Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Merry Christmas

you know what i got myself for christmas? dragon 10 and a usb memory stick. the memory is going to be for my pictures, of which i have a lot. I may later buy a second one to keep my stories on but i just wanted the one for now. i wonder if my compter will run any faster when not bogged down by all those damn pictures. and music. maybe i'll clean out my music too.

I've been working on the sequel at work but i feel like it's slow moving. I still can't find the binder or the final notebook for the spaceship story and i'm starting to wonder about it's existance in reality. maybe i just made it all up. it's in none of the places where things are or used to be. rar.

But one thing i did find as i read the first two notebooks of the spaceship story. it's something i realize time to time when going through old stuff i've written. I am a good writer. i don't always believe it but when i'm reading a story of my own getting engrossed and laughing and being surprised i know that what i'm writing is at least interesting.

can't wait to get my dragon program and get all the other stories spoken into the computer.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Writing Button

I have decided that my writting button lives in or near my uterus. when it was full of baby it was switched off and i had no urge to write a thing. not even a journal of being all full of baby. that would just been a journal of how crappy i felt and how much i wanted to not be pregnant anymore...

but now i'm all freaking over the place. I started to write the Sequel at work. which is hilarious that it's called the sequel. it's been in my head since i finished the first draft of the monstrocity in 2007! that's right four years ago. there's three stories now between them so sequel is a stupid name for it but i can't call it anythign else or i won't know what the hell i'm talking about.

but the sequel has become the culmination of all the stories. the end, i suppose. all the loose ends are tied up and golly gee, i can't remember what happened in the spaceship story. i knew that i was headed toward writing this in the last couple weeks and that's the reason i wanted to reread the connector... to get reaquainted with some of those loose ends and the overall story i'm trying to tell.

but now i recall that i have some stuff in the spaceship story as well. so i have to find and read that. most of that is typed up (i freaking need to buy Dragon for myself, now that i'm seeing how many things i havent finished typing and how little time i have to do so!!) but i can't find the printout anywhere.

and i know i have a print out. i have to. i'm pretty sure its in a maroon binder because i remember having the disucssion with myself about how i already had a maroon binder that had nothing on the cover, but no, it's alright because the other one is a skinny binder and i'll totally be able to tell the difference just by the size. i remember that conversation!

but i can't find it.

why is it i can never find anything?

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

What if I can't find...

the part two notebook of the Connector (aka nanowrimo 2009) which i don't have typed all the way yet?

it could be in the box down in the storage unit, but i left the notebooks with stories not yet typed completely out of the box on purpose.

i think my head is going to 'splode.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Scrivner

Do you know how awesome Scrivner is? I bought it after thinking about it for one day and knowing that if i bought it that day i could get the discounted rate as a preorder. it was a whim, but i'd been working so much and had so much money that actually shelling out 36 dollars on a whim didn't hurt me in the least. two jobs does rock sometimes.

but i haven't really had a chance to use it and the first time i opened it up and started typing in my nano story i wasn't impressed.

but then yesterday! i opened it up pulled up the corkboard screen and i started putting up index cards witi character names. all the characters. even if they're only mentioned once or twice. i've always wanted to be able to do this because i never remember character names and sometimes i think i reuse them or create something that's too close to something else./

And then i was looking at it and i seperated all those index cards into seperate folders for the story specific characters. and hten i was looking at the index cards and i started making piles of related characters.

So now i have these folders, full of neat little piles of index cards and more folders that are full of even more piles of index cards and the thing is i don't have to have any index cards. or folders. or neat piles. cuz the lord knows there ain't none of them 'round these parts. neat piles. that's a joke, right?

Today i took the connector (nano 2009) to work today and started to edit what i have printed out of it. I'd like to print the rest but i'd have to type it first. man i hate typing my stories. anyway, i got to look at the connector and revisit Sol and Jo and i'm excited to get deep into it and ad the characters in Scrivner and seperate the chapters for easier movement of story pieces and pile it all in neat little folders with index cards. i call it the Ankaverse.

and i'd write more, but the baby's calling.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Nanowrimo 2011: The Wrap-up

i liked doing my stats last year, so here they are again:

final word count - 42,625
average words per day for the 19 days i actually wrote: 2,243
total word count if i'd been able to type it up and seperate my contractions like i usually do for wordcount padding purposes- 43,636 - still not a win :(
times used the running gag of main character looking for his glasses - 15
pens used - 2 and 1/2 including a transplant of ink well into pen with a better ball
cups of iced coffee - 18
total notebook use - 11 pages shy of a whole 3 subject notebook plus 2 pages of printer paper
highest daily word count - 2,910 on the 17th
lowest daily word count - 1,304 on the 21st
most amount of words written on one page - 305
total chapters - 16
plot related epiphanies - 3
books read: the second half of Little Women and the first half of Catch-22
continuity problems - 2, both relating to the fact that furniture was removed from the apartment, but Vincent still continues to use it.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Nanowrimo 2011: Day 30

