February 4/100 words
And a lovely weekend was had by all. Specifically Spousling and me.
With the blessings of the kids (who, apparently were quite happy to see us go, even though we left the dogs) we ran up to Santa Barbara and relaxed. The rain held off, so we walked at least four miles in our attempt to find the Farmer's Market. Yes, that would be because it's two blocks east of State Street, and not within eyeshot like we'd thought. Having finally asked directions, we turned about, and zigged over to acquire lunch, which we ate by the bird refuge.
Somewhere in there was a visit to the Wharf where we happily hung out watching the gulls and the ducks! in the ocean.
Then it was on to the Botanic Gardens to check out native landscaping for our yard.
Dinner was on a patio at the Buenos Aires cafe, so we could try Argentinian fare. Directly across the street was a theater for the SB film fest, which just happened to be hosting some award that night. The street was thronged with people, a red carpet laid out on the street, and TV cameras. We had enough of a view to see the backs of heads whenever the crowd screamed. I can announce that Angelina Jolie's and Brad Pitt's heads are not particularly distinctive from the back, although Clint Eastwood's hair gleams silver under those lights.
So, my brush with fame.
Eh.
I am not thrilled by it. Poor superstars. I'd hate to be so well-known that I couldn't escape for a day at the beach on my own.
Of course, no writing was accomplished. I now start working on Ideo's next issue and wrap up ends from the last quarter's second reads. Somehow I was struck by lightning last night and agreed that I would write the goddamn novel, and that 2008 would be the year of the novel.
Holy heck.
I open that puppy tonight and stare at the new first chapter after making an icon and proofing one story.
Pray for me.
February 9/0 words
No new words that I counted, but there's been rewriting on the opening chapter and some addition to the whole. Yay, me!
The thrill of the week wasn't Chinese New Year with my kinders, although there was fun to be had. Writing fortunes for each other, for example--with the favorite fortune being: You will have ice cream soon.
How could you not love ice cream coming your way?
But the real thrill was the Leahy concert last night.
We bundled ourselves into our friends' car and ran over to Cal Tech in Pasadena to see them. If you're unfamiliar with the name, they're a group of eight brothers and sisters who play a variety of what I'd call Celtic music, although they're not limited to that. Fiddles, piano, bass, guitar, banjo, drums are a few of the instruments, and near the end, they switch instruments, since they all play multiples. Everyone step dances--even while playing the fiddles. One sister astounded the audience by playing her fiddle upside down.
The music was superb, the visual excitement high, and they're traveling east. Go here and see if they'll be near you if you appreciate Celtic music. You will not be disappointed. Our audience roared appreciation after every number and gave them two standing ovations.
It's a good thing I've got three days (okay, now? Two-and-a-half about) this weekend. I've got Ideo to plug away on. I've finished five icons, have one more of those, and then all the coding for the stories. I can finish it all, I think, by the end of the week.
Meanwhile, I have two crits, more rewriting on the opening chapter to flesh it out. I'm starting there.
Oh, and lest you think it's all bright and sunshiny in my world, I have ants.
February 10/100 words
Rewrites R Us.
Got through the first chapter, send it off to the posse, and then realized I'd included a scene that would technically be better as chapter two.
Oh, well. Chapter two's just going to be horribly short in comparison to everything else.
There were new words, a number of them, but I didn't pay attention to the word count when I started, and I'm not sure how many I totalled. One hundred's a conservative guess. I'll try to do better when I work on the next chapter.
I've also planned to jump between the rewriting for the posse and new words at the end. I'm roughly 40K ahead of what I'm sending out to be critted, and with any luck, I'll stay that way. I'm just going to have to read the whole damn thing once through before I start writing again, in the hopes I can refresh my memory, and quite possibly, delete some of those threads I opened that overwhelmed me.
Surely there's some plotty badness I can lose.
In addition, I am two crits to the good and feeling very self-satisfied.
We won't mention the part where nothing happened with Ideo yesterday. I will make up for that this afternoon. Next on the list is the vacuuming and dusting upstairs, a shower, and a trip to drop off the Slug at work, so I can keep the car. The eldest is off to ski, second time this week, and why does he have a life and I don't? (Not that I want to ski, because the knees won't hack it, but still.)
The Spousling just left for his 12-mile hike, and by noon, it'll be me and the dogs.
I shall entertain them with the singing.
They might actually enjoy being put outside for a while. Hrm.
It's a lovely day. If I really need fresh air, I shall weed in the back, now that a few of the weeds are taller than the lavender and threatening to achieve treedom.
On the other hand, they've also attracted all the aphids in the world, and surely that must count for good somewhere.
Mostly I'm just looking forward to the other day off waiting in the wings for me tomorrow.
Ants or no ants, I'm happy.
February 11/0 words
Weird dreams after the dogs demanded breakfast and I fell back to sleep. I don't think I've ever had a tiger dream before, and certainly not one where the teeth nip through my pants leg to rest against my thigh. (No worry, the Spousling got it into a bag, managed to get it in some kind of enclosed truck, and drove off to deliver the beast to an animal habitat.)
