cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Professional This morning I received an unexpected email from a book editor for N@tional Geographic. How nice! She wants to get together with me to discuss ideas for my next book. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that. She is suggesting some specific invasive plants for me to use in the new book, but I'm not planning to include plants in this one at all. For reasons I won't get into here, I think I'll get a bigger book advance if I keep plants out of it and save them for a sequel. There is a bunch of email from producers and potential students that I need to read and deal with but I have to get this final draft of the deer book finished TODAY. It is due in my editor's hands tomorrow. I am extremely unhappy that Trish invited guests over this evening because I really need to use that time to work rather than entertaining. I think this might be some sort of birthday thing for me (today is my birthday) but I honestly haven't paid enough attention to be quite sure. I've had my head buried so deeply in my work that I have no idea what is going on. In spite of all else that I've had to deal with, I seem to have a really good career as a professional author coming together. I've been googling myself once a week and finding articles about me and things I've done in newspapers that I've never even heard of from places I've never been to. I think that I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to any prospective editor or publisher for the new book that I can get major publicity happening for whatever I'm doing. In the face of all of the hardships I have faced over the last few months I have accomplished some really tremendous things on a budget of nothing. Yesterday someone asked me what I did for a living and I said "I am an author" without even having to think about it. I no longer feel like I'm faking it or like I have much to prove. In the company of other professional writers who are twice my age and have a laundry list of books to their name, I am asked for advice and ideas in all seriousness (my mother regularly hosts a sort of salon for professional writers and because of this I seem to know scads of them). My writing still has a long way to go. I've gotten very good with two different styles but I haven't quite proven that I can write literary stuff very well. I write a good essay here and a sketch of something there and its good and wins praise. But that isn't the same thing as producing a really good novel-length work. The deer book is an instructional text which did not present the slightest bit of challenge. I've also got to cultivate really good writing habits, schedule-wise. Like right now I'm pissing time away on a diary entry when I should be finishing the manuscript that is due tomorrow. 12:53 p.m. - 2010-07-31 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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