I've been dreadfully remiss about posting. My apologies. It's just that I'm in the throes of finishing THE BLOODIEST QUEEN (aka THE MEDICI QUEEN).
I'm crazed, and will continue to be crazed for the next two months or so. Let's just say that Donna Giovanna has vacated the Palazzo Kalogridis kitchen, and she and poor Ser Giorgio are reduced to living on take-out.
My eyes are constantly pin-wheeling with eyestrain. I know I've said it before, but I really do feel like Kathleen Turner in the opening scenes of ROMANCING THE STONE -- you know, where she's at her typewriter in her bathrobe, unbathed, hair a mess, sobbing her eyes out and blowing her nose as she writes the final scenes of her lusty romance novel?
Well, that's me. That's me, for the next two months, except that the typewriter is actually an Apple. Powerbook. 17". And there are crumbs all over my keyboard. When I click the touchpad mouse, it goes crunch. And Sweetie Pie the Labrador is glaring balefully at me because she didn't get her hour-long walk this morning.
But I promise not to forget you, gentle reader, in the midst of it all. I will post. I will bravely blog.
That is all.
Comments (4)
It's soothing to know that writers go through this. In my (very) brief attempt to pen a Star Trek novel, just getting through one chapter had me in tears at the end.
In STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER, we were introduced to a character named Caithlin Dar. Even though she was minimally used and horribly acted, I felt a kinship with the character (being a Romulan fan) and decided to give the character depth and dignity.
After sobbing my eyes out at my computer as I finished Chapter 1, I wondered if writers also go through this? Thanks, Jeanne, for letting me know I'm not the only one.
Posted by John Allen | August 4, 2007 7:16 AM
Posted on August 4, 2007 07:16
Y'know, John, I've always said I'm glad I work all alone in a little room, closed away from the world. Because if people saw my face as I wrote, they'd laugh. When I try to describe a character's expression, I'm making that expression... when they're near tears, I'm near tears, and when they're happy, I'm laughing. Let's not even talk about the sex scenes.
It's one way that I keep my pulse on how the characters are coming off, too. In my current book, I discovered that one important characters left me unmoved. I rewrote him until now the very thought of him touches my heart.
But... oops! I should be working!
Posted by Jeanne Kalogridis | August 4, 2007 7:48 AM
Posted on August 4, 2007 07:48
Hang in there, Jeanne! I know exactly how writer's block can be. Non-writers think it just constantly flows from our brain to our fingers and that we are always inspired.
I really enjoyed the movie "Stranger Than Fiction," where Emma Thompson plays a novelist who hasn't published in 10 years and cannot figure out how to end her book without a death of the main character. Will Ferrell as the character in question, Queen Latifah as the assistant helping the novelist and Dustin Hoffman as an eccentric English professor.
BTW, Jeanne, I live in Florida and got my degree at USF, too. In mass communications, not linguistics. This was in the early '80s, so we may have had some professors in common. George Meyer, who taught beginning reporting, was the best teacher I had.
Posted by Lisa Thompson | August 8, 2007 2:20 PM
Posted on August 8, 2007 14:20
Actually, Lisa, the post wasn't about writer's block, but rather the opposite. I'm churning out a ridiculous number of pages these days, trying to meet a deadline. The problem was that I thought the book was going to be 500-600 pages -- looks more like 800 now. And so I'm in my bathrobe because I start writing the minute I get up, and just never bother to change.
I saw STRANGER THAN FICTION and loved it.
My college roomie got her degree in mass communications, and George Meyer was one of her favorite professors.
Posted by Jeanne Kalogridis | August 9, 2007 6:43 AM
Posted on August 9, 2007 06:43