I liked this Harry Potter better than the first one! And if you haven't seen it, stay all the way through the end credits, even though as far as I can tell they listed every single one of the reputed fifteen hundred individuals who worked on the film.
Oh! And we left Chantico out while we went to the movie! FIVE HOURS! (Five hours because we didn't get into the one we were going to go to and the next one didn't start for 90 minutes, so we were gone from 4-9, almost.) And when we came home ... she hadn't chewed ANYTHING up or destroyed ANYTHING or gone to the bathroom in the house or ANYTHING! She was a PERFECT puppy! I'm very proud of her! (And not just a little relieved, let me tell you.)
OH MY GOSH! DEIRDRE BROKE FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS! HOOOOOOOOORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY FOR DEIRDRE! WOW! HOLY COW! *YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY* DEIRDRE! *DANCIE DANCIE DANCE*!!!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAY DEIRDRE! WOO HOO! *beam* YAAAAAAY!
3K words, and off to see HP!
Goonies is playing at Bear Tooth this weekend. I'm thinking of going to see it tomorrow. :) :) :)
2700ish words written so far today, finished ch. 37, which has been malingering, wrote 38, and am partway through 39. I have absolutely no idea how much I've got left. :) At least two more chapters after this, maybe, still, as many as five. I guess we'll see. 56K words, anyway. This is going to be at least 60K long. It'd be kinda nifty to hit 60K today, but we're going to Harry Potter later, and that's a 2.5 hour movie. We'll see!
Feh. Tired. Bored. Don't wanna work anymore.
...
And that seems to be about all I've got to say. :)
Working today, and bitter about it. Just thought I'd let you know. :)
Patch (not actually represented yet at that URL, but hey) has broken 50K words! HOOOORAAAAAAAAAY FOR PATCH! Fifty thousand words in a month! HOOOORAAAAAY! *dancie dancie dance*! YAAAAAAAAY PATCH!!!
I don't think there will be any writing tonight. I have to make three pies and clean the house instead. Apparently Friday evening and Saturday will be very busy for the writing parts, because I have this bizarre obsession with actually _finishing_ the novel this month. I've come this far, or something.
I made dentist appointments for Ted and me on Dec 19 at noon, because my teeth are getting plaque-y and scraping up my tongue. In order to alleviate this, I just went and thoroughly brushed my teeth and flossed them with vengeance (and most people use dental floss, so this should show you how dedicated I was!). Now I feel like I should go to bed. o.O
For the severalth time this year, QA told me I screwed up, when in fact I have not screwed up at all, and indeed, QA has screwed up. This is becoming incredibly, incredibly frustrating to me. I've talked to Barb about it now, but I don't know if the situation will improve. There are two people in QA and one of them is the one who keeps doing this; the other never does it. Very. Very. *Very*. Frustrated. :(
Going to let the dog in now. Sigh.
2100ish words written tonight, and if I thought I was going to finish the book in the next 3 chapters, I'd hunch down in a sullen lump and write write write all night and get it done, but I'll be very surprised if I do, despite 3 chapters being the theoretical number of chapters left.
Anyway, off to get Emily from the airport and then, um. Dinner, I imagine, and possibly the purchase of a carpet cleaner. Boy, do we know how to have fun, or what? :)
*boggle* It's 54 degrees out. The sun is shining gently. The wind is blowing strongly. The birds are flying around all twitterpated. There is no snow anywhere. This is incredibly weird.
So I have this recurring action adventure dream, and last night in the middle of the dream, I thought, "Hey, if the protagonist in this was female (for some reason I'm always a guy in that dream), I could make this into a book for that new book line."
What new book line? This new book line:
Silhouette Bombshell is launching July 2004 with four books a month, one of which will be a continuity (at invitation only at this time). These are heroine-driven, female action/adventure stories. Think Alias or Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. Geena Davis in the Long Kiss Goodnight. Demi Moore in GI Jane. The emotional experience in this book is the thrill factor as reader watches the uniquely skilled heroine get out of the precarious, often high stakes situations she finds herself in. Every book will have a romance, but the romance is the subplot--it is the heroine and her "kick ass" life/thrilling plot that drives the story. Though books don't need to necessarily end in marriage, there needs to be a commitment to move the relationship to the next level, whether that be a first kiss, new awareness between the couple or even married couple, or marriage. Authors to read for examples of this type of heroine: Maureen Tan, Linda Barnes, Laura Lippman, Janet Evanovich. Sensuality level is up to the author--everything from closed door to super sexy allowed. Can be written in first or third person.Word count: 80,000 words. I'm looking for new authors. New voices and veterans. If an author is already working with an editor, she should submit to that editor. Otherwise, send projects to: Lynda Curnyn, Editor, attn: Bombshell
In my *dream*, I thought this. Sheesh!
I yam a beeoooteeful woman! Ahem. :)
Zilli has climbed into the cupboard that holds Ted's computer box. Now the door of the cupboard is Thumping Mysteriously, and when I peek in at him, he looks at me with Real Big Eyes like O.O! And it's all driving Chantico nuts. As she is a puppy, this is a very short drive, and it's driving *me* nuts. (Comments from the peanut gallery on that aren't necessary.)
