Just Doing It
On Monday, in the context of earthquakes here and in Japan in particular, I said that it was important to be "practical and realistic about what you can actually do. Then do it."
So what have I been "just doing?"
Women's History Month Guest Post:
As I mentioned Sunday, I had written a guest post for the celebration of Women's History Month on Gillian Polack's blog and on Monday evening Gillian posted it, here. I know it's Wednesday now, but you can still rock on over and have a look, read some of the other great posts and comment if you want to.
The Gathering of the Lost Edit Resumes
Mainly though, I have been working on two projects: the first is the edit of The Gathering of the Lost (The Wall of Night Book Two) which was derailed by the September 22 earthquake. I am now very much committed to getting it back on track and since the beginning of last week have gotten through a further 115 pages—only 16% of the total manuscript perhaps, but encouraging progress for me given there's still an awful lot of earthquake aftermath-related interruptions. Today, for example, I received the following calls/knocks on my door:
— a follow-up call from the EQC (NZ's Earthquake Commission, a kind of public insurer)
— a call from an engineer
— a call from a journalist
— an inspection by personnel involved with ground remediation
— an inspection by the insurer's foreman overseeing urgent building remedial works (they're going to shore up the chimney–yay!)
— a visit by a Salvation Army welfare team assessing need
Which probably gives you an inkling why getting through 115 pages in a week seems like good progress to me, especially when two of those days (the weekend) were almost fully given over to the silt clearing and other section cleanup acitivities mentioned in Monday's post—activities that are pretty much 'situation normal' at present.
Isn't it great though that so much earthquake recovery and related activity is going on? I am definitely not complaining—more explaining why stopping speeding bullets, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and completing the Gathering edit with one hand tied behind my back just aren't possible right now. :-\
NZ Book Month: The Dan Davin Foundation:
The other big project I'm working on is the series of four workshops I'll be doing in the Southland—Wakatipu region with Year 12 & 13 High School students, as a guest of The Dan Davin Literary Foundation for NZ Book Month. I'm calling the workshops "Get Writing: Steering the Fiction Craft" and the focus is on the elements of effective writing (which are universal, regardless of genre), world building, and also writing practice, i.e. establishing effective work habits and getting writing out there. The workshop presentation is pretty much complete now and I am just finishing off the exercises and handouts, which means only the one public presentation left to prepare. It is quite a lot of work, but NZ Book Month is a big deal and I really like the way The Dan Davin Literary Foundation is actively trying to develop the next generation of NZ writers.
So that's what I'm doing right now.
How about you—got any exciting projects on the go or is it business as usual?
