Another week has come and gone. Not much else was completed besides my work here on the blog. I blame it on the sun, it used to set nice and early in the evening and rise late. My kids are roosters, they wake with the sun and won’t sleep until it’s dark. This bad habit robs hours of writing time over the course of the week.
I have had so much fun reading all the great comments that came in this week from my readers. Sometime in the next week I will pop around to everyone’s blogs and see what you are working on.
This week’s list of posts:
Quickly Quotable #11 – Books: Two great quotes about my preferred reading material, the book.
I Gotta Feelin’ – Black Eye Peas: Great video of a mob flash dance, discussion of global writing community.
Meet the Characters – The Bad Guys: A sneak peek at a few of my characters from the manuscript.
That Dratted “That”: This weeks grammar discussion centered on the word “that.”
The Writer/Mom Paradox: How being writer and a mom doesn’t mix.
Fun Friday – Educated Puns: The best puns of the web!
For next week I’m going to get back to my early morning writing sessions and get some good work done on Mr. Manuscript before starting to read email/blogs/news etc. I would love to start approaching agents this fall/winter but at my current rate of progress it simply won’t be ready. The process of crafting a rich and interesting story is more of a leaning experience than I could have ever imagined.
My Literary Quest 
Ah, yes… but it is learning that will stay with you for life, for long after the kids (choke) will grow and head out on their own. ))
Do you revise each page again and again before moving on, or do you wait until you get to the end of the manuscript and then start from the beginning again?
Currently I’m tackling one chapter at a time, fixing voice and conceptual errors while beefing up the original spartan descriptions. I try only to revise once before moving on. This phase of revision is the most intense, worse than the rough draft, because I’m finalizing each step that the story must take.
I’d like to hear your take on “voice” in a blog sometime, if you haven’t already. I’m too close to my own (fiction) writing to consciously direct the voice. Perhaps it depends on if one is a planner or a blank-pager.
I read something last night that made me think of you and the challenges you’re dealing with. It’s from an interview with Elin Hilderbrand, author of 6 novels set on Nantucket.
The interview appeared in the Reading Group Guide at the end of her novel, Barefoot.
Q. How does being the mother of three children affect your writing?
A. Well, it gives new meaning to the words time management. My children are eight, six, and two years old. The are all-consuming. I’ve been blessed with wonderful help, great schools, and an incredibly supportive group of friends and family. I carve out time to write ~ the most important thing has been to get out tof the house! (I do have a study, but it has no doors ~ must work on that!)
In a larger sense, having children has given me a deeper sense of the world and the human experience. When I wrote my first novel, The Beach Club, I had no children, and I think you can tell the difference.
Being a parent gives you an emotional maturity that is hard to describe.
{End quote}
I enjoyed her book, Barefoot, quite a bit ~ it demonstrated “an emotional maturity that is hard to describe.” : )
Good luck with your early morning writing sessions.
Thanks for sharing this with me, it’s great to hear about other successful writer/mom’s.
I agree, it is good to share the experiences of other women who manage to write and be mothers at the same time.
Try some sleeping pills for the kids ha ha (me bad) I am ONLY joking! 🙂 Love that crazy squirrel from Ice Age by the way.