Thursday, December 19, 2013

Scribe and Kath

I introduced Kath, as a nameless, genderless character to an audience at Scribeophile.com, and it was very enlightening.  It was something I wrote  that must be connected to this year's Nano, but not only is it written in third person (spencer was a first-person story) but it's in the distant future.  ok, not distant.  only 20 years.  but still, it may just be wishful thinking.

either way, i mostly wanted feedback on the perceptions on Kath's gender.  i included little-to-no details, putting the audience in cold, swimming through other confusing references they wouldn't get if they didn't know.  none of that other stuff mattered.  i just wanted to know what they thought of Kath... whether i was doing it right.  I think I am.  i waded through the useless-on-this-topic, but still thought-provoking comments and came up with what i'd hoped people would see in this character...

This morning i wrote a nano-related snippet.  just a fraction of one on a sheet of printer paper.  and then, this:

I do so love the rare moment when a character is doodled into visual life... even if that life is jutting of scribbles.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

I have an idea...

an idea has been forming about how to go about this.  Because i don't live in a place where people read book, books anymore.  i live with technology.  but i think I've figured it out.

i think I'm gonna buy a 1 month subscription to premium scribophile...  i want to get one piece in particular critiqued... and i don't want to have to do the critiquing to get the points to post.  i want people to work for ME. and for $9.00.  yes. i think i will.

i know i said I've hated it in the past, but i know specifically what I'm looking for to be critiqued probably in each case.

so much to do... not enough time...

Edit 10:50 -

I did it.  only they've changed the premium, and you now have to critique to get points.  you didn't have to.  that's okay.  I had 3 already sitting there, so I did a quick critique on something and got this little snippet out there to get looked at.  no one has yet.  hurry it up! I'm impatient.

check out my Scribophile profile here!!

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Wandering

I keep going back to the Nano story.  I turn my full attention to that section of the garden, and i wait, hoping something will dawn on me.  I want to know how or if Ecila fits in.  I want to know who or what Kath is.

I could do the obvious thing, the thing that stands out quite well.  But i don't want to...

And as i'm turned that direction, there are all the things that led up to here.  All the first stories, the Ankaverse...

Do we remember that i have been working on this story, in some shape or form, since i was in middle school?  Since i was 13.  More than half of my life has been spent here, has been used to get here.

I need to finish.  I need to start at the beginning and I need to finish.

I become discouraged because The Prophet is a typical storyline.  it is well known.

I become discouraged because there is just so much to do, and it still feels so full of holes.  i don't think it actually is, but unless i stop second guessing myself and get to work, i will never finish.

I want to put The Verse to rest, and i think i  have to do that before i can find out more about Spencer and Kath.  Because yes, they are connected to it, but it lies outside of the confines of the Verse... they are beyond the reach of Milah, who wrote it.

Something else is at work here, the puppeteer, the orchestrator.  He won't let me see what he's doing until i have completed my work with my current green-eyed mistress...

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

NanoWrimo 2013, A Recap

I did, one day last week, go back into the story and sketched out another 600 words of storyline that had come to me, but I spent the end of November happily not thinking about much relating to Spencer, Kath, Aniste or any of the others inhabiting the world that I had created.

But one thing did come to me.

Ecila.

Ecila is the daughter of Enna and the Foxen.  She is created and born in the short story Letters From the Desert, the sequel to A Study in Shade and Shadow. 

I began the story of Spencer at its end.  He returns from where he's been, eight years older, experienced, jaded, heartbroken.  He is dropped onto a planet he recognizes but cannot immediately place and before he has breathed a dozen breaths of this air he is recognized by someone.  Someone who was not even born before he disappeared, 12 years ago, on this side.

It's Ecila.  And much in the manner of her mother she talks for the entire beginning of the story.  She tells him why she recognizes him (he looks like his mother, Carrie Jo), she explains to him how long he's been gone (the 12 years, and not the 20+ that are evidenced by her own appearance), and also introduces her backstory and situation.  A demigod whose father is the chosen mate of her aunt, not her mother.

She even points out to him that they were both created for evil, she by Svanir, he by Turinax, but that they were broken free of those bonds and are now able to do good instead.  Spencer is skeptical about this, what good he could have done on that other, diseased world.  But Ecila is young and naïve and hopeful.

And then... Ecila disappears.  In the 28,000 words I wrote, she doesn't come up again.

But why?

I mean, I introduce these two characters together.  They open the story up together and lead us into Spencer's sadness and Ecila's hope.  She can't mean nothing to this story, but in all of November I never knew what her part in the tale was.

I still don't.

But I think that may be the problem as to why I couldn't finish, I couldn't find the rest of the words to put down for Nano.  Half of the story has to be hers.  And I think it's obvious by the way Spencer's story was progressing as well.  He is there for eight years, but only the first and the last have any real meaning.  For the six years in the middle he is simply living as a Junker with the other boys on the Elsinore complex, falling in love with Kath, losing his dreams, grasping at his fading memories of home, wondering why it is that he was there.

Not a lot of story.  Just stasis.  So... what has Ecila been doing?  how does she fit in and fill in?

That's what needs to be considered from here on out, to finish this story...

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Coud Atlas

I know I must have written some post on this topic before, but it could also just be something I've talked to friends about...  I couldn't find it, either way.  maybe I will later.

The first time I saw the preview for Cloud Atlas I got worried.  It looked weird and time travely and I thought it was a bit like my Nano story that I thought I could maybe do last year.  which I have not done.  I don't have anything done on it further than one post with a few lines in it, which you can see here.

I quit Nano this year.  And it's been great.  I pulled the garden up too roughly and now I have only small seedlings of ideas left that need some time to grow.

And it allowed me yesterday to sit down on the floor in the living room, work on sewing some cloth diapers, and finally watch Cloud Atlas.

When I first looked it up, following that first preview I read the Wiki description of what turned out (of coruse) to actually be a book.  Six stories, each protagonist being observed by the protagonist in the next story to follow.  I loved the idea.  I had to read it.

It actually ended up sitting on a shelf for a long time before I was ready to read it.  I was finishing it about halfway through the movie's theater run and it was getting badish reviews.  And people I knew hadn't understood it. One friend mentioned that each story you get to see for a minute or four, and then it jumps to the next.  I couldn't understand that, how very confusing!  why not follow the path of the original story?

