Sunday, February 03, 2008

Lots Ahead

I've done a lot of critiquing over the past few days.  First pages, Lucky Lab manuscripts, cowriting.  I've also done some polishing on Masks, but not nearly as much as I'd like to.  It's wild, but the dreary kind of wild like when you've been camping for ages with no one else around and all you really want is a home-cooked meal, a hot shower and your own bed.  I'm slowly crawling out from under my backlog, keeping up on the new stuff coming in, and I hope by the time Wednesday rolls around (my guesstimate for when I'll be done with all this) I can sit down and write uninterrupted.

I missed a critique meeting on Saturday.  It started to snow, and snow, and snow.  It was one of those snow storms that dumps several inches in a few hours.  If it had snowed steadily all day and night at that rate we might have seen accumulation that could be measured in feet rather than inches.  As it stood it was very off and on and had mostly stopped by 8pm.  Just a few minutes ago it started raining, which will take our three inches of slush and melt it all away in short order.  I'm surprised that we still have snow--it's about 40 degrees F out there.  The ground is really cold, though.  

Anyway, I'd already missed one Lucky Labs meeting because of work and I was really looking forward to making a meeting for once.  I find critiques so valuable, not just for the feedback but the inspiration.  I try to change locations when I write periodically.  When I write in my office I tend to write writing-in-my-office prose.  The prose freshens immensely when I hand write at work, or tap away on a laptop somewhere, etc.  I haven't had a chance to jostle myself out of this physical comfort zone for quite a while, so it makes critique groups even more valuable.  When I come back from one I feel as if I've been run through a wash and dry cycle.  My mind has had all the dingy grime washed away and the tangles have been brushed out.

Coming up, Radcon.  I've had a chance to pitch informally to coworkers (though I doubt they knew that was what I was doing) and although I'm still not very good at it, I'm starting to find my feet.  I don't think I'll be pitching Masks at Radcon, but you never know.  If an opportunity presents itself I think I'll go for it.  Chances are high that Masks will come back with a 'thanks for your sub but this doesn't fit our needs' note.  It's out of the slush pile, which is really fabulous, but now it's competing with nothing but promising novel concepts.  It feels wonderful to have gotten this far.  I have to be careful, though, not to let my subconscious settle me into a 'far enough' mode.  I'm outside my comfort zone and I'm sure all kinds of little status-quo demons will be busy at work trying to either stuff the worms back into the can or at least building a new, bigger can to keep the worms in.  Heh.  Out of the can and into the compost bin?  

There's lots ahead of me right now.  My life has turned into a page-turner.  I can't wait to see what's going to happen in the next chapter.

Gah!  Weather update.  It looks like this right now (4:36pm):
I was just getting ready to head out to the Olive Garden for a birthday party, too.  Denied!!  The temp was 40 degrees only a half hour ago, and it was raining, like I mentioned earlier in this post.  Now it's at 36 degrees and dropping.  I shouldn't have said anything about the snow melting away.  I have only myself to blame.

5 comments:

Rosemary said...

Kami
Thanks so much for the info on your dog world -it was very informative -as mentioned, we've been thinking of getting a dog this spring -I have a fondness for the golden retriever type and seeing the picture of Finn and Brian -your pyrenees/lab/g.r. mix re-enforces that.
Wishing you happy writing days ahead,
Rosemary

Kami said...

You're welcome! Golden retrievers and their crosses are really wonderful. My only complaint with Brian is what we call the 'stupid you-can't-get-me-through-the-fence game.' As mentioned in the golden article (and Pyrs do this too) goldens can be barky, though not nearly as bad as german shepherds who will bark incessantly for hours. Brian expresses his urge to bark through play since he's still a puppy. Later he may well watch-bark. The game is that he gets on the opposite side of the porch fence from Finn and barks at him, and if/when Finn comes around the fence they chase each other around a while and then Brian gets on the opposite side of the fence again and teases/barks at Finn. Lately he's been barking outside the doghouse door when Finn's been napping to get his attention.

They're still both really young so I don't know if they'll develop skin allergies. We already have a skin allergy dog (Dakota) so we know what to do. The article is right. If you get a vet's help right away you'll be better off in the long run. It's super important not to give an allergy-prone breed people food because there's a high chance that you'll wake up in the morning to a dog that is in itching agony with bright red skin and watery eyes and needs to be taken to the doggy emergency room. This happened to us with Dakota, just once, after giving her one too many bits of bacon (probably combined with her vacuuming some cat kibble--now we're super careful with the cat food when we feed the cats.) We learned our lesson and now never give her even a tiny bit of anything except a thumbnail-sized bite of cheese.

Good luck locating a dog! And thanks again for stopping by the blog!

C. Jane Reid said...

Sorry you couldn't make it down to our party. What with you living *up on the hill* and all . . . Hehe. Is that like living in a golden tower? With lots of dogs and blackberries?

We had a great evening. Sorry you couldn't be a part of it. Hope everyone is safe and sound up there!

The Moody Minstrel said...

Sheesh...
Once again I'm out of it for a little while, and suddenly you start posting again! Thanks for all the good reading material, though! :-)

Kami said...

Hey, glad you could make it back to my blog, Moody! I'd be very interested in your opinions about my openings, especially with Masks. I hope you have time to pitch in some comments.