RSS

Tag Archives: writing

My November Calendar

31 Oct

The first time I participated in NaNoWriMo was 2008. (I had to double-check that year, because it seems like an awfully long time ago.) I outlined about a fifth of my proposed story, started writing, and by the end of the first chapter realized that my plot–which included an at-risk teen going to a haunted boarding school–was preposterous. My main character would never submit to being boarded. So she ran away, instead, and changed the whole damn book. I finished Chasing Smoke on January 6th, 2009.

In 2009 I did a full, if sparse, outline for a novel inspired by something my boss said once, in a rather offhand manner. Struck By Chocolate is a romance novel filled with–you guessed it–chocolate, as well as puns and French-Italians and backbiting coworkers and a secretary that thought she was in the Queen’s Navy. SBC wrapped up on January 12th, I believe, 2010.

2010 was a failure, in terms of NaNo alone, and a partial success in terms of writing a book. You see, I got impatient and started writing a book in October. Then I decided that, for the love of NaNo, I would but Book A on pause, craft a quick draft for a mainstream YA, and then go back to Book A in December.

Ridiculous.

I lasted less than a week before tossing my stupid wanna-be novel in the trash and going back to Book A, which became Cat in the Shel, and which I still am not totally sure what to do with.

My point here being that, when I did finish, I didn’t write The End until some time in January. I’d get my 50k in November, and then things would slow down for Christmas and New Year’s and bathing. This year, I’m going full force. The standard word count goal for NaNo is 1,667 words per day. This would not give me enough words for a finished first draft within the month of November. (I’m aiming for ~85k.) And I really want to finish in November this year, because Uncharted 3 is waiting for me in December. So my goal this year is to write 85k this month.

And take three days off. Because oh my god.

This means I’ll need to average a bit over 3,000 words per day. I’m getting tired just thinking about it. But what the hell, right? I’m young, I’m healthy, and I only live once.

(Plus, Uncharted 3.)

Today I went through my Google calendar and put in my daily wordcount goals, as well as updated all the write-ins in my area I can attend. After I was done, I looked at my screen, hyperventilated a bit, and then decided to share my ridiculous expectations with the rest of you!

So what do you think? Am I mad? What are your crazy impossible awesome goals for November?

And do you have any December treats keeping you moving forward?

 
2 Comments

Posted by on October 31, 2011 in writing

 

Tags: , , ,

The Dark, Grey Month of November–Finally!

30 Oct

The time is upon us once again. The leaves have started changing color, snow is falling in my hometown (but not my home, huzzah!) and my roommate bought an industrial sized bag of tiny candies. That’s right (or should I say write?) sports fans–it’s NaNoWriMo time!

For those of you that have been living under a literary rock for the last decade, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Started in 1999 by the inestimable Chris Baty, NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words in a continued narrative within the 30 days hath November. At this point, the program has stretched far beyond the ‘National’ moniker, with members flung across the globe.

(In fact, somehow I got added to the Africa:Elsewhere regional forum. Trust me–I’m nowhere near Africa.)

Another imperfect element of the NaNoWriMo name is the NOVEL inclusion. The only novel that clock in at 50k are middle grade books. But who cares? I don’t! NaNoWriMo is an opportunity to join forces with thousands of driven, slightly crazy, awesome people moving toward the same goal: something resembling at least the healthy beginning of a novel. That is why, tomorrow night at midnight, I will be sitting in Denny’s with god knows how many NaNoers (rumor has it we have the Denny’s reserved this year!) typing the first sentences, paragraphs and pages of my novel: The Absinthe Gang (tentative title).

Throughout the month of November I will be posting brief, periodic updates on my progress, as well as the occasional excerpt. I find I blog better when I have a focus like this. So, yay! Brief spike in activity.