I don't know, it's at 66% on the Rotten Tomatoes.  is that good or bad?  the reviews on the page seem to be in favor...

So when I watched it last night, of course I went into it with the knowledge I had from having read the book.  I could identify the characters and their basic story quickly and easily as it jumped from one to another, though I could completely understand why someone else would not.  It took me a little while to realize that this pattern of storytelling is the only way to do it.  You cannot spend three hours telling one story after the other, causing the audience to go through the circle of intro, middle, climax, conclusion six times and expect them to pay attention.

But you have to go into it willing and able to keep track of six storylines at once.

I loved the movie.  I got all weepy at the end.  I never stopped being right there in it.  I loved the book, but the movie satisfied that visual craving I have...probably from watching so many movies.  It drew connections I had not seen, and makes me want to read it all over again.  And watch the movie three more times.

The movie is a great companion to the book.  The same way I feel about Fight Club and Pride and Prejudice.

And hell.  Tom Hanks.  Susan Sarandon and Halle Berry.  Fucking Hugo Weaving.

Edit 11/24 -

And I forgot this part.  When phrases, or excerpts or quotes strike me when I'm reading a book I write them down in my Books Read Notebook.  I also enter them on Goodreads.com, and you can see them pop up at random over in the right toolbar.  My quote from Cloud Atlas was perfectly envisioned in the movie.  I was half hoping I'd see it, but also not expecting it too strongly.  not everyone can be moved by the one thing I was moved by.

But it was there, and it was beautiful.

"Dreamt I stood in a china shop so crowded from floor to far-off ceiling with shelves of porcelain antiques, etc. that moving a muscle would cause several to fall and smash to bits. Exactly what happened but instead of a crashing noise, an august chord rang out, half cello, half celeste, D major (?), held for four beats. My wrist knocked a Ming vase affair off its pedestal-E flat. Whole string section, glorious, transcendent, angels wept. Deliberately now, smashed a figurine of an ox for the next note, then a milkmaid, then Saturday's Child-orgy of shrapnel filled the air, divine harmonies my head.”

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

I Quit

I didn't write any words yesterday.  I have written 223 today.

Tomorrow my aunt is coming.  the day after that is invoice day.  I need to finish the laundry.  This morning?  The state of the kitchen?  Yeah, that really was my fault.

Am I making excuses?  Probably.

Thing is, this story is something that I've been confused about for a while.  I didn't know how the pieces fit together, I didn't know the characters or the plot.

So as of today, the 19th, I have 28,842 more words on the topic than I did in October.  I have an idea about the plot, I have fallen in love with some of the characters, I have bits and pieces to build from when I figure the rest of it out.  I think I have taken the point of Nano and use it to my advantage.  To just fucking get your words down already.

Well, at this point in its development, there are only just under 29,000 words to be had.

And I'm alright with that.

Of course, if I happen to have some flash of insight?  Yeah, I'll come back.  I can't deny the fact that I'd love to have another win.  But I'd also like to have some sanity.  And I'd like to finish this afghan for our bed sometime before the end of winter.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Eleven Twelve Thirteen

I was 300 words short yesterday, and since I was no longer out ahead of the numbers due to my two 700 word days, that left me behind for the day.  Which means today I have to catch up. 

Yesterday was a weird-hard day all around.  I had a panic attack over my work and even though I talked it through and we came to a compromise of work that will not make me crazy and may be acceptable to the client, I still didn't want to go back to it at all last night.  We watched two episodes of Walking Dead and I went to bed at 8:30 and left the husband to put Gator to bed.

This morning I was ready and willing to work earlier than normal, and pounded out quite a lot.  I will have to wake the husband up soon so I can get back to work, but there is no panic and I'm hoping I can get these files in that I've had for just about five days now.

I'm just shy of a thousand words for today.  That leaves me another 900 to go... which is frustrating.  I thought the piece I planned out today would amount to more words.  What else can I write?

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Eleven Ten

Today I updated my Nano profile with an excerpt.  I like this piece.  it references the Coffee Companion piece that will be slid into the story once Nano is over and I can use words I've written before without so-called punishment.

Also, Kath.

