Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The Revision Cave

 I understand that the Internet is striking against bad people that want to censor the Internet today, so I'm supposed to be blacked out and whatnot. But I'm posting for a few reasons:

1. Alexa called me on not posting on Monday, and I felt like a loser,
 2. I need to announce the winner of the Brodi Ashton Classy Author Giveaway, (scroll to the bottom)( Decided I'm doing that tomorrow instead) and
3. I need to explain why my blog posts might be kind of sub-par (or occasionally absent) in the next few weeks.

Oh! And, lastly, I think this insipid post will illustrate how pointless everyone's blog posts might be if the internet got all censored. So that's worth something, right?

Ohhhkay. Let's go.

Well, folks, it's that time of the manuscript again. The amazing, magical, heartbreaking, devastating, depression-tailspin-sending time when I have a ton of revisions to do and so do half my CPs.

Everyone's gearing up to query, which is a wonderful, exhilarating thing which basically translates to I HAVE TO GET THESE REVISIONS DONE AND THESE 3 OTHER MSs READ AND THOUGHTFULLY COMMENTED ON AND ALSO COULD YOU PLEASE LOOK AT MY QUERY ONE MORE TIME BECAUSE I'M WORRIED ABOUT THAT COMMA YOU KNOW WHICH ONE.

I'm on edge, we're all on edge, let's hole up in our rooms and hunch over our computers and occasionally burst into tears and maybe also send each other 75 emails a day which may or may not consist largely of exclamation points (!!!!)

Yeah. It's insane, and hilarious, and draining. So, for lack of a coherent post today, I thought I'd show you where I'm going to be doing the most hours of insanity/hilarity on the next couple of weekends: The Revision Cave.

Revision cave

1. There's the Harry Potter crew. Love them. Below them to the left is a quote from Robbie Coltrane about making the movies: "Nobody thought, 'Oh, it's just a kids' film.' Everyone treated it as seriously as Ibsen." Damn straight.

2. Pictures of the fam and me and my sweetie. Because, well, obvious.

3. Flowers. Even caves need flowers.

4. The little corner I keep with love notes from my CPs. Even if Gina's are mushier and flowerier and more quote-filled than Chessie's, I know they love me the same.

5. A giant bag of peanut butter M&Ms that I keep for the sole purpose of letting my kids get their grubby little hands into when they manage to sneak up to my office. It's cute to watch them feeling like they naughtily won something.

6. Mug my sister got me with quotes from TWILIGHT. If I ever lose confidence in my writing ability...well, you can imagine how this helps.

7. Headphones. Obvious.

8. The pretty paper notebooks I bought back when I thought I would actually do some longhand in there. Sometimes they help when I need to scribble manuscript-wide notes.

9. My tape dispenser that I wallpapered the the UGLIEST flowery stuff so no one would want to steal it and pretend it was always theirs. Because seriously, why are people always stealing tape dispensers?

10. My crew of guys. Edward, Thor, and Professor X. They help. Edward loves me unconditionally and eternally, Thor will smash anyone who gets in my way, and the Professor is...well...THE PROFESSOR.

11. The netbook with Underwood skin. Because my husband calls it a "glorified typewriter."

12. The paper copy of ONE, God help me.

13. The cast of characters. You can see Nik and Davis, Joey and Brian (let's take a moment of silence may they rest in peace) and Merrin and Elias are up there too (still haven't found a better one than Corey Monteith, sorry G, except that guy I stalked in Starbucks and my picture of him sucks.) Still haven't found a perfect Leni and Daniel so they're down for now.

14. Superheroes growth chart. It might look like I've grown a lot, but I put "Full Request" almost halfway up the chart when I thought that if I was getting full reqs I was basically halfway to published. HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I know. I was so cute.

I'm almost grown up to "Second complete MS" and the next step will probably be "sign with agent" which I'm too superstitious to even put up there. But that will be at Daredevil level, which is apropos, and now I'm hovering at Human Torch. Which is WAY apropos.

15. Fab author inspiration. There's another growth chart about growing with critique from Beth Revis and the printout of the first time ELANA JOHNSON COMMENTED ON MY BLOG OMG. Telling me not to stop dreaming. She's so awesome.

16. A bracelet my writing buddy Jean gave me that's engraved with "the heart of a writer." I'm gonna engrave the title of every book I get published on the other side.  So, it's like optimistic and whatnot.

17. This picture reminds me of an Israeli kids' song that says, "To the giraffe, all of our problems look very, very small." I love it.

18. More pictures of the fam. Me and my sister up top, me and my baby girl below, and to the left, a snap of my grandmother at 23, who I think I was probably cloned from. Probably should write a book about that.

19. A handwritten and illustrated version of Shel Silverstein's "Listen to the Mustn't's" from my Israeli bestie Hela, which always makes me weep, and a necklace she made me to go with it.

20. A story from Jewish tradition about the importance of telling stories, which ends: "God made people because God loves stories." It helps remind me that all this insanity isn't really as silly and pointless as I sometimes worry it is.

