Monday, December 6, 2010

Nanowrimo: The Wrap-up

It has been nearly a week since november ended. I haven't thought about Dax or Darbin or Martella or any of those fools. Pretty much as soon as I pulled up my word count last wednesday and saw that I had passed the 50k mark haven't thought about them.

So, instead of writing I knitted all week at work and that made the time fly. Not fast enough. I took many hours off. I hate my job.

For the past few months i've been thinking more and more about the Nano story from 2009. Even though I'm supposed to be thinking about the Prequel and writing all these damned stories in order, but I suppose I really don't have to. I have to go check to see if the thing is completely typed up (Because i know the spaceship story certianly isn't) and then maybe i print it out and then take it to work and read it and edit it and put in the little things i've come up with to make the story better.

And when I get sick of it I'll move on to the next story. and sometime in the far flung future I will finish the entire ridiculous thing... I just have to do it one piece oat a time.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 30

Done. Bing. knew i could do it, thought i wouldnt be able to though. how long will it be before i come back to it? who knows. it needs stew time, lots of it. maybe forever because its odd and i don't know what i'll do with it, but i'm sure there's some good in there among the bad.

and as promised - the tally of stuff that went on!!!

final word count - 50,026
brand new bic pens completely depleted of ink - 2
cups of iced coffee - 7
gallons of Diet Coke - a million
bags of pretzles - 3
sheets of paper written on - 151
typed pages - 118
highest word count - 3,392 on the 12th
lowest word count - 802 on the 3rd
days played Red Dead Redemption instead of writing - 4
total chapters - 32
plot related epiphanies - 3
dropped story threads - 5
unfortunate events completed - 9.5
blog entries - 19
restarts - 1
pages of notes written - 6
topics that i probably repeated in conversation too many times just for the word count - 3
characters/cities given names with multiple parts just for the added word count - 4

big sigh of relief. we're back to normal life after this, or as normal as it gets. tonight as a celebration i will have sweet potato quesadillas with my favorite cousin and start to panic about christmas just around the corner.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 29

i should have written more at the coffee shop today, but then i wrote myself up against a wall and i don' t know what to do with this new information.

oh well 2000 words to go and i'll do them when i'm doing laundry tomorrow.

plus tomorrow's final blog post will include an exciting tally of all sorts of things that went on in this past month.

are you excited?

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 28

almost there. almost there.

and i say that in my head the way River Tam says it when she's leading Jayne and her brother toward the back exit out of the hospital -- i say it like a crazy psychic 17 year old schizophrenic... because i'm not just almost to the end of november and the end of the words, but i'm also near the end of my sanity.

we'll see which one i reach first.

just under 5,000 words in 3 days. i think i can get there.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Friday, November 26, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 26

its almost over. i havent blogged in a while, though i have been working very hard on getting my words written and then typed and counted. its hard. i have no momentum.

and lemony snicket was the pep talker of week four. it made my day, even though he advised me to quit because it just isn't worth it. but do i listen to anything he says??

i only wrote 1800 words yesterday. on thanksgiving when it was super slow and i probably could have written 4000. but i took my knitting with me and so i didn't actually write much.

so i can't take my knitting to work today. i only have 4 days left.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 21

i realized yesterday when i got to work that the day before, the wonderous day of 1500 words, i had finished the day midsentence. that's pretty funny. i remember i had even left the notebook open next to me most of the night in case i thought of anything else i wanted to write, but i couldn't even finish that sentence.

yesterday i did 2600 words and they all came pretty easily and i forsee the same for today. the next section of the story is coming pretty quickly and the end is approaching almost as fast as the end of november (i'm trying not to panic about the fact that after november is december and i have not done any christmas shopping. at all.) but that means that my goal to have the story end at 50k words, rather than run on and on after the goal may be a realistic one.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 20

i wrote 1500 words yesterday. 1500!! i just got stuck.

i told the boyfriend that i can't not make it because if i don't then i just feel like i've wasted an entire month not doing all the other things i should be doing. yeah i'll have a good chunk of story out of it, even if it isn't the 50k, but i could have written it more slowly with more thought and less crazy crazy craziness.

at least i have the last two days of november off work so i can spend all day finishing the last words once i get there. i hope it doesnt end up being some ridiculous number that i'd never be able to finish, even in 2 full days...

Friday, November 19, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 19

my head hurts and feels a little foggy and i fear that my writing today will suffer.

daily suggested word count is up over 2,000 again. boo. hopefully i can get almost 3,000 the next three days and make a better dent, like i did yesterday.

i have reached the point where my hand hurts all the time, not just after writing for a long time. damn the pain of longhand.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 17

i forgot to type up the few words i wrote while i was at the laundromat yesterday, so they've simply been added to the number i wrote for today at the coffee shop.

my weekends are difficult to write because there are so many other things i need to do, but at least my daily suggested goal is under 2,000 now and as long as i can get at least 14 pages done every day at work then i'm doing more than i need to.

Most interesting point of today: my finishing total of words is exactly 25,000. i'm 2 days behind the halfway point, but i stopped exactly at halfway. weird.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 14

i was not nearly as productive yesterday as the day before, but i did manage to write more than my adjusted suggested daily total. that part is awesome.

today i have to design a fairy highway. i had hoped to have an awesomely weird dream to pluck things from last night, which i did, but it wasn't about fairys. it was about zombies. shall i place some zombies on the fairy highway??

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 13

i did not blog yesterday after typing up my work from day 11. i was too irritated with myself at the slow pace at which i am moving.

but then i went to work yesterday and wrote nearly 4000 words. i actually had to stop because my hand hurt and i just couldn't write anymore. hopefully i can keep up this pace because my suggested daily wordcount is now up to 2000 and that is terrifying.

but i do really like the way that really tall bar on the chart on the website looks. it looks productive.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 10

i wrote a lot today. wahoo. i did not do the recommended amount per day, but i did more than yesterday.

i finished the introduction of Starfang, the fox. i'm about to come to the part with the house built up out of the field, which should be fun. that was inspired not by the drive i took last night, but remembering, on last night's drive the drive i took that one night and i saw all the fireflies in the fields.

its too cold for fireflies these days, but perfect weather for scarves and wristers.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 9

Today i wrote!

i only wrote 900 words, but at least i wrote them. I also managed to get over the 'what the crap is going on in this crazy world i invented' speed bump. I drew a map and everything. Maps always help, looking at a map can sometimes tell me, just through land division and type of soil and water resorces etc, what the people living there are likely to do, how they will act...

i introduced a new character today too. he is the last of the list in my list notebook that i created in the prep phase. he's a talking fox. i couldn't resist a talking animal, not in a story like this.

Best part of Day 9: Realizing, as i type up my longhand, i seperate my contractions so i can have the extra word in my word count.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 8

i should really stop being so hard on myself, and the nano site, because my numbers are skewed. since i input the words the day after i write them, i am actually a day behind. of course, being a day behind is still bad.

i didn't write this morning like i thought i would cuz the boyfriend's phone started ringing and he got up and ruined my morning. bogus.

but i have never had to work this hard for a story before. the past two years i have been crazy excited and crazy successfull at getting the words down. This year i have had to force just about every inch of the story and i have been utterly fruitless - a word here which means 'i'm totally sucking it up'*

but today is date day, so i'm not going to think about it much mroe, and will think harder about it tomorrow when i have the day to myself to get stuff done.

*have been totally reengrossed into A Series of Unfortunate Events to keep my brain kid-friendly and i really do love lemony snicket.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 7

The Nano site is quite irritating. I'm distressingly below the goal line and the stupid chart tells me at this rate i will finish on Dec 14. screw you, nano chart.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Nanowrimo: Day 6

yesterday i wrote very little, and i fear the same for today.

i reached the point of not knowing what other story there was and got stuck. Usually stuff slips in as i'm writing and its unknown to me and doesn't really make any sense, but it is the beginning of a thread and i can pick them up and run with them.

so far all i have is Darbin saying that there isn't much money for clothes since the armies left. that's not really a lot to go on. my characters are being secretive and not talking to me the way they should. don't they know this is nanowrimo!? don't they know i have work to do?

best part about day 5: Writing the watercycle bit, which is a contribution from the dear boyfriend.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Nanowrimo: day 5

I will likely write today at work, and i didn't blog, but did write yesterday. i could have blogged after writing last night when i got home from work but my brain was dead.

I got almost 3,000 words which is my at-work average. I have nearly reached the end of all of the story that got built up while i was prepping all throughout October. So today's writing is the terrifying unplanned type and i never really know what kind of shit is going to happen in those instances.

Best part of Day 4: legitimately using the word 'queer'

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Nano: Day 3

i did not write at all yesterday. i thought about it, but i simply ran out of time. i wrote this morning though. went to the coffee place and did about 4 pages. nothing much really happened but i notice already that i am doing a good job of moving things along quickly, since my goal is to make the story be finished at the 50 thousand word mark. and since i am modeling it almost after a childrens story - though i may already be making it a little to heavy for actual young readers - i don't want to spend too much time laying out really complex crap in the beginning.



i have to go off and do stuff around the house. clean up the craft room i just rearranged, play some video game - though i shouldn't i should be writing more because i'm 800 words behind and the Nano site has all these new stats to tell you just how bad you're sucking it up. score.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Nanowrimo Day 1

I have not written here in so long, but neither have i written anything else. What with all the sock monkeys I've been making. I've had a cold, and ran errands with a friend, and had a halloween costume to make on all of my days off. besides i've been allowing my writing guts to rest before Nano. but now since i will be writing every day, i will try to write here every day as well... or at least as often i as i do write since i do take days off...

