So, the end of a big interesting year.
Looking forward to 2009, I feel like I should make some goals so that I have stuff to work towards.....
I want to get published in 2009 so I am going to work hard on editing my works-on-progress and start submitting them hard out to publishers. I am also going to start something new in the new year, continue working on the seekrit project (which I have got behind in over the holiday madness) and work up some more short stories as well. Keep writing keep writing keep writing.
Visit my sister in Rarotonga. This is pretty achievable but I really will need to save money. I can save money if I really really try, so I'm going to make January a no-buy month where I won't buy the random stupid stuff I usually do. I don't need any new clothes, DVDs or books. I got so many of those at Christmas and at the sales. I will allow myself to buy food, birthday presents and the Empire magazine. Maybe photos off snapfish too if I really *have* to. Oh and I can go to the movies. But I will try not to.
Live my most awesome life. Going to see ducklings, visiting my favourite parts of Te Papa, spending quality time with Lee, having awesome times with friends, doing things for other people and generally having fun. I'm already ticketed up for three shows, I'll see if I can get to a few more as well!
PoF: Buddha belly
CO: Finding out wordpress's secrets.
Writing is going well. I'm working weirdzo hours this week, so you get your writing update early. I have finished the latest draft of Kiki and I'm thinking about sending it out again. I'm considering re-sending it to the earlier publishers, because it really is a better version.
I will give it one more quick read before I do send it, then it's on to re-drafting What's the Worst that Could Happen? I'm quite looking forward to it actually. I also have a couple of short stories to rework and a magazine to post to.
I posted a short story about a recent roleplaying character over on my new Wordpress blog. Sam's curse is from the point of view of a 16 year old boy.
I went to the library and got out a bunch of Judy Blume books. I haven't read them in so long. Should be interesting!
PoF: Oscar the not-so-grouchy
Co: sleeps
The blog entry I wrote for the library teen website is up at the library website.
If you have ever wondered about the Twilight books or asked me what I thought of them, I think I manage to explain myself pretty well.
It's a bit edited, so I post the complete rant here...Spoilers for all 4 books
Twilight: awesome or horrific?
Recently people have been asking me about the Twilight books and I’ve been telling them not to bother. Well, more accurately I’ve been howling ‘noooooo don’t do it! It’s not woooooooorth it!’ which is an extreme response I’ll admit, and I have generally had to follow it up with an explanation.
I have a love/hate relationship with Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally best selling vampire series. I was given the first one by a friend who recommended it. I had read a bunch of good reviews and I’m a sucker (excuse the pun) for a vampire story so I read it. I still maintain that the first book is alright. On the whole it’s a good solid story with exciting stuff going on and interesting characters introduced. I managed to ignore the complete ridiculousness of the vampires that sparkle like pretty diamonds and the fact that Edward seemed to be creepily stalking Bella because he was intriguing and it was pretty sexy and I like vampires.
It all went downhill pretty fast in the second book. New Moon starts with Bella nearly getting munched by Edward’s vampire family, which they solve by moving away. Fair enough I guess, since they don’t want to eat her and she doesn’t want to be eaten. Then Bella reveals that actually she isn’t the strong female protagonist that we had thought she was in Twilight. She falls apart completely without Edward around. She is so devastated whole chapters of her life (well, the book) are blank. She simply cannot function without Edward in her life. This is upsetting to me, because I tend to think that women should be able to live their lives without a man if they so choose. I mean sure, have the huge dramatic emotional drama in your book by all means. But I want my characters to grow and learn from their pain, move on with their lives and become stronger for it. Bella wallows in emo sadness until she realises that another boy might be able to make it better.
(By the way Jacob is an amazing character and I love him to bits and I can’t believe Stephenie Meyer treated him so bad in the last book. Team Jacob all the way, he could make Bella so happy if she would just let him.)
