I'm always saying writers are weird, although I don't really think I'm all that weird. (Which is probably indicative of how weird I am.) But this morning somebody forwarded me an article about imaginary friends (or rather, a blog entry about the article), which includes a link to an author project, the short version of which is, "Authors have imaginary friends." It's not that we're weird. It's that we never grew up.
There are a couple of quotes on the author project page that particularly strike me:
... fictional characters can be experienced by their creators as having their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. In fact, some authors report that at times, writing fiction is not as much an act of creation as it is documentation of a life completely independent of their own invention... they often described feeling as if the writing of the story was independent of their will, and that their characters behaved in an autonomous fashion.
I ... cannot disagree with this. I sort of feel like I want to, but on any practical level, I can't. My mother gives me incredibly bizarre looks when I say things like, "The book *finally* let me switch to Javier's point of view," as if I have absolutely no control over whose point of view the story is being told from. And it is, for all intents and purposes, true. I know I want to switch to somebody else's POV. I know that part of the story should be told from his POV. But *writing* in somebody else's POV only happens when the story is damned good and ready for it to happen. I can *rearrange* it later if I think the new POV should be earlier, unless of course I don't need his POV until I actually start to write it into the story...
Ted says that when I'm writing I will stop and tilt my head to the side like I'm listening intently to someone. I don't *feel* like I'm listening to someone. I *feel* like I'm thinking. Except ... I'm frequently not. I'm more like waiting. Not much is going on in my head during those times, not really. I'll be working my way through a thought, maybe, but when I *get* it, when I really *get* it, it's not like the thought has come together. It's more like I just suddenly understand what I was missing.
I don't have conversations with my characters, which is to say, I don't interact with them. That would be weird. They're, like ... *struggles* "Not real" is the first phrase that leaps to mind, but it's not right. They're quite real. They're just, uh. Not. Uh. Real. You don't go outside and play with them like you would an imaginary friend. It's more like they... exist... somewhere... else.
This is hopeless, isn't it. :)
Whether I can go outside and play with them or not, they certainly have conversations with each other in my head, which I then try very hard to remember them properly so I can write them down, and ... man, that really does sound entirely insane, doesn't it? It's not like I'm thinking, "Jo will say X, and then Morrison will say Y," it's their actual conversation and how they react physically and what they're doing during the conversation.
...okay, so my thesis was that writers aren't crazy, but I gotta say, I'm re-reading this and I sound like I'm completely nuts. :)
Funny how the wind that's utterly unnoticeable when you're wearing a hat is suddenly very very noticeable when you're not.
I have not gotten v. much done today. Not v. much done at all. Except some walking and some weight lifting and some laundry. But not much writing, which is what qualifies as "getting things done" in my world these days.
Guess I'll go try to remedy that somewhat.
miles to Rauros Falls: 104
I got up at 10 to 7 this morning and was writing by 7:05. 4300 words in about 4 hours, two chapters, and the THUNDERBIRD FALLS manuscript is now complete at 437 pages and 99,735 actual words. I have some rewriting to do and about five scenes I'd like to add, but the major revisions are DONE DONE DONE!
Just in time for me to launch into writing FIREBIRD DECEPTION in April. :)
Have an article to write tonight and if I'm feeling very awesome maybe I'll do some of my rewrites this afternoon. But I might just take the rest of the day off, because 4300 words before noon is a day's work. :)
Boy do I need a shower.
miles to Rauros Falls: 102.5
ytd wordcount: 75,800
things of note today:
1. wrote 3500 words
2. friend got manuscript request
3. sister moved to ireland
ytd wordcount: 71,500
Note to self: just because you *make* 5 cups of (popped) popcorn does not mean you need to *eat* 5 cups of popcorn.
Further note to self: perhaps you should make much smaller batches of popcorn in the future.
miles to Rauros Falls: 101.5
All right. Chapter done. Whew. 2800 words. This next chapter's the big fight scene, then there's wrap-up. Slightly possible the big fight scene will take two chapters. Either way it's going pretty good and the end's in sight. I should start going through the earlier stuff and getting rid of the bad bits that are still in there, in preparation for writing the half a dozen new scenes I want to put in, but I donno, we'll see if I feel like it in a while.
I feel all twitchy. Maybe I'll go walk on the treadmill for a while or something. Fnrt.
ytd wordcount: 68,000
The words are not flowing easily today. They're coming, but not easily. I'm having a hard time writing journal entries these days because I come sit down at the computer and I talk to people and my brain just can't do more than one thing at time, apparently.
Jai and I went out on Saturday evening. *gasp* We went out to Cafe Savannah, which turned out to be the tapas restaurant that Ted and I keep saying we need to try. It was very, very good, and we had a very fine time, and perhaps if Ted doesn't have to work tonight I'll take him out to dinner there. Then we started to walk down to Simon & Seafort's for dessert, but it was too cold so we went and got the car and went down there and then we went to the Snow Goose and listened to some not particularly good music and talked for a couple more hours. It was a really nice evening. :)
Easter we went over to Mom and Dad's for prime rib (yuuummmmm!) and hung out for a few hours, then came home and played some City of Heroes. Another nice, if laid-back, day. And now I'm, uh, well, not working on the book right *now*, obviously, but I have been all morning. 1500 words so far, need to do that again.
It started snowing Saturday night and hasn't stopped. *sigh* I was so hoping I'd be able to start biking, at least around the neighborhoods, on the 1st. Doesn't look like *that's* going to happen.
