Big Read in downtown Clayton, MO---I'll be manning the local RWA group's booth from 10:30-noon this weekend, October 6th. This is a huge event with lots of booths, authors, speakers, etc, so you can come and spend the day if so inspired.

The KYRW giant author booksigning at The Bookstore, 301 W. Lincoln Trail Blvd, Radcliff, KY from 1-3 on Saturday, October 13th. There will be dozens of writers there. Check http://www.win.net/romance/ for details.

(and all I did today was grub through the historical ms, one word at a time)

Waiting Day #1

I spent 7 days putting a proposal together, and now the round of waiting begins. It doesn't seem fair to add those days to the preparation time. Might be more interesting to see how many days a writer spends just waiting for feedback. Feedback from secondary readers, feedback from agents, feedback from editors, yadda yadda into eternity. I could probably write four books a year if it weren't for all the downtime. Of course, those four books would be crap, but what can I say? I'm all about the destination and just fly by the journey. "G"

So today I started re-reading and editing the historical draft. It's no wonder my brain spins in circles.

Anyone else out there doing anything interesting?

Day #7

I have roughly 25 pages and a summary of the latest proposal. And "rough" is a polite way of stating it. I couldn't bear to look at it again, so I've sent it off to a critical reader in hopes by the time it wings its way back here, I can look at it fresh.

And then I went back to the last exceedingly rough idea and began fleshing it out. Another series, I needed to include paragraphs about books for which I have utterly no idea. So I pulled out key ideas from the current one, gave the protagonists some conflicting characteristics, waved a magic wand for a plot (Will the heroine drive the hero insane before they stop the villain from blowing up the world), and called it a day.

And then had a panic attack when I forgot about a dental appointment and thought I was late. Drove half way down the road before I realized I was an hour off. Had to turn around and go home and cool heels until time to leave again.

And theeeennnnnn ("along came Jones" is the line that leaps from my admittedly warped memory. I can't remember anything because my brain is cluttered with Very Bad Music.) I sat down at the computer to start polishing the rough draft of my historical and realized the proposal for it was due today. And the summary stinks.

My life in the whirlwind.