Me Me Me

A Day in The Life

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I’m in a strange place right now…

I finished my last Diagnosis Murder novel and delivered it to my editor a few weeks ago.  Bill Rabkin and I just turned in a pitch to a network for a TV movie we’re up to write. It’s still a few weeks away from staffing season, so there’s no episodic TV work right now. And I delivered my story to my editor for the next (the seventh!) Diagnosis Murder novel…so I’m awaiting formal go-ahead before I start the detailed plotting and actual writing.

So, in other words,  I don’t have a hell of a lot to do.  I’m in a holding pattern until I hear from the network on the M.O.W., or my editor on the book, or staffing season begins and we start going to meetings.

As is typical at times like this, I’m antsy. I cleaned up my office, did some filing, paid my bills, organized my bookshelves, put labels on my home-recorded DVDs. I got my cars serviced, I scheduled repairs around the house, and I even fixed myself up… going in for long overdue appointments with my doctor and my dentist for annual checkups (which I haven’t had in years, so I guess I’m using the term "annual" very loosely).

I feel good about taking care of things that I’ve overlooked for the last two years of non-stop writing activity but, at the same time, I’m not quite myself. I’m eager to start writing something else…even though I’ve been looking forward for so long to time off, especially with the 12 months I’ve had (two broken arms, two surgeries, 18 episodes to write/develop, one death in the family, three novels to write, etc.).

We’re heading out on a family road trip for my daughter’s March vacation, driving to the Grand Canyon and Sante Fe, and that will be fun, but until then…

…why can’t I just curl up in a chair with a good book, relax, and enjoy the peace? God knows I have plenty of books to read!

A Writer’s Life

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This weekend was a good example of what life is like for a professional writer:

  • I wrote an article about writing DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE WAKING NIGHTMARE for MJ Rose’s excellent Backstory blog.
  • I traveled to San Francisco to speak at a writers conference.
  • I  proofed the copyedited manuscript for my fifth DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel, which has to arrive in NY no later than Feb. 23.
  • I proofed the galleys for my novel THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, which have to arrive on my editor’s desk no later than Feb. 23.
  • I revised the manuscript for my sixth DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel, which is due March 1, but that I need to finish by Feb 22, so I can stick it in the FedEx packet with the copyedited manuscript for DM #5… because I am leaving on Wednesday to attend & speak at Left Coast Crime in El Paso.
  • I drove back to L.A. from S.F…and thought about the plot for my seventh DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel.  I made  some notes when I stopped for lunch.
  • I posted some articles on my blog.
  • I wrote some notes for a network pitch meeting that’s set for Tuesday.

And this was a light weekend… I didn’t have to write a script or write a chapter in a book.

Grumpy Goldberg

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Ian Hamet over at Banana Oil regularly reads my blog and thinks I’ve been grumpy lately (though he thinks I wasn’t  grumpy enough with the people I met at the San Francisco Writers Conference. Did I mention that they didn’t have a single copy of any of my books for sale in the conference bookstore? Grumpier writers than me would have walked away from the conference in a huff… but I’m not prone to huffs).

So I did a quick scan of my posts here over the last few weeks… and Ian is right.  It looks like I’ve been using my blog mostly to whine and complain (which proves, I suppose, that I really am a professional writer).  I’ll try to be more upbeat in future posts.