What Have I Done?

I just signed up for American Icon is what I've done.

Panic attack already starting.

It's one of those get outside your comfort zone things that Ali-demon loves to talk about. And I realized last night that I've been avoiding reading at Icon. The first year I was there to cheer on Geoff and Moe. Second year I was there to cheer on Bret. Last year I wasn't there but still cheered on Jenny. But I never even considered getting up there myself. Like most people, I hate standing in front of a crowd.

So that's why I'm doing it. Because I don't want to--if that makes any sense. I'm also submitting a proposal to the PPW Conference planning committee to give a workshop on how to make a magazine editor happy. Again, standing in front of strangers. And not just reading, but teaching. Yikes!

Am I crazy? Well, yeah. You already knew that. But there is a method to my madness. The more I do things like this now, the easier it will get. The ultimate goal is to get those books published and sold and, fingers tightly crossed, on the Best Seller lists. Which means interviews and readings and the like. Better I make a fool of myself now in a local venue where I know most of the people than on a larger scale. Chances are I'll still find a way to make a fool of myself, but maybe not as big a one.

Okay, I'm going to go breathe into a paper bag now.

And They're Off

to a 4-note theme. 100 points for anyone who gets that reference. My money is on Nicole for this one.

So November 1st. Time to state goals for the month. I've already said I'm going to attempt NaNoWriMo this year. That's 50,000 words. Which I believe D.B. (the accountant) figured out is between 6-7 pages a day. So, two hours of non-editted typing should pretty much get me there. The non-editted is always the hard part, but is the main point of the whole exercise.

Wow, just felt myself tense up thinking about that. So an addendum to the goal is to do it without hurting myself. My buddy, Geoff, actually ended up in the hospital a few years back from stress and exhaustion. Deep breaths, walks, plenty of sleep. All part of the monthly goal.

For the rest of the week, through Sunday, I'll write 24 pages and attend the Scaring Your Readers Workshop that PPW is sponsoring on Saturday. Tension was one of my weak areas in MMG so an all-day workshop should help.

Good luck to all of us on our goals this month, whether or not we're doing NaNo.

Themes

My friend, Morgen, and I had lunch Sunday with a third friend, Geoff. We talked about blogging. Morgen said something about not knowing what she would blog about. That she felt she'd have to come up with a theme before she'd even think about it. Then this morning Pat wrote in The Writing Nag about themes for blogs. She had a blog before and didn't enjoy it until she came up with the idea for the Nag.

The idea I had for this blog was very much like D.B.'s. I'd talk about the joys and trials of writing a first novel. But I think it's grown into much more than that in the few weeks of its existence. It's become about community and friendship. It's about the fact that although we each do the physical writing on our own and we spend many hours inside our own heads, we also help and encourage and torment and cajole each other. It's about how there is a subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, collaboration between writers. That we pick up on things the other has written and expand it or take it in a whole different direction.

I guess that's why I always feel a moment of confusion when I hear people talk about how lonely being a writer is. Really? Because even when I'm alone in my office, I can send out an email with a question (or a whine) and have a couple responses within the hour and even more by the next day. The same thing with the blog.

The theme for today is feeling very lucky.