I checked my blog a few days ago and discovered that I began my Walk to Rivendell on March 26, 2003. As of March 26, 2005, I have walked 1,018 miles. I went through Rivendell a long time ago, passed through the Mines of Moria and reached Lothlorien, and am now just under 100 miles into the 350ish mile journey from Lothlorien to Rauros Falls. I think that's pretty cool.
I'm pretty sure there are other things to talk about, but I need to finish lunch and go back to work.
miles to Rauros Falls: 98
We had gaming tonight, so I thought I'd take Chanti for a nice long walk today to wear her out. We walked about 4 miles, plus our mile-long walk this morning. She was pooped. :) By about two miles into the walk she'd sort of lost interest in trying to snuffle things and stuff and was just sort of going along doggedly. (Doggedly! Ahahahah! I'm so funny! o.o)
Between walking and gaming I finally took some time to read Robert Buettner's coming-of-age war novel ORPHANAGE. ORPHANAGE was one of the five finalists in the 2002 Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' Colorado Gold Conference the year I entered and finaled with MANIFEST DESTINY. I read about five pages of ORPHANAGE at the conference--five pages that ended up being the second chapter of the book--and really truly thought it deserved to win. I knew when I read it that it would be published, and I really looked forward to seeing it in print. I've had it since October, and as I read it this evening I started thinking I was going to be awfully annoyed if people showed up for gaming before I had a chance to finish it, because I really didn't want to put it down. :) (Fortunately, I finished before gaming.)
I enjoyed the book very much. I like military science fiction and this is very much in the vein of STARSHIP TROOPERS and THE FOREVER WAR. I thought it was tonally very much like those books, with a good story and characters, particularly the lead, Jason Wander, that I liked enough to hope to see more of in another book. Yeah. Really satisfying to lil' ol' me.
I didn't bleach my hair today, btw. I realized after a while that what I was really unhappy with was not my hair, but rather the fact that I haven't lost any weight this month, and as Jai said, unless I melt it and have to shave my head and lose a couple pounds that way, bleaching it probably isn't going to help. :)
So what'd I do tonight? Ate a bunch of potato chips. Not because I was hungry, but because people were munching on things and I wanted to munch on things too. Not until after I'd eaten a bunch of potato chips did it occur to me that it would have been better to eat an apple. *sigh* Perhaps next week I'll be clever enough to think of the apple early on.
miles to Rauros Falls: 96.5
Not doing anything today. I don't even know why. I don't even feel like not working, I'm just not working. Instead of working, I'm considering going for a long walk and maybe bleaching my hair. Not at the same time. If I bleach my hair, I can then take a picture of me that looks (as much like) like the icon on this posting (as is possible), which mony asked me to do a long time ago. But my hair wasn't long enough then.
The flip side, of course, is that if I bleach my bangs, the damage that is already done to my hair will be that much more compounded, and it may eventually force me to cut my bangs, which means no good Rogue hair for X3.
The flip side of *that* is Bryan Singer isn't going to direct X3, so it's going to suck anyway, so perhaps it doesn't matter.
My hair is *very* *long*. Perhaps not by most people's standards, but it's Amazingly Long for me. Maybe I'll take a picture. Should I bleach it first?
Not dead! Been busy all day. Got 2800 words written and have another couple chapters to do, then must go over the whole book again and do more edits and then give it to some people to read because by the time I'm done with that I won't be able to stand looking at it anymore. If I am Hideous Cool I'll have all that done by Monday morning, but Tuesday's more likely.
Also did laundry, walked four miles and made some bread. I'm pretty sure the thing is I really just don't *like* wheat bread very much. Does anybody have a really brilliant honey wheat bread recipe or something that I could try?
miles to Rauros Falls: 91.5
ytd wordcount: 65,200
This book I'm writing is in first person. I just got up from working on it and went and got some gorp and tossed it into my mouth, and thought, and this is *exactly* what I thought: "This isn't," I thought, "exactly what I wanted. Maybe I was thirsty instead of hungry.""
Then I thought, less clearly, 'crap, I'm thinking about myself in the active first person,' and then, in the active first person voice again, "Well, this can't be a good sign."
I'm losing my mind. :)
Boy, Garth Nix's SABRIEL, LIRAEL and ABHORSEN are really good books. I read Sabriel a few years ago but somebody told me to not read Lirael until Abhorsen was available because Lirael didn't so much end as stop, and they were right. I just got around to reading them all three in the last couple days. By the end of Abhorsen the trilogy has reached a really magnificent crescendo. It is extremely worthy.
I'm going to take my entirely unworthy self off to work on TBF some more now. :)
So I just said online, "I finished reading TBF this morning and don't see how I can cut very much more, or change too much more structure, although there are some scenes I can add, I think, and my editor may just have to accept that there isn't as much interaction with all the cops in this book. There'll be lots more in the next book."
Then I said I always feels like I'm speaking in tongues when I start saying things like that.
One of my friends said,"You aren't the only one. :)" *laugh*
Went to the chiro yesterday. I'm noticing definite diminishing returns on the cracks in my lower back, which is actually a really good thing. The last 3 visits or so have been way less poppy, and Herr Doktor says that I'm evening out. Now if I could get the perpetually pinched place in my right shoulder to loosen up, I'd be perfect! Although even that's improving, I think. Maybe in another 6 months I'll be done with this nonsense.