I was not nearly excited as i have been in the 2 previous years, but still ready to do it. I actually started at midnight while i was at work at the end of my shift last night. I wrote two pages.

I got to the coffee place this morning and read those two pages and started over. that's against the rules - i think - but it was all midnight-been-at-work-for-9-hours gibberish and i couldn't figure out how to continue out of the garbage to something new.

But whatever. It is a good story already. I wish i knew more 9 year olds so i would have something to base my very young hero after... I'm planning on rereading the Lemony Snicket books in this next few weeks because i really like the narration style and the narration is going to be a big part of the story...

Even though i'm a few hundred words behind for the day i am not worried. Its just the first day and i'm barely through first introductions.

Best moment of Day One: The wind whipped thunderstorm of a mother, and a peanut butter cookie.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Guh

Mr. Red headed english teacher sent me a text yesterday and asked me how my novel was. my answer was Guh, and i'm saying it today again GUH!!


ive been here at the coffee shop for like an hour and i just feel like i've been feeling. like i want to throw it all out and start over again. of course that's the most terrifying thought EVER EVER!!! i don't want to start over, because it is editing that is the worst part and i'll still have to edit if i write it all over again.

i just tore chapter eight up. not literally. i went through and deleted the SHIT and wrote comments to myself in the computer copy. i dont know why i did it that way, since i normally do all my rewrites by hand. i should have done it on my paper copy. guh.

and another farkin' GUH!! i had my whole post written but the internet at the coffee shop was acting up and wouldnt let me post but i didn't realize it wasn't saving either!!!

what was in the rest of the post?? oh! Dax. My auntie's newest character Janet inspired much of his backstory which i now know. Dax's mother's sister adopted him as a 2 year old while his real mommy went out to do her own style of crazy. When Dax is 4 Gina, who dax calls Chichi, got married and the longtime boyfriend who'd known Dax since he was a newborn and he too legally adopts Dax. His name is then changed to McKing - which explains why i didnt like the name at first, its not his real one. i wonder if the real one will come up. i wonder if it will be important...

when Chichi and her husband (Chad? Thad? Brad? - something close to dad...) have their daughter Dax is 5. the story itself takes place when they are 9 and 4. Dax knows his mom is his mom but doesn't give very much thought to how his relationships with his family are different than the other kids he knows.

i think his sister gets kidnapped. maybe falls down a well. (i'm thinking mother hulda from Grimm's). i'm trying to stay clear of any story line beyond that cuz that would be getting into cheating on november, i feel. i think as long as i have ideas enough to build a story out of a first chapter then i'm not going to far in the prep phase.

also i decided this story will be 50 thousand words. not i continue the 70 to 80 thousand word story after i finish the contest. i have been working a lot with short stories lately so hopefully i'll be better able to restrain myself.

alright. that's all. i missed my auntie mommy but i'll see her next weekend and i'll have a couple cupcakes and cookies for her and her girls. i just spent a crazy amount on fixins for halloween num nums. oh well. it'll be totally worth it.

i have to pee now.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Screw Waiting.

I was going to wait until tuesday to write this blog post cuz i could do it before i get onto doing my edity stuff when i'm at the coffee shop.

but i'm impatient and excited and i have a whole day of work and a hang out session with Auntie before tuesday. Nothing on tv except Back to the Future 3 and the boyfriend will be up in 45 minutes to steal the tv anyhow. football sunday. hooray.

I haven't written in a long time but it's not my fault. well, it is my fault but what with the getting ready to go to vegas, the going to vegas, and the getting over being in vegas, i lost 3 weeks somehow. but i feel i've been compensating, continuing to work. Scribophile for editing other peoples and definitely working on the Third bed (which is turning into a huge can of worms... at least the beginning is).

I also wrote that 600 word contest story that i mentioned. you can find that here: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=49720 Thank you to the Auntie who helped me tweek it.

Now, down to the exciting news!!

yesterday i was watching a movie - a screening for the birthday gift for one of my brothers. This movie was Ink. From the very beginning i was very into it. it's weird, both storywise and visually. A little bit slow paced but entrancing none the less. It was my favorite type of story. Where someone from this world is thrown into a different version of the world, where everything is familiar, but off kilter.

Stories like Alice and Wizard of Oz and Mirror Mask. A bit if Dr. Parnassus, and some Pan's Labrynth and even a little Peter Pan. So i was watching this movie that i will likely watch a thousand more times and i realized 'Why don't I write one of these stories, since i like them so much!?'

and my Nanowrimo 2010 Door was born. The decision to write this sort of story excites me not just cuz i get to write it but i will also be doing some 'research' - hunting down more stories just like those and watching the movies, reading the books. tough research.

I didn't come up with much yet though i knitted at work and thought all day about it. But i did find a name. I gave it to my Troubled/Troublesome boy in an offhand way because it had been floating around my brain since being tried on and put aside by the dude from the 3rd bed. It seemed to fit for the moment and i knew i could change it later if i had to.

and then i decided to just ask him what his name was. He shouted it at me, like i was his bad guy: "Maddox Arthur McKing"

And i loved the name, and i loved him and beyond what i've just told you, i know nothing about the story. I started a 2 page outline in my list book to put ideas on. I love it. so much i took a picture of it. the picture i accidentally named 'ggook' instead of 'book' cuz i typed one handed while i was rubbing my eye.


i can't wait to fill it up

Monday, September 13, 2010

6 days!!

maybe i should quit writing for a while...

i come to the coffee shop and can barely edit a page, though i think i should actually take the draft to work again and reedit it because i haven't enacted anything that i've written down. i'm basically just rewriting. its getting better, yes, but its tedious as well.

saw this quote on scribophile:

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter. ~James Michener

made me smile. i totally get it.

but even at work i have a hard time writing. It took me days to write the last apocolypse story and it's only like 8 pages long. the new one, about the windmills coming out of the fog - well, i drew a map of what the windmill farm looks like.

maybe i'm worn out. maybe i need a break. vegas trip will be a break, except my grandma told me about this writing contest for a short story. 600 words. not too big. it's due the day after i get back so i could totally do it while i'm there. how cool would that be to write a story with a bein'-in-vegas-flair??

again i wish there was a button on my belly that i could push and it would all just spill out of the printer (i wish i had) in my head. easy peasy...

i think my slump stems from The Third Bed. I wrote it and i liked it so much. its like when i read the Robin Hobb series, or Marjorie Morningstar and i didn't want to read anything ever again. i'll get over it. i always do.

Monday, September 6, 2010

happy Labor Day!!

it has been some time since i posted. why? cuz i havent been writing much. or maybe i have and just not felt like blogging about it.

i have been working on adding events to the apocolypse stories. i have 5 now, though only 2 are finished.

i finished up The Third Bed and stalked Authors Den watching the stats for 3 weeks as it rose and fell to and from the popular romance stories. I am still depressed that i wrote it because i want to write it again.

i really want to write more about Him, of the story, because i know so much about him that isn't even hinted at in the that little glimpse of his life. but i dont think there is any reason to do it so i am leaving it alone.

i joined Scribophile.com and just finished my first critique. once i earn enough karma i can post my own stuff to be critqued. wahoo.

i have to go for a walk now. and then to the laundromat and finally home to finish those damned Running Blind dammit dolls that i was already paid for and i want to just finish already... especially before i go the Vegas. i don't want them waiting around my house for me to get home. i need to be rid of that project so i dont feel so bad about not working on them and doing something else instead.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

so it turns out...

i was right to write the don't think about it story. i finished it at work yesterday and it definitely could be longer, but it is actually quite nice as it is.

the funny thing is, i never was able to come up with names for either my main characters. i complain constantly about not being able to name completed stories, but coming up with character names is actually rather easy. i chose a first letter from the alphabet that i haven't used in a while and then start putting random other letters after it, coming up with quick fantasy names.

but there was nothing for these two. so i wrote the entire thing without a name for either of them, expecting to figure one out when i'd finished. but i got to the end with only one confusing bit where it was hard to determine which 'he' i was talking about, but i got that sorted during the retype. so we're going to leave them nameless, because i do love them that way.

and the funniest thing is, i knew the name of it from about halfway through. i'm calling it The Third Bed.

this story is an anomaly. no character names and a title to boot. taking it to work today to edit. perhaps. we'll see how the day turns out.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

oops

today i started writing the story i'm not supposed to be thinking about. i really tried so hard, sure i did! this blog wasn't around last year when i had the wonderous idea for the spaceship story and i thought 'yeah i'll save that for nanowrimo'. i tried to save that one too, oh the desperation in my attempt... it started to fester behind its door so i had to write it out as fast as possible.

well this story wasn't exactly festering, but i had been peeking in on it just occasionally when my mind would wander on a call at work and i wouldnt realize that i was being drawn by the chimes. what i saw happening though, was not a full on developed story with a plot or anything, just these two people in this dark room making conversation. it was about the people and the story was not developing to involve the lives they lived outside this room. saving it until nano might have been a good idea, but i think i would prefer to hope another door appears in my mind in the next month or so that has 50 thousand words behind it just ripe for the taking.

i didn't actually get very far because it has been insanely busy at work lately. my bet is the heat. its keeping all the old folks inside so they don't just fall over dead in the streets. in all honesty, i wouldn't much mind. it has been so busy that i have trouble not FREAKING THE FUCK OUT every other call. it is so busy that we are not getting time between calls to chill and to chill is to stay focused at craptel.

