Sunday, August 10, 2008

Distractions

Satisfying as it was, the film rights contract, is a tomorrow task, and my present WIP has taken too long and had too many interruptions. The latest one my computer.

It is fourteen years old now and I have upgraded components only as required to do whatever task I needed, the last addition an external hard drive to free up some space on C drive for the insatiable appetite of Windows. Every morning I had to spend fifteen minutes clearing up clutter before I could start.

The temptation was to start all over again with a new computer, but this one is organized precisely as I want it and the cost of a new one would make too great a hole in my writing budget.

When I shut everything down for some routine maintenance (cleaning fluff from cooling fans, cards etc.) I considered my options.

The motherboard was still capable of the routine writing tasks, aided by recently added graphics and sound cards, although it was at its limit with 2 Gig of RAM, and the only avenue of improvement lay in the hard drive--at 10 Gig, it was struggling.

A second-hand 120 gig drive was sourced and the contents of my present drive "ghosted" onto it before fitting. A day of reorganisation followed, mainly undoing the economies forced onto me by the small hard drive and my computer now amazes me with its speed and reliability, most of my manual maintenance tasks now automated.

Barring family distractions, I now have no excuse.

Back to 1802!

It's a great life.

Amy

Friday, August 01, 2008

Soul Music

Soul music is a little different for writers.

A little over a week ago, I signed a thirteen page contract allowing an independent Australian Film company, Spirit Rider Productions, the film rights to The Widow-Maker. Last night, I received two emails from them. The first told me work had started on the screen play and the second is below

Hi Amy,
I just wanted to thank you again for giving me the opportunity to develop your novel The Widow Maker into a feature film.
I hope that I can do it justice for you and your fans.
Kind Regards
Brian
Spirit Rider Productions.

That's soul music to a writer!

We spend hour after hour at a keyboard, often tired, frequently distracted, trying to grasp the elusive idea that sent us there and craft it into readable prose. Our partners indulge us without quite understanding the why of it, children and grandchildren shake their heads at our strange obsessions and, eventually, the royalties start to trickle in. A good review or two is a boost. as is the praise of editors, but nothing quite satisfies the hunger to do better that grows with every published book.

I've been writing seriously now for almost ten years and am as mystified now as to the imperative that keeps me at it as I was in the beginning. (It certainly isn't the financial rewards.)

Brian's email and the ones from satisfied readers are the closest explanation.

It's a great life.

Amy