In the meantime, though, I gave them some of my business cards and one of the ladies there was all excited over the Bombshells, so hee hee hee. That's cool. :)
You know, one of the things I think is odd is that people invariably ask if they'll be able to buy URBAN SHAMAN at the bookstore. I just think that's so strange. Where else would they buy it? I mean, I suppose they're just checking so they know where they can go to pick it up, but ... I think it's very odd!
It's stopped being windy out. I must take the dorgy for a walk.
5 pages from 200 and running out of brain.
Actually, the revisions have been going really well today. I cut about a chapter and a half of stuff I liked but which really wasn't necessary, and probably another half chapter's worth of stuff that was related to that. I've now got a *really* nice scene with Jo and Morrison, although I think I need like two more perfect sentences to make it absolutely brilliant. Writing is hard. o.O
I'm at a bit now where I think I need to do some more hacking, and I know I need some more conflict, which means pulling the story out of the astral realm and back into the real world, which is going to be ... well. Hard, in the whine whine writing is hard sense, but hopefully not too bad in the story structure sense. Eh. Gah. But I can't think right now. And it's still too damned windy and cold out to walk. Whine.
Yeah, okay. Shutting Nook down for a couple hours, maybe even for the day. I did get 5 or 6 chapters worked through today, so that's actually really good. Man, when I'm done with this revision I have .got. to get somebody fresh to read it, because at the moment I've lost all sense of the overall thing.
Yeah. Need a break. @.@
In completely other news, my husband is ridiculously cute. I was working at Nook and he stopped in the hall above me and dropped a kiss. *smooch* *whistling sound as it fell* *perkow! as it landed on me* Oh, and my v. nifty business card holder (I got the silver on silver one) came in. V. nifty.
Going to the chiro now.
No miles at *all* this weekend. Saturday I was v. lazy and today it was insanely windy and I was just not that good a person. So after last week being all full of miley goodness I totally flaked. Oh well. Tomorrow's supposed to be warmer/less windy.
Last night Ted and I went and rented "Flight of the Phoenix" and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", then came home and watched 6 episodes of Smallville. *laugh* And stopped at the 3rd season mid-season break, and had it not been midnight I bet we'd have kept going. Silly humans. We did watch "Phoenix" today, because it was due back this evening, and it was pretty good. I'm not entirely sure if we're going to watch "Sky Captain" again or if we're just going to watch the extras. :)
This morning I hit actual rewrites instead of just polishing and tightening on TBF. These rewrites will, I'm pretty sure, mean that I'm cutting the entire next chapter and ... and then I donno what happens next, I'll have to rewrite and fix and stuff to see. :) I suspect I'll need to focus entirely on TBF and not work on FD at all this week, because I don't think I can do actual rewrites and write something new (two rough drafts at the same time, yes; a revision and a rough, nnnno, I don't think so), but that'll be okay. I'm 12K into FD and know what I'm going to do next, at least generally, and if I work hard this week I might be able to pick up on FD again next week.
Okay. Bed now, so I can get up and tackle the new stuff tomorrow.
Flicking is the art of goofing around when you're supposed to be doing work. *Advanced* flicking is doing one sort of work in order to avoid doing another sort of work.
I have been doing advanced flicking all morning. Instead of revising, I've been filling out an interview for Harlequin's PR. Now that's flicking. :)
My new glasses came in last night. I actually got glass lenses, because I prefer them by leaps and bounds over plastic lenses, but man, I'm surprised at how much more they weigh. My prescription's really not that bad, but the difference is noticable and I've got a sort of pressure headache around my nose. I'm pretty sure I didn't go through every day with a headache in the days before plastic lenses, so I'm going to try to hold out for a week or two and see if I adapt again. But I'm sure finding myself pushing them up a whole lot more, and futzing with them more in general. Phooey.
No gaming last night. Pat and Melissa came over, but Jack was on, uh, TDY and was supposed to get in at 8pm and come rushing to gaming, but didn't make it, and Christopher had other stuff to do, so we just hung out for a couple of hours and talked, which was very nice. :) Melissa made a very, very good chocolate raspberry torte. V. yummy.
Actually, Jai came over last night too. :) All the socialization! She called around 3:30 and I told her she should go for a walk when she got off work 'cause it was gorgeous out, and so she ended up coming over and we went for a walk together and talked and generally had a very good time, too. *laugh* We were going along one stretch of road and a car came up behind us and I hissed, "There's a car coming. Don't act suspicious!" and it went by and Jai put her finger against her ear like she had a secret service wire there and said in a low voice, "The target has moved by and is in sight," or words to that effect, which made me laugh and laugh and laugh. It was *very* funny. *laugh* *beam* So it was really a very nice evening altogether. :)
I had to get up because my back was achy, but I really don't feel like writing right now. In order to avoid it, I've put more laundry in and folded what was to be folded, and I'm writing this entry, but I donno what I'm going to do next. Trying to read at this stage usually makes me stand in front of the TBR shelves for a while (sometimes a long while) and finally sigh and go work on my book. My hair's still too wet to go out walking, and so I donno what to do. Hnf.
I got on the scale this morning and was up 4 pounds, which I suspect was not really all that accurate, but it certainly has inspired me to go cold turkey on sweets again. (I haven't been doing that badly, really, but there was a Fudge Incident earlier in the week.) So I'm declaring a new Lent for myself, nevermind that Easter is in 8 days, and going off sweets wholesale until the end of April. So Mote It Be.
Actually, I really need to watch my bread intake, too. I've been eating a lot of soups and oatmeal and have been going nuts over bread, I think because it has a lot of body, which soups and oatmeal don't.