I wake up from a strange dream trying to capture the essence of it. It hadn’t been frightening or even plain old hauntingly spooky. It had been so mundane. What had it been about? I roll out of my bunk and leave the room of sleeping boys as quietly as I can. When I step outside the border guards are whistling messages to one another. I pause to listen. All clear, all around. Something else non-regulation that I haven’t quite picked up yet.
There is a place one of the other boys showed me, Dordin. It’s a secure location, though it gives a good view of the outside world without having to climb up the wall barriers or any of the border buildings and get shooed away by the guards. It’s not a long walk from the bunk house. There is no one else in the streets and I don’t have to hurry. I’m hardly watching where my feet are taking me as I think over the dream I’m still waking from. I have feeling that I’d recognized something about it. It had been a familiar person, or place. Had I been dreaming about home again?
There is just a wire fence stretched along the edge of the black crater that extends outward to the north at the edge of town. Something to keep people from falling, the infected can’t climb up the steep incline. It’s no longer a new wound in the land, but very little has taken root in the recent past to transform the dirty hole into anything but an empty place where water pools sometimes during the rainy season. I remember the sound of rain on the roof of my home drifts through my mind, and then something clicks. No, not the sound of rain, the sound of the sprayers in the greenhouse room at Messenger station whatever. That’s the dream. I had been back there…and then what?
I hear a scuffle behind me, and glance back over my shoulder. Another form comes around the corner of this pathway to such a wonderful view, but he pauses when he sees me here against the fence.
“You stay,” I call out in a low voice. “I’ll go.”
“Spencer?”
“Yeah,” I answer and try to match that voice, hard and a little gravelly, but I come up with nothing.
He comes down the path toward me. It isn’t until he is standing at the fence beside me that I can recognize him. It’s Kath, the boy who had been with Aniste the day she found me. I think I’ve talked to him once since. He is quiet, but that does not mean he is shy. He is always watching and listening.
He reminds me of my father a little bit. Mom has always hassled dad about his vigilance. “You don’t always have to be on duty,” she has said to him over and over. The image of my father that lives in my head is him standing against a wall feet apart, arms crossed, his head swivling back and forth. I know that this memory comes from the night the parents of the village had gotten together at my small schoolhouse for the play we children had written. And still my father had seemed to be on guard, ready for any attack.
“Din’ realize you knew this hole,” he says. He puts his fingers in the wire and leans forward, looking left and right across the expanse of the crater as if he is expecting to find something new.
“Dordin showed me.”
“Can’t leave the bunks at night.” He says without turning to look at me. The scarred side of his face is away from me, likely so he can see me from his clear eye. But I don’t get the sense he is hiding it from me. When I speak next he tips his head toward and I catch a glimpse of the black shadow of his ragged nostril.
“I’m sorry, I just needed some fresh air.”
“Fresh air?” he asks, “This stink?”
I chuckle and look out toward the crater again. “I had a dream. I had to figure out what it means.”
“Was a dream. Meant nuthin’.”
“That depends on who you’re talking to,” I tell him. I hook my fingers into the fence too, but I lean backwards, stretching away from the crater and just hanging on. “For me and people in my family, dreams mean something. I had a dream about this place before—,”
He turns to look at me when I trail off, staring off past the fence, past the crater, to my memories, “’Afore what?”
“That coffee pot was alive,” I say to him.
The sneer on his face faces to a look of bewilderment as I chuckle. I’m not actually aware of him, the dream is replaying itself in my head. Something has unlocked the door to this specific dream and I shut down in order to relive it.
“Spencer?” Kath snaps the name causing me to jump, come out of it and stare at him in surprise. He does not look amused.
“You sound like my father when you snap like that,” I tell him.
“You trail off inna daydreams wif ‘im too?” he grates.
This makes me laugh even more, though I keep it silent. Nighttime is silent time. I’ve learned that well already. “That I do.”
“What’s your dad like?” he asks me after a moment.
“Observant,” I answer. “A little bit distant. He doesn’t really know how to deal with me, how to feel about me.” I pause a moment and then suddenly I spew the short version of my family history, which is heavier than you’d think it was. “He met my mother when they worked together. She was, what she callS, a specialized archeologist. He was in charge of security. His failure to protect her resulted in… well, me.”
“Though. I probably shouldn’t be complaining about my parent to someone who lost theirs in a terrible epidemic.”
“Din’ have none,” Kath shakes his head. “I was five when the sick hit, but I ‘us in an orphanage already.”
“Really?”
He nods his head once, “I’m sure they’s dead now, but I ain’t ever known 'em.”
“How long have you been with Aniste?”
“Three years,” he answers, the words clipped.
“Three?” I am surprised by this. “Where were you during the hot years?”
His face stiffens and he fixes his eyes once more on the crater beyond town. “You should get back inside,” he says to me finally.
“Okay,” I agree to it easily. He has given me more than I expected from him tonight, and I will not push against this barrier he has thrown up at me. “Goodnight Kath,” I say and turn away from the fence and the crater, heading back toward the bunk. I will lay in the dark cot and think about the strange dream that brought me out here. I’m still feeling bemused over what I think I’ve learned about the events played out for my unconscious mind.
“Spencer,” he calls out and I pause at the end of the alleyway and turn back. He is a black shadow on a black landscape. “What’s your world like?” He has to throw his voice low and carefully so I can hear it from so far away.
“It is full of sound,” I whisper-shout back to him. “Music in the wind and in the trees.”
“Fancy words, pretty boy.” I think that’s what he says.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

November Nine

I wrote 745 words yesterday.

What the hell was I even doing?  I finished cleaning the floor in my office.  And then later I started cleaning off all the junk from the floor that had collected on my Big Honkin' Desk.  I went shopping with The Gator later in the night to get her slippers and lunch for today.  I didn't work at all... I don't even think I put more than one repeat of the pattern on my afghan.

What the hell did I do yesterday!?

My parents are coming over today...  I tried to sleep in, knowing I would get worn out if I got up and worked.  But I couldn't keep sleeping so I'm here, in the basement with my coffee, pounding out words for work, but so far no words for Nano...

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Invoice Day

Today is the day that I am nearly always in a mad rush to finish files and get them uploaded and complete my invoice and remember to send it to The Money Guy  (who is also, sexily, The Audio Fixin' Guy) before i go to bed.  add to that my special circumstance of this morning turning in ten files that needed to have their rates "confirmed"... which doesn't generally happen same day...

I wrote extra yesterday to make up for probably not really having time to write today.  I've done just about a thousand words.  I'm in a good place.  i'm still ahead for the day... but not by as much.

The incline of the graph was daunting today.  when i saw how little my towers are, and how tall they must become.  I've been writing snippets.  nothing real.  no confict.  just little conversations.  little stories that may or may not fit into the final.

But then tonight i'm making stir-fry and my mind is turning and turning through the stories i have written from before... the Apocalypse stories.  And i'm twisting and turning and crocheting my current thread into something and i suddenly realize hey, i just picked up this other color.  i've given myself a wide opening in which to draw the apocalypse stories through into Spencer's and make them make sense.  Give Spencer his task.

He keeps talking about the thing that has taken him, and he doesn't know what it is.  Qutie frankly, i don't know what it is either.

this is a problem.

But we're solving it together.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Guy Fawkes Day

I'm not British, but I've seen V for Vendetta far too many times to think of the fifth of November as anything else.  And not even the real thing, but the fabulous Hugo Weaving version of the day.

This is really the least prepared I've ever been for a Nano month.  I usually keep a page or two in one of my journals with ideas and stuff, and it's being filled throughout September and October in preparation. 

Now that I'm not sitting at a desk all day, using the journal to keep notes isn't really beneficial, so all of my to-do, to-remembers have gone on this wipe off board.

For November, it's had a makeover.   A Nano makeover.

The wipe off quality is nice.  Once I have inputted into the story something I've thought of, I can wipe it off.  Long-term stuff on the construction paper and the post-it notes, and I have an ever-evolving storyboard.  Which is something I've never had before and I'm finding is quite useful.

