the Lair of the BookWyrm: Write Now

Showing posts with label Write Now. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Write Now. Show all posts

Monday, December 3, 2007

Random Monday

So, I read the radio programs over at StarDate Online. And one of the recent programs was about warp drive and how to make it possible. As a sci-fi/fantasy writer who needs help getting motivated to do the research she knows she needs to do, I find this incredibly valuable. The info from the program is here if anyone else wants to read it...

Also, I got promoted! Yay! No more reception desk work for me (once we find my replacement). I'll be in HR now. Should be fun, and will definitely be different than I've done before. Gotta love a challenge...

Little Shop auditions went well. Perhaps too well. We had 52 auditioners (as our vocal director says, a full deck) and the script calls for 8 actors... Yikes. We're going to pad out the cast as much as we can, but that brings us to 13-15, max. So we have a tough job of casting cuts to make now.

My personal computer is dark. Poor laptop decided to not turn on over the weekend. So, I wiped the drive and now need to find the time to reinstall Windows XP. With everything else going on in my life (side note: why does everything seem to happen at once?) "finding time" is more difficult than it seems it should be.

And... that's all for now. Must go figure out job stuff.

Monday, November 19, 2007

and life goes on

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.
- Orson Welles

~*~

There will not be much of a post today. But here is a short update.

M and I did break up over the weekend. I hadn't wanted to, but I begin to think that it's for the best. I have settled for being satisfied in previous relationships, and have decided that isn't worth it. So, I was thrilled to be finally happy in a relationship, and wanted to make it work. Now, the problem is, I didn't want him to settle, either. And he doesn't feel we have enough in common to really "fit" together. (My dad phrased it well - he said that M has a lot in common with me, but that I don't have as much in common with him.) So, if we were to stay together, I think he would be settling. Which I don't want.

Anyway, this is hard but not as hard as it could be. We are still friends, and we are going to work at a friendship in a while. Need a little time to adjust first, though. (That is a good thing, as I really didn't want to lose him from my life entirely. It is also a strange thing, as I have never had a "good" breakup like this before.) And I did find out (in words for the first time) that he loves me in his fashion but that he doesn't think he can give me as much as I need. So that is bittersweet.

I think what hurts most is that it doesn't hurt enough. For the beginning of the weekend (during the "silent" phase that some of you mentioned, while he was making sure this was what he wanted to do) it felt like my world was ending. But now, it's just a change. A hard change, but one that was perhaps the right one. It was certainly a very brave thing that he did, and I respect him for it.

~*~

And now it's time to catch up on NaNo. I (obviously) didn't get any writing done over the weekend, and while I have a lot of writing to go, I think I can do it.

Thanks, all for the support. And I guess this ended up being longer than I anticipated. Here is a LOLcat picture to end the post on a smile...

~*~

moar funny pictures

Monday, November 12, 2007

Now On Paper

So I spent Saturday in San Francisco doing a combination of having fun and being in pain due to a PMS headache. (Hate them!) We wandered around, window shopped, and peeked at the beaches. No sign of the oil spill except for closed beaches and caution tape.

Sunday was more productive, and actually saw writing. I got some good stuff in, and yet it seems that all of the good words lately must be written on paper first, the old-fashioned way, before they can be put into the computer.

Read last week:

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Darwin’s Radio - Greg Bear

And other stuff that I got done… I starched my snowflakes. (Sounds silly, yes I know.) They were still drying when I checked them last night, so I will try to take pictures of them again today. (For one reason or another I don’t want to take more pictures of them until they are finished.) Of the 4 I made, one is from a free online pattern and the other three are from a book. I’ll post the details with the pictures.

I think that’s all for today. Hope you had a good weekend!

Friday, November 9, 2007

Plots and Plans and Pompoms

We’ll take the title from the end, and work our way forward. Why not?

Here is a little bit of encouragement for all my fellow NaNo-ers out there:

You can do it! I know you can! (I’m cheering myself on while I’m at it, by the way.)

~*~

So I found out earlier this week that the wedding I had been frantically knitting the Swan Lake Stole for is an uber-casual wedding. As in, I won’t be wearing the dress that I had planned to wear the stole with. And so no need to knit like the wind.