This year, for the first time, I am going to make a valiant effort to show up to at least two write-ins per week in my area. The write-ins are fellow writers gathering in a room, sitting often ass-to-elbow, and then ignoring each other as we type furiously in our laptops or scrawl in our notebooks until handcramping forces a coffee/cigarette/non-imaginary-hooman interaction break. I think this will be a good way to meet area writers and generally cool kids. (Kids being a non-inclusive term, here.)

Anyone who wishes to buddy up on the NaNo website, my handle is zandila.

Only 28 and one quarter more hours–and counting!

Comic from the awesome Debbie Ridpath Ohi. Check her out!

 
4 Comments

Posted by on October 30, 2011 in writing

 

Tags: , ,

Making Time

30 Sep

Over the last month or so I have seen a substantial decrease in my available free time. There was moving, then Foolscap, then being sick, then a mini vacation to Vancouver Island. It all added up to sap my time away in force. Now that things have settled down a bit, though, I’m noticing that I have more on my plate now than ever. Two critique groups, a novel in the making, short stories to submit, cons and other events to attend, not to mention keeping up relationships with the people I care about. Add to that the varied stressors that life likes to throw out there every once in a while and I’ve been feeling…well…kinda crushed.

I’ve been here before, of course. Everyone has. And I’ve tried making a schedule for myself that fits in all the things I want/need to do. (Not in that order.) (Okay, sometimes in that order.) Then I’ll stick to my schedule for approximately one minutes, and proceed to blow it off royally. I am not sure what it is, exactly, but I don’t think my mind works well with that particular kind of structure.

But I do need structure. I think that people work best when they have some kind of setup to their day, not just casting about aimlessly while the tides push them willy-nilly. That’s how we lose hours to I Can Haz Cheezburger and their ilk. (Nope. Never done that.) So I’m left with the question- how do I make sure I get everything done, when I want it to get done, without feeling burned out or pissed off?

I know I’m not the only person asking this question.

I think one way to start answering that question is to look at my priorities.

  • Fiction is a huge priority in my life, both the reading of and the writing of. Making time for those things hasn’t been a challenge for me for a couple of years now. In fact, when I’m not writing daily I get antsy and irritable.
  • Maintaining relationships with the people I love is another important factor. This one is more tricky, as I can sometimes let this aspect subsume other things I need to do. People can be very edifying, and very distracting.
  • Exercise. Oh, god, exercise. I hate you exercise. But I like being able to use my body in ways that don’t hurt, and aren’t too much of an effort, so exercise is important. Needless to say, I have a hell of a time keeping this one in good standing.
  • Eating healthy. Which requires cooking and grocery shopping and planning, all of which take time.
  • Down time. This one is the hardest for me. This is pure relaxation time. Reading books outside of my genre, purely for enjoyment purposes. Watching the occasional episode of Modern Family or The Office. (Or Bones. Hurry up, Bones!) The problem I have with relaxing is that I often find myself ‘relaxing’ in ways that aren’t actually relaxing. Seriously, watching TV is not relaxing. It’s numbing.

So those are my main priorities, not organized in order of importance. And when I look at it this way it doesn’t seem too bad. Getting everything in seems rather doable, as long as I’m not wasting time. And yet, when the day starts rolling, I start to lose track of things.

Well, if anyone has any time management tips, I am all ears. Obviously I don’t have this all figured out. For the time being I think I’ll try a combination of scheduling things and to-do lists.

6:30 am – Wake up. Snooze button.

6:45 am – Wake up again. Throw phone to foot of bed so I can’t use the snooze.

6:50 am – Make to-do list.

…

10 am – Wonder why I can’t read anything on my to-do list.

10:05 am – I Can Haz Cheezburger eats my brain!

 

Photo used under creative commons license from _SiD_

 
3 Comments

Posted by on September 30, 2011 in planning

 

Tags: , ,

Marking the Occasion

25 Aug

My Favorite Morning Ritual

I am a big fan of ritual. I think it’s important to make a big deal out of certain moments in our lives, like getting married or (eek!) publishing a book. They’re rites of passage, and giving those moments some time in the spotlight does two things:

  • It says that what we’ve been doing is worth celebrating.
  • It gives us an opportunity to reflect, which I think in turn provides fuel for the next awesome challenge.

