Don't Forget to Title Your Post

I feel like i start my blogs with the same sentence sometimes.  here's one of those times.

i don't know what the fuck i was worried about.  i'm just being stupid.  i've got this under control.

I forget how i'm working at this, slow and steady.  i forget that i've fixed things, i've figured things out already.

And i etched out another little specificity that irked me by its absence.  I feel that i have finally found the whole of the insane rationalization of my "bad guy"

Because so much of what happens hinges so much on a series of events that happened long before my characters were born.  But i have to keep it neat and clean and short, yet still show what's up with the bad guy and the character who is basically me.  She's in all 5 stories, even after she's dead.  She does pretty much my job... twists events to fit her fancy.

that's not true.  that's treating her worse than she deserves.  she gets a bad rap.  no one really appreciates her.  poor dear.

Anyway.  i'm working on the first two at the same time right now.  editing 1 at home and rewriting 2 at work.

And I'm still waiting to hear about Third.  Coffee Companion took a long time to come back but i feel like this is mayblonger.  maybe cuz they're giving prizes in this one?  maybe cuz i totally rocked it and i'm getting one?

that'd be awesome.

Distressed and Rambling

It's not even the lack of time that i use as my excuse.  It's my doubtfullness.

I worry that, in the end, the conflict of the second story, The Prophet, is weak.  And without that story, there is nothing else.  The first one's only there to set it up.  The third one is only there to set up the fifth but cannot exist without the second...

I guess it's what i've been tryign to work on, since i am rewriting it all over again.  The other four grew out of what it was supposed to be, not what it was.  i fear my foundation is shaky...that there are plot holes i can't seem to fill.

Maybe, though, i can blame the time.  because when do i really have any time to sit down and thnk about it?

i have beautifully terrifying outlines and post-it notes everwhere.  i need a sabbatical.  but captioning assistants don't get those.

and i know that's why i've been so focused on Eillim and Enna lately in their little stories.  because they entwine with but are not dependant upon the main, treacherous bodies.  Chapter Eleven of the The Pilot revolve around them but with a little editing i could pull it right out and the twins could exist free entirely of the insanity of the Ankaverse.

...and now that i've said that, i wonder... could i pull it out in such a way as to still leave it in (god, i hate myself) the same span of time, from their point of view...

i just don't like the gap of information between Shade and Shadow and Letters, some of which exists in Chapter Eleven.  i'd like to put them Smashwords.  still waiting to hear back from glimmer train on whether or not i continue with the process for Third Bed...

in other news, i watched The Avengers again tonight.  i still think that it is better than the sum of it's parts.  i loved it more than i loved Ironman and I. Love. Ironman.  i have a very meh feeling about all the rest of them (you know, except for that hot thing.  i am still a girl)... i always expect Captian America to yell "Flame on!"  one guy really shouldn't be two superheroes...

but when they all come together and they each have their own seperate personality and joss whedon is fabulous... yeah.  i love the avengers.

Vacation's Over

I never did finish my week of babyless posts.  that's okay.  nothing special happened, really.  i cleaned the house and got the Guide all put together the way it's supposed to.  now to finish it.

Today i finished Sense and Sensibility and i had nothing to read afterwards (or i didn't wanna go back to Uncle Tom's Cabin) so i pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote down one of those things that's been rattling around in my head lately.  it relates to the Pilot.  and it sort of opens up a new avenue for me to go down to make that a better story.  it needs to be better.

it's just a short conversation between Nesris and her owner/brother/prince Nasinair.  I only  mentioned it once and only in retrospect the fact that even though Nesris was a slave Nasinair treated  her well, almost as a confidant.  i think going back and revealing more of her life as how it used to be will add to the story...  give Nesris and Dartia a little bit more time in the beginning...  And i also have a new idea about why and how she escapes.  the first one was clunky.  this one is better.

So i'm gonna dig out that binder and take it to work tomorrow.

now i have to go do my at home job.  a file from hell. i just want to finish it but i don't want to work on it.