Weiiiiiird.
I'm still working on wakefulness, to the point where I actually feel awake, rather than half-asleep.
Lots of words yesterday--two crits produce word count, that's for sure. I also managed coding three of March's poems for Ideo, tinkered with two of the icons until I liked them better, and vacuumed and dusted upstairs.
Oh, and a rewrite, first skim through. Maybe I've nailed the ending, maybe not. I know I'm moved by the final words; I just don't know about anyone else.
I won't know if it's fixed until it returns home from where I'm sending it.
Plus our little posse met in chat to rend Derek's story. I'm up next week, and I've sent the new first chapter to my tattoo novel.
It was a good day.
Maybe today will be as productive. I can only cross my fingers, although the list isn't quite as long now. Ideo swag, for certain, three stories and an interview to code, one more icon, the kitchen counters and stove, and... oh, yes. Rewriting, sending the puppy out, and more work on the novel. At some point I should read the damn thing.
Lots and lots to do, and I'm doing my impression of Pooh--my head is stuffed with fluff.
Could be worse, I suppose.
That tiger could have eaten me, and I'd be stuffed with fluff and not all there.
February 17/500 words
New words last night and I'm satisfied. I'm not any later in the book, I'm fixating on the first chapter for another day or two, and making plans for chapter two. I need an entirely new scene for that chapter, one that summarizes some of the last minute training he'll receive, with hints of family background and desert knowledge (I'll need that set up for later) and setting up the future: insecurity and betrayal.
Gotta love this novel, even as I hate the idea of wading back into the middle.
Last night's work was all about adding depth via detail. I haven't nailed the heat completely, but I've fleshed some of the places and the people a bit more thoroughly.
The courtyard reflected the day's heat, even though evening breezes had sprung from the desert and now blew towards them. Rough sand crumbled beneath his sandaled feet as Bashak searched, then met the smooth clay tiles about the olive tree.
Not perfect, by any means, but still. Did I mention I was happy?
Oh.
I have another three-day weekend, so today is about a bit of catching up with the housework. There will be spraying for ants. WILL BE. Even if I have to do that myself. Because I am just damn tired of the things. Persistent little buggers. Really, the only good news is that we've got everything in plastic containers, so all they can do is mill around aimlessly and attack a sponge or whatever dish got left on the counter for longer than a few minutes.
I also managed two crits yesterday, one on the workshop, one off. I certainly don't need the points on the workshop, but it's good to get back to critting via the posse or the workshop.
However, I've been avoiding the last bits of Ideo prep, so that'll be tonight and tomorrow. Goal is to send everything off to Celia for the .pdf by tomorrow night, so I can return to school with a clear conscience, knowing I've done everything except getting things live.
In addition, I had a sleep study, which means, yes, it's official: I've got apnea. I'm not looking forward to wearing a snorkel on my face as I sleep, so I think much exercise and weight loss lies in my immediate future. Hopefully, I'll be able to remedy the condition within six-eight months and lose the machine.
I also don't like the idea of having to cart the damn thing with me wherever I go, so the goal is by the end of October, in time for WFC. I have my hotel reservation--do you have yours?
Now to disconnect myself from the computer and get ready for singing. Three new songs for this morning, with new parts, and I've got to review them all again.
February 18/300 words
So after getting a few reactions to the first chapter of Tattoos, and then having a discussion with the available posse members in chat, I now remember the difference between writing short stories and novels.
Details. And worldbuilding. And grounding. All that good stuff. Pages and pages worth of them. They actually expect another twenty pages of the darn information.
Lucky for me, I know some of it already. That explains all the words the past two days, actually. But it's going to get harder, I know. I'm going to make worldbuilding decisions which will impact unwritten future parts, and I'm pretty sure I will screw up somewhere along the line. Stay tuned for worldbuilding biting me on the ass.
Still, I've got bits already in my head. Families have colors representing their status in their society. At least, the warrior-caste does. The priestly caste doesn't consider family in terms of status, but tattoos? You bet. Up to the limit of five. Although that may be one of the subplots that appears later.
Families keep their first and any youngest children, the seconds get sent off to the warrior-caste at seven, the thirds get sent to the priest-caste at the same age. The warrior-caste gets the edge, simply because they need to replace warriors they lose.
More of that kind of thing will follow, but I'm going to have to start a list of my cultural nuances, just so I remember!
But perhaps, that wasn't the biggest revelation. No, that would have been the fact that the first chapter of this I ever wrote, is not the opening. No, it might not even be the third chapter as it is now.
No, this would be the point where everything changes and there's no going back. I figure it has to be the bump of the first quarter of the book.
Eeeeeeeeeee.
In other news, I have survived a five-mile hike with a 400' rise in elevation. With two dogs, a spouse, and a child. I did not turn an ankle over the rockiest bits, nor did I tweak the bad knee more than once or twice. Go me!
