Art Jonak had an Empire Avenue mission today, to tweet a quote. I also had an enquiry about doing some freelance work that I responded to with some reservations. I like the quote and then started worrying, am I being focused enough? Are my mentors worried that I'm not paying enough attention to my novel I've outlined? Here's the quote:

I have to admit, that I usually work one item through until completion, depending on what I think has the highest pay off. In this case, I've worked on my golf book to near completion and so when I have a break, where I can feel in the proper happy, kooky golfer attitude the book demands, I go back and work to finish it.

My illustrator provided me a first sample illustration that made me more motivated to complete it. I spent yesterday, putting all the chapter in one document, and formatting it to submission standard. I also cleaned up some of my other stories and I'm working on cleaning up an essay I wrote in my memoir class to be more consistent overall and to meet up with two potential markets.

I guess I am putting off until tomorrow what I could be doing today, related to my novel. But writing is really a moody business. You need to go with the flow of how you feel. This is one reason that I keep lists of scenes I plan to write, because to be able to write every day, you need to have enough emotional variety to match your mood of the day. 

Many people think that because I have my husband help me edit, that I don't edit my work, not so. I miss things because I don't tend to be a detail-oriented person, which is why a second pair of eyes is essential. Editing tasks I'm working on with the golf book include:

1. checking for a consistent set of features that I use in all the illustrations
2. examining paging so that I don't have two sentences on one page before a page break
3. checking for consistent POV--I've written half the chapters in present tense and half in past tense
4. checking that my check list of content has been included in the text
5. matching my plan to the content (chapter names, character names, locales)
6. spell check and grammar check
7. making sure the reader knows who is speaking
8. keeping track of pages and trying to keep chapters fairly consistent
9. putting in a table of contents
10. starting to outline what I think belongs in an index. 

Just one comment I have about Kindle books--I detest Kindle books without an index or table of contents. I'm reading one with a set of chapters and a set of subchapters and the latter were not marked and anytime I flip off page accidently, I have to page through many, many pages to get back to where I was which is very, very annoying. 

The teary days are best saved for those scenes where your character is hurting for some day, for instance.

Writer's are also supposed to push themselves to send poems, articles, and short stories out on a regular schedule. I feel pretty pushed because I am challenging myself to write longer, more researched essays and it is taking up more of my time that I could be putting into five article a day or three poems a day or something like that. I think that if I persist with the essay orientation that in the long term it will pay off for a more mature market for my writing. And every time a writer takes on a new writing study to boost their skills, they are slower than normal at first until it becomes easier and easier to do.

I wouldn't be working on these for a few days if I wasn't sure that I could pull together a packet for my mentor, Evelyn Conlon next week.

So I worry about what others may be worried about. But I have worked large, complex projects now for thirty years. I still underestimate my time but I have fourteen pages of a possible twenty ready to go. 

Writers that are unable to multitask will have a difficult time if they can't write the next novel while editing previous novels per publisher demands, etc.

This week I worked on writing an essay for my Carlow University MFA program about voice in contemporary Chinese literature. So, I have 500+ words of my essays in fairly good shape for the next package to go into the university. I'm working on several since I'm finding lots of content and because I won't be at home with as many of my resources for awhile. So I will use some of my notes from my residency as posts while I'm away.

Meanwhile, I've read through fifteen books on writing looking for various meanings of how voice is presented in literature. I've also looked for footnotes in One Thousand Years of Good Prayer by Yiyun Li. I've collected five other books on China related to voice, and a similar set on the emigrant experience.
I wanted a good comparison between voice in memoir and voice in fiction and so read Brian Leydon's Home Place since I remembered his readings containing tales of the experience of having family members who emigrated to the US. 

I also realized I didn't have any resources about plant life in China, ordered those books along with more Chinese fiction to read to have a fuller view about what authors are writing about China at home and in China.

Meanwhile, we've made our arrangements to go north to Canada, furthering my research about geology that will be used in the next book down the line and exploring more golf and escaping the anger of those around me that has me stressed out to the max. People don't realize how empathetic I am to the slightest signal.

Some are less slight, such as the Home Owner's Association showing up and wanting gravel previously given the okay to be stored on the side moved which leaves me having to do a lot of gardening.

