Photo by Brian Lincolnian

I’m moving to a new virtual space!

I’ve been thinking about a second site for a while — one where I can post the odds and ends that inspire me in my creative work, which is primarily fantasy and science fiction writing. The Domesticated Muse started out as a place to help people reach their creative goals, especially people who are already juggling family and work. But over time, my focus has changed from a kind of creativity coaching to my own creative writing.

And so, while I’m a bit sad to end my Domesticated Muse posts (which have dwindling recently anyway), I’m excited to have a new site, Carnival of Words, that will be more of a free creative space for me, and a place to give updates on my work for readers who are interested. I’ll keep this site up for a while longer, because it’s still getting daily hits for some of my popular posts. If you want to read new stuff from me, come on over to the new place, and thanks for reading!

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

Today I finished revisions on the final chapter of my YA/older Middle Grade novel The Violet Lens (working title). I want to be all professional about this, but actually I’m squealing with joy. It’s off to my trusty beta readers now, who will tear bits apart and make it better. Hopefully they won’t say things like, “didn’t this character die in the last chapter?” or “wasn’t that character a man in the last scene? How come he is a she now? Did I miss something?” (But if they do find these sorts of things, better now than later.)

I feel like I should be celebrating. What should I do first – buy some chocolate, take myself out for a meal, mow the two-foot high lawn, or fold the piles of laundry that have been in my bedroom so long they’ve accumulated dust?

I’m not very good at balance. I don’t do a little of this and a little of that. I do a lot of this, and ignore that until we need excavating equipment to get out from underneath it. But hey, I wrote a book, goddammit. That’s something, even if by the end of it my beta readers are wishing they chose the laundry instead.

November garden of melancholy. Photo by h.koppdelaney

It’s October, my favorite time of year, despite that fact that it means  the winter blues will probably hit me like a load of wet snow from the roof in a couple of months. I’m crazy about the autumn, as I’ve mentioned here before, and it has been seventy degrees and sunny this week in Madison, which makes it even better. I’ve been revising my book like crazy, and it’s shifted into the category of older middle grade fantasy, rather than young adult. I guess that’s what happens when there isn’t any sex. In the book, I mean.

I want to mention a new Halloween tradition that was started last year by a certain famous Newberry winning author: All Hallow’s Read. It’s very simple. Give scary books as gifts. This is not in place of Halloween candy, but is another way to mark the season of ghosts, deliciously evil doings, and dark things that walk the night. Give someone a scary book on Halloween or any time during this month.

They don’t have to be new books or expensive books. I recently scored a copy of the Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury at our neighborhood Little Free Library, a fantastic kids’ book that is probably out of print now, although I haven’t checked. It is just about the perfect All Hallow’s Read gift.

If you have any scary books that you recommend, put them in the comments so that the rest of us can get some good ideas. For adults, I’m thinking a classic Stephen King will do nicely. Cujo scared the bejesus out of me when I was fourteen. I still give Saint Bernards the stink eye before I pet them.

Photo by Old Sarge

August was sparse. Only one post from me, at the beginning of the month. Such was my life at the end of this summer. But now the kids are back in school, and I’ve revised three more chapters of my YA book. My plan back at the beginning of the summer YA novel challenge was to have the second draft done by September.

I didn’t even get close to finishing. While I feel bummed about this, I knew it was a possibility. In the beginning of the War of Art, Steven Pressfield writes, “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” I’m going to add that Resistance is at its most insidious and brilliant when it can disguise itself as a Big Obstacle, such as illness or family. I had plenty of Big Obstacles this summer and I used them all as excuses not to write. (I’d like to take a moment to thank Thomas Jefferson, one of the first American politicians to advocate the creation of a public school system in the US. Now that school is back in session I have NO EXCUSE.)

Now that I’m back on track, I feel an immense amount of relief. Not doing what I am creatively meant to be doing was bad for my soul. It made me tired. It made me critical and whiny and self-hating. It’s amazing that we can forget how good it is, that we can talk ourselves out of doing our creative work, again and again. The trick is to remember that it’s better when we’re doing our work. Even if we can’t remember the actual feeling, we can remind ourselves to try.

Photo by Fabio Venni (fabbio)

One of my clowns was home sick from clown camp today. This wasn’t good for my writing, but was very good for the poor little clown, who was all tired out. Theodora Goss, who started the YA Novel challenge, has an update on her blog, and it reminded me that I hadn’t updated in a while. My little clown reminded me that life doesn’t always work out the way you plan. So, my own update is brief:

I’m six pages into chapter 14, which puts me close to halfway done with the second draft. My recent chapters haven’t felt as lively or complete as I’d like, so they’ll need more work. I had hoped to be done with the second draft by the end of August, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen now. I feel like I have a better handle on my character’s voice, but I’m still working out some of her relationships to the other characters. Also, I haven’t thought much about how to make this book the first in a longer story arc. I’d like to write a couple more with these characters, and I have some idea what they’ll be about, but I really should be thinking about it more if I want to make it all fit together in a more cohesive and exciting way.

 I often feel like I have two personalities warring inside me – the one that says, “Let go. Give yourself a break,” and the other that says, “Go on, push a little harder, you can do it.” When they are arm wrestling, the most common result is inertia coupled with guilt. Not very productive. Maybe tomorrow, the other one will win. But today, I’m hanging out with the clown.

Comedians: Photo by DoubleM2

I’m getting ready for a two-week novel-writing intensive. I’m not going off to some camp where experts will help me hone my skills and give me the space and time to work intensively on a single project. My kids are doing that. They are going off to circus camp. They will be learning to stilt-walk, hang from the low-flying trapeze, climb aerial silks, and, a perennial favorite among nine-year old boys everywhere, mime being trapped in a box. I will be at home in solitude for the first time since early June, writing.

I haven’t made the progress I hoped for on my YA novel writing challenge. But I expected that might happen – when the kids are home for the summer, finding time to write is challenging. I’m excited to get this big chunk of time and determined not to whittle away at it with other projects, like laundry. I’d like to be halfway through the second draft by the end of the two weeks.

This first week will only be four days of writing. That’s because I’m going to Chicago on Friday to meet up with old friends and go to the 7^th annual Printers’ Ball, an event put on by the Poetry Foundation along with a number of other literary and creative groups. The Printers’ Ball is a free event that celebrates literary culture with live performances and demonstrations, lots of free books, magazines and other printed stuff. There are going to be stamping workshops, letterpress demos, paper-making, live poetry and other readings.

I’m particularly stoked to see a reproduction of the infamous Whitechapel Club, the 19^th century Chicago journalists’ hangout that was decorated with creepy murder artifacts and named after the London neighborhood made notorious by Jack the Ripper. In fact the theme of the Printers’ Ball this year (It’s Alive!), which celebrates literary ghosts and monsters, is right up my alley. If you’re in the Chicago area, you should stop by. There will be more free books and ‘zines than you can carry.

P.S. If you can figure out what else writing, miming, and Jack the Ripper have in common, leave it in the comments. I’ll bring back a prize for the most creative answer.