Thursday, July 31, 2008

Day Four, and it's already noon

Bad writer.

I didn't get started as early as I should have, but I ate breakfast and had to finish something for work, so it's not -just- because I was lazy.

So, let's see. I started yesterday around 12,314 and endded at 13,557. A little over 1,000, but again, I'd like to do better. I had my writer's group yesterday and I sort of want to go over those early pages. They asked some good questions, but I don't know if there's anything that will have a major effect on what I'm writing now. I'd rather not go back and revise--this week is about new pages.

On a related note, one person asked, in a curious way, whether I might be hiding from my story. I think I almost understand what she means by it. I don't think I'm hiding from my story, but I've never written a story with a mystery bent, so I am playing with which facts to reveal when. And I want the protagonist to discover things like magic and werewolves are real as teh story progresses, not start him off knowing everything. That's no fun.

So off I go, to avoid computer games and editing, to try and write many more new pages. Hopefully. Theorectically. We'll see how it goes.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Day 3 and my love of sleep

I've been having trouble sleeping lately, waking up earlier than I need to and taking forever to fall asleep in the first place. Usually my night is punctuated with waking up at leat a few times in the early morning.

But back to writing.

I ended yesterday at 12, 314. So that was about 1,000 words? I now have too many numbers to remember which one I actually started at yesterday. In either case, I'm hoping to make better progress today. 1,000 is okay, but I was a little stuck and decided to play computer games instead of working through the issue. They're addictive. And not so mindless, so I couldn't play and think of my writing problem. And then I tried to go to sleep and see mahjong tiles in my head.

I'm going to try and get through the day without playing any of those games and hopefully I get more done.

And I was just reminded that I don't even have five consecutive days, because Friday I go up to campus to buy my u-pass and some of my books (I'll be fine as long as the total isn't over 500--that's what I get for transferring a bunch of funds into my savings account). I also need to order some textbooks online. Upside for one or two classes--I already have some of the required reading from previous classes.

Okay, time to write. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Day 2 of my week off work

Well, week off of my regularly scheduled work.

I was supposed to have a meeting yesterday, but it was canceled, so I started writing yesterday--granted, since this is my vacation time I decided to take it a little easy that first day--but now I'm really going to buckle down. Writing is the purpose of this week anyway.

So, yesterday I started somewhere around 9,500 words on HS, the story I want to finish as much as possible. I eneded yesterday at 10,431.

I'll come back and edit this post of the end of the day and we'll see how much further I've gotten.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Writing Progress

So I actually have to force myself to take a week off of work in order to get some significant writing, but I was honestly concerned I wouldn't be able to. Work's been busy, so I was going to give up on that week-long desire, but my wonderful and understanding employees encouraged me to take some time off, so I am forcing myself to take most of next week off. In the meantime, I've been trying to do some writing every day.

I haven't succeeded in doing so every day, but I am making headway. I guess there's just something about a song based on the Lady of Shalott and Kermit the frog singing "Creep" and "Hurt" that scream urban fantasy with werewolves and demi-gods to my imagination.

So anyway. ~waves~

Okay, I'm off to see if I can't finish these two scenes, if not this chapter.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Post 4th of July post

We barbequed yesterday. Well, I didn't per se--I spent my day on the computer, chatting with a couple of friends on AIM and editing. A few weeks ago I was on chapter 8, stuck there for the longest time, then I got through to chapter 11. This weekend (i.e. yesterday so far) I finish editing chapter 11 and ended my day somewhere just shy of the middle of chapter 13.

Today I hope to complete the edits.

I will have to go back anyway, though. There are a number of places where I left notes to myself in bold to double-check where character X disappeared to or see if I mentioned issue Y in an earlier chapter. As I'm editing I doing a little chapter by chapter summary for myself (not a chapter by chapter synopsis, yet), so some of those will be answered when that's complete.

Just one more way to give me a wide view of the story, instead of getting bogged down in the details of a chapter, scene, or paragraph.

In another news, for those looking for a distraction: Cabinet of Wonders is a website/blog that's really interesting. I found it some time ago and keep stumbling across it through various avenues, learning new tidbits. The most recent post has some beautiful pictures of the clock tower at the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Full of gorgeous pictures. Enjoy them. I'm of to get some more work done.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

You'd think this would be the feature...

But I feel like I don't have more to add to that "preview" from the day before.

In brief, I enjoyed these two books, "Night Life" and "Unshapely Things." Both had interesting takes on the contemporary world where werewolves and the fae walk the streets.

Night Life: The idea of the riots and the fact that the protagonist, Luna, is a copy who really has to restrain herself to hide her secret adds a nice layer to everything going on (as if, not only do I have to deal with this case and this and this, but no one can know this other thing, either).

Unshapely Things: Again, I like the main character. To deal with a world that's more than mundane, most protagonists in this genre, it seems to me (I could be wrong, so let's not hold me to certainty), have some form of power. In this book, he used to, but now it's about squat, and the people around him are right at the point where they don't really want to hear him feeling sorry for himself anymore. It creates a different dynamic between characters that I haven't seen so much.

All in all, two very enjoyable books, and apparently Del Franco's third book won't be out until late 2008 or early 2009, so I'll really have to draw out my enjoyment of book 2 when I get it.



In other news: I was sick yesterday. I'm still a little sick, throat a bit scratchy and nose a tad stuffed up. But I never had a proper fever (which woul leave me completely brainless and would be even more unpleasant in this humid heat) and I'm not as bad off as I was yesterday, so I'm off to work today. On the upside, if I can get through the next three days, we get Friday and Saturday off for the holiday.

In the past week or so, I got through another three chapters of editing, so I'm hoping to finish this round by the weekend. I've been mostly MIA this summer so far, so I'm trying to reconnect with friends I ususally only talk to via the internet. It's very good motivation to turn on the computer. Ah, but work beckons, as does the rest of my morning cup of coffee.