Works in Progress

[Cita]

1.  Do you write toward publication or with being someday published as your goal? If so, are you published and in what form?  What is your DREAM of being published look like?

2.  How many book-length manuscripts do you have in-progress or finished and ready to pitch?

3.  How many hours do you try to designate for writing each week?

4. What is your favorite book about/on writing?

5.  Who is your biggest encourager and/or inspiration to write?

6.  What does your writing place look like?

[Sandra Davies]

1.  Do you write toward publication or with being someday published as your goal? If so, are you published and in what form?  What is your DREAM of being published look like?

Writing what I need to do, self-publish (3 novels plus 2 illustrated shorter stories) only so as to hold my baby in recognisable form (and it's easier to get baby sitters that way too).   But ~7 pieces due to be published in an anthology this month.

2.  How many book-length manuscripts do you have in-progress or finished and ready to pitch?

1 x 128K murder mystery  needing major re-write, 1 x 77K follow-up novel (Bridie & Sean No.4) which I'm currently making most progress with, 1 x 38K novel which will eventually be a follow up to the one needing major re-write.   Plus an on-going mild 17th century tale  serialisation which is now 32 x 100 word episodes , shows no sign of ending and which I hope to illustrate.

3.  How many hours do you try to designate for writing each week?

loads - I don't work so reckon to spend maybe 8 hours per day, say average of 7.

4. What is your favorite book about/on writing?

Only one I've ever read was 'How NOT to write a novel' which was very amusing - I find self-help books a complete turn-off and prefer to read good writers and work out for myself what I need.

5.  Who is your biggest encourager and/or inspiration to write?

me - sorry, that's arrogant, but having got started on writing fiction by external forces I have characters in my head whose story I need to write down.   The knowledge that there are folk who like my shorter online pieces definitely IS encouraging and because I like to entertain them, I try harder and the many lessons learnt from feedback pass into my novels. 

6.  What does your writing place look like?

[Gita]

whenever Sandra talks about the amount of time she has at her disposal to write, I want to swat her with a rolled up magazine, I am so envious!

She forgot to mention that she also is working on a compilation book of the writings from HoW 3, as she did for HoW 2, and anyone who wants to buy a copy when it's finished won't be disappointed.

 

[Sandra Davies]

33 pages done so far and today I checked the Lulu will accept it - it does!!   Phew!

And a beginning made on the cover.

[Cita]

1.  I don't always write toward publication since writing is a practice and a habit, but I consider myself a writer... as in writing is my career... and as such, publication is always a goal.  My first book (creative non-fiction) was published by a university press in the spring of 2011, and has won two awards.  My dream of publication would be for a major publisher to pick up one of my novels OR for the uni press to agree to publish both of them.

2.  Book #1, Rightful Place, is hardback and selling well.  I have another ms of creative non-fiction, Don't Talk to Strangers, that I am currently polishing.  I have written two as of yet unpublished novels, The Story is the Thing and Winter of Beauty.  I am currently taking massive amounts of notes for another book of essays with a working title.  

3.  I don't set aside a specific number of hours to write because I have a real job cowboying on a forest service grazing allotment.  However, on a good office day I stay at my desk for 6 or so hours, though probably only really write for half of them.

4.  Bird by Bird .... Ann Lamott (though I don't care for her novels or her latest memoir and I find her twitter feed annoying).  Currently reading "A Year of Writing Dangerously" by Barbara Abercrombie. Unlike Sandra, I find books on writing (not how-to books, but books about the process) to be inspiring, to move me forward, to keep me focused on my craft.

5.  My biggest encouragement comes from those at 6S.  You all inspire me.

6.  My walls are covered with sayings, quotes, shorts, notes, photos, collages, menus (sushi), letters from readers, and dreamt up someday book covers.

[Gita]

Bird by Bird -- YES!

[Jadie Jones]

1. I think anytime I start writing I think: could I turn this into something? But sometimes I know it's just to exercise that part of my brain. My dream of being published means that I can afford to write full time and leave my other jobs. I just signed a contract for my first book with options for the second. I'm very excited and nervous.

 

2. I have 3 manuscripts in progress and the one that is finished and in the editing process for Wido Publishing. Two sequels in the Tanzy Hightower series and one women's fiction book.

