So suddenly, miraculously, and rather anti-climactically, I wrote fifteen pages and finished the latest draft of zee romance novel today. Yay! It still needs quite a bit of work (particularly the second half, which has never been touched by my editing pens -- and yes, I mean 'pens' plural, since I go a little crazy with colors/post-its/etc. while editing), but progress has definitely been made, and it suddenly feels like the end is sort of, almost in sight.
As I alluded to last night in my abbreviated blog post, I'm hightailing it out of town tomorrow and holing myself up in a secret location to edit for the next few days. It's probably not still considered a secret location if I tell you where it is (Monterey), but it's far enough away from my real life that I won't be tempted to procrastinated by friends, laundry, swiffering, cooking, working out, or any of the other million things that I usually have to take care of (and thus use as an excuse to stop writing). I'm driving down tomorrow and coming back Sunday, which should enable me to get through a major chunk of my edits and hopefully send something to my beta readers (you know who you are) by next week. I'm not going to lie and say that I intend to work twenty hours a day, since I'm sure I'll need to take some breaks, but since I've been to Monterey before, there isn't a compelling need to sightsee. I also chose a hotel with fireplaces in the rooms, which sounds super cozy and perfect for editing, so I'm excited about my temporary escape.
My packing for my temporary escape is perhaps weirder than any packing I've ever done, which is saying a lot -- I have one carry-on sized bag of clothes, and one carry-on sized duffel filled with books, paper, pens, highlighters, post-its, volumes of notes and scribbles that I've made about this book over the months, journals, a paper punch, and a printed copy of my manuscript. The books include "Titles and Forms of Address", the Chicago Manual of Style, and a couple of all-purpose books about the Regency, so hopefully I'm stocked well enough to avoid any major research problems.
I'm also taking my Kindle, which may be slightly dangerous. I actually tried the Kindle app for my Android phone for the first time today (while at the car wash, which was vitally necessary since the inside of my car had become so dusty that the windshield was no longer safe to see out of) and surprisingly loved it. I picked back up with Haruki Murakami's "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running", which is sort of a meditation on the relationship between his long-distance running (he runs a marathon every year) and his writing. I had put the book aside at some point a year ago because it was too sleep-inducing for whatever I was doing then -- but now, as I'm both trying to write full-time and going to the gym more often, I'm seeing things in it that I failed to see before. So, the Kindle goes along, and I suspect I'll do some reading when my eyes start to cross from editing.
Beyond all that, today was lovely in its own right. I made it to the gym in time to train with Alyssa, since I sadly won't see her again until next week. Then, I ate lunch, got my car washed, got the oil changed, came home, took a nap, and then went to Starbucks. Between Starbucks and home, I wrote for several hours and cranked out the end of this draft just in time to leave for a friendship renewal dinner at Sura Sushi with Tolu, Joann and Jane. They were entertaining, as always, and it's great that we have this dinner on calendar for every six weeks so that we get together without having to plan it. Then I came home, printed out the rest of my manuscript, packed, etc.
Even though it's only eleven, I think I'm going to read for a little bit and go to bed. I don't need to leave early tomorrow, since I don't think I can check in very early and Monterey is less than two hours away when it's not rush hour, but I want to go to the gym before I leave, so I suppose I should get some sleep. Goodnight!
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