I hate this cold weather. Bring back the sunshiney Sunday weather thanks.
Lee pointed me at this article on Cracked.com about brainwashing and I was surprised how very true it is. Usually cracked's lists are good silly fun, and the author has tried to inject fun into this list but mostly it's just kind of terrifying. Because it's true I mean.
Too cute! There's a sparrow on my balcony eating the leftover crumbs from our sun soaked picnic lunch out there on Sunday. I wonder if there's any way to set out a bird feeder that would only attract cute sparrows and not gigantic flocks of pigeons. Probably not.
I made some surreal Christmas cards from old ones I had hoarded. I am sooo looking forward to weirding everyone out this holiday season.
Throat is dry and scratchy and glands are up. I don't much want to get sick again thanks. I kind already did that back in July/August.
PoF: how many licks?
CO: garlic bread
My short story has been submitted to an American magazine for strange stuff. They say to allow 6-8 weeks, so wish me luck!
Sunday was blissfully perfect. Gorgeous sunshine, visitors, visiting others to watch an awesome movie, take out for dinner, delicious snacks, Rock Band to end the evening. Best Sunday ever. If only I could do that all week as well.
I am reading The Langoliers from Stephen King's novella collection Four After Midnight it's very good. I am desperate to know what's going on though, and I've got heaps to go. I just looked it up and I see that it was made into a TV movie starring the guy who played Tritter in House. I wonder if it's possible to track down....
All the panic I had a couple of weeks ago about life changes and achieving dreams is over by the way and nothing much is changing around here. We had a vague offer to sell our current apartment but the purchaser decided to go for a different one instead. C'est La Vie. Possibilities of reducing my work hours vaporised. That'll teach me to have massive emotional reactions for nothing.
And thanks to the people who assumed I was pregnant. I quite enjoyed people guessing at what my drama could be about, somehow. Prizes to Make Tea Not War and Amphigori for being the closest. Your prizes are...in the mail.
I have tasty icecream in the fridge. I have plans for tasty foods for my birthday party. I have an obsession with foods. My workmates have dubbed me Queen of Junk Food. Ahhhh.
PoF: lots of grey
CO: freaked about submitting my story.
I am pretty close to submitting my short story to a publisher. I found this handy guide for Standard Manuscript Format. There's also this one which varies a little and is slightly more specific.
As I said, getting constructive criticism from Longacre was awesome, because now I want to re-draft Kiki but at the same time I'm a little sad not to be writing anything new. It's an addiction this writing thing, and I feel like right now I'm in an editing-only space. I have a few ideas for novels I could be writing, and I'm sure I could get myself interested in them but I know I should keep my eye on the prize, polish the manuscripts I have and try and get them published before I allow myself to go on a tangent.
I will maybe work on re-writing I know, right? (and renaming it) and a couple of other roleplaying projects to keep my mind occupied. Editing and redrafting are fun and all but they're not the same as writing new.
In other news I finished reading Meg Cabot's Airhead, which was incredibly good fiction. It's a slight departure for her, veering a little more towards the science fiction and a little away from her standard romance stuff. It still has all the Meg-ish character stuff you love but some very interesting messages about gender politics and appearances vs. reality. I need to lend it to someone so that I can talk to them about it. Chelle? Sok? Bueller?
PoF: Wonder Woman Hoodie. I can't seem to take it off.
CO: writing stuff and going to sleep. I love sleep so much.
Motorised Toilet racing. I did this today at the company Gladiator Good Times and I kicked ass! I handled the hell out of my motorised toilet and even lapped the ninja I was racing against. heh. That sentence may have been the best one I have ever written.
Hilarious drunken photos, well, this is pretty self explanatory. I will put some up on facebook tomorrow.
New Hoodie I got a bright blue Wonder Woman hoodie on sale at Glassons. It's snuggly and nice and people have complimented me on it.
Direction. So, today I got a rejection letter from Longacre, which is suck, but it had a reason for why I hadn't been accepted and some pointers for getting better. Which is freaking amazing for a Publisher rejection letter. Based on this, and my own guilty niggles I have decided to re-write Kiki and make it more awesome. I just feel like I have learned a lot in the last year and I could probably do a better job if I really tried.
