update

The Book is within a hair's breadth of becoming a complete, readable manuscript. I'm in danger of making my 6 October deadline for finishing the full draft.

Otherwise, not that hell of a much is going on.

that's the way to do it

I'd never heard about McSweeny's until today, but their (his?) website is awesome. Arrrr.

...and there it is

So I'm thinking that being in the top 100 mystery novels blogs (sic) probably isn't really that much to brag about (how many 'mystery novels blogs' can there be, really?), and that The Daily Reviewer is probably a front for a pyramid Ginsu knives thing or something, but I'm putting the damned ribbon up anyway, because it worked, for my Sign From The Universe That I'm Not A Hack.

oh the angst

I like to read Query Shark every now and then, but I think I'm going to have to stop, while I'm writing. It makes me despair when she says things like

"Write another novel, get into a brutal critique group, and find YOUR voice, and story...Generally speaking you'll need three novels under the bed before you've got something ready to go."

Despair because I've put in a year on the current book (my first) and at the rate it's going, it will be at least another year before it's in any kind of shape to be read by someone else. If I'm ordinary, by her definition, that means publishing is at least six years off for me. I need some gratification, some Sign From The Universe That I'm Not A Hack, WAY before then. Like, tomorrow.

I've been writing more or less all my life, in one form or another, and I've never published anything. Well, I tell a lie. I had some poems included in a friend's chapbook some years ago; and I also tell a lie of spirit because I've never tried to publish anything I've written -- even those poems were by invitation. I've always written just for my own entertainment. Now, however, I have been bitten by this damn publishing bug -- I'm finding myself really wanting the gratification of being 'good enough' to be published -- and it's making me want to jump off a fucking cliff. I don't honestly understand how people (writers) live like this.

And as for 'brutal critique groups' -- no thanks.