I was so out of it yesterday, I didn’t even realize I posted twice. An early snarky one and then a later more redeeming post. Well the good news is that I’m in much better shape today (my son as well) so I think we’re finally over the dreaded Swine Flu. The bad news is, I think it’s affected my eyes because I had to whip out my glasses this morning, and I haven’t worn those suckers in months.

Oh well. At least it’s Friday.

I’m still having a few struggles with how to outline the Creech bio. Her writing very closely parallels her life, so I’m trying to figure out if I should use the books as a guide for how to section off blocks of text in her bio, or if I should write about her life and her books separately. Either way would be pretty interesting, but writing about her life and weaving in her books and how they  relate or were inspired by her real-life events would be harder, but more interesting. Yeah. I think I’ll do it that way.  I did it separately in the Spinelli bio, and that came out good, but not great. OK. Now I have to take a closer look at those timelines…

In other news, my NaNoWriMo writing is going fairly well. I’ve managed to keep up with my word count despite my virus-induced delirium, and having a couple of deadlines this week. I still have absolutely no clue what that book is about, or how in heavens name the main character is going to solve her rather large and unwieldy problem, but so far, the action’s exciting. Lots of chases and close calls. That’s fun and it makes for quick writing, which helps with keeping up the word count. I may even make the whole 50,000 by the end of the month. No pressure though. The goal I have in my head is 30,000.

Alrighty, that’s all I have for now. Carry on!

This morning I woke up feeling rotten and pouty and whiney about why it is I can’t just make up my own stories and write them down and have somebody pay me for it just like Neil Gaiman for heaven’s sake! Most of that comes from the nasty little germs that have invaded my body and turned me into a grouch. And just as I started writing an incredibly grouchy post about how hard it is to write restrictive little passages for freelance work, one of the editors I work for sent a message asking if I’d be interested in writing another biography. Pronto. And she gave me a list of names to choose from. And then a friend of mine asked when I was planning to write another chapter of Zombie Cat, because she missed it. Suddenly I was feeling better. I do have some flexibility in the book-length freelance projects I do, and I definitely get paid for those, and Zombie Cat is pure fun even though I don’t get paid for it.

Little things like choice and cracking up my friends really make my day.

Yesterday morning I was starting to feel better. I even got ambitious and decided to rake up the leaves in the backyard. Then sometime after lunch, both my son and I crashed. He seems to be doing better again this morning, but I still feel like someone pumelled me in a dark alley and left me lying on the concrete.

I need to get over this flu. It’s annoying.

It’s making me feel whiney about working freelance projects (because the requirements and restrictions are so aggravating) and about people asking me to come in to do author events without even considering that a) they might need to pay me for them. Do YOU do your job for free? No? Well then; and b) I can come in at their convenience. I do have a schedule, you know!

I’m not sure why  it is people think that because I work from home I have oodles of time at my disposal. Does anyone really believe that authors sit around twiddling their  thumbs all day long? I know I don’t! Most of the time my house is a mess because I’m working so much I barely have time to clean up after the two tornados I call children.

Aaargh. I know most of this is the germs talking, but I do have a point in there somewhere. If you want an author to come in and do something, be considerate of their time by asking them about their schedule, and offering to pay for their time and expertise. It’s the right thing to do.

I’m surprised that the Swine Flu didn’t take my son and I down more. I’m even more surprised that even though we quarantined ourselves in the house, neither my husband or my daughter got it. My son and I are definitely on the mend. Neither of us want to lie in bed anymore, and we’re eating a little. But the whole quarantine thing is beginning to drive me nuts. I need to get out of the house. I’ll be careful, I swear! Yesterday when we went out to vote I used hand sanitizer before I went into the booth.

(Speaking of the election, the Christie win was a total surprise to me. And yes, I voted for Huttle for Englewood mayor. Because I’m a good little Democrat, that’s why. I was not surprised at the Bloomberg win in NY, but were I still a NY resident I would have voted for Bill Thompson. I just don’t think it was right for Bloomberg to buy his way into a 3rd term even though I think he was a terrific mayor for the last 8 years. It’s a matter of principle. And I’m beginning to wonder if anyone in politics has any principle at all. I’m still holding out hope for the Prez, but some days, I’m not so sure.)