To be Single and Childless, Day One

it was perfectly ridiculous to find myself so aimless and out of sorts this morning when there was no baby and no husband.  it's not like i see them before i go to work anyway.  we have just changed the daughter's schedule so that it's the same every day, not different the days i don't leave for the real job.

and then, of course, the day took forever.  I've been working on reading Uncle Tom's Cabin and i really like it, but it's moving slow.  yesterday i had an irresistable urge to read Pride and Prejudice.  I decided to just run across to the book store and get a new copy since my old version is a tiny paperback that at one point set out to see what it was like to be two paperbacks.  i could use a shiny new copy.

There's nothing that gives me a bigger book boner than a brand new, shiny trade paperback.  some people want the hardcovers, let 'em have it.  i love my trades.

So today i read P&P and this time around i'm picking up even more.  Mr Bennett cracks me the fuck up. i love that dude. 

I'm looking forward to tomorrow when i will have to go into work for a short time to make up hours, but then i'll be in the coffee shop working on putting The Guide in the correct order.  can't wait.

Beauty Is a Whore

I like money better.*

it's been about books more often lately than writing.  today, a little of both.

I am nearly done with the Sherlock adventure.  There's less than a quarter of the book left... i actually knew the answer to the one i read today.  The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.  as soon as Lestrade said that two had been broken.  i was like "something's inside them!"  win.

I started The Hours, the third book of the Meryl Streepathon (*which is where this quote comes from).  This is the second, for sure, and possibly third book that also mentions her within the book.  i will be keeping count of that too.  i find it interesting that she is so very knit into the very fiber of the world.  because Meryl Streep is fabulous.  denying this would be like blasphemy.

I am unable to go with the husband and the baby to the family trip intended on taking with them.  But this leaves me 10 days free of... everything, it seems.  Sure, i have two jobs still but those eight to ten hours of being at home after, five of those days totally free of the real job.  i felt i had to make a to-do list to make sure i had something to do every day and i wouldn't go mad, so used to being busy i am...

but i filled it up beyond what i can probably do.  I miss so much the things i got to do when the husband and i were alone.

On all of my off days i will be spending a few hours at the coffee shop with my laptop and my headphones, a glass of iced coffee and probably a peanut butter cookie.  and i will take the chopped up hunks of The Guide and i will put it back together the way it belongs.  that's four days, maybe five.  how much can i get done?  half of it, at least, i hope.  how many cigarettes will i smoke (because come on, i'll be alone for a week.  yeah, i'm gonna buy a pack of cigarettes) a lot, i forsee.

I should be working

but everything seems to be against me a little bit.  the audio sucks, the program's not working, i'm cranky, i don't care.

the baby climbed up on one of the tables today.  that made me laugh.

today i made a plan... how i want to go about converting my crazy, crazy binder back into sensible digital form.

Color coding with the new post-it flags i got.  i used up my last package of these and when i went to get more they were on CLEARANCE. so i bought two packs.  blue is revisions, green is write new, yellow is transitions and pink is new stuff that's written and typed already... probably stored on Scrivener.

This is my outline. i sometimes feel like crying when i look at it.  and that's only the front half of it...

There's all kinds of these kajabers... pages torn apart and put together in a new order.  color coded highlighting that i hardly know the meaning of... arrows... so many arrows.
Also, this picture is upside down.

I think this is a true compulsive personality tick.  every post-it i have ever written in regards to this story (since it's been in this binder... which is years, but not all of them) is stuck to the back cover once i've done the thing the post-it told me to do.

Well, that was fun.  the color coding was fun today and it'll be helpful for the almightly plan.  the plan to use the multiple-sections-combined-into-one-document function.  now it's all in the order it's supposed to be in and all i have to do is chop up the digital copy and put it back in the right order.  transitioning and polishing as i go.

and when will i have time for that?  oh, on the week i was supposed to go on vacation that i've been looking forward to for like a year.  stupid real job.  stupid pto and full-time and hours requirement bullshit.  no vacay for me.

Coulda Warned Me...

Someone could've told me how addicted i was going to become to Sherlock Holmes.  seriously.  now, not only is there the stories every day, but there's a tv show that i could watch over and over again... and a second show coming out in the fall that i seriously can't wait for.

Working on the The Guide and The Prophet at the same time.  moved some stuff around.

