author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

No, the latest goal post has not yet been met. But shush. Let's not talk about that. I am in the middle of a laptop transition. Finally. Yes, the warranty company bought out my broken Averatec, and after two Averatecs committed suicide on me, I'm hopping to a brand with, I hope, more longevity. This here is almost exactly what the new machine'll look like; think WinXP Home instead of Pro, think Intel Core Duo T2050 instead of T2300, and you'll have the basic idea. (And yes, I intend to run Guild Wars on it.)

It came in today. It's had its OS reinstalled to get rid of the various hidden partitions on which Dell was probably smuggling government documents or maybe the secret recipe for Coca Cola. Its drivers are being updated as we speak. Guild Wars will be installed and tried out, because the Computer Renaissance tech has it up and running on his Dell and wants to run a side-by-side comparison. And I'm totally OK with that.

Before long, I shall be about $400 down, one laptop up, and in the middle of transferring my entire life from hard drive to hard drive. I'm having a good day.

More later. With writing and stuff.

Schedule realities require that I think of today and tomorrow in terms of one goal-setting block. First, notice it is no longer noon or one. I don't recover from all-nighters quickly or easily; I need my eight hours of sleep back before my brain starts working. I mean, the guy from Hi-Tech Appliances had to tell me what day of the week it was before I could even begin to decide when I'd come pick up the freezer gasket I'd ordered. I didn't really start getting up again until 5:00 PM.

Writing hours remaining today are rather scarce, and doubly so tomorrow what with my part-time job and my semi-monthly writing class. So I s'r-pose my goals for end-of-day Wednesday are going to look something like this:

• As much as I can get done on the freelance gig
• Another critique at Critters.org
• My "homework" for writing class

Gah. How do I do that to myself? So much to do, so little time--next time I hear Tommy Shaw singing the Styx tune "Too much time on my hands" I'm going to magically walk into the radio and back in time so I can shake him down for some of that. I mean, he's obviously not using it.

Anyway.

Right now, before I get to work, I have to go Esbat shopping. That might require some explanation. Sit tight, it's wordy.

Sometimes, friends I haven't seen in a long time will ask me, "Are you still a practicing Wiccan?" That always strikes me as odd. First, because no one would ask the rest of my family, "Are you still practicing Catholics?" But, y'know, Wicca is a young religion and still widely considered "fringe." For some people it's still a bit of a sideshow--remember Mad, Mad House? So there are those who expect it to be a passing phase that I'll get over some day, rather than simply part of my identity as they would if I'd chosen a more mainstream religion. Give it another 50 years, I guess.

Besides, even fellow Pagans don't take for granted that my beliefs haven't changed. They ask that question too. I suppose it reflects an underlying assumption among the "New Age" community that spiritual seeking isn't a sign of doubt but growth. If any of my older family members stopped being Catholic, we'd all wonder what was wrong, what crisis they'd undergone to shake their faith. It's a basic tenet of Christianity that faith will be tested and must be defended. But a Pagan religion comes with no obligation to defend the faith in that sense. Defend our religious rights, yes, and demand respect for our faith, but not defend it from spiritual crisis. No Wiccan clergy would concernedly visit my house and try to counsel me if I stopped believing. Sometimes one's soul goes looking for new shoes, is all. So the question "Are you still Wiccan," from a fellow Pagan, is no more disrespectful than "Are you still living in Boulder?" or "Do you still like to keep cats around the house?"

OK. Wow. Tangent. I'm really trying to get around to the second reason it's an odd question. Which is, I never quite know how to answer. I haven't exactly been practicing much. My husband and I observe Samhain, because that's traditional between us, and Summer Solstice, because it's our anniversary, but we don't usually go out of our way to hold ritual or worship with a community. So I joke about it: "Well, we're lapsed Wiccans." "You know how there are Christmas-and-Easter Christians? We're Samhain-and-Beltaine Pagans." Well, today I realized exactly how true that is. A quick rummage through my box of candles reveals absolutely nothing suitable for compass-quarter votives. Oh, how low the pious have fallen. So. It's the full moon tonight, and I have to go Esbat shopping. Ta.

