Gimme oxygen!

There's a bad cold going around. It's bad. It's a hoodlum cold.

I haven't been sick for a long time, and I only realize that now that I AM sick and it feels so unusual. I will spare you the details, but let's just say my head hurts and my planned running workout isn't going to happen!

I am progressing well on Raoul's revision despite my stuffed-up head: passed the 50% mark yesterday!

Aardvark, on the other hand, is not going so well. I know what happens and why, and I can hear her voice. What's causing me trouble, then?

a) I'm afraid it'll be too short b) I'm afraid it won't sell.

I KNOW I shouldn't be worrying about either of those things at this stage, but I am. I love the concept of this book and the issues I am exploring, and I guess I'm almost wanting to keep it as a "sideline project" that I write entirely for me with no intent of selling. Once it's done, I could of course try to sell it, but in my head there's a difference between "book I'll sell when it's done" and "book I'm writing because it's exploring stuff I need answers to, and when it's done we'll see what we have".

The problem is that this has all come up this week, and my head is not in 100% working order. (Relative to usual, I mean. :) So I'm not sure whether I'm just feeling the "it's stinkin' hard to write a first draft" blues or whether I'm on to something.

I have an idea for a different book instead of the current Aardvark, and I might start exploring that a bit, but I don't want to ditch Aardvark and I really don't want to be writing/editing three books at once.

It's times like this I wish I had an agent. I'd love to have someone in the business take an objective look at what I have and what I'm planning and say, "I think you should do X". Maybe someday!

Until that happens, though, I have to do what feels right to me. And I think that might just be making Aardvark a "secret project" and beginning to explore the new idea.

But not until next week when my head clears. :)

Heather