Currently the dogs are undergoing tick checks, and Harley, whether he wants one or not, is getting a bath. When your tummy is low to the ground and you dash through wet grass onto dirt and back again? Filthy does not describe the end result enough.
Mostly though, I'm having coffee and not moving. For a while.
February 19/500 words
More pondering on the novel and the difference between that and a short story.
I had the bones of the novel as was. Spare prose, like I write when I'm trying to limit wordcount and tighten until a short story squeaks. Modifiers vanish. I use the strongest verbs I can think of. And I keep the camera focus tight, too. I write what the character sees right next to him or her—which usually means the other characters, and token settings thrown in.
But a novel... a novel demands world-building and loads of information.
So when Amber told me the other night to slow the action down, I couldn't imagine going any slower. But really, I'm not. I'm larding in all the stuff I skipped on the first draft. The history, the description of place, rank colors and what they mean, the tattoos and souls, showing a glimpse of how they work instead of telling, which means, ohmygod, more characters. Eeek.
It's waaaaaaaaaay over the amount I'd throw in for a short story, but it's critical to give the novel a sense of fresh and new.
And the more I think about novels... Amber's angels, in particular, since I've read that one eleventy-eleven times, I can see how it works.
Not necessarily enough to explain, however. The best I can do right now is a chain of pearls, where pearls are the plot points and the links surrounding them are the transitions and information the reader needs to visualize this world. And really, when you have pearls linked together by an inch or so of silver or gold chain, the plot bits are important, but their importance lessens because there would be no meaningful necklace without the chain connecting them.
So much for metaphor this early in the day.
But for me, it's a whole new way of looking at novel from the perspective of a writer.
February 20/500 words
Where did all my time go? I am still in my jammies.
My left eye is red and puffy, and just stopped watering. What did I rub in it?
Not much word count last night, tweaks on Ideo stuff interfered. But it's almost wrapped, because I already have the first draft of the .pdf. No matter what Celia says, I would never publish the draft version. No, first I must tinker.
I'm still contemplating the concept of the novel, trying to take my thoughts from the intuitive sense of "Ohhhhhhh! I see!" to concrete, making it something I can take out as needed. The last thing I need in my life is the sense of 'but it was here a minute ago....' There's too much of that hanging round me now.
So the latest version, working with the pearls and chain image I started with yesterday, is to consider each pearl I begin with rather large, and then I blast it into various-sized pieces, drill each piece with a hole, and then thread/weave them between bits of chain. And, so I don't forget, since I have three protags and three plots revolving around each, I have three sets of different-colored pearls to split.
There may be more refining to do as I go along. But this visual metaphor is working for me at the moment. The pearls' order becomes my arrangement, with the bigger chunks as major plots, turning points, whatnot.
Maybe I will be able to get this novel written. Right now, it feels less complex than I thought when I got the first 40k and all these windows opened, and my nightmare was that I had to tie them all together to close them to finish this book.
The most terrifying thing I've considered thus far is that if I feed in all the wealth of detail throughout the novel, I may not have a single book. Or maybe I'll have a 150k monster.
And that scares the hell out of me.
Now, what are your novel monsters?
February 23/300 words
Not much writing since Wednesday—one night was chatting with the Spousling about his new job, last night focused on an edit for an Ideo story. Life conspired to make sure I was exhausted the others. I haven't been reading more than ten or fifteen minutes in bed, because I can't keep my eyes open.
Okay, so maybe that's more about the choice in fiction. I'm going to return this one to the library; I'm never going to make it to page 100. I have no buy-in with these characters, the pacing is off and/or submerged in description, and half the time, I don't remember who the damn characters are.
Kiss of death, I tell you.
With this new understanding of plotting a novel, however, I'm seeing, rather than feeling, pacing. Wowza. I guess this counts as a step forward, and maybe some day, I'll be able to generate plots easily. (Okay, maybe not easily exactly, but more quickly than I do now. Because now it's akin to me sinking deeper into a quicksand bog, while that rope which is my only hope of rescue, swings just out of reach. Repeatedly.)
If I could only get the concept of 'raising the stakes' through my head. I understand the term and intuitively understand what that does, but doing it myself? Going, oh, of course! and plopping a tablespoon in? No way. Not there yet.
It would be nice if novels came with recipes.
Although, knowing me, I would stare at my novel recipe and go, "Um... no, I don't have that. Ooh! Throw in ranch dressing for the non-fat yogurt, add a dollop of mayonnaise, and huh.. no lime juice?" *splashes in a bit of that*
So while the original recipe would be for chicken enchiladas, I'd end up with fish tacos.
Which is related. Sort of.
In other news, the Spousling forwarded me a free offer to adopt two snakes. One eight feet in length (able to swallow small children!) and one four feet long (the Chihuahua feeder.)
I bet they would keep the skunk population down at school... until we ran out of skunks. Hrm.