Failure.

and i'm alright with that. i'm only about 7,000 words away from the goal but with no time nor motivation to finish. i did not run out of story, there's still plenty there to write and to figure out. i'm excited to finish it and i'm sure i will... finish writing it that is... finish it finish it? well, i haven't done that to a single story yet, so we'll just have to see.

tomorrow maybe i'll remember to come back and work out all the stats of things and stuffs like i did last year, but right now i gotta do some work.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Nanowrimo 2011: Day 28

I think i'm looking at a failure this year.

I was supposed to write both today and yesterday just a little bit in order to finish, but i didn't. So now I have two days left and 7,375 words to write and only two days at work to write them.

And there's a good chance that i'm gonna call in sick tomorrow to work because i've got a cold and i'm pretty sure my scary red, puffy, runny, gross-ass face is what made the baby start crying just a little bit ago.

i'm crazy disappointed, but i'm also sorta whatever. i did just have a freaking baby and i'm not sure how i managed doing as many words as i did

then again. there are two more days left. anything could happen, really.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Nanowrimo 2011: Day 21

I did a small bit of writing with a free cuz i filled up my coffee card white chocolate mocha with mint at the coffee shop. only 1300 words and i'm still way behind. can i rally and come out a winner for the fourth year in a row? maybe.

or maybe not, cuz now the baby gator is crying and i can't even finish this blog post the way i wanted to. gotta go feed the little sweetheart.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Nanowrimo 2011: Day 16

I have fallen tragically behind. so much so that today when i entered my word count (2416) i didn't even manage to reach the line which i have never actually fallen below, only just met up with on my weekends off.

well, i took a sick day yesterday and stayed home with the baby and the second job and that video game i got for my birthday that i never get to play so i didn't write anything. i'm now an extra 2200 words behind and that means i have to make it up every day from here on out.

can i do it? sure, cuz i haven't yet run out of story. there's still a ton of good stuff waiting to happen.

also, i decided i might kill gracie today. which is sad. but i don't want to have him decide between gracie and sydney, and i might just kill the new one off so he goes back to the old one. cuz syd's just so sad!!

but who knows. we still have some time left to find things out.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Nanowrimo 2011: Day 10

Oh, its only the second week and it's getting harder. maybe it just seems to be national talk on the phone if you're deaf week and i've been really busy at work so it takes longer to write my 2200 words and i go bat shit crazy trying to hold onto a sentence through 20 some minutes of craptacular babbling.

But actually, on tuesday i wrote the most in one day that i had so far. 2449 words. then yesterday i was so freaking exhausted because of baby related things and i didn't even write anything when i was at work. i had to do it at the laundromat and then i only managed to do 1830 words. which is still more than the nano suggested daily word count, but still not enough for me.

and then today i beat tuesdays record with 2489. yeah, it's only 40 extra words but hey, a record's a record, right?

the story is getting good too. vincent is getting head aches and nose bleeds and tomorrow will be confronted by a disheveled and worried Charleston who demands that he finishes the books or gives them back...

Friday, November 4, 2011

Nanowrimo 2011: Day 4

What the heck is going on here? Not only have I been writing crazy fast (surpassing my 2272 personal daily word goal the first three days) but i've also had time to browse through the Nano forums which i've always wanted to be part of, but never have. And this is all happening while i have two jobs plus small baby child to deal with.

Its like the days got longer or something.

anyway. the things i'm finding in the forums! There's this: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/restlesslyrandom my profile page for Smashwords where i can get PAID for things i write and post if people buy them. And do i really want to be paid? no, i just want people to read my shit. Maybe it's because of Little Women... Jo's success that's got me all fired up to get things done and out there. cuz they need to be. the first thing i really wanna publish is A Study of Shade and Shadow. i just love that one so much.

Also, there's this which makes me weepy with delight: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php Software that you can use to sort and resort and fix long documents. Something i've been wishing existed because the prequel and the monstrocity are basicly a disaster. i would love to just put all the pages i have printed and scribbled and reordered onto a very large bonfire and laugh. Laugy a crazy lady laugh as i watch it all burn.

(Thank you Blogger for autosaving my posts! i almost lost this one!)

