Don’t Despise The Day of Small Things

Just a quick post today. A lot has been happening lately with the book, the blog, and my novel in progress (more on that later!) but through all the little steps forward and the big steps forward I have felt in my spirit a repeated reminder:

“Don’t despise the day of small things.”

Big things are coming, and they’re coming soon. I could write so many posts on how I know that, but you’d think me even crazier than you already do, so I’ll skip that part and just tell you that I’m looking forward to an AMAZING year in 2011. But all that success had to start with a seed. And that seed has to sprout before it can bloom. We’re at the sprout stage now. And when I start to get angsty about things not moving forward fast enough, I remind myself to enjoy what may possibly be the last days of the seed stage: I have time to relax. I have relative anonymity (yes, at some point that may go out the window, and I’m feeling good and bad about that).

If you are on your way to big successes, or you hope you are, take the time to enjoy the little steps forward as part of the journey. Someday you’ll look back and remember this time as the last time you had time to relax before the big time hit and your world changed. Your day is coming. Don’t despise the day of small things, which is when you are tested to see if you’re ready to handle more.

Peace!

–Laura

Ah Well…

I wondered how I was going to keep up with this blog and my new baby blog AND write a novel AND write another nonfiction book AND be a full-time mom AND do part-time book editing work for 3-4 different publishers. What apparently had to give was my posting on this blog and answering my email–well, and housework, but let’s not pretend: I never did much of that anyway. I now answer the important messages and have mostly given up on following all the blogs I used to subscribe to. 100 newsletter emails got trashed over the weekend without being read. But I’m still here! And I still love hearing from you!

Right now, I’m working on filling out the characters in my novel, giving them a little more time on-stage and figuring out how to reveal their personalities by illustrating the ways they react to one another. I feel like the next time I try this, it’s going to go 4 times as fast. It’s a lot of fun to figure out how to do this from scratch, but it sure is slow going when I only have a couple hours a day at most to even think about it. I’m going back and forth between feeling dismayed to have discovered that so much more needs to be done on this novel, and feeling good that I’ve figured out how to make it a more complete story. Three chapters are short and can easily be filled out with flashbacks that demonstrate the contrast between the way the characters’ relationships are now and the way they used to be. The trick for me is to catch myself when I write a summary of a scene instead of making it a specific and interesting story. Right now I’m going back and replacing all these “summary memories” with very specific (and hopefully interesting) memories that the main character has of happier days. Every time I do this, it improves the narrative threefold.

Have you written a novel or short story? How did you fill out your characters so they’re three-dimensional, real people? Were they there for a purpose, to move the plot forward, or did the people appear in your mind before the story? Just curious. Thanks for reading! I’ll be back and posting more regularly at some point.

Are There 25 Hours in a Day?

If you're in a creative rut, The Artist's Way will peel you off the pavement, then The Creative Habit will set your mind dancing again.

I can hear my little sister’s reaction now: “Riiiight. So how’s that workin’ for ya?” she will ask me with one eyebrow up (her eyebrow goes up so high I can hear it over the phone). She knows me. She knows I like to DO things. And boy am I ever doing things right now!

I am in a groove, as Twyla Tharp would call it. Every time I take a walk, an idea for a piece of my novel or an entirely new book project springs into my mind. “Structure the book as an escape to the outdoors in the same way Robbe-Grillet structured The Erasers city in a circle to hint at the story’s ending!” I gasp into my iPhone’s voice recorder, and suddenly the whole novel gels and the symbolism that’s already central to the plot is perfectly sewn together. Sweet! It’s not effortless, but it’s the fun kind of working up a sweat.

If you include my full-time “momming,” I am currently working 75 hours a week, but I’ve never felt more energized. That is the definition of a groove, or it should be. All grooves come to an end, but I am riding this one like a wild horse. No way am I going to let fear or distractions or anything else deter me from getting every drop of fun out of this groove.

How did I get here? I don’t really know, but the one thing I’m doing differently this time that might have something to do with it is this: I’m not over-thinking my plans. I have plans upon plans–that’s what I’m so excited about!–but I am focusing on the short-term plans right now to explore these rabbit trails, then later I’ll see if I want to pick one trail above the others. I also took Pete Michaud’s advice not to make everything perfect before launching my new blog, and that has paid dividends in creativity and forward momentum. Thanks, Pete!

Two years ago I had barely worked up the courage to say aloud that I wanted to write at all. So my self-confidence has changed as well. All I can say is, it’s about time!

If you’re in a groove or remember a good one, how did you get there? If your groove turned to a rut, what caused that to happen?

