Just got an email from RWA announcing a special board meeting tonight, with the following agenda:

1. Suspension of Graphical Standards

2. Creation of Graphical Standards Ad Hoc Committee

Huh.

See, how come I didn't? I get the RWR in the mail, and my membership is up to date. Was I supposed to *do* something to get email alerts?

It came through the RWAAlert Yahoo Group. I can't remember if you can just sign up for it through Yahoo, or if you have to go through the RWA website.

Shorter RWA:

Oops.

Heh.

On a completely different subject, I need some advice on writing, life, and the juggling thereof.

As many of you know, my father is undergoing chemo and radiation for lung cancer, and we're going to spend the next week in Alabama visiting him. I don't really know what to expect, but I'm expecting it to be exhausting and draining.

Obviously this is one of the times when family takes precedence over work. No question about that. And yet by coincidence I've arrived at the threshold of one of the key turning points of the story, and the writing has taken on a beautiful momentum of its own in the past week or so. So I'd like to do what I can to make sure I'm able to pick up where I left off when the time comes.

The one thing I don't expect to be able to do is produce much new work while I'm in Bama. Even on ordinary happy visits home, that rarely happens. I'm thinking of printing out everything I've written so far--switching to TNR12 1.5-spaced to spare a few trees--and giving it a continuity read. Does that sound reasonable? In some ways I feel like an ass for even thinking of these things at a time like this, but it's not as though I'm planning to blow off the family to work on my book. Mostly I figure I'll read it at night, when DH and I will be up later than anyone else anyway by virtue of being night owls who normally live on Pacific Time.

Susan, print it out and read, but don't assume you won't want to work. Some of the best work I've ever done in my life has been under the spur of pain, or pressure, or the compulsion to somehow cope with tragedy or illness.

That's a good idea, Deb. And I certainly will write if I have desire and the time/space to do it--I'm just not going to set myself a page count and push myself to meet it like I usually do, because that's never easy to do while traveling and visiting in any case, and I really don't know what this trip is going to be like.

Setting a page count under those circs - OK, you wanted an opinion, here it is. That would be suicidal. Seriously - creative suicide. This isn't likely to be a situation where you're going to have any control over, well, anything, really. It's likely to hurt like hell and make you crazy, not the writing, but the entire reality of the situation. Any sense of control is likely to be illusory. Nature and fate have the whip hand on this. All you can do is go along with whatever happens.

And I know different people have entirely different ways of dealing with this heavy-duty stuff. For me, I talk and I write. That doesn't mean you will - but be prepared, and don't feel guilty if some major emotional stuff makes you want to write. This is where some of the best writing on earth comes from.

But it hurts like hell.

Just my take.

Setting a page count under those circs - OK, you wanted an opinion, here it is. That would be suicidal. Seriously - creative suicide.

Well, I'd realized that much already, which is why I decided not to do it.

It's probably just as well I've reached the point in the story I have--there's no danger whatsoever I'm going to forget what I meant to write next.

AmyLiz, are you on RWAAlert yet? If not, let me know, and I'll forward the message I just got WRT the graphical standards meeting from last night--basically, they're suspended for the moment, and a committee has been formed to seek member input and actually figure out all those pesky details about when and how they'd be applied.