Time to myself. I've been quite productive on Wednesdays these last couple of weeks by letting myself do exactly the thing I want to do. Letting myself have a nap at 1pm if that's what I feel like doing, waking up feeling better and then getting stuff done. I am really looking forward to my birthday trip up the coast because although Lee will also be there, I will be able to do exactly what I want.
Honourable mentions: Monteiths radler, competitive but silly sports, fried food, good books to read, fun times writing, positive feedback, constructive criticism, cuddles, my deep and warm carpets, going to sleep.
PoF: Wonder Woman hoodie
CO: unclenching my jaw would be nice
Tonight we re-learned the jig and did some stuff while jigging...follow turns mostly. Then we learned the Mooch which is a bit like Russian dancing except much more sedate. There was some good pointers on leading and following too, and I feel more confident about how to follow better.
Then we learned crazy legs. And everyone in the class got the giggles and I discovered that when I do crazy legs in a swing out my free hand shoots up into the air of its own accord and waves about or points and I can't stop it!
Heh.
Oh and there's no Wednesday Writing Wupdate today because I'm revising/redrafting at the moment and there's nothing to report really. Except that I'm quite close to submitting a short story to an American magazine...fingers crossed for me.
PoF: PJ
CO: Supernatural
Random stuff:
I am upset by this report of how they are changing the plot of Y: The Last Man for the movie. Makes me sad. There is so much awesome in the books, I just don't really get them feeling like they needed to add more tension....there was plenty of it in there.
I am way behind the times but I am slowly embracing the idea of 'podcasts'. It does bug me that they have to be called podcasts, given that the MP3 format is playable on all sorts of non-pod items but whatever. I started with Gala Darling's being happy podcast. I am currently listening to a very geeky podcast called Made of Fail which features Cleolinda and has a lot of talk about vampire mythos as well as Twilight.
I am also impressed that Radio New Zealand is making their Darwin Lectures series available online. I have downloaded them, but not yet listened to them. Should be good when I do though! They also have a fantastic collection of writer's talks which is awesome for someone like me who didn't make it to the festival and can't listen to radio during the day.
Lee and I have been enjoying Supernatural season one, I like how it's not too scary to watch, but it is creepy. I like how the stories are familiar, often based on urban legends, but there are new slants on the details. I like that Dean from Gilmore Girls is in it, because he's pretty, and Lee is catered for also because there is generally a hot girl who is somehow affected by the Monster of the Week.
I am reading Airhead by Meg Cabot, which is a sort of weird story about...well, I'm actually not too sure what's going on just yet, so I'll get back to you on that. I recently finished rereading Squire, the third Kel book, which I enjoyed but also have reservations about.
I want to write more short stories, but I have no ideas for starting places. I managed to write a good one based on a dream but I have no inspiration for the next one. *le sigh*
PoF: grey
CO: whatsit
I've been thinking a bit about my whole journey to getting to where I am now (unpublished, but working hard at becoming published) and why I wasn't here way earlier. I've come up with a few reasons for this and I thought they'd be worth sharing.
One reason I have never pursued a career in writing previously is because I have listened to the nay-sayers. I have had people tell me that there's no way to make a living writing fiction. I have heard it said by industry professionals that it is a hard slog, and even then if you're based in New Zealand 'don't quit your day job.' I heard this from a huge variety of sources, when I think about it, and one of those sources was my own mind, telling me that if it's so hard I should just go ahead and do something else.
Working through that negativity has been a huge part of the process of writing for me, as you will know if you've read my writing-musing posts before. I had substantial negative thought patterns forming road blocks in my head that would stop me from finishing a story, even finishing a sentence. This is never going to be easy, but if I care about it enough I can make it work. If I have negative voices in my head I have to push them back, put them aside or work around them. If I have people telling me it's hopeless in real life, that's a lot harder. Thankfully I have a circle of wonderfully supportive people, so I can listen to them instead. Cheerleaders are important.
Another reason I haven't really tried before was that I had some advice in my late teens that to be a writer you have to have read widely. This advice was repeated again and again by published authors and it made a lot of sense to me. I knew that there was no point writing something if someone else had already done it better, and I knew that there was no sense in writing if I didn't have a good vocabulary or if I didn't know how good writing worked. Steven King says the same thing several times in On Writing.