My wrist hurts. :P And I should find some breakfast, but I lack enthusiasm for the task.
Which Ultimate Beautiful Woman are You?
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Only 380 words written tonight, and I don't think I'm going to write more, but at least I finished the chapter I was working on. I have somewhere between 4-7 chapters left, which is somewhere between 6 and 10K words.
At this point, I'm hoping more for 6 than 10. :) OTOH, I don't want to rush it, either, so if it ends up 10, so be it. I'm not sure how much writing I'll get done over the next few days, 'cause I'll have a DEEN here, but I'll probably be fierce and insist on writing at least a couple of hours a day, 'cause I wanna get this thing FINISHED. o.o
This hasn't exactly been the most stellar of days. Not only am I still tired from being sick, but I splashed boiling water on myself at lunch, then followed it up by scraping the hell out of my inner left wrist when I was trying to hold the dog and close the sliding glass door at the same time. I now have four bright red marks on my wrist that look like I burned myself, but I have no burns from the hot water. Go fig.
More cheerfully, I took a nap. My favorite thing about naps is how you can fall into bed in any old position and it's always comfortable. How come it's not like that when you go to bed at night?
Another half bowl of oatmeal, and then I lost interest. I'm getting hungry again, but I can't think of anything that seems sufficiently bland and yet interesting enough to eat. Maybe I'll make some mac&cheese.
Feeling better, though. Like maybe I'll get some writing done tonight. Finish the chapter I've left dangling, at least.
Well. I had plans to finish Angles yesterday. Instead, I got puke-sick and spent most of the day in bed. For somebody who spent 18 out of the last 24 hours in bed, I'm oddly tired. Feeling a lot better, though. Ted and Shaun both had random instances of sickness in the last couple of weeks, and Shaun says people at his work have been dropping like flies with the flu, so I expect I got bit by a bug.
I have no idea if there will be writing today or not. I'm still feeling somewhat under the weather, although I'm *lots* better than yesterday. My whole body is sore, though. I'd kill for a massage.
I should get some breakfast. All I've had to eat since Saturday was half a bowl of oatmeal.
50,776 words! I'm halfway through a chapter, so the last chapter posted is actually at 49,850, but I wrote another 926 words after that and I HAVE BROKEN FIFTY THOUSAND! YEAH! YAY ME! *laugh* Ahem. :)
I've written 8060 words today. I may come back after we go to the theatre and, I donno. Try to push for 9K. At least finish the chapter I'm working on, maybe, which will be another 6 or 700 words.
Then again, I may not. 8 thousand words. Goodness gracious!
2000 yards! Swimming was good! Boy do I need to lose weight. That suit reaaaalllllly juuust fits. It'd be fine if I weighed, y'know. 40 pounds less. And it'd be better if I weighed 20 pounds less. I'd better swim a lot.
Mony FINISHED HER NOVEL! 50,300 words in TWENTY THREE DAYS! *GO MONY*!! *dancies mony about* I am SO PROUD! She finished before me! (She says, "I try to look like that wasn't my primary motivation." *howls of laughter*) *happy dance, happy dance*!
I'll start writing again after dinner, probably at 7. 1600 words to break 50K: I can do that today. Hell, mony wrote TWELVE THOUSAND WORDS today! I can handle a mere, er, 7300! But I'll probably quit at 9 tonight, because I have to go over to the theatre and pick up some costuming pieces, and it doesn't seem wildly likely that I'll write more after coming home. I might *shifty look* watch a movie. Or some TV. Hah!
Happy me!
5700 words exactly so far today. Another 1600 to go, and I break 50K!
Now I'm going to go swim, though. Blue Kit Needs Exercise Badly!
Less than 3K to go! 4500 words or something so far today! And I'm *very* smug about how chapter 32 turned out. :)
Ted and I just went to Die Another Day, which was a lot better than I expected it to be! It was too long, but it actually had a reasonably good plot, and Halle Berry kicked ass. Oh, and the opening song sequence was inspired. It actually had something to /do/ with the story, and it was interwoven in a very cool way, plus, y'know, all the usual pyrotechnics. Really nicely done. This may have been the first time I really enjoyed watching Brosnan as Bond.
But man, I still think Adrian Paul should be the next Bond.
And I decided I wasn't going to write tonight. So there! Nyah! I wrote yesterday when I wasn't going to, so tonight I'm not going to! Hah! Take that!
I really, really don't need to go register adrianpaulforbond.org, do I?
Trip has cackled at some of my chapters, and once more I feel inspired to write. I'm easy, aren't I? :)
The dog is acting like an idiot this morning. My shoulder's starting to hurt again, in the nerve. Just a little, but I guess this thing is going to take a while to break up. That's sad.
Emily called last night about twelve seconds after I posted that I thought she might not get in until 7, and we got her and went to dinner and she made wide eyes about there being places to go and things to do, and then we went to I Remember Mama, which has tightened up and turned into a darned good show, aaaand then we dropped Emily back off at the airport and came home and went to bed.