Things take time. If nothing else, that's what I'm learning from all this daily goal setting. Submitting critiques takes time, because I can't freakin' shut up. Finding and emailing interview subjects takes time, because I don't know many names off-hand in the fields I'm researching and I'm anal about getting my emails worded just right. Revising fiction takes time because I'm a freakin' perfectionist with maybe shades of ye olde obsessive compulsive disorder.

And four-hour training sessions on how to facilitate use of evil yet compellingly shiny electronic voting devices from Hart Intercivic take a really long time, especially if you hang around the county clerk's office for an hour afterwards to discover whether your out-of-town plans have turned out to interfere with your availability as supply judge. (They do. I won't be around on Saturday, August 5 to pick up the supplies, see. But I will be retained as a machine judge, so the training hasn't gone to waste.) And then if the bike ride to and from the county clerk's office exposes you to more sun than you prepared yourself for, afternoon naps take a really really long time.

So. After a night of not sleeping, where are we at?

• Not a word written today on the freelance gig, but lots of progress made Monday morning in seeking interviews.
• Revised chapter 3 of The Golden Bridle and will email it as soon as this poor old WinME-running laptop stops giving me hell via its context menus. Chapter 3 took so long that we'll just talk about chapter 4 next week.
• Turned in a very long and wordy critique at the Critters site. One more by Wednesday and my ratio will be happy.
• Poked my head in a friend's private novel critique forum, as promised, at Critique Circle. Although if my day's obligation is merely to poke my head in the forum, it's probably not worth a bullet point here.

OK, so, it's nine-ish. Blearrrrgh. Bad enough that I was working until 2:00 AM this morning. Worse that I stayed up another couple hours with John working samurai sudoku puzzles. Blearrrgh, say I. Bleeaarrrghghgh.

Today, the plan is to do this stuff here:

• Another 3000 words on the freelance gig [Never got there]
• Revise chap.s 3 & 4 of Golden Bridle and email to beta(s) [9:17 AM, July 11. Only ch 3, actually]
• Critique a story over at Critters [Done as of 3:15 AM]
• Pop my head back in at Critique Circle [Done as of 3:25 AM]

This, by the way, is your friendly reminder that you should plan on voting. It's easy, it's non-fattening, and it's your civic duty. Do it if you know what's good for you.

(Ha ha. I made a funny. Get it? Get the funny? See, if you know what's good for you, you'll vote for what's good for you. Get it?)

(OK, so I'm bad at making funnies. Blearrrgh.)

Right. Moment-o-truth is later on this evening, probably quite late indeed.

11:18 PM - Definitely "quite late." We're talking all-nighter here. It's OK though. We're approaching the full moon. Pagans run on Lunar power, right? (grumble grumble) But about that, more later.

Hello. This is what we call the Spectator Sport of Professional Writing. Since this past week has been utterly dismal for productivity, I'm going to invite y'all (all, what, three or four of y'all?) to put the pressure on. What I'm going to do is this: I'm going to post my goals for the day right here. At the end of the day, I'm going to update the blog entry to reflect success or failure. In case of failure, y'all are allowed to laugh at me.

This is an important job, the laughing. I need to start outsourcing the failure-based ridicule and smack-talking. I've discovered of late that I can't both write and hold up the carrot-and-stick contraption. For one thing, the contraption takes two hands to hold up. Carrot, stick. Hand, hand. For another, it's hard to write when you're busy flagellating yourself for not writing. So. From here on out, it's my job to write and it's your job, should you choose to accept it, to weild the mule-driving devices.

There we go. Now. Goals for Sunday, July 9 (oh, crap! it's the 9th already) are as follows:

• 3,000 words on the freelance gig (1300/3000 complete as of 1:36 AM)
• Stick my head in CritiqueCircle.com and contribute as appropriate (complete as of 11:52 PM)
• Revise chapters 3 and 4 of Golden Bridle as needed and email to beta reader(s) (Rescheduled, in a fit of realism, as of 12:00 AM, for Monday)

Update, 1:43 AM: Well. Don't I just suck. Fiddlesticks, fudge, and fubar. Thing is, I've got an easy thousand-words-an-hour rate of progress when I'm writing fiction, sure, but fiction doesn't require research. Freelance gigs do. And sometimes the research they require makes the writer go, "What the flying bleep, exactly, do they want me to say?" And then the writer spends a lot of time looking things up.