What this means is that since my late teens I've kind of been in research mode. I read all the time for pleasure, so I'm learning a lot there. I re-read the books I love, hopefully gleaning tips on how to make a book so involving, so moving that the reader wants to come back to it again and again. I have tried to read more classics as well as non-fiction to expand my scope of reading knowledge. I read a lot of teen fiction, but I've also read adult stuff and the odd contemporary prize winning literary masterpiece.
A couple of years ago when I heard a couple of inspiring women speak at a conference and became motivated I guess I felt I had researched enough.
Then of course there's the whole time and inclination thing. You'll never be able to write if you don't give yourself time to do so. For many years I was consumed by many hobbies. I still have some of them but a fair few have fallen by the wayside. I still want to paint, but I never do and drawing is confined to while I'm roleplaying (multi-tasking) or when I'm on the phone at work and I'm listening to someone ranting or giving me their life story. I don't hardly scrapbook any more, and when I do it's only if I feel I've already done enough writing for the day and I don't scrapbook if I'm doing a patchwork quilt at the moment. My patchwork stuff is currently put away. My roleplaying is down to just one fortnightly game and Lee and I don't go to very many movies except for during the festival. All of this means I have more time for Rock Band writing.
Like I said here, there is always going to be something else you could be doing. You have to make room in your life for writing if that's what you want to do.
I'm sure there are other mitigating factors but I think those above are the really big ones.
PoF: same as every Saturday morning blog entry
CO: brunch please now. I want waffles with chocolate syrup on them
Extra reading: Learning to Write by Matthew Cheney.
Quick and easy!
This Thursday I love: burger fuel burgers, french fries, chocolate bars, finishing a nasty hard song on Hard drums on Rock Band without falling out, singing, dancing, pretty clothes, gorgeous photos, basking in the sunshine, reading good books, sleeping, friends, blankies, my Lee.
Oh and also, I like this article about Joss Whedon and feminism, which is here, linked via Cleolinda.
Blooper reel for the 48 hour film competition entry from Jenni's Angels. Enjoy!
PoF: post-swing
CO: meh
(Shinga did another Twilight comic. it's awesome.)
My birthday wish list....
A Wicket the Ewok USB flash drive.
Moleskine notebooks, mini lined cahiers or proper leather bound A5 notebook. Or any other gorgeous lined notebook.
Lolita's sunglasses, a necklace of my name and batty earrings.
A book written by a fictional princess, a selection of the orange Penguin classics and vouchers for Borders so that I can plug some holes in my graphic novel collection.
Gloves with skulls on, gorgeous steampunky arm warmers, pink and black fingerless gloves, sexy and sparkly long gloves and stripey leg warmers.
Lindt milk chocolate anything, an ice cream cake and a heap of cupcakes in various colours.
A sock monkey and some plushie microbes.
I would also like the willpower to part with some of the material possessions that I have so many of, the courage to live as fabulously as I wish to and the love and openness to keep all my darling, delightful friends friendly. Also a patch of sunshine to loll about it and my own luck dragon.
PoF: whatever
CO: junk food
If you were given the choice: you can have a giant step towards your dream if you give up something you love.....what would you choose?
You'd give up that something that you love wouldn't you? If you were really truly wanting to achieve that dream? If you weren't a coward...you'd take the risk that it might pay off.
I'm going to say it again: being a grown up sucks.
Giffy sent me the link to Sherwood Smith's post on cover letters for manuscript submissions, which helpfully links in its turn to a heap more other author's thoughts on this topic, there's bound to be something useful in there....query letters.
Some more bits from Stephen King's book that have resonated with me, I really am getting a lot out of this book. Can anyone recommend any other style guides to me? I am aware that there are like a zillion available so I need it narrowed down a bit....
Talking about that old 'write what you know' adage...
"Write what you like, then imbue it wuth life and make it unique by blending in your own personal knowledge of life, friendship, relationships, sex and work."
This part was underlined by a previous reader of the library book, and I think it bears repeating....
"Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's."
What he's saying there, in case it isn't obvious, is that you shouldn't spend too long describing stuff, you should just give the reader enough to make their own mental image and then move on to the story.
I'm also pleased because Stephen mentions that he writes about two thousand words a day and that seems manageable to me somehow. You know, if I had the time to write every day....