Well. That wasn't a very exciting update, was it? :)
*laugh* Shaun just came home with a business card from the marketing director at the local UPN station for me. She's also doing NNWM, and stopped to ask if it was okay if she went and sat in a corner at Title Wave to write, and said she was doing a National Novel Writing Month thing, and Shaun said, "Oh! Is that where you write 50K words in a month? My roommate is doing that!" So that's pretty funny indeed. I emailed her, of course, and I was pretty sure -- I had to check, but I was right -- that she was the one on the Alaska board who's neck and neck with me, so I've been competing with her (at least in my head!) to see who reaches 50K first. She told Shaun she wants to be done by Thanksgiving. :) Hee hee hee! Pretty cool, huh? *laugh*
No Aberdeenphonecall yet. I have a suspicion that she may not arrive until 7pm or so. However, having finished work for the day and having no Deen on hand to entertain, I went and wrote 1500 words, putting my total at slightly more than 42.7K. I may go write some more in a few minutes here, but first I, er, am going to hang out, or something. :)
Wow! Magically refilled brain! I want to write again! See what a few measly hours of sleep and a mere 1000 words in a night will do? (Measly and mere are my words for the week, apparently.)
I'm positively starving this morning.
A little less than a thousand words written. Finished chapter 28, and am at 41.2K words. Part of my mind is going, "45K is just around the corner!" but mostly I don't think I want to write anymore tonight. I might write another chapter... but probably not.
Silkie reads a lot faster than I write. O.O
I am going *away* from the computer. I'm going to eat dinner and go to the comic shop, and I'll come back when I'm done with ch. 28. :P
I don't feel good. I'm tired, I'm grumpy, my tummy is upset (I really need to start eating better; pizza for dinner last night was just plain stupid), I'm bored, I don't want to write, I don't want to work, I'm tired of the dog romping around, I'm just generally pissy. *sigh*
40,200 words, or thereabouts. Haven't actually counted, but the chapter was in the 600s somewhere when I stopped writing to watch Buffy (yeah, I watched it, because I'm indoctrinated, or something). So I wrote just under 4K words today, I think. Somewhere around there. My brain's a little tired now, or maybe _I'm_ just a little tired. I could finish the chapter, but I think I'll take a page from Hemingway's book, and begin tomorrow from one true thing.
Mutter. My shoulder is hurtful. Not painful, just sort of wearyingly achy. I have made a chiro appointment for tomorrow morning, and perhaps I'll start to get this problem worked out. Feh.
I was going to say something else, but I seem to be drawing a blank on whatever it was. Er. Oh well. I guess it wasn't all that important.
Oh, I remember. It wasn't, in fact, all that important. I got Bounce, Bon Jovi's latest CD, a couple days ago and listened to it this morning. It's not as good as Crush, but it's not bad. A couple three nice songs on it.
Back to work, then.
Because I know you haven't read enough about my writing lately, I'm going to talk about it some more.
I'm suddenly panicking because I've hit 25 chapters which means there's theoretically something like 12-14 chapters left to write, and I have this horrid idea I'm not going to be able to finish the book in 14 chapters.
Why this is actually a problem I don't know, because I can always just write more chapters. None the less, I'm slightly panicky over it. This is no longer -- at least not particularly -- about reaching 50K, because, well. Pretty confident there, my friends. No, now, it's about, er, um, panicking. Maybe because I want to finish by this weekend. Well, hell, brothers and sisters, it'll take 3K words a night (2 chapters) to finish if it *does* turn out to be 12-14 chapters. It'll take 4500 words a night (3 chapters) to finish if it doesn't, because I'm pretty sure it's not going to turn out to be more than *eighteen* more chapters from where I am.
Maybe it's just that 18-20 seems like a *whole* lot more than 12-14. It's *not*, really, but it *seems* like it.
Gnaaaargh!
Wow! I invoked winter by changing my webpage! It snowed last night! Not lots, but enough to stick and turn everything white! Wow! I'm very powerful! I caused an earthquake a few weeks ago, too! I'd better be careful with what I say from now on!
There. 36236 words. 25 chapters. 4660 words and 3 chapters tonight, specifically. I think I'm done writing for the evening. I'm also about 5600 words ahead of schedule, which is nice, because I'm going to try to get done by Sunday so I can finish editing US next week. *vaguely sheepish look* And actually, if it takes another 18K words, I should finish in 6 days pretty easily, at 3K a day.
Boy. I'm cool! :)
Do canned peaches count as part of one's daily froots and vegetables? Or are they basically just More Sweet Stuff? How about if they're in light syrup instead of heavy syrup? I don't like peaches (they're fuzzy) but I liked canned peaches quite a lot and I'm trying to eat more froots...
(4110 words so far. A measly 400 to go!)
Picking up from last night's countdown: 3300 words written, 1500 to go! Although I'm going on to ch. 25 now, which should get me to the 36K wordcount, buuuuuut I don't think I'll feel like the second third of the book is actually finished until I'm done with ch. 26, which actually *will* be, in chapter numbers, the end of the second third. God, I can't believe how well this is going!