Trying Something New

Okay, reader(s) , let’s try something new with this space. I’m thinking about discussing more specific topics and hoping you will weigh in on them. I’m going to start with style choices that dear Chicago does not cover (or does not help with when it does cover!), but I’d like to know what you want to discuss. I do most of the talking here, I’ll admit, but this blog is really intended to promote discussion, and I’d like to know what YOU want to talk about. So if you have a minute, please weigh in and let me know what you want to read and discuss on this blog. Thanks!

Site Redesign

Bear with me, folks. I thought the blog could use a little spiffing up (and maybe a template that allowed subtitles, so you know what you’re getting yourselves into when you visit). The look of Ann Arbor Editors may shift around a bit for a little while as I decide on a new L&F. Thanks for your patience. I have learned so much already by blogging and having great conversations with you! Here we go. This will only sting a little…

The Future of News Is…

Front Page of La Canadien, 1806

Anyone else sick of the discussion about how the media/publishing industries can make money going forward? Not a single business model seems to be working anymore. This means one of three things: 1) There is no solution. An economic recovery will bring with it more advertising dollars, and we’ll stagger on until then. 2) There is a solution, but we haven’t gone on enough chat shows to find it yet. 3) There is no solution; there are solutions!

I’ll choose what’s behind door number three. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what the news will look like in the future, and what I would be willing to pay for. The sad truth? I’m not really eager to pay for anything online, and that’s where I’ll be getting my news, for sure. For me to subscribe to a news service, it will have to be one-stop shopping, customized, interactive, and take the work/time out of exploring the web. I can see an improved Google homepage fulfilling some of these functions, and it occurs to me that the various functions I want from my “news” could be performed by different companies, different applications. What if we all started building niche news-serving tools like iPhone apps and then put together the best ones? Instead of reinventing the entire concept of publishing and news, we can simply invest piece by piece in the companies and tools that deliver content in new and tasty ways.

Here’s what Laura’s news feed of the (not too distant, I hope) future will look like:

- Headline news I can filter by category (block politics right before elections, or block sports I don’t give a whit about), produced by traditional news reporting/distributing agencies.

- Niche publishing industry, green technology, general interest IT, arts & entertainment, and international personal interest news. A combination of traditional reporting sources and blogs.

- Suggested news stories of all kinds based on my preferences and click-throughs.

- RSS feeds with a tool that suggests new blogs I might like to follow.

- An RSS reader that compiles blog feeds by category for easy viewing.

- A tool that keeps me informed of new or high levels of traffic on various websites across the intertubes.

- A tool that suggests new social media contacts based on my interests and activity.

- A tool that crawls the web for the best price on an item I’m thinking of purchasing, or finds baby gear sweepstakes, etc.

We consumers will pay one-time or ongoing fees for the apps that bring us the type of content filtering we like best. We can continue to pay for some content that is valuable to us, and less in-depth content will be supported by advertising dollars (hey, it could work as a partial strategy).

The good news? I believe at least marginally decent versions of all these tools/services are already available! Someone (ahem, Google) just has to put it together in a way that serves users on computers and phones, and they’re sitting on a mountain of gold. Seriously, if an iPhone fart app can make hundreds of thousands of dollars, there’s some money there for news-serving, web-exploring, horizon-expanding apps, don’t you think?

What would you like your news to do for you that it’s not currently? How would you like to access published content? Is your content lacking depth, accessibility? Let’s start a new conversation, please, on what news and published content product we’re willing to buy, not just how to make money off the old product after it’s long expired.

Your Favorites

I have a little more time and energy lately to read blogs and look for new media outlets I want to follow, but it’s hard to cut through the noise online and find the good stuff. Today I want to know what your favorite sites are for writers, editors, or just news/fun/business in general. Here are a few of mine:

mediabistro.com (media news, job postings)

inhabitat.com (Green and fabulous stuff)

digg.com (social news site: mostly 12-yr-olds, geeks, and PR staffs voting stories up)

autoblog.com (interesting cars)

jalopnik.com (funny cars)

mastheads.org (find the right contact at a magazine)

ed2010.com (Psst! They didn’t tell you, but so-and-so is hiring.)

freelancefolder.com (freelancing)

thesimpledollar.com (frugal tips)

writetodone.com (about writing… till you’re done)

lifehacker.com (how to hack your life)

freelanceswitch.com (also self-explanatory)

hulu.com (free movies and TV! Lots and lots of 30 Rock episodes )

Okay, your turn. Give me some new sites to visit! I must have more media! What are your favorite blogs, news sites, etc.?