The story is running along nicely, i think. a character i didn't know existed when the book started showed up at a party i didn't intend for her to be in. I'm wondering if there's more to her than i originally thought. it would explain her restless and intrusive spirit. she really tripped me up today, which is why i wrote less than i intended. i'll get over it though. because i'm almost to the important discussion between Vincent and Charleston that i've been plotting for weeks. this is where the story starts to take shape. everything up until now has been setting the scene. i'm ready to move forward!!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Nanowrimo 2011: Day One

Wee Nanowrimo!!

i think i like my new job schedule for nanowrimo reasons. I no longer have to enter my day's numbers on the following day's stats because i get home before midnight. plus it's a slow call volume in the beginning of my shift so i was able to slam out 2224 words before my lunch.

I have to count the words by hand this year because i have no time to type it up when i get home and when i did that and saw that i was about 30 words short of my daily goal (2272. the site's suggested goal is 1667, but since i only will be writing 22 days out of the month i have a goal of my own) i wrote one last page and ended up with 2424 in the end.

And then i spent the last two hours of my shift reading Little Women. i never used to read when i worked the late shift. there just wasn't time.

if it's gonna be this easy this year i'll be so excited.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

zomg!

2 days, 4 hours.

i'm not ready.

thats a lie. i have a new 3 subject notebook, i have a box of my favorite bics, i have 2 pages of notes, and i have the whole first section worked out.

but its nanowrimo and im never actually ready.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Accomplishing stuff

I've been getting writing related things done, and that makes me happy. Whenever the baby is asleep next to me on the couch and i have a free moment i open up the prequel rewrite and add a little to it.

my brother had a dream and told me all about it and it will be the premise of my Nanowrimo 2011 story. he called it a rip off of the movie Limitless with <3Bradley Cooper <3 which i've never seen and decided to not see it until after i've finished my story. There is a similarity and i want to keep my nano story free of any limitless plots.

And this whole week i've had story bits and pieces swirling around in my head at work. i'm gonna take one binder or another with me today and see what i can do about working on something.

I've been reading one of my favorite trilogies and that always gives me a bit of inspiration.

Monday, September 26, 2011

The Man In Black Fled Across the Desert and Other Opening Lines.

~The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.
~Call me Ishmael.
~Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
~You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.
~Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.
~All this happened, more or less.

once again i must begin a post with the words 'it's been a long time'

And it has. but november is coming soon and i feel like i need to do a little practicing. And this isn't even me forcing myself because i actually want to write. Just a few weeks ago, after a mighty puking epsiode on my couch the husband said to me "have some wine, i'll take the kid"

so i had some wine and i sat down with The Third Bed and cleaned it up. I remember once before i went through that story and pulled out as many words as i could, and it seems i didn't do a well enough job because that's what i did this time again. I don't know what it is exactly that i did to it, but it came almost under a different light. There's something better about it now. it inspired me to keep going (and to drink more wine... or maybe that's old christine's doing...)

When i was still looking forward to my maternity leave, rather than back at it, i knew that i probably wouldn't have a whole lot of time for writing, or crafting. In the beginning that was true, but as i got better practiced i found that once in a while i DID have time for myself. to do my things. I've wanted to write this post a million times and it's funny that i'm writing it now that i've gone back to work (and kept my second job) and have so much less time than i did before.

But in just moments i will probably open up a new document and get a start on my rewrite of the Prequel. Yes. I'm rewriting it. Why? Because just like the Third Bed i see it under a different light and i just can't get it from what i already have. I know i can salvage much of it, but i just feel that i need a clean slate. I have my first words. I had so much trouble during the editing process trying to figure out what i wanted it to start with that having that first line just seems to open up the whole story.

And it's laid out for me under this new light, which isn't so bright. Not to say the story has become a dark one, but it most certainly has become something else...

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Some Stuff Done

Yesterday I sat down with my short story editing binder and the newest printout of the 3rd bed with every intention of editing it. I did a little work on it, mostly with my highlighter and arrows, moving stuff around.

And instead of continuing on with 3rd bed, I flipped through to the story called Elsinore Compound which is one of the apocalypse stories and edited that instead. Which was cool since i tried to before and just couldnt get very far into it. If i hadn't run out of ambition i probably would have also done the story about the Priscillas.

but i did something, and that's awesome.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Monday!!

today we're going to office max to get a new ink cartridge for the printer!! I am excited for this because i really want to print Third Bed and get to work on it but the printer is EMPTY! like printing the rebate thing for office max came out all light gray and barely readable...