So our lead character defines herself through the men in her life. And the most important man is an obsessive stalker who kind of wants to murder her all the time? This is not the ideal for 21st century girls is it? I get worried when I read reviews online from people saying that these books are the most romantic thing they’ve ever read. It’s interesting that this worry of mine is actually addressed in the books. If you’re familiar with the books you’ll recall that Bella’s favourite book is Wuthering Heights. I’ve read Wuthering Heights. I know it’s touted as being one of the great romances but if you really think about it it’s actually the story of two incredibly self obsessed brats destroying the lives of everyone around them because they love each other but they can’t be together because they are too self obsessed. I think Stephenie Meyer is trying to tell us something by having Bella and Edward talk about that book don’t you think?
So, if I have so many problems with these books, why do I also love them? Stephenie Meyer is a very good writer. I mean, her prose is very good and she knows how to keep you hooked in. Even when I was swearing at loud at the characters, I couldn’t put these books down. I had to know what happened next. You start to care about Bella and Charlie and Alice (I freaking love Alice too by the way, she’s all kinds of awesome). Even though certain ridiculous things happen you get worried for the characters and the action is exciting and you have to read the whole book.
I can’t really remember what happens in Eclipse, except that there’s a whole werewolves-hate-vampires-and-then-have-to-team-up-with-them thing, and Bella admits that she actually does love Jacob back and could be happy with him, but she has to be with Edward anyway but she wants Jacob to always be around and why can’t she just have both? Even though Edward and Jacob really want to kill each other but can’t because it would make Bella too sad. The bad vampires from this series are pretty perspicacious, because it’s still Victoria trying to kill Bella at the end of Eclipse by creating all these crazy wild ‘newborn’ vampires to be her army against Edward’s family. It’s pretty scary stuff, if they end up making this book into a movie it’s going to be a horror movie.
I was quite excited about the idea of Breaking Dawn. I didn’t actually read it, I have to admit, but I read Cleolinda Jones’ fantastic summary/recap of it, written in ‘real time’ as she read the book herself. There’s some terrifying stuff in that book. Like the fact that Bella finally gets what she wants (sex with Edward) but that he injures her in the process. And the pregnancy with demon child who injures her from within and may turn out to be a horrific monster. And the birth sequence where the baby breaks her spine? OK, that’s not cool Stephenie Meyer. That’s upsetting. Then Jacob (whom I love) imprints on the baby? And the baby is called Renesme? It’s very wrong is what it is. I can’t even explain the levels of disturbed. This is not true romance, this is a horror story about what it’s like to be with a blood sucking monster.
Because the final book, Midnight Sun? It’s not been published yet and it might not be, because the first few chapters got leaked online and Stephenie got upset and doesn’t want to finish writing it now. But I’ve read some of those leaked chapters. You can get them off her website. It’s really scary stuff. Twilight from Edward’s point of view is like a how-to-stalk –someone guidebook. But that’s getting ahead of myself, because of course his first instinct in relation to Bella is to kill her. His monstrous vampire nature overwhelms him and he spends a lot of time planning in his head how to murder her and then probably everyone else in their biology class so that he can keep his vampiric nature secret. This is pages worth of murder-planning I’m talking about. It’s very unpleasant. Then he decides that because she is the only person whose thoughts he can’t hear he must be in love with her and find out what she is thinking and creepily stalk her. While making her believe that he dislikes her. It’s a messed up relationship controlled by a messed up guy.
So why do I tell people I know not to read Twilight? Because they are stories about awful things happening to characters you grow to care about, written in such a way that you can’t put them down. Once you start reading you have to know what happens. I’m not convinced that the pain is worth it. I say, don’t read Twilight.
Wishing I had endless summer holidays....
In addition to advertising Twilight tshirts on Trade Me, I have finally set up and listed hand made items in my etsy shop so fingers crossed that I get some nibbles on them.
On the weekend I saw two brand new movies at the cinema. I saw Twilight and Australia.
