My daughter Callie spiked a fever in the middle of the night last night. Normally, we wouldn’t be that concerned about such an event. Been there done that. But last night it came out of nowhere. She was fine all day, and then in the middle of the night, she started coughing terribly and she needed a bowl to throw up into. She was shaking uncontrollably, and the cough alternated between barking and wheezing. We figured it was probably meningitis or something equally awful.
My wife took her to the ER, which is thankfully less than five minutes away. I stayed home with the elder daughter, who was sleeping. I clutched my cell phone while Bromleigh live-texted the developments.
Fever was 102 degrees. Bad, but not super, super bad (my daughter is almost four years old. For those of you without children, this fact matters, because a fever of 102 in an infant would be bad news.)
The nurses took a look at her, and all was fine. Probably just a virus. No wheezing. Her fever went away by itself by the end of the visit. She was charming the hospital staff by playing I Spy with them.
They came home, just in time for all of us to get roughly four hours of sleep.
Since Callie couldn’t go to day care today, we tag-teamed the child care. My wife stayed home in the morning, and I took a half day so that she could go to work in the afternoon. We’re lucky that our jobs are flexible, and that we are granted sick time. Sadly, that’s not a common occurrence in the land-of-the-free-to-work-yourself-to-death-at-the-expense-of-the-family-that-we-purport-to-value.
Callie was doing better today. She was able to occupy herself, and I actually get some bonus writing in! Technically, it was revising. But I feel great about my progress. I was able to move the story along in some important ways that I wasn’t seeing before. Why? Because I belong to a writing community!
I belong to a cohort of nine awesome people who call themselves the Front Row for our penchant to sit in, well, the front row, at all of the lectures. We got along splendidly during residency, and we forced each other to sign up and do readings. We listened to each other’s work, and we offered advice, and we practiced reading together. We were amazingly functional, and we managed to get the most out of residency.
But, our community didn’t end with the end of the residency. We set up a Facebook group, and we’ve been offering encouraging words to each other and keeping everyone apprised of our progress. It’s been quite helpful. Then, one of our members floated the idea of proofreading each other’s work. Granted, there won’t always be time to read other people’s stuff, since we all have so much work to get done, but I was able to exchange papers with this person.
He was able to look at my manuscript with fresh eyes, and offered great suggestions. He pointed out areas that I was being redundant in, and he asked important questions about what was going on with my characters. Today I was finally able to take another look at my first chapter with an eye to making some of the suggested revisions. The suggestions helped me to clarify in some places, but also opened up some creative channels, leading me to add dialogue in some places and make it better overall. I was caught up in the spirit of revising, and I was able to revise chapter 2 to a lesser extent as well. I think that the chapters are much better now. It’s amazing what another set of eyes can do for you.
I’m also kind of amazed at how much the manuscript changes through revision. When I was in high school, I would write a paper, and I would be done. Usually, I got an A (except that one time my Honors English teacher called me on my bullshit and gave me a C+.) The same held true for college too. But now, I’m not simply motivated to get it written. I’m motivated to make it good. I keep reading good young adult fiction, and I keep thinking that I would prefer to write something that is good. Just my preference. You understand. So, revision is figuring pretty prominently into my process.
Though, I still need to be careful to balance that with actually getting stuff written down. Maybe this weekend I’ll try a first draft of the next chapter and lay off the revising for a bit.
I always imagined writing to be a solitary endeavor, and at some level I guess it is. Nobody can write for you but you. However, it turns out that writing isn’t that solitary after all. You share your work. You exchange ideas. You encourage the other writers around you, while receiving encouragement from them. I understand that now, and I actually read the acknowledgements when I’m done with a novel these days. It’s kind of an amazing thing, to create something from nothing, to shape it in the crucible of sharing and revising, and to send it out into the world.
And it’s even more amazing when that thing turns out to be good.
I find the MFA confusing in regards to my writing process. Like, normally, i would start writing something and not stop until i’m finished (with a bit of revision along the way).
But with the MFA, i want to turn in writing that’s the best i can make it, so it’s more, write a chunk, then stop and revise it until it’s perfect again. Then write some more (presumably. I haven’t reached that last stage yet)
I hope this still works out for me. I guess we’ll find out.
I’m so glad that Callie was okay. It sort of reminds me of my dogs getting sick, going to the vet, and then they’re miraculously better but you’re out the vet fee. Not quite the same, obvs, but i ain’t got no kids.
We had to take our dog to the emergency vet one night. She was fine, of course. It was SO expensive. At least with the kid we have health insurance.
I keep wanting to push forward on my piece, but I keep getting pulled back to the beginning, which I don’t really want to do, because I’m sure I’ll get my chance to rewrite all of it anyway after my advisor gets a hold of it.
The last thing I have to do is my process letter.
When’s your packet due? Maybe once you send it in, that will be the motivation to keep moving forward
March 10th, but it’s snail mail, so I want to send it out by March 6th or so. I’m pretty much done with things; I still have to write the process letter and add 4 books to the annotated bibliography. Maybe I’ll knock those out first and then go back to the story – oh, but the Febreze and Caliente story I told my daughters last night seemed to be a hit. Maybe I’ll write that instead. I just need more time! Writing should be my full time job.