I am still in love with the stole and the way the beads work on it, but if I am not going to be wearing it to a wedding anytime soon I need to focus on making Christmas gifts. So, the stole is not my only knitted object that will be getting some love and attention now. Yesterday I picked up the Hot Cocoa Socks, and am loving the way they are turning out. I just hope they fit M. (Or wait… should I be hoping they fit me instead?)

~*~

And in the NaNoWriMo department, I have been plugging away at my story (as the daily updates will prove). The best part about this is that I have been discovering things about the plot and characters that I didn’t know before. This is always much fun.

Now, I am not one of the writers whose writing method goes something like “and then the characters told me the story and I wrote it down.” I believe that the story is my work, and that I have control over it, in the end. However, I am not opposed to letting my subconscious (otherwise known in writing circles as the Muse) tell me things that it has worked out without my direction. I am quite happy when my brain takes a running head-start on a story, because that means I can be working on both the writing and the knitting (or crocheting, card making, spinning, etc.) and not feel guilty.

So, the end result is that things happen without my having to plan every little detail, and I can be surprised by some of the twists and turns just as the reader is. (If I don’t like said twists and turns, however - and for a writerly reason, not because the reader in me wants a different outcome - I reserve full right to change the ending. (The way some authors claim that they have no control is a rant for another day.))

And, the reason that all of this came up in the first place is that I had one of those twists last night. I was plugging away, trying to get words on my computer and I got nothing. So I pulled out lined paper and made a cup of tea, and ended up giving my hero premonition dreams that he had blocked away for years until he met the heroine and now they’re out of his control again, and…

Well. Yeah. The words kept coming. The only problem was I got tired, and so typed everything in and went to bed. Still - you gotta love when the writing is good. (When the writing is bad is also a topic best left for another day.)

~*~

11.9.07 Friday Fiver:

1. Who do you owe? My parents. I’m not talking money, here - I owe too many people money.

2. What do you wait for? (cue Disney music) … my prince will come … (Sorry, couldn’t resist. That was my first impulse.)

3. What do you disguise? Mushrooms. Otherwise I won’t usually eat them. Sometimes avocado too.

4. Tell us a lie: No thanks.

5. Friday fill-in: can’t get enough of you, baby…. (I’m in a song mood today, I guess.)

Monday, November 5, 2007

For the Sheriff

Lorraine, this is for you:

"Suzy, get off my laundry." - me

And for those who aren't insane, NaNo (aka NaNoWriMo aka National Novel Writing Month) is where a bunch of people who "wanted to write a novel someday" sit down and actually do it. The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month - namely, this one. November.

I have done this twice already, once successfully and once less so. It's actually quite amusing.

So, many apologies, but the majority of my posts this month will be about NaNo. I will try to keep the kitty pictures flowing. And the knitting pictures, too. (Speaking of knitting, I am into Chart #2 on the second half of the Swan Lake/Mystery Stole. I do not know why I decided to finish this stole in the same month that I decided to write a huge amount of words, but there you go. Both must be done this month. Pictures to come.)

"Laundry? I don't see any laundry, Mom. Just a nice kitty bed." - Suzy

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Blog Soup

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.
- Samuel Johnson

Eeep! Not a good quote to have as the quote of the day this close to NaNoWriMo. Ah well. We slog along anyway.

~*~

Randomness today. Hence the title, which is supposed to remind you of Stone Soup. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, and lo and behold! A blog post!

~*~

Remember a while ago when I was spinning up singles from some lovely heather green pencil roving I have, and Peekaboo was super interested? Well, a little while later I started plying those singles. And guess who was interested in that?

Yup. Peekaboo again. Only - Suzy was interested, too.

~*~

Today is my repeat visit to the doctor to get my finger looked at. The munch-marks look a lot better today than they did yesterday, but the knuckle is still a bit sore and swollen. It doesn’t look nearly as infected as it had before, though, so that’s a very good sign. Yay antibiotics!

~*~

I have 20 scenes worked up for my NaNo piece, and while that’s not nearly the number I was hoping for it is at least more than it could be. I also have a good base for the characters, and - again - while I don’t have as much as I wanted, what I do have is a good start. Plus, I do still have a day and a half or so left. There is something to be said for procrastinating…

~*~

Work is good. Cats are cute. I am happy. M is stressed, but at least he’s not so stressed that he’s ignoring me. Even if I sometimes have to remind him.

Happy nearly Halloween, everyone! Here’s hoping for lots of treats and very few tricks.

