I know, I know! I haven’t been here much the last couple of weeks or so. But, it’s all for good reasons!
I have been up to my lovely hairline in edits for the novel. Let me tell you: Writing the book was so much more fun! Editing is, for lack of a better word, a pain. It’s like (for those of you with children) having to decide which child is your favorite. I’ve written some amazing scenes, but not all of them belong in THIS book. Sure, they might have seemed great at the time, but I’ve been reading the novel from beginning to end as I edit, and there were some spots that saw a compromise or kink in the flow…and I can’t have that.
It brought to mind, though, the circumstances by which I finally began writing my current novel. The idea for it had already been floating around in my head for several months, but I was hoping to finish another book first. I was at work one day, though, and my mind was made up for me.
Now…this blog is, in many ways, different from The Working Wallflower blog that was laid to rest last summer. That blog was my means of chronicling ways of balancing Work and Life. It was filled with stories (sometimes ridiculous) of places I worked, bosses (often ridiculous) I had, and interviews (always ridiculous) I’d endured. Aside from the fact that none of that is an issue anymore and, therefore, no longer bears mention, I also want to focus mostly on the creative process as I journey from, “I will” to “I have.”
This particular workplace story factors into that journey.
As I mentioned before, I’d already been thinking of what project to work on once I finished the novel I was writing at the time (we can call it Novel 1 for purposes of clarification). The idea for Novel 2 (the current one) had been typed up into a synopsis already to await its turn on my hard drive until which time I was ready to tackle it. It’s normal for me to juggle multiple projects: usually a few in my head and then the one I’m avidly working on, and I hadn’t yet decided just how – when its turn came – Novel 2 would begin.
Enter Marjorie.
While the details of this particular exchange have gratefully been purged from my mind since it took place last August, the overall gist was this: I received a call from an irate individual by the name of Marjorie…who attempted to tell me how to do my job, when it should be done, and what she wanted as a result…in a manner that was condescending, nasty, and somewhat ignorant. She then capped that off with the most mature of gestures by hanging up on me.
I have a temper – let’s just put that out there. However, I balance that as best I can by taking a deep breath (or several) before doing something that might earn me an orange jumpsuit. At that moment, genuinely seething from the way I’d just been spoken to, I did the only thing I was allowed to do at my desk that wouldn’t cause a scene. I wrote a brutally graphic, ire-driven, bloody set of pages that was – at that point – unlike anything I’d ever written before. Novel 2 was born of that group of pages.
So, thank you, Marjorie. You awful slag.
Programming Note: The next couple months are going to be very busy. I have things in the works – professionally and personally – that will make my dance card quite full. I have in no way forgotten about the upcoming features that I want to post here (namely the Writer’s Block entries), and somewhere in there will be the formal announcement of the title for the book.
As always, feel free to swing by my Twitter for more crabby commentary. I’m also still working on substance for my Facebook page.
-me.