(Plus, who couldn’t use an extra excuse to down tasty cocktails?)

I also like the intentionality of ritual. Catholic Mass, for example, is about putting the attendants in the frame of mind to be with God. It’s a certain kind of focus that I find missing in a lot of day-to-day life, which is not a bad thing. Just…a thing.

Ritual, for me, wraps the real up into the mysterious, and makes it more than what we can see and touch and feel. It makes these events, at the risk of sounding woo-woo, more spiritual. I think this is an aspect of my character that confuses some people.

And I also think I’m okay with that.

I’ve noticed, though, that I don’t often play off my love of ritual in my writing, at least not in any transparent way. I could argue that all of my writing is ritualistic, but I’m thinking something more defined. More like my story “A Dancer For Aonou”, which features a pagan blood ritual as a central motif. Considering that the story was my WotF honorable mention, as well as my first sale, it might behoove me to explore the ritual aspect a bit more in future writings.

Actually, I think it would be cool to see more fiction about ritual in general. What one society chooses to ritualize–and how they illustrate that–can be so illuminating! In our society we laud the birth of a child, the purchase of a new home…what about a society that marks a woman’s first kiss with ritualized scarification? Or a society that ushers children into adulthood by giving them wings?

What we as individuals, and as societies, choose to venerate says a lot about us. Think of your story, or your novel. What do the people in your world celebrate? What are their rituals?

 

picture used under creative commons license from CoffeeGeek

 
2 Comments

Posted by on August 25, 2011 in discovery, writing

 

Tags: , , ,

The Muse and Maple Syrup

09 Aug

Imagine you are a big, beautiful maple tree. You have lovely green leaves for shade in the spring and summer, foliage that would make a hooker blush in the fall and delightful creeping branches bereft of life in the winter. You stand in a grove amongst your fellow maple tree, in some chilly climate in the north.

And every year someone cuts you open to drain you of sap, so they can have something yummy on their pancakes.

Only, the person cutting you open is yourself.

And the sap is your creative juices. And think of that syrup as novels, short stories, poetry, or even blog posts.

What are the pancakes in this scenario? Um…moving on!

Back to the maples. Each tree only has so much sap in it at a given time. Eventually, the tree runs low, and then dry. And if you tap and tap and tap, without letting the tree restore itself naturally, what you get is only a small trickle compared to what you might get otherwise.

(Please excuse me if I’m utterly butchering the science of maple trees. It’s on my creative license that I get to warp nature to my needs.)

For some people, this fallow period represents writer’s block, and—if allowed to fester—can become something damaging. For others, though, this can be seen as a chance to rest, and rejuvenate.

When the sap has run dry, and you feel like your creative juices are coming in at a trickle, what do you do?

Better question, since this is my blog: What do I do? I have a few methods for approaching these periods, and all of them work differently at different times. Such is the human temperament.

One of my favorite activities to stir up my juices is to take long walks, preferably through a forested area, preferably alone. And when I say alone, I mean no music, no podcasts, no dogs or cell phones. Since I don’t exercise much, I wind up feeling semi-healthy for a while, and it gets blood moving through my body and into my brain in ways I don’t normally get to enjoy.

I suppose you could just exercise, but…dear god, why!?

Watching TV. Oh, the bane of pretentious scholars everywhere. And, truth be told, I hate most television. More importantly, I hate broadcast television. Commercials are mind-numbing. Soul-sucking. Creativity-killing. But a good story, told in an efficient manner? That I can get behind. Not to mention the plethora of engaging documentaries out there. All the stuff National Geographic and the History Channel puts out are creative gold mines. I often watch these with a pen and paper nearby, so I can jot down any ideas I have.

(I’ve found documentaries useful in both fallow and fertile times.)

