Friday, September 11, 2009

Shin Splints, Split Ends and Heavyweights

Quote of the Day:
The leading cause of death of fashion
models is falling through street grates.
~Dave Barry

Current Local Weather:
Fall. Air. Crispy and cool with a renewed
sense of self blowing in from the NW

Currently on my iPOD:
"Wake Up Call"
Maroon 5
Won't Be Soon Before Long

Dear Friends, Family and my Family of Friends,

Yeah, yeah, it's been a bit, but take pity on me and my poor wrists. The MS, as you probably guessed by my last post in August, is done. I'm awaiting a fly-by red-inking gift from my editor and last I heard from her the edits were going slow but well. I guess that's good, right? Someone? Reassurance please? I still worry that she'll come back with a...hmm, not quite what I wanted, either redo or get out. Upon asking Super Agent G if this had happened to anyone he knew or had represented he said, well..not yet.

What have I been up to in the meantime?

1) Trimming split ends and waxing brows. Learning how to regain that thing called self-esteem and wearing more than pajamas around the house.

2) Learning how to walk again. What? I have two legs? They move? WTF? Who invented this? Amazingly enough, when you sit on your a** for a few weeks, rather 9 months or so, your muscle mass goes out the window. I used to be able to run a 5K a day. Now, walking over 30 minutes a day produces the most awful shin splints in the world. So I'm doing sit ups and more and walking, etc. Must get back in shape.

3) Dieting. When you sit on your a** as mentioned above, your a** gets calories and late night snacking or say early 4am snacking or your fifth breakfast of the day snacking benefits on an almost exclusive basis. Now that I've won the a** the size of Montana contest and can wear that crown with pride, I'm going to have to fork it over to some other hapless writer on a deadline. Starting NOW.

4) Refocusing on a new project or two...or four. Yep, they're coming at me like crazy. Can't say it's a terribly bad thing to be a writer who has working ideas or works in progress... I know, I know, I'm a fool for starting up already, but life is WAY TOO SHORT to not do this. One includes a much anticipated cook book that will be self-published and sold as a fund raiser for my scholarships for the retreats. Look for it around the Holidays.

5) Forging ahead with the last minute logistics for the retreats. This October is going to be a MUCH needed break and FUN. That little three letter word that I used to know. We actually used to be friends! I've got a GREAT group of peeps joining me in the mountains and a staff to be reckoned with. Looking forward to hanging with each of them and getting to know them.

6) Working on school presentations for the Rocky Mountain Author Fest. This should be great. I'm presenting lessons on communication and listening using jazz to 87 fifth graders and a gaggle of high schoolers during the first week of October.

That's it for now I guess...I'm off to do an interview for the next book..more on that soon. For all of those who asked about what it was like to finish the book and see it through to this stage...well, it wasn't easy. Actually it was MUCH more difficult than I had anticipated it being. I like to compare it to moving. You've got the truck all packed and you're ready to go, you stop back in the house to do one more round of odds and ends and you realize you have a whole truck load of those odds and ends to pack hiding in corners. I still feel like I have things that are missing or edits I overlooked or pieces missing etc. At one point I was looking over the draft and realized I had left out 30 artists that I had cut out to edit and put back in but failed on that last step. OOPS.

They made it back in...

The other difficulty I ran into is the coordination of the book. Hundreds of jazz artists, their managers, mailing legal forms and whatnot was a task I had grossly underestimated. I would have hired ten assistants had I known what it was going to be like those last few weeks. I was to the point where I would sleep for thirty-forty minutes and get back up and write for 4-6 hours and then repeat it. Everyonce in a while I'd sleep for 6 hours and then stay up for 24. I'm still tired.

But it's done.

DONE.

DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE.

Except for edits, of course.

How are you guys? Something more informative and fun next time, will rap on the Vail Jazz Fest and my adventures with Wycliff, Super Agent G and Gal Pal Deb.

Yours in Slight Disorientation, Shotty Blogging and Sunny Days Ahead,

Cicily

1 comment:

Ricky Bush said...

DONE sounds good, huh? Welcome back to the living. Anyway--