Following Austen

600 words

It's begun:  deadline hell.  No contract is signed, no publishing decision made, but it's close enough that I know I've got to start seriously writing if I'm going to finish in time.  600 words a day, six days a week, for roughly the next four months (though that bit is still up in the air).  With any luck, many of them will be decent and I'll post them here.

Since I throw out about half of what I write, I should probably aim for 1,200 a day, just to be safe.  And then, in the evenings, research and editing, and in the cracks and crevices various other assignments and the (forgive me, P.) rather boring work I do that helps to pay the bills.  (Which all feels nearly impossible, considering that on my good days, I've been able to do about 3 hours worth of work.) And thanks to the economics of the publishing business, I'll still be toiling in relative poverty.

600 words a day sounds manageable -- Bird by Bird, as Anne Lamott would say, bird by bird, baby.  What keeps me awake at night is the days I know I will miss, or write horrible, awful stuff that no one could ever print.  Or be mysteriously unable to get off the couch again.  And then I will get to a Saturday and be 3,600 or 7,200 words behind and the most attractive option, at that point, will be to slit my wrists.

It's at this point in the process that sheer panic sets in. WHAT THE #@$#! WAS I THINKING?  Why exactly did I think I could write a book about JANE AUSTEN -- only one of the most beloved writers EVER?  And more importantly, WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP ME?

(If you've ever thought about writing a book, please reconsider now.)

I am considering crawling under a rock to await my fate.  Maybe you will hear from me again.  Maybe you will not.

If I could afford the ticket to Oxford, you would find me mumbling and shuffling along the Folly Bridge at night.  That sounds like a lovely life, actually...

The great unwashed

Forgive the silence here over the last two weeks -- I've been bed-ridden.  Actually, I've been couch-ridden.  Very slowly I'm coming out of it, but the last week and a half has been perhaps the most difficult since I initially got sick years ago.  And if it sounds like terrible fun to be stuck on the couch forced to watch movies for a while, I can tell you that after several days of being unable to do anything else, it leads to the worst kind of despair.  I couldn't work, or return voice mails, or email.  My muscles were exhausted, so climbing the stairs to look at my computer was a feat in itself.  And don't even think about showering.  (Sheesh.  This is depressing.)  I never want to watch TV again.  And that's saying something.

I talked to my doctor again, and he said he was "very encouraged."  (Hmmph.)  He cut down one of my medications, and indicated that I need to lay low for the next three months -- no travel if I can avoid it, try not to completely overtax myself.  It may take a year for me to really start feeling better, and I'm trying to process that as well.

This is probably more than you ever wanted to know about Lyme disease.  I promise, we'll get back to Austen soon.

And the very good news...

In the midst of this month of travel and exhaustion, there's been a lot of activity on the publishing front.  More than one publisher is interested in the book.  Very interested.

I've never been in the position of saying to a publisher, Tell me again, why should I work with you?  And that is a nice place to be.

Like Elizabeth in P&P (after Darcy proposes), I know that I'm happy more than feeling that I am.  I'm sure when I recover enough I will feel the weight of this very good news.  But it seems -- there's no signed contract, so I don't want to jinx anything -- it seems that this book will actually come to be.  With a publisher who's darn enthusiastic about it.  Which is very, very cool.

Exhaustion, ever-present

I went to church yesterday with shaking hands, which I think is caused by the antibiotics, because they're shaking all the time now.  And I'm crying a lot.  Mostly people don't notice, I think, because I'm fairly good at hiding both.  I was trying to appear normal, and trying to pay attention and make sense of things through this veil of exhaustion, and praying I wouldn't have to run to the bathroom (one of the other effects of the antibiotics).  And then I took communion, forgetting that one of the medications says not to take EVEN A SIP of alcohol, as the effects will be disastrous, and also forgetting that now that I'm a good Anglican communion means wine and not grape juice.

And then I went home to lay on the couch and try to sleep, and try to read.

Saturday night I worked up all of my energy to go pick up Chinese food.  It's only five minutes away, but it was just about more than I could handle -- getting in the car, parking, walking in, driving home, my hands shaking again.  And then I got home and found out that they had given me only string beans, instead of chicken and string beans, and I fell apart.  I tried to tell them that I couldn't drive back and pick up the correct order -- I really couldn't.  I'm sure they didn't understand.  But eventually they sent a driver with my chicken, and had the gall to ask for their string beans back.

Hatteras sun

There's something incredibly healing to me about beach sun.

After getting back from France and crashing for a few days, I headed down to North Carolina, to meet my best friends from college and their families. There were seven adults, and nine children (9!) -- the best behaved children ever, and next to my nieces, my favorite kids in all the world.

Some of them are getting to be all grown up and reminding me that my friends are actually going to be launching little humans into the world in a few years (okay, 8 or 9 years, which still sounds very close). They sometimes get picked on at school and are developing wonderful character and minds and I am afraid maybe they don't know just how great they are.

And some of them are still small enough that they want to just be in your lap. Sweet three-year-old Sarah was attached to me all weekend and I have to say, it's lovely to be adored by a three-year-old. (I think maybe that's my favorite age.) We were reading a book and I said, "Why don't we go downstairs and see what everyone else is doing?" and she said, "But, we're all alone." Like, why in the world would I want to be around all those other kids? So we snuggled (which, I think, is also healing).

We had lovely weather -- sun and fog and rain, but mostly sun. We sat in the hot tub for hours. We swam in the pool. We ate far too much -- doughnuts, Rice Krispie treats, ice cream, more ice cream. We hung out on the beach and watched the kids play. Mostly, we just were.