Remembering to forget...

It's not like I don't have enough on my plate. I've got the revisions of "Probable Claws" to finish up (luckily, my editor is on vacation, which gives me some breathing room). And I've got my summer writing class to teach. But my agent is sending out my non-Theda manuscript this week, and so the time feels right to start on an entirely brand new project.

Sometimes, this part is easy. On Saturday, sitting at a cafe in Harvard Square, I started writing notes and bits of dialogue. They came from nowhere. But once I finally sat down to type them up and enlarge on them, I found myself second guessing everything. Should I start with a simple scene? Not let the narrator intrude so soon? Was I rushing the action, or was the pacing natural?

At some point last night, I remembered: I can't worry about this now. I've just got to get what's in my head out on paper. I can fix it up later. Years ago, a friend quoted pub rocker Nick Lowe to me, saying, "Bash it out now. Tart it up later." But, especially while revising "Probable Claws" and after polishing up the other ms., it's so hard to turn off that internal editor and just write!!

Anyone have any advice?

The readers brigade

I'm beginning to get comments back from my first line of defense: the friends and colleagues who read my first draft. They're an invaluable help, catch all the things I haven't, and might not, before I send the ms. off to my editor.

So far I've heard the following:

Shouldn't the killer show a little temper early on?
What month is it anyway, would the lilacs really be blooming?
Is Theda a bit "breath obsessed," first Musetta's, then Bill's?
If he proposes, shouldn't she at least respond?
And, yes, dear friends, it seems I am incapable of correctly spelling "weird"!

Naomi, Lisa, Jon, Chris, Vicki, Brett, Karen – thank you all!

Musetta's fifteen minutes

Musetta, with her editing hat on (metaphorically speaking, though wouldn't that be cute?) has made it into Galleycat today. She's not alone, and it's a toss up whether this book-industry blog is forging some kind of a comment on the popularity of pets as authors' animal companions or simply making a shameless bid to have people like me link to it. But hey, I've got a blog called "Cats & Crime & Rock & Roll," so who am I to talk?

Enjoy!

PS - thought I'd post this here. When I read the rest of the Galleycat blog, I felt that I wanted to respond to Lissa Warren's first point (about the commercial nature of cat books). I won't argue with her that such books make the publishing of poetry and first authors (especially literary authors) possible. But I do know what motivates at least some authors of cat books. Anyway, this is what I wrote her and Ron, one of the Galleycat bloggers. Thoughts? Comments?

{my email to Lissa Warren and Ron Hogan}

Please don't think me disingenuous, but it's not simply the commerce (though my "Feline Mystique" is my best selling book to date). It's the coming-out nature of our admission. We love our pets. If we're rational, literate adults, we're a little embarrassed by this fact. But every time we post a picture of our cats or buy a copy of "Catmas Carols" or spend any time on mycathatesyou.com, it's an admission of that fact. Takes the pressure off.

I honestly believe that writing about my screwed-up mentally ill family ("Mad House") freed me to come clean about my love of cats ("Feline Mystique"). Which then freed me to at least temporarily abandon serious, depressing nonfiction and write the kind of fun mysteries that I truly enjoy reading. I am serious about my writing, just not about myself.

Just a thought. Gotta go now, Musetta is staring at me.
Clea
cats & crime & rock & roll
http://www.cleasimon.com