Welp! That's the tour. Thanks for visiting, hope you enjoyed it, and if you ever come over, there's a second desk in the same office, so we can TOTALLY have a writing date with enough workspace AND without having to look at/talk to each other. Good times.

23 comments:

  1. Damn, I wish I could do this! But alas, I am at school, and my cave is filled up with schoolwork-y things... ;_;

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  2. ...Your cave is so much tidier than mine ^^;;;;; I can barely get my laptop on my desk for the mess!

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  3. *sigh* I was thinking maybe making a new post would magically fix comments on Blogger. Oh, well.

    @Chessie - You seriously don't staple stuff to your wall? Where do the drawings of your characters live?

    @Miss Cole - I never said I didn't tidy it up for this picture. :)

    @Jessica - YOU DON'T HAVE A DESK??? Do you want one? I got this one for $40 on Craigslist.

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  4. Wow, your revision cave is so ORGANISED. Mine is my sofa, and it's chaos!

    Best of luck with the revisions and the querying - ONE sounds fascinating, and I hope I get to read it one day in the not-too-distant future!

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  5. Wow--that is an incredible space.

    I'm with Jessica--no desk. I've got this little fold out table that I set up wherever my son is playing--it has almost enough room for my laptop and one beverage, but most of the time the beverage is too dangerous because of my son. So then I keep my notebook and hard copy on my lap where they fall off every few minutes.

    But I don't mind--I've never been a nester. I'm just happy that I got a new laptop recently, and now I have h,j and k keys.

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  6. @Emma - I use the couch a lot too, and yes, it's the definition of chaos. And cookie crumbs, and pointy toys, and....

    @Heidi - It's so funny that you describe child-induced dehydration. I swear I never get to drink anything until they go to sleep at night. The most coveted object in their weird little Lord of the Flies society is my Camelbak, so even if I try to use that, they steal it...

    I'm happy you have those keys too. :)

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  7. Love this! I want to come over and write there!

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  8. I'm in the revision cave right now too. It's a slow process because I'm waiting on monthly critiques of chapters from my writer's group, but I need their feedback before I can go forward with it and start querying. That's the point I'm at with my third novel.

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  9. THANK YOU! This was the perfect post to make my wednesday super awesome, and I am ridiculously jealous of your cave
    @Chessie I totally have a cave in my dorm and I'm not even a writer, you seriously need to get on that ASAP!

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  10. Your revision cave is adorable - love it! Mine is full of dog hair, crumbs, random paper, and piles of laundry. In other words, nowhere near as glamorous :)

    Good luck with your revisions! And if you find yourself in need of additional beta readers, let me know - ONE sounds so fun, and I'd love to read it for you!

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  11. Thanks for sharing your amazing cave. I love it both for how much it shows about you and the ideas it's given me for my own writing nook. I need a Superhero Writer Chart, pronto! I love the giraffe print as well. Who painted it?

    Okay, back into rewrites I go... Good luck with your own work!

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  12. no, there isn't really a place in my room for a desk (I've thought about it, and my mom has tried to pressure me into getting one more than once). I usually have my laptop with me on the couch or in bed :) it's comfy.

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  13. You have a beautiful cave! I'm in the no-desk, write-on-the-couch club, so I'm very jealous of your wall & desk :)

    And Chessie, do you have one of those extra long twin beds? I used the end of mine as a cave in college. My roomies thought I was really weird (they were right...) because I hung up curtains around my bed to make it more private. But I needed that personal space to do my creative projects.

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  14. @Helene - Come on over!

    @Alice - I understand. :) Luckily there's always more we can do - queries and pitches and synopses and... :)

    @Alexa - Happy we got to hang out, lady. :)

    @Jillian - THANKS! I was lucky that that chart came in a coloring book from one of my kids. I promptly snatched it. The print is called "above the clouds" and it's by Vlad designs - i believe it's available online!

    @Jessica - I like the couch too, except it usually makes me fall asleep.

    @Jenny - OMG. We would have been perfect roomies in college. We would have both sat behind our curtains and come out to go to lunch together, then gone back to writing. :)

    @MarcyKate - THANK YOU!!! I might take you up on that.

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  15. FINALLY MY COMPUTER IS LETTING ME COMMENT ON YOUR BLOG!!!

    No idea what happened the past couple of days, but your page froze every time I tried to comment. Not that I had anything important to say. Just that I have nothing exciting in my revision cave, except I keep the note you sent with my Christmas gift propped up on the printer :)

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  16. @GIIIIIINAAAAAA! Glad your internet is cooperating again. Life is so sad without blogs.

    MY NOTE is on your desk? ;_; Oh, G...made my day. <3

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  17. I love your revision cave! I need to spice up my writing area, which will have to wait until after the kitchen renovation because right now it's covered in drills and tool boxes.

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  18. @Kris - Nooooooo! That's the worst! There's no other nook or cranny somewhere you can temporarily snag? Hang in. :(

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  19. We would have been awesome roomies! We could have done that comfortable, mutual ignoring thing :D

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  20. I'm jealous of your awesome desk! XO

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