I know, I know. What a rough life.
miles to Rauros Falls: 82
It was a pretty nice St. Patrick's Day, overall. We went to Mom & Dad's for corned beef & cabbage for dinner (mmMMMmmm!), and Mom tried out an orange meringue pie recipe instead of lemon meringue. It was pretty good, although not as WOW in flavor as lemon meringue is, so she's going to try some different stuff with the recipe next time.
Then we went to Craig's going away party, which was quite a lot of fun. Saw a bunch of people we hadn't seen in a very long time (including Craig!), and hung out and talked and generally enjoyed ourselves for about an hour and a half before coming home to go tud. *tud* Like that.
All the walking I've been doing (and probably getting up earlier, too) is certainly having a good effect on my sleep. I've been collapsing into bed and falling asleep fast enough to not notice lying there awake, which is v. unusual for me. And somebody called my cell phone at 6:15 this morning, which woke me up sufficiently that I decided after a few minutes that I'd better just get up, or else I'd sleep for another 45 or 90 minutes and then be annoyed I hadn't gotten up earlier. So I got 1600 words written before 10 and walked and, er, cleaned up cat vomit and vacuumed and cleaned the kitchen. Woo. *wry look*
And now it's 11. How does the time just zip away like that? I should get lunch and start laundry and work on the next 3 chapters of TB. The first few chapters are all right. 5 is where it starts needing real work. I understand what needs to be done to fix it. It's just that there's a large psychological barrier to actually starting to rip bits apart and rewrite. "But...but...this is how the book is SHAPED!" Yeah, well, it's shaped *wrong*, so.
Arright. I'm off.
ytd wordcount: 59,300
I had things to say, but I don't feel like it anymore.
miles to Rauros Falls: 77
ytd wordcount: 57,700
Read the first 20 chapters or so of TBF this afternoon. Gotta finish it tomorrow, though I can see a lot of things that need to be done. Viva la revisions. :)
Also walked another 3 miles and am quite sleepy now. :) Oh! Yesterday I was out walking and wearing my ridiculous pompom hat that Angie made me, and a *school bus* pulled up alongside me so all the kids could yell, "I LIKE YOUR HAT!" and so the bus driver could ask me where I'd gotten it. Isn't that cool? Hee hee hee!
miles to Rauros Falls: 74
We loves the clear roads, we do, precious. 3 miles yesterday and 2 this morning. We loves setting our own schedule, too, precious.
See, this is what I've observed: if I get started by 8, I am extremely productive. If I get started by 9, I'm reasonably productive. If I get started at 10, I'm somewhat productive. After that the whole day is shot to hell.
So I got up at 7 today and was at the computer by 8, and got 1700 words written on FD by 10 when I went to take a walk. It's now 11 and I should be reading TBF, but I'm writing this instead. Soon I'll read TBF. Around 2 or 3 I'll probably knock off for the day and go for another walk, although right now "knock off for the day" means "spend some time this evening working on the OtherWorlds stuff for the Luna site". And this is the sort of day that makes me feel good, because I will not have wasted a lot of time and I will have accomplished several things I want to accomplish.
Speaking of which, I got Nikki Flame to 22nd level on CoH. This may not be all that impressive to most people, but I'm amazed I'm still playing the game at all, much less that I have a character that high. :)
_And_ we got Ted's passport picture's taken (and Shaun's!) and watched some Smallville (really nice Jor'El episode, plus the introduction of Perry White) and I got my art facts sheet done for THE CARDINAL RULE.
Oh! And I've redesigned cemurphy.net in such a way that I like it a lot and may even keep it that way for a while. It still needs tweaking and I'm not delighted with the lower pages right now, but they'll do until I've got some more time to think about it.
Soon, I'm going to do a new Works in Progress page.
miles to Rauros Falls: 71
ytd wordcount 56,300
I live a decadant life. I've just made a loaf of brown oatmeal soda bread which smells stunningly good, and as soon as it's cooled off a bit I'm going to have a nice big chunk of it with a bowl of homemade ham and bean soup. The only thing that could possibly improve on this meal would be a glass of whole milk, but I've only got 2%, so that'll just have to do. Perhaps to make up for the 2% I'll have some homemade peach jam on my bread.
Also, this is insanely cool: http://www.jerashchariots.com/
FIREBIRD DECEPTION proposal is done and off.
Had a complete failure to communicate with the PR person yesterday. Crossed wires. I sent email Sunday saying, 'How about you call tomorrow?' and she got it on Monday and interpreted 'tomorrow' as 'Tuesday'. So she called at the stroke of 9am this morning, but I was in the midst of working on the proposal, and I'm trying *very* hard not to answer the phone when I'm writing. I was nearly done, so I emailed her a couple of minutes later and we ended up talking for a few minutes. They don't really know yet what they're doing for publicity. I told her about the local bookstores and she said she'd be glad to contact a couple of them for doing book signings and things, and I told her about Dana Stabenow's NPR book talk show, and ... I guess we'll see what happens.
I walked 5.5 miles yesterday. In a couple of minutes here I'm going to go walk some more miles. And then I'm going to come home and start reading THUNDERBIRD FALLS. And do some of the other things on my Thinks To Do list...
miles to Rauros Falls: 66
Nice weekend. Walked on the treadmill because it was pouring rain yesterday and again this morning because I have a phone call with Harlequin sometime this morning and I didn't know what time I'd be, so I wanted to walk early so I wouldn't totally miss my walk. Turns out it's at 9, so I wouldn't have missed walking time anyway, but it's good to have walked. Besides, I had to watch the second of the Dark Quickening episodes. :)
miles to Rauros Falls: 62.5
I got the chapter done almost despite myself. I really had to cajole myself into hitting 1500 words (from the 1300 I'd had), but after that I sort of finished it by surprise. But being surprised that way is nice! :) If I'm Hideous Cool, I'll write a couple more chapters for the proposal, but I need to rewrite the first chapter first.