Australia was very Baz Luhrmann which may turn some people off. It really felt like watching an old movie, like Gone With the Wind because it is very long and epic and overwrought. It's gorgeous, you can really tell that they filmed it all in the middle of the real outback. Nic and Hugh are both awesome, balancing the silliness with the drama and the emotion very well and making you believe it all. It's not for everyone by any stretch, but it was fun for me.
Twilight was hilarious. It was better than I thought it would be, which isn't saying very much. I think that if they'd kept out some of the ridiculousness from the books it could have been a good movie. I thought Kristen and RPattz did the best they could, given that they had to say lines like "So the lion fell in love with the lamb" "Stupid lamb" "Sick, masochistic lion". The film is very prettily shot and the secondary characters were pretty good. I especially liked Alice, Carlisle and Charlie and would happily watch a movie just about them.
It wasn't supposed to be hilarious. It was supposed to be deadly serious and romantic. It didn't manage that for me, but I enjoyed it all the same.
Also I joined Twitter, because that seems to be the new cutting edge and I was curious. It hasn't won me over yet I have to say. I'm here in case you want to start following me. I'm not sure that encouraging me to constantly update with my thoughts is necessarily a good thing.
I'm seriously considering trying out a new blog on wordpress, they look like pretty much everything I want in a blog. I'll probably try it out as a trial and then decide to move or not. Since I can import my archives off here to there it looks like a pretty good option.
PoF: wonder woman
CO: change!
Christmas presents were pretty awesome this year, plus boxing day sales goodness. I am metaphorically rolling around in the excess of newness.
Awesome presents included: Fraggles board game, which I totally had as a child and didn't remember until I saw the playing pieces. (Thanks Steve!) Chocolates, dried strawberries, neat designer notepad and magnets and lots of Lush stuff. Mmmmm Lush.
New DVDs acquired: House season 4, because we loves the House and the Wilson and the Chase. Well, I do. Lee loves Cameron ;p
Veronica Mars season 2. So so good. Lee's little brother finally got around to watching season 1 so this was immediately lent to him so he can get up to date on it. I love season 2 because it has some wicked awesome Logan stuff. Ah Logan...
I know I already mentioned The Planet Earth but I thought I should point out why I am so happy with this. Nature documentaries are love, I mean, cute baby animals, silly birds doing mating dances, pretty landscapes and footage of predators doing their thing....it's all pretty breathtaking. I also look on this series a little bit as an entire encyclopedia of wildlife and also a snapshot of how the world is. For all I know the Earth won't resemble this at all in thirty years so...
The boxing day sales yielded The Little Mermaid, Gossip Girl season one, Dirty Sexy Money and a film called Valley of Gwangi about cowboys who wrangle dinosaurs instead of cows. Oh yeah.
Lee bought a digital Trivial Pursuit game with his Christmas vouchers and is busily downloading questions to it now. Should be fun?
PoF: Layers, it's colder than it looks outside
CO: should I move to a more customisable, less finicky blog provider? One that won't eat people's comments? One with better image functionality? Is blogspot any good?
I'm in the middle of a fantastic collection of essays by female authors recounting how Judy Blume influenced them/helped them grow up/gave them self esteem/generally affected their lives. Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume has essays from Meg Cabot and heaps of others and is kind of like potted psychology lessons centered around awkward pre-teenage girls and Judy Blume. I'm loving it and it's making me really want to read Judy Blume books again, especially Deenie, Just as Long as We're Together, Forever... and Are you there God, it's me Margaret?. Might have to check out the relevant sections in the library next time I'm there.
I finished reading Watchmen by the way. It was wicked awesome.
Got hold of a copy of the new Michelle Paver book about Torak with a Christmas Gift voucher. It's called Oath Breaker. I'm thinking I might need to re-read the others first though, since I can't really remember what happened in which order.
I was given a copy of The 10pm Question by Kate de Goldi which has been reviewed very well and looks like a good crossover book.
I didn't overeat this year on Christmas Day. I overate on Christmas Eve. I've found the secret to the stomach bloat of the holidays! It's the snacks.
