Sometimes I think the only people I know are writers and right now every single one of them (including me) is having a shit time with their work.1 Deadlines are flying by faster than hummingbirds, the blocks are bigger and wider than Uluru, and the reviews are full of snark.
I don’t want to hear about it! Not a single word. If you’re a writer and you’ve got good news—only good news—I beg of you to share it with me in the comments. Hell, even if you’re not a writer I want to hear your good news.
Sing it, people! Loudly and long.
- Truth be told there’s rarely a time we writers aren’t bitching about writing. [↩]
not writer good news, but good news in general:
my husband is coming home from iraq!! and *soon*!! squee!! 😛
(i’m not at all excited… 😉 )
That is awesome news! Yay you and your husband! How soon is soon? I’m hoping days not weeks. I can’t imagine how excited you must be. How long since you last saw him?
Thanks for sharing. It is, indeed, wonderful news.
Okay, I can’t beat that.
Moles: It’s not a competition! Any good news will do. Even of the less spectacular Swiss variety.
i don’t know exactly when (they keep exact dates secret, for security), except that it will be in early september. and that seems soon to me, because he’s been gone since *last* september. and also because there has been much talk of extending their tour…october, november, december, etc. so september is fabity-fab!! (sorry for that, georgia nicolson sneaks into my speach at times.. 😛 )
some time in the next week or so, i’ll be conclusively be getting back to work on the musical i’m writing, and hopefully in the next few months my composer and i will be ready to inquire about the rights.
our company’s going to work on the queen’s website! it’s not 100% settled yet, but that’s mostly nitpickings, and then my wonderfully smart boyfriend is going to make sure that her site is all w3c-compliant and accessible and brilliant. also this is still a secret so don’t tell anyone.
i’ve been hitting 1000 words a day, 5 days a week. which was my aim, so I can’t complain. all I need now is something green to go with my bread and water…(:
by the way, you were in my zombie nightmare last night. we were fighting them off with a group of people (who i can’t remember). i was relieved – apparently you knew something about zombies. didn’t save me though. I got bitten on my finger and got that dreaded feeling. the one which goes. oh oh. you in bad trouble now boy.
*kicks self* The awesome stuff that happened today is secret! G’rr. Very very awesome, however. And I got to run around at lunchtime today! Outside! It wasn’t even raining! It was like the best parts of primary school, all over again. (I am a simple soul.)
*steadfastly ignoring the bad stuff in the happy, hazy world of self-narration*
I hope your writing woes segue into writing yay soon.
Several bits of good news – I signed a contract for a children’s book a couple of weeks ago, the new grown up novel is going faster than I expected, and my copy of Daughters of Earth arrived from Amazon. 🙂
Contracts! I have lovely shiny contracts! For books that are–in one case–already written, and–in the other case–half-written! See the shiny contracts?
My cat approves, for this means cat food will be forthcoming for the immediate future!
Yay for orangedragonfly! That’s astounding news. Mine is small, but satisfying; I had raspberry sherbet for breakfast. With almonds on the side. (I’m a grown-up now. I can eat whatever I want for breakfast!) And I’ve solved two plot problems in my current novel proposal-in-progress.
I just came back from being a guest at a con in Belfast to find myself: nominated for the World Fantasy Award; at a gig with me good friend, Neil Williamson who’s also been nominated for a WFA; invited over to the Cracow Book Fair by my Polish publisher; accepted into an urban fantasy anthology; in the Locus B&N/Borders TPB charts for the second month running; picking up a comp copy of FEELING VERY STRANGE which I got into on the basis of a single post on David Moles’ blog; rearranging delivery of the cover of the US version of INK.
I think i may be bogarting everyone else’s good news (except for orangedragonfly’s which puts mine to shame, no matter how ludicrously good it seems to me 🙂 ).
hurray orangedragonfly!!!! i’m so happy for you!!
Good news: for about half a month, i managed to maintain about 2K words a day, i finally figured out (sort of) how to customize livejournal (bloody hard, why can’t they just use html, grrr), annnnnnd I only have one more week of my dull summer job left and then i’m done!!!! Done done done!!! 😀
good luck with your writing!!
Wow, what a lovely lot of good news to wake up to. (Yes, I slept in. What’s the point of being freelance if you can’t sleep in?) And another lovely reader (sorry I don’t recognise your email address) sent me this article about how mangosteens are soon to become available in the US of A. (I’ve been working so hard I’ve not been reading the newspaper.)
What a glorious day! Thank you all!
none of my good news is better than orangedragonfly (Congrats) but i am moving to NYC from NJ next week.
yay, all! congrats on your productivity, awards, and returning loved ones.
me, i got a new mighty mouse from apple, and it’s totally cool. you can activate expose by squeezing its sides, and program all sorts of reactions depending on subtle squishings of it.
