Jessica Day George

Monday, January 28, 2008

Now my head might really explode. . .

I just wrote a whole long blog entitled My Head Might Explode, and hit 'post', and it disappeared! 

Where have you gone, little blog?  Will you ever return?  Who can say?  The internet is capricious and arbitrary.  Gee, you'd think Al Gore could have done a better job inventing it. . . .

But what I was talking about, that seemed so important at the time, and now seems rather vain, is how I will never be able to write all the books I want to write before I die.

Now, I'm not sick or anything, and I'm pretty young, especially in this age of vitamins and botox, but it's just that the book ideas keep multiplying on me!  They're like rabbits, and I think I need to isolate the males from the females

(For those of you who don't think that there are girl books and boy books, I will start keeping a tally of how many times I am asked, Is this a girl book? by both boys and their parents.)

The original blog posting, which we shall now refer to as the ur-posting (it's a literary term that comes from German and means 'the original'), had a rather interesting count in it that I'm still quite proud of.  To wit:

I have had two books published, and there is a third being printed right now.  I have one manuscript being edited, for publication next year.

I have completed five other manuscripts which may or may not see the light of day.

I have written 50+ pages of no less than six manuscripts, including a third Creel/dragon book and a sequel to next year's Black Wool Chain.

I have first chapters and notes for seven other books.

And one picture book.

That's twenty-four books, people.  Sure, Stephen King's written like, a HUNDRED books.  But the problem I have is that I know by the time I finish one manuscript, I will have jotted down notes for two more.  Which means that, like the hydra of myth, the more stories I "kill" the more that will crop up.

But that's good, right?

Not if you're laziest person alive!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hah. Well I think you're just going to have to get used to it. I'm afraid there isn't a cure for this...

Anonymous said...

OH! & at least you will have accomplished writing many books! :D

Anonymous said...

Well, I wonder if I should offer condolences at your writing woes, but really I feel like jumping for joy. I stayed up very late finishing Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow (couldn't put it down!)and I must say, I L-O-V-E-D it. So bring it on! More! More! More! More! (Thankfully this should be no problem.)

Anonymous said...

Hey, I think that's wonderful! And you're clearly not lazy, or you wouldn't have written that much!

As for having posts disappear, I often write them in a word processing program and save them as I write. Then I have a backup if it disappears, either when I post or afterward. Now my blogging platform lets me save my posts as I go. I still highlight the post and copy it (ctrl-A, ctrl-C if you're on a PC) before saving, just in case. If it disappears, I just paste it in the blank again.