Writing retreat update: This morning, started off with some reading, then some revising of the essay, getting to a finished second draft, then swam for half an hour in the warm pool. I tried to brave the cold pool, but it was too cold for me. 🙂
After I sent in my essay to the editor (fingers crossed), I had lunch with Alex and Mary, and then was a little exhausted, so I took a nap. A nap! Very bizarre — this is a once-in-a-year occurrence for me. I guess I was tired.
Followed nap with lying in bed and reading for a few hours — I finished Justin Key’s short story collection, _The World Wasn’t Ready For You_, which is terrific, but also emotionally difficult to read — lots of brutally honest SF/F centering on Black experiences. Even the funniest story in the book, which is quite funny, goes to a very dark place!
But I’m probably going to end up teaching some of these, they’re that good, so certainly recommended. Just brace yourself. (Reminds me of my experience reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’s letter to his son; I had to take breaks, it was so heart-wrenching.)
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When I was ready to work again, around teatime, I had some tea and then set to work going through all the kazillion post-its I had with to-do lists, most of which, it turns out, are long-expired. (‘Start tomatoes,’ for example, is from at least a year ago. Maybe two.) It was satisfying crumpling up all the little bits of paper, and transferring some of them to actual to-do lists, which are currently Word files on my computer, but I am planning to move them to Trello and start trying to use Trello again, in the hopes that it will keep me more organized.
Then I read the first chapter(s) of Mary’s fantasy novel and gave her some feedback, and then I set to work taking all my little post-its and other notes about writing projects that I wanted to do, and moved all of those onto a table. (See last photo.)
Benjamin is responsible for the post-its, because he said I was trying to work on too many different things at once (ADHD!), and I should try a kanban board approach. I could have multiple columns (ideas / draft / revise / submit / promote / etc.) but I should only have one thing in each column at any given time. Well, except the ideas column, which could be very long, and maybe shouldn’t be in the same table, actually, now that I think about it. Maybe that’s just a list at the bottom.
Anyway, it’s all in one place again, I think, unless I’m forgetting books, which I probably am. I did some organizing to figure out what to work on next, but I have multiple things started (in the draft column) and multiple things to revise (in the revise column)…
…so I think what I might need to do, to fulfill the spirit of kanban, is to re-do it again, with just one active item in each column, and then pending lists for the categories. And when I finish a task in a column, I move it to the next column, and then I can take something from the relevant list and put it in the column. Maybe? I just figured this out while I was typing it, so I have to ponder a bit, but that might be the next step.
The goal for today is mostly to get organized, so I can come back to writing without so many things pinging around in my head. I should be able to work on one of them tomorrow, which is a full writing retreat day.
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I think I can knock out the tea party sampler tomorrow, if I focus — it’s mostly done, and it’s a matter of revising and refining. I need to finish that before we can launch the Kickstarter for Gluten-Free Serendib, which I’d love to set in motion for April — we’ll see. And I owe George two Wild Cards blog posts; maybe I can do those too.
I need to start submitting Liminal Space to more agents (I’m agent-hunting, not sure if I mentioned), so tomorrow I’ll spend an hour or so working on organizing my agent list (tedious, but necessary), and start sending it out. A writer friend recommended just sending to ten agents a week until I found someone I was happy with — we’ll see if I can manage that. Oof.
AND I suddenly realized I’m months behind on my Patreon story chapters — sorry, patrons, I completely lost track of them! So I will be sending you something very soon, hopefully tomorrow, as an apology; I’m thinking maybe a draft of an unpublished novel. And then I’ll go back to drafting the stories as quick as I can?
It’s a little tricky, because I originally meant it to be individual stories, but the ones I started sending out ended up more like chapters in a novel; I think I may need to revise the tier and make sure that’s okay with subscribers. Sometimes they get complete stories, sometimes they get novel chapters, hopefully that’s appealing…
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Four things to work on tomorrow — if I can get through those, I’ll be delighted with my progress for this retreat. And then Thursday I fly home, and Thursday evening I have a board meeting, and then Friday I try to make sure all the plants are watered and everything’s in good shape at home, and then I pack, and then I fly out of town again on Saturday.
It’s a slightly hectic sequence right now. I think I’m home for all of April, though. Maybe? Unless I go to a kid-lit conference on the East Coast and visit my dad, which I might, if I can get organized in time. Maybe I should work on that tomorrow too. If I can just remember the name of the conference…