Also, magnetic.  I went through my magnetic poetry words and pulled out the ones that seemed to connect with my ideas for the story.  I've created two phrases with them, "Curl my monsters open" and slightly less awesome, "Spirits against evil."

I stand in the kitchen in front of my marker board for at least an hour, combined, during the day.  And yesterday when I was doing the dishes I came up with a huge, useful idea, and now I don't feel quite so lost within the story as I did before.

I've been writing the story in fragments, just as they come to me, bits and pieces.  I may not keep them in exactly the order I've written them--in fact, I can't.  I'll have ruined the big reveal within the first couple pages.  But I do want to keep it non-chronological.  Put Spencer's story together like a puzzle where you don't know what the picture on the box was from the beginning.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Tres November

I don't know what possessed me to start this so spur of the moment.  I am also in the middle of a queen sized afghan for our bed (I never fathomed how much work a queen size blanket is before) and plus I've had a frenzy of what I've been calling Spring Cleaning.  Boxes that have sat untouched since we moved in May are suddenly empty.  Closets and cabinets full of "I don't know where to put this yet, so we'll just put it right here," are now clean and organized.  I'm putting the basement rec room in some sort of liveable order, prepping for the long winter and knowing we will cope better if we have a larger space to roam.

And then I throw Nano in on top of that.

I might as well catch up quick with a photo of the day collection.  Cuz I mean, what's one more thing!?

oh.  one more thing... it'd be the perfect month to get pregnant again.  somehow I have to work that into my day.

I need to sit down and create a plan.  I think I need to read through all of the apocalypse stories.  I realize that Spencer's story is nothing, whereas Ecila and... well, let's just call it Aniste's story are a bit heavier and have more to say.  I have to figure out what i'm doing, whether i'm simply sticking Spencer into Aniste's world... and how will I do that.  I have begun with a first person narrative.  I don't think I want to do the two women in that way.  So how do I blend it all together?

Maybe I should've been thinking about this in the months leading up to it.

Or maybe I should've realized that my not thinking about it meant that I ACTUALLY SHOULD NOT DO IT.

Tres November.

It's too soon to give up.

It will be too soon to give up until November 30th.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

November Two

I once admitted my love for Fall Out Boy AA Style.  My name is sara, and I love Fall Out Boy.  I know I have a problem, and accepting that is the first step toward recovery... right?

nope.  I love FOB.  I always will.  Shall we say I was born this way?

I just purchased their entire newest album in MP3s and I listen to them while i'm proofing my work.  Full blast in my ears until I can't really hear the transcription once I turn off the music and go back.

This song, Alone Together...  I today first really listened to the lyrics, after the title caught my attention.  Only last night late I wrote the "alone together" phrase into my story in a piece about Spencer and Kath and the third of the quiet boys in the group.


I don't know where you're going
But do you got room for one more troubled soul?
I don't know where I'm going
But I don't think I'm coming home and I'll say
"I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead"
This is the road to ruin
And we started at the end


This lyric entirely embodies my story.  For serious.  Every single line down to the road to ruin, even down to the part that we started at the end.  I started my Nano story at the end, and the he/I of Spencer even notes that he wants to start at the end because that is the newest.

I love Fall Out Boy.  This new really funky album will be the soundtrack of Spencer's Story.

Friday, November 1, 2013

It's November.

It's fucking November.  I knew quite well that November was coming.  And I knew also, because my email has been blown up by them, what November means.  I hadn't made a decision one way or the other, but it seemed like a No.  I wasn't thinking about a story, I was thinking "Hey, you need to finish the Verse before you go off and start something new."

yep. that's what I was thinking.  but now I want to jump right into Spencer's story.  what comes after the Verse.  What connects to the Apocalypse stories (WHICH AREN'T EVEN DONE, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!! STOP THIS AT ONCE!)... did you hear something...?

So I signed up for Nano.  I didn't even sign up last year.  But an update to the site now means you can save your stories' synopses and excerpts for all the years you participated!!  I want to go back in there and fill them in.  I don't have my original synopses, but it'll be fun to rewrite them.

Of course I had to goof off yesterday on Halloween instead of working.  on this file which turns out is easier than pie.  but I still got two hours on top of the half hour left that were assigned for today.  hopefully I can get some writing done, and also the amount of work I need to make The Husband not stab me with his knives of "you're not making enough money" fury...

Monday, October 7, 2013

Working From Home

I've been working writing into my working from home.  The daughter gets up at 7:45 so sometimes i stop working in the morning long enough to type something up that's been written down.

Just now, i figured something out that was causing a block in the verse.  i feel like i'm always saying that.  It has to do with the running away factor.  I could always ask myself too many questions about this.  why didn't he do this?  why didn't she do that?

and it all happened while i was typing up chapter three and rather than make Anka friendly, i made her suspicious.  it all fell into place.

i worked it out in my head while i was doing the dishes.  i wonder if i'll remember it later.  there are some notes, but not as beautiful as it was in my head.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Dreaming...

I joined writing.com.

I wanted something else, besides author's den.  Because I did not want to take my old teenage/early 20s writing down, but I want to post the Verse without it being attached to it directly to the older stories and whatnot.

A fresh start.

Though, it's sort of backwards.  Author's den seems the more professional site, while writing.com is more social network-y.  it seems the younger self should use this.  but then again.

Dreaming. 

I'm dreaming often and in detail of the boy I loved in high school. the past few have even referenced the fact, me telling him that I've been dreaming about him at some point in our odd-normal dreamtime adventure.

Is it strange to think that I love him still.  I mean I don't know him. I haven't seen him since graduation day.  But my heart feels just as strongly connected to him, despite all these years as it feels to the only boy from my HS that I actually... dated? I don't know.  I love him, whatever it was we did... and whatever it was that part of it hardly matters.  Because we were friends and can still have a nothing but friendly relationship.  I try to be just quiet enough, though, so his adorable girlfriend does not get it into her head to cut me.

Because I feel with these two boys, whether there was a romantic connection to them or not, I love them.  They made an impact on me and my heart cannot forget them.  The boy I loved, he cannot be so different from what he was... we don't change that much.  So I do not doubt that my love of him in the past can translate through to still loving him to this day, whether I've shared two words with him in 11 years or not.

and the funny thing is...