Anyway. I need to get out of this house. I know we’ll all be better in a couple of days and then I can go about my business, but until then, I’m totally stir crazy. Web surfing is no substitute for going outside and doing stuff. And sitting on the porch covered in blankets just isn’t going to cut it.

At least it gives me more time to catch up with my NaNoWriMo novel. I’m all about the bright side these days. And for me, that’s quite a surprise.

Doing NaNoWriMo and having swine flu.

Yeah.

My dad had this T-shirt a long time ago that a friend made for him. It had black iron-on flocked letters on a tan shirt. The front read “ROLAND” and the back read “WHO SANE?” I loved it because I’d never thought of playing with the sounds of my last name that way. Hosein. Who sane. Hysterical. I borrowed the shirt from my dad one day and he never saw it again. At least, not in his own closet.

I’m reminded of that shirt today as I ponder my own insanity. If you’ve been reading this blog you know that I’ve been pretty overwhelmed lately with freelance projects, and on the brink of depression over what I deem are pitfalls in my fiction career. So why would I push myself, knowing that I’m right on the edge? Because I have no idea who I am if I’m not working crazy hard. So yesterday I signed up for NaNoWriMo against my better judgement. I know there is no way in hell that I will write 50,000 words in the next 29 days, but I’m excited to be writing anyway.

If I do manage to get some semblance of a draft down by the end of this month, I will consider it a major accomplishment. And if I don’t, I won’t really care. For once, I’m not putting any pressure on myself. I simply couldn’t resist the idea of riding a communal literary wave. Literary abandon! says the Office of Letters and Light. And I totally get the abandon part. I’m going to abandon stressful thoughts in regard to this story. If some days I only manage to write “boogidy boogidy boo!” 500 times, that’s going to be OK too.

Who knows, this might turn out to be the healthiest thing I’ve done all year.

That’s right. You heard me. I was chatting with Jerry Spinelli. Me.

OK, we weren’t chatting exactly. We were emailing. And the exchange was only four emails. But it was Jerry Spinelli!

I still get geeked out by awesome authors and my proximity to them.

Basically, I emailed him to ask if he’d gotten a copy of the biography I’d written about him, and when he said no, I offered to call and harass my publisher to send him one, but only if he swore not to read it, at which point he told me that he only ever skimmed things that were written about him and that I shouldn’t worry because he figured I had to be a pretty good writer if a publisher hired me to write the book in the first place.

True, Jerry. True.

Sometimes reason from  strangers (and fantastic author strangers at that) reminds me not to be so insecure about my abilities.

This morning, Bransford asks how do writers know if they have talent. This is something all artists struggle with. There’s an inherent insecurity that comes from being an artist and constantly opening your innards up to criticism. And if you happen to have an ambitious bone in your body, or lofty dreams, or parents who drove you hard to be the best, then you probably end up wondering if what you do is worth your time a few times a day. On average. Some days never, other days, every solitary second. In the past year, I have noticed that I question my abilities to my own detriment far more often than is necessary. It’s one thing to wonder about your talent in a low moment. It’s quite another to berate yourself over your lack of talent when you clearly have some. So here are a few ways I think you can figure out if you have talent.

1) When you’re telling a story, say at dinner, do people lean in and forget to chew?

2) Do people have an emotional reaction to what you’ve written?

3) Do people come back and ask you questions about your work, days/weeks/months later?

A few years ago I was sitting at an SCBWI conference with Harold Underdown (of the Purple Crayon site) and we started talking about why it is, in all the indispensible advice to writers that was being doled out that week, nobody mentioned talent. He felt that it should have been a part of the discourse. I’d always wondered about that, but I figured that talent was so intangible that you couldn’t really quantifiy it, or even discuss it. What could a presenter do? Tell people that if they don’t have any talent they were wasting their time? And how were they to figure out who the talented ones were anyway?