 

3. In a perfect world, I would write 2 hours a day. But right now there are a lot of demands on my waking hours, and those I should spend sleeping are being sacrificed :) Those hours are also going to build my network for when this first book comes out. I can tell it's creating an environment for more writers' blocks because I'm a little out of sync.

 

4. My favorite book about writing, hands down, is Ann Lamott's "Bird by Bird." I think back to that book several times a week.

 

5. This network is a huge inspiration and support for me. Strangely, when I read really amazing, well-crafted stories I think: what the hell am I doing here? I should never string a sentence together again. But then I'll read a best-seller that might have a good story but isn't that well written and I think: what the hell? I can do this.

 

6. My writing place has cork board all over the place so i can tack up index cards i've written notes on. There's also a pair of huge, glittery butterfly wings tacked to my wall. Cheap, glass top desk with pictures and quotes taped all over it.

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

1.  I don't write toward publication but when I have a manuscript finished I do send it out.  I have 15 short stories published in small university press journals.

2.  None.  I have no interest in writing novels.

3.  I write about 250 to 500 words a day.  Most get revised out the next time I sit down to write.

4.  The Eleventh Draft edited by Frank Conroy and From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler

5.  My inspiration(s) to write are Alice Munro and Joyce Carol Oates; my biggest encourager is a dear friend who critiques my work.

6.  My writing place is neat with a Turkish rug hanging over the desk.  I have a laptop, a thesaurus, a pad of paper and about a dozen pens of different colors.

[Gita]

@Toby: somehow I knew your writing space would be neat!

[Gita]

The only question I can answer right now is #5.

My biggest encourager is my spouse.

My inspiration comes in part from the characters who yak at me until I sit down and write what they tell me to write.

Also, the outdoors inspires me because I love gardening, canoeing, hunting, birdwatching and stargazing.

As most of you know, I have been a newspaper reporter and magazine writer most of my life and am new to fiction, so I take inspiration from pretty much anything shiny that catches my eye.

I envy people who had difficult /painful families with weird or abusive relatives because they have so much material to draw on. Nothing bad happened to me in childhood, so I have to make that shit up.

[Bill Floyd]

1. I actively seek to be a professional writer, but I do write lots of stuff that I know is simply too out there to ever make it into print.  Sometimes shit must be purged; the muse must dictate, or she will take off in a huff.  I have a single commercially published novel to my name, along with a self-published one, but I did a damn sloppy job of the self-publishing, so I don't exactly brag about that one.  My dream is to write for a living, and while modest commercial and critical success would be welcomed, I'd mostly like to think I could someday have an impact on a reader akin to the ones my favorite writers have had on me.  That would be the greatest payoff.

2. Lord.  I've probably started and abandoned or put aside well over a hundred projects over the years.  I've got a dozen completed manuscripts, most of which have been pitched by my agent and rejected by publishers to the point where I simply move on to the next one.  I finished six novels before I had the first published, so I try not to get too discouraged.  

3. I'd say I write between fifteen and twenty hours a week.  On a good week.  When I'm not spending too much time indulging myself on distracting websites.

4. Not to be glib, but I think all books are about writing.  Fiction teaches us when we recognize the writing as good or bad.  Books specifically about writing tend to either placate or annoy me, neither of which is good.  Reading about how someone else writes is a great way to learn how somebody else writes--what a writer needs to know is how they themselves write, and that only happens when you sit down and do it.  Writers have a real tendency toward grandiosity, and I don't know that we should feed it too much.  Masturbation's all fine and well, when it's instructive, but after a while you need to seek real contact or you'll start to disconnect from reality.      

5. Readers and writers.  My blessed friends and family.  I have been very lucky to have had parents who backed me, friends who didn't treat me like I was a joke or a failure, and a wife who supports the long range plan to a rather astonishing degree.

6. I have an office upstairs with a few maps of the U.S. and the world tacked up, a photocopy of the inner fold of Papa M's album, Whatever, Mortal, and a quote from David Foster Wallace where he talks about writers daring to use art to advance ideologies instead of to parody, ridicule, debunk, or criticize ideologies.      

[Sandra Davies]

Especially chime with your #5 Bill.

[Gita]

I have a very blurred, framed black and white close-up photo of Jimi Hendrix on the wall. The reason it is blurred is that he was playing furiously at the moment it was taken. And that's the whole point, really. The creative process is about actively creating. It's one of my prized possessions.

If I ever run away from home, that will be among the few non-book items I'll pack.