(got jazza one too.)
Justine, there is a LOVELY article in the NYTimes today about the success of children’s reading room at the Manhattan Family Court. That really made me smile. Ariel
For the first time ever, I have a book coming out that I unreservedly love. I’m usually so ambivalent about my own work (feel too close, not sure I did my best). This book, for some reason, I love–even if everyone else hated it, I’d still love it, it’s that kind of love.
I like that feeling 🙂 I hope it comes again some day.
I have an auction tomorrow! I am all a-flutter, but one offer in so s’okay whatever happens.
And It is hell on earth, yes but I am cranking at 1,500 a day.
Hey, I just BEAT a deadline, which is something you don’t knock in this trade… It’s a small piece of good news, compared to everyone else’s, but it’s mine, so here y’are.
Hope things ease up for you, Justine…
Simple good news here. It is a beautiful day in which it’s not a thousand degrees, I am going to meet my deadline for illustration class, and I have an oppertunity to illustrate a children’s book :D. And also my dog’s fleas are dying. TODAY IS WONDERFUL.
^Katerate, you’re going to illustrate a book! That’s sooo cool! I wanna see.
Beautiful covers over at amongamidwhile.blogspot.com; wander over for a drool. The white time one even has a slightly MorM feel, don’t you reckon?
More good news—you get to work on your novel. I get to work on a govt annual report. Oh, and some data migration. *yaaawn*
I just sold a novelette (though I think I’m not supposed to make details public yet) to an anthology, and it should pay enough to buy me one of the treats I’ve been promising myself — a new couch, or a flat screen TV, I’m still debating…
You’re pretty.
Pretty?! But what about my brain! My magnificent brain!
You pretty, too, Lauren. You are all pretty! And you all have magnificent brains too. The most magnificentest ever!
Heh hem. I return to finishing book now.
aww, you all are so sweet.
i’ve been away from my computer for a bit, but it was so happy-making to read the long list of everyone’s good news!
and a bit of random good news: it has been insanely hot (same as everywhere in north america, it seems) and today a storm came through, dropping the temperature about 20 degrees. ahh, to breathe again…
i got asked to edit a book of short stories…
A producer I met with in June wants to fly me out to LA to pitch my upcoming novel 🙂
And I just got an advance check in the mail.
And after three years without a holiday, I’ve booked a trip to Europe the first week in November (too bad I have a manuscript I haven’t yet started due Nov. 5)
Happiness abounds…if you don’t read the newspapers. :-\
^yeah, the newspapers are definitely depressing lately. My best friend is flying out of San Francisco and the airports are crazy.
I found out that a book I’ve been waiting for just came out now, instead of in October like it was supposed to. I’m getting it tomorrow, yay! My YA book drought has come to an end at last (again :P).
I can’t wait to read Magics Child!
Anyway good news = I move into college on Tuesday. Not as exciting as some others, but I can’t wait!
I just found out that I don’t have cancer. (I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop since late May.)
Wonderful news, orangedragonfly!
Margo’s book covers are fabulous.
ebear’s contracts are so shiney i can hardly see for the glinting.
thanks for asking everyone for the good news, justine. i really needed to hear some.
congratulations, all.
i can dance.
HERE’S SOME REALLY GOOD NEWS. My library finally got Magic Lessons and I now have it in my possession. Yessssssss :D.
OK, you asked for it…
Book Sense just picked me for one of the top teen reads of autumn 2006. And my interview with booklist comes out in a couple of weeks and looks great.
In truth, these are great things for me, but pale next to coming home from Iraq or not having cancer. Honestly, this is sort of a humbling experience, when you think about it.
Barry
Yes! Yes! Happy Writer News! Last week (just 13 days after my book’s official pub date), my publisher (Bantam) told me they’re already going back to press to reprint more copies! And Small Beer Press posted the cover for their forthcoming hardcover edition, and it’s gorgeous! And I’m getting all these online reviews from people who really like it and get it! And John Scalzi did a great interview with me about it on his site! And the illustrations for my next year’s Chanukah children’s book turned up in the mail, and even though I thought it was too late for me to comment on them, it turns out it wasn’t and my editor actually said she’d tell the art director what I said!
And Delia (Sherman, my spouse)’s book is coming out *next week*, which means that I’ve had a whole solid 3 weeks of getting to be the self-obsessed Artiste with New Project before I have to yield the floor to her (and already she’s started getting requests for interviews from Librarians, so I can stop worrying that just because she’s not a shameless self-promoter no one’s going to pay attention to her fabulous new book . . . ).