I want a Kindle, but only if you can edit documents on it... then i can modify my digital work at work.  because there's not much left to do besides work on the computer with it, but i don't have the time.

It's Summer

You can tell because my patio looks like a jungle.  what parking lot?  i've got a jungle outside my apartment, bitches.

And also because all the epiphanies are blooming.  smack dab in the middle of my walk jamming out to... gosh i don't even remember... was it Jimmy Eat World?  i know i started out the walk with Supertramp.  a good way to start out a walk.

Bam, it hits me.  one of those obnoxious "road under construction" signs is pulled aside and i'm finally allowed to travel down new road.  it hadn't been a full-on writer's block.  just a writer's construction sign...

I've been reading and between writing stories lately.  that's been nice but i think we're on our way back.  To The Guide once again.

i need to get paid to do this so i can focus on doing this.

So I Lied

I did manage to both work and do some writing over this long, long week off.  I typed up the rest of the bits that i'd written for The Guide.

I also read through The Third Bed.  I so very much want to get that up on smashwords and considering that i only changed maybe a dozen words on this read through i think it's ready.  I just have to format it and that's where i lose focus.  there's so many steps!

maybe i need to go to the coffee place and sit down and do it.

and then i can do it to Shade and Shadow, cuz that's the other one i want to put up there.

but now i have to work some more.  and i have to go back to the real job tomorrow so i have to figure out what i'm going to work on or what i'm going to read...

Reading and Writing

I've actually gotten a lot done since my last post.  i have read several books.  another Joyce Carol Oates, the newest Gunslinger related novel, and just today Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen, a new favorite.  books full of magic and non-obnoxious romance.  she has three others (four, including the other one i've already read, Garden Spells) and i need them all.  tomorrow i got back to Jack The Ripper which is interesting and disgusting.

Also, i have done a thorough rerecompileagain of The Guide.  A new outline, a bunch of newish and revised stuff for the beginning section.  it was while i was rewriting the The Prophet that I realized that i needed the beginning of The Guide to be better; needed more information.  as it stood it seemed too much like i was just expecting people to know things.

I took The Medium to work today but it turns out there's really not a lot to do there, which is why i stopped working on it in the first place.  of course, i did stop like mid-sentence.  don't know what that's all about.  way to go, past Sara.  how am i supposed to finish a sentence i started months and months ago?

There's only so much i can do at work.  i need some serious time to sit down and type up what i have (or maybe i should use Dragon.  i wonder if it will work on my new laptop Sullivan better than it did on my old laptop Elenore... i wonder if i know where i put the install disc...) and also to edit things and shuffle the digital of what i've already shuffled in the hard copy.

Who has spare time in a jar?  i've got money, i'll pay for it.

Moving On

Yesterday i took The Guide binder to work.  i realized very soon that there wasn't much i could do because of the "You Are Here" post-it note.  this post-it reminded me that on wednesdays, long ago, i used to go to the coffee place and have an iced coffee and work on editing.  the "You Are Here" post-it (which also has the N,S,E,W cross on it as well... just in case i needed to know) made it sorta impossible for me to do any work on anything leading up to that point.

but i did spend some time on the outline, fleshing out for fleshing out later.  like making sure to eat breakfast on thanksgiving so your tummy doesn't shrink and you have plenty of room for my mother-in-law's sweet potatoes and beef loaded stuffing...mmm... stuffing...

what?

I also recalled while i was working yesterday that i had put all the edited chapters, which i was editing one by one, back into a document.  apparently i named this document "rerecompiledagain" because once before i had compiled it when i realized all the chapters were in the wrong order.  my overredundancy make me giggle.

so i just finished rerecompilingagain more because there were more things i hadn't added to that compilation and then i printed it out.  and i put all the old stuff in one of my handy white envelopes where all my old words live.  now i just have to find my 3 hole punch.  i used to know where it was before a baby lived in this house, but i just can't remember where i put it to keep it safe from those tiny little fingers.

