NaNoEdMo

So I am not doing NaNo this year. I feel really strange and slackery about it, but there it is. I can’t reasonably wrap my head around a new concept when the two books I have written are unedited. So the goal for this month is to finish editing book one by the end of the month. I have plenty of time off to do that, and I want this to be a busy but emotionally calm month. How’s that sound to everyone? Good? To me too. No more fucking asshole people and their chronic weirdness, much more work and focusing on myself and my own business. One of these days I will find the balance between other people and me, but this month I am going to tip the scale in the me direction, for sure.

So as of tomorrow – we edit! If you see me not-working you have permission to scold me, but please do not kick my ass, I am a wee bit fragile at the moment.

I’d like to think at least things can’t get any worse.

Florence + The Machine “Hurricane Drunk”

Birdmad Girl

This girl has got a smile that can make me cry.

She flies outside this cage
Singing girl-mad words
I keep her dark thoughts deep inside
As black as stone
And mad as birds

This is based on the main character of my second NaNo novel, and the photography I did last week in Benton Park.

Had to do a little day-to-night action on the BG photo, but I am very pleased with it. Click here for full size (it’s worth it, much better at 1200px wide)

Also at Rendo for those who hang there.

So what have you learned, Dorothy?

So NaNo is over for another year. At the risk of sounding overly proud of myself (I am!) or preachy (I’m not!) this whole post is about lessons learned during this process and personal growth and stuff, so be warned.

During the process of NaNoWriMo, you learn a lot. You obviously learn about your own novel and you learn about writing in general, but you also learn a lot about yourself – as a person and a writer. What you’re capable of, your best working patterns, your hidden feelings about things which suddenly become glaringly obvious when they’re words on a screen instead of amorphous attitudes floating around in your head.

So first, you learn about these bizarre characters you have created, and what they’re up to. You learn how they talk to each other and how their world works. Some of it feels like it’s under your control, but a lot of it feels like it really isn’t. I honestly don’t know that I make things the way they are in my writing, they just are that way and I chronicle them.

Last year I had what I thought was a much stronger basis for my first novel: a cool original character, a universe to put her in, some antagonists for her to deal with, some things for her to figure out. This year I had no earthly idea what I was going to be doing, I only knew who my main character was. For a while I was sure that there wasn’t even a story there. I didn’t know what the hell this chick was doing in town. When I finally figured out why she was here I was as surprised as anyone else might have been. Continue reading »

Wait, did I miss November somehow?

I can’t believe how this month has passed. All in a hazy swirl of neon lights and a big fat cloud of cigarette smoke. It’s been all words, drinks and drama. It was October when Jake originally got sick, because I was home for Halloween, remember? How is it possible that I’ve been compulsively checking him for red spots for more than a month? He seems to be doing well on these medications, and I will take him in soon for more blood work. Not too soon, though. I am tired of them jabbing him.

I took off every Friday in November to give me more time to get my NaNo book written, and it really helped. I finished NaNo a day early, and will post more on that later. It was amazing, and I can’t believe I did it. So I am glad I took the time off. I also needed this break from work, and I needed to be able to look forward to not being in the office one day a week. This month it has seemed more like work is just something I have to do sometimes rather than the All Encompassing, Never Ending Badness That Rules My Waking World.

And now it’s December. Well, tomorrow it will be. Holidays, festivity, snow. I have to work THREE WHOLE WEEKS in a row with no days off except weekends! Eeek! But then I get a nice chunk of time off work, almost two full weeks. So that’s much to look forward to.

The house… well, I am continually challenged by the perils of home ownership. This time coming to me in the form of a malfunctioning water heater. I loathe dealing with things like this. The interminable phone calls, the arguing with people who don’t speak English, the waiting for repair people, the phone calls back to India, the arguing, the realizing it’s still not working even though the guy just left and swore it was fine. The having to shower at your friend’s place. The feeling that if only you were somewhat smarter you could sort this out. The feeling that you’re the only person in the wold this kind of thing happens to.  Bah to all of it. And when this gets sorted out it’s just going to be something else, some other broken down malfunctioning thing. It wears on me, wears me out. I am trying to just breathe deeply and deal with it as it happens, but it’s hard.

One day I am going to learn to roll with the punches, but you know better than to think today’s that day.

Anyway, that’s all for this month. I blinked and I missed it. But if I recall correctly, it was a lot of fun.

Gearing Up for a Lazy Saturday

We’re coming down the home stretch of NaNo, and I feel pretty comfortable with where I am. About 33k words. I hope to have 40k in by the end of the weekend, which shouldn’t be too hard to do. I have cleverly arranged things so that I don’t have to leave the house today if I don’t want to, so I should be able to get some decent work done.

