Deadline 2

I have a deadline looming before me, and while indefinite it is approaching very quickly. I have been working non-stop the last few days on an article for Penumbra and am anxious to not only provide a good context for the piece, an interview in this case, but also good editing!

I've been in such a tizzy to get it done I haven't really even attempted to work on my notes for my book today. I've been coming along with my notes. Learning about viruses and syndromes and how they work. I still need a little more in that area historically, but then I'll move on to different ancient cultures, specifically the Aztecs. So there's a plan in place, just no movement.

These deadlines are really teaching me to start using my time more wisely, because I don't want to be frantically pushing like this near the end all the time. A professional should be better than this, and you can bet your buttons I'm going to make some changes despite the upcoming holidays!

So while I would love to ponder on my writing skills, future books, new tools that I should be looking at as a young writer, and the book groups I should be trying to join. My fingers are currently needed elsewhere.

To all of those still pursuing NaNoWriMo, best of luck to you!

Deadline Day 1

So today was a deadline at Penumbra. To say I'm tired doesn't quite cover it, yesterday I described to my boyfriend that my hands felt like they were attached to lead weights. He said I should try that and really see what it felt like. Writing takes my energy, my eyes burn from staring at the computer screen, my bones ache, and my brain feels like it's fried at the end of the day.

I still love the exercise of it. I like the expression it allows, and the feeling at the end of the day of some accomplishment when hitting the pillow. Still it's nice to know that after tonight I'll have a little relief. Tonight I'll watch a few episodes of Sex and the City with my mother. It's the first time I've watched it, and I have to  say I like Carrie's style. Carrie is perhaps what I strive to be. A little less risque perhaps, but definitely the kind of fun analysis of life that I want to achieve. The humor I always feel I'm a step or two away from.

I proposed a column today, and I'm crossing my fingers it will be accepted. It was turned down the first time. Understandably so, looking back at it now I felt it was an atrocious mess. This time though I think I've got it. It may not be 100% of what it needs to be. But this time I feel I've captured some sort of essence I was reaching for. Still that little demon of uncertainty is whispering terrible things in my ear. So we'll see if it goes anywhere.

So, those are my hopes for this first deadline. I'm certain I'll have many more of them in the future! I'm going to leave them on this page tonight and wind down for the evening. Snuggle into my raggedy burgundy throw and be entertained by other great minds.

Getting Away With It?

When did I think I could get away with professionally editing, without writing first?

I'm not certain when the idea first came into my head. I switched majors in college five times till I found myself comfortably studying English and literature. It was easy, the questions could be argued, and I always figured that at the very least that I could later attend law school. However, my real focus was to become an editor. After all who wouldn't love to read submissions on a daily basis and find the next F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nora Roberts, or George R. R. Martin?

As you can see, I have a wide range of tastes, It's certainly wider than the respective author's genres above. I thought the job would be ideal. I'm just not certain when I thought I could get away with being the gate keeper to such writers, without first offering up a smidgen of my own work. I've always had these glorified views about how things work, and I didn't have any professionals to guide me or give me a reality check.

I had never been a member of the college paper and I never bothered to volunteer a column. I wrote in a writing circle, but that only lasted one year before it fell apart in my Junior year of college. Of course I wrote analysis papers for my classes, but in the end the only thing remotely professional I could claim was a short piece of fiction that I got published in the schools annual PRISM writing contest. Even then I only got second place to a well accomplished friend who blew the competition away that year. He won something like three first place awards.

I should say, that I was an active college student. It wasn't like I was a good for nothing. I stayed active with Sigma Tau Delta, the National English Honors Association, and worked at school twenty-two hours a week on top of being a full time student. 

You would think at some point I would have woken up from my fantasy and realized that this was not all going to work out as I had envisioned. 

So, here I am, an intern with Penumbra eMag and I've been writing. Doing interviews and attempting to develop a column on early writing. It hasn't been accepted yet, but it is in the works. It's a bit of a hilarious mess really, but I'm going to figure it out and make this thing work. 

I'll have to learn to write for the masses, explore the tools available to me, and fight that tick I got in college called procrastination. This is my attempt to start publicly writing and to move myself into the mentality of writing for the masses. I may have interesting stories or little tid-bitts of information to share. But here it is November, National Novel Writing Month, and I figure this is the best time to give a professional writing career a serious go.