for the next 4 weeks i told the boyfriend i would not be coming home early in order to have 2 big checks right before the vegas trip. but i came home early today and he yelled at me and said 'i knew you weren't going to make it'

but i clarified that that starts tomorrow (but did not point out that the last hour of my shift i took off today is technically tomorrow). he bet me i couldnt make it (giving me a period day if i need it) i took the bet. the reward is sexual favors or a home cooked dinner. you can ponder over who gets what amongst yourselves.

i know i'm totally going to win because when he bets me i don't lose. like that time he bet me everything in his wallet i couldn't beat him at bowling. the score sheet is still on the fridge.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

nothing much to say...

but i have gotten into the habit of blogging after i edit at the coffee place. I got to the end point where i just couldn't go on but i still have some coffee left and i don't want to walkk jut yet.

everything i edited was off the top of my head today, and makes the story better. it was one of those clumsy sections that i never really liked, not even after i edited it. when i go through it next time i'll be sure to look it over closely but i think it will be good.

played video games with the boyfriend ALL DAY yesterday. i'm for serious. but it was fun. i like gaming with him. especially when it involves teamwork, which we can be hilariously bad at.

i don't know what to read tomorrow at work. maybe i'll type up the 2 other apocolypse stories so i can edit them. i've had another one of those instances where i read a book that makes me want to read nothing ever again.

omg. i just had a massive heart attack and hyperventalated and my head exploded while i was peeing my pants. i googled the book, looking for a link and found a picture!!

and the picture led to the fact that the book Marjorie Morningstar had been made into a movie with Natalie Wood and Gene Kelley and now i have to stop at blockbuster on my way home from walking so i can watch it while i sew dammit dolls.

watching this movie may be a bad idea, but with actors like Natalie and Gene, even if its not true to the story it will still be a fantastic movie, just like though Jane Eyre wasn't really good with the wimpy whiney Joan Fontaine, i still loved it and I fell in love with Orson Welles because of it. I heart Rochester (Mr. Weenie face).

but watching this movie may also be a good idea because it will get me over my Marjorie hump, either way. then i can get back to The War of the Worlds which has far too many notations on the bottom of what words mean. seriously. i know all of these words.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Artemis

that damned door in my head!! its like an old todash door, off its hinges and echoing chimes through the entire hallway. it makes me woozy and i have to force myself to concentrate on something else in order to not be sucked in, because the monsters beyond that door will devour me.

in order to keep myself distracted from idle thoughts about the new story snippet mentioned in the last post and supposedly forgotten about, i have been working on the series of short stories that i'm just calling the Apocolypse stories (Though i should go back and make sure i didn't call them something else earlier... note to self...). They will include the coffee maker story that i wrote earlier as a writing prompt. So far i have 3 additional stories that are linked, though not directly. One has been sitting in a state of edited limbo, and i may have even mentioned it before. I'm calling it Artemis cuz that's the main characters name. easy peasy titling there. The two additional stories are written but not typed and both sort of fun. i'm really getting a feeling for this world.

yet i still hear the chimes...

Today at the coffee shop i have edited Artemis and i'm gonna post it on AD since i haven't posted anything there since i finished Shade and Shadow. I cleared the stats for that once chapter 5 hit 150 and the others were in the high 200's. i've been watching them still while they're not new anymore and its funny the way numbers 2, 3, and 5 have so many more views that 1 and 4. i suppose those are the best chapters, though i like 4 better than 5. the foxen is more interesting in that one.

so here's the link to Artemis: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=49069 now i have to leave the coffee shop cuz i've been here forever. It took nearly a million years to edit that thing. Plus i was distracted by a chat on Facebook... it happens.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

you know what's coming up?

National Novel Writing Month. i know that its really 3 months away but i'm going on vacation in a little over one month and by the time i get back it will be nearly october and october, with all of its cool weather and pretty colors goes by so quickly. and then it will be november and then i will be expected to write 50 thousand words even though i haven't yet finished any of the novely things i have begun.

but if i won 2 years in a row, why oh why would i not try again for a third year?

so i've been pondering on it, but only a bit. i knew i should probably write something NOT AT ALL connected to the crazy storyness i have going on right now. it will make my life easier and saner. if i want to connect it later, so be it, but for now it will not occur in my existing universe.

and today i sort of came up with 2 scenes that will be my seedlings of story. i built a door in my brain and behind it the story will grow but hopefully not so quickly that i have to start writing it before nano - or that i have too much of it figured out before november arrives and i feel i can't legitimately use it.

its one scene that leads to the next. One is not nearly as interesting or fun as the Next, but they're both important. Next was inspired i think by the scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when Sundance sits in the shadows and tells Etta to get undressed which totally turned me on, even when i was a kid... or maybe it was just robert redford. or maybe those two things are interchangeable.

so i'm excited to write these little glimpses and to find out where else they will take me come november. but i'm not going to think about it any more until then. and you shouldn't either. ready, set, stop thinking!!

Monday, August 2, 2010

i heart coffee

today i didn't really edit so much as watch videos on youtube while at the coffee shop. in the end i did get about 4 pages of thickly edited stuff done. i think it was actually pretty productive work since most of the edits i applied i made up on the spot rather than going by what i had put in the pages. This has been happening more and more frequently since the whole beginning part is different and i have to modify everything to compensate. le sigh.

i have also been typing, in the mornings while watching gilmore girls and full house, the rest of the spaceship story. when i organized i went into my word document to see if i had ever finished the dastardly chore of typing up my handwritten shit and it turned out i hadnt. im doing it cuz i have to, but the thought and writing process has continued to develop and i'm typing stuff that isn't exactly true anymore. sometimes i change things, but mostlly i 'm not even reading what i'm typing. just 'staying on the clip' as they call it at craptel.

but i have been pretty consistant with all of my work, working when i should - even if i have to force myself to do it instead of the fun stuff like cleaning my apartment. that's what i'm doing today. joy oh joy. but at least i get out of my walk and the laundry. cleaning will be enough exercise and i'll be doing the laundry tomorrow. so i'll clean in between playing video games today...

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Movie with the Boyfriend

we got Shutter Island from netflix a while back and it has take us many days to find time to watch it together. we get 2 discs at once and a lot of times its one for me and one for him and we don't even really need to watch them together. but we did get to it, after i made pasta salad. we didn't watch it too late so that i got tired, but we did wait until after dark so we could turn the lights down and be stunned by our big (though he wishes it was bigger) widescreen tv.

so we watched it. and i liked it. i heart Leo and Ben Kingsley is one of my new favorite actors. when we got to the end the boyfriend said 'that's kind of what i figured was going on' and i realized that I had watched the entire movie without a single hunch about what was coming next. I feel that sometimes i dont need to read anymore books or watch any more tv just because i know how to build stories.

it was sort of nice to just watch the whole movie with my brain turned off. get to the end of it and be mildly surprised and pleased with the effect. woot.

now i'm going to go start to sort through to store my writing. the only way i can rationalize doing this before cleaning my craft room is that doing so will free up a shelf in the closet.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Meandering Thoughts

The other night I was laying in bed waiting to fall asleep and thinking about the great Stories because they are never far from thought, no matter where i am. I was thinking about how much yet needs to be done and going over and over the things i want to change not only in the prequel, my main focus right now, but on EVERYTHING. I thought to myself, 'maybe i should just scrap the whole thing. yeah, that sounds good.'

i then fell promptly and completely asleep.

that, of course, was a psychotic half asleep decision and i of course am not going to scrap the whole thing. but i could. oh i could. instead I have been attempting to become more organized. I added tags to my posts, though i haven't gotten through all of the old ones yet. I want to be able to find easily all the posts for each story. I am also going to sort through the piles of first and second drafts and filled notebooks and label and put in envelopes and box up what i don't exactly need, but cant exactly throw away. Of course i have to clean the craft room first. damn my lazyness...

You know what I learned in a meeting at work?? Apparently there was a study done that showed that the color purple is the color that is least offensive to people receiving critiques. Green is the second least offensive. Purple is more expensive to produce, and my work doesn't care about us THAT much, so all of the supervisors, leads, and captioning coaches (me!) got a green pen to do such critiques with.

When i pulled the green pen out to go do some coaching yesterday i noticed that there are none of my favoite opaque white bics in my bag. Those are my writing pens. I have editing pens and doodling pens in my bag, but no writing pens. And i've wondered why I haven't felt like writing at work lately. So yesterday i did write at work.

the monstroscity has been big on my mind for a long time and the one main part that has always bothered me, even when i had considered the thing "finished", was the reunion between Anka and Edonith. My first vision of that had been filled with an angry mood. I felt like they should come back together in a fight. that's how the first and second drafts came out, but even then i didn't like it.

in my editing i had noted to myself that it wasn't quite right. that i needed it to be more 'magical' was the word i used. So i re did it. and i liked it, but it wasn't yet right.

i have realized since writing the prequel that my problem was in the fact that i didn't truly understand why they had seperated. now i know and i can bring them back together in the exact way i wanted. Neither of them has given an inch in the feelings they had when they parted, but they had missed each other completely while they were seperated.

and writing my new perfect vision of this one scene has anchored me once again to the fact that i can't just scrap the whole thing. that would be absurd. i only wish i had a printer on my head and a button on my belly. i could push the button and out would come the whole story, complete and perfect, because editing sucks!!

and finally, speaking of editing, i finished chapter 6. i made sense of the crazy tri color highlighting fiasco and wrote a post it about how i need to rewrite that section. rewrites are not what the coffee shop is for so that will come later when i go through after i'm done editing and start to tackle those big spots of red text i have highlighted throughout all the chapters.

see what i mean? so much to do.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

i can't even title blog posts...

today was just another coffee shop day. i decided to do 3 pages but instead i did 5. i had to stop at 5 because i saw 6 which has 3 different shades of highlighter on it and, of course, no notations about what any of those colors mean to me. screw you past sara, screw you.

that will have to be an enigma for another day, another cookie. cuz this one's gone.