On Christmas Eve I baked for three hours straight so that there would be plenty of cookies and cupcakes for people. Then I ate a whole lot of them, chips and dip, chocolates, brownies, nuts.....when it came to dinner time I wanted dinner because I knew that I *should* have real food but I wasn't really that hungry. And I felt pretty ill later in the evening.
On Christmas Day I skipped breakfast, only having a Lindor hazelnut chocolate truflle (nom!) and some cherries and strawberries when we got to my sister's. This meant that when it came time to sit down for all the delicious lunch food I was hungry and could eat a little of everything. Pacing myself meant I didn't gorge from excitement at the choices and I was even able to have seconds of those things I enjoyed the most. (Ham, green salad, pasta salad, potato and egg salad).
Unluckily we had to go from my sister's before I got to eat brandy snaps, but then it was on to Lee's parents place where they had put out chippies and pistachios. Tempting! Too tempting, I had some chips. But only a couple. I was strong. I was steadfast. I ate two of the Roses chocolates that we were given and they were *awesome*!
Then at dinner I was careful to only take portions of the things that I really wanted (turkey, crayfish, green salad, bread, potato and bacon salad) and it was delicious! Even though I wanted to I refrained from having seconds, except for some scrappits of cray meat because I had seen the homemade chocolate eclairs for dessert! Nom! I had seconds of dessert. Besides the eclairs Lee's sister had made warm, squooshy brownie and I had a pile of fresh berries and cherries as well. My lebkuchen with lemon icing went down very well and I gave my father in law a tupperware full of afghans. If he gets diabetes it will totally be my fault.
So, that's what I've learned and what I ate. Hopefully it will be of some use to you at the next gorge-yourself-gathering you go to.
Now tell me, what delicious things did you eat this holiday season?
PoF: robey
CO: boxing day sales!!!!!!
A very merry Christmas to all of my gentle readers. And the not-so-gentle ones too :)
Is it gauche to wear my personalised Mickey Mouse ears to Christmas family gatherings? I already wore them on Christmas Eve with all my friends. Maybe if I wear them long enough everyone will forget that they're *not part of my body*.
I got the full Planet Earth BBC series on DVD from my beloved. I know what I'm going to be doing for the next seven days!
* Grocery shopping for more chocolate melts, gladware, lemon, orange, candy canes. While out also go to Gordon Harris for more silver sparkly fabric paint, as 'Team Edward' shirts are popular and I've now run out.
* Make chocolates**** See below., cookies (Lebkuchen dough made yesterday, bake it up tomorrow.) Afghans, spice crisps.
* Finish Giffy's Christmas present. Eh, near enough.
* Take photo of self in surgerised t-shirts for putting on Trade Me
* Scrub down bathroom....funsies.
* Figure out what to wear on Christmas day.
So yesterday I made a batch of delicious chocolates from the Mindfood magazine where you just blender a packet of digestives, add orange juice and ground almonds and melted chocolate, form balls out of the stuff, fridge them and then cover them in chocolate. These are superb. Then I made a batch of oreo truffles and I guess I was high from my earlier success, but I used a whole tub of cream cheese with the packet of oreos and the mixture tasted very much like....cream cheese. I covered 'em with chocolate anyway because maybe the chocolate will offset the cream cheese right?
But then I was too scared to try one in case they're awful. I gave one to Lee who said "very rich!" and then "I like the other ones more" and then when I asked if it was too much cream cheese he said ominously "You can definitely tell there's cream cheese in them."
I'm trying to figure out what to do with them now. People like chocolate and oreos and cream cheese. Maybe I should advertise them as cream cheese truffles? I am in agony of indecision. I kind of just want to bin them all and make another batch of digestive chocolates but it is such a waste to throw them out and that seems Wrong and Bad. Any suggestions from blogland?
PoF: Batgirl
CO: seeing Giffy and E this afternoon!