Mom… there’s something moving down here! -Suzy

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

On Clinics and Tangents

So, I decided a short while ago that I was having issues finishing my outline because I wasn’t firm enough on my characters. So, the next step was to create better developed characters. The only problem there, was I was having trouble knowing where to start.

Solution: Holly again. I nabbed her “Create a Character Clinic” from her e-store and last night I started working with it. Now, I have barely scratched the surface with the tools that are in this book. (I know, because I’m on chapter 3 or something early.) And yet I have already found some good advice and good character building tools to work with. And that’s a very good thing.

If you have problems with your characters, go check it out. Very good resource.

In more of an update blog post part, I haven’t been working on much lately. I’ve been so tired that it’s hard to focus on much. And oh, it was so hard to get up this morning. I guess I probably stayed up too late. And then of course I’ve been having to get up for work in the mornings. So no sleeping in. But it’s really hard to have to deal with work, and sleep, and food, and visiting with the boyfriend, and the commute. Those of you who are married (or co-habitating) and don’t have to commute to visit with your significant other, feel very lucky. And give said SO a big hug. Because that’s probably the thing that I miss most about having been married before and not being married now. Yes, I like the rest of it, too, but the thing that is the most taken for granted, from what I’ve seen, is the physical presence of just having someone there.

To wake up at night from a bad dream and hear someone breathing softly next to you.

To feel safe when you hop in the shower because there’s another person in the house who can handle emergencies (in theory).

To look up over the morning paper and receive a smile that lets you know you’re loved.

Just to not be alone.

Now - I like my alone time. Don’t get me wrong. But I like to have alone time because I have something to do or am relaxing rather than to have alone time because M is at his home and I am at mine. I don’t like being physically apart when we have our phone conversations at night that run on until one of us is out of battery.

Anyway. That’s totally not where I started this post. But the mind will wander where it will.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Trick or Type

So, it's that time of year again. The time when the leaves start to turn colors, kids start begging for Halloween costumes, rain starts to fall, and novelists get a manic gleam in their eyes. The time for candy, sweaters, and write-ins.

In other words, National Novel Writing Month is nearly upon us.

I am getting ready, and have been aiming all of my writing tasks towards being prepared for that. I am finishing up critiques that I've had lying around. (Got Phoenix's AD crit finished, and I plan to do Ian's SHOMI chapters ASAP.) I am outlining and plotting and getting into my characters' heads... but not too far, just yet. If I go too far with my outline or get too immersed in the characters' thoughts, it's possible that I'll have a hard time not writing before November 1. Must. Wait.*

Anyone joining me?

~*~

*For NaNoWriMo virgins, the rules state that on November 1 you begin a whole new novel. You can have been planning it for as long as you like, but you don't actually start writing until midnight local time on the first of November. And you stop at midnight local time on the last day of November, assuming that you haven't finished your novel (or 50,000 words) before then. The goal is to finish a 50K novel; most people either aim to finish a longer novel, or to finish the first 50K of their novel. Me? This year I have a project in mind that needs to reach about 85K words, and so my plan is to finish the first 50K next month. It would be lovely, however, to finish the whole thing. Then I'd have more time to revise it before the contest deadline.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Give Three Cheers And One Cheer More

The world is round; it has no point.
- Adrienne E. Gusoff
~*~

This is what I got up to last night:

Knitting while playing Oblivion on my PC. The only thing that would have made the evening better was if M was with me, or if I didn’t have to go to work the following morning. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. And I made progress, too! (On both the game quests and my knitting.)

This is the current progress. Though the color isn’t quite right in this photo, since it was taken long after the natural light had faded away. It’s a lot closer to the color in the pic below. I really like it.

And yes, I know - this is a tank. And I started it in the fall. If I keep knitting on it at the pace I’m going (which is highly unlikely, but we’ll ignore that fact for argument’s sake) then I will be done with it sometime in the winter. Which is a silly time to complete a project with no sleeves. Ah well. No one said I made any sense at all.

That’s about it for today, I think. Though I am feeling very accomplished already this morning, as I just finished the critique of AD for my friend Phoenix. (Yes, that’s her online handle. I’ll use her real name - or pen name - once she’s published, and not before. Unless she asks.) I’m happy that I got it done - I’ve only been sitting on it for a couple of months now. But, she wants to polish it up for submissions, so it’s about time I finished. Besides, finishing the crit has been on my “to do” list for how many months now?