There are Leonids tonight. It's cloudy, but I'm thinking of staying up late in hopes of being able to see some, particularly since I got ALL the sleep last night due to having an ooky tummy and going to bed at around 7:30.
(Besides, if I stay up that late, maybe I can reach 40K words. O.O)
My swimsuit has arrived! And it fits. Barely. o.O Perhaps if I swim most days between now and the pool closing for Christmas break, it will fit better next year.
It's a nice color, though! Even if it'll clash with my swim cap. :)
Well, if it's not going to be winter outside, it can goddamned well be winter on my web page!
Well, my tummy's better this morning, and I'm sulky that I didn't write another 4500 words last night. Oh well. I should eat breakfast and do some work and um. *looks around* Yeah.
We now have a couch in our living room! Even better, we've gotten rid of one of the futons (we gave it to my aunt and uncle, who also have a new house to furnish), and so we're not overcrowded or anything in the living room. Now if only we had bookshelves up, it would be like a real house!
Actually, we're going to put our old bookshelves up temporarily, because there's not any *room* in the garage right now to build shelves, and we don't have money to buy wood, so yeah. Temporary shelves and then we'll build the new ones when we can. It may take a while, but at least we'll get more stuff unpacked in the meantime.
It's starting to snow. Lil' tiny sort of pathetic flakes, but snow. Maybe it'll turn into *real* snow. I'd like that. Mid November is too late for no snow. :P
I have a mere 5700 words left to write today. I have no idea if I'll accomplish that number or not. :)
THIRTY
THOUSAND
AND
FOUR
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH
Actually, it's more like 30180, because I've written part of another chapter already, but for some reason the 30004 number amuses me. :)
Onward! A mere 6 thousand words more write today! *CHEEEEEEAAAAAAAAARGE*!
I am MIGHTY. Just under 4K words written today, despite not really getting started writing until 7pm, and Angles is at 28369 words -- not that I'm counting. O.O Seven and a half thousand words tomorrow. I donno. We'll see. o.O
Twenty seven thousand words! *Yeah*! *YEAH*! So if I write 1 more chapter tonight I only have to write, er, 7500 words tomorrow to get to 36K.
O.O
Er, well, that 36K might be a little overoptimistic, as I didn't get up until late today, and then I got hit by a terrible case of the Great Sleepies, and had to leave the house, so I've only written 1K words so far. I'll go try to get another couple thousand done tonight, but I don't know that I'm going to write 9K tomorrow. o.O
Sarah, however, is making me go AUUUUUUUUUGH! with her book. MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
Also, Mom had a furniture store accident today, so we inherited a table and a sofa. :)
And now I must go eat dinner!
I did break 24K today. The goal for Monday morning: 36K! Onward ho!
Coming up next, we have a rant about the episodic media that I read and or watch. For the first time in history, I'm employing the cut text option on my blog, because there are spoilers for Buffy, Strangers in Paradise, and X-Men (the comics) herein.
I have reached my tolerance level for each of the three titles mentioned above, not coincidentally, in the order they're listed. I have reached my tolerance for a lack of resolution; I have reached my tolerance for angst, and I have reached my tolerance for being jerked around.
Let me begin with the X-Men, which is the least offensive (at least at the moment) of the three. Given that the X-Men is a forty year old comic book, I understand that in most cases, there will be no resolution. At the moment, however, in X-treme: X-posse, we're being fed what is actually a pretty damned good storyline. A get-the-dirt TV host wants the real story on the X-Men. The X-Men are interviewed. They say nice things, generally, which are then taken by the producer and twisted around to make it look like the X-Men believe in mutant supremacy and mutant domination of the globe.
And it disgusted me. I think it disgusted me primarily because it seems so painfully typical of news media. It wasn't shocking. It was disappointing, and it was disappointing because it seemed so incredibly likely. I am _tired_ of being lied to. I know enough to take news reports with a grain, or more often, a truck, of salt. Many people do not. If a TV anchor says it, it must be true. This is why Muslims in America are being treated like second-class citizens. This is why half of America is convinced that anyone with a gun permit is a raving lunatic. This is why, and you may fill in your own examples. You all know what I'm talking about. And I'm tired of it. So tired of it that coming across it in escapism media doesn't feel like a commentary on society, it feels like another goddamned time I've been lied to.
Strangers in Paradise. Strangers in Paradise is a 10 or so year old comic book. It is, by and large, excellent. It focuses on three main characters: Katchoo, Francine and David. David's in love with Katchoo. Katchoo's in love with Francine. There was one brief mention that Francine might be in love with David, but it didn't go anywhere, and anyway, the important relationship is Francine and Katchoo's. Francie's straight, Katchoo's not, and for years and years and years they've gone around on this topic of what love is and what gender and sex have to do with love. Francine, who has committment issues, finally decides Katchoo really is what she wants, in this latest issue. Only Katchoo doesn't come home that night, and Francie arrives on Casey's (a mutual female friend of theirs) doorstep the next morning, hysterical, worried, and discovers Katchoo on Casey's couch. They are both very guilty, and it's clear they've slept together.
