Tomorrow, hope to go through my papers and figure out what the next step is on the literary festival. I think part of my stress may be feeling like I should've done stuff about this and have managed not to all summer. Not so good. Definitely need to get some things done on it before the school year gets going, which means pretty much imminently. So.
Part of me just wants to write, but there's a fair bit of stuff with deadlines. It's tricky, balancing the volunteer work with the writing. I like doing the volunteer stuff -- it's deeply satisfying, concrete and productive in a way that I'm never quite sure the writing is. But it could easily take over my life -- which is not so good when it just seems like there are more and more books I'd like to write.
Bob liked the book proposal for the terrorist book I drafted (another one linked to the ones I'm working on now). He'd like to see three chapters when I have them, and depending on how they are, maybe we could try to sell the book at that point. Alternatively, I could write some of it as short stories, and we could try to sell those to literary magazine places. But he thinks all of that should wait until January, when we're ready to start doing real publicity on Bodies in Motion. I admit, I'm relieved. 'Cause, y'know, there's this other book that I'm supposed to be writing now...
He told me a few days ago that The New Yorker passed on the three stories we sent them, though with some nice words about "Tightness in the Chest". Sad, but not unexpected.
I want it to be next July. I want to see the reviews of the book. I really don't like this restless feeling, this fretting about something that I have absolutely no control over. I don't know how to tell my mind to calm down. I'm thinking it may be time to start taking up meditation or yoga or some such. Something to calm me down.