Just goes to show you can find anything on CafePress!  Pick your search term, such as ”writers,” and you can find a t-shirt (or sweatshirt or mousepad or bib) with just about any design you can imagine.  You can lose hours on this site.  It’s great!  I hope to set up my own little CafePress shop someday…especially since my webmaster just designed this really adorable logo for me.  Don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted when that’s launched.

 What am I procrastinating on these days?  I need to put some work into my pitch before I head to New York in two weeks.  Sometimes boiling down your novel to a few paragraphs can be harder than writing the entire 250 page book.

Thank you for holding Michael Vick accountable for his actions.  Hopefully the consequences for his misdeeds will be as much of an example to others as his actions on the field were.  It’s not only the dogs and their advocates that thank you, but many others who respect the integrity of professional sports and our legal system.

Back from a week of hiking and swimming up north.  Not sure who had more fun…me or the dogs…

 {I’d love to post pictures, but flickr isn’t being my friend.  You can check out my kodakgallery album from the trip here.}

First, an update on a couple of things I wrote in March.  At one point, I said that revising was kinda fun.  I take it back.  The second draft was fun, that’s where I really got to see the story come together.  The subsequent drafts were much more work than play.  It had its moments, where I got to enhance characters and add in more scenes, but a lot of it was tedious - checking for consistency, doing line editing - things that put the process into the necessary evil category.  You have to have the drive to see your book through to the end to make it through the whole editing process.  If my book sells and my agent and/or editor has suggestions, then I’ll be back into the love-hate relationship.

The other thing I mentioned in March is that I started a second novel.  That’s true.  I wrote a few chapters, then went back to “Living with the Bull” for some necessary edits.  As the last draft started winding down, new characters started speaking to me.  I have about 4 or 5 concepts for future novels scribbled on scraps of paper and these guys just ran over the characters from the chapters written in the spring.  I have little choice but to put aside the other chapters and go ahead with this “new” book.  I’m excited to get started on it this week.

Now, to confess my writing habits.  I am not typically a daily writer.  I don’t adhere to any of that advice about sitting down and forcing a certain amount of time or a certain number of words every day.  If that works for someone, great.  But I’m not that consistent.  I work better in bursts - making notes here and there about scenes or characters and then pumping out a chapter or two once or twice a week. 

Maybe it’s a result of my busy schedule, that I can’t focus on my writing every day.  Or maybe it’s a result of my focus coming in spurts.  My tennis game was always like that - powerful when I was “on” but inconsistent.  On the other hand someone (and I’ll let you know who if I ever remember) commented that writers aren’t just working when they’re in front of the computers, but they also write when they’re walking down the street, taking a shower, grocery shopping, etc.  A lot of time is spent thinking about their book, plot, and characters, so that when they sit down to write, they’re ready.  If that counts, then I guess I am a daily writer.  Quite prolific when walking the dogs, in fact.

What happens if I make enough money to reduce my day job hours and commit more time to the profession of writing?  If I were a full time writer, could I write everyday?  I think I could, once I had less on my plate.  But there are a lot of other aspects of being a writer that would be part of my schedule, too - like plotting, publicity, and research.

I’d like nothing more than to find out how I’d write if I had a block of time to commit to it every single day.  Maybe someday soon I’ll have the opportunity.

Next week, I am bringing a stack of books up north with me…

 Marley & Me

The Dog Walker

Crazy for You

Around the Next Corner

Walking in Circles Before Lying Down

I’m excited to catch up on dog fiction, especially because I didn’t know about most of these books (except Marley & Me, of course) until I started actively looking for similar books for my upcoming pitch workshop.  I avoided reading them while I was finishing up my manuscript, but now it’s time to get to know “the competition.”

If you’ve been following the Michael Vick dogfighting case - or even if you’ve just turned on the tv, opened a newspaper, etc. - then you’ve probably seen references to Vick considering a plea deal.  His buddies flipped on him, so it seems he has nowhere to go.

Of course, the big question is: What will his punishment be?  Will he serve time?  (hope so) Will the NFL ever let him play again? (hope not).  Many articles have said that the biggest threat to Vick’s football career is the gambling aspect of dog fighting.  So…if he hadn’t laid bets, then he’d be free to carry on as if the abuse, carnage, and felony had never happened?

I understand that gambling is a big concern to the sport, that they can’t worry about players throwing game results and all of that.  But why can’t the NFL hold up its own Code of Conduct (that has a section on criminal activity)?  Are they so afraid of the sport declining if they held their players to standards (like staying within the law)?  Like it or not, athletes are role models.  The publicity aspect is not kept hidden when you join a professional sports team.  In fact, the more public a figure you are, the more valuable you are for selling tickets and the brand of your team and sport.  I’d like to see the NFL stand on a little moral ground and refuse to keep criminals on a pedestal of fame and fortune.

 Charles Barkley famously said, “Just because I can dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.”  Fair enough.  But I think the athletes as role models issue goes the other way, too:  Just because you can dunk a basketball (pass a football) doesn’t mean the laws don’t apply to you.

…And by regular, I mean the same level of sporadic posting that we all enjoyed earlier in the summer.  I hope to be a daily blogger when I grow up, but for now, it’s unlikely.  I’m off to Northern Michigan next week, leaving my internet connection behind, and I’ll be very busy in preparation for my trip to New York, as well as with my day job, over the next few weeks…But I missed cyberspace, so I’m back to updating when I can!