By the end of the 3rd chapter, something I wasn't expecting happened, so I'm looking forward to exploring the consequences of that. Which is probably part of why I'm hoping to be Hideous Cool and write some more chapters. :)
Went for my walk (told Ted I was going for a walk and oh Chanti looked *so* hopeful, and *so* sad when I didn't bring her!) and met a young woman who I have no recollection of seeing, but who commented extensively on my hats and my large dog, so clearly she has seen me even if I haven't actively observed her. She asked what I did (we walked the last half mile or so home together, as she lives around the corner) and her jaw nearly fell off when I said I was a writer and my first book would be out in a couple of months. That was cool. :)
ytd wordcount: 54,600
miles to Rauros Falls: 58.5
The sun came out and the wind warmed up yesterday, so I did walk more. Except it turned out there was a puddle approximately the size and depth of Lake Superior at the end of Wendy Way, so instead of walking the coastal trail like I've been doing I was obliged to wander the neighborhood rather than risk drowning in the Ginormous Puddle.
Emily sent me this DVD of this funny 70s British tv show called "Two's Company", which is about an American writer and her British butler. I've watched the first couple of episodes, which made me laugh enough that Ted wondered the heck I was watching. :)
I need to go to the post office and send cover flats and, um, Other Good Stuff later today. But I think I may get out of the house and do a bit of shopping first. Because, you know, I didn't do enough with the whole new-shirts-buying thing a couple days ago. o.O
I had nightmares from about 5am onward (first I dreamed I joined the Marines. WT*F*!? Then I dreamed I'd died and come back from the dead and didn't know it but was re-experiencing it), so I got up at 7:30, because yeegh. But the magnificent thing about getting up at 7:30 is that I've gotten half a chapter written and some walking done already this morning, so I can goof off for a while before going back to the grindstone.
miles to Rauros Falls: 56
My, what wind there is today! I think it's supposed to be a chinook, but it's blowing so damned hard it's cold anyway. I've only walked a mile so far, and I'm trying to convince myself to go back out into it to walk further. WHOOOOSH!
2300 words today, ch. 2 finished, plan to more or less blow through ch. 3 tomorrow and fix ch. 1 on Sunday and look at the synopsis then too (weekend? what's a weekend?), and send off the FD proposal.
If I am extremely, *extremely* talented, I will then start getting up early enough to exercise and write some on FD in the mornings and do my TBF revisions in the afternoons. TBF may have to take precedence for a few days, though, because revisions are hard.
I'm wearing one of my new shirts. I feel extremely cute. :)
(It's apparently an extreme kind of day!)
Ted and I bought big hard plastic water bottles at REI last night. I've been carting mine around with me to various computers and the couch and everywhere today, and have consequently drunk far more water than I usually do. This is good. Yay!
*eyes the wind dubiously*
ytd wordcount: 52,200
Ok, our friend Craig is going away to Seattle and is having a going away party on the 17th so we should really really go to that after going to dinner at Mom & Dad's. I really hope I remember. I think it'd be a lot of fun.
Mom and I went shopping. I got 8 new shirts and 2 new bras. I found out the reason all the bras are shaped this year is because they're making shirts out of very thin semi-sheer spandexy material and it's so your nipples don't poke people's eyes out. That seems reasonable. So I got one of those bras to go with some of my new shirts. And because nearly all of these shirts have some spandex involved, they will continue to fit me as I shrink further, so it's all good. And they're not just boring t-shirts. I mean, they might not be wildly exciting, but they're different, and I'm happy with them. And some of them are *really* cute.
*happy*
Weighed in this morning. 166. Down 22 pounds for sure. Then I spent over an hour trying on everything, and I do mean everything, in my closet.
It very nearly all fits.
Most of the stuff I thought was 10s are 11/12s, which are a little snug still. One of my two favorite dresses ever won't yet zip up, but I think it actually *is* a ten. My other favorite dress (the green one you made me, Mom) fits very nicely. My *wedding dress* fits. My pinstriped grey suit is still too snug, but it's wearable. So is the thigh-length fitted red blazer that I bought eight years ago. And the teeny black leather miniskirt that my friend Liz bought me a decade ago so I'd stop borrowing *hers* fits. The schoolmarmish dress doesn't yet quite fit, but I think it's a ten, too. The red fuzzy somebody in Ted's family gave me for Christmas several years ago which has never before fit, fits.
A pile of genuinely nice stuff will be going to Goodwill, because it's *too big*.
I feel quite a lot better now. I still have nowhere to *wear* all that good stuff (I can't even tell if the annual writer's conference in Anchorage is *happening* this year), because most of it really is too nice to wear around the house (pinstripe suits? I mean, c'mon), but I feel better.
I'm going to go through and get rid of a bunch of t-shirts, too, assuming I can avoid the sentimental value trap thing, and then I'm going to go buy myself some cute new shirts and revel in them.
So there.
(Also, my grandma is doing much much better this morning. Hooray!)
