| If you've been reading this blog, then you might be starting to think that I've fallen off the face of the earth—no new entires since before the summer. That's not a blogger, it's a sloth! I promise you, though, I have been writing. I'll get you caught up and then try to be better about posting. Maybe this entry will help you see that the writing life can be a busy one.
I took the month of June off, travelled to Alaska with my family and had a fabulous time doing nothing when I got back. By the beginning of July it was time to turn my mind towards the fall play for twenty-two junior high students. I'll tell you more about writing that play later, but for now suffice it to say that I got the script done by mid-July.
Throughout the summer, but especially in July and August, I was working at my school (Summit School in Winston-Salem, NC—see link below) to prepare for our seventy-fifth birthday this year. I've spent the past two years researching and writing a nearly 200-page history of the school and I spent long days this summer working with the book designer, going over page proofs, and writing the index. Not the most glamorous part of the writing life, but it's nice to know this book will look fantastic. By the beginning of September the book was at the printer and my work was done. We have a big birthday party on November 3, which is also a publication party, so the printer promises us we'll have books by then.
Meanwhile, around the middle of August, I started work on a novel that has been percolating in the back of my head for about three years now. I'll tell you a lot more about this process in upcoming blogs, too. Right now, what you need to know is that I've written 60,000 words since mid-August and I hope to write another 40,000 by Thanksgiving and have a completed first draft by year's end. It's ambitious, but I find that if I take much of a break when writing a novel, I lose track of the characters and the story, so I'm trying to write some every day.
I also have to write a play for the third graders before Christmas. I have an idea and a rough outline of the story so far, but I'll need to do some more thinking before I sit down to work on the script. I may even have to take a few days off from the novel. It's a balancing act.
On top of all that, I've been corresponding with a publisher in Nashville who will be bringing out my first novel, The Program, next spring. We've been working on cover designs, publicity ideas, last minute edits, and so on. You'll hear more about this in the future, too.
And, oh yeah, I just signed contracts with Pioneer to publish the play I wrote for last year's junior high students—Supercomics. I'll tell you more about that as publication approaches.
So yes, the writer's life is a busy one, especially when you have several projects at various stages of completion. It's not always easy to find the time, or the brain power, for blogging, but if you watch this space I'll try to share with you some of my adventures in playwriting, novel writing, and getting published.
Just don't expect 100,000 words by Christmas!
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