Yeah. Me? Procrastinate? No never! (Well, hardly ever!) —(link is to a mp3 - music - file)

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Sounds Like Sci-Fi To Me

This is too bizzare: A brain-eating amoeba hunts in warm-water lakes. It seems that this critter gets up your nose along with a splash of water, and then eats its way up and into your brain. Being a single-celled organism, amoebas can be hard to detect. And it seems that there is little to no way to stop this guy once it’s made its way up your nose. After two weeks, you’re dead.

Plus, China has its own Loch Ness style monsters. They move as fast as yachts, have huge fins (or is it wings?) and live in a lake supposedly too cold to sustain life.

Right - so that was a different way to start off a Writing Wednesday: with story sparkers. Maybe I’ll make a habit of that? But that would require more research on a regular basis. Maybe I won’t.

Writing-wise, it’s time for more goals. I know, I didn’t actually indicate which of last month’s goals I accomplished. Based on that fact alone, you should know that they didn’t actually get finished, though they did get worked on. (Well, I did do the OWG goals. So that’s good.) Anyway. October goals:

Finish an outline for CP, which is being used for SHOMI and NaNo.
Post my chapter to the OWG.
Critique the chapters my group has posted in the OWG. (1 down already.)
Edit the chapter of the Naked Project that I’ve been assigned.
FINALLY finish the edit of AD for Phoenix.

I think that should do it. I’ve got enough NaNo prepwork alone to get me through the month.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Brief Writing Weds

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
- Bertrand Russell

~*~

Okay... this will be a quickie today. CP is going well, though I'm procrastinating more than I would like. Nothing to do with the story, either - I still love my plans for it. And I am excited about its prospects, though I have to write it before I can judge if those prospects even have a chance of opening up this time around.

I am caught up on my OWG required crits, though there are others that I want to do and am not sure that I will get to. And I'm supposed to edit my Naked Project story, and haven't done that yet. 4 days left...

That's about it today. I don't have much energy for writing an update post. The writing-related energy I do have I'm saving for the story plotting.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Fill In The Blanks

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
~ Jules de Gaultier
~*~

So, last week I mentioned my various packages and showed off pictures of yarn. Today, I don’t have pictures, but I can tell you about my new package of books. We shall do this in a blog-reader interactive style post today, just for kicks.

Fill in the blanks (circle one):

I was ____________ and joined the Writer’s Digest Book Club.

silly
responsible
impulsive

The books I got _________________.

show that I’m serious about writing
make some interesting statements about me
are cause for concern

Buying research books rather than looking the topics up online or at the library is good because _____________.

it supports the writing industry
hard copies in your own private library ensure the best access to information at all hours
it’s harder to trace questionable research

(And, a Suzy picture for those of you who skim blog posts looking for the kitty…)

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
~ P. B. Medawar

So, the books that I actually did get were the following:

Roget’s Super Thesaurus, 3rd Edition. - A good, basic reference book that I ~~don’t~~ didn’t have a copy of.

The Writer’s Guide to Places. - Since my travel budget isn’t as large as I would like, I decided that this was a good - if sadly homebound - alternative.

Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. - (by Orson Scott Card) Ever since I’d read this one as a library book, I’d intended to buy it. Now is as good a time as any.

Howdunnit: A Book Of Poisons. - The book (of this bunch) that I am the most interested in, and the one that I ran from room to room, showing off with eyes aglow once the package was opened. It has all sorts of information about poisons, including the natural kind and the man-made kind. It talks about things from arsenic to hemlock, from snake venom (and many kinds) to spider bites.

My parents had very mixed reactions to me running up to them and saying, “I got a book on poisons!” My mom nabbed the book and started flipping through it, lingering on the plants section of the book. (Don’t plant lily of the valley if you have people in the house who put things in their mouths. That stuff is very deadly. Like, ‘don’t bother with an antidote because it works so fast’ deadly.) My dad, on the other hand, gave me a strange look and started teasing me. I’m still not 100% sure that he knows what to make of this writer-thing I’ve become.

She really liked my yarn-shoot. She thought it was a kitty-play-fest.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Procrastination

So, I need to stop procrastinating. I have been building a language, which is cool and was not - originally - procrastinating. But the language is now built, with the exception of a few words that I just haven’t figured out yet, and I haven’t moved on. It is time for me to keep going, and to work on the plot again.

