Mission Semi-Impossible: Day Nine: Back in the Game, Sort of

Bad Excuse Introductory Sidenote: Like a pregnant Elisabeth Hasselbeck and the rest of the View posse, I took the weekend off. Some people might call that selfish and lazy, and…

Bad Excuse Introductory Sidenote: Like a pregnant Elisabeth Hasselbeck and the rest of the View posse, I took the weekend off. Some people might call that selfish and lazy, and those people would be my father, but I call it regeneration, a chance to build back the atrophying muscles in my legs and behind and start anew. Or fresh. Or something. But that doesn't mean I didn't write. No sir. It just means I didn't write well. Or as I probably would've said before re-reading this, goodish.

Words: 1834
Feelings: Confusion, Urgency, Emotional Misgivings

Fears: My book's ending can't possibly make sense, I have an urge to take off my silk writing gloves and slap one of my characters, that despite getting 150 million in box office sales (just in Canada and the US), Spiderman won't be able to escape his inner demons.

Thoughts: The thing is, your writing doesn't always have to make sense, right? Like, for instance, say you get through 1800 words and realize that, you know, maybe some of them aren't actually words (constabulating?) and that all a lot of them don't actually help do anything to the plot or character development so you spend a goodish length of time talking to one of your friends who is in the midst of law school finals asking him to help explain some of your character's motivations and he tells you that this is impossible for him seeing how he has never read the book nor does he wish to, and that, maybe, at some point in the future, if the book was published and out in hard cover, he would make a point of possibly checking it out of the library but right now he has to finish an exam on Contracts and, unless you are willing to tell him some potentially viable information re: the laws of Contracts, he has to go, and, by the way, those two new titles that you came up with for your book are not only not funny, they don't even really make sense and could turn off the three or four readers that are actually willing to purchase your book, but you should call him next week because he will be in NYC and maybe when you are there for the WD Conference and the BEA, you guys can get some drinks and talk about professional sports. That's totally fab okay, right?

Question to Ponder: Has it ever really paid off to buy the " full week VIP bracelet package" from your super fun STA rep while on Spring Break?

Join me tomorrow when I realize that writing in Baskerville Semibold isn't as intensely bold as it sounds.

More than Words,

Ex,
treme

PS- Pictured below: Two dudes high fivin' post purchase of their VIP bracelets, and an accurate drawing of the muscles in my legs.

Jane Friedman is a full-time entrepreneur (since 2014) and has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. She is the co-founder of The Hot Sheet, the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors, and is the former publisher of Writer’s Digest. In addition to being a columnist with Publishers Weekly and a professor with The Great Courses, Jane maintains an award-winning blog for writers at JaneFriedman.com. Jane’s newest book is The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press, 2018).