And taking multiple video game breaks.

Anyway, today was at least more productive than yesterday. And tomorrow will be better, because A) less video game breaks, and B) not so much of the farting around until late afternoon.

Look for a brand new goal-oriented bloggity by nine-ish.

Hullo. I'm in the middle of some persistent blahs at the moment, blahs with combine travel recovery apathy with holiday apathy. The result: I've spent the last couple of days mostly in bed, reading books picked up at Denver's Tattered Cover and Fairhaven's Village Books. I regret to say that the latter bookstore hasn't made as wise a choice in adhesive labelling as the former. A Tattered Cover book's pricing labels peel off clean and easy (as do those on a book bought at the Boulder Bookstore), whereas my Village Books purchases had labels I really had to work hard at removing. They did eventually come off, however, so they're worlds ahead still of some bookstores I could mention but don't.

However, in the midst of the past two days apathy, we are in life and joyous surprises. First, a new short story began really taking form on the plane from Denver to Seattle. It's not tangible enough yet to get it a place in the database, but it's close. It's one of those odd plots that started with a misperception: in this case, a hallucination. Except I don't really get hallucinations. Maybe it was an after-image. Or maybe it was what my friends and I have taken to calling "a Charles de Lint moment," just one of those random encounters one has with the weird and out-of-the-ordinary and possibly supernatural. Anyway. Whatever that blue glow at the top of Norwood Drive really was, in the story it's an angel. Or the ghost of an angel. And it shows up for about two seconds every evening at the intersection of Norwood and Broadway at a quarter to eleven.

So that was good. Then for the surprise waiting for me in my inbox when I finally checked email late Monday afternoon: I've been accepted to Viable Paradise X! [Edited to better reflect the resulting level of enthusiasm.] I suppose those first three chapters of Drowning Boy have benefitted even more greatly from the latest revision than I'd realized. Hooray!

Both of these good things necessitate work, so it's a good thing that I am pronouncing tomorrow A Day Free Of Apathy and getting right on it.

I'm afraid the rewrite of "Snowflakes" isn't ready to be submitted today. Haven't even finished the new draft type-in, so I can't even update the word count. Just as well; I really ought to order the latest issue of Farthing before I try to submit. Best practice and all.

Still, slight disappointment. The story was so clear while I was just thinking about it. Once I got into the rewrite, it sorta... muddled. I'd try to address a problem one of the critiques pointed out, and I'd find myself adding like three paragraphs of highly suspect first draft. Then I'd try rewriting something no one else had a problem with, because I didn't know whether I liked it better with the adverbial phrase up front or at the back of the sentence.

And I expect to be able to do this with novels?

Well. I shall be out of town this weekend--going to Seattle mainly for my sister-in-law's housewarming party and additionally to catch up with friends old and new. I'll be heading to the airport in about an hour. For once, I'm not bringing my laptop with me--or my husband's laptop, whatever--so there will be no weekend bloggity. There will be story revision, but it'll be the old fashioned way: pen, ink, paper, print-outs. Hopefully there will be something to submit, somewhere, come Monday.

Ta-ta fer now.

Which seems obvious on the face of it, granted, but I just actually realized it tonight. I just read through the critiques for "Snowflakes" and as a result I can practically see the finished, publishable draft hanging in front of my face like a shiny bright jewel. This is not a revision session that gives me Doubts. This is a revision session that gives me Great Glee.

I think it has to do with the way the shape of 1900-ish words fits in my head all at one time a lot more nicely than the shape of 50,000 words do.

Anyway, I'll print everything out and sleep on it tonight, and then I just might get this sucker revised and in the slush. Farthing just happens to have a reading period open until end of June, which means if nothing else a quick-ish response. (Also, it being a UK market, it means I have extra cause to be grateful that one of the critiques came from a non-USian who was unfamiliar with Memorial Day. It's good to for me to be reminded that some concepts are unique to particular countries. Duh, Niki!)

Oh. And. By the way. 1100 words written today on one of the work-for-hire manuscripts. Oh yeah. I's a good girl.