Monday, July 19, 2010

I'm behind

totally behind. instead of getting up at 10ish like i planned and getting stuff done quick before heading out to the coffee shop to edit, i slept until 11:15. i got those magnets listed on etsy and sold and shipped and ended up here at the coffee place at nearly 1, which is when i usually leave. its just after 2 now and i'm headed out shortly.

i worked on chapter 5. i decided, being behind and sort of cranky, to only do the first three pages of chapter 5. They were also covered in corrections to the point that i felt a bit overwhelmed. but then when i got to the end of those three pages i was like 'eh, i can finish them'

so i did. rock on. chapter 6 is either wednesday or next monday depending on how my week off goes. we shall see.

Monday, July 12, 2010

The End of Shade and Shadow

I posted the last part of shade and shadow this morning before my two lady friends came to town to take me to my late birthday lunch. Knowing I wouldn't have time to go to the coffee shop today to do the final edit I did the bulk of it a few days ago, though in the shower before I posted I came up with one little thing that I felt needed to be changed - so I ended up going through the whole chapter again just to be sure everything was the way it needed to be.

And then I went to Author's Den and started loading everything into the posting format and I started to get the worst butterflies. It was crazy my gut was just full of nervous flutters. I didn't feel anything like that when I posted the first parts but this is the END. The end is the last part. The end is never the most important part, but it is the last thing you remember. and since this was such a short story and I've been getting good hits on it on the site i certianly didn't want to disappoint.

I didn't want to write a Stephen King ending. (btw, I LOVE the obnoxious King endings - not bashing a thing here!)

What I hope most is that my method, my format is not as visible to readers as it is to me. But that is the same as anything you make yourself and put out into the world. The only thing you see are the bad points because you are so familiar with damned inch of it. But it was my first attempt to write a story to fit a format and I simply do not want the ending to be anti-climatic or just plain stupid.

I don't believe it will be an obvious outcome, but also not unexpected because i do love a good paradox. Good does not win out over evil in the end, no one really wins anything. No one really wins anything ever. the circle just keeps turning...

Saturday, July 3, 2010

The Full View

This post is specifically for any new readers coming from Author's Den. I will be posting a link back here from the last chapter of Shade and Shadow, but in a way I would really like to put a lot of this stuff down too. Rehash it for myself because it always clears out cobwebs, new epiphany sprouts in the idea garden and the like...


Shall we go chronologically? since that is the way we like it best AND it starts with Shade and Shadow which is where new readers are coming from and future me will be promising information!!


A Study of Shade and Shadow


Enna and Eillim are old characters and not so much characters as Alter Egos. If my mother had won my name would have been Millie, and my aunt always wanted to be Anne. One night names were written backwards and suddenly we were different people that we masqueraded as on a writing site where i'm sure everyone who knew us, knew it WAS us, but it was just so fun.

E&E faded into the background for a long time, until i watched Gray Gardens and also probably saw Practical Magic in the same span of time. I am a fan of sci-fi, and that is what i write so i turned these practical real world crazy women based loosely on my aunt and myself with thick influence from all the ladies in the movies mentioned above into witches. I wrote E&E into a story which you will read about later - The Spaceship Story - and they were fabulous. i loved them so much that i edited that one first draft chapter over and over until it was top quality while the rest of it hasn't even been typed up into my cpu yet.

My aunt texted. She said that she had run across the phrase "Analysis of Shade and Shadow" and thought it should be a title for a story i could write since i am notoriously unable to title a damn thing. It instantly inspired me to write a short story... i knew exactly what about. Starting with a title, which i modified so it wouldn't seem so scientific, (btw i love bloggers autosave as i just accidentally closed my window!!) i ended up creating a very specific plot layout, with an entire EFFECT in mind. It was really interesting to build something that way, when i usually just let it flow and see where it takes me.

there's all sorts of fun little anecdotes about the story i could tell you but i just don't have the space, but you can probably find them spread throughout other posts, if you care to read on. But i really did like creating a religon and faith based mostly on cataclysmic events in the land the people lived on.

The Prequel

"Named" as such because i am writing it second, after the Nameless Monstroscity, which comes next. I am currently working through revisions on this story that tells the story of Anka and Loki in their early life, their meeting and Anka's struggles to leave her old scary life behind. it explores all of her early relationships and introduces my oldest favoritest characters to each other. I had originally included much of this story in the Monstroscity but it became exactly what i called it. It got too heavy and i decided to go back in time and tell it in 2 parts instead.

This one is interesting to write because i already have an end point in sight. I have to keep in mind main plot points from the second story so that key things link up, and I also have to keep track of all the things i have decided to change in the future to fit better. Interesting and frustrating. and daunting. I love this story very much because i love meeting younger versions of my characters, as i have just reexperienced with E&E.

The Nameless Monstrocity

which is little by little getting smaller and better. Though i haven't worked much on it except to write countless post-its with ideas of changes and additions and removals.

This story introduces Daniel Mccaffrey who is my show stealer. every time i introduce him into a story he takes it over as his own. i believe he is the reason the monstroscity got so large and i found it so difficult to include Anka's back story. I was too busy with the forward story. The forward story of what actually happened in Anka's past and also setting the stage for Daniel's future. Like Shade and Shadow i think it deals a lot with religion and god and in a lot of ways it is how i view higher powers. I didn't plan it that way when i was writing it, but when i finished it i saw that there WAS something i was actually saying - rather than just making up a story.

The Spaceship Story

cuz it spends much of it's time on space ships. i'm a star trek freak. i love firefly and the bbc show red dwarf and there's a little bit of each of them in my characters - as well as influence from a million other places in other ways. This i started as a short story with the intention of only introducing the crew of the Orbiter so that i could use them later with something i wanted to do with Daniel as he searches for his sister - which is his main goal throughout even the first story.

But then i actually introduced everyone to daniel and suddenly there was more story. Daniel stole the show and I did, in time, realize that this was a good breaking point between the ending of the Monstroscity and the beginning of The Sequel. though he doesnt really need it - egomaniac that he is - it develops his character further and makes him more mature for those later events.

I got stuck halfway through this one - totally didn't know what to do. So i started The Connector for Nanowrimo and the ending for this story developed at the same time. The 'foe' of the two stories are the same and writing the connecter enabled me to figure out how to finish the Spaceship story.

The Connector

Chronologically this one actually begins sometime during the prequel - and it is sort of a stand alone story - taking place in a different part of my universe, under a different government and everything. It involves the story of Carrie Mccaffrey, Daniel's sister, who disappeared when she was 16. she is now going by her middle name - Jo - and has been a captive of the same individuals who appear in the spaceship story as i just mentioned.

In a way i had an end point in this story in mind as well. I had already had little epiphany images of Daniel and Jo's first reunion, as well as some of the things that would happen as he went through his search... but other than that i had no idea what was going to happen. Thought it was a Nanowrimo story i nearly stopped halfway through when i saw where my antagonist was going and i didn't want to finish it. i liked all my characters too much to want to do the things to them that i was about to. It was sort of the hardest story to write, but in the same way Turinax, my bad guy, may be my favorite bad guy of all time. Though that's a tough call. I really love Jubal Early.

The Sequel

i have been planning out this one since i finished the 3rd draft but as you can tell, the sequel is no longer the second story. I can't call it anything else until i name it for real because then i won't know what i'm talking about. This story takes place about 4 years after the monstroscity, perhaps about a year after the spaceship story. It brings Anka and Daniel together for his search for Carrie and this is really the last story i have a solid plan for.

With carrie comes Spencer and i think he may have been what i was working towards all along, which would be coincidental if i could only tell you the story!! for a long time i thought it was Ronan, Anka's son, but i don't think so anymore. Stuff like that happens sometimes. I once wrote a whole piece where Anka dies at the end... it turned out it wasn't anka's scene - i just hadn't met the right character yet...

Artemis & Buddy

Buddy the coffee maker from Coffee Companion es-245 and Artemis from a yet unnamed and unposted story exist in the same post apocalyptic world, though i don't have everything worked out yet about what i want to do with it. I believe i want to write a bunch of disconnected short stories that in the end introduces spencer into the world that he'll save... or not... we'll see

The Spencer Story

All i know is i think i want to tell it in first person - whereas everything else is in 3rd. I've got little idea nuggets but gosh i've got so much to do i should just stop thinking about it.

I should also stop typing cuz this post is crazy long and no one is ever gonna read it anyhow. but if you have gone through my entire epic layout and are still interested - holy crap. also, look around some more, and for god's sake encourage me. I think i'm a bit bogged down!!!

Friday, June 25, 2010

8 days

in 3 days i will be 26. in 5 more i will be sitting at a craft fair hopefully selling everything i have made and brought with me. I will eat a whole bag of pretzels and probably drink my body weight in diet coke and have a full day of girlie fun with my two favorite girls in the world.