For today and tomorrow, but the more I can get done fast the more time I'll have to chill/watch DVDs Lee doesn't like/get writing done.
Sure I've forgotten something in there....
Now, to get dressed!
PoF: robe
CO: eggs
Hee hee Dooce is cool. I especially like this one about her little girl turning emo. "The Earth is cold and dark!"
Leaked photos of the Watchmen movie look pretty cool. They have got the look of the Comedian exactly right. Getting a bit excited about that movie. Haven't finished the graphic novel yet though....
I'm getting into the Christmas spirit with the lovely Muppet Family Christmas. It was made while Jim Henson was still alive, it's got every single muppet (fraggles, muppet show and sesame St), lots of songs, some classic comedy ("be careful of the icey patch!") and heart warming-ness out the wazoo. Love it. Animal says "Peace on Earth! Give me presents!"
Me and my sister used to have this on video recorded off TV, we watched it every year.
PoF: Wonder Woman
CO: pizza in the oven smells delish!
I know a lot of people have time off coming up or planned in the near future, so here's a list of stuff to do around Wellington that come with the Jenni endorsement [tm].
I thinking about setting up a text list for people who are willing to be summoned for impromptu picnics/beaching/chillaxing in a public place. Email me if you want to be added :)
PoF: christened icebreaker top by dropping chocolate on it
CO: Christmas is all around me and so the feeling grows
PS. crafty types should check out today's advent calendar image on my lj.
I've been thinking a bit about all the things I've achieved this year and all the things I want to have happen next year. Here's some speculation of things I'd like to get done.
I'm already attending two big shows for sure (Leonard Cohen and Starlight Express) but I'd also like to get to Coldplay. I managed to see a few shows this year plays and whatnot. I'd like to see more next year.
In terms of my writing, I'm hoping that next year will be a big year in actually getting published. I've finally remembered to print out my short story so that I can post it to another magazine. Once my re-drafting work on Kiki is done I can get back into sending that around. Plus I have a few things on the boil that I hope to get a heap done on during my time off (in two days! Yes!).
I have signed up for a shop on etsy. In time I will work out how to actually put things in it and work at selling stuff that I make. I'm thinking tshirts, weird little toys, the odd baby quilt, dolls maybe?
I'm looking for ways to make my life a bit greener. Working on reducing the amount of rubbish we generate would be a good start. I will sort out other ways, will do.
In a lot of ways I have felt myself awaken this year, which sounds kind of out there I know but having time to myself each week to work on whatever I want to, dedicating myself to writing and getting things done and expanding my blog reading to such places as the discomfort zone, Think simple now and Positivity blog. I want to continue this transformation and become the best Jenni I can be.
I want to pick up swing dancing again. It's amazing, in this break from it since I got sick Lee and I have completely lost motivation. We don't practice, we don't even consider it. I want to get active again and keep learning this new skill. It's a really good bonding experience with Lee and also with his sister and her partner who are more committed to it than we are now. It starts up again on Jan 15th I think. Plus I want to make an effort and get to the club nights they run. They always seem to clash with other things this year.
I would really like to get singing training, but that all depends on financial stuff. I want to go to Sok's teacher. Also: letting go of anger, doing more to help Lee out, make more of an effort to see certain people, working hard for The Winding City, being more sensible in my spending and item acquisition and generally being more awesome.
PoF: Juno
CO: need a drink
Consistent constant obsession, aka default setting: food.
My sister had her second baby last night, Ethan was born by C section and weighs a healthy 9 pounds 8 oz!
Last night was the work Christmas party, it was 80s themed and we went to a roller disco and then to the Southern Cross for dinner and drinks.
It was awesome. I had a rockin' Cindy Lauper style outfit although I had a lot of trouble making my hair stay big. Damn you straight hair, stop straightening yourself even after teasing and hairspray! Everyone in the office went in costume, except for the tech guys, but someone pointed out that they could be 'Revenge of the Nerds' so it was all good.