Via A Broader View Volunteering program, I saw that I can work in China, but I would like to take my niece with me as a way of introducing her to travel outside the country. I'd like her to have some other opportunities where I can send her on her own, but there is so little time before she's off to college I might not get the chance to do so if I don't take her with me. I would go this year in November or December, but it seems like such a far way to travel for just two weeks of time. Bob and I are debating next years schedule of away from town and I hope maybe I will get to spend time in China then. 

I've also started putting together my packet of first scenes to send in to my mentor, finishing four scenes and revising an earlier scene to match up with the more defined outline. I've still one more scene to write and quite a few to edit. 

The edits add more scenery from China, alter names, foods, and other lifestyle issues in the book. I also had various ages for the main character and I'm altering those references so that the scenes fit together without conflict. I've also worked on expanding my villian's role into a side plot.

These scenes are still present time, I haven't decided on how much in the future I will change them to be. I've also worked on a new short story and one sonnet. I guess if it works out, I'll work on calls for submissions tomorrow and maybe the next day.

I guess if people were to ask me why I was taking an MFA program, it would be to quiet all the outrage about me writing books. I'm paying to write and learn, not to volunteer, not to play jump to my whip. I can does those without paying for an MFA degree. And no, the money would not go to someone else to write, I would use it to write and I have rights as a citizen and needs just like any other person.

I continually feel the ill will of people who want to tell me that I am only allowed to read from a single publishing house. I think this practice is unethical and inconsistent to good practice as a writer, thinker, humanitarian, scientist or anyone that wants to know about the world and also bad for education. 

Part of why it is bad practice in terms of research is that the marketing case for a book always asks how does this differ from other books in print. Writers may overlap previous writers, but they always have to have a different slice of material i.e. x author missed discussing points a, b, c or they have to have a different view, x looked at it from the point of view of business or entertainment. This means that some of the information you need is in one book, some of it in another book.

I often have very strong opinions about what I think, but I don't often express them directly. I like to write from more than one viewpoint because I would like people to realize that values place a big role in decision-making and we all have different values.

In the matter of reading I run into conflict with those who value success more than knowledge. I am unlikely to change. When someone buys an author's book, they do not buy their body, their mind, their heart, or their soul.

In this blog I write about books I have read because I know how hard it is to write. I love a good story. So much for success.

So with my main assignment for my Carlow University MFA program residency complete, all I had to do is write, right? Sure thing, clear sailing, but then this little bitty niggly worry thingie kept plaguing me. Stare at the ceiling. Stare at the garden. Stare at the floor. Stare at the piles of books. What was I missing?

Eventually, I get it. I'm missing a plan. I know I have another essay due on the 7th along with 20 pages, but what pages?

Why am I uneasy? Is it because I haven't submitted anything recently? Yes, that, too, but what should I submit and where?

What if they all get accepted? Am I ready?

So I did accomplish something. I did figure out I needed to send the rewritten beginning, still in modern time rather than future. I always build from the existing because we may forgive and forget but we always have our roots. I collected data, invented a subplot, wrote 3000 words. I did pick out various stops along the main character's route and found pictures and background data about some of the cities, and some points along the plot line enhanced by history. I discovered I could go to Shandong Province in China with A Broader View Volunteers, too, which sounds fun but probably not possible until next year--this year is pretty booked up. A lot of my brainstorming comes out of longer range parts of the story where I need to backfill to the first part of the novel.

So then I had to wonder, am I ready for such a trip to China? So I bought MacGraw-Hill's Chinese Dictionary & Guide by Quanyu Huang--it focuses on teaching written Chinese via the marks and mark count. I bought the Tuttle Mini Chinese Dictionary by the Tuttle Editors because it has a word oriented way to find words and meanings. Finally I bought Side by Side Chinese and English Grammar by C. Frederick Farrell, Feng-hsi Lui, Xiaozhou Wu, and Rongrong Liao. I've wanted to check my names so that I don't inadvertently call something using a Chinese-English homonym that might embarrass me. Also the equivalent names in the languages especially sounds might create a sense of common knowledge. I also found a Pinyin Pronunciation Guide from the Centre for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language in order to understand how the different tones were sounded as marked by accents in various directions.

My reading consisted of my book that I'm reading for this month--One Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li--I'll have a review, soon. I also came up with some ideas of what to look for in writing the essay. 