Tomorrow is the 6 month mark (counting by Thursdays, if not quite exactly *day* days) of my Lent diet, in which I do not eat sweets. I've lost, give or take half a pound, 22 pounds in the last six months, and two jeans sizes. That's pretty good. I feel much better and I think I look much better. I don't even hate my hair. How's that for weird?
So it does not necessarily follow that this posting is going to be a completely useless frustrated angsty sort of stupid rant about weight loss and things that I'm going to put behind a cut tag because it'll annoy me to look at it on my webpage, but I need to get it out of my system and I'm too lazy to write it out in my paper journal. Although I'll probably do that too, since I'm feeling chock full of rant, I guess.
And on a completely different topic my Dad's flying down to Seattle tonight because my Grandma's in the hospital with pneumonia. :(
(Update on Grandma, while I'm writing the rest of this: The initial diagnosis is that her thyroid meds aren't working. The docs think that the calcium she's being given to keep her bones strong is interfering with the absorption of her thyroid meds. They said you're not supposed to take any other medication at the same time as thyroid med and none for two hours, but [the assisted living facility she lives at] give Grandma all her pills all at once in the morning. So. Right now they seem to think that she'll be a lot better in a few weeks because thyroid meds take that long to reach their optimum effect.
Which is *great*. But Jesus *Christ*.)
miles to Rauros Falls: 51.5
22 pounds. 2 jeans sizes. You'd think I'd be pleased. And I mean, I *am*. Maybe more accurately you'd think I'd be *encouraged*. But no. I'm frustrated. It's like there's light at the end of the tunnel and it's an optical illusion or something, seeming much closer than it is.
Right now I'm within about 10 pounds of as thin as I've been in my adult life. I have a closet full of size 10 clothes that are really fantastic and I can't quite fit into them. Even if I could fit into them, I have nowhere to wear them. I mean, we're talking like tailored jackets and short skirts and wonderfully school-marmish dresses. I *really* don't have anywhere to wear them; I'm certainly not going to sit around the house in them. If I fit them I'll wear them to conferences this summer, at least to the RWA conference which is reportedly fairly formal, but that's not actually the point. The point is that I've lost more than twenty pounds and instead of being happy I'm just frustrated because I haven't actually gotten to my goal weight yet.
The only other time I've lost a significant amount of weight was right after getting out of college, when I lost about 20 pounds in 3 months. That's probably part of why I'm frustrated right now. It's been twice that long and I've only lost the same amount of weight. Of course, the astute among you will realize that I put all that weight plus a lot more right back on.
In fact, if you want to get technical, I've actually lost about 40 pounds since my fattest. So you'd think even more that I'd be happy. And you might bear in mind that if I continue at this rate, I'll hit my goal weight at just about a year of this whole changing my eating habits thing, and that would be swell too. Happy-making, even.
Hah. That would be, like, sane. Rational. We'll have none of that here, evidently.
Part of the problem is clearly that I don't have any good clothes that fit me right now. And for Christ's sake let's not talk about bras. I went bra shopping this weekend. I don't like shopping to begin with. Shopping and discovering that this season some idiot decided that All Bras Would Have Shaped Cups did not improve my temper. Determining that I'm still in a 38 when I thought that at this weight I used to be in a 36 just made the whole freaking mess irredeemable. Anyway, it seems idiotic to buy cool clothes, especially since my idea of cool clothes tends to equate with expensive clothes, when I'm planning to lose another twenty pounds.
Maybe I should just suck it up and spend forty or a hundred dollars on some new shirts, just so I don't feel so down about it all. I don't mind wearing jeans particularly. I'm just sick to bloody death of t-shirts. And they're all too big for me now, too, and although apparently most people feel thinner in clothes that are too large, I feel fat and grumpy.
*sigh* It's late. I've got a book to work on tomorrow. I'm going to take my fat grumpy self to bed. :P
Worked out and walked this morning, that was good. Going to swim tonight. Let's see. I've gotten about a thousand words written and have *some* more to do before I rearrange the whole chapter into something more bearable. And then two more to write, but I have an idea of where I'm going with them, so it should go just fine. That's the Thursday/Friday goal, those next two chapters.
I got my Mandarin painting yesterday! It's absolutely gorgeous. I unwrapped it, and Ted said, "...Ursula's going to be famous someday." And now I own TWO Ursula originals! Ahahahaha! :)
There are other things I want to mention, but I don't seem to be able to hold my brain together long enough for decent posts these days. Oh well.
miles to Rauros Falls: 49
We have titles!
Iago gets two out of three; Cyrano gets the other. The books will be THE CARDINAL RULE (Cyrano's suggestion), THE FIREBIRD DECEPTION, and THE PHOENIX LAW (Fred's ideas). THE CARDINAL RULE will be out in December 2005. THE FIREBIRD DECEPTION is due out in spring 2006, but more specifically I don't know.
But! I also got a release date on THUNDERBIRD FALLS, which is due out in *May* 2006! That means I'll have three Walker Papers stories out inside a year, and *five* books out total in that time period.
*falls right over*
Ok. A little saner today. I sent off the title ideas to Matrice last night and just finished writing my bio for the press release. I decided that today I'm going to take care of as much of the non-fiction-writing writerly stuff as possible today, so the next thing to do is ... more OtherWorlds stuff. I must try to write "Urbane Shaman", although I have no idea what to do with it. It's only supposed to be about a thousand words, which is hardly time enough to get started.
I also need lunch and to walk the dog and fold some laundry. Not in any particular order.
I am having an insanely busy day.
