author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

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.

You can now read "Right Door, Wrong Time" at Twilight Tales.

I hope you like.

I am, in fact, still in both laptop and deadline crisis mode. However, laptop crisis is bandaged by the availability of my husband's old Compaq Presario, and deadline crisis is mitigated by setting myself a daily word-count quota and actually meeting it.

Thus I was able, this evening, finally, to make time to read the critiques that came in from the Critters crew.

My novel is no longer a virgin. It has for the first time been seen by eyes that do not belong to me. And it has deep and abiding flaws that were not visible to my eyes, because my eyes were my eyes and they sat inside a head that was my head. You know how it goes: I knew too well what I meant to see what I had in fact said.

Now, I have Doubts.

I am aware that Doubts are a natural side-effect, sometimes, especially when most of the comments are pointing out flaws rather than sparklies, but it is fruitless to speak logic to a writer who is in the middle of Doubting.

Just, y'know, give me a day or so. I'll get over it. Doubts do give way to Decisions and Plans, but it takes a bit.

(Meanwhile: if you critted chapters 1 and 2 this past week and have not yet received the fulsome thanks I owe you, it is because your email bounced. Now to hunt you down in the newsgroup. Mwahahahahaaa.)

On Friday, June 16th, I'll have fiction published again. Yes! Having undergone yet another title change (from "The Right Time" to "Right Door, Wrong Time"), my Award Winning Flash Fiction Story[TM] will see the light at Twilight Tales. The title change was the idea of the fiction editor, Ed deGeorge--and may I just say that an editor whose name is Ed is just set, you know? He can use "ed" as his email handle at the twilighttales.com domain, and it can mean "editor at Twilight Tales" or it can mean "Ed at Twilight Tales." That's totally cool. You just can't do neat wordplay like that with "Niki". I mean, you can, but I've heard all the possibilities sung at me on the kindergarten playground, and they're all goofy and unuseful.

Anyway, it works for me. The title, I mean. It's a title that tells us what's known up-front, rather than giving away what is revealed at the end. Then again, "The Right Time" was ambiguous enough to apply to both before the revelation and after--but I think wittering about which of several very similar titles is best is right up next to inserting a comma in the morning and taking it out in the evening. It's a sign that it's time to let the editor make the changes.

Besides, what sense does it make to talk about "the revelation" in a 700-word short-short? I mean, yes, suspense can be done in flash fiction, it ought to be there, but it only lasts about a minute or two, since that's all the time it takes to read the whole thing.

In any case, there's a date attached to the promise of publication. When the story goes up on Friday, I'll post a link.

I'm sorry, I have nothing new for you here. I am currently in the middle of another laptop crisis simultaneous with a deadline crisis. But you should visit Miss Snark, just in case you, as a genre writer, ever again get asked, "When are you going to right a real book?"

ps. critiques are trickling in. joy! thank-yous will be forthcoming.

Annnnd this just in. I am not a winner in Wild Child's Fairytale Contest. I just found this out by visiting the site, where the winners were posted yesterday. (I probably should have figured that out earlier, what with not having been emailed by May 20th as they said all winners would be.)

They say they will put all stories (I presume the winning ones) up by the 15th. Should be some good reading, so bookmark the link!

It's probably getting boring to hear it, but I've sent "Turbulence" and "Heroes" back out again into the slush. Hurrah! I am being a Writer, yes I am.

Although I don't usually like to say which markets I'm trying until I get an answer back, yea or nay, I will mention that my first choice for "Turbulence" turned out to be a non-starter. DNA Publications's Fantastic Stories of the Imagination has apparently not been heard from in some time. Andrew Burt's The Black Hole has no data on them later than 2004. (Absolute Magnitude, on the other hand, has quite a rew recent rejections logged, but I suspect that market likes its science fiction somewhat "harder" than this story delivers. So I have sent it elsewhere.)

So there that is. In other me-write-fiction news, tomorrow is the beginning of a couple of critique periods for me. I've got the first two chapters of The Golden Bridle to be released to Critters.org, and the short story "The Impact of Snowflakes" entering the Newbie Queue at Critique Circle. If you're a member of either, I sure wouldn't mind the feedback. If you're not, but you want to read and comment on these pieces, it takes no time at all to sign up at these sites and dive into the queues.

And then on the work-for-hire side of my life, I have a June 19 deadline, so if I seem to get a little freaky between now and then, don't worry, that's just my standard operating procedure.

And for those who haven't noticed, the AbsoluteWrite.com Water Cooler (i.e. big huge honkin' 7000+ member forum) is up and functional again without a jot of lost data. All hard feelings against those involved in its time down should be sublimated into posting the 20 Worst Agents list far and wide, with the proper preamble attached and donating generously to AbsoluteWrite.com to help pay its bills and fund the legal proceedings. (The post at Jenna's blog is dated, but the PayPal button still works.) No mention of the persons involved in the ISP Which Cannot Be Named, we are told, will be tolerated at the Cooler. It's called "taking the high road," and it grates harshly upon still stinging nerves, and it's the best thing to do. So do.

Yo. OK, so, the story is now down to with 50 words of 5000 words. Which means I'm allowed to say "about 5000 words" and send it in. Which I did Thursday evening. Ms. Last minute, that's me. The first 1200 words were really easy to cut, what with pointless mental meanderings and obnoxious repetitions and the plot holes that were more verbose than the sealant used to plug them. The last 300, now, those were damn hard.

Last weekend was pretty action-packed, between movies and concerts and 10K races. OK, well, one of each. But still. One of each is plenty. Saw X-Men 3 and the Cars/Blondie Road Rage tour, my opinions of both of which you can read over at my latest blogging gig. Did my fourth Bolder BOULDER in 1:30:30, my best time yet by about 4 minutes (yes, I suck), and my bodily reaction is somewhere between "ankles and knees no longer sore" and "toenails not quite fallen off yet."

On for this weekend: Pretty much everything I've been yammering on about for the last few weeks. Working my way through The Golden Bridle and maybe getting "Snowflakes" closer to ready to submit somewhere. Kicking finished stories off the couch and back out into the world. Logging some five thousand words or so on the current work-for-hire assignment. Y'know. Writing and stuff.

In other news, I hear the AbsoluteWrite forums are this close to resurrected. (This link goes, not to AW itself, but to a post at the temporary forums telling us to please not try to visit AW because all the server's resources are needed just to install and heal up the database that the greatly dishonorable web-host-of-a-million-contradicting-stories, JC Hosting, gave the gang a 24-hour window* of access to (after sitting on it without sufficient explanation for nine freakin' days). Rejoice and hold your breath.

*24 hours was what the gang were told yesterday in the wee hours of the morning; today the story has already changed to say that the May 22 shut-down was an automatic bandwidth overage suspension, which counter is reset automatically on June 1, so that there is no shutter on their access window. Like I said, a million contradictory stories. It's like these people have never heard of screen capture.