Sep 22, 2018 | Writing
When I finish writing for the day, I usually reward myself by researching the publishing process (I know surprisingly little about traditional publishing) and/or watching bookish YouTube videos. Today, I went to YouTube and stumbled on YA writer Nadine Brandes. I watched the video where she opened a UPS package from her publisher containing the hardcover of her book Fawkes and I was like, THAT. IS. SO. EXCITING. And after that I watched the Fawkes release day video. When I got to the part where she picked her book up off the shelf at Barnes & Noble? I might’ve cried my pants (peed my eyes?) a little bit.
The super-reserved, daughter-of-a-stoic part of me thinks that if I talk about how badly I want to publish this memoir I’ll jinx the whole process. But the rest of me is ready to blab about how I’ve already started bookmarking the web pages of potential literary agents.
I’m feeling pretty good about being this close to 40,000 words after only a month. I mean just look at the lovely shade of green that progress bar is turning! When I originally settled on the goal to write 50,000 words I thought it seemed impossible. And truthfully, I think I need closer to 60,000 words for a real book. (Somehow 50,000 seemed much less daunting. *shrug*) But now I think the first goal is a foregone conclusion and the second goal is well within my reach.
A couple nights ago I was talking to Dan about the themes I was seeing emerge from the scenes I was writing, and he was like, “Wow. That’s actually pretty cool.” So then I mentioned how I was even tossing around some working titles.
“What do you think about [Blankity Blankity]?” I asked.
“That’s not bad. Or maybe just [Blank].”
“Oh. My. GAWD,” I said. “That is fucking brilliant.”
“My fee is 15%.”
So now I have a working title, which is also super fun. (Sorry, not ready to disclose it just yet. It’s too early and the whole story arc it’s based on could still easily fall apart and then we’d all be disappointed.)
Dan, my littlest Lit Major, has also promised to help me organize my scenes into something readable once the draft is complete. The plan is for me to finish the first draft, drink a margarita, and then print it out and hand it over to Dan for the cutting and pasting and reordering of scenes. I won’t look at it myself for a minimum of seven days once it’s on paper for the first time.
If you’d like to sponsor that margarita or the replacement ink cartridge I’ll have to buy after, you can donate to paypal.me/EmilySuess.
Sep 19, 2018 | Brain Tumor, Writing
God, I love Google Drive. Writing a scene today triggered a memory of mine from 2013. I wrote a resignation letter to my boss at The Shittiest Job Ever™. And this letter? It was something else. I remember telling my dad about it at the time and he was like, “I’m not telling you not to send it, but are you sure it’s wise to leave like that?”
He wouldn’t have been a very good dad if he hadn’t wondered out loud about my maybe possibly kinda burning bridges. But I was 33, not 23. So believe me, I had thought the damn thing through.
“Dad,” I said, “You don’t understand.”
The letter WAS TWO WHOLE PAGES LONG and CC:ed to HR not just because it was standard procedure but because they also needed to have it spelled out that there were capital-R Reasons I was leaving without giving the standard 2 weeks’ notice. It was the most fuck-you thing I’d ever written that didn’t contain any actual cuss words.
Anywho, I was thinking, Gee I really wish I had saved that, when I vaguely remembered sending it to a co-worker and a couple of friends via email after the fact. I searched Gmail for “resignation letter” and found the link (that I’d sent out more than five years ago) to the Google Drive doc. Was it still there? I clicked excitedly. Yes!
Reading it opened a memory floodgate in a corner of my brain that was just collecting dust post-chemo. I don’t have plans to write at any length about that job in my memoir because it’s largely irrelevant to the story I’m telling, but a steady trickle of memories from that same period started pooling at my feet—memories that I had only partially been able to recall began flowing in much more complete form. Which, you know, makes writing about them exponentially easier.
As of today, I have 34,027 words in my first draft.
Sep 10, 2018 | Brain Tumor, Writing
So, that whole writing a book/memoir* thing? It’s still happening. Somehow I’ve managed to type up more than 25,000 words. That puts me halfway to my goal of 50,000 words for the WIP. (Oh my God, I have a WIP!) Now, I do have a pipe dream of getting this thing traditionally published someday because: medical bills, so 50,000 might be a little light in the end. But for today, drafting something that long is monumental. Feeling well enough to slog out a thousand words a day is even, uh, monumentaler?
Here’s the reason I’m so giddy about this project: I’ve been writing professionally for more than a decade, but always for someone else. Even when clients found me through my blog and said, “I love your voice! Write for me!”, in the end most wanted to make the thing theirs. Totally understandable, BUT! having this chance to write for me—about only the things I want to write about, in no one’s voice but my own—feels surreal, and a little indulgent. Even though I know I’m only afforded the time to do it because I’m tumored and disabled. Dan is super supportive and is picking up the domestic slack while I disappear inside myself for a few hours a day, probably because he wants me to make him look good when it’s time to write his chapter.
