Working on Vacation

6

My novel isn’t done yet, and I leave in two days to go on vacation for a week. So I’m bringing my netbook and intend to represent the iconic image of the fiction writer drinking an umbrella drink on a hot beach with the laptop open, working in the sunlight. Only, I’m Irish and don’t want to be a crackling lobster, so I’ll be in the shade instead. Covered in Zinc. Glamorous, I know.

I’m hoping I can focus and get at least 30,000 words done, which will leave about a week’s worth of work for the week after I get home before I head out to another workshop with Dean Wesley Smith. This next one is on pitches and blurbs, which will be perfect timing for finishing a novel. I intend to get the first three chapters cleaned up, a synopsis, and query letter done at the same time I finish the novel so I can use what I learn at the workshop to get this novel sent off. That will be novel number three.

Got two nice rejections, one on the fantasy novel, one on the sci/fi novel. So I switched which editor had which and will see if maybe the new stuff is more to their tastes. So far I’ve only gotten one form rejection on my novels, which said they were returning the material unread due to not being agented. Oh well. I sent it back out (and actually doubt that no one read it, since the packet wasn’t mailed back in the order I sent it and it was missing the top paperclip, so something happened to it on its journey between envelopes). The hunt for publication continues. This part is boring. Thank god for writing/working on new stuff. If I had all my hopes on the stuff I’ve already done, I think I’d be going crazy by now. The rejection on my full stung a little more than I’d expected, but I made myself get the query back out. Keep it automated and done, that’s how I manage to move on.

Besides, I get to go drink fruity girly drinks on a beach in the sun shade while writing about serial killers and thieves. There are definitely worse jobs 🙂

Oh, and my grandmother is apparently passing on her super-old awesome typewriter to me. I think I’ll have to type up a story and send it out that way just for old time’s sake. (I wrote my first stories on an old typewriter my parents had in a closet. They were two page epics with no punctuation). I wonder if you can still buy carbon paper and such. I’ll have to check. Maybe I’ll write a short story ode to the pulps with a crazy title. Sounds like fun.

6 Responses to “Working on Vacation”

  1. osomuerte

    I saw a new list of HMs on the WotF blog. Your name was conspicuously absent. My toes are crossed for you (fingers need to be free to type).

    An unrelated word of advice: if you are vacationing with loved one(s), either set a low goal or keep the goal soft. It’s their vacation, too. If you are vacationing alone, leave the computer at home. When you’re tired of vacationing, go home and write.

    I’ve ruined vacations by working too hard. My wife has, too, with that camera of hers. Relax.

    Or don’t. 🙂

    • izanobu

      Yeeks, not on that HM list either. Doom 😛

      I’m vacationing with family, but I really need to get this novel done. They’ll forgive me 😛 (Besides, 30k words is about 30 hours of work, I hope I can find 30 hours to write in the next week 🙂 )

  2. Ben Godby

    Being covered in zinc is actually really glamorous. Think about it: you’re pretty much a cyborg.

    Oh, and nice job with the unagented submission blaster. You are not only slathered in a metallic exoskeleton: you also have real guts. Cyborg props, izanobu.

  3. Alex J. Kane

    That does sound rather glorious, despite the fear of sunburn. I’m jealous. Hopefully some sort of summer vacation will go down, but I’m not counting on it. I had tickets to see U2 for a second time, but Bono injured his back so that’s postponed untit summer 2011. I guess writing is my summer vacation.

    I was also surprised to see a lack of ‘Nobu on the HM lists. Even more surprised, perhaps, to see the lack of my own name. Could be setting myself up for a big, big let-down… 🙁

    • izanobu

      Don’t worry, Alex, there is probably at least one more HM list to come. Generally the last HMs are the ones that almost got there (I’ve been in the final 10-15 HMs twice now). So don’t despair yet! While I’m hoping, of course, for a phone call instead, KD has said this quarter is huge and really tough… so I’m trying not to think about it too hard 😛

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