In the meantime, I have been also working on crochet and knitting. Knitting is common around here, but crochet not so much. And yet, when I was in college and doing exclusively cross stitch, the first other textile craft I picked up was crochet. I fell in love with thread crochet especially, and have made many doilies in my life. (A few blankets too, but not with thread.)

One of the doilies that I made a while ago is the daisy doily pictured above. I made it for my mom one Christmas (I think). It was at least 7 years ago. Beyond that… no idea. But it was fun, and I might make another one, perhaps with a light green in the center instead of yellow.

This doily has been loved, and was recently discovered to have been cat-fuzzed. It was in major need of re-blocking, and since I hadn’t ever taken a good photo of it, the time had come for that as well.

I also had recently found an abandoned doily in the WIP basket. It looked sad and unloved sitting there all alone, with no other crochet projects to keep it company… so I finished it. The Berka Blues doily was cast off a couple of days ago, then blocked, and was unpinned last night. It turned out quite nicely, I think.

Also, Friday marks the end of the Summer of Socks. So, I have been working on my Mangotini socks. I think that I should easily have sock #1 of that pair finished in 2 days. (I could cast off now, but I want it a little longer.) At any rate, 3 socks (not 3 pairs - just 3 socks) in 3 months is slightly faster than I normally knit. I credit the patterns. Both Monkey and Cabletini (link is a pdf) are fun patterns to knit, and make the stitches flow.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

I'd Like to Buy an 'E'...

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.
- Stephen King
~*~

Grammar sucks. There is no other way to put it, if you are a speaker of the English language. Other people, who speak other languages, can say other things. Things which do not translate into “grammar sucks.” You see, these other people have languages whose grammar MAKES SENSE. We do not. There are more exceptions than rules in English grammar, or so it would seem. There are enough exceptions to the rules that Holly Lisle, in her ‘Create a Language Clinic,’ has a method called “the English Method” which allows you to disregard any rules you want to. You just say that the nouns (verbs, etc.) are “exceptions to the rule” and have done with it.

Of course, this is silly, since you are creating the rules in the first place. But it does raise a good point about the insanity of the English language.

Now, the reason this is all being brought up is because I am building a language. (Lesley mentioned in the comments yesterday that I was super-organized because I was planning out my NaNo novel already… I assure you that while, yes, I am planning my NaNo, I am doing so now (and in such detail) because I don’t want to spend the two years fixing it that I have already spent on SS (my ‘05 NaNo) and still be nowhere near done with it.)

This year’s NaNo needs to be submittable by April ‘08. So… plan now, stress less later. (I hope.)

Anyway, I don’t really think there was a point to all of this. Except to say how much fun I am having building this language. I won’t want to do it for every new story I write, because then I would be liable to end up with some of my languages all sounding the same (my flaw, not Holly’s Clinic’s flaw) because I like certain sounds and styles better than others. Also because while it is fun, it is also work.

Yeah, mom. It’s work that takes time when you could be playing with me, instead. –Suzy

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Suzy Bluezy

The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
~Mark Twain

~*~

So, first thing’s first: a preview. I’ve been working on the world for the story I’m going to do for NaNo, and I’ve been working on the doily that I rescued from the hibernation pile. For details and pictures, keep reading…

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.
~Alan Dean Foster

This is the doily I found and rescued. It had been sitting around, neglected, for who knows how long. I do know that I didn’t start it in 2007. Beyond that, I have no idea.

But it’s a fun one. It’s the same pattern as the one I made my grandma for her 80th birthday. It’s a “Berka Shells” doily from Southmaid Timeless Doilies to Crochet (that’s a link to Ravelry, if you’re in). This one is done in a variegated blue crochet cotton. It’s fun, though I do usually prefer doilies to be in a solid color. The color changes don’t usually work with things worked in the round. But, this one is okay. Not my favorite color for the pattern, but still fun.

Suzy likes it, too.

Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.
~Dandemis

In the writing world, I have been world- and language-building for the story I am going to write for NaNo. It’s fun, so far. I’ve been using Holly Lisle’s Create a Plot and Create a Language Clinics, and they are working wonderfully. So far I have not gotten much of the plot worked up, but I have enough for the moment - especially since I want the language barrier to be part of the plot conflicts. Also, I’ve noticed (from my limited experience with language-building and from what Holly has said) that the way a language works can give you insights into your culture.