I’ve been reading a noveling blog recently where the characters’ magical traits are found out by an invoker early on in their lives. It’s a neat trick, but there are no invokers for talent. And if there were, there would be a lot of incredibly disappointed people walking around with their hopes dashed. I think it’s a good thing. Nobody knows what their potential is. Nobody can look at a person walking down the street and know what they would be perfect at. Life is a struggle to find out what you can about yourself. It’s a learning process. Whether or not someone has talent doesn’t make or break them as a human being, and in some cases, it may not even make or break a career.

Talent is an intangible, like faith. You walk to the edge and you jump. And the ones who jump are the ones who find out if they have it in them. And if they fall, they can always get back up and try again. You never know. In the last drop, some talent might have shaken loose.

Sunday begins  NaNoWriMo again. That’s National Novel Writing Month, in which a bunch of people hunker down and try to bang out a 50,000 word first draft in 30 days. This year I’m far too stressed-out to seriously consider such a thing, but the idea that thousands of people are all entrenched together in an act of literature for 30 days, gives me the steamy-eyes similar to how I feel at the Olympic opening ceremonies. I believe in a cosmic consciousness in which people who are purposefully pursuing the same thing create energy that others can feed off of and contribute to. It makes me wonder if writing a first draft in November is easier because so many people are doing it. Is it easier to run by yourself or with a group? It is, right? So I’ve heard. That’s why I think the same might apply here.

I don’t know. It’s enticing. I definitely want to do it, but I already have enough stress and I tend to put Ridiculously Massive Pressure on myself for everything, so I think it might be unwise. I’d still like to participate somehow. Maybe a smaller and less-stressful literary goal, like reading two classics in November. I still haven’t finished Invisible Man. That counts, right?

This weekend I tallied up the money that I’ve made from freelance jobs so far this year. I’m always worried about my financial contributions to the family since I quit my day job nearly three years ago with the promise that I’d make loads of money freelancing. My husband was skeptical, but I assured him that I’d be able to do it, while taking care of the house and the kids. It hasn’t worked out quite the way I’d have liked it to. In three years, I’ve never been able to match the number that I set out as an annual goal, though I came closest last year, due to a last-minute rush-job that because of the size of the job and the extremely abbreviated schedule, the company basically threw money at us to get it done. Over Christmas, no less.

I’ve worked pretty much steadily since quitting the dreaded day job, but the pay hasn’t come up to even a third of what I made before. By the end of this year, it won’t even be a quarter of my original salary. Part of me is stressed out about this. Why not? I’m stressed out about everything else. But there’s a part of me that isn’t worried. Fortunately, it’s a larger part.

The fact is, I’m home with the kids every day. And they are both doing beautifully because of it. I know that the kind of attention they get from me isn’t possible with a sitter. I am very particular about rounding out their education (I was a teacher) and how they spend their free time (playdates, swimming lessons, violin lessons, playing, exploring, climbing! breaking stuff! etc.)

Between freelance jobs, I have time to work on my own fiction projects. And while none of them have panned out so far, that doesn’t mean they won’t. Even if the stories that I’m writing now are never sold, my writing is getting steadily better, so for me it’s time well-spent. A writing investment, let’s say.

Plus there’s the fact that I’m always writing. Granted, the writing is restricted to what I’m being paid to write, but people are paying me to write! I kind of welcome the crazy convoluted requirements, because it forces my mind to think in really creative ways.

And of course, there are the other small things I don’t have to worry about without a day job: transportation, eating out, annoying co-workers. The stress is the same. There’s no medical.

But I love working for myself. I love that I’m in charge of what I do and what I don’t. I love that I’m not trying to follow a company’s credo or a manager with no  leadership skills, or dealing with co-worker drama. 99% of the time I’m not lonely. I’m very solitary anyway. And when I do feel lonely, there’s facebook, blogs and nights out with friends. Every time I start to panic and think I should go back to a steady day job, I think of all the things I’d miss: the kids, mostly; the freedom to organize my day however I want; the view from my office window; my own personal bathroom!

Freelancing isn’t for everyone. I have friends who’ve done it and recently gave up and returned to regular jobs. And they’re both miserable right now despite being better paid. It’s hard to work for other people. Even when freelance jobs have me stressed, I know I’m still working for ME.

But that’s my experience. Tough, but definitely preferable. Little money, but the kids are doing great. Writing all the time. If I can help it, I’m never going back to an office job.