I've gotten 1500 words written and really should do another 1000, because that'll get me somewhere like the end of this chapter, and it's clear that the end of this chapter is going to be the actual beginning of the book. It's full of backstory and stuff now and it's dull, although I don't mind writing it because 1. I'll be able to work it in later, and 2. it got me started writing, which is all that really matters.
I have done 4 loads of laundry. I have chopped ice out of the driveway. I have walked another 2.5 miles (it's beautiful out). I have cleaned most of the bathroom and am going to appeal to Ted to clean the tub. I have.. I have... well, christ, it feels like I've done a lot more, even if I haven't. I talked to Angie for 45 minutes or something, which was awesome. I am reminded I ought to call Starling.
I need to get my bio for HQ and the title suggestions together and send them tonight.
I feel like a headless chicken. Insanely overwhelmed, in this fascinated big-eyed augh way. I would not be in the least overwhelmed if I didn't have all this stuff to do for my WRITING CAREER. The little tiny mind, she boggles! But I am not going on any sort of room-cleaning frenzy tomorrow. I think that and the bread-making and laundry are part of why I'm feeling overwhelmed. Not that any of those tasks are particularly hard, but they did add a lot of sheer numbers of things to do to what I did today.
@.@
miles to Rauros Falls: 46
current music: Young Dubliners, Real World
I swam 4000 yards and walked 5 or so miles this weekend. I'm very disappointed that I didn't wake up weighing 140 pounds this morning.
I was not at home a lot this weekend, which is nice and unusual for me. Spent lots of time visiting with my parents and gossiping. Gaming Friday night was fun, although we got almost nothing done and frustrated my poor husband with our lack of focus. :) Oh, and I went and had coffee with Jai yesterday, which was a little hectic because she had Tori and one of Tori's friends with her, but none-the-less, it was really really nice to see her. I really like our weekly meetings. I'm always cheered by them. :)
So far this morning I have made bread, worked out, walked a mile and a half, changed the kitty litter and done two loads of laundry, and I *must* write, preferably a full chapter. I was going to clean the whole bathroom, but I'm thinking instead that I will clean part of the bathroom and deal with the rest of it tomorrow when I don't have to make bread or work out.
I think I need to update my thinks to do list. Ai.
ytd yards swum: 14,200
miles to Rauros Falls: 43.5
Calloo! Callay! Oh Frabjous Day! I've got the synopsis for OPERATION: FIREBIRD basically done. It needs some work and there's still some bits where, as Wen would say, "Then a miracle happens," but I've got the thing generally done and I'll fiddle with it a bit more over the next week or so. Now to write the first few chapters!
I'm trying to do too many things at once right now. Been trying to write this post for hours. I got email from my editor today, who is really enjoying OPERATION: CARDINAL, but who doesn't like the title at all. (Which, as someone said, is much better than the other way around!)
So I believe I'm looking for title suggestions at this point. I'm going to put some of my thought process behind the working titles behind the cut tag, and perhaps people will be able to help some! And if somebody hits on a title that Matrice likes and goes with, I'll send 'em a copy of the book when it comes out. :)
miles to Rauros Falls: 37.5
This was the email I sent to Matrice:
I've been going with a couple thematic ideas with the title(s). My working titles for a trilogy starring Alisha have been Operations Cardinal, Firebird and Phoenix. That progression moves in a number of different ways: first, on the most basic level, it goes from something firmly anchored in the real world (a cardinal) and as Alisha learns more about the clandestine superpowers manipulating both her and the world she's involved in, it moves toward the firebird, which is inherently a more fantastic idea. Ultimately, in the third book, as Alisha's firmly entrenched in this whole new layer of espionage on the global scale, it becomes the phoenix, an entity of impossible dreams whose reality is based in a wholly different place than where Alisha began.Second, as you've seen already, there are some direct tie-ins with the Cardinal idea in the first book. The second introduces a new airborne AI drone called a Firebird, the existence of which will bring more of the world Alisha's getting involved in to light. In the third book, the Phoenix is representative of several things, the first of which is (spoiler). As I see the third book as being the point at which Alisha divorces herself from the CIA, she also becomes a phoenix in her own way, very possibly staging her own death near the end of the book so that she can be reborn as an agent of a higher order.
Third, although this isn't really exactly represented in the books, I just like the idea of the three red/fire birds and the elemental tie-in there. :) Given my druthers that's something I'd use through a whole series about different agents, giving each of them a color/element/creature progression separate from the others. (...actually, although that's not really in the books right now, I bet I could work that sort of suggestion in as personality representations too. I oughta do that on general principles; it's just a nice little idea that appeals to me. :))
So that's where I'm coming from with my original ideas for the titles. I would really, *really* like to be able to keep the concept of progression from the ordinary to the fantastic, although if it's a marketing nightmare, well, I'd rather the books sold. :) A couple of people've said, "Can you just drop the Operation: part?", but since I'm not sure what exactly you dislike about the title, I don't know if it could be that simple. :)
And she responded:
I getcha! And agree that the continuity can be strong, and should carry through the books. I think it's the "Operation" that distances us from the title. Browsing the shelves, it won't have the same impact as Firebird/Phoenix. And we've got to hook them with the first one to make sure it carries into the next ones! Building up to the strongest one is good, but the earliest title also needs to grab the reader's attention.Hmmm. Robin might have a little more appeal, though not quite as red as a cardinal!