(Suzy really likes it. She likes it so much she tries to steal it.)

Friday, September 7, 2007

Fiver, but Snippetless

Friday Fiver: 9.7.07
And maybe I should do the same

1. Have you ever run away? From what? From home? No. From emotions, or feelings, or other such? Yeah, I suspect I have.

2. What is the longest you’ve dated someone? Dated… a couple of years, I guess. Then I married him, then we got divorced. Take that as you will.

3. What don’t you like to think about? Sad things.

4. What was your last illness? Something that made me throw up. I’m not really sure what it was, but it wasn’t pleasant.

5. Do you like to get revenge? What’s the point of it? Once you get revenge, then the person you got revenge on wants revenge, etc. I really don’t see much of a need for it. It’s better and healthier to move on and get past it. –note, please, that ‘revenge’ is different in my eyes than ‘justice.’ If someone were to do me wrong in an illegal way, I would want justice. But not revenge.

~*~

As the title says, there is no snippet this week. I’m still working on where I want to go with that story, and I just don’t have the energy to put up a snippet from it. But, I did get a moment of clarity with regards to SS, so there will likely be bigger changes to it than I had originally thought. Anyway, it means a postponement of snippets for the moment. Maybe next week I’ll post a poem or something else, but I wasn’t thinking that far ahead for this week…

Have a great weekend!

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Lit Up

Well, I promised pictures, and so here are pictures. (Actually, I’ll spread them out a little, to make the post seem more balanced. Even though I’m only going to talk about the pictures up here at the top.) Also, Jess has a nice post on recognizing depression, and especially how depression affects writers. Go check it out.

This is my current sock-in-progress, the Mangotini (Wendy’s Cabletini pattern). I thought it was cute, and to go with the name I managed to find a martini glass. (Okay, so it has a candle in it. So sue me. Just be glad the candle wasn’t lit… Hmmm. Seems like some candle maker has a punny sense of humor.) This first sock is up past the heel, and fits me lovely. So I guess I get to keep the socks, after all! (I had worried while knitting it up… cable patterns always make a sock scrunch in and look funny.)

Anyway. On to the writing content.

It is the first Wednesday of a new month, so that means writing goals! Here is what I would like to get done during September:

Finish critiquing AD for Phoenix.
Do a minimum of two (2) crits for my OWG group.
Post my own chapter to the OWG for critiquing.
Get most of the preliminary worldbuilding done for CP. (”How much is that?” Well, enough so that I can do #5.)
Write line-for-scene index cards for 50 scenes (for CP) and put them in an approximate outline.

Now, I realize that is more writing work than I have done all year. However, I need to get this outline done before I can write the novel, and I need to write the novel before I can polish it, which needs to be done before I submit it for the contest… Etc. And I do fully realize that numbers 4 and 5 might get carried over into October’s goals. But my goal for November is already set: to complete as much of the first draft of CP (which needs to be 80-90,000 words) as possible, with a minimum acceptable level of 50,000 (to “win” NaNo).

I am hoping that I can easily get back into the swing of things. Though with as much going on in life as there is currently, it will take quite a bit of determination and will power. I know I am capable of it. Let’s see how dedicated I decide to be.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Evasion

Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.
- Carl Sagan

~*~

There has been progress on the first Mangotini sock, but sadly it eluded the camera all weekend and so there are no new pictures of it. There has also been progress on the Swan Lake Stole (formerly the Mystery Stole 3), which also eluded the camera. The sock is past the heel (barely) and the stole is some few rows past the beginning of Clue #3.

It’s progress-central around my house, actually, because I’ve been getting work done on CP also. Not as much as I would like, but enough to satisfy for the moment. I’m doing a combo world-build and outline for this one. I know the basic idea for the story quite well: spaceship crashes on uncharted planet due to sabotage, sole survivor falls in love with one of the natives, HEA. And I know some of the twists and turns that the story will take to make the relatively standard basic plot more interesting. The fun part for the early stages of this project, for me, has been building the world as I discover what’s needed.

I think that Holly Lisle said that she’s lately taken to only building her world as she discovers the world’s needs, and that seems to work for me (at least in this instance). In the past I’ve gotten way bogged down with building anything that could possibly be needed for the story, and then was bored enough with the world that I still haven’t finished (or started, in one case) the actual writing. This way I have some room for exploration left as I learn more about the characters.

