Frozen Here in Bookland

Oh my gosh, am I sick of this book. I am so sick of spending every day hiding from it, procrastinating working on it, finding a zillion things to do instead of it, and then, at like midnight, wandering in here and then still figuring out something else to do.

There are so many problems. I'm sitting here changing names but the more I change the names the more I worry that I'm turning it into a work of fiction. I worry about the names I'm using - which is true to the person, true to the time period. I have my Jewish book of baby names open to the Bubbe and Zayde names for the people of my mother's generation and the aging baby boomer section for people who were kids when I was. Then there's the Dictionary of Jewish Names from which I'm getting surnames. What a nightmarish hassle. And I can't just use the search option to find and replace the names when I am changing them because my computer is like a comedian: if I'm replacing the name Gale it will also replace the word "regale" and then I'll have a big problem. So what do I have to do after I'm done with this name stuff? Another read through!

Then I started looking up the PDF conversion process again tonight and can't remember how and so I went on the Amazon discussion boards and it's like, guess what Linda? You're never going to be able to figure this out! Really I just need to choose one of the midline pricey options they offer and let someone do it for me. I have to accept my stupidness. I'll end up with pages half printed and a book numbered from the highest number to the lowest, from beginning to end backwards!

So I'm frozen here in book land. I can't blog (this one's a diary, right? Right?) I can't write for salon right now. I can barely write an email. I'm keeping up with Poetica. I'm managing to cruise Facebook at all hours of the day and night and, I have to say, my desk and workspace area looks wonderful since I procrastinated writing all day today and reorganized it!

Onto tomorrow. A committment then: I will finish these name changes. Monday read through the entirety. Tuesday reset the margins and chapter spacing and write the back of book blurb. I will not think of anything but the task before me.

Beware the Procrastinator

I'm not going to go into all the reasons I'm self-publishing my book, and soon. I won't bore anyone who actually might read this with the blah blah blah of the breakdown of the publishing industry, the control over my book, the fact that it just needs to get its butt out into the world. Oh yeah, and I guess I had some pretty well-timed psychotherapy that convinced me that what I was seeing as a pile of negatives maybe was actually all good. I have a book. Agents wanted it. It's still mine.

So I'm doing a once-over to check that the whole thing complies with my "do no harm" motto. I've heard before that I should always try to judge my words by whether they are kind and necessary and true. Also, since there won't be a major publisher behind me, guess who would get sued if I didn't? Right.

So I'm doing that, right? Well, it's 12:08, like midnight, here right now and I haven't done it yet today. And I'm tired. And it's just sitting, minimized on my computer IN FRONT OF ME waiting for me to click on it. But what am I doing instead? Blogging (on a blog I haven't been on for nearly 11 months), measuring the chair I'm sitting on because I'm sure that if I got a better chair I'd be able to write more comfortably, I'm on Facebook, I'm on hotmail, I'm googling stuff. I'm not doing my edit. And I think I know why. After the last pages I have to go through, I have no idea how to self-publish!

I mean, I'm on CreateSpace and everything and so far, so good, but still. I have to embed images and "make them flat." I have to make a firm decision about the book cover, not to mention the subtitle. I have to write the back cover blurb. How can someone like me, who wants to fly into every possible brain that could read the book and anticipate their reaction, do this?

I'll tell you, or tell me, how I'm going to do it. I'll remember that I have two main goals in publishing my book: first to get it the hell out of my head so I don't have to think about it anymore and have it following me around and tormenting every minute of my life and, second, so that I can print off one single copy of it and hand it to my mother and tell her, "Here is your story." My Holocaust Survivor mother, who asked all the days of her life for someone, anyone, to write her story, will finally have her wish.

And when those two things are accomplished, I will, indeed, be accomplished too.

March is for Marching Orders

Thank goodness I wrote that To Do list on here since I didn't do it and totally forgot what the items were. Instead I guest blogged for a friend and got a bunch of new readers (on my other, more public, blog), had an excerpt from my (unpublished) book appear on another friend's website who is a New York writer with impressive freelance writing credentials, and I did withdraw my gaming piece from the Jewish news. Or let's put it this way: I wrote to the editor who's my contact person and, as usual, she didn't write back to me. So I'll just go with that and consider it withdrawn.

Then, like an idiot, I started a new, completely anonymous blog for my twelve-step eating program because I really want to do my writing online. And I mean anonymous, folks. Anonymous email address, pseudonym for a name. So, obviously, I can't link to it here. I'm just glad that I'm finally going to have a place where I can write about the amazing things that I hear in the meeting rooms and obey the traditions of the program which tell me I should remain anonymous at the level of press, radio, film and other media. Great news - a writer who can't be known for her writing. That's progress for sure.

So, to do list for March:
1) submit kids and gaming to parents or parenting or, at the very least, to RAK.
2) More Magazine: submit the 50-yr-old inhabited marriage (at the intersection of V and P)
3) Lilith Church and Jews
4) Per Betsy Lerner blog challenge, get that stupid manuscript edited by April 1st. Use notecards then reshuffle. If it requires a rewrite just do it.
5) Write three sample columns for Literary Mama to pitch column to them.

Do you set more goals than you can reasonably achieve in the hopes that you'll achieve some if not all?

How's My Writing Going?

I had a party tonight and someone asked me what's going on with my writing. I don't know how eloquent I was with her ("duh" comes to mind as my great answer) but this does give me a chance to review and reflect here.

I last had a piece in the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix in January; it was my fourth piece. I've submitted two more, one which I know they're not going to use since it was about football season, and the other which the editor said she'd send on to the editor for the family supplement. Family supplement came out, no article. I think I need to move on with that essay since it's pretty good.

My essay in the winter edition is in Brain Child right now but they didn't link to it online so it has limited visibility, still it is there. Just only print.

My editor position at Poetica is goin well. Poetica's membership has grown about 50-60 people in the last 6 weeks, hopefully partially due to the blog. The guest blogger spots are booked through the end of March and the artwork is working out nicely.

I submitted a query to Brain Child about a hippie in high school raising a jock, so I'm waiting on that.

I need to get two more queries out for the month so I think they'll be More Magazine and the Lilith Church piece. Also, I have to get that gaming piece back from the Jewish News and perhaps send it to Raising Arizona Kids or a bigger venue like Parenting or Parents Magazine. I have to remember to think big.

To Do list: Email editor at Jewish News and advise that I'll be submitting gaming article elsewhere.
                 Submit article elsewhere after researching (quickly!) parents and parenting magazines.
                 Finish Church Piece since Lilith requires a hard copy query and then send out Lilith Query.
                 Send out More Magazine Query about married 50-year-olds.