Roller skating when you haven't done it in oh, about 14 years is a little scary because of the balance and all but I got the hang of it. I had some wicked muscle pain in my right shin but once I was properly warmed up it was really fun. Now I want my own roller skates. Pretty tall white boot ones.
Dinner at the Southern cross was tasty, a buffet of roast ham, beef and chicken pieces and a zillion different kinds of salads. Then there was awesome dancing of awesomeness (I broke out my running man moves) and basically lots of fun. If you're my friend on facebook you can check out the photos.
I came home a bit after 11 and this morning I failed at sleeping in, woke up at 5.38 with my mind racing. After not managing to get back to sleep for an hour I got up and finished the Sherlock Holmes story in Nightmares and Dreamscapes and then got a couple more hours sleep on the couch.
Good times. Now, today I should do some baking, some cleaning, some sewing and some writing. Or I could just go back to sleep.
PoF: pink dress
CO: sleeps is nice
Ok, so I'm just re-drafting and there's no real news, so today's Wednesday Writing Wupdate will be in the form of an Inspiration brainstorm. Participation in the form of suggestions or sharing your own power songs is encouraged.
Here's a list of the songs that get me motivated. They speak to me on an inspirational level.
Gwen Stefani's What you waiting for? which is a song about writer's block and being afraid to succeed. The central question is what works for me, because I really hated this song the first few times I heard it (why is she calling herself a stupid ho?) but something in that question got to me. If I want to write, what am I waiting for. Just do it, already! Plus the video is an awesome Alice in Wonderland/Fruits fashion mashup and made of pretty.
Tori Amos's Caught a Lite Sneeze. This one is less about the message of the lyrics, but about the power in the song itself. That swelling sound, the power in the rhythm and the cresendo in the bridge: "Caught a lite sneeze, dreamed a little dream, made my own pretty hate machine". I guess I can't really explain this one in rational terms, but I love it and it makes me feel empowered and motivated.
Franka Potente's Believe from the soundtrack to Run, Lola, Run. The pace is invigorating, the lyrics powerful. "I don't believe in trouble. I don't believe in pain." The idea that if you let these things go, if you leave all those things behind...you could maybe achieve anything you want. Or it could just be because the song makes me think about running....not too sure.
And just so we have a male in there, I also adore John Farnham's You're the Voice which opened my mind right up when I was 8 years old. And hey, it's awesome fun to sing along to.
So, now it's your turn. What song makes you feel like going out and getting something done?
PoF: Red unicorn
CO: how happy the sunshine makes me
I got a letter back from parliament. It pretty much said, 'thanks for writing, we've passed it to the Climate Change Issues Minister'. So, potentially it's been read by someone in John's office and someone in the Climate Change Minister's office. How exciting.
My mission to get my Christmas shopping done has been a success, barring a $10 gift for a work party and random people I may have forgotten I am done. I feel good having got it all out of the way, now I can concentrate on awesome Christmas crafts and baking!
I've been keeping on keeping on re-drafting Kiki, not really any news there. Will go hard tonight and tomorrow afternoon, try and get it finished. I've been finding lots of places to insert more dialogue, so I've been working at that (dialogue is more interesting after all) and I find that dialogue is easy to put jokes into. Hopefully they are jokes that are funny.
I've also been having fun entering the competitions on iCiNG's 13 days of Christmas. Trying to think of dodgy stuff for name plate necklaces and who exactly, is my hair inspiration is kind of fun.
Copyblogger delivers: Inigo Montoya's guide to commonly misused words is valuable reading, although a bit American English centric.
I learn separately through Hix and Cleolinda that Fables has been taken up by ABC and they have confirmed they are making a pilot. Also, volume 11 seems to be out. To the bookstores, as fast as lightning!
An added functionality on Rock Band 2 is the ability to make playlists when you're playing on your own or with friends in quickplay mode. I did the best ever rock concert performance this evening once Lee went out. My setlist was: The Kill, You Oughta Know, One Way or Another, Livin' on a Prayer and More than a Feeling. I followed up with some Chillis for good measure. It was amazing, if I do say so myself.
