Actually, a normal Sunday -- but with two grandchildren.
For some reason, my body must have known that I'd be with the grandchildren all day, so it woke up at 4am with ideas for the Mother's Day book proposal. I worked on it for an hour or more, then went back to bed. Poor granddad had to do the morning chores of letting the dog out and helping the grandchildren get breakfast, letting me sleep in. Yea!
After church, we had lunch, then on to the park playground for more scooter riding before taking the 5-year-old back to her family in Westminster.
Her family raises dogs. Besides expecting more baby rottweilers this December, they now also have a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Such a cute thing. And its fur is so soft. Both the 7-year-old and I want one! We have to talk granddad into it, tho. He prefers large dogs.
-wendieO
Showing posts with label writing in the wee hours. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing in the wee hours. Show all posts
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Stories come in their own time, not yours
Don't you just hate it when you wake in the middle of the night with a story idea -- And you hafta get up and write it down?
One struck again last Friday morning. At 4:56, to be exact. By the time my husband woke up, at his normal time of 6:30, I was deep into getting it all down into a computer file. Naturally, it wasn't one of my Friday's off -- I had to go to work. Fridays we are short-staffed in the library. Since there are only two of us, I was on the desk all day.
I haven't posted all week because I've been too worried about my daughter out in San Diego. I kept logging onto CNN, watching the fires out there get closer and closer to her home. When the Santa Ana Winds finally died down and she was finally allowed to return to her home, she sent e-mails describing her family's evacuation adventures. We had worried about her asthma. The smoke really affected her lungs. But she was lucky in two ways:
1) Since she is a pharmacist, she had a good supply of medical masks. and
2) She was able to stay with friends at their beach house where the air was cleaner.
She went back to work (11 hour shifts, serving people escaping from the fires), while her husband and dog helped the ASPCA rescue horses and other animals from the fire area and take them to the Del Mar fairgrounds. He also helped out at the stadium where he and Lance (the golden retriever) met Governor Schwartzenager. (He swears he has pictures to prove it! )
Soooo, what was my story about -- that had to get written down early Friday morning?
You've probably guessed -- A California Fire story.
-wendieO
One struck again last Friday morning. At 4:56, to be exact. By the time my husband woke up, at his normal time of 6:30, I was deep into getting it all down into a computer file. Naturally, it wasn't one of my Friday's off -- I had to go to work. Fridays we are short-staffed in the library. Since there are only two of us, I was on the desk all day.
I haven't posted all week because I've been too worried about my daughter out in San Diego. I kept logging onto CNN, watching the fires out there get closer and closer to her home. When the Santa Ana Winds finally died down and she was finally allowed to return to her home, she sent e-mails describing her family's evacuation adventures. We had worried about her asthma. The smoke really affected her lungs. But she was lucky in two ways:
1) Since she is a pharmacist, she had a good supply of medical masks. and
2) She was able to stay with friends at their beach house where the air was cleaner.
She went back to work (11 hour shifts, serving people escaping from the fires), while her husband and dog helped the ASPCA rescue horses and other animals from the fire area and take them to the Del Mar fairgrounds. He also helped out at the stadium where he and Lance (the golden retriever) met Governor Schwartzenager. (He swears he has pictures to prove it! )
Soooo, what was my story about -- that had to get written down early Friday morning?
You've probably guessed -- A California Fire story.
-wendieO
Saturday, September 15, 2007
early in the morning
Two things.
1) I'm not learning enough about How-to-BLOG from the 23 things we librarians have to do, so I've put several blogging instruction books on hold. They should be on my desk by Tuesday and then maybe I'll figure this stuff out.
2) I've begun a strange habit for my writing. I sleep for 4 hours or so -- then wake up and can't get back to sleep -- so I fire up my computer and work on writing. My project this week has been to slash and burn a 4600 word manuscript -- cut it in half. or more. I originally had intended it to be another 48 page picture book biography, like TO FLY. (see the bookcover at the right over there? that one.) But it keeps being rejected. One editor was kind enough to tell me that they only do 32 page books, not 48 pages.
Wondering if it was being rejected because something was wrong with the writing, I got it critiqued by an editor at a SCBWI conference. She was very nice about it. Said the writing was well-written. (yea!) But, even if TO FLY was 48 pages, she didn't think anyone was doing books that length anymore. Her advice was either to lengthen it and illustrate it with photographs and documents -- or shorten it to better fit the picture book length.
I assured her that I had already done the photo research for this and there was very little out there -- it really needed to be illustrated by an artist.
Therefore -- on the advice of two good editors -- I'm slashing and burning.
3) This writing in the wee hours of the night means that I'm a teeny tiny bit tired for my day job. (yes I do go back to bed and get a few more hours of sleep.) So far, bottled tea has kept me going.
-w
1) I'm not learning enough about How-to-BLOG from the 23 things we librarians have to do, so I've put several blogging instruction books on hold. They should be on my desk by Tuesday and then maybe I'll figure this stuff out.
2) I've begun a strange habit for my writing. I sleep for 4 hours or so -- then wake up and can't get back to sleep -- so I fire up my computer and work on writing. My project this week has been to slash and burn a 4600 word manuscript -- cut it in half. or more. I originally had intended it to be another 48 page picture book biography, like TO FLY. (see the bookcover at the right over there? that one.) But it keeps being rejected. One editor was kind enough to tell me that they only do 32 page books, not 48 pages.
Wondering if it was being rejected because something was wrong with the writing, I got it critiqued by an editor at a SCBWI conference. She was very nice about it. Said the writing was well-written. (yea!) But, even if TO FLY was 48 pages, she didn't think anyone was doing books that length anymore. Her advice was either to lengthen it and illustrate it with photographs and documents -- or shorten it to better fit the picture book length.
I assured her that I had already done the photo research for this and there was very little out there -- it really needed to be illustrated by an artist.
Therefore -- on the advice of two good editors -- I'm slashing and burning.
3) This writing in the wee hours of the night means that I'm a teeny tiny bit tired for my day job. (yes I do go back to bed and get a few more hours of sleep.) So far, bottled tea has kept me going.
-w
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