I really don't have much of the same to say about the two guys who were actually my boyfriends...

I love that my husband was my friend first.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

In the Morning, With the Sun Coming Up

I have 14 minutes before I have to start getting ready for work.  Work at the hated out-of-home job where I WONT BE MUCH LONGER!!! my application for individual health insurance got approved.  it's expensive, but actually not as much, for the three of us, as i'm paying already through work for just the daughter and I.  So.

I just wanted to pop in to say some things, because I've been wanting to.  But we've been so busy moving to the new house, and changing things in the new house that there's been little time for blogging about writing.  and there's been little time for writing.  little, but not none.

I just went and checked in the last few posts I've made and holy cow! off topic much!?  but that's okay. because everything that is writing is on topic.

I must have mentioned it, because I remember typing the words "I'm naming them in the same way as the big stories"  The little stories.  the pre-stories.  the "It begins for all of them when they're children" stories.

Most of those are done.  I have dropped one from my list of stories to-do, deciding it didn't really fit with what I was doing.  I have yet to finish Edonith's story, The Healer; i'm not yet sure what is going to happen there.  I've gotten as far as describing his home world, which I've never done before, and begun a bit about his mother, but then I got stuck.

I'm also stuck with Carrie and Daniel, The Dreamers, though I know exactly what I want to happen.  I just haven't found the doorway into it yet.  i'm not worried.

Late in the writing-of-children-stories game I decided I wanted something from Milah's point of view.  surprisingly it didn't end up so.  She's in it, sure, but it's from Boss' point of view.  The Seer looks at Milah by the person who knew her best before all the crazy shit happened that my stories revolve around, though he's reflecting after the crazy shit, but in a time before all the children come together to save the day.

I look back further into my blog posts and no, I don't see it.  I don't see any mention of what i'm doing right now.  Shoot.  where do I think I wrote that down?

Anyhow.  what i'm doing.  I'm writing these short little stories.  flash fiction, I suppose they could be called.  They're focused on my main characters as youngsters.  Daniel and Carrie, The Dreamers.  Anka and Prin, The Orphans.  Nesris and Nasinair (perhaps my favorite one, and the first one I finished) The Royals.  Loki and his brothers, The Pack.  Edonith and... his mother?, The Healer.  And finally Milah and Yemar and Boss, The Seer.

it introduces them all as kids, before they meet.  it solidifies their personalities and the relationships that were the formation of who they are later.  The stories I want to use as sort of teasers not only to get people interested in the bigger overall epic, but also as something to keep me motivated while i'm outside of the stories myself, working on other  real-life (and therefore less important) stuff.  I want to post them on Author's Den.  but also, I want to not post them on Author's Den.  I want somewhere new, where I don't have a whole batch of old stuff... stuff from high school even, lingering around.  I don't know.

and I also want to eventually compile them into one batch and Smash them.  But I have so much to Smash!!

A few weeks ago the husband bought "me" a tablet for "my birthday" which isn't even for another 8 days.  he just wanted a tablet.  I use it the least of the three of us.  But I did use it to completely revise and input edits into Letters from the Desert.  And it was amazing.  it's a little small, wish he would've gotten a bigger sized screen; my fingers are so big I mistype sometimes.  but it was such quick and uncumbersome work to fill in revisions instead of having the laptop and my notebook.  Really.  Wonderful.

I'm out of time, but it seems like there's a lot to say.

Hopefully all this work-from-home full-time thing works out.  because still, some of my time will be devoted to writing.  I hope.  I hope.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Errors and Flaws in Mid-World.

I have another post i need to write, but i have the idea that the work of it is not yet finished so i guess that post can wait, though it's already been waiting long and long.

So, now for something completely different.

I recently finished reading Stephen King's Dark Tower epic.  Again.  I have read it so often that i lost count of the actual number at seven.  And that was years and how many rereads ago?  It's not the only book i've read over and over (or plan to continue to read over in the course of my life).  Bill Watson's A Dog Called Kitty was perhaps the first.  Mary Brown's The Unlikely Ones and Meredith Anne Pierce's Darkangel Trilogy still make me cry every time.  A Prayer For Owen Meany and Pride and Prejudice.  Another enormous-pile-of-books epic made up of Robin Hobb's Farseer, Liveship Traders, and Tawny Man trilogies (i'm not a fan of the dragon books that follow, say sorry).  But still, i think that Roland Deschain of Gilead will bring me back most often.

I remember being in high school, stuck on the road outside of the Emerald City-like castle on the Topkea Interstate just passing out of Captain Tripps territory, now finally back in Mid-World and my heart heavy yet from Susan's death with no next book in sight.  I was devouring his other works looking for those connections we (my dad and i) were just beginning to notice (for this was in the years before the internet where everything is now connected and explained with a quick query of a search engine).  And then i heard the news that Stephen King had been struck by a van while out for a walk near his home.  My very first thought was, "What about Roland!?"

I have seen critiquers on the internets who proclaim that King having put himself in the story to help (or hinder) Roland along is a cop-out and shoddy storytelling.  I think those people are new to Roland's qust and never read the forewords and afterwords of the early edition printings.  In these King himself claims he does not know where the story has come from or where it is going.  He doesn't know who the girl in the window is, he doesn't think he likes Roland all that much. That he feels as if he is telling the story, not crafting it himself.

I understand that feeling.  i often feel as if i have no control over what i write.  maybe that is why I was not surprised and actually pleased by the turn of events that brought Gan's navel, Stephen King into the turning of the wheel of Ka.  It's really the only way it made sense.

Now, there are countless websites out there (as i said before) that draw the comparisons and connetions between King's books and within the Epic itself.  that's not what my list is about.  My list is about the errors.

I understand that this was the work of three decades and things are bound to get through (although that doesn't explain why most of them are in book 7!!) And i'm not doing this to be mean or vindictive or anything of that sort.  I just tend to notice these types of things, especially because i've read it so many times that i don't even really have to.  I can just close my eyes and think about it.

My dad used to have a book of continuity flaws for Star Trek TNG that we would read before watching each episode in his VHS collection.  It's fun!