I also read, Chinese Intelligence Operations by Nicholas Eftimiades since I may have a thriller plot, I don't quite know how it will affect the story yet. I already know I have one character whose purpose is hidden maybe even sinister and I know that I need my villain(s)--how political is that? Sometimes character's don't even know their purpose so they act without knowing and only understand at the very end.

I also couldn't help peeking into Laurie Moore's Birds of America: Stories which I found quite charming, more eventually on that topic.

Note: Some of what I cover in this overall blog, especially reading materials, will be covered in some of the other blog sections where I talk specifically about stories, poems, etc.

Then I built a list of item I had close to ready for submission and matched them against a potential list of calls for submission. I worked on a letter for an agent but ended up not liking it.

I took a look at my marketing plan--matching up my blogs and other online activities against those products I had created and found some holes--these will come about eventually.

I made an error in my essay when I said I needed to write 600,000 words, like many who find connections I combined word count and page number so I really meant 150,000 words and 600 pages, divided into three volumes.

Good news--I received notice that Loconeal Publishing is interested in my short story "Death and the Fishbowl Pontoon" for their Pirate Anthology, more about that in later reports.

And I think I may be near agreement on the illustrations for my golf book.

The Carlow University MFA Program Integrative Essay was much easier and much more difficult for me to write than I expected. Part of the reason why was I wanted to get a first read of most of the writer's I met before sending it in. That was quite the cram session and budget expense. After it's graded I hope to publish it on this site.

My mind, I find, isn't as flexible as it used to be. Once I had the goal of completing the essay finished, I set down to write my novel, result: brain dead. It's actually quite like being on a roller coaster or time machine, you start thinking and look up and say, where am I? China? Ireland? Florida? Back in history?

My first step has been to isolate some of the specific places used in the story and collect specific place data. Some of the data affects only one scene, a few, two or more. I finished a new first scene, it's a bit more blunt and maybe a turn off, than I wish it to be. 

So where do I get my information about how people dress, what is modern, and what current events are trending in China?

This photographs shows a number of things about China:

• here is a family on vacation, probably Chinese rather than foreign, taking pictures of something their child liked. It's not the best photograph, but the clothing, the interests, the mobility, etc. of locals in China is well portrayed.

This second photograph from my visit to China in 2008, shows a range of fashion worn by locals. It shows how couples behave together. It shows local interest in photography.  

I also use a variety of resources starting with a tour book that is usually good for maps, city names, road and rail and boat routes and general local information. 

Following from there, I can do a search on a specific area, for plants, businesses, news, photographs, products, anything I might find useful for the scene I have in mind.

I've started reading "The Real Story of Ah-Q and other Tales: Complete Fiction of Lu Xun". The foreword of the collection of short stories explains the role that Lu Xun played during the transformation of China from the Qing Dynasty through to the era where Mao Zedong took over. He, too, wanted to change Chinese society, using fiction as a motivator to encourage leaders to take China away from superstitious behavior, into educating people about science and technology. He wanted to be a doctor, but he decided that it is impossible to heal people if they are first suffering from a lack of knowledge about the world. This theme is still carried on in China, the US, and around the world.

I've also read a few stories from Grace Paley's "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute", "Judas Kiss" by David Butler, and a few stories from Mary Costello's "China Factory", In poetry I've read "A Gather of Shadows" by Mark Roper and "State of the Prisons" by Sinead Morrissey. 

I'm beginning to get all of my notes consolidated and organized into a rough essay for my integrative essay in my MFA degree due very soon, already 6 pages long. The notes are 32 pages so far and I have several more to type up. I'm annoyed that I was discouraged from using my PC in class, it saves so much time. I get too bored trying to figure out my bad handwriting.

Still, I have some main ideas. I'm working on several supporting essays, too, ones that I might submit elsewhere as essays or articles, especially my China articles. I find footnoting materials extremely painful, especially when your sources of information span dozens of books, many of them 1000 pages or more. With poetry books or even short story collections, its far easier to do.

Meanwhile, I've completed reading Michael Coadi's "Going By Water" which is a collection of poems about a fisherman, a fishing village, important people, and the passages of life. I found his poetry went from the ordinary, day to day, into the eternal. Some of the poems were just heartbreaking.

I've also finished Pearl S. Buck's East Wind / West Wind and am eager to read more of her books. I found her story simple, but rich with detail and insight, very useful to read on my PC Kindle reader. 