And all my friends’ books are getting attention, old and new – Charles de Lint chose to spend half his column in the last F&SF in raptures over a reprint of Caroline Stevermer’s RIVER RATS, which she wrote so many years back that the friend who was the model for one character – and is now the father of the world’s greatest teenagers – wasn’t even married yet . . . And Justine, whom I met when she was still an academic, has finished her third novel!
Happy writers.
What a good question you asked!
i might get a job in a library! admittedly, it’s a college library (meaning scant, if any, ya) but still! and perhaps that will help with the tla…. mwahahahaha
Well, as you asked for good news, I’m pleased to report I now have a shiny new Diploma in English Literature (with Distinction, no less), which means, thanks to the many peculiarities of the part-time degree set-up at my uni., I effectively have half a degree. Only two more years’ work and I get the other half. And then, when the two are finally reunited… no, wait, that’s in a different script.
MKS
i cleaned my office today, and now it’s shinysparkly fresh!
more good news!! (i’m just a fountain of good news lately 😉 )
my husband called from iraq this morning….and in february we’re moving to *germany*!!!! ever since he enlisted we’ve been hoping to be stationed in germany, but it was always a faraway hope, especially as they just closed several bases over there. the news today was quite a shock!! but the good kind of shock.
yay!! 😛
orangedragonfly: That’s fabulous! Congrats!
Wow – looks like my brother is going to be posted to Germany (he’s a radiologist in Naval Reserves, finally being called up) this fall – and of course I’ve forgotten the name of the town already – begins with “l”, near the French border . . . You?
ellen: we are going to baumholder, which is near france, in the southwest of germany.
this morning i was shocked, and now i’m…overwhelmed. but it will be good. and all day family and friends have been saying “oh, i will visit you!” they’ll fly to germany but not drive to kentucky???! funny stuff.
I’ve made a new friend in Sabine Bauer, who is a kick-ass writer and theatre maven currently living in Canada. I’ve broken the back of my current novel and can finally see an end — and I don’t hate the work now. My dog didn’t die of a siezure, my cat didn’t die of the flu and neither did I, though it was a close run thing for all of us. I’m going to World Fantasy in November, and I’ve almost stopped being terrified of the prospect. Not the travelling, just the hordes of people I don’t know. I have more books news I’ll be able to announce soon. It rained yesterday. (Trust me, in Sydney this is A Good Thing.)
Big wootie toots to everyone else for their good news.
ojdragonfly: Looks like my brother will be in Landstuhl. And, yes, everyone is saying, “Oh, boy! We’ll come visit you!” too. But, y’know, lots of people are intimidated by Europe, and feel better about going if there’s a relative there – either it rationalizes a trip that would otherwise be seen as indulgent luxury, or it makes them feel you’re not so far away after all….
Finally – and for who knows how briefly – I’ve found a balance between my paid work (making leather briefcases) and my writing, such that I can now actually, truly believe that I will soon finish this novel after twelve years of plunging wildly from creative, poverty-stricken wildfires into dry, soul-destroying periods of attempted economic recovery…
Believe me, this seems to be a miracle of the highest order!
And you can smell the season changing here in Scotland, which after a blessed summer of sunshine seems, for once, to be a welcome thing and not an opportunity for the usual sense of disappointment following three months of rain… I love the autumn, but its even better when the summer’s deigned to spend some time visiting this damp shore.
And the beetroot from my first garden turn out to be round and rich and beautiful!
All good news – what a fine idea! May you all be blessed with an abundance of it.
yay yay and 1000 times yay!!
my husband is HOME!!!!!!
(if i could, i’d put “home” in all caps…but i can’t. oh well.)
he was gone for 351 days. but now he is home.
happiness abounds. 😀
Woo hoo! Congratulations! Guess we won’t be hearing from you again for awhile 🙂
What an amazing idea! It is lovely to read all nice things.
I guess my good news is that I’ve been accepted on a short university course. It will either be the start of a second degree or at the very least beginning to mop up some huge research holes before ruining an ok story.
okay, so it seems like i post on this thread a lot. which, if you think about it, is actually a good thing. 😛 anyway…now i have the best news of all. well, the best news for my husband and me, anyway….
i’m pregnant!!! we’ve been trying for so long (well, obviously not the year he was in iraq, but for over three years before that). so…next june we’ll have a new addition to our family..born in germany!! 😀
Wow! Congratultions! That’s totally awesome!
hurray orangedragonfly!!
i have good news: i just passed the 50K finish line for nanowrimo for the third year running! this victory is especially sweet this year, because i really thought for a while that i wouldn’t make it. 😀
Congratulations!
okay. probably no one at all cares about this, but i have to post it anyway…
i’ve been feeling our baby kick and move for about three weeks now, but last night he kicked my husband!! it was pretty amazing, jeff was actually speechless (which is *highly* unusual). all i could do was laugh; i was giddy with happiness. 😛
it snowed in austin, texas today!!!! bloody freaking awesome! school was canceled! ice everywhere! real snowflakes!! ahhhhh!! 😀 😀
this hasnt been posted on 4 4ever, but i liked it so much, here u go: i can actually play guitar! it actually sounds good (which is pretty good, considering i’ve been playing since december 2006). orangedragonfly, i am sooooooooo happy that u have had so much luck. i hope your baby grows into a beautiful person (with a mom like you, s/he probably will). :- )
Orangedragonfly: Congrats!