PoF: grey jeans returneth
CO: anything but work on my manuscript!
Seriously, how can my weekends rock so hard? Summer weekends are totally the best because being out in the sun makes me happy, warm and sleepy.
Saturday started with getting up to trawl kikki-k online for gifts but then when I realised that they were going to charge me $30AU for delivery, I got dressed and Lee and I went out to Lower Hutt mall for shoppings. I managed to get presents for three people in Kikki-K (uh, if I count me as one of the people XD ), something for Lee, something for a niece and something for birthday boy Dom. Then came back to Wellington and did our grocery shopping before tootling to the zoo for a birthday celebration and scavenger hunt. I got a goodie bag. It was awesome.
Saturday night, chilled at home with some friends and watched Intolerable Cruelty.
This morning we got up early to see my sister briefly on her way to the airport to pick up her husband. Then Svend and Star came over and we had brunch at Sweet Mother's Kitchen (nom) and went to the Thorndon Fair. Ran into a bunch of different people we knew and bought three more presents, and a red unicorn pegasus necklace on a red chain from super very who also made the martian men bracelet I got for my birthday. Love her stuff. Trying not to melt in the heat, we marched on into town and I picked up four more gifts, meaning I just have about four small things still to get and I really am done.
Staggered home and crashed out on the balcony until it was too hot to live and then came in. Had a nap, read some Tales of Beedle the Bard, worked through some printed out Kiki, wrapped gifts and ate delicious venison biersticks. Nom.
Tonight it's off to parents-in-laws for dinner and chillaxing. Man, I wish I never had to work. This is the life.
PoF: Trouble maker
CO: delicious venison salami
Honourable mentions: superheroes, choosing photographs for my lj advent calendar, writing, chatting with friends in Amsterdam (hee hee), The Winding City filming experience on Sunday, my friends, my Lee, Gala Darling’s photographs, staring at all the lovely books on my bookshelves, looking forward to time off over Christmas and dolphins.
PoF: stop cutting the magic tree
CO: dolphins
Productive week.
Roleplaying kinda petered out last night so I used the extra time to do some redrafting. Today I did some more and came to the end of the stuff I'd gone through with a pen. I'm up to page uh, 89 now. I have to go through it with a pen before I can do more typing, but that's a huge amount done since I got the motivation last week.
Still a little sad about the rejection letter but I'm gonna put that down to having PMT emotions up the wazoo. Dumb hormones. I don't want a baby! Or do I? I just want to cry. Um, my point here was meant to be: Thanks to everyone who left encouraging comments on my previous entry. It's very appreciated and you all speak the truthiness. I am not very tempted to start a zine, because right now I'm a bit money-making-focussed and I'm also not that clear on how I'd manage to produce such a thing (printing, distribution, etc). Maybe some day though.
I also had an idea for a new short story. And three short stories to follow up Pestilence which is the dream-inspired longer horror story that freaked me out a little.
Linkies: 10 ways to beat (blog) writer's block is a neat article of neatness. I especially like the bit about Hemingway recommending you stop in the middle of something so that you can pick it up immediately the next day. If I didn't love the satisfaction of finishing tasks so much I would try this.
I like reading 'how to' books by people I believe know what they are talking about. Hence I am excited to find this and once I have my Christmas bonus I believe I shall purchase it. I am currently part way through On Writing Science Fiction which is written by publishers and editors and is very good. It includes some sci fi short stories for illustrative purposes and some of them are freaking awesome.
Yep, that's just what you want first thing on a Monday morning when you're worn out from filming and have been awake since 5am with sinus headaches: a rejection letter for the short story you submitted to an American magazine.
I guess I kind of knew this would be the case since it's been so long I figured they probably didn't want it. Now to investigate other places that publish short stories of the horror persuasion...sigh.
Mustn't let myself get discouraged though, tempting as that may be.