This precise scenario hasn't happened before in SiP, but for some reason it broke the camel's back. I went "Augh," a little bit, as I was supposed to, but mostly I went, "Oh, for *Christ's* sake, can't we just get this fucking relationship together or not? I've had enough." They lost me; this reiteration of the We Can't Get Together clause lost me. At this point I no longer really care which way it's resolved: I just want some goddamned resolution.
Which brings me to Buffy.
Buffy screwed up beyond belief with the episode on Tuesday the 12th ("Conversations with Dead People"). And look, at this point, if you've come this far blindly and don't want Buffy spoilers, stop reading. Okay? Okay, you've been warned.
Because, see, they had me through the whole episode. The Cassie/Tara stuff, that was nice. I like the girl who plays Cassie a lot. Willow's distress was very nice, and I've been tired of Willow all season, so they actually got me there. That was good. Buffy's conversation with the former classmate/shrink vampire was great. Enjoyed it a great deal. Dawn's stuff with Joyce was -- the house stuff was over the top, but the last few moments, with Joyce telling her that Buffy wouldn't choose her, that was creepy and devastating and I liked it. The moments with Spike were interesting and he seemed so *human* that my heart ached. It was good.
And then they killed Jonathan.
I've said to many people that I found Riley to be a dull, unsympathetic character until the moment he said, "She doesn't love me," about Buffy, and then he became incredibly sympathetic. Well, BtVS had me through that whole episode. I was sympathetic. I was there with them. I was in the moment.
And then they killed Jonathan, and it all went away.
It takes a lot, once I'm a fan, to get me to stop watching a tv show, but Buffy may have done it. See, I know that life sucks (no pun intended) in the Buffy universe. I know that you play your hand and you take your risks. If you're a bad guy -- the Master, Angelus, the Mayor, Adam, Glory, Warren -- you're gonna die. That's what happens when you go up against the Slayer & Co.
I know that if you're in Buffy's inner circle, you're fair game. Joyce. Tara. Angel. Hell, Buffy herself, not once, but twice. And that's fair.
Jonathan didn't exactly have clean hands. He's done plenty of things wrong, made plenty of mistakes. But his biggest flaw was wanting to belong. Jonathan, at heart, was one of the good guys.
But even more, he was one of us. He was somebody Buffy was supposed to protect. He was always part of the story, right from the very first episodes. He even knew who Buffy was: the Slayer. But he wasn't privy to the inner sanctum. But he wanted to be: if you have to be *aware* of the world as it really is in the Buffyverse, isn't it better/cooler/more fun to be One Of Them? One of the good guys, one of the blokes in the white hats who save the world? He *wanted* to be part of Buffy's circle. He wanted to belong.
Jonathan was just like us. We're the outsiders, the ones who get to see how the world works, without getting to be part of it.
Jonathan was the audience.
And now we're dead.
I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to keep watching the show. Jonathan, all unknowing to me, was the in. I knew I liked the character; I knew I was tremendously disappointed last season when he didn't casually say, "I read Sanskrit," and thus step into the role of witch left empty by an insanely grieving Willow. I knew the Jonathan the Vampire Slayer episode was one of my favorites; what I didn't know was that without Jonathan, the Buffyverse left me cold.
Without Jonathan, what link is there to these characters? He's me. He's me, he's you, he's all of us who don't fit into the Scoobies. We're not Buffy, we're not vampires, we're not even relatively ordinary Xander with his insider status, and we're sure as hell not Spike or Willow. Yeah, they've all got degrees of humanity -- all of them more than Buffy herself, in fact -- but for me, at least, Jonathan was the audience.
And Buffy didn't rescue us.
So why bother?
It occurs to me that ordering a deep maroon swimsuit when my swimcap is hot pink and purple may have been something of an error.
OTOH, it's too late now. :)
1600 words tonight, putting me a mere hundred and ten words away from 24K. I do not wish to write any more tonight, but man, noticing that I was that close to 24K makes me twitch. :)
We went to see Sweet Home Alabama this evening. It was pretty cute. Not good, but pretty cute. 'course, I'd have chosen the other guy, my own self, but I always did have a soft spot for Patrick Dempsey. Even if I'm not sure I can spell his name correctly.
But wait! I have a plot! Well. I have an inkling of a plot. It will turn into a real plot. In January. O.O
More of Sarah's fault! Well, okay, not really, not entirely, because I'm on the same mailing lists she's on and it's been announced all around, but:
Harlequin is starting a new line of fantasy novels, full-length books (100-150K), with romantic subplots (which most novels have anyway), which they're going to start publishing in 2004 as trade paperbacks, one title a month while they see how it goes, and maybe more titles a month after that. They're taking open submissions.
I don't HAVE a 100-150K fantasy novel! (Actually, I do, but it's ... man, you know, if I could rewrite that, it'd really work ... except it's part of a series. I don't think they're looking for series books.)