I finally got my first comment on Shade and Shadow on Author's Den. I have been watching the stats closely to see how many hits it gets every day but I can never be sure if people are reading - or just clicking through. I click through, but not before attempting to read what I'm looking at. There are a lot of people on Authors Den who don't give a shit about formatting or editing. If you give me a block of text or too many passive verbs in the first paragraph I move on.

but a comment means it was read. And she said she was excited for the next one. The next one was meant to be posted on this coming monday which is my birthday day and i will be headed back home to hang out with mi familia. so i went to the coffee shop today to edit chapter 3 so i can post it first thing in the morning monday before i head home.

back to the stats - because i had more to say on that subject... chapter one of the story was the most popular in the fantasy catagory for a while, and that totally rocked. I think it must update weekly, or maybe bi-weekly, but as of yesterday chapter 2 was the number one and chapter 1 was number 5. I noticed that after chapter two was posted the stats on 1 started to go up even faster. Chapter 1 has been up longer so it has more hits, but chapter 2 is slowly creeping up behind it in hit totals.

i wish i would have been making a graph, cuz that would have been cool to look at. but i hardly have time to shower and breathe with all the crafting and craft fair preperation i've been working on. I haven't done much writing at all, though my mind is always working through kinks in one story or another. I am regretting that weekend 3 weeks ago where i spent most of the time playing video games. I'm such a fucking slacker sometimes!!

Monday, June 21, 2010

monday monday

edited shade and shadow part 2 and put it on the internets. link!! http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=48458

it didn't take very long at all and as i reread i feel sorry for the readers cuz its a nice cliff hanger Lost style - where nothing was really revealed and you have to wait a WHOLE WEEK to get to the next part. HA!! i realized just after i shut down my computer at the coffee shop that i should have also gone through chapter three because next monday is my birthday and there will be no coffee shop for me cuz i'll be doing the birthday thing. so i will have to get that edited so i can post it first thing monday before i leave for home.

anyhow i have to go for my walk now and then do laundry and then do clown pants and somewhere in there i should probably find something to eat cuz while functioning on coffee and diet coke makes you type really super fast!!!!! it does not keep you from dying.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

strange things that are happening...

this is probably going to be entirely un writing related...

1. i have been dating everything 2007. i cannot come up with a logical explanation for this behavior. '09 would make the barest amount of sense but what the hell is with 07? i can't even remember '07 due to the monotony of the years since 05 when i met the boyfriend. hardy har...

2. i am totally in love with Wil from the gas station. he works the 3rd shift spot and i go get a soda from him after work and today we talked about star trek. now that i think of it, its not really all that weird. i'm always in love with the boys who work 3rd shift and supply my coke... diet coke, i swear.

3. i have been singing the lyric 'Jennifer, Jennifer, you asked me to be true, what can i say? i found someone new. dobedobedo...' for days. it is from the movie boys and girls which is full of all sorts of fun quotes, but the only thing that has stuck since my last viewing has been the breakup song. this is the boyfriend's area that i am encroaching on - splurting out lyric of some random song at odd times of the day...

4. i've had meloncholy eeyore face for 2 days.

that is all. the boyfriend has finished his golf video game and we're to watch the rest of Defying Gravity which is one of those awesome shows that shouldn't have gotten cancelled - especially since they kept flash forward on the air...

Monday, June 14, 2010

Since my last post...

here is a list of things i've gotten done since my last posting:

1. ate a lot of bacon

2. played a lot of Dragon Age instead of writing, crafting or walking.

3. I took Shade and Shadow to work and did a final edit on it. It didn't take very long at all, and I was also able to edit the short story I had written the day before

4. I wrote a short story, as i just mentioned. It is linked up with the Coffee Companion story. I have decided to write a collection of stories from different points of view on the world where this unknown disease has created zombie like creatures. It ends with the famous (at least in my head) line 'my name is spencer mccaffrey, i'm here to help' which is one of those things that pop into my head and a whole freaking story is created out of it

5. I brought Shade and Shadow to the coffee shop and put the edits in and posted the first chapter on Authors Den!!! I am going to post the rest of the 5 chapters over the next 4 mondays and I really do want everyone in the world to read it. so read it: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=48370

i don't know if there is anything else worth mentioning. i have to go home now and i am supposed to make clown pants, but i think instead i'm going to watch a girlie movie and make a windchime because i just dont feel like sewing... there is a craft fair coming and i'm nervous excited and wish there were about 6 more hours in the day so i could craft more and write more, because the writing has been lacking latey. sad.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

its done

shade and shadow that is, and not the whole thing, just the first stab at editing.

and here i was thinking that i hadn't yet finished the revisions.

i bet i even blogged about it.

i just cant keep a single thought in this pretty little head...

Sunday, May 30, 2010

the nameless monstrosity

which it turns out isnt so monsterous after all. i only thought it was because that was the first time i'd told such a story, or any story at all for that matter. After a few more years of such serious writing i have learned that thats about the right length.

i took it to work yesterday because i wasn't sure how well i would be able to get into Shardik since the last time i tried i was unable to. Well, i didn't take the real thing to work, the current version, rather the printed copy which i printed out to edit. I knew that it would not be exactly what i have as a 'finished' work on file. i more or less wanted to just go through it and make notations for myself of what things i need to change due to progressions in the prequel.

first of all, i made scanty editing marks on these pages back a few years ago when the Monstrosity was my only project. i hope that i did better while reading through it on the computer. not that it matters anyhow because i also found that i must rip it nearly to shreds. oops. i guess i should have written the first story in the first place like a good little author.

and now of course i am terrified of how much more work i have to do. mountains and mountains of work. blarg.

and it's hot. who wants to work when it's hot??

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

A Momentary Block

I sat at this table in the coffee place and ate my peanut butter cookie and stared off into space for a good half hour today with a block that wouldn't break. I just didn't know what to do with this stewpid chapter Tew. And then it all worked out. There is stuff missing that needs to be written, and whole sections in the typed copy that have been colored red so i know they still need to be edited, and the whole thing is choppy and stupid but its all IN THE RIGHT ORDER!!!

and that means i can move on to the old chapter Two which i believe will now be four. And the old chapters three and four have been completely decimated, pulled apart and tossed to the wolves and now there's just bones and a little fluff of fur caught in a tree branch. gross.

And i've been thinking a lot about the Monstrosity lately and i think it is really pushing me to get the prequel done. because the story i wanted to tell was the monstrosity, and it was the one i told but now i realize i TOLD IT WRONG! and its OUT THERE... being wrong. i don't like it.

I watched the finale of Lost last night with the boyfriend. boy oh boy. I kept saying i didn't want to watch it because i didn't want it to end. Same with the last 15 pages of a really fantastic book. dont wanna read them. I really really liked the way it ended i do believe that the writers DID have the ending in mind when they started. all the stuff that happened in between is pretty inconsequential and they could have easily told the story in two seasons and without a Polar Bear, but that doesn't mean they HAD to. And would we have loved it as much? no. Because in the end it was a really great story about people.

I had lots of crazy dreams last night as a result of watching 4 straight hours of Lost before bed but the one thing that is sticking with me is a line repeated three times in the end. After the protector gives the candidate water to drink from the river.

"Now you're like me"

that's one of those things that is so short, and has so much and so little meaning and i wish that I had been the one to write it...

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Been a while

it HAS been a while since i posted. but i haven't been doing anything special. i have been editing the prequel (not last week though, i got sick and totally didnt feel like it) I submitted the coffee maker story to that newsletter but i haven't heard back yet. I have scrolling through Shade and Shadow and working through some errors.

yesterday i worked a little bit on the jamie/petra story at work. i am also now reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and... well i never really was proud to be a white (wo)man but its not getting any better. In Margaret Sartor's memoir Miss American Pie which i just finished, a loan from Auntie Mommy Dearest, she read the book in 1976. when she finished it she put it in her diary: "Finished Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I think it changed my life but it didn't exactly improve my mood."

yeah, that's about right.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Vacation is Over :(

This morning i finished up the first revision of Shade and Shadow. I had wanted to use it to submit to the main street rag's novella series. Turns out it is too short. I pondered writing the rest of the story, Eillim and Enna's second encounter with their gods, but this occurs after much of the rest of my stories. Their savior ends up being a boy who is as of now a newborn. I think for him to show up and rescue them without the reader having any idea who or what he is would seem almost contrived and confusing. So I won't write it.

or maybe i'll still write it and then just let it sit until it is ready to be used. Because I know all about little baby Spencer and what he is and what he's meant to do. I can write it for me. I like writing.

So next week it will be back to the Prequel. I'll let Shade and Shadow sit for a little while and do the final review and then start putting it up on AD.

gotta go to work today. I'll finish Graham Greene's The Comedians and I'll have to decide what other book to take. What do I feel like reading?? or do I feel like writing??

Monday, May 10, 2010

Long Weekend

got back yesterday from two days in minnesota with the Boyfriend's family. One of his brothers has graduated from college. Wahoo. I now have three more days before i go back to work and I'm pretty excited.

