Category: Background Checks
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More than halfway through these revisions
Ooof, revising is some kind of process, I’ll tell you what. Today, I sat down and made a list of the scenes that I thought I’d need to insert into the novel between where I am (the halfway point) and the 2/3rds point. Adding scenes to a mostly-complete novel is an amazing feeling. On the…
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Really odd to me that people tend to either share their homes with their family, their significant other, or…complete strangers
For no discernible reason, I and my roommates decided to watch Ghost of Mississippi, and as we were watching Alec Baldwin ham it up, I started thinking, “It is really bizarre and unnatural to live in an apartment with strangers who you found on the internet.” Like, one of my roommates is someone I know a…
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Finally going home
It snowed on my last day here in DC. It snowed like three inches! What is up with that? I do not hold truck with this whole snow thing. Even when it’s like sixty-five degrees, and I’m sitting in my living room in Berkeley, I feel cold. Actually, I’ve been a little less cold in…
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Nostalgia
Due to some strange personal choices, I’ve spent the better part of a month at my parent’s house in DC, and it has not been un-fun. I stayed here so long that all the people I knew from high school and middle school finished their holiday trips and went back to where they work, and…
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Wrap-Up Season: I’ve finally found the place where I want to spend my life.
When I read blogs, I feel like I’m always scratching my head trying to figure out where the author lives and what they do for a living–it’s like I’m always in those first two chapters of the book right before the massive biographical info-dump–and I’m pretty sure that my readers have the same experience with…
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Got paid and also got my edit letter from Disney
Today, I got an invoice from Disney’s royalty department, so I’m pretty sure I’m going to get paid within a week. It will be good to have the money. My contract divides my advance into three equal payments for each book. What I just got was the signing advance for each book (i.e. I got one third…
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Haven’t felt very much like a writer lately
What with all the moving around and getting sorted out, I haven’t done much writing. And I also haven’t been terribly interested in reading. I also, for the first time in a long time, don’t have a big new project on the horizon. In fact, if I was to start a novel now, I don’t…
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Weird to get good news when I am just so completely discombobulated
I’ve sold two stories in the last week, and then today I got a personal rejection from The Missouri Review (on a realist story). And that’s not necessarily a huge deal, except that I’ve never gotten a hint of encouragement from a literary magazine of that stature. It is really weird to send stuff out for years and…
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About to be on the road
I’m going to spend July 2-23 driving around this great nation of ours, attending weddings in Detroit and the SF Bay Area and seeing friends in Great Falls, MT and Tillamook, OR. So that’s going to happen. I am both enthused and unenthused about spending so much time away from home. Enthused because I love…
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I never want to go anywhere
Been going to a lot of new places here and seeing lots of new people. And every single time I have some event that I want to go to, I find myself lying in bed about an hour beforehand and saying to myself, “I am really tired. Maybe I won’t go today. I’ll feel better…