Terrified

I know why i'm working on the connector right now. it's because in writing the sequel i returned to the story of jo and sol where i've been yearning towards for quite some time. returing to them in their end made me want to revisit their beginnings finally, so i did. and it's been a great experience, even though yesterdays cut and reorder still has me a little freaked out.

i also really wanna go back to the spaceship becasue of the sequel which brought those characters into play again too.

the thing is i do not want to go anywhere near the prequel or the monstroscity. the prequel becuase i spent so much time trying to fix it that i just feel worn out and i need to give it a damn rest. but the monstroscity because i don't know what it even looks like anymore. it's been so long and so much has changed in my head about what needs to happen there that i don't even know where to start.

really, what did i get myself into? how old and decrepit will i be when i finish this?

Potential Titles??

I've been thinking about the titles. Could i name them something as simple as two words? The prequel, which is all about Anka's early life and her learning her job and then losing it... The Guide.

The second one is more about Daniel and he leads Anka to her fate. She entrusts her fate to him as Milah told him to. The Monstroscity would become The Prophet.

Of the other three i have no inkling yet.

in other news i've been thinking that i need to introduce Sol to Jo earlier than their first meeting. i think they need to dislike each other before they even get assigned to that first mission. But what? because he's military and she's not. how do i introduce them on a university campus? is sol even on a university campus?

pondering, pondering

The Question of the Day

How hard would it be to rewrite everything in present tense, rather than past?

It's something I started to ponder, not for the first time, today at work. I was writing between calls, not exactly new material just revisions that are too large to fit between lines on the already printed out pages. Then on breaks i was reading; Because It Is Bitter; and Because It Is My Heart which is written in present tense.

Coming back to my own work from something i'm reading often had this affect on me. i write in that tense, almost even in that style.

But as i was writing, seeing that i was doing it wrong and trying to get it back into my natural past-tense state i saw that i liked it better in present.

but there's so much to do. hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of words. Third Bed and Shade and Shadow would be left alone but the five, the prequel through the sequel, would they be improved in a different tense?

i did one page of revisions in the connector, bringing it into the present. the page where Jo thinks she's finally got everything under control. it seems so much more urgent, like she was, so much more excited, like she was. maybe this is a good idea, but where will i find the time?

that's another question of the day.

The Kids Have Grown Up

I finished the sequel two days ago, the day after my last post. i had honestly thought i had maybe two more days of work, but it was winding down quickly. And even though i came home early from work before i could hit the end i still sat down here at home and wrote the final scene. The End, just as i'd promised.

And i'm stunned at how completely shut out of the story i am now. It used to be i'd spend the time waiting for sleep, or waiting for a red light, or washing my hair in the shower to break things down and work them over. If ever i was idle my mind was not. it was off in those other worlds working up a sweat. I did not expect to be completely locked out once it was finished. i can't even open the door.

I shouldn't really be surprised. This happened with both Shade and Shadow and the Third Bed. I can go back and clarify my ideas, fix my grammar and spelling, move a paragraph around. But i cannot change anything. I cannot change what Svanir or the Foxen do to the girls. I could not for all the money the world give proper names to the him and her who love each other so. i'm locked out. those things are now beyond any control i ever had.

I suppose it's good for that, at least. my prediction that i could edit once i had it anchored seems to be true. It's just so strange to be unable to visit those places anymore. Last time i said it had taken up four years of my life, but that's not quite right. I came up with the main characters of the first two stories in middle school. Over half of my life has been spent writing their adventures and lurking in their strange and wonderful universe. I've known most of them since their own childhoods and those i met as adults are no less real.

At times over the years i've wondered which character in that story i am. I know that i'm a little bit of everything. Anka's my tomboyishness, Carrie/Jo has my curly hair. Loki is my reasonablness and Sol that grumpy brooding part. Both Nesris and Anka posess my fear of parenthood and Carrie/Jo is my love of it. it wasn't until i wrote some lines near the end that i realized who i'd been this whole time. I'm Milah. Though she only really appears in the Monstroscity (with a cameo in the prequel and Daniel talks with a imaginative version of her in the spaceship story) her actions are felt throughout the whole epic.

she set these events in motion in order to reach the conclusion.

i set these events in motion. and now it seems my children have grown up.

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!!

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...

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.

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...

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.