Posts Tagged ‘to do list’

Gettin Crap Done. Or Gettin Crapped On. It’s all in how fast you say it.

Yeah, so sometimes now the blog titles will be nonsense. Sometimes movie quotes, sometimes nonsense. Very rarely, they will be related to whatever the actual post is. I'm going to try to make this about getting crap done. We'll see if I can also make it about getting crapped on.

Anyway, this week I'm getting crap done. Booking parking for my school visit to Florida next Tuesday. Contracts into the mail for the Cavalcade of Authors Workshop in March where I will be talking about something horror-ific. Checking deadlines and planning the writing schedule for the duration of the winter.

I need to write my story "On the I-5" for the excellent Slasher Girls & Monster Boys anthology put together by the excellent April Tucholke. That'll get done soon. I sent off some flap copy samples for MORTAL GODS (formerly Aristeia, Antigoddess 2). And this week, I'm finishing a book. An unsold book, let's call it Unsold C. But it will be done, so I'm calling it a book, even though it may never actually be a real book. Eff it. Of course, if Unsold C refuses to finish this week, it might need to be put aside, because I also have to put together a synopsis and sample chapters for, oh, let's call it, Unsold 3B.

I. Hate. Synopses.

Say it with me. Or better yet, roar it with me, and we'll stand together at the edge of a cliff and then kick the synopses off of it Sparta style.

The odd thing about synopses is they can be comprised of almost total BS. Pure, unadulterated, pulled from your hinder, absinthe-fantasy BS. So at least there's that.

I'd like to turn this blog into more of a writing diary, but I fear it would suck the time out of the actual writing. I might do it anyway.

Also, Fickle Fish Films has renewed the option on Anna Dressed in Blood. Early even! I couldn't be more thrilled. Before you ask, though everything is moving along, there's no real news. But I did see this very nice quote from Stephenie Meyer on the Fickle Fish website:

“From the moment I started reading this book, I knew it would be a beautiful story to tell cinematically,” explained Stephenie Meyer.  “It’s scary, romantic, and grips you from start to finish.  Audiences are going to fall in love with ‘Anna’.”

Isn't that nice? Genuinely nice. And also, Nice, in the way that Muppet gangster rats say it. Nice. Very nice.

I was unable to bring this entry around to getting crapped on, and for that, I apologize.

I have some gifts for you they’re up in my bum….(not really. It’s the Family Guy Drummer Boy)

I should've chosen a Thanksgiving-themed title. But there've been so many Xmas carols spouting about that I've had the Family Guy version of the Little Drummer Boy stuck in my head for days. So I used it, in the hopes it'll go away now and I'll stop randomly singing it at inappropriate times.

Returned from the lovely ALAN Workshop and NCTE conference in Boston this week, where I met some fantastic teachers. One even gave me chocolate covered macadamia nuts. It was a fun, scary time, and I may have taken a rather disturbing and unfortunate photobooth picture with my editor Mel Frain and Kristen Simmons, author of ARTICLE 5, in the Prudential Tower. Considering trying to crop it and turn it into an author photo.

On the subject of excellent teachers, got an email from a teacher in Kansas, who recently paired Anna Dressed in Blood with Beowulf to teach the classics. I'm honored she was paired with Beowulf, and hearing how the students responded to Anna and the classic novels was wonderful. This semester they're pairing Girl of Nightmares with Dante's Inferno, and I look forward to video chatting with them soon. I don't say it enough but teachers, particularly English and writing teachers, are kickass. Innovative, invested educators better the worlds of their students, and by extension the world at large. Thanks. Most sincerely. FYI to any teachers who may be reading: if you would like an author to visit, I do video chats for free, schedule permitting.

And now, a small list of stuff that needs to get done over the next few months.

-finish edits on Antigoddess 2. I'm already behind. And as I turn the corner, I spy something that still needs doing.
-finish a draft of New Project 1, currently hanging patiently at 35k. Send draft to agent, prepare for the worst.
-start a draft of New Project B, which is threading itself together in the background. Aim to finish by what? Next fall?
-write a short story for a bitchin' anthology I can't talk about yet. But the story will be road and revenge. Girls and knives.

That's the larger stuff. Day to day time tends to get allotted to emails, setting up donations and giveaways, workshops (oh yeah, crap I need to come up with a workshop for March), and getting drawn in by clever tweets and such. Sometimes these things are fast. Other times they require more legwork, like tracking through royalty statements on the trail of foreign translation deals because, while awesome, they are friggin squiggly little buggers to keep straight. Or maybe it was just that I was relying on an old paper ledger system like some kind of turn of the century banker by candlelight keeping warm off the flame of one lump of coal.

Hmm. It's a mystery.