Also, I’ve been using a program that was pointed out to me by Diane Duane, called TiddlyWiki. It’s kind of like your very own Wikipedia for your project. And since you save it on your hard drive (or jump drive, or - if you still have one - floppy drive) it’s still secure. (Or, at least, as secure as anything else on your computer.) It’s neat, though, because you can reference different things within your notes with hot links, just like Wiki does. (Or blogs do, for that matter.) It seems to be a great way to organize a digital journal for a project, because you don’t have to hunt everywhere for where you wrote about that little detail - you just link to it so you can click on it later. Seems to be working great for me.

Anyway, that’s it for today I think. Sorry for the lack of pictures. Maybe I’ll sprinkle some in tomorrow (if the knits consent to pose for photographs). This week Jess over at Tudor’s Desk is having a series of posts on writing and depression, so if you suffer from either of those (depression or the writing bug) you may want to head over to her site and check it out.

Have a great short work week!

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Randomosity

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory.
- Paul Fix

~*~

(My Thursday Thirteen is over here...)

So, it seems that I have joind a cult. This greatly amuses me. I would tell you more about it, but since the (two) founders have dubbed it the “Ambiguities,” I doubt there is much I can say to explain it.

~*~

In more a definable line of thought, Paperback Writer (aka Lynn Viehl, aka S.L. Viehl, et al) has written up a post on Cast Balancing. More good ideas from PBW. My thoughts, as posted in the comments, are:

Very good ideas, all, and since I’m plotting out a new story this will be very helpful. (Of course, a large number of the cast will die in the first chapter or three, but they might as well be a balanced cast before they die, eh?)

So, more work for me to do for CP. Not that I didn’t already plan on doing more work - but this is at least work with a purpose.

~*~

~*~

I have been working on the Mystery Stole (which is no longer a mystery, but is the Swan Lake stole) and have finally finished Clue #2. I still love the pattern, and love the yarn, and the beading, and will be knitting on it more. But hopefully I will be writing a lot more too, and so the stole won’t get finished as quickly as it otherwise might.

At the moment, I only have two knitting projects on the needles (which is odd given that I have had more than that going for a long time now). (Oh - and not counting the project or so that I have abandoned. Like the worsted-weight socks. Not a smart idea in coastal California. Maybe if I lived in the Sierras, or something, but… no. They will probably be ripped back eventually. Maybe the yarn will be made into a hat.)

~*~

I’m not sure what other randomness I can get into at the moment. So I’ll leave you with some cuteness:

… a picture of some of the front-yard kittens. These aren’t the bittiest ones, but they’re still young. And adorable! And in need of spaying/neutering so that we don’t find ourselves up to our ears in kitties.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Writing Weds ~ 8.29.07

Well, it's that time of month again. The time where I look at my writing goals, and determine where I have fallen short. This month - though I haven't finished quite everything on my list - is the first in a long time when I actually feel a sense of accomplishment.

Let's see: the list had three things on it.

Do 2 (+2 added mid-month, for a total of 4) OWG crits.
Crit up to page 100 of AD for Phoenix.
Work up a line-for-scene set of plot cards for SS.

I have done the first two. I did not do the third - and I am not going to for a while.

I have been rather lacking in enthusiasm for SS for some time now, and so have been putting it off. I had been thinking of that as a lack of enthusiasm for writing in general. However, when it was mentioned in my online crit group that there was a new line that was holding a contest which could result in publication, I was interested. I looked at the requirements, and realized (slowly and happily and excitedly) that one of the ideas which has been bounding around in my head for years now would fit the contest much better than SS. In fact, they seem almost made for each other.

So, I have committed to that project. It is code-named CP, and will only be referred to as that until something resembling an actual title appears. (This particular code, unlike SS, has no bearing on titles. This code is there only because I needed something to identify the project, preferably something that would have a meaning for me.)

Last night I worked up around 10 pages of notes and scene ideas in around 2-3 hours. I haven't done anything like that in a long time.

It is good to be writing again. And this time, my writing isn't an escape from a bad relationship. It is merely having a story to tell and a desire to tell it. (That was a part of it before, but the drive to write came not from the desire the way it does now. Anyway, all of that is a long story, and yes, I am emotionally over it, but no, I don't want to talk about it. Not here, anyway, and not now.)

Hope all is well with you!

Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)