This happens to me every time I write a book. I get in the zone, and nothing else exists for me. Last week I turned in the first 100 pages of the work in progress to my editor for her approval, and thank goodness she did approve. So now I’ll be put on the publishing schedule and be given a deadline to turn in the entire manuscript. I’ve already moved on quite a bit from the first 100, but it’s going to take me many weeks–months, even–to grind out the next 200 or so. I enjoy writing the book. However, when I’m really at it, everything else seems to take a back seat. I don’t keep up my internet presence, like a conscientious working author is supposed to do. Not many Facebook comments, not so many blog comments, much less guest blogging. I haven’t even updated this, my very own blog, in a month. Yet, what is a girl to do? You’ve got to write the book.
Interestingly, the action in the new book, which is tentatively titled Hell With the Lid Blown Off, centers around a tornado. I started writing this book long before Oklahoma suffered its recent spate of deadly storms, but I had just finished the tornado scene itself the day before Moore was devastated. HWLBO is the seventh book in the Alafair Tucker series, and before I began I decided that it wouldn’t be realistic to write a long series set in OK and not eventually bring in a twister. It happens every spring. If you live in tornado alley every year you’re going to spend some time in the safe room or cellar or huddled under a piece of heavy furniture. It’s a given.
So my life consists of sleeping, eating, doing the basic tasks to maintain life, and writing. Today Sandra Parshall’s blog entry on Poe’s Deadly Daughters consisted of quotes about the writing life by famous authors. My eye was immediately caught by this one, from George Orwell : “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
Yes, I guess I’m possessed.
June 20th, 2013
Love your picture! Love love love the title of your forthcoming book. I laughed out loud. Yeh, it’s great.
Oh, yes, I loved this whole blame post, and you, Donis.
June 20th, 2013
Oh, good, I’m glad you like the title (and everything!), Irene. I never know if I’ve picked a dud or a keeper.
September 25th, 2013
I’ve driven that road a thousand times, but I’ll never drive through Boynton again without thinking of Alafair Tucker and the other characters in “The Old Buzzard Had It Coming”. Nor have I ever read a novel so moving or so authentic.
September 25th, 2013
Thank you so much, Cole.