PoF: skimpy for optimum sun soaking
CO: writer writing to write
Honourable mentions: socks, chocolate (milky bars), the smell of milo, Barbie pink nail polish, dancing with Lee.
PoF: closest clothes I have to PJ level comfort
CO: taking care of myself
I didn't want to go because I went all emo and PMS-y after work, but we did go and we learned another way of getting into the tandem charleston called 'the seatbelt' and we learned a 'side walk charleston' and another jump! We did Russian jump from in tandem charleston, which you can probably imagine, involves the follow jumping up and sticking her legs out in a side split, or as close to as you can. The lead kicks on leg to the front, in between hers. Looks awesome and is really good fun.
Swing = fun and love
Wup wup wup.
More research for my novel involved finding out what the collective noun for vampires is. I had sort of thought it could be coven or flock, but according to All seeing, all knowing wikipedia it's a 'kiss'.
Seriously, have the Twilight fans made it onto Wikipedia? A Kiss of vampires? No. Just no. I ended up saying "a group of vampires" I was so put off.
Quote from Steven King:
"It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around."
My typing of WtWTCH? is going well, although I am cring through the
quality of the writing in the big fight sequence that I am currently working on. I was pretty worried about doing it well so I went pretty fast through it. The typing up of this stuff has been very much re-drafting as I go. Which is no bad thing, at least I'm aware that it's not very good and I feel like I can fix it.
I keep hearing Steve's voice in my head, seeing his face as he tells me to make it harder for my characters. All through our roleplaying history and also when we have talked about writing and plot, etc he has always advocated making the hard decisions, creating conflict for my characters, seeing where it takes them. It's fantastic advice, and although I'm not sure Steve will be glad to hear that he's in my head I hope he will be a bit flattered.
Tuesday was a horrible morning, waking up after a very full on and stressfully understaffed Monday and heading in to work. One thing made me smile though, the feedback Morgue gave me about the short story I wrote a couple of weeks back based on a nightmare I had. It was perfect feedback, full of ideas of what to change and how to look at it another way and what bits weren't needed. It was also glowingly positive, which is very nice to hear. Morgue is another writer friend that I envy, because I have read a little of Ron the Body and it was so good that it motivated me to write better myself.
I also consider him something of an expert on the horror/zombie genre so it's flattering when he said he was envious of my piece of writing.
It's nice to feel motivated about this whole writing thing. I live in hope that it will pay off in the future.
Ew, it's raining like crazy all of a sudden.
PoF: warm and dry
CO: writer
I am reading Steven King's autobiography/style guide On Writing right now and I am likely start making random blog entries where I copy out the golden nuggets of writing truth that I find so that I have them to refer to, and you do too.
Here's the first one I've found, which is Steven quoting a newspaper editor he worked for called John Gould: "When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story"
Yes.
All week I just wanted to spend the two weekend days asleep in bed, or lying in bed doing very little. Fate was not to allow this to happen.
Saturday morning we skyped with Giffy and Erik and Tia! It was awesome, but we had to cut the conversation short because we then had to go to Svend and Star's house to see Michaela, which was awesome also. I borrowed DVDs.
Lee and I took Michaela into town for her lunch date and took ourselves to Molly Malone's for pub food lunch. I had a very satisfying chicken pie. Then I made scones and Nick came over and we all headed up to Norm's for Winding City stuff. Caught up with Sok and Steph and Amphigori and other Winding City people and met some cool new people who were trying out for parts too.
Norm and Lee and Nick and I went to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Brooklyn with Svend and Star and then Nick went into town and the rest of us saw Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day which is very very good. It was funny but with genuine drama and depth as well. Frances McDormand and Amy Adams are very good and the rest of the characters were all played by familiar faces (Septimus, the pie maker from Pushing Daisies, Moaning Myrtle....). Lee enjoyed it too, which was a nice surprise, and means it was well paced. Great music, gorgeous 1939 clothes (want Amy's blue outfit and the gold dress, thanks.).
Today dawned bright and sunny and we went to brunch at Roxy with Lee's parents and it was tasty good and then Lee and I went to the zoo because we had free tickets to use. Highlights: red pandas, lions, cotton top tamarins coming right near the fence, warning signs and seeing the baby chimp. Glorious sunshine was also much appreciated.