And now I'm going, "AAAAH!", followed by, "Hey, I could write a 100K fantasy novel in a couple months," followed by, "I DON'T HAVE A PLOT! AAAAAAH!"
AAAAAH!
A chapter and a fraction of US edited today, and 1250 words written on Angles. My wrists hurt. Hnf.
So in a fit of pissiness I ordered a swimsuit off speedo.com, since, yes, apparently NO ONE COULD EVER WANT TO BUY A SWIMSUIT OFF-SEASON, wtf is that all about, anyway, so now I guess I get to wait and see if it fits. Hnf.
In other news, I completely forgot I was going to get up and go to the gym this morning, and consequently didn't. And Lucy is about to fall off the computer monitor. *pushes her back* There, now she's not anymore.
Sherilyn is worried that my protagonists are too smart, in Angles. I clearly will have to come up with challenges that are tough enough for smart kids!
Spurred on by my sister's encouragement, plus some gushing email from another friend who's reading Angles, I wrote 2900 words tonight and am now at 21000 or so total. Nearly at the halfway point for wordcount! Slightly less than halfway through the story -- I believe the halfway point is somewhere between 7500-10K words out, whereas the wordcount halfway point is a mere 4000 or so words out. Still, I should reach halfway in wordcount by Thursday, I think (I have to edit more US before I can write more Angles, though), and if I'm terribly, terribly cool, maybe I'll complete the second third of the book this weekend, which would be somewhere around 36K words. I'm not sure I'm holding my breath on that one, though.
To bed, now, so I can get up and gym, hopefully, or maybe at least write. Stupid stores around here have no swimsuits. I'm going to have to order one online. Feh.
Night, anyway. :)
This is a _very_ nice photo of Elijah Wood (Frodo), taken by Viggo Mortensen, who plays Aragorn.
Oh, other writing update -- I heard back from Winifred, who said the Kitling story had real potential (since she didn't ask for a rewrite, I presume that means real potential to go in the anthology), and then she also praised Trip's submission effusively. Hee hee hee. :)
I seem to have very little to write about right now that isn't about writing. :)
Cool. 1 more chapter of US rewritten/edited, although not yet done on the computer (editing is easier on hardcopy, IMHO). Tomorrow I'll print out more chapters and make a pile of To Be Edited, and that will probably help things go faster.
Right, ok, that's it. No more brain. :)
Ok, two chapters of US edited and I still have to go rewrite one entirely. Or not quite entirely, but significantly. Mom called and said, "So, uh, when are you going to write the next 100 pages of Angles?" She wasn't sure she liked this reading books in thirds thing. Maybe I'll not bring over the next third until it's all done. Would that help, Mom? Hee hee hee. What else? Oh, I actually did work today, too, isn't that nice? And I also edited the next chapter of Sarah's romance novel she's working on (see, I'm not the ONLY person writing two books this month...) and um. And Ted came home sick at lunch, which is very sad, and ... the cat is puking all over the place. Yucko.
Or perhaps I'll go hang out with Melissa for a couple three hours, come home and hang out on the net while my headache builds, try to go buy a swimsuit (for some reason, Fred Meyer has replaced all the swimsuits with winter gear), eat, see my parents for a little bit, and collapse into bed, all of which is what I did yesterday instead of working on US.
However, today and every day thence for the rest of November, I don't get to work on Angles (Right Angles to Faeryland, the original and now again title of Leader Green) until I've done a complete chapter edit on US. So there!
1750 words this morning, for a grand total of 18.1K. I'm *extremely* pleased. The first third of the book is pretty much done now, and for the rest of the day (at least, for the rest of the day when I'm not out socializing, which I'm about to go do for *gasp* the second time in two days!) I have to work on US rewrites.
Perhaps if I'm good I can do another 5 or 600 words on LG tonight, which will put me a day ahead of schedule. :)
Don Juan triumphant!
6100 words today, *FIVE* chapters written wholesale and a sixth one finished, and one more chapter and I'll be finished with the first third of the book. I am SOOOOOOOO smug! 16,400 words as an approximate total at the moment, , so if I in fact write three parts of generally equal length, I'll come up with a 53K word book. At the moment, I'm suspecting it's going to be around 40-45 chapters with an average chapter length around 1300-1350 words, which puts me somewhere between 52 and 59K -- so overall, things are looking to come in at just about the same across the board. *God* I'm pleased.
The ms., on paper, is 88 pages right now. Mutiply that by 3, and I'll be using a 10pt font to submit this critter to a contest, but that's okayfine. Wow I'm feeling smug!
I got up at 8:20 this morning and was writing by 10 after 9. Between the hours of 9 and 3, I wrote 4500 words. Then I went swimming (a measly 1500 yards, but I realized around 1100 yards that I was probably so tired because I hadn't eaten since breakfast at 11), and then we went and had dinner with our friend Dale who had a layover on his way to Fairbanks. It's been something like 3 years since we saw Dale, so that was very nice! And now I'm all garlic-breathed and I need to go write another 500 words so that I'm caught up to where I'm supposed to be for Nanowrimo, and maybe (hopefully) another 1K words after that so I can make it a nice even 6K for the day. I was aiming for 9K, but I don't think I'm going to make that. :)
Tomorrow, I must do some *serious* editing on US. Although I'm going to lunch and to a bazarr with a friend, so -- well. I'll do my 1700 words on LG, and edit at least 1 US chapter, and we'll see what happens after that. :)
Oop. I had a little bookstore accident. But it hardly counts at all, 'cause it was at Title Wave, where we have credit! Somewhat less credit now than we had an hour ago, I admit...