So, my list of 15 plot flaws.  Some of them are minor, some of them are a bit forgiveable.  I was aiming to find 19 because then it would be a sign that they were meant to be there.  But who knows.  maybe next time i read it i will fill out the list.  Hell, two or three of these 15 i found in this current reread.  So here goes.  *NOTE* There will be spoilers (beyond those i've already mentioned above :P)

1.  When the lobstroscity bites off Roland's toe it takes a hunk of his boot and chews it up, later throws it aside.  Roland continues to wear "worn down boots" for the remainder of the series.  With a hole in it??

2.  When he reaches the Western Sea after crossing the Mohaine Desert he turns north as he travels, searching for doors.  He mentions several times that the ocean is on the right and the land is on the left.  That means he's moving south.

3.  When i look i can't find it, but i SWEAR the first time Eddie is introduced he is a "21-year-old heroin addict."  Either way, when he introduces himself to Odetta he is 23.  Following no more than 6 months in the woods following book 2 he is 25 and when he dies he's 26 (which is okay).

4.  I don't believe there is a single mention of Roland's hat until it nearly flies off his head crossing the bridge into Lud.  (maybe i'm wrong on this, but every time i read that part i'm startled. like what!? hat!?)

5.  Somewhere around The Wastelands or Wizard and Glass Roland takes a "leftover asprin."  There was no left over asprin.  He took all the asprin Eddie got him from the airport.  And when he went to the pharmacy in Mort's body he only got the antibiotic he needed.

6.  The rose in the abandoned lot in New York is on Keystone Earth.  So Jake has to have come from Keystone Earth.  Since Jake follows Eddie and Henry to the house on Dutch Hill and once he's pulled through the door Eddie remembers a boy in sunglasses following him that day then Eddie too must have come from Keystone Earth.  His whole argument over whether Co-op City is in Brooklyn or the Bronx is needless and nonsensical.

7.  While Roland, Cuthbert and Alain are in Mejis they have carrier pigeons, but they also receive messages from their fathers back in Gilead from incoming carrier pigeons.  This is not how carrier pigeons work.  For their fathers to be able to send messages they would need to have ridden out to Mejis and brought back to Gilead with them pigeons that were raised and lived on the abandoned ranch where the boys stayed during their visit.

8.  Susannah's legs are cut off in the subway accident above the knee, except for at the very beginning of book seven when it is below the knee.

9.  At Pere's house in Calla Bryn Sturgis both Eddie and Susannah are said to have been "standing at the window" and then "walk to the bed." (slightly forgiveable; Susannah had the loan of Mia's legs for much of this book and the next.  it's easy to forget).

10.  In the beginning of Ted Brautigan's recording he says, "...looking for the writer?  The one who created me after a fashion?" speaking of Stephen King and Roland and Eddie's search for him.  Later the tet "decides" for themselves that King must have written Ted.  (it was a four hour recording, slightly forgiveable).  Also, Ted mentions having lifted information from Trampas' mind about how the singer of Gan's song has quit singing and needs to die, yet does not connect that to his knowledge of King and his creation and importance to all of them.

11.  Roland watching Teds tape fixedly.  Three paragraphs of narrative (and not Ted's summarized story) later he "had been cleaning his guns."

12.  In The Whitelands Roland is teaching Susannah to skin and tan hides.  granted it's a new, quick brain slurry method but much of this she should already know from their post-beach-doors pre-shardik-attack time.  "...learned more about making hide garments than she ever would have believed."

13.  In Bill's plow Susannah plays "Hey Jude."  She doesn't know who the Beatles are but by 1964 (the year she was drawn) they had become international stars (though Hey Jude was 1970 so she shouldn't know that song in particular). Also, "Roland seems to know... words he knew were different."  This has already been discussed when the tet was whole and he was telling his story of Tull; a comparisson of the different worlds they've come from and the overlaps.

14.  When Patrick draws Susannah's picture and she compliments him he smiles; a poor choice of words that she "could have eaten that smile up," considering what Dandelo did to Patrick.

15.  At the Tower the Crimson King is throwing sneetches.  "unless he can throw more than 12 at a time..." Roland thinks he will be safe.  Wrong.  Six.  Roland has only one gun (Susannah took the other through the door with her) and only one hand to shoot with anyhow.

There.  That's the end.  But it's not.  Cuz Ka's a wheel and i'll be back.

That may be my longest post ever.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Letters as Art

I’m reading this book, little by little, that my anti-mommy gave me for Christmas.  It is called Between Ourselves; Letters Between Mothers and Daughters.  And as I read these letters and these stories about the letters and the love of famous and unknown women alike I wonder why I am made to feel that writing letters is a bad thing.

“What’s wrong with a phone call?”

I could go on for hours on that topic!  I hate the telephone.  I call my dad because he lives so far away and I cannot survive without his advice.  I call my husband because we live together yet I rarely get to see him.

Thousands of years we survived and flourished without the use of the telephone.  There were missives carried on sweating, galloping horseback from one king to another.  There were vows of love hidden in secret places, known only to those amorous enough to find them.  There were entire sacks full of words transferred thousands of miles on bright, shiny-new railways, and there are those delivered by the well-known postman to someone just down the street.  There was dirt and despair of war penned back to light and worried, waiting life across the sea and there are conversations of introduction and getting-to-know-you of pen pals.

Letters are beautiful things and I love them.  Because they are filled with my favorite things; ink and words (which are themselves made up of letters) put on paper; scrawled or dictated, typed or etched or cut from newspaper and pasted down.  Letters are eternal, yes both the good and the bad.

“What’s wrong with a phone call?”

Oh, but they’re so impersonal!  A sweaty hunk of plastic crammed against my head.  I can’t see your face and if there’s something more interesting right in front of me I can focus on that instead.  Then, when it’s over, what’s left?  Nothing, really.  All the words fade and are forgotten.

Letters take time and patience to craft.  They draw out the truths in revisions when you realized you’ve used the wrong words to say what you mean.  They draw and expel anger away in their writing, and even if some of it falls to the page you can always come back before it’s sent and append or set it to flame and start again.

Mr. Darcy explained all and made Elizabeth finally love him with a letter.  Amelie mended the broken heart of a neighbor with a well-meaning albeit forged letter lost in transit for 40 years.  Fiction, yes, but even fiction is a letter from the author’s soul to the hearts of the rest of the world. 

