Wednesday vlog on Thursday
My Fictionista vlog went up yesterday – if you missed it, enjoy:
This 3 minute video took me two days to finish because Windows Moviemaker is THE DEVIL. I should also mention I have a splint on my hand because of my adventures in dermatology-see, there are three kinds of skin cancer, and mine fell somewhere between HOLY SHIT and Aw, dammit, I should have used sunscreen. The splint is to keep the stitches from bending. On the other hand, I was having a particularly good hair day, and my co-stars are admittedly extremely photogenic.
As I explained to my fish (and there’s a sentence you don’t see in print very often) my book – The erstwhile Demon Door – is now with a sparkly new editor. Carly (praise her) is hard at work figuring out just what the f*&# I was going on about for nearly 400 pages, and our plan is to get it back on its wheels and into your ereader (with a new TBD title!) in early October. The second book is also ready to visit with Carly (assuming she hasn’t joined the Witness Protection Program for Abused Editors) and I’m working on the third installment, although it has not yet been revealed to me exactly what the story is about.
My sisterwriterwife Cait Reynolds is writing the sequel to DOWNCAST right now, and she’s allowing me to peek into her brain by sending me chapters as soon as she’s written them. First, it is soooo goooooood! Also, she’s sending me chapters almost every day, which means she has a plan, an outline, knows what’s going to happen, and is writing the whole thing from beginning to end. WHAT SORCERY IS THIS? As I’ve said, I’ve written all three books out of order, with no outline, and only a vague idea of where I want everyone to end up at the end of the story. I’ve already written the last chapter of what might turn out to be Book 4! (I feel like somewhere in Canada, Carly is weeping into a freshly pressed linen hankie saying, ‘Outlines, Kim, look into it.’)
The good news is unlike brain surgery or air traffic control, there is no right way. You don’t have to show your work. If you get to THE END, that’s what matters. I think often of what the lovely writer Ellis Avery said, when I told her I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. She said (and I paraphrase a bit) that it’s like a two year old pretending they are an airplane, racing in circles, arms out. “I’m flying!” She said you write and write and one day you realize, “I’m writing!”
Have a great 4th of July weekend and as I used to say when I was a Washington DC traffic reporter (dark times): There is NO PARKING on the 14th St Bridge!