I have: Murder on Astor Place, a murder mystery by Victoria Thompson, and Never After, a cute-looking fantasy novel by Rebecca Lickiss. What a name. That wasn't so much the accident part.
The accident part more comes in the form of the five trade paperbacks I bought: Tigana, 'cause I can't find it in hardbound, Black Swan, White Raven, edited by Datlow and Windling, 'cause I'm on a fairy tale kick right now, White as Snow by Tanith Lee for the same reason, and um then I saw The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye which is by Jonathan Lethem who wrote Gun, with Occasional Music, and then I completely and *totally* randomly picked up The Gift by Patrick O'Leary. I note, defensively, that it's got a Thomas Canty cover.
I'm sure the fact that three of the five TPBs are Tor books is pure coincidence.
I'm going to stop writing, the last week of December, and *read*. I haven't read much of anything the last few months, and that's *awful*. So that's my plan. Hmph!
I've run out of things to procrastinate on. Work is done, the bills are paid, the checkbook is balanced. Oh, wait, I've thought of something else: I can go to the bank as soon as Ted gets home, and change our address. Thank God, I don't have to write just yet. *snort* :)
We went over to the chiro to give them a copy of my insurance card, and while I was there I got popped, because my right shoulder has been really hurting lately, and I explained more precisely to Dr. Woody where the pain was, and he said oh! and popped me a whole different way (he had me stand up against a padded wall (I need no comments from the peanut gallery, thank you) and put my feet out and scootch down a bit so my knees were bent, and cross my arms over my chest, and then he wrapped an arm around me and put his fist along my spine and pushed me back against the wall and his fist), which resulted in a *stunning* array of noisy pops all along my upper back each of the four times he did it. Then he sat me down in a chair and popped my neck some, and by the time I left, my pinky and wrist no longer hurt. I'm under instructions to ice it two or three times a day over the weekend, and if it hasn't finished loosening up by Monday, I get to go in again for a couple-three more sessions, which he says is usually the number it takes to clear up this kind of injury.
Then we went to the Crazy Croissant for lunch, and it was just as terrifically yummy as it was the first time we went there.
It's tremendously foggy and pretty out today. I like fog.
Okay, now to fix a bug.
Ted and I went to the open dress rehearsal of Dad's production of I Remember Mama last night. It was really quite wonderful! I'll be going to see it again, probably near the end of the run. Very enjoyable indeed! Mama was wonderful, Katrin was overdramatic and funny, Uncle Chris absolutely stole the show -- readers in Anchorage ought to go see it. It's playing for the next 3 weekends at 7:30pm (I believe) at the APU theatre. :)
Deirdre's broken 10K words on Nanowrimo! I'm at just below 9K, as is Sarah (or she was last night). Mony was heading in towards 15K last I knew. It's all very cool! *beam*
*HAH*!! I have had a moment of Great Triumph over the evil that is Word! I have figured out how to make its default setting (normal) automagically double-spaced! I've been trying to figure this out for YEAAAAAAARS. Today, in a fit of something or other, I actually looked at the help files. :)
I know you're all dying to know how to do this, so I'm going to tell you. Go into Format. Choose Style. Highlight Normal. Click Modify. Click Format. Choose Paragraph. Choose Double under line spacing. Click OK. Check Add to template. Click ok. Click Apply, then close.
*HAH*!!!
Confluence.org is a very cool, very weird project that makes me want to go hike the backwaters of Alaska and record confluences. Not that I'm anything like a hiker and not that I even know how a person goes about finding confluences (presumably with a GPS, actually), but it just sounds cool! Humans are such *odd* creatures.
I wrote 700 words last night and got depressed over the fact that LG isn't as good as The Secret Country, and so I quit writing and read some of TSC instead, and bizarrely that made me feel somewhat better. LG is a different story. I still want it to be as *good* as TSC, but ... well, it made me feel a little better, anyway.
I also wrote up about a page's worth of notes and thoughts on LG, so it wasn't a total waste of an evening. I'm starting to get more of a feel for what's going on, although there are still some mental rough spots. I need to go research some fairy tales. Actually, I should start by picking Angie's brain, that might be fastest.
I would like to have 10K words written before the weekend. I'd still be behind, but it would be nice to reach that number. Eh, we'll see.
The next door neighbor is mowing his lawn. In NOVEMBER. What the HELL! That's SO WRONG! People do not MOW THE LAWN in NOVEMBER!
*sulks off in a corner*
Ha cha cha! 2300 words on Leader Green tonight, and I edited the next chapter of US. I'm still behind on Nanowrimo -- 8200 words or so (except only 7600 of them count 'cause the next 600 are part of an only partially written chapter), and I should be at 8500 -- but I'm a lot less behind than I was this afternoon!