I've been thinking about it and i'm really excited to work on it a little bit. i even have a page of notes and a post it filled with things i want to do with it. It mostly concerns with the begining in the lounge, probably because that is the place where everyone on Scribeophile told me it was pointless.

only they're dialog readers and they didn't realize the lounge is important because it is part of the construction of the story. if you take it out the whole mirror image effect to the first and second parts of the story totally dies.

but, i can make this part more interesting. I have all sorts of tips for myself.

Friday, May 6, 2011

A Task

I've thought of a way to work myself back up to it. I want to go back to my very first copy of Third Bed and redo my edit - with almost none of the suggestions from the Scribophile members.

I have really not been back since before nanowrimo but i only sort of want to go back. I feel like i got more critques on my STYLE rather than important suggestions on like story line, grammar, overall understandability. all they wanted was more dialog.

maybe some of them should read some Jane Austen, some Robin Hobb, Terry Brooks, even sometimes some Stephen King. books with huge paragraphs of delicious narration and dialog only when it needs to be there. that dialog thing really bugged me. i dont like it. i dont like writing it, i don't like transcribing it once its written. i dont like anything about it. i use it when i need it most.

I do want to put Shade and Shadow up on scribophile, even though i don't want to go back. but now that i know how people are i can ignore all their idiotic remarks and focus on the informative ones. But that's jumping ahead. first i must print my very first copy of Third Bed (I there must be a version of the original or as close to it as comfortable somewhere)... sit down with it and see what happens.

And i really do want to revisit those two characters. i hearted them very much.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Foundation

I'm dribbling back. I sit in my cube at work and wonder if it is even feasible to start over. Can I pick up the Prequel and begin again? Because I can do it better. Then just continue on, and redo the Monstrocity and... whether or not the later ones need to be rewritten is up in the air but once i get that far i can find out.

It's those first two that are like the gnarly loose teeth stories. And that cant be because they are the first ones. They are the foundation.

but i'm not thinking about it often enough yet, so i know i can't start yet.

I fear that i will never find the time now...

Monday, March 21, 2011

Jo & Sol

I have been thinking about Jo and Sol a lot lately and I have really wanted to work on editing my Nanowrimo story from 2009. It turns out i don't have all of it typed up yet... boo. But i'm on chapter 29 of probably 34 or 35 - enough to get a start.

So its printing right now. I have a binder prepared to hold it and i'm so ready to get back into the writing that i've put off, and ignored and missed so very much.

but i do have to go down to the storage unit and dig through the box of writing to pull out the chapters i didn't get typed. luckily i just cleaned the unit and i know exactly where it is. Then comes the tedious job of typing it all up, but i've got stuff to work on for some time before i need to really get that far...

Friday, February 11, 2011

I'm so sick!!

well, i'm actually just barely sick anymore but there was one bright spot. my laptop's cord recently failed. again. thats like the 4th one or something. All of my writing is stored on that computer and i had no way to get into it and so no way of editing or printing up anything for work-time editing. Even though i wrote that last blog post with every intention of working on SOMETHING. but i didnt.

since i stayed home sick from work yesterday i was here when the boyfriend's brother came over with his laptop, which is just like mine and i was able to use his cord to transfer all of my writing onto the desktop. score. so now my intentions will hopefully be followed through.

Oh! I did work on one thing though. I wrote a couple pages on the next story. i found the notebook where i'd written the first chapter or so on a pile of notebooks and i took it to work and found a little inspiration. moving forward. chug chug.

Monday, January 24, 2011

two months

i've had just a little less than two months off from writing and blogging. did it feel good? yes it did. did i miss it? a little... not much...

christmas was enough to think about in december, and a baby was enough to think about in january. another little hinderance will be added to my life of writing and crafting, but a cute little hinderance it will be. its already got a nickname after all, we're pretty attached.

But I can feel the writing coming back, peeping back. the vines and grasses and flowers are starting to sneak out under the doorways into the hallway of my mind. what do i want to work on? i don't know. I know i want a break from the Prequel, i just have to have it. I almost want to work on the Monstroscity, but that seems too close to the prequel. i really am writing those two at the same time...

so the connector? I would happily take it to work with me and edit the first draft that i have not looked at since i wrote it - nano of 2009! but a great deal of story has molded and reshaped around the truth of the tale so there would be a lot to do and i would find myself engrossed and be able to refresh myself to returning to the prequel monstroscity debacle.

and the fourth option... do i write the next one. the next to last one. I sort of like how i have written them all at once because i am able to mold one storyline into another and change things from one place to another if necessary. and since i cant seem to finish ANYTHING it is quite necessary.

to write or edit, that's the question...