Writing, when I know saying it out loud will not suffice, does not make me a coward.  It does not signify disrespect or a hit-and-run approach to communication.  Writing, when a phone call could be made, simply indicates that I should have been born into a different time of simpler communication.  Because words fall out of my mouth in a tumbling
disjointed way and I always get things wrong.  When I put pen to paper and have the time to carefully organize my thoughts and the ability to cross out and resay what I’ve said then I appear fluent in my own language.

Letters are beautiful things.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Being A Girl

My original plan for this post headed in a different direction than we’re going today. The longer I mentally composed it, the more things occurred to me to force me to realize what it really was I wanted to say. In the beginning I wanted it to be a story of what it’s like to grow up without a female presence. in the end perhaps it’s what it’s like to grow up with a strong male presence instead. The moment it changed the most drastically was when, at our Easter family gathering my sister-cousin told me to close my eyes and then commented, “You don’t even wear makeup and you know how to put it on. I always feel like mine is the scrawling of a 4 year old.”

That’s one of those things I had to teach myself because I had no one to do it. But I realize that the other deficiencies are minor and few. but the benefit of a fatherly run household are immense. This I realized because of Barbie.

I cannot align myself with the women’s groups who throw a huge fit over the fact that Barbie sets unrealistic standards for little girls. I wonder, does she really? or is it we adults who want to be Barbie and we project our wants on our daughters? Because I never wanted to be Barbie. Did I know subconsciously even as a child that Barbie is not a real representation of a woman? I don’t know. I do know who I wanted to be. Samantha Parkington, my American Girl Doll. I wanted to be her, with her round arms, chubby hands with dimpled knuckles, her soft and squishy middle and charming back story.

I do not have unreal expectations about my body or appearance. Yes, I am currently in the middle of a weight loss event; 16 pounds down 24 to go. But this is croc weight and my goal is neither unattainable nor set in stone. If I find comfort and happiness 10 or 15 or 20 pounds from now, fine. I only want to be at a healthy weight before I start my next pregnancy and have a healthy lifestyle that means I won’t gain as much as last time. I only want to feel good and not uncomfortable, constrained in my clothes. That’s really not actually a hard thing to do; yoga pants and stretchy tank tops are my very best friends.

I think I gained this ability to accept myself as-is because I did not have an example of a woman questing for the unattainable when I was young and impressionable. instead I had my dad; long hair, tattoos, ear piercings, wearing whatever tshirt was on top of the pile; looking the way he looked and not taking shit for it. yes, I wear make up, but it’s eye shadow and mascara, when I feel like it. Yes, I like to dress nicely in bright colors and newer styles, but it’s Old Navy that’s the store eating up all of my clothing budget. And it may be headed in the wrong direction to say this, feminism-wise, but I like causing my husband to think i’m attractive. I don’t want him to think of me as the frumpy hobo who watches his kid.

In the end I hope most that this is what the croc learns from me when she’s looking for a role model in loving of self and finding of beauty in flaws and the confidence to take it all in stride. I hope her eyes land on me and not some silly piece of plastic. I can be her good example and I don’t even have to temper my own actions; watch what I do or say. this is already the way I am; who my dad raised me to be.

And so, as a mom with a daughter, I stand behind Barbie. She is a vet and a doctor, a teacher and a flight attendant, a homemaker, best friend, big sister and mom. And if you can find nothing else positive about that silly piece of plastic, she teaches hella fine motor skills; those tiny velcroed outfits are a bitch to get on and off!

Saturday, April 6, 2013

A Little Essay, Of Sorts

Curly hair.  I've got it.  I have straight-haired friends who say they wish they had my hair.  and after conversations with my curly-haired contemporaries i know that really it's simply the want of what you don't have; greener grass and all that jazz.

Recently i dyed two sections of my hair a bright, gorgeous fuchsia.  not long after i added some blue to the tips.  pink fading through purple to blue.  I feel like a My Little Pony.  I did it because i wanted to.  Because i never had when i was younger.  Because one of my characters did and i wanted to know how the process went.  Because i wanted to get out of the perpetual mom-funk of ponytails and yoga pants.  When i did this i also happened to rediscover the pleasure of straightening my hair and for the last few months it has been smooth-straight as often as it has been curly; nearly obliteriating that inbetween place of i-don't-feel-like-dealing-with-curls frizzy ponytail.

I don't know if i can even express what it's like to run my fingers through my straight hair.  not a single snarl, no product, no fastners required.  entire days of no frizz control or touch-ups but for maybe a quick hot iron to smooth the funny waves that come from sleeping... bliss.  Beyond bliss.  Contentment.  peacefulness.

Go to my grandparent's house and there's hardly an inch of wall space showing through the photos of children and grandchildren and great grandchildren.  you'll find me over and over in my gap-toothed curly headed grinning state as a toddler here, a kindergartener there, as a bigger kid over yonder; professional photos and family snapshots.  my grandpa is quick to point out the one of me in purple that at this point in time could be confused with a picture of my daughter.

I guess i shouldn't have been surprised at the reaction he had when i arrived on Palm Sunday with patches of easter egg dyed, stick-straight hair in preperation for a day spent at the craft table with the kids and not wanting to worry about what the fellas on my head were getting up to  while i was busy having fun.

My husband says it too: I like it better curly.

Well, here's the thing guys, so do i.  I wouldn't give up my curls for the world.  they're cute and fun and bouncy and oh, a pain in the ass.

It's not the same hair as when i was a kid; not the baby ringlets.  for a long time i thought i had lost the curl and only had a half-hearted wavy frizz.  it wasn't until i was 16 that i rediscovered the secret of the curl and i was 21 before i mastered it; bent it to my will.  They're not even curls, but a frantic waver.  I once told a friend, whose curls are stronger than mine, that her hair does it obsessive compulsively while mine does it strictly as an afterthought.  The only ringlets i have now are deep down at my neck where the hair is protected from the air and its frizz-inducing chaos.

