Friday, May 25, 2007

Sabrina, updating? ~hand to cheek~ How novel!

You never know, maybe one day, I'll get closer to the one-post-a-day goal I had originally.

But I digress (never a good sign when it occurs in the first sentence, or the second).

So my first draft of the urban fantasy story is done, and I have technically completed the edits on my hard copy. I have brought all but the last chapter to share with my writer's group, but as I was editing chapter 15 and 16, my question became this: was chapter 16 even necessary?

It basically acts as a resolution chapter. Everyone who makes their living in the mortal world, returns to the mortal world, with a few extra people in tow, the reader sees what happens immediately after they return and then a short scene a few months later.

It's one of those chapters where I think it isn't really strong enough (as is) to end a novel, but it answers enough questions that it might be needed anyway. I wonder if hinting a little more at what's to come in a planned book 2 might help, but I don't always like that 'hand rising from the grave so you know there'll be a sequel' motif. and in this case, assuming I get an agent and get the book published--well, much as I'd like to say, "Of course it'll be popular enough to warrant a trilogy or series" I am also conservative, read: self-deprecatingly realistic, enough to know that it might be my only one, or at least, it might take a while before I get a second book published. So the first book should be self-contained, satisfying enough that readers enjoy and want to read more, but not cryptic at the end to the point where the reader is left frustrated as they wait to read book 2.

Anyway, since this is meant to be a writing blog, I hav now blogged about writing. Reading Neil Gaiman stuff always helps. I'm finally starting to read actual books again, not just manga, although I'm starting small, with a Gaiman short story anthology.

Um...that is all.



(I really am bad at endings, I'm surprised I've ever finished a story because that always requires an ending. Maybe all my endings are really bad. Gah! No I can't think like that. Maybe they need work, but they aren't bad. There. That sounds encouraging, right? Heh. Okay, I'm done now. It's been a long day.)

Thursday, May 10, 2007

My meme-cherry popped

I do believe this is the first time I've been tagged for a meme. Keen!

(Everything is prettier on a new computer. Is that true or it is just me?)

So here're the rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

I don't know about the tagging others part--I still feel new to the blogger community and a bit like I don't know enough people to do that, but if you read this and someone else hasn't tagged you, feel free to claim I did and play along. Then let me know, I'm a sucker for learning random things about other people.

So me...

1. I just got a new computer and that gives everything a pearly rose-colored glow, much like sunglasses of the same ilk. This is actually the first new computer I've ever had--the other two were throw-aways, one from my high school that originally ran on DOS (but it was already 1999 or 2000), the other my dad got somewhere, about to be trashed. The HS one I got first, and it lasted longer than the newer one I got later.

2. I've been to the Ice Palace, the lone ice rink on Oahu, a handful of times. I have yet to learn how to ice skate. Although, this last time I had a fall that left me sore for two days, which seems like sme kind f progress.

3. If I wanted to, I could adopt the local kine pidgin talk, yeah? Cuz I been living in Hawaii since I was one keiki, so I one local. But even typing sounds odd, and saying it out loud sounds even funnier.

4. Sort of a corollary to 3--I am a miliary brat, but my dad retired after I finished 4th grade, and I never really considered myself a "military brat." I just use the term because when people ask how long I've lived in Hawaii that reply seems to come with greater, quicker understanding. But I've been out of the military, so to speak, or lnger than I've been a "military brat."

5. I am a creature of cravings. I like fruit and water, but since I don't feel like eating or drinking that, I tend to not have them as much as I should. I am trying to change that. It helps to have fruit like mangoes, green apples and korean pears, which my mom will offer me half of. She loves fruit. Lately, I've been craving pomegranate fru-tea ice blended drinks from the Starbucks-like 'Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf,' Pepsi, and dark chocolate.

6. When I was in kindergarten, my favorite color was pink and I wanted to wear skirts and dresses to school every single day. By first grade, I hated pink and dresses and never wanted to wear either. Now I am okay with both, but only under specific circumstances (the right pink must be punk).

7. I can never pick a favorite anything, be it books, manga, music or movies, colors, food or v shows. There's always a long list of very general things because the things I like, I like a lot (Neil Gaiman can do no wrong in my book, same with Charles de Lint, and even out of the many Valdemar books Mercedes Lackey wrote, I couldn't pick just one). Although I will say that Belle from the Disney version holds a special place for me out of the Disney princesses. I think it's because she likes books, kinda looks like me (ah yes, we both wear our brown har in a ponytail, we must have been separated at birth) and isn't passive.

8. (I feel like the last one should be the best, but how do you choose a 'best random fact'?) I usually find it pretty easy to start something--here I'm specifically thinking of stories, but it can be applied to other hobby-projects as well--but it's always difficult for me to finish something. Now I've finished the first draft of this fae story, but I'm getting stuck on the edits, and I want to rewrite the ending because it reads like 'oh, here's the end, wait, we haven't resolved X, add a scene/chapter. tere's teh end, oh wait, what about Y?' But I am editing in a big way, better than I did for the first quest-fantasy story, so I feel like I'm making progress. Maybe with the next story I'll do an even better job of ending it. Let's hear it for practice.

Okay, so what does everybody else have to say? Random facts abound!