So, Thursday of last week was a good writing day. A successful day in the calendar of Anne McClane, fiction writer. There are two bits of irony here, in that I don’t think I actually wrote much of anything on Thursday; and one of the things I’m about to share isn’t about my fiction writing. But it concerns an essay I wrote about fiction, so I’ll claim it falls under that umbrella.

Here’s what I have to share, in chronological order. I’ve included a header indicating what part of my writing life it bolstered:

• Community: I met a New Orleans-based writer who just published a set of joke books for kids. He’s makes his living in PR (public relations), and I met him at a luncheon for PR professionals. (I don’t do a lot of PR work in my current job, but it’s something I have a fair amount of past experience with. I still go to the lunches when the topic sounds interesting). His name is Michael Strecker, and his books are: Young Comic’s Guide to Telling Jokes, Books 1 & 2. Basically, it was really cool to meet another writer, who devotes the time to writing on top of / in addition to other commitments. And I thought it was great that a publisher had picked up his work.
• Development: I had a call with the editor I hired to do a developmental critique of my second novel. I really can’t place a value on that one hour spent hashing out plot holes, discussing character motivation, and just talking about the struggles I’m facing with the story, and how they might be fixed. After her line edits and that phone call, I have a pretty good sense of the work that needs to be done—a road map. Now, I just need to make the time to get behind the wheel…
• Publication! I received the final proofread of an essay I wrote last fall, for an anthology commemorating the 30^th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The title of the anthology is Outside In Makes It So: 174 New Perspectives on 174 Star Trek: TNG Stories by 174 Writers. It should release September 28. And the proofreader was complimentary of my essay, which I thought was really nice, considering there were 173 other pieces to proofread.

With July behind us now, I’ll conclude by sharing July’s quote from my “First We Dream” calendar:

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” –Henry David Thoreau

I’ll see what I can do to make it so.