Had to take Jake back to the vet yesterday, it was almost time for his bloodwork and I noticed some spots on his stomach that I suspected might be petechia again. It’s hard to tell because they’re basically just red dots & blotches, so any scrape he gets might look like that. The vet said better safe than sorry, given the condition he’s got, so they went ahead and moved his bloodwork up by a few days. Called this morning and his white blood cells and platelets are slightly elevated. This is actually good, because it must mean that his body is making some of its own platelets by now. I am still waiting for the results of the clotting factor test, but since these marks on his stomach haven’t spread I am hopeful that they’re just scrapes or something.

Anyway, that’s all for me. I am still waiting on news from MyTodd™ about some kind of fracas at his after-hours last night. Apparently there was an ambulance involved. I am glad I went home straight from the bar, his after-hours parties scare me.

Looking forward to NaNo being done and really doing a lot of reading in December. Instead of writing goals, I think I may set myself reading goals next month. People have suggested a lot of their favorite 1st person works of fiction to me, but if you have more please shoot them my way.

In the Mouth of NaNoWriMo Madness

So not much to say, or time to say it. I took these pictures of Jakester tonight. As a result of my spoiling him he’s become uber-clingy and wants to be held all the time. Or stuck in my sports bra to kind of lounge across my chest in the mornings. Anyway, they’re blurry and badly lit and I really like them anyway.

Really Random, Because My Brain Refuses to Work

Snagged this screen cap from a video my cousin made a while ago. This is me with my brother and two of my cousins. I don’t remember where we were, or why we’re posing in a covered wagon, but what I think is interesting is how we’re posing.

Observe my younger cousin on the left side of the image, looking at the camera. Observe my older cousin on the right side of the image, looking at the camera. Observe me and my brother in the middle, not only not looking at the camera, but not even being distracted in the same direction. There’s some kind of grander statement about our personalities there, but I don’t have the brainpower to make it right now.

Also, I think my NaNoWriMo book might be about an entirely different character than I intended. Which is weird, but also how it’s forming itself as I ponder it.

That’s it for Thurssday randomosity for now.

Oh lord, it’s so hard
it’s so hard when you’re living in the devil’s playground
in the devil’s playground

There’s some man that is starting a war and I feel like we’re knocking on heaven’s door
You better let me in
I wanna get in

Gram Rabbit – Devil’s Playground

NaNoWriMo – To Write or not to Write?

I posted this over in the forums at NaNoWriMo HQ, but I’d love the opinions of those of you who read my blog as well. You’re all creative types. What do you think?

Last year was my first year participating in NaNoWriMo. I had a crazy-insane wild ride and I did win by getting to 50k words. I got the complete structure of my novel down so I have a beginning, middle and end to my story, I just needed to do more research and rewrites. (“Just” probably needs to be in quotes there.)

Right after November I had a major trauma at work, broke a bone, got really sick and then proceeded to have an utterly crap year. Last year’s novel is therefore not completed. I am still working on it whenever I can. I understand that this is not National Novel Editing Month, so I shouldn’t use it to work on an old piece.

I’d always planned a sequel to last year’s story. That was bopping around in my head even as the first book took shape, so I am considering writing that this year – but I hesitate because last year’s novel isn’t finished and shiny-pretty with a beautiful bow on top. Since I am new to this, I need advice.

On the one hand, writing the sequel may help me to refine the original. On the other hand… what? Will writing something new before the old thing is totally put to bed destroy the creative process on the first piece? I have a situation this year in which I can take significant time off work to devote to writing in November, and I hate to pass up a year of participation just because I haven’t finalized my last work.

So, for those of you who’ve been doing this for a while, what is the best course of action? To write or not to write?

I Won That Shit

It’s with a pretty frikking great sense of accomplishment that I can say to you that I WON THAT SHIT and I have now completed National Novel Writing Month by writing 50, 265 words of my novel “Conversations with a Crypt Sprite.”

There is editing to be done, there are revisions and additions and if the good Lord’s willing and the creeks don’t rise there’s going to be a research trip to Savannah in my near-to-middling future, but I have done what I thought was absolutely impossible and I have WON THIS SHIT in the middle of crisis at work and drama everywhere I turn and working 12 hour days and getting huge blisters and having people tell me I talk too fast and having strangers talk to me at stores and consuming seriously scary and unhealthy amounts of chai tea and I can tell you that I am pretty damn proud of me.

Thanks for reading my bitching, if you did indeed do so, all this month.

I will bitch more later in the way you’ve come to know and love, but about totally different things. I don’t know if I will do this again next year, but the fact that I have taken this idea that’s been in my head for the last 2 or 3 years and gotten it out on paper (or, pixels, or bytes, or whatever) is amazing. A-MAZ-ING. Rock on, me.