I think the most important thing to do, though, is rest. Catch up on reading. Spend time with friends, out in the world. And be nice to yourself. The fallow periods are not forever. The words will come back. The ideas will come back, if you let them. Don’t neglect your writing, but don’t force it, either. Take a couple of days away from the keyboard or the notebook, and then try again.

If you look back over a lot of my posts, you may notice that I’m a word counter, and a huge proponent of writing every day. But between projects, I think a little downtime is essential, and restorative. Feed your muse, or whatever the hell you want to call that part of yourself. And don’t freak out if it takes a little while for the sap to fill back up.

Image used under Creative Commons License from: jbelluch

 
2 Comments

Posted by on August 9, 2011 in creating, writing

 

Tags: , ,

Margo Lanagan, Pie & Exhaustion

06 Jul

Welcome to week three. This is the time when exhaustion starts to creep into the edges of things. When reading one more story feels like a nigh insurmountable hurdle. When writing another story feels like torture. (Hey–when does it not, right?)

I’ve noticed a couple of things this week. Class starts at nine AM, Monday through Friday. In the first week we were all rushing to get there at 8:59.59. Then last week we were sliding into our seats with a few seconds to spare. This morning, most of us were in the classroom five, even ten minutes before the stroke of learning. (That’s what she said.)

Another thing is that I find myself seeking solitude more often, and with greater fervency. I expect this theme to continue, to some degree or another. Today, for example, I spent most of the afternoon alone, in the basement. And, since I had such a pleasant few hours down there, I will tell you what I did.

  • Critiqued a story.
  • Stood up and stretched.
  • Critiqued another story.
  • Made myself a cup of tea and grabbed a piece of awesome yummy banana bread.
  • Watched videos of So You Think You Can Dance (Do not resist the clickage!)
  • ‘Finished’ my story for Friday

Good times were had by all. But the intense socialization that ClarionWest can cultivate does get wearing. Even sitting amongst half a dozen quiet writers in the common room, each focused on their own task, takes something out of you. And since the common room was practically deserted when I emerged for dinner, I must assume I’m not the only person here dealing with this particular stressor.

In other news: Pie!

And, furthermore: Margo Lanagan!

We got an interesting mini-lecture from Margo this morning concerning titles. Apparently, we somewhat suck at titles. Speaking for myself, I already knew that. I mean, ‘Phibs, Lies & Whiskey’ was probably my best. Title. Evar. And that was produced a while ago. Like…years, or summat.

She said that a title should sum up the essence of a story, without giving away the plot, a feat at which Debbie Does Dallas fails miserably. Some pointers she gave for choosing a title:

  • Refer to reference materials used. Her story ‘Eyelids of the Dawn’ refers to the description of the Leviathan in the ultimate reference book–the Bible.
  • Refer to the story itself. ‘A Fine Magic’ came directly from the character in said story, when describing his work.
  • Use the setting to inform the title. ’Under Hell Over Heaven’ is a story Margo wrote about, you guessed it, Heaven and Hell.
  • Use the action to inform the title. In ‘Singing My Sister Down’ the main character does exactly that. But the actions are so divorced from the world we know, and so intriguing, that even thought this sums up the story, it doesn’t give anything away.

Of course, some stories come with a title attached to them, already. Struck By Chocolate, my attempt at a romance novel, came to me title first, and then the plot rushed in to fill out the space. And I’ve picked up a couple of titles here to stories I will likely never write, but I like the sound of it. Like ‘A Bucket Full of Medical Care’. Sounds awesome, if I could figure out what the hell it means.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on July 6, 2011 in Clarion West, discovery, Uncategorized, writing

 

Tags: , ,

Return of the Living Dead Book

02 May

About a month ago, thigh deep in my third rewrite attempt of Cat in the Shel, I decided to quit. Enough was enough.

The story had developed out of a sweet, poignant idea I had for a short story. It had taken on a new life as a novel length work, with new characters, new settings. To be honest, the end result was practically unrecognizable from the original idea.