I spent the morning at the coffee place working on editing the Prequel. Things are moving along pretty well and I'm happy. I'm beginning to worry again that this attempt to go back in time and then catch up is not exactly what i want because of the length of pages i have between the two. but i have learned that, while editing, length is a difficult thing to gauge. When you spend an hour and a half working through 3-6 pages of writing those pages seem like they're longer. I'm just going to go ahead with what I have planned and continuously remind myself that i can copy and paste and move things as needed on the Third trip through the story after the next stewing period. Wow. that was a really long sentence.

in other news, there was a flier up on the bulletin board at work for submissions of fiction to a newsletter or something and i think i will be submitting the Coffee Companion story that I did as a writing propmt. I ran a comb through that one yesterday when we got home and patched up quite a bit of confusingness. I went through one more time this morning and I think that it's good to go. I must also remember to update the Authors Den version with the modifications so it doesnt suck so bad :P

off to make wind chimes now.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Actually Feel Productive

because there's a difference in saying you're going to be and knowing you are going to be. i always have a week or two where i promise it before all of a sudden i'm slamming shit out all crazy style. my productivity tends to last quite some time too. I'm sure that i could spread it out evenly so I'm sort of productive at all times, instead of this rollercoaster ride of intermittent laziness. But if I'm not going to ride the rollercoaster, what the hell is the point of being bipolar??

so i've been at the coffee place now for more than an hour working on the infamous Chapter Tew . I got through three pages of corrections. that may sound like not a lot, but its quite a lot. One of the things i love the most when i'm writing is to look at a full page of corrections after i've made them. i love the possiblity of it all.

but do you know what my least favorite thing about writing is? i think you know. it's looking at that page of corrections, so thick you can barely even read what you wrote. There are times when it is simply easier to retype the entire paragraph as i read it off the page, then delete the old one because there are so many cross outs and addition carrots and long long lines of words running down my super thin margins.

I will probably work on the story a little more this afternoon there are some sections of writing i did to add into Tew that can be typed up. i also have some wind chimes to plan out and some to make. i want to get some stuff listed on etsy so i'm going to take pictures for tomorrow. I am now going to take another look at another writer's chapter. i got a message on AD wondering if i'd go through his chapter and look for inconsistancies, those little thigns you don't see yourself and spell check doesn't have a problem with.

i already went through once, but i just want one more look before i send it back to him.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

My, What a Blustery Day...

Just moments ago I was going through some other Prequel related files I'd forgotten about and compiling them into the New Chapter Tew. then i reformatted it for editing (.9 inch margins all around, 9 point gray font, 1.5 spacing) and saved it on my external hard drive thingie to take it over to the other computer to print.

then i scrolled all the way to the bottom and was reading the point where the story would connect back up to Chapter Two and it's fricking perfect. All the stuff in Tew introduces the main character as well as the three people who care about her and teach her stuff and attempt to make her a little less reckless. chapter two starts up with her being injured, again, but not out of recklessness. we move into Edonith professing his love to her finally, and then on into the real conflict of the story, the truth of her past.

whoo. i'm getting more and more excited. now i have to take a shower, but i might not, since i took one late last night and it is far too windy for a curly hair day. i can just do pigtails with what i've got and spend the next hour playing Lego Star Wars... yes, i think that is what i will do.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The New Chapter Tew

The New Chapter Tew (man i crack myself up) is the name of the inbetween One and Two and it combines chapters unthought, forgotten, unknown, and stolen. At this point it is roughly the length of two chapters but there are three spots where things need to be written and filled into. plus there's the matter of the whole thing is lacking in transitions between one little story and the next and some stuff might be a little out of order since they were all independant works with no real knowledge of where it was going to go so no knowledge of whats known and what wasnt...

i'm sort of excited. there are three big parts that need to be written and that means i get to WRITE AT WORK which might be one of my favorite past times and i think that even if i was a huge famous writer who didn't have to have a stupid telephone job i might still work at the stupid telephone place just so i could have that very interesting structure of unstructured writing that allows me to be all adhd all over the place and still get a ton of shit done.

So i'm gonna write those three parts up and then i'm going to print the whole what will probably be more like 3 chapters long thing out and then edit it and then we can move onto the old chapter two. but after all that i will, could, might go and work on the Shade and Shadow cuz as i said i want it on AD first and i still have crazy excitement over everyone reading it and did i tell you i was reading the bible about Jacob and Esau because they're opposing twins and i thought it could be relevant AND that my favoritest cousin of all time is their mother and in the story as well (in a way, there's this whole 2 sides of a doorway thing which is all old insidey joke shit from the Bekah and Sara days...)

now i'm going to go down to the lake and go for a walk. then home and i'm going to try to get my butt in gear and list some of the stuff i made for the art fair on Etsy so it's not just sitting around being useless and it's actually on its way to being sold.

Aaaaaand... breathe...

what the hell is with all the run-on sentences?? it must be all the coffee... mmmm... coffee...

Monday, April 26, 2010

Sleeping With the Band

I wouldn't, not the band i'm talking about. it wouldn't work. it'd either be really REALLY gross, or i'd get bitchslapped by one of the girls who do the rest of the sleeping with the band... but what annie said might make it into my Petra/Jamie story where there is a band, and Jamie does sleep with one of them. it cracks me up, the whole story and all the drama. love it.

I went to the coffee place today and spent a few hours not editing. I looked at the point i had reached in Chapter Two of the Prequel and i was unsure of what i needed to keep and what needed to be changed due to the fact that chapter two will most likely be 4 or 5 now. I had made this decision but had jumped over all that stuff that was going to come between and expected to be able to edit it as if all that stuff was already written.

yeah, that is not going to happen like that. So i went through and i typed up all the stuff that's been freehanded randomly of all those things that fill the space between chapter one and chapter two. Chapter Unknown, Chapter Stolen, and Chapter Unthought have all joined the ranks of crap that needs to be edited.

But the whole dilema about what order to put all these things has been solved. I have a semi finalized outline on one of my ever present post-its (and i say semi finalized because two lines are highlighted with a question mark and a swap arrow between them. i just love how wishy washy i can be.)

I don't have all of the parts of these intervening chapters typed up as of yet, so that is my next goal. after that will be to put them together into the correct order and begin to edit them. Then, we move onto Chapter Two. once i get that far all of my placement issues will be solved and i may start to post on authors den from that point on.

And on the topic of Shade and Shadow -

i know i said i was letting it stew, but it is such a simple and short story that i don't think it really needs it. the fact that i wrote it with a format, a grid on which i placed all my pieces just as i wanted them from the beginning, there isn't any story missing. I don't have to figure out motives or work out the inaccuracies that grew as the story developed.

it took me 2 days at work to go through and edit the whole thing by hand. (and that isn't even cheating on my promise to work on the prequel with more focus, since i can't work on the prequel at work). i think over the next few days when i'm sitting around between things to do i will start putting them into the computer copy.

i am really crazy excited about this story and i want everyone in the whole world to read it. and i most definitely want it up on AD before i start posting the prequel. So i will be working on more than one thing at once. so what's new??

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Hello, Prequel. I have missed you...

went to the coffee shop today and had my Au Lait and listened to some nice classical music and worked on editing chapter two of the prequel. I only got about halfway through because i did a lot of deleting and rewriting now that i sort of know that this isn't actually chapter two anymore. i could take some things out that we'll already know. Plus i had a bunch of my vauge post-its saying 'be more interesting' or 'change this to match such-and-such'. whatever. it was good. i got stuff done.

Plus i got a new book off the book exchange shelf. i left behind my second copy of Tale of Two Cities and Vol 1 of the Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and took Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. yum.

I have also been thinking a big about the Nameless Monstrocity and I think that soon i won't be able to call it that anymore. I already have 2 pages of notes i've put down of things to remove, or change now that i have the prequel backer. the monstrocity is getting smaller even as the prequel grows. pefecto.

Now i'm going to start watching Lost over from the beginning as i work on my friend's dvd cases. wee!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Breathing

i'm sighing in relief as things are coming to an end. The craft fair was yesterday. it was unimpressive. i sold one print, which doesn't even equal the money i paid to prepare, but you know what that means? i just have everything done for a real fair somewhere else, don't i?? so i am going to start looking for fairs and that makes me excited.

I also finished up A Study of Shade and Shadow's first draft two days ago. I first assumed i could do it in less than 5 chapters which was my original goal, but i actually went over by just a little bit, sticking on a short epilogue that is not exactly an epilogue.

my plan now is to let it sit, because it needs that stewing time. I don't think it will need long because it is only 5 chapters and there is really nothing missing from the story aside from some names i haven't invented yet, and some descriptions of places that could use a little more umph. After it has been revised I am intended to put it up on Authors Den in 5 installments (the fifth chapter is short-ish so the epilogue will be tacked on there).

When that happens I believe I am going to take down the chapter eleven excerpt with Enna and Eillim from the Spaceship Story. The events of Shade and Shadow occur much before even the Prequel and i believe i am going to start to present my world from the beginning. Even though Enna and Eillim are new (though old) characters and not directly related to the main story line i can use it as a starting point to start revealing everything else i've done, in a sensible chronological order.

About Shade and Shadow, specifically, it was great fun to write. It was interesting because it was not the way I usually do things. Starting with the title changed my entire approach to the story. It became structured, 5 chapters, the first 2 introductory, the middle 2 half and half views from the perspective of each girl (and i made sure to start chapter 3 with Enna and chapter 4 with Eillim). There are aspects of repetition between the girls' stories, though i tried to make each journey as individual as possible.

My thoughts concerning the title itself were what created the gods the girls travel with. A Shade can be seen as a thin, ghostly thing (or whispy and invisible) and a Shadow, as a dark, vicious thing of only anger and violence... But both Shade and Shadow are dark places that light doesn't go. I wanted Svanir and The Foxen to be different, but the same.

