Mad woman scribbling

I feel like the White Rabbit, chasing after time, trying not to trip over disaster. It doesn’t look like I will need to extend the deadline…. my WIP should be in the hands of my editor a week from today, which is two weeks earlier than I thought.

The goal is to publish the WIP at this time next year, so the editing schedule is tight. I’ll take a couple days off to do my taxes, clean my office, make airplane reservations and prepare for several upcoming conferences, then plunge into Draft 5, which should be pretty close to the final. If all goes well (please, please she begs the gods), the WIP will be done by the time I head out on book tour for TWISTED.

I am thrilled and terrified. And thrilled. And terrified.

I know the next two books that I want to write. One of them has begun to take shape while I’ve been pounding on the WIP. Between travel, book promotion, and family obligations, I doubt I’ll get much writing done between March 15 – June 11th. I’m going to try and use the free corners of time in there for “filling the well” stuff. More on that later.

If I can keep this tentative schedule more or less intact, I’ll start the next WIP in June (hope to have it done by January, 2008 for publication in March 2009) and WIP 2 in January 2009 (for publication in 2010.)

But I have a history of wildly overestimating how much I can accomplish in any one year, so those are flexible dates. The thing now is to plunge back into the page and finish this one up.

A head’s up for what you’ll see here in the Forest next week: Juicy photos of TWISTED and my book tour schedule.

scribblescribblescribble

16 Replies to “Mad woman scribbling”

  1. I’m getting excited about all these books already and they aren’t even done =) Great goals though. It’s so cool to read about this process.

    I’m also excited about this workshop, see you there!!

  2. Texas?!?! Will you be in Texas at all? I can’t wait to see the schedule–I’ve been repeatedly checking your website for a while. 😀 😀

  3. writing workshop

    I have always wanted to go to one, but never have because I’m too chicken (also the reason I don’t take the writing classes I am interested in). Can you describe a typical writer’s workshop and what usually goes on?

  4. Meet up?

    laurie! I just learned that you’ll be somewhere close to where I’ll be moving! (Okay, I know that sounds way too vague, but I can’t announce my new location yet.) I’ll definitely be at your event, but also hoping we can grab a quick coffee to catch up, if your busy crazy schedule allows – but if not, it’s cool! Looking forward to seeing you! If you can, you can email me and I can reveal more in private. 🙂
    debbi at debbimichikoflorence dot com
    WHEE!

  5. er. i dunno if you would be interested or if you schedule your own travels and all, but there’s a great poetry slam in minneapolis on march 30th, if you happen to be in the area. i went last year, was amazing. teen spoken word poets. minnesota would love to have you, too. and it’s nice here. ten below is great for sunbathing and such.

    cheers.

  6. Re: writing workshop

    Heya, i took a couple workshop-style writing class last year and two years ago. It was structured in the style of the Iowa writing course, i think, which i have read is the most popular format for writing workshops.

    Basically what we did is we would write stories, usually as homework, then we’d bring them in and give a copy of our story to everyone else in the class. Then homework for the next couple days would be to read everyone’s story and write a page-long “critique” of the story explaining what you think is going on, what is working and what needs work. Then for a couple classes we discuss everyone’s stories (so, like, each day we discuss like 3 people’s stories) and give the authors of the stories we discussed our critiques.

    The course was tough for me the first couple times because i am kind of shy and didnt feel comfortable writing anything too personal, but after a while it was really really fantastic to be able to get so much feedback about my writing and i freakin loved it!

    Um. Hope that helps!

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