Grocery shopping on the way home, followed by some housework and then lots of typing of WtWtc? (word count now at 60,091 typed up) and I feel I have had a very productive and social weekend. Hopefully can get some Rock Band in tonight.
PoF: comfy
CO: what now?
More roleplaying quotes from our *gasp* campaign....
My emo teen Sam escapes to the real world to road trip with his/her friends, there are royal intrigues for Alfredo, Elvis impersonations for Addie and Isaac manages to have no scenes at all. The Other One continues his difficult path to rightness.
Alfredo: An off worlder has been selected for the bridal party. You see the problem, they won't know the etiquette or our rituals.
Vizier: Ah I see. So you want me to dispatch this person.
At the knighting ceremony for Addie....
Ms Generic *squeezes Enrico's butt*
Enrico: you're an orc aren't you?
Gen: Yes.
Enrico: Hmmm. Smelly.
Gen (seductive): Do you like it?
Elric and I invented the Noble Guild of the Practicioners of Greensleeves (NoGPraG) who try to get Greensleeves played whenever it is thematically appropriate and the Old and Illustrious Order of Greensleeves Assassins (OIOGA) who kill them off.
Evil plant: I eat table now?
Addie: This is my squire. He'll be coming to work in the office with me from now on.
Customer on phone: I need a summary of my account activities.
Squire, the evil plant: Bleaurgh! I brought up all my recent activity.
meanwhile in the real world, turns out Sam's gender swapping is slightly catching as his room mate AJ turns into a girl...
AJ: I don't have a penis!
Sam: ...no.
AJ: But! I don't have a penis!
Sam: Girls don't.
AJ: I have breasts! (gropes self)
Brett: That is hot.
AJ: Brett can't be in the room while I'm a girl!
Brett: No, I really can't. (leaves)
At the castle library, the librarians have been given computer catalogues...
Librarian to Alfredo: We're here to help. We get executed if we don't.
Alfredo: try ctrl alt delete.
Librarian 1: what's happening here?
Librarian 2: I think he's having a bit of a rest.
Sam's Mum and The Other One make friends.
Sandra: Sam is gone, we don't know where...*cries*
The Other One: Oh. I would pat you but you'd die.
Next episode, Sam comes back to the fantasy world with his friends and a van packed full of supplies. They are immediately captured by the criminal element and then all of them are caught by palace guards in a raid.
Sam wakes up naked but for boxers (in boy form) chained to a wall.: I really hope the weather doesn't change.
Delores returns to find the Omnicron office in a chaotic state: Addie. Addie, Addie, Addie, Addie.
Addie: I see you've mastered the pronunciation of my name.
Back at the dungeon...Random prisoner: Can we get on with the executions?
Sam: Can we not?
Sam is taken by the Vizier to participate in a wedding rehearsal, Sam's friends are liberated by Isaac and the Earth embassy. They will stay there until the situation is resolved.
Isaac: I will leave everything I don't care about in your capable hands.
Gerald: Great, something new and different for me.
Brett: I can bunk with AJ!
Sam has a dream sequence where he is in his parent's bedroom searching for clues. Opens closet, Isaac is in there.
Isaac: I don't appreciate the symbology of this.
Sam: Heh. Heh. Come out of the closet.
Isaac: You could have put me under the bed or something.
Sam: But you're not. You're in the closet.
Also, things that would have never happened previously: ‘someone has compared you to a friend on facebook and thinks you are a better dancer’. Oh yeah.
I'm dreamin in the morning
I'm dreamin' all through the day
and when I dream I know that it's ok
Im dreamin' in the evening
I'm dreamin' all through the night
and when I dream I know that it's alright
~ Weezer
Last night I properly finished the long hand first draft of What's the Worst that could happen? I did a wee epilogue that I might not end up using but it was quite nice to write and it pretty much filled up the Moleskine.
So WtWTCH? the longhand first draft used up four Moleskines and two A5 notebooks from Fancy World.
I am also excited to immediately start re-drafting because there's some quite major things I want to change, and some scenes that could use fleshing out and explanding on. I also want to read the whole thing and check that the voice of the lead doesn't change too much over the course of the novel, but changes in the way I want it to.
Yay me! I started this under a year ago :)
PoF: new old docs
CO: writing