A Cardinal Matter
A Cardinal's Bloody Breast (lol! Not seriously. :))
The Cardinal's Nest
Flight of the Cardinal
I could live with changing the cardinal to a robin, although it's not my *preference*, but if people can come up with something that'd work as an appealing title, I'm willing to do that. I'd like to stick with a red bird, obviously, but if people could think of a ... non-fantastical fantastic thing that would sound better (I wouldn't mind another f/ph sound to go with Firebird and Phoenix, for example...), well, I'm open to suggestions. :)
God, I've got a rather small brain today. One of those "sit and stare vacantly at the computer screen and wonder what I'm doing" things. I'll eat something in a few minutes, which will probably help. I hope. :)
I was obliged to take Ted out to dinner last night to make him help me figure out a plot for OPERATION: FIREBIRD. It took a while to get started, partly 'cause he was very tired and partly because he hasn't read O:C yet, but eventually he said something that caused me to stop talking and stare off into the distance, which pleased him, because he has learned to recognize that as my brain latching onto an idea that will work. (Dad, later, said, "That vacant stare is Catie visualizing!" which made us all laugh a lot. *laugh*) So I got part of a synospis rough draft written this morning, and I'll work on it some more in a bit here, and that makes me quite pleased.
As the discerning amongst you may have guessed, we then dropped by my parents' house, and gossiped about families and talked about our earliest memories. My cousin Maggie's been offered the job she interviewed for, and we're all waiting to see now if they'll give her more money than they initially offered.
(It's taken me nearly an hour to write this much.)
I have a whole wheat pita bread dough recipe. I think I'll make some. Doesn't that sound yummy? And yesterday I cleaned off the kitchen counter entirely. I'm going to break the fingers of anyone who puts stuff on it. Including myself. Last night I put a bottle of saline solution on it and then was like AUGH. MUST PUT AWAY. So I did. Go me. :)
My Mom's earliest memory is of going to the beach near where she grew up her first few years in Florida, and having lunch and having to wait an hour before she went into the water. She waaaaaited and waaaaited and waaaaited and it took FOREVER and FINALLY she was allowed to go, and she went running toward the water, and her parents called, "Rosie!" and she turned back with a terrible gruss on her face and they took a picture of her scowly little self. She was about two. :) Apparently she'd wanted soooo badly to go into the water they wanted to see what happened if they called her back. :)
Dad's earliest memory is of going to daycare during WWII, which he did because his mom was a riveter (! I had NO IDEA! Isn't that cool?!), and the house the daycare was at was Very Large (at least to his mind), and every afternoon they'd have a nap and they'd have a blanket rolled out to nap on and then after the nap they'd have a snack. :) He also remembers the end of WWII, which was when he was almost 5. All of a sudden sirens went off all over the place and people all up and down the street began running out of their homes screaming, "The war is over!" He had absolutely no idea what was going on, of course, but it was *very* exciting.
Ted's earliest memory is of playing on the big slide behind the military apartment they lived in, in Germany. He also remembers the first time his mom cut his little brother's fingernails, and she clipped the tip of one of his fingers and he bled and bled and bled, and Ted was *very* upset, but that was when he was 3, and the other is when he was two-ish.
My earliest memory is of getting my stuffed animal, Dog, who I got on my second birthday. My Aunt Pam made him for me, and she brought him to the house and I went running up to the sliding glass door, which was much too big for me to open, and she opened it from the other side and gave him to me. My next memory was of getting my stuffed animal Bear, who was a Christmas present 6 months later, and who was sitting on a big red saucer sled beneath the Christmas tree.
What's your earliest memory?
Yesterday I got a fortune cookie that said, "It is impossible to please everybody. Please yourself first."
Ted said, "Well, if *that's* not preaching to the choir..."
Wow, I'm in a fantastic mood. I just watched De-Lovely, which was absolutely *magnificent*. There was only one scene I'd have done differently, and the music is just wonderful and the actors were extremely fine and the makeup was astonishingly good. I watched all the extras, which were cool and some of which brought very interesting insights to the film, and I'm just all pumped up and full of energy now. Yay!
miles to Rauros Falls: 34
I'm supposed to write a page-long bio for my press release. I have absolutely no idea what to say. I'm tempted to start with the story of my sister having to write such a bio, where she went to Dad and said, "Hey, Dad, what should I put in my bio?" and Dad said, "Well, there was the time you ran into the burning building to save the baby." She laughed and said, "Oh, right," and went and said to Mom, "Hey, Mom, what should I put in my bio?" Mom, completely independently, said, "Well, there was the time you ran into the burning building to save the baby...."
Deirdre never actually ran into a burning building to save a baby, but it does let you know what kind of family I'm from.
I installed Chatzilla last night at Deirdre's behest, and it has screwed up all the fonts on my browser. I'm seriously displeased with this. *grumpy look* (edited to add: apparently the stupid fricking thing reset my default browser font size to 'smallest'. It's fixed now. Stupid *)$%#@ thing.)
It's March. March is going to be a busy month. Know what I have to do in March? I have to revise THUNDERBIRD FALLS, write a proposal for OPERATION: FIREBIRD, and a proposal for COYOTE DREAMS. Um, that and write a bio and answer some Luna interview questions and do my Other Worlds thing for the site (which means very possibly writing "Urbane Shaman", as was tyoped by another Luna author and which was so funny I thought I really needed to write a short story called that. Jo is *not* an urbane shaman. :)) and an article about writing for the Luna site and ye gods. Did I mention it's going to be a busy month? o.o I better go read another book. :)
miles to Rauros Falls: 33