And I hated it.

At least, I hated that draft. It was like slogging through quicksand. Throwing pebbles in the dark hoping to hit something. Shaving years off my life every time I opened my laptop. But, I’d given the first version of the book to Caleb to read and give me a primary edit, and he’d come back saying it was broken. What’s a girl to do?

(Just a quick side note–I know what I should have done: revise. I hate revising. It is the bane of my literary existence. Like taking vitamins made out of nettles. But I also know it is good, and necessary, and something I need to learn to do well.)

Well, after abandoning the book (and feeling a thousand pounds lighter) I went on to write a few short stories, do some short story revising, and ready myself for ClarionWest.

Caleb and I have entered into a new kind of partnership re: my writing, wherein he does final line edits for my pieces before sending them out. This has been working immensely well, which is great since he expressed some frustration doing a primary edit for CitS. Then, a couple of days ago, he tells me this:

“I may have been wrong about the book. It might not be as bad as I thought.”

This, prompted by the positive experience we’ve had doing line edits as opposed to story critiquing.

I trust my husband’s opinion. A lot. But we are still figuring out what each other is really good at–what we ourselves are good at–and I should realize that the opinion that matters the most is my own. And I knew I screwed the ending of CitS, but you can rewrite an ending. You can rewrite anything.

So now I have this book rattling around in my head again, pawing at the corners of my attention. Read me, it says. Make up your own mind.

I confess–I haven’t read the first draft. WTF, right?

So, I am going to let it stew a while longer. I am going to continue my plan for pre-CW, which includes short stories and reading and cross-stitch. Then, post CW, we’ll take another look at the ms and see if I can save it, or if I should hold its head under water until it’s well and truly dead.

The moral of this story, my friends, is that you have to trust yourself. Outside opinions, even those proffered by people you trust, are always second to your own honest judgment. So you like the boa with the UW hoodie? Go ahead and wear it! You think it’s best to sneak communion wine while your mee-maw’s last rites are being read? Well, if it fits with your end goal, more power to you.

And if you think that book, or that story, or that poem you’re writing is good enough that someone, somewhere, will pay good money for it, well get it out there. Polish it til it gleams and put it in the hands of everyone who gives a damn.

And, because I love them, and the main image got me all cuddly:

Photos used under Creative Commons licensing.

Cougar photo provided by: NDomer73

Kitten photo provided by: furry-photos

 
1 Comment

Posted by on May 2, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

Tags: , ,

What has been done; What is to come: Week 3

23 May

Well, that went better, I think. Week three, story two: down. I’m beginning to understand just how exhausted I’m going to be by the end of this workshop. Pleasantly, awesomely exhausted. My brain will want to think about nothing heavier than lollipops and flying fish for a while.

Hmm…flying fish. That might be an interesting motif.

What Has Been Done

This week I tackled a dystopian setting, featuring a government who chose careers for children around the age of thirteen. During the process of writing I learned a bit about countries who, in one way or another, actually DO this. Right now. It doesn’t exactly surprise me, but it does make me very, very angry.

I love writing. Obviously. I chose this path. I almost chose psychology, but aspects of that career path convinced me it wouldn’t be right for me. I almost chose clothing design, but again, not right for me. Do you know who knows best what is right for me?

That’s right. I do. Not a government test. Not my parents. Not some book. No one but me. So the prospect of having my future doled out by someone other than me is…frightening. Nightmarish.

This was the nightmare I delved into this week. And, as if that weren’t bad enough, I found a room full of human ashes, and piles of as yet unburnt bodies.

Oh, I am happy this story is done. Happy, happy, happy. Because this was a place I did not go lightly, or without much trepidation. I struggled a lot with this story. The very act of putting down the words that I knew needed to go there was difficult.

I guess that’s a good sign.