Also started "China's Democratic Future" By Bruce Gilley, it seems highly speculative and tracked information through "The Search for Modern China" by Jonathan D. Spence.

Part of my problem with doing this essay is I want it to be very well written and use lots of references, both from the class and to the work that I'm doing on the novel. It's spawned useful information for scenes that take place in the novel, useful characters to include in the subplots and some good ideas about how to shape the future view of the world and setting, many of these undefined until now. 

Yesterday I delved through space vehicles, thinking about how much of this I will include and the exact type of science fiction to target: the alternate universe, etc.

Meanwhile, I've already heard of several writers glomping onto my planned work so I guess I need to keep the overall story extremely flexible until the very end. Its not that I think they'll write the same story, its just that readers of science fiction look for a new spin all the time, something to whet the appetite. That's the way I always read science fiction.

We've got an appointment to visit the lawyer next week about the contract for the illustrator and the drawings. I checked out the US Copyright webpage and the US Patent and Trademark page just so I know how to deal with the drawings and get a good grips on how copyrights, trademarks and patents are handled.

These are my thoughts on route to Ireland several weeks ago. Dublin is a lively city well worth the visit. An MFA program at Carlow University residency is a good excuse to go check it out. Like most of my travel, I find I have duty free and worry free time to read, write and examine the world around me.

Early morning wake up after stumbling around in the dark, putting away books while my camera battery charged. Airport is easy check in, although they can’t print my boarding pass for the flight to Dublin. At the security check, I’m selected for a spot check; they chat with me about my belongings, know I’m a writer, a science fiction writer.

The flight to Atlanta, Georgia is seamless, although Delta worries about group three not having space enough for their baggage in the small 757 baggage compartments, I’m nearly last and there’s space easily available. I need to move a couple with a baby covered up by a sack so mom can do breast-feeding unobserved. Mom resettles baby to feed on the other side, and the baby is annoyed for several minutes. By takeoff, sunlight suddenly blasts in, past my attempt to sleep. I look up, and baby is blinking and rubbing her eyes. I close the window screen and get a very surprised look from the baby. She has big blue eyes which I mention to Mom, and say, oh, mama is going to have to lock you up from the boys. Mom laughs and tells me her older children had blue eyes but they changed to brown after the ninth month, so baby is obviously younger. Baby decides she likes me and wants to hold onto my fingers and shake it around. Later we drum on the table a little. She takes my credit brochure I pick up to check out the American Express/Delta deal, but baby wants to chew it and Momma wants to keep it out of her mouth. When I can retrieve it, I hide. Later, I unhook my watch so she can grab on. Baby’s so surprised that she can’t pull it to her mouth. She tries several times. I try moving it up and down and around but she won’t chase it, simply happy to wait. I try peekaboo with her but she doesn’t know that game yet. Momma’s surprised I’m getting so much attention—I’m not, I’m usually good with children but I don’t usually pay attention.

At the airport in Atlanta, Georgia the first Delta representative I ask about boarding pass, looks my flight up and prints it for me. I arrive in gate B, will depart, she believes, out of gate E. I take the walk through the underground tunnel beside the train rushing forward and back. Between gate B and gate C, there’s a long history of the area around Atlanta—the native American Cherokee, early settlers, the buy into the railroads since Atlanta (once called Marthaville named for a leader’s daughter) is a major crossroads for trade. Wealth grows. Slavery is minimal for the south because of few cotton plantations. Then the Civil War and the destruction of Atlanta for supplying the Confederate troops. Post war, many black universities spur on black business leadership, but the early optimism about rebuilding the city is dimmed as Crow laws and a policy of segregation persists and is reinforced. On through the civil rights movement as it unfolds and the affect of WWI and II builds commerce and Martin Luther King takes action. By the time I get to E and walk its three arms and return it is time for lunch at TGI Fridays.

I read the Penguin Guide to Irish Poets while listening to GPS and the many takes on US-China relationships, Syria, Turkey, the mass shootings in California and Nelson Mandela’s illness. I’m cold. Stiff. Eventually, I go for a cookie and another diet coke and find a nook by the bathrooms in the food circus with tulips on the tables, a window view of the streaming rain and black clouds, that’s where I am now. I’ve tried to write one of the poems playing at my ears and fall back into games but am bored. I’m two hours, forty-five minutes to boarding time.