And the development of the religions surrounding the gods!? oh, gee was that a ton of fun to fabricate!! I started with the gods, sure, but i allowed the civilization i placed in each locale to create the religion. I caused a great cataclysmic natural event that changed the course of life's development and let them adapt their relgion around it. They did me proud. The Foxen makes me laugh, though I feel like i need to add something of a character trait to Svanir. That is one of those flavors that will come out in the stew, though.

I'm going back to the prequel now. I will most likely head to the coffee place on this upcoming weekend and work through chapter two revisions and perhaps start sorting out pieces of the Unknown chapter into their proper locations. I also get to clean the house this weekend, since i've been neglecting it... And the Lost Dvd cases i'm making will get their start... i love my long weekends.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Yesterday's Dilema

has been solved. i didn't get any input from anyone but my boyfriend and i talked it out. we decided it would be best to just send each girl with her own god. and that's what i was going to do, until i sat down just now and started writing enna's half of chapter three and it wasn't Svanir that appeared before her, but the Foxen (or the Foksen, i may change the spelling cuz i like the way the second one looks). i was surprised, but then again not.

i think this is the way i've wanted it from the beginning, just didn't realize it. i have a vision of Enna being grabbed by the god that is with her, and Eillim getting no assistance from hers and that would put the whispy and invisible god with Eillim out of plain old logistics. Whispy and invisible gods would not be able to grab their followers. (BTW i will not once use whispy or invisible to describe Svanir in the story, but i had a ton of fun writing it three times in two sentences yesterday. One of my biggest reading peeves is words repeated too many times in one paragraph, on one page, in one chapter... i will probably be using whispy and invisible until this story is done here in the blog, because it amuses me.)

i have a new dilema today, whether to go back and forth between the girls more than once or tell enna's whole story, then eillim's. i think the dramatic points would be more dramatic if you don't know the truth of where they are, but it will be easier for me to write them bit by bit with flashes back and forth, so i can give it a try that way and then use the wonders of highlight and drag to fix it up once it's typed.

i'm glad i'm not a writer before computers; though also sad that i exist after them. conundrum.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Wahoo, Chapter Two!!

It took most of the day of half writing and half watching tv while i waited on the frantic-writing cramp to fade and coming up with the next paragraph.

i had to stop at one point to draw two pictures. wanna see them? they're of the bad guys. not really bad guys. The Foxen is the god in Eillim's religion and Svanir is the god of Enna's. I couldn't see them right in my head to describe them so i needed to actually see them.




now, the foxen is missing a hand, and svanir is a little more dowdy than whispy and invisible, but a whispy and invisible thing is pretty easy to describe. they're whispy and invisible. it's mostly the tail of her's that i'm concerned with. Also, he's bigger than her. he's totally huge.

ALSO. i love matt's wacom tablet: http://www.wacom.com/index2.php which allowed me to draw these babies up in my sketchy crazy way, but still erase the crap i screw up, totally unavalable when i'm scratching shit out on paper with my black pen.

i love drawing in black bic pen...

tomorrow, if i feel like writing, i will be heading into chapter 3. Enna and Eillim will be heading into the actual fight to save themselves and each other. it's gonna be fun.

**UPDATE** 4/12 9:02ish pm

i just went out to get some stuff for the craft fair this weekend (!!!) and i was planning ahead to chapter three, which will be the first one with the mirroring each character's view that i talked about in the beginning.

i want to send their gods with the girls into their trials, etc, but i'm suddenly wondering if i shouldn't send eillim's god with enna and vice versa. They are both afraid/discomforted by the opposing god on a very basic, intuitive basis, but since they are sisters they also accept that other diety as truth...

i'm wondering if it'd be more interesting to have them traveling with the opposite god instead... anyone who reads this give me an opinion, for serious...

The Study Continues...

Yesterday i wrote the first chapter of a Shade and Shadow yesterday at work. i was so into it that when i finished (17 pages, about 3,000 words) i left work cuz i didn't want to be there anymore and have to read a book about some story that i didn't write myself.

I have trouble jumping into the next chapter all at once, i usually let everything i wrote the day before gel until the next day. occasionally there are long chapters, or short ones, but i notice that the ends of those chapters where i write them at the beginning of a new day are generally pretty thin as i hurry to get to the next chapter...

its just like the ends of most of my first drafts. I always get wishy washy at the end knowing that so much is still up in the air as far as the story goes. Things change while i write so the ending isn't always what it seems until i go through in revisions and notice all of those little bits that i didn't see before...

anyway, i'm on to chapter two today, i hope. i generally have trouble writing on non work days simply because the environment is different, and there's a tv and internets to distract me. My notebook has been sitting open to the first page of chapter 2 waiting for the inspiration of the first line...


Sunday, April 11, 2010

A Study...

i've decided to start work on the study of shade and shadow. It bothered me all day yesterday. not bothered exactly, but i could feel it growing.

It will be my longest short story. I think it will take about 4 chapters, maybe 5. I know that i will need one chapter for what character setup i need to do for Enna and Eillim, the planet they're living on and a little about their family life, since that was never much mentioned in chapter eleven. they are going to be young enough that their parents are still around so i have to figure out things about them as well.

i want to do the next chapters in half and half (and what i'm figuring are going to be kind of confusing) views of the two sisters. I am not sure if this trial they are going to have to go through is going to take me 2 or 3 chapters to get through, but i already know the how and the why. Now i just have to come up with some evil creatures and their fun trials and tests that will put the girls up against themselves and each other.

I know how it ends, that was the second little image i had of the story, but i'm not sure if i need a final chapter after it to grow them up a little further toward what we know of them as their later 'ageless' selves in the spaceship story. that all depends on what i see at the end when i get there.

look at me, with a plan, and an outline too!! i don't yet have a deadline (That's a concept i don't grasp well and have trouble enforcing on myself) but i do have a title.

weird...

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Because my aunt sucks...

... i now have a story forming in my head. she has offered another title with no story to go with it and i wrote it on a card and stuck it on the outside of a door in my brain. behind the door the story is forming, but already there is a single image, a single exchange that has been the seed of my epiphany garden.

the title alone told me that it would be a story about enna and eillim, my very favorite characters. especially since i revamped them into sci-fi witches. Shade and Shadow Analysis was what she offered me and i saw those crazy twins standing there and i just knew. I have since changed the slightly scientific sounding title to The Study of Shade and Shadow, which is still totally the same thing. (i love poetic license)

my first images of a story are always my favorite part of writing. And i still remember what they all were, for all of my stories. Sometimes they don't even make it into the words, but i still know where it all came from and can see bits of it in every chapter that follows.

for this one, for this odd story's title came first i see Enna and Eillim as kids, maybe in their early teens. They are sitting on a big blanket where all kinds of... stuff has been laid out. They're casting a spell, but they are dubious and regarding all of the yet unknown tools hesitantly.

Eillim looks at her sister and says "are you sure about this?"

Enna shrugs one shoulder, "...Um, i don't know." and then she picks up a bowl and dumps whatever is in it into another bowl.

its interesting to me in so many ways. Enna and Eillim, as i have them written, are very very different when it comes to their magics. at one point in the chapter eleven excerpt of the spaceship story Eillim reacts strongly, negatively, to a charm her sister has made. The fact that, as children, they started out working their magic together is something that i would very much like to investigate to learn more about them.

Also, if I were to have written this on my own, based on what i know of them in the future, i would have reversed their dialog. I would have had enna asking if it was safe and eillim being nonchalant about the whole thing. but since it came to me the way it did i know that whatever does happen after this affects the way they react to each other. That too i would love to investigate.

and the best part or worst part is that the book i was reading yesterday and will finish today is called Garden Spells. A witchy woman book between sisters which is both inspiring and fun. The door on which i have taped the words "A study of shade and shadow" is rattling in its frame, just begging me to open it up and take a walk. I'm having trouble resisting

...and that book? also on loan from my aunt. it's all her fault... sara's gotta learn to focus.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Welcome Home Elenore!!

I got my computer back this past monday and she has returned to her place on the floor under the coffee table. I have also jumped directly back into working on the prequel and over the past two days I have edited the first chapter. Wahoo!!

now, still i worry about the organization to come, but i have a good feeling about having the anka falling off of a cliff episode as the first chapter. i found this bit when i was revising and pulled it out into another word document and suddenly it all felt right. The few paragraphs had simply been sharing too much information, too quicky and would more easily fit elsewhere.

Where it goes, i'm not sure, or even if i keep it intact or stick it back in at all. But pulling it out did keep the chapter focused on the action. The explanations can come later.

right now i am working on typing up what i call Chapter Unknown. i wrote it after i had revised much of the first draft, with no real sense of exactly where it would go. I figured somewhere around chapters 2 or 3 or 4, or perhaps split up into chunks and slide into the right places.

So i'm giong to watch CSI and type and then i have to go to work, where i am reading another Ariana Franklin mystery. I love Dr. Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar...

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Writing Prompt #7

I got a request to make a custom scarf wrap for a woman who wanted to give it to her husband for his birthday. It was short notice but I was all like "Wahoo!! Custom Order". On the third day of knitting my arms hurt and this was a little facebook exchange with my aunt:

Sara: doesnt wanna knit anymore!!! *whine*
Anne: not even with "amazing" automatically striping yarn?!?!?! i'm sure your hands are toast, though.
Sara: don't speak to me of yarn! the bane of this weekend. i have to be done knitting today cuz tomorrow i gotta make a wind chime. so i need to only have to do the border and the buttons....
Anne: "the border and the buttons" you speak in short story and book titles, you, who has trouble naming her writing! your next prompt should be to write something entitled "the border and the buttons."

