Intense writing

Back from Florida - had gone for a long weekend to do a little pre-Christmas visit with Mom. It rained 2 of the days, but on the third it was sunny and warm and so we went to the beach. I didn't end up swimming because there were tons of jellyfish. Ew. But we went back to the pool and I swam in that instead.

Special shout-out to the awesome community relations manager at Barnes and Noble in Stuart, Florida. I love that even in chain stores there are still booksellers out there that really just love books and the business. I signed some copies of What, No Roses? and Stake That! if you are in the area and want to grab a copy.

I'm reading the best book. It's called Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. It's one of those early 90s cyberpunk type books and a lot of it is very outdated (because the futuristic stuff he's talking about actually exists now!) but it's an amazing book. The first time in a LONG time I've been sucked into a book so deeply that I've decided to forgo sleep. :)

Speaking of cyberpunk, I'm almost to the 50k point of Moongazer. Yay! So I'm still right on schedule. My goal is to have it completed by January 15th, then go back and give it a final polish and pass it in on January 31st. That'll mean I wrote the whole book and polished it in two months. Not bad. In fact, I was pretty darn proud of this until I read in Marjorie Liu's blog today that she wrote 10,000 words in one day. Sigh. Though, in my defense, she writes full time.

This is an interesting experiment, actually, writing a book in a short period of time as opposed to stretching it out and doing my usual 1-2,000 words a day over four or so months. I feel much more invested and involved in this book's world and characters because I spend so much time with them. I'm not writing a few words, then going about my day. I'm living my life with them. They're my best friends. I actually turned down a party last weekend because I wanted to go hang out with my characters on Saturday night. Dawn, Skye and I have an intense, powerful relationship and I really love and care about them as if they were real people. (Yes, yes, we writers can sound crazy!)

In any case, I'm hoping this will translate somehow into the book itself and offer a more powerful story. At the same time, I'm looking forward to getting my life back come February. Never again will I sign up for this kind of deadline. I've learned my lesson. Balance in all things. Work, writing, friends, family.

Marianne