This life coach/therapist I was seeing for a while this past year insisted I stop saying that doing certain things was HARD, since it’s supposed to be actually harder when you think of stuff as hard, and easier when you think of it as easy. I have found this to be mostly true.
Yet I am feeling lately that revising this book is seriously NOT EASY, even though I know it is not as hard not-easy as completing the first draft, all three-hundred-something pages of it, which I did at the end of February one night when I stayed up really, really late. Remember that? And then I woke up Chris to tell him I was done? And then I had some wine? That was awesome. But everything up to that point was not easy.
And then after I sent it off I had other uneasy things to do, like my taxes (then again, I have an accountant to do the seriously hard stuff, and I can call that hard if I’m not even remotely qualified to do it, right? Also, I deducted a butter churn. No, really.), traveling to Italy for work (of course I will not complain about the Italy part, but the physical travel part isn’t exactly a breeze. Look at that soulless airport corridor! And on the flight I had to watch New Moon!), and doing a 5K (which, okay, transcends the hard/easy spectrum on account of being so painful yet hilarious yet pathetic yet triumphant). So I don’t know why revising the book is harder—excuse me, “harder”—than other stuff I’ve done lately. But I will try to break it down for you:
- Sometimes my editor’s notes ask What do you mean by this sentence? which opens up a nice shiny k-hole in which I try to figure out what she means by “what do I mean” as well as what I meant originally and how can I make this sentence I wrote seven months ago about eating toast mean more meaningfully to convey what I mean? I mean, it’s toast. Toast! Maybe you should just tell me what you want me to mean and I’ll mean it, okay?
- I work to classical music on internet radio, because it’s non-distracting yet lively, and it makes me feel fancy and smart and twatty, except there’s only about three stations on iTunes that I really like (i.e., no opera or “modern classical guitar”), and yet they run the worst commercials ever, the most horrible mood-puncturing ear-spam that HONKS at you about CELTR*XA FOR STRETCH MARKS and CREDIT REPORTS and GET RIPPED NOW, and while I understand that ads are sometimes necessary, these commercials don’t even try to make any of this stuff sound even remotely like a good idea, it’s just all HERBAL SUPPLEMENT and BURN FAT and TUCKER MAX MOVIE and POUND FINGERS FLAT WITH HAMMER and other things nobody anywhere would ever go for. So I hate it when I’m writing away and listening to this string-quartet-something-or-other chirping along and everything’s great and then suddenly ACAI BERRY BELLY FAT CAR ALARM SYSTEM CALL NOW BLARK BLARK BLARK bursts forth. It happens about three hundred thousand times a day, so you’d think I’d be used to it, but I am not.
- There is supposed to be a third thing here but I forgot. What was it? Where are my notes? I think I meant to use part of that section I cut from another draft but it’s in another file and I think I re-saved it under a different name, “toast2,” and I bet if I check the backup system I can find an earlier version and this is taking 25 minutes and PROACTIV FAT BLASTER BRAP BRAP BRAP.
On the bright side, we have a final official title and subtitle, which is The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie. We also have a cover draft (which I can’t show you yet, but it’s very pretty) and a tentative publication date for next spring. I know that sounds like forever in human time, but in publisher marketing time it’s about half an hour, and a jam-packed half-hour at that.
I’ll try to be back here again before summer starts, but for now, I have to get back to this:
(Bonus: click on the photo to read about my helpful/dorky flag system. This is when I first started; there are fewer flags now.)
Have a good weekend!
I can’t wait for the book to come out! Looking forward to reading it and to you having more time for blogging/running/traveling/drinking wine.
Wendy – have you tried the Minnesota Public Radio classical music stream? I think they might sneak some opera in occasionally, but the “commercial” interruptions are just the soothing voices of the MPR people listing the sponsors. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/cms/
By the way, I was named after little Carrie Ingalls! I would have been Laura, but we already had one in the family. Can’t wait to read your book.
Classical music makes me feel twatty too! (Wow. Those are some flags right there. Good luck with the un-easy stuff!)
I only get two radio stations where I live, but fortunately one of them is not just classical but ad-free. It’s the only station I ever listen to because I cannot stand the ads – and we don’t even have ads for prescription drugs here!
PHEW! Thank goodness you did an update. I was getting worried. Time will fly justlikethat. I look forward to next Spring! (I can’t believe you had to mention that horrible Tucker has-been frat boy up!)
Hey I know you didn’t ask for suggestions but you could always try: http://www.abc.net.au/radio/listenlive.htm
and then click on ABC Classic FM.
And good work finishing the book!
sorry… almost finishing it!
I hope the cover features yourself in a flowery bonnet!
Not using the word “hard” reminds me of someone once asking me to replace the word “but” with the word “and” (in both writing and speaking). It was supposed to make a difference in not only my meaning – but my feeling towards my meaning. So, I did this (rotely) for a while. It’s the whole “thoughts are things” thing. Of course, “and” and “but” are very differnt things. Now, whenever I catch myself saying “but” I cringe a little and say, “and” instead
(I hate to admit it, but she was right!).
Congratulations on finishing your book!
Can’t wait to read the new book. I met you a few months ago outside of Handlebar in Wickerpark. Thank you again for taking the time to chat with me for a few minutes.
I remember! And afterwards I realized I had totally forgotten to introduce Chris. Doy!
Oh, I needed this. I’ve just started revisions on my own novel and I’m going a little crazy.
thank you!!
I haven’t visited your site in ages but popped on b/c thought an old Weight Watcher’s Card would cheer me up while trying to make sense of my revisions. Photos of Fluffy Mackerel Pudding do it every time. Good luck and see you in the fall (and your book in the Spring! That is fast. Lightening. Pow.)
You went to Italy and you are whining about how hard, excuse me, not easy it was. MY GOD! Get over yourself. There are times when reading your memoir that I though you were so insightful, funny, and honest yet there were times where I couldn’t stand to hear you whine like a whinge. I know it is easy for me to criticize under the guise of a faceless name and e-mail address but the level of narcissism displayed by you becomes infuriating. And here is the thing, I dare you to keep my comment posted. I know that you probably won’t and you will email me some snarky self satisfying response but I don’t think you have the courage to keep my comment posted. Now with that gauntlet thrown down I do know that IF you do post this comment that your ever faithful followers will do as expected and stick up for you and call me ever name in the book but I am willing to take the consequences, unlike you. So let me repeat what I said earlier. Get over yourself and stop whining.
This blog doesn’t hold comments for approval, so yours sailed right through! As if bravery like yours could be stopped.
Honestly, between my infrequent blog posting and my raging narcissism, I doubt if I have enough ever-faithful followers who are willing to give their time to the kind of awesome flame war that you were hoping for. And I think those kinds of things are too disruptive anyway, so I closed this comment thread this morning. I’m just letting you know, Allan Anonymous, so you can stop waiting around here and go be a hero on some other narcissistic writer’s blog.
Good luck with that. I hate it when people are whiny and narcissistic, too. Whenever I get annoyed by that kind of thing, I find it helps to just vent to a friend, you know? Instead of doing something pointless and stupid.