What does it take to have curly hair for one day?  A shower in which i may or may not shampoo.  i do that only once every three or four washes.  Then conditioner; a thick, strongly sweet goop.  Sleek and Shine by Garnier Fructis.  They used to have a curly hair formula to which i was desperately devoted, but this one works even better.  Then there is the air-dry, product applying marathon event.  Garnier again, twice.  Curl sculpting gel in the roots.  A little while later when things are a bit dry wax for the tips.  Then, when it's nearly all dry and framing my head like an enormous brown halo of frizz i step backwards and wet it down again to apply Dove curl mousse to everything else. 

Then, half an hour worth of styling by which i mean burying a handful of bobby pins in the madness in an effort to pin it away from my face to avoid triangle-head as well as down against my scalp to deter fly-aways.

And tomorrow?  All that product and a night in bed means that i either have messy pigtail buns (the other hairstyle my husband hates) or i have to wash it and start all over.

It's exhausting.  So don't fault me when i put a 3-day livable straight on it and call it done in an effort to end my suffering.

And in the near future?  I'm looking to get a larger barreled curling iron so that after i spend an hour straightening out my curls i can add a bottom-only beach wave to it.  Because that's my greener grass in the world of hair.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Just a Quickie

A friend just showed me this list and i wanted to keep track of it.  i should make a writing pinterest board.  but i'm off to do some house hunting so i can't drown in that pool of inactivity right now.

  1. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
  2. You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
  3. Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
  4. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
  5. Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
  6. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
  7. Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
  8. Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
  9. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
  10. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
  11. Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
  12. Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
  13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
  14. Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
  15. If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
  16. What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
  17. No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
  18. You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
  19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
  20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
  21. You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
  22. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.
Source:
http://boingboing.net/2013/03/07/pixars-22-rules-of-stor.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+(Boing+Boing)

There's also another site she showed me... i'm gonna have to refind that one too cuz as i remember i have a blog post to write about it...

Saturday, March 9, 2013

A Photo Poem

I bought this wonderful skinny Spam notebook some time ago and it has remained empty.  a feat of nature...

Just the other day i took it to work, to finally fill it with the minisule ideas and fragmentary conversations that occur to me throughout the day.


Catagorized, organized, color coded.
 

 
It is no secret that i am a lover of all things post-it
 
 
And  based on the contents of my work purse, a true hater of trees...
 
 
A notebook for the Books I've Read
 

 And the Lists I Make
 


 
And the The Book of Abigale
 
 

Stored carefully within my favorite bag, from my favorite move
 


... and this is the rest of the crap i keep in there.

The End


Thursday, February 7, 2013

I'm Desperate, You See

I look at my binder of madness... the plastic one with pink and purple and blue plaid and a pink post it on the front that says "You Are Here" and i see somethign that is ready to be done, to be completed, finished, birthed.

Not quite like a baby, who's all put together in the right sort of order when they do that birth thing, but like a lego set; the pieces are there and you've lost the instruction, but you still have the picture.  There are hunks still attached from the last time you built it and all you have to do is get the rest of the pieces sorted and plugged back in order.

The prequel, the Guide, teh first of the epic and the one i worry most about.  It wants to be completed.  i must only sit down and do it.

I designed a writing station.  i will have my dad build it and in that space i will be focused.

But first we must buy a house.  still months down the road, perhaps more.  and then after that is a transition from jobs to job.  working at home.  one job.

Two jobs.  becasue i want to work enough to devote one day's "Work Hours" to writing.  to transcription of no one's words but my own.

and then my own schedule too.  these days i find myself yearning to work and work into the night as the hours between now and the burbling of my cell phone's alarm shrinks from seven to six to five...i would work and work and that alarm doesn't have to come...

Of course, i wonder when i will fit sleep in, working in the night like i want, but that doesn't seem to bother me.  and when i think of yeasr, so many years in the future, when both Gator and Mystery Future Baby are both in schoola nd my day can be used for workin and writnig and napping and preparing for everyone to come home.

I do'nt want to get there too fast, to waste those years, but i want to define my own life, once and for all, not let it be defined by the job i hate, i loathe, i detest i... i... i... don't even know.

Because the things i really want to do are being burned out by the raging angry-fire of the way i feel about my jbob.  i am running ragged and to wait several years to continue this journey that only began with writing but must follow the life span of revising, editing, FINISHING... publishing, if even only for me.

I'm desperate, you see.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Shadow Letters

I finally got Shade and Shadow and Letters printed out and i took it to work and i went through the whole thing and did some work to it.

It's funny.  I have Shade already started to be Smashed... i thought it was ready to go, but even now,  having read through it eleventy-seven times and doing how many revisions, i'm still making more.  Of course, now with the second one there are things that need to be tweaked  just-so so they match up with the later story.

And Letters... i've read through it on the computer a thousand times and thought it was nice and done, and i wouldn't have to do much to it.  boy was i wrong.  Not only edits and elaborations and pretification but one of the letters themselves.  Completely wrong.  assigning an attribute to the wrong sister.  read it a thousand times, never noticed it before.

Sometimes i'm such a dunce.

So now i suppose i should go get some coffee this coming sunday and apply revisions to at least one of them. 

It feels good to half-cross out one of those things on my to-do list for 2013

Saturday, January 19, 2013

A While

It's been a while.  i posted a couple things on this blog but those got moved to my new, other blog.  i'm not going to link it.  you don't get to see it.  it doesn't concern you.

I've made a list of things i want to do in 2013.

I want to get back to Troubled or Troublesome
I want to get things typed up that is still only in notebooks
I want to get both Third Bed and Shade/Shadow and Letters Smashed and uploaded
I want to do Nanowrimo with my time travel sort of story with Elliette

Tomorrow i have insisted to  my husband that i am leaving the house with him in it to take care of the child while i go get coffee and do some writing.  not sure what i'm going to work on... just the need to work itself is calling to me.

I've been on a long break.  not even revisions.

Which reminds me.  I want to do print outs of the Eillim/Enna stories so i can revise them.  I've been wanting to do this for weeks, but since the printer's not actually hooked up; each time i want to use it i have to pull it out and plug it in and that's soooooo muuuuuuchh woooooorrrrrk...

But i've been reading.  Really good books too, though i can't recall a single one i've read of late.

Also, i saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower my teenage favorite book.  i was not disappointed.