Ha cha cha!
I got my trashy entertainment magazine today (US magazine) and it has a picture of Nichole Kidman and Russell Crowe on the front, and speculation that they're a couple. Ted glanced at it on his way out, said, "Oh, Nichole's got a boyfriend?" I said, "Russell Crowe," and he said, "Pah," or something, and then once again, bitterly, said, "Tom Cruise is a *fool*," and left the house. *giggle* Not that I disagree, but Ted feels *very* strongly about this. *giggle* *giggle*
I have voted! Have you?
I have also had two doughnuts for breakfast, utterly cancelling out the benefits of having gotten up at 6am and swum for 45 minutes. 1750 yards, and I discovered if I don't bring a water bottle with me into the pool (I forgot it in the locker room) that I don't goof around as much. So I'll not bring the water bottle with me anymore. :)
My ears are full of water.
Shwoop! A Compendium of Kitlings is off to the editor! We shall see what happens now!
Don't worry: the 7.9 quake didn't kill us all dead, or even knock any books off the shelves. Here in Anchorage it was very rumbly and rolly and it went on for a LONG time -- about two minutes! -- but it wasn't all jolty or anything. It was *very* impressive, though. I was sitting down to put my shoes on, and Ted had just swung his jacket on, and when I looked up the dining room light was swinging quite wildly, and I said, "How come you hit the light?" and Ted looked mortally offended and then we realized we were having a hell of a quake. :)
This was my plan for the day:
1. Write 1700 words
2. Clean the bathroom
3. Make cookies
4. Swim
This is what I did:
1. Went to my Dad's rehearsal for I Remember Mama and took 125+ photos
Some days don't come out like you plan. :)
I finished A Compendium of Kitlings! It came in at just under 7000 words, or at 8750 words, depending on how you count it (ie, either by using Word's word counter, or by multiplying 250wpp times the number of pages, which is the traditional way to do it) and I'm pretty pleased with it overall! It makes me laugh, anyway! And between it and working on LG earlier today, I wrote 3000 words today! Go me!
WOOOOOOO! *beam*
It's pretty funny how other people's writing success gets me all excited about writing. Mony has broken the 8000 word mark on her NaNoWriMo novel (GO MONY!!!), and *I'm* so smug about it I'm practically dancing around. And I'm all gung ho to write more, myself!
(In fact, I am writing more. I figured out What Happens Next in the Kitling story, which means I may be able to finish it tonight! Yah!)
Jeez, I thought I was doing okay today. I wrote 1500 words, edited a chapter, actually socialized IRL with some human beings other than my immediate family, and swam, but *Sarah* more or less took over the world. Gooooooooo Sarah!
Ted put a split keyboard on my desktop. I hope very much that it helps my pinky/elbow/back ulnar nerve problem, because it hurts like hell.
Another 900 or so words on LG, for 1500 total so far today. Ted wants me to go out to lunch (which is to say, to go out and watch other people eat, since I'm not hungry) with him and some of his friends, so I'm going to take my swimming gear (in case it runs long) and go and be sociable, and then go swimming. I may write some more tonight; I donno. I should do another 200 words to make the 1700wpd wordcount the 50K-in-a-month requires.
I should *also* work on the Kitlings. Nrf.
Anyway, I'm off. Vroom!
A good morning so far. I got 600ish words written before the boys got up (I also fed the dog, filled her peanutbutterball, and changed the kitty litter as procrastinatory measures) and Sarah's just edited the next US chapter for me. In a couple minutes I have to go back to the salt mines and get another 1100 words (or more) written on LG, but for this moment, I'm coasting and happy. All is well with the world!
Oooooooookaaaaaaaaaay, I failed my work on Kitlings roll, but I did edit 5 more chapters of US. This is partly because they'd already been rewritten and didn't need much work (or I didn't think so, anyway), but now they've been sent to Sarah for fine-tooth-combing. I believe that the next chapter may be the one where I have to actually start rewriting and really editing, but if I do one a day, I should be done by Thanksgiving... which is late this year. I should be done around the 22nd. Perhaps before, if weekends go well.
And I have written. 2100ish words on Leader Green, an edit on a US chapter; I should work on Kitlings, now.
I was re-reading Urban Shaman, and one bit made me bark/snort/laugh out loud. Shaun was like, "What? What?" and Ted said, "She's reading her own writing." *giggle* Ahem. :)
Y'know, at the *very* least, I need to save the Kitling story to disk so I can put it on Little so I *can* work on it away from the desktop.
*zums to do that*
Nobody's even updating their weblogs today, leaving me to actually work and write. How dull.
I've reconsidered how I'm going to handle Nanowrimo. I've decided instead of trying to do huge blorts on the weekends, what I'm going to do is rewrite a chapter of US a day, and then if there's any writing brain left over, I'll work on the Nanowrimo novel. If it doesn't get done, it doesn't get done, although really, 1700wpd shouldn't be that rough. I think. :)