So, this writing prompt is a story, about the thneed called The Border and The Buttons. It stars the woman who purchased it, the husband who will be recieving it and children who were so very excited and requested status updates daily when they were told about it.

I know nothing about the family beyond those facts, not even how many kids there are or if they are boys or girls. The characters I wrote were created soley due to the fact that it cracked me up that the real kids were so excited to have a real live thneed (i know i would have loved one when i was a kid. i loved the lorax). I could see them finding uses for the Thneed when dad wasn't around and mom borrowing it when she could get away with it.

here is the authors den link where the full story appears: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=47493

and here is an excerpt.

When the Thneed arrived for him, straight out of one of my childhood’s favorite books it seemed as if it should have been in his closet all along. Mom whispered the secret of Daddy’s birthday present to my sister and me a week before. We thought she must be lying. She found an actual Thneed? “A fine something that all people need?” Mama promised that it was Truffula free and that made me happy. I wanted to be in no way responsible for the devastation of yet another Truffula forest.

I believe my father was first impressed by the color, his favorite; red. Always there was some hint of red on him, in the stripe of his dress shirt with the stuck-out collar, a red tie under a green vest, or simply the flash of crimson when the cuffs of his pants rose to reveal his socks. His new Thneed warmed from a shiny bright red into a deeper, warm maroon and back again along the length of fuzzy looking fabric.

He did not understand what it was at first, and I too was skeptical upon first sight. My little sister was only 3 at the time and more interested in the cake waiting in the kitchen. Mom was excited, she was the only one who’d seen it, touched it, and wrapped it in pretty paper for Dad. I watched the length of two-toned red unroll and caught the glint of a silver button, of a red one, a maroon one, a black one. Eventually we would all have a favorite of the 16 or so buttons, but I was only beginning to see the possibility hinted at by these mismatched discs.

Friday, April 2, 2010

holy freaking epiphany!

today i had two gigantic epiphanies regarding the prequel and the nameless monstrocity. one right after the other.

they were so big they nearly hurt when they popped out of my brain. i wrote them both down on a post it and then stuck that post it... somewhere... i can't find it now but it doesnt matter. just the action of writing it down has placed it into my brain and the story has adapted around these new bits already.

they were actually nothing groundbreaking, there was also a fair amount of 'oh, duh' mixed in with them where i should have seen that nice little strand that needed to be tied to this other little strand that's been hanging loose for some time.

it may have been the 'oh, duh' that hurt worse than the size of the ephiphanies, but whatever.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

sometimes i'm such a tard.

today i realized that since my computer works i can have my dad email me files from it so i can working on writing saved there. DUH!!

but rather than having him email me the prequel i had him email me the first 6 chapters of Running Parallel that i had already typed up and partially revised. i was really not looking forward to retyping all of that, so now i have it and i'm so stoked.

i know that i have been leaving out some of the little revisons i'd put in the first attempt, even though for the most part i am putting back to the way i know it is supposed to be. my first draft is only ever really an outline for myself with dozens of thoughts and other sentences inferred between the period and the capital letter of the next sentence.

I'm going to spend some time tomorrow going through the first three chapters and updating some of the things that i may have left out, or liked the wording better... or whatever...

but not much time, because i got a custom order for a big scarf wrap for some lucky husband in nyc whose wife decided to wait til the last minute. i have to have it done by monday, so if i'm not around its cuz i am working until my hands fall off. but at least i'll have something to do while i'm watching Return of The King tomorrow.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Chapter Three!!!

yesterday after coming home from work sick i was very very productive and I finally felt like working on chapter three of the rewrite and getting it all nice and polished to get it posted on author's den. The first chapter is still on the most popular list, though the second isn't getting quite as many hits. but there's lesbian action in chapter three! *sigh* i very much love petra. here's a little excerpt:

Jamie and Petra nearly disappeared. We introduced ourselves as Kitty and Buttercup when we could get away with it. Before long we had shortened it to just Kit and B, occasionally Kathryn and Beatrice when we were asked for full names. Whether they believed us we didn’t care. We were wild and uncaring of anyone but each other. You can still read the story of Buttercup and Kitty in the photos and dozens of full sketch pads that still fill the blue-green case.

Petra had a nose for the travel, for the random cross country movement. She knew which motels would ignore our age in the presence of daddy’s shiny credit card. She knew which gas station attendants would sell us cigarettes, which clubs would let us in and which bartenders would serve us. We didn’t drink much, maybe one cocktail at the beginning of the night, but we weren’t there to get drunk. We were there to dance, and dance we did.

We had rules for when we were in the clubs, lots of them. We never went anywhere apart, ever. No one came to our room and we never went anywhere with anyone. We made friends most nights, and kept to ourselves others. We took pictures and heard our favorite songs and still danced to the ones we hated. The clubs themselves fade into a singular blur of music and motion and flashing colored lights. It was the same with the kitchens we washed dishes in and the street corners where we sat and sang.

Sometimes we’d stay in town a couple days and wait tables during the morning rush at the same gross truck stops where we went to get coffee after dancing all night. Occasionally we skipped dancing when Petra would convince me to play open mike nights. I almost always made good tips those nights, playing the music I knew best; music written by my brother, lyrics written by my best friend. People all over the country heard the genius of Eric and Tommy years before their band would become a common name on radio stations in those same towns.

There is a picture I drew of Petra in the suitcase of a day I don’t need a photo to remind me of. It was a nothing special day in some hot and dry state shortly after we’d turned back from the daunting rockies. We’d decided not to cross and head south instead and. She sat with her legs crossed under her on the folding table. She held Mansfield Park open in her hands and a cigarette burned between her fingers. Our clothes rolled and twisted in their washers and driers around us as she read from the book. I had been reading out bits and pieces to her while she drove, but soon she had been engrossed in the story. She now shared reading duty when we stop. She rarely let me drive.


And here's a link to the authors den page. http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=47352

i would chat about things, but i gotta clean the kitchen before i go to work cuz i left it a mess after i finished dinner last night. and i still have to get dressed, and list auntie annie's wristers... why can't i stay home and write all day???

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Writing prompt... 5?? or is it 6?

story first:

“Waves crashing on a beach always make me sleepy.”

He told me this once on a night long ago when a great silver orb hung in a starry black field. I rolled my eyes because he was always making these utterly useless statements.

“Do you pack your lunch or walk to work?” I sometimes wanted to ask him, hoping that it would be this useless times 100 sentence that would show him how his uttered words meant nothing to me or anyone.

Or maybe I’m just a big bitch, it’s possible, but I always think these words when sand grits between my toes and frothy waves crash against my ankles. Maybe that was his plan all along, to ensure that little bits of his garbage ended up in my mind. Then these crumpled bits would pop into my forethoughts and unfold themselves and I would be forced to think of him.

There are no stars this afternoon; I’d worry about this fair planet’s fate if they appeared as early as 2pm. That same silver orb is but a faint white blur behind white puffy clouds. Shells and fish bones and stones and frothy foam, all white. All white, but me. Inside me, instead is a thick, blurry darkness that comes from…

Where? I can’t say for sure. He may have had some useless phrase to utter were he here with me now. But he’s not and all I can do is walk paths up and down a strained and lonely beach and hope that my footprints remain when I head back. They don’t, and I don’t know why I bother to hope. Why it would matter one way or another if they were.

Is everything in life as useless as his stupid phrases? Maybe, or maybe I’m just being a bitch. Anything is possible, isn’t it?

So when I trip over a spiky seashell and catch myself with my palms I only have to laugh. Of course! My palms are scraped open from hard gritty sand and I now sport a stylish holey knee in a brand new pair of jeans. I turn and sit and brush myself carefully, favoring my bleeding palms. Gulls are flying overhead calling and careening. I brush at sand until I have revealed a seashell once home to some crustacean, but now tossed up onto this lonely strip of shore.

I listen to this shell. It is like shaking a developing Polaroid, a human imperative that really means nothing. A graceful, outward swoop of white shell reveals its shiny pink interior which is cool and gritty against my ear. I can hear my crashing ocean from both sides now, but in my right ear I hear a different ocean. In my right ear is an ocean that screams of my overhanging dark cloud. My thick blurry darkness, broadcast from a shining pink home, encased in white. Imagine that.

I wonder if he would have something clever to say about my fall, my bleeding palms and my torn pants. But I do know he would help me up and lead me home, make me tea when we get there and laugh with me all along our backtracked footsteps.

He is not a source for my blurry cloud, and his absence isn’t either. He won’t make it go away and he won’t make it worse. His stupid sayings make me laugh… most days. And those bits that he leaves crumpled in my mind? Not really garbage, I know I must leave plenty of my own with him and what one learns from others is never really garbage.

I pick myself up and tuck my toe-stubber under my arm. My footprints that show me how to get back home are gone, but I don’t need them. I already know which way to go.



what do you think the prompt was?? It was a little tough, but i am quite thankful for the 'find' feature in microsoft word because otherwise i would have been in massive fail mode. are you ready for it??

from elite writing prompts 10/22/2008:

No The.
Write a brief story in which you do not use the word "the" once.

hit ctrl f and give it a try. booyah.