Archives for July 2011

No quitting ’til I’m done

July 29, 2011 by Jenny Meyerhoff

I swear I posted last week. But no, it seems 22 days have gone by. Three weeks. I have every intention of posting more regularly, but then how’s that to work when I can’t seem to keep track of what day it is.

Today is daughter’s last day of camp. She’s old enough that I don’t think it’ll affect my writing schedule to much. She sleeps until noon anyway. Much can be done before noon.

Youngest son’s camp ends one week from today. That will make writing trickier as he can not be unsupervised. (And there are many fun excursions to be taken!)

Older son has two more weeks. I will be happy when his camp is over. He’s been away for 6 weeks now! I miss his funny sense of humor and interesting way of seeing the world.

But the clock is ticking. I so want to finish this first draft and it’s just taking forever. I often think maybe I should just throw in the towel, but I’m stubborn. No quitting until I’ve finished!

(Sounds like a paradox, but really it’s not.)

edited to add: it really has been only one week, only I have the dates set to post backward, so I misread. *blushes*

More on my “new” office

July 21, 2011 by Jenny Meyerhoff

I’ve actually had access to this room in my husband’s office for several months, but didn’t fully move in and start working here until about four weeks ago, when my youngest started summer camp.

When he was in kindergarten I often only have about 2 and a half hours to work. It takes about 20 minutes to drive to the office and I usually chose not to when I had such a short window of time.

Now I have five hours (and will have even more when he starts first grade in the fall) and the commute isn’t such a significant percentage of my work time.

I love the way that I’m now conditioned to working in this space. I step through the door and my brain instantly goes to my book. It’s getting harder to work in other spaces. I had to work at home the other day while waiting for a repair person and was not productive at all. I love being in a space where my only responsibilities are to my book.

And I will enjoy decorating it over time. It’s still quite sparse, but here are a few of the things I’ve added to it so far.

my lovely lamp

art and office supplies with inspirational wordage

cozy reading space

flowery bulletin board

Wall stickers!

And now I must prove that what I said about this space is true, and get back to work.

How Embarrassing

July 18, 2011 by Jenny Meyerhoff

I was sure that it had only been a month or two since my last post, but obviously not. What can I say. I’ve been working on a new YA that’s just been not quite right, not quite right, not quite right. But finally, finally I feel that I might be getting it to work.

I’ve been working on it for two years now (though I took time away to write Sami’s Sleepaway Summer and to do a revision of Louie.) It’s hard to leave a book mid-draft. When you come back to it, you are not the same person you were before and for me, I think that often means the story I need to tell is not the same story anymore. And that means a lot of do overs. But this time, I’m almost finished. And I really like the story I’m telling.

I especially like working in my new office.