On a lighter note, I think I need to change my approach to time management. I cannot do brainstorming on Monday. I work a full day, devote my lunch our to my novel (and food, sometimes), and come home a little too brain-drained to focus on the active work that is brainstorming. So I need to get that part of the work done on Sundays. Because I can still write on Mondays, and I don’t want to regularly lose a whole day each week, if I can help it.

What is To Come

My next bit of dystopia: Children are raised in group homes, by nurses that rotate every…say one or two months? This helps to cut off attachments from developing. It keeps everyone nervous. It helps, I think, to break down a sense of security. Hmm…maybe this is a country that has been invaded, and the invaders set this up for the children from the conquered people. Conflicting religions, perhaps? Yes, I could do something with that.

And a happy ending this time, please! Holy crap, I don’t think I can go through another story like this last one for a while without getting a little moody.

So, I’ll start the brainstorming session today, and hopefully get a start on the first scene. That way I have a good jumping off point tomorrow, and I can get a jump on this story. I’d like to finish this one before next Sunday.

Lastly, a quick shout-out to all the other workshoppers reading this: I know a lot of us have had pretty rough weeks, for whatever reasons. But we can do this! We’re all freaking awesome for even trying! (Gosh, I’m getting a little teary here, folks.) Going after what we love can be hard. It can be damned painful. And it is worth it, every single time.

So take a deep breath, and dive back in! Here’s to a happy, productive, injury-free week.

 
8 Comments

Posted by on May 23, 2010 in Creativity Workshop

 

Tags: , , ,

What Has Been Done, What is To Come: Week 2

16 May

Hoo boy, this has been a weird week, schedule-wise. I had engagements Thursday all day, Friday night and Saturday afternoon/evening. I took Monday evening and early Tuesday afternoon off from writing, to boot. Which, all in all, left me with a tiny amount of writing time available!

All that aside I think I did pretty well.

What Has Been Done

This week we got an idea building assignment. Three diverse pictures, culled from the lands of internet. We were to brainstorm ideas on each picture, moving through, and past cliches to find three original ideas for each prompt.

The prospect of using pictures to form ideas is not new to  me. My story A Kind of Death, which earned an honorable mention from the WotF contest, was prompted by a picture I found on DeviantArt. But using a picture cold like this was different. I’ve always used pictures that have prompted ideas, as opposed to using pictures in order to prompt ideas, so the process was kind of turned on its head. And, using pictures I would not have normally been attracted to, I had to stretch myself a bit to make the good ideas come.

Always good to push yourself beyond your comfort zone. I’ll include the pictures and my favorite idea from each one at the end of this post.

As far as writing this week goes…well, like I mentioned I didn’t give myself much time. I really like my story, and where its going. And I managed to find a reasonable breaking point today, so that I can feel okay going away from it for a while. It definitely is not an unfinished story, necessarily, but I do want to expand upon it. I’ve learned that I need to give myself more time to work with. A couple nights and one morning are not enough.

Also, I learned what a beekeeper is called! An apiculturist. One of my characters is an apiculturist, in a fun turn of events. And he loves Dickinson. He’s a sweetie, I’ll tell you what. No wonder my main character is in love with him.

What is to Come

Merrilee just posted about organization, and I have had my short story file box pulled out and ready to be sorted for nearly two weeks now. Time to get on top of that.

Also, I desperately need to do some edits on *Mystery Project* and get it ready to submit. Seriously, I can’t believe I’ve let it flounder for so long. It needs to be mailed by the 30th!

And story the second is on my plate now. My interest is still dystopian settings, and I will be focusing where education choices are made by the government. I noticed this last week that my focus really ended up being more of a prompt, and I’m betting that theme will continue. The focus of this last story certainly wasn’t on the fact that romantic expression is limited, but it did influence the tone of the story. Maybe I’ll write something with a teacher as the main character…I think that would be an interesting angle. And an angry parent as the antagonist?  Or maybe she is an underground textbook trafficker, and a fellow teacher (or student!) is the antagonist.

Ah, time to brainstorm!

Lastly…

Here are the pictures, followed by my favorite story idea for each.

