Talking to Myself

I was on my way to get coffee today and evidently my department head was watching out his window as I headed down the skywalk. Later he asked me if I was singing or having a conversation with myself. It took me a minute to realize I had been talking through some dialogue for the story I'm currently working on at the time he saw me. Thinking back, I now realize I do this a lot. The stories are a constant in my brain that I have to consciously block out when I need to do something else. One might say my imaginary friends are with me always. So nice not to be alone, isn't it?

Do any of you walk around talking to your characters?

SK

Stagnant

Have you ever wondered about where the world is heading? Perhaps it's my degree in history, but as I watch the news and History Channel I keep thinking about how things repeat. If I think about it enough, seems like the world has gone stagnant. We're stuck in a rut and repeating ourselves. At least that's what I think especially during political commercials. I'm all about democracy but I hate election years just because of the commercials.

But all this got me going on a plot line to stretch between several books percolating in my brain. I've had many of the main characters for these books for a while as well as the relationships between them. I knew they all were the same world and connected but I didn't know what would be the plot that tied them together. Now I do.

The powers that created this world (insert religious warfare here) come back around to find their creation stuck. Who better to give the world a swift kick in the rear? Here comes the gibbering prophecy and weird powers to wake everyone up to the next stage of evolution. We have drugs amped with supernatural blood and a vampire terrorist torturing an unassuming computer security specialist for the information crossing his desk. Bring in the military special ops boys to save the day and get their brains twisted too.

Thank one of my coworkers for the military angle. He's ex-Navy and lets me pick his brain for information. Over the years I've known the occasional college ROTC or former something or other who tried it, put in minimum time, and got out. He's the only one I know who spent any length of time in armed services and he has some of the best stories. Drunk Marines backing down from a SEAL no bigger than me. Red kangaroos showing up on a missile launcher. Fabulous stories that make the rest of our coworkers leave us alone. Huh. Wonder why that would be. :)

So I put a scenario in front of him. Take this big bad military dude, put him in a desert, have a spell caster drop an ice storm on him. What would he do? The response was find shelter, take inventory of what he has, get the hell out. Once out, find a beer and a steak then figure out how to find the SOB who did it and mess him up. I would so love to actually meet such a guy just to see how he would act and react. Have I ever mentioned all those lovely psychology classes I took way back when?

Keep reading and let me know what you're thinking about.

SK

Productive Weekend

This past weekend was a productive one for me on the writing front. Saturday morning, after an early wake up from the hounds, I was doing some file clean up on my computer and got to digging around in my old hard drive. Like an archaeologist sifting through the debris of decades past, I found a treasure trove. 9 stories I had begun some time ago but had no hard copies of. Woohoo! I knew they were around somewhere but was having trouble piecing them back together just from memory. Given that a couple are nearly complete, I was exceptionally happy.

The dogs thought I was a bit weird for my little happy dance. Oh well. They're silly pups anyway. So I got started editing one complete story. Too bad I soon realize I hate editing. To me, the story's done... finished... out to the unsuspecting masses with it. But alas it is not ready for the world yet. That's when I started the rotation. Edit for a while. Write new stuff for a while. Transcribe long hand notes into the computer for a while. Rinse and repeat. And somehow it worked.

How well, you might ask... Well... 110 pages worth. Plus some long hand notes after I went to bed last night. Now that's call for a major happy dance. I celebrated by baking cookies.

That was enough that I wasn't even in a bad mood when I went to work this morning. All day, only a couple emails annoyed me and I didn't threaten to boot anyone. Major accomplishments for me... I have a love/hate thing with people. But I did set a few goals for my writing.

First, I will write something every day. This doesn't necessarily mean writing any of my fiction every day. It could be documentation for work. But I must write.

Second, I will spend at least two hours per week editing. I have to or I will never get anything into a good, consumable format. And the per week is because of my work schedule. If I can't make my brain work on editing during the week then the weekend it is.

Third, I will write at least 40 pages per week. Again the per week because of work. And I am not limiting myself to 40 pages of completely new off the top of my head material. I have stacks of notebooks with ideas and pieces of various stories in them. This includes stories already in my computer but I had ideas for when not at home. These need worked on just as much as new material... perhaps even more.