Rebecca: Snow blows!
Calliope: Well done. I can’t play nothing. I am dead impressed.
We’re officially working for the prime minister now!
Also, i’ve got a new new bicycle, with brakes that actually work, one that makes me so proud that i even park it in the paid parking when at the train station. very middle-aged, but my lovely new bike derves it.
Does the good news count if it’s from you?
Wanted to thank you for “How to write a novel”, but no more comments there. Anyway, that’s my good news, I’m unstuck, and your blog is helping a lot.
Oops, sorry, left out the best part. Found good, not just decent(Wordpad but prettier), word processing freeware. I just love it’s interface + tabbed documents. Now I can keep the ideas organized.
Who am I kidding? Organized as possible. That’s better, I can keep the ideas as organized as possible.
Nolita, that’s wonderful to hear. I’m so pleased it’s helped you.
So what’s the word processing freeware you speak of?
Woke up, fixed coffee, unwinding myself for writing(have to get comfy). Sorry, it’s called Jarte, link http://www.jarte.com/
I would have included the name but was afraid would be counted as spam.
I’m also experimenting with astrology as a tool for character development. I have the idea, and overall plot in my head. Nothing too concrete(want to see where the story goes on it’s own really), but character development was always a stumper for me.
So I used the MB Free Chinese Zodiac and Star Signs software to get surprise character traits for my male protagonist. By sheer luck(and randomly choosing a birth date), I managed to have someone whose Chinese and star signs don’t mesh. Consequently, there’s a fair ammount of inner conflict.
Then I made the lead female’s signs compatible with his. They both have inner conflict(as do most people, not just characters), and using astrology, is keeping them from being one dimensional.
After I finish sharing I’m going to give signs to my male antagonist. They have to be exactly the opposite of the female’s(in astrology, not unlike life, opposites attract). If they’re opposite the female’s, they’ll automatically be incompatible with the male protagonist’s, this should lead to all sorts of yummy headbutting.
Mind you, I have to give them voices, backgrounds, well, their lives. Still, the tedious bits are out of the way. For all I know though, the male characters might trade roles before I finish, and the female might decide she prefers her own company, to the company of two headbutting men.
So you know, it’s not completely random. I need the conflict. Internal, for them to be believable(to me), and external, because these three people have been thrown together by life or death circumstances. They need to work with each other in order to survive.
WESTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS!!!! GO SPURS GO!!
^ that is in caps. 😀
my baby is here!!!!!!!!!!
my water broke at home yesterday (wednesday) morning at 1:30, and my little boy arrived after much pain and suffering (no joke) at 5:26pm.
alexander lukas b…
nickname “xander” 😉
june 6, 2007
5:26 pm
7 pounds 7 ounces
19.25 inches long
he’s a dream. and i feel like i’m in a dream too!! all i want to do is stare at him and cuddle him and laugh at his funny “talking”. he makes my world a better place. 😛
oh my god, orangedragonfly, i was just thinking of you this morning and wondering if we’d hear when your baby was born. CONGRATS!! I love the name Alexander. one of my characters is named Alexander in the story i’m writing right now. 😀 😀
also, my cousin’s husband’s sister had a baby yesterday, a girl named mackenzie. ya’ll have the same birthdays! 😀
Congratulations, Orangedragonfly! Woo hoo!!!!!!!
i love the nickname xander for alexander. congratulations!!!!!!! 🙂
i have happy news that is no where near as good as having a baby or any of the other happy-making news on here but 1)i took my last exams today! YES!!!!!!!!! only two more days of school and i cannot wait! 2)i met maureen johnson on tuesday!!! i’m still excited from meeting her. and 3)my library finnaly got more ya books so i now have read an abudundace of katherines and still have two e. lockhart books, the key to the golden firebird, and about three others.
Hey Orangedragonfly, I’m a bit late to the party, sorry about that, but many congratulations on the safe & sound arrival of Alexander! W00t!
I got another idea for my novel and i just got a french tutor to help me with my french. i now have 4 tutors but i think my arabic tutor counts as one too.
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Thanks so much for all the lovely good news shared!