It’s already apparent my FitDesk hours for September are going to be less impressive than last month, but I’m making my peace with it. Yeah, I know the whole point of the FitDesk is to be able to work and ride, but I really like writing on the couch. I still try to ride regularly and color (see above), but I’m not feeling robust enough to pedal for 90 minutes a day and squeeze in a couple hours of writing. Chronically sick bodies require an abundance of rest, you know.
That’s my update. I’ll see ya when I see ya.
Coloring page taken from Art Nouveau: Coloring for Everyone.
*Even though “memoir” is technically what I’m writing, and I love reading the genre, I hate the word “memoir.”
Aug 27, 2018 | Writing
Naturally, part of my preparation for possibly re-entering the world of freelance writing after a couple of years away includes checking out the current job-hunting landscape. So I put “freelance writing jobs” in my browser’s search bar and checked out the top three results the search engine spit back at me. Here are my thoughts.
Upwork
I mentioned that I’d already created an account at Upwork in an earlier post. There are a lot of job listings there—literally hundreds upon hundreds. Some gigs pay well, some pay not so well, and some offer downright insulting pay.
Upwork charges a fee for using their board. There are still ways to get paid precisely what you’re worth (just determine your hourly rate or fixed price and tack on 20% when bidding) but it’s still a little unsettling to kiss that 20% goodbye. Does the site provide enough value to justify the cost? Well, that’s something each freelancer has to decide for herself.
Contena
I got started by registering, but was immediately turned off when I started getting their onboarding emails. First I was told there’s a waitlist to get in. Then, lucky me, I was accepted. (Wow, I must be special!) Then I find out what it costs to use the site. The cheap plan is $99/mo. The premium plan is $199/mo.
Jesus.
And these guys are not shy about going for the hard sell, either.
“With Contena Gold, you’ll learn how to go from zero to hero as a freelance writer with complete access to Contena Academy 2.0. Contena Academy is our complete 6 module video course that will help you to create everything you need to launch a great writing business.”
What I find the most disturbing about Contena is that until you pay, you can’t even look at the details of the jobs posted. I’m not into buying things sight unseen. And the skeptic in me if the list of titles is even legit.
I’m not saying this site is shady or that it doesn’t provide a valuable service for a specific kind of freelance writer, but it’s definitely not for me. I feel like I need to take a shower now.
FreelanceWriting.com
There were quality listings here that seemed to be scraped from various other sites on the internet. You can filter their postings to cut down on clutter and take a closer look at the gigs that appeal to you.
After finding one I thought might be interesting, I clicked on the “apply here” button a couple of times before finally being led to a completely different site to submit the job proposal. Hmm. The extra clicks are a minor inconvenience. I have bookmarked the site though. It could be useful.
There are lots of other freelance writing job boards like FreelanceWriting.com that either collect links from around the web or offer paid ad space for companies looking to hire freelance writers. I landed some great projects scouring these kinds of sites previously, but I’m not sure they are the best use of my time now.
Aug 22, 2018 | Writing
I don’t know how long Paula and I have been Twitter friends, five years? Ten? But I know that when she commented on Monday’s blog post asking “why not start a book?” it wasn’t the first time she’d suggested the idea.
My standard response to anyone who has ever nudged me to write a book is essentially this: I don’t know what to write and I don’t have any ideas. I was raised to follow instructions, not create.
I wish I was a freer spirit. I’ve been trying my whole life to be a freer spirit. But I don’t think I have it in me. So, yes, I thought, it’s a wonderful idea. But, no, I don’t think I’m the woman to pull it off.
I stepped away from my laptop and walked my lilted walk to the kitchen to make a sandwich. And as I was digging the turkey pastrami out of the fridge, I let Paula’s suggestion swirl around inside my head a little bit more. I paused briefly with my hand on the handle of the refrigerator door. The I idea of writing something more life-affirming than 500-word blog posts for technology startups was enticing. What if?
What if I could write a book?
What if I could write a few hundred words every day?
What if I could get an agent?
What if I could get that thing published?
What if I could make a living writing stuff for me instead of other people?
The thoughts were too tempting to let go of this time, and so I started writing. I got a few thousand words down about my brain cancer—because I love memoir, and that’s what I want to write—before self-doubt pulled the brakes on that train.
You can’t write about that other stuff though.
There’s not enough material here for a book.
You think you can eke out 75,000 words writing this kind of drivel?
Everything you plan to write about is going to get you sued.
I slept on it, and woke up determined not to write but to research memoir writing. And I started thinking about the theme and about how different snapshots of my life fit into that theme. And then I thought about the story arc and how I might order those stories for the reader. And then I read something magical about how to deal with horrible people from your life that might want to sue you: put a disclaimer in the front of the book about how you’ve changed names and some details. Fudge the locations. Bump the time forward or back a year or two. Give that guy a mole he doesn’t have in real life.
Duh.
After reading that, the ideas that were damming up behind a wall of doubt swelled until they took the wall out.
And now, if you need me, I’ll be thinking up villainous names for all the miserable people who’ve come in an out of my life.