Great picture, huh? Terribly expressive, even if they do both end up looking like twits.

I got a couple of favorites for this. Hard to choose, so I won’t bother. :) Both are pretty stream of consciousness.

1. The woman has just received the news that she is being excommunicated from her church because the casserole she brought to the potluck had the face of satan cooked into the cheese. She has devoted a lot of time to this church, but the new pastor makes his own way. He’s been looking for a reason to get rid of her anyway, and with the climate of the times being as fearful as it is, he found a good opportunity. Without the protection of the church, she doesn’t know what to do. It is organizations like churches and support groups like AA that keep people safe. Without those mini communities individuals are only prey for–what?

2. He’s dating her much younger daughter–who is he? The mother’s boss. Met the daughter and fell into lust. He’s married, and unapologetic about the whole thing. Mom is furious, because she wants her daughter to marry a doctor and there is no way that’s going to happen if she runs around with this jerk. She keeps her job, and creates an escalating scale of blackmail, eventually culminating in murder. Of who? the boss? Mom? The daughter? The man mom wants her to marry?

This was my favorite picture of the three, and my imagination really took off.

1. These houses serve only as drying houses for a massive marijuana crop. They are far away from most civilization, and while the sea air can be a detriment, many customers have said they can practically taste the ocean in the pot. The houses are a secret, and the crew takes turns living there throughout the year, while they all live there through the winter tending small individual use plants. They have a pact, and a comfortable lifestyle within these limits. Until one of them falls in love. With the daughter of a woman running for president, who vows to legalize marijuana. In the current age, her vote looks good, and she is squeaky clean. The boy truly believes in her cause, that’s how he met the daughter. But if the press pry into his life, and find out that he does something that is still currently illegal, her hopes of being elected will be crushed. And the rotten contender will rush into office.

This one gave me fits. I’m not a real abstract kind of person, so it was difficult getting into this piece. But I managed!

1. A woman who works in a battered woman’s shelter begins to wake up with bruises. At first they aren’t so bad, but they get worse and worse. Who? Woman- abused in a previous relationship, and he got killed in a car accident under dubious circumstances. New boyfriend is a super gentle pushover, who never pressures her into anything she doesn’t practically beg for. She’s missing the excitement of her old boyfriend, the thrill of it. What- her intense desire for the old boyfriend, as well as the guilt that goes along with it, manifests in either a ghost, or a psychological issue where she bruises herself.


 
9 Comments

Posted by on May 16, 2010 in Creativity Workshop, planning

 

Tags: , ,

I Found a Shining Jewel…

11 May

Okay, you guys are awesome!

Had a crappy day yesterday. Vented. And got back a wealth of constructive and comforting responses. I just wanted to drop a quick thanks.

So last night I did as I had planned, and took the night off. Watched a movie, finished Shiver, drank two (!) martinis. It was a nice night, I’ll tell ya. Very indulgent.

Then today after work, since I only work until about noon on Tuesdays, I took a nice long hike. Longer than I had anticipated, actually, because I ended up getting lost about three quarters of the way through. No matter, I made it back to my car without being raped OR murdered, so I consider it a win. I know my legs are going to complain tomorrow, but such are the wages of directional sin.

Here’s what I found out: The whole going for a long walk thing? Priceless.

As I was wandering through the undeniably fantastic beauty of the Pacific Northwest in Spring, enjoying the smells and the solitude and the buzz of the bees (which I’m glad were in relative abundance) I stumbled across something beautiful.

My first scene.

Story the first has officially been started, and I’m raring to go. I do have a busy week, with a craft night on Thursday, a romantic dinner on Friday and an all day social/potluck/gathering on Saturday, but I will triumph! Even if it means locking myself in the garage at the social and banging out the last words.

Then rewarding myself with dessert!

 
9 Comments

Posted by on May 11, 2010 in Creativity Workshop, planning

 

Tags: ,

← Older posts
Newer posts →
 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 147 other followers