Writing Schedule: Critique Group Epic Fail & a Distraction
After attending a mentoring day sponsored by the NJ SCBWI, I decided I should follow the advice of Meredith Mundy, an editor at Sterling and join a critique group. Unfortunately, the closest critique group sponsored by Women Who Write is full. I opted to try the second closest one which happens to be mixed genre (when I wanted YA) and is in Chatham. I couldn't find Chatham.
To be fair, when I went looking for Chatham, I was kind of out of sorts. My husband managed to have two minor disasters within his first hour of being out of bed. First, he broke a picture frame and freaked out about that. Second, he went out the back door without disabling the alarm. When ADT called and asked for his passcode, he gave them the wrong one and the police showed up. I suggested all this was a sign that I shouldn't go anywhere since he seemed to be headed for a jail cell and/or the hospital if left to his own devices. He encouraged me to try to go anyway. I made it as far as Scotch Plains, and somehow ended up on Route 22 aka The Route of all Evil. I took that as a sign I needed to go home and have a Dunkin' Donuts sausage egg and cheese.
I followed-up breakfast with a minor meltdown and spent most of the afternoon reading The Iron King and napping. I also spent a lot of that time wondering how The Iron King got published and has been as successful as it has been. I decided fantasy fans on the whole must have low standards. Keep in mind, I was in a dark place when I had these thoughts.
Today has been better. So far, I've written about 600 words., but I'm still about 4,000 words behind where I'd like to be. Poopy! I started writing after I hung curtains in the living room to pre-empt another failed attempt on my husband's part. Since I'm not handy either, two of the rod holders fell down after I went upstairs and my husband started keening because he claimed he couldn't find either of them. I found both of them and popped them back on the wall. We'll see how long they stay up. About 200 words later, he started keening again because he was having trouble with a new XBox game. He came to my office and said he wasn't sure if it was the game or the console. I snapped at him that I was working and he stomped off, sulking. He left to return the game and I was too overcome with guilt to continue writing.
I texted him to make sure he didn't hate me. He called and offered to pick-up Taco Bell on the way home. We ate Taco Bell and started watching random horror movies, and that's when I discovered a bizarre vampire movie connection: Lauren Hutton and George Hamilton both starred in Zorro, The Gay Blade and went on to separately star in two bizarre and silly vampire movies. Lauren played the seductive woman of the world and vampire with a very young Jim Carrey in Once Bitten and George Hamilton starred in Love at First Bite along with a lot of really awful disco music. I'm fond of all of these movies, even if they are kind of stupid. I have a soft spot for Love at First Bite because it features the line, "Children of the night, shut up!" Gotta love that.
Anyway, I hope next week is better for writing.