That’s all!

NaNoWriMo

42,112 words. Probably nothing tomorrow due to a planned 14-hour day at work, so about 8,000 left for my day off on Friday. It’s doable, if I can keep my mind in gear.

I feel like the most alone person in the entire world, buried under a mountain of work so big I can’t breathe. I am so ready for this month to be over, this day to be over, this week to be over.

Also I feel sorry for myself (obviously).

Come December come.

Fill in the blanks

Some numbnuts tried to speak to me at Trader Joe’s. I just walked in off a 2-hr, caffeine-fueled, 4,000 word binge at Borders and as I walked in they clanged that stupid fucking bell and I about jumped out of my head. And then some worker was all “YELL REALLY LOUD SOMETHING RIGHT NOW!” practically in my ear so I was putting the bob back in discombobulated and then I picked up this goat cheese and spinach quesidilla and it was all #1 ingredient enriched wheat flour and I was all “not for my $2.99, bitch” and I put it back down and this guy that was standing there as I walked away said something to me. And yeah, I was startled, so I heard this “Mumble blah blah mumble back at my house.”

Fill in the blanks for me people, and make it make sense. It’s making the only kind of sense that’s not right now, so solve it for me whilst I sleep. Ow my head. Stupid people. Here’s a clue, fellas. If you want to talk to a distracted looking chick at the grocery store and she already seems jumpy – DON’T. Fecking hell.

Observe now my wall of kicking ass:

Observe too how I am a grown up and if I want to paste a bunch of random inspirational stuff on my wall I can do that shit, do that shit.

Mall didn’t kill me, nor did it make me stronger.

Got my “only 4 bottles remaining” conditioner. I am not going to tell you what I dropped on that, because when I think about it, it sickens me. Hint: it rhymes with “bind-y collars”.

Not helped by the fact that they were the stupid smaller bottles and not the larger “value priced” ones, so I payed about 30% more. Anyway. I have the conditioner. Whew. Hair crises averted for a few months, then I will have to go all Britney and shave my shit, or something.

Went to BreadCo, got another 1,600 or so words in the can. 26,314 is the count at the moment. Going to take a break and let myself work on a rather macabre piece of artwork for awhile and listen to the new Joe Hill “20th Century Ghosts” on audiobook.

Edit:

Pic posted at rendo and devart. Original render and finished piece both available below for those who are interested in such things. Now, back to keyboard pounding. Continue reading »

Different Viewpoints, Different Advice

So, I will blog in detail about this later, but super cluster-fuck has hit at work and I have been working 12+ hour days for the last two weeks, plus bringing work home, plus working weekends. It’s been, in short, the suck of all sucks. And guess what? NaNoWriMo is hard to do in the 5.5 hours of sleep you get a night, since that’s the only spare time I have. So I am fucked. I was at 20,000 words, then somehow lost a document that sent me back to 18,000 or so. Continue reading »

Saturday Plans

My grass seed arrived yesterday, so today is going to be all about raking a lot and then getting it down, hoping that it has time to take before we have a hard freeze. This grass seed is supposed to need very little in the way of maintenance, and even better: none in the way of mowing! I have been wondering for years why no one has come up with a grass that doesn’t need mowing, I just supposed that the lawnmower lobby was strong enough to quash research :-p

(example above of non-mowed eco-lawn)

Wildflower Farm Inc. Eco Lawn: The ultimate low maintenance Turf Grass Seed!

Continue reading »

I Need Your Help!

OK, so you know I am doing NaNoWriMo, right? I got this little “No Plot? No Problem!” kit with tips and tricks for getting 50,000 words written in a month. One of the things that they suggest is making yourself accountable to friends and family by telling people what you’re doing. Which I did. They also suggest that I supply said friends and family with “Onerosity” coupons – meaning that I have to perform a particularly onerous task for said friend if I do not complete the required number of words by a certain day.

So, got anything horrible/time consuming/boring or otherwise not pleasant (or just more pleasant for you than for me maybe) that you want me to do for you? If so, send it to me via email or add it in the comments here. Since I am opening this up to everyone at one time I will have to assign the tasks to specific deadlines myself rather than take specific challenges. (for instance, if everyone challenged me to write 3,000 words for them by Monday then I would have a problem.) So once requests are received I will make a list of deadlines for me and consequences if I don’t meet them. If you don’t want your request to be public I will just add something such as “Non-specified task for xxxx if Susan has not completed 17,500 words by November 9th.” Or something like that.

Anyhow – motivate me! I do reserve the right to refuse really creepy/gross stuff, but you guys know me, I am hard to creep and gross out.