{"id":1132,"date":"2011-03-21T23:34:09","date_gmt":"2011-03-22T05:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1132"},"modified":"2011-03-21T23:34:09","modified_gmt":"2011-03-22T05:34:09","slug":"the-day-arrives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1132","title":{"rendered":"The Day Arrives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where I am, that is, it’s two minutes past midnight.\u00a0\u00a0 (And now I’m supposed to go to sleep…!!!\u00a0 Like that’s<\/em> going to happen before I get past the it’s here, it’s here!! buzz.)<\/p>\n

Outside, the leopard frogs in the water garden are making their low-pitched mating calls, and a cool breeze is blowing in the window beside me.\u00a0\u00a0 There’s a gecko on the\u00a0 window-screen hoping some moth will come to the light and become dinner.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The wind in the trees is has changed its sound because the trees are beginning to leaf out and also have seeds (oak pollen’s high right now but doesn’t bother me.)\u00a0\u00a0 The frogs just stopped calling…I suspect something’s out there near the pond (most likely cat or raccoon–we have both around at night.)<\/p>\n

What do writers think about very, very early on the morning of launch day?\u00a0\u00a0 Among other things, all the stuff they had planned to do to get ready for this that didn’t get done (the new business cards with the cover shot from Kings<\/em>?\u00a0 Didn’t get that done. \u00a0 \u00a0 All the updates of the summer travel schedule that should be on the websites by now…aren’t.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And how weird it is to have “the new book” (the one just out), the new<\/em> new book (the one now in production and the new<\/strong>, new<\/em>, new book (the one being written) all vying for attention at the same time.\u00a0\u00a0 Kings <\/em>expects me to devote at least a week to its birth (I’m sorry, Kings<\/em>, I have other responsibilities as well.)\u00a0 Crisis of Vision <\/em>needs its front matter.\u00a0\u00a0 Book IV, which is also refusing to give me a title, is tapping its foot impatiently because I’m not spending hours a day first-drafting it.\u00a0 How much of it can I write in April, before the copy edits come in for review from Crisis of Vision, <\/em>in May?\u00a0\u00a0 Will the copy edits be a joy (wonderful CE caught my typos, noticed a continuity error,\u00a0 etc.) or a disaster (awful CE decided to rewrite the book to own idea of what it should’ve been)???\u00a0\u00a0 How long after Kings<\/em> comes out can I–should I–start posting minimalist snippets from Crisis<\/em>?\u00a0 How will I fit the rest of the first-drafting of Book IV and the hard thinking it’s going to take to pull this all to a good conclusion in Book V, into the spaces between travel & appearances?<\/p>\n

Adding to the scatterbrain effect is the weather and the rapid growth of plants hoping to make it to flower and seed before the full weight of summer heat minus water kills them.\u00a0\u00a0 When it’s the vegetable garden plants, and the native shrubs and trees, this is one thing.\u00a0 When it’s the non-native weeds, their abundance and rapid growth are truly alarming…”But…but…but…there was nothing here last week…how did this thing get knee high to a giraffe and covered with spiny leaves so fast<\/em>?”\u00a0 Never mind that it happens every spring and I should know by now.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many but not all the peas have found the chicken wire and are clinging to it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As the person who is very fond of fresh edible-pod peas, I’m watching their progress closely.\u00a0\u00a0 Likewise the potato plants, now all showing a bulge of greenery.\u00a0\u00a0 Carrots, radishes, lettuce: all up now.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And Bombadil the tractor is promised for tomorrow.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And the\u00a0 St. John Passion concert is April 2, and the Texas Library Association meeting is April 15 and…so on.<\/p>\n

I can’t tell you how heartening it is to have heard from those of you who got the book early and have read it and are telling me you like it.\u00a0 So maybe I can go to sleep now (eyes are really beginning to say “Enough staring at lighted computer monitor…go to BED.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thanks to all of you for being around on this journey, and I hope you stick around for the rest of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where I am, that is, it’s two minutes past midnight.\u00a0\u00a0 (And now I’m supposed to go to sleep…!!!\u00a0 Like that’s going to happen before I get past the it’s here, it’s here!! buzz.) Outside, the leopard frogs in the water garden are making their low-pitched mating calls, and a cool breeze is blowing in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-1132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1133,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions\/1133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}