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Herding Cats

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Relaxing on the hotel’s king-sized bed. October, 2017

As one who has lived with cats for nearly thirty years, I know all too well what it means to say that something is “like herding cats.” (For those unfamiliar with the expression, it means that you’re trying to gather and organize disparate items/events/personalities and it seems that each has a mind of its own and wishes to go off in a different direction.) Even when you love the cats dearly, as I do, herding them can sometimes drive you a little bit nuts.

An apt corollary would be “like indie publishing.”

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Draft 3.5

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Olivia, editor-in-chief of Tuxedo Cat Press, feels it is her duty to oversee my work

Turns out that when it comes to keeping my hands off the manuscript, I kinda suck at it.

It probably didn’t help that last week, three major projects that were on my schedule all went away. (None were my fault—cases settled or were withdrawn by a party.) Then, when I opened my emails Monday morning, I discovered that the only remaining project on my desk was on hold, which meant I had literally no billable work.

Which, in turn, meant I had two choices. 1. Panic. 2. Take advantage of this unexpected free time to work on something else.

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The First Ten Years

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Santa and me at Winterfair, 2022

July, 2013. Work was beyond summer-slow. In fact, there was nothing on my desk. Which wouldn’t have been so bad except that the client who still owed me a lot of money for an appeal had decided he didn’t have to pay anymore. So no work and no cash flow. It was grim, to say the least.

I sat at the table on my back porch, contemplating my next move. Should I wait for the legal research/writing work to pick up? Or should I start looking for a job working for someone else? Was my time up as an independent contractor?

The notion of going to work in someone else’s office, on someone else’s schedule, made me shudder. But what was the alternative?

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Interlude

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Photo credit: dramitkarkare on Pixabay

Now comes one of the hardest parts: the part where I take my hands off the manuscript and let trusted readers weigh in. When I send it out to them in the next day or so, I’ll undoubtedly include all sorts of caveats about how rough it still is and how I’ve already identified a few things I need to address.

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New Challenge, Day Fourteen

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I did it.

(Cue fireworks.)

Photo credit: Michael Fousert on Unsplash

“You finished your challenge? Isn’t that nice?”

No, dear. Not just the challenge.

I finished Draft #3.

(Cue more fireworks.)

Photo credit: Roven Images on Unsplash

Is the book done and ready for publication? No. As I edited, I identified three things I need to address involving minor characters. For the first, his story line needs resolution. The second needs to be included more (since she’s in the first book, I can’t just ignore her). The third (another recurring character from the first book) also needs to be woven in earlier, because he’s a big part of the climax and he can’t just appear for the first time forty pages from the end of the book.

I’m sure that when I sit down to read the manuscript, I’ll find a lot more to edit and clean up and flesh out. But for the first time, I feel as if I have a real draft of the story, something that really can turn into a book I’d be proud to show to people.

To be honest, I’m kind of dazed.

But I did it. I really, truly did it!

Photo credit: Keith Luke on Unsplash

New Challenge, Day Thirteen

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The world’s most depressing teabag

I don’t know who gave me this tea bag, but the tag is officially one of the most depressing things I’ve ever read.

I assume it’s supposed to be funny, but I feel quite confident that no novelist would see it that way. I definitely don’t.

(For those who aren’t familiar with cats: on average, an indoor cat lives fifteen years. My longest-lived cat died a few months shy of her twenty-second birthday, but she was remarkable in any number of ways, and longevity was just one of them.)

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New Challenge, Day Twelve

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My desk

In 2011, an unexpected snowstorm in October knocked out power to much of Connecticut, including my home. Because the temperatures were barely below freezing, the snow was heavy and wet, taking down wires and branches across the state. Fortunately, it didn’t take long before the roads were clear so that those of us without power could drive to places that had luxuries like electricity and the ability to flush.

During the week when my house was without power, I routinely packed up my laptop and files each day and worked in the library at the law school. At the end of the workday, though, I returned to a cold, dark house. My fireplace threw very little heat, which meant that I spent my evenings wrapped in sweaters and blankets as I read Jane Austen by candlelight, which seemed fitting.

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New Challenge, Day Eleven

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Photo credit: tigerlily713 on Pixabay

Another session of editing—tweaking language, moving sections, trying to keep track of timelines. I made a chronology of the first section several weeks ago, but I suspect the time may have come to do it again. Otherwise, I lose track of the order of events and how much time passes between them.

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New Challenge, Day Ten

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Photo credit: Aline Ponce on Pixabay

Tonight’s writing was less about producing and more about tweaking. Anything from a word to a sentence to a plot point—I skimmed through a chunk in the first section, playing with language.

To be honest, that’s one of my favorite parts of writing. I simply do not understand people who dislike editing. Editing is where the story moves from a barebones plot to having life and color. Maybe some people can create a full-blown scene on the first draft, but not me. For me, the progression is more like this:

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New Challenge, Day Nine

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My old guitar

Progress!

I finally figured out how to connect up a moment from early in the book to the climax. I love when that happens, when bits and pieces seem to link themselves together without my having to think very much. I did that once in a short story, and a reader who was also a writer commended me on having woven the victim’s silver ring through the story. (Since she was a friend, I admitted to her that the ring had been the last thing I thought of, after which I went back and planted references.)

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