A Writing Update (Such as it Is)…

Folks, I’m at the point in my manuscript where I can see daylight ahead. The journey is starting to come to an end…

But before I can end this particular journey, I have to get through a cloverleaf or two. That have major roadblocks, not to mention setbacks.

When I get this frustrated with any manuscript, I usually try to take a step back and figure out where I’m going. But in this case, I know exactly where I’m going; it’s just that some of the particulars about how I’m going to get there have changed.

So it’s a new and different problem I’m dealing with. It means I have to feel my way through, take my time, figure out what’s going to happen, so I can turn in the best possible manuscript.

I hope this does not mean I’ll miss my publication window for the end of 2015, mind. But the longer I struggle with my manuscript, the less likely it is that I actually will hit that window at all.

Of course, if I weren’t going for e-book publication, there would be no way in the world I could possibly hit the window…but I digress.

What I’m dealing with right now, folks, is where anxiety meets frustration. My strategy has always been to admit that I’m frustrated, and also admit that I’m anxious about being frustrated.

Then I do my best to get on with the job anyway.

This is easier said than done, mind. Because I have to experience the anxiety, experience the frustration, and then tell myself, “OK, Barb, you’ve experienced that. You know how you feel. You’ve acknowledged this. Now set it aside, and see what happens next.”

This is a strategy my late husband Michael told me about. Oft-times, it works — even with impatient, hasty me.

Anyway, when I can’t write, I’m not easy to live with. I get quite cranky, in fact…so I’m sure that everyone around me hopes, as I do, that my solution to fixing my manuscript and hitting my late 2015 window lies just around the corner.

Further updates as I have ’em.

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One good bit of information to pass along: As I’ve signed the contract (and it’s been countersigned and I’ve been given permission), I think it can now be told…I’ve sold my third story in the Darkover universe (created by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and continued by Deborah J. Ross), which will be published in REALMS OF DARKOVER during 2016. The story is about my judge, Fiona, as a thirteen-year-old girl, when all she wants to do is become the first-ever female court clerk in the Hellers (a wicked mountain range on Darkover)…and we get to see Fiona’s parents, happily married — Gorsali, a Renunciate (Free Amazon) of Darkover, and Dominic macAnndra, a sitting circuit court judge.

Naturally, it’s called “Fiona, Court Clerk in Training.”