I feel an explanation is owed, as people who pay me to write may visit my blog and get the wrong impression.

All it means is, the stuff I write purely because I want to make a living as a writer. One happy day I shall make a living as a fiction writer, but for now I'm paying for my fiction habit out of my work-for-hire contract fees. (For instance, tuition to the Borderlands Boot Camp.)

Writers who simply write what sells, because it sells, are often disparagingly called "hacks." [Edited to add link to discussion: Is "hack" an insult? Was Shakespear a hack?]

Now, I don't seriously think I'm a hack, don't worry. And I think I do rather better than a hack job on my work-for-hire assignments, so my editor shouldn't worry.

But the lingo is in the lexicon. It's hard to resist using it in a sort of tongue-in-cheek, gently self-deprecating way. See? Profitable hackery. Writing done purely for the money.

So there you go.

Whew, that's better. My conscience is all appeased now.

Hullo. Not dead. About to collapse, however.

Have I mentioned what a horrible, horrible procrastinator I am? Yeah. Baaaad bad bad bad. Two months ago I met a work-for-hire deadline via a dire all-nighter enabling 15,000 words in 24 hours. Swore I'd never do that again. Next time I had a month to write two 15,000-word manuscripts, I'd be smarter and do a thousand words a day.

"Next time" would refer to the month ending about five minutes ago.

I, er, did it again.

*sigh*

At times like this I am grateful for having developed a solid relationship with an editor who seems to like the manuscripts I turn in. She's been pretty darn forgiving of my despicable last-minute-ness, even giving me sanity-saving deadline extensions here and there. Because she can evidently read my mind.

But I hate this. I totally hate the procrastinatory streak in me. It manifests as something like, I dunno, an actual-factual fear of the work, a Gods-damned phobia or something, and if I'm actually virtuous enough to try to start, my mind slides off the work like water off a greased tarp and I sorta fall into web-browsing or forum-loitering or just walking all over Gods-damned Boulder.

Yes. I have finally realized that my tendency to go cafe-hopping during a long day earmarked for writing comes from the subconscious recognition that I can't write while walking. I can knit while walking, oh yes indeed, but not write. Not non-fiction, anyway. Fiction, sure, I can brainstorm storylines, but non-fiction? Oh no. I get three sentences into the brainstorm and then I go all blank and start singing mindless tunes in the key of E minor.

And yet at the same time I get to feel virtuous whilst going for a 5K walk because by the time I get to Amante in North Boulder, hot damn! I'm gonna write! Yes indeedy! I am on my way to Being A Good Girl!

Then I get there, and I drink a Moriarti, rest my tired legs, and read blogs for the four hours allotted to the randomly generated wi-fi password printed on the little Qwest card.

So. There you go.

I am going to collapse now. The insane amount of writing done between ten last night and four this afternoon is matched only by the insanely little amount of sleep I got. So collapsing occurreth. Imminently.

When I wake up, there will be fiction doin's done. I owe a chapter 7 critique to one correspondent and story critiques to him and everyone who critted "Snowflakes". I owe everyone who critted either it or Golden Bridle the putting to use of their critiques. Revisin', we call that. And I need to get chapters 3 and 4 of Bridle ready for critique. And I need to read the stories of all my fellow Borderlands Boot Camp attendees. (Dude, I have totally paid my tuition for that weekend out of my work-for-hire manuscript earnings. I feel like suddenly I'm not lying when I put "WRITER" down on my tax returns.) And I need to crit a story from the local workshop I attend; that's due Wednesday. And I volunteered for yet another face-to-face critique session on an intriguing memoirish sort of treatise on storytelling whose previous version was very nifty indeed. That's due Monday after next. And I really ought to start a new draft of something, maybe the blue hallucinated angel story that's sorta growing out of the memory of an afterimage at Norwood and North Broadway. Hmm.

(Me? Overextend much? Naaahhhhh.... No worries, just a little bit every day until current projects are done and new projects spontaneously generate. You know.)

And then.

And then.

Then two more 15K work-for-hire manuscripts with a July 24 deadline. 1,100 words per day, starting Monday, will get me done by the time my plane leaves for New Orleans on July 22. I'll do this, dammit. I will.