Think I can do it? I'd love to know what your goals are, writing or otherwise. This whole set goals thing is rather new to me. I'm more of a thrive on chaos kind of girl.

Keep reading.
SK

What Do You Know

Write what you know. How many times have you heard this one? And how many times have you actually followed it?

For me, this has often been an excuse to research something new. Last weekend, it was military special ops teams. I honestly don't know why that one suddenly popped into my head but it did. I've always found the big tough semi-bad boys very appealing. Too bad you don't get a lot of them where I'm from or I might not be approaching yet another birthday as a single lady. *sigh* Oh well, such are the trials and tribulations of life.

So why am I on this topic today? Because it suddenly dawned on me that one thing I know is the industry I work in. It's not unusual for me to get story ideas at work but usually it's me daydreaming about being somewhere else. Today I passed a guy in another department I work with and the expression on his face was one of secrets. Again, not unusual as we have access to a lot of information (we are an information technology services area) which we have to keep until tight security. But that expression just triggered something in me. He'd probably find this funny, but I started thinking what if he was an undercover agent of some sort? What if he'd taken that job to get in a position to investigate some nefarious doing of our executives? Or anyone in our company for that matter. Our area would be perfect for that. Of course, we have training classes on spotting and reporting such bad deeds which may have also prompted the thoughts. I'm behind on updating my certification in those classes.

So, I found myself actually writing about something I know and didn't have to go research. The only time I spent on the Internet today at work was over lunch coming up with names for the six characters I've already sketched out. No surprise, 3 of those 6 are based off actual co-workers and what they do. But the guy who set all this off is not in the story. Perhaps I should give him a cameo as a thank you.

Keep reading.
SK

Where's Signy?

As the Webyeti has been reminding me lately, I haven't posted in a while. I can turn this comment back on him but...

So what have I been doing? First, working the day job for far too many hours a week. One of these days I'm going to save up enough money and work up the guts to quit. A few weeks ago I had a melt down and told one of the team leads, who had just pissed me off to the point of tears, that if I didn't need the money I'd quit on the spot. Meanwhile, my supervisor has taken to referring to my writing as my 'exit strategy'. We're in the midst of working up personal performance goals for 2008 so it's been a common discussion.

Second, I've been working on editing my story. The word count is already twice what it was when I first wrote the tale long hand but it doesn't have a title yet. Sebastian, my male lead, is being difficult and refusing to speak to me at the moment. I've noticed that tends to happen after I make the mistake of going out with coworkers as I did Friday night. The voices stop talking to me for the next few days.

Third, I've been working on ideas for new stories. No new dreams to turn into stories but ideas I've come up with while watching tv, listening to music, etc. I don't know that any of them will pan out but they're simmering. I've been exploring the idea of returning to my small town, Midwest redneck roots for a story. After 10+ years I think I'm coming to terms with how I grew up. Then again, I've said that before and promptly rebelled again. How redneck, you ask? After my mother's funeral, my family bought out half the shops in town of Budweiser and Bud Light. Ick. I prefer martinis or wine, thank you very much. For that, I get made fun of by my family.

Fourth, the hounds. Ever present, always needy (especially the Moof). We've had a return of cold weather on top of the usual Spring wet so they've been cooped up and going stir crazy. We've also had multiple visits from the Webyeti's dog, aka Fluffy Butt. I'm posting a picture of her with this blog. Our walk time doubles any day she's with us. Also, Dozer and Moof enjoying playing keep away with the toys when she's around. How many toys do you think two greyhounds and an Australian shepherd can hoard?

Now I am off to fix myself dinner and contemplate trimming hound claws before starting another work week. Everyone out there, keep warm and keep reading. Also, thank you to Vicki for her response last time I posted. I hope everything is well in South Africa.

SK

One down... 99M to go

At last! I have accomplished a long awaited milestone. I have finally finished a story.

Yes, it is only draft one but this is something I've never done before. Even short stories I've written have just been pieces of a larger whole. And I'm even looking forward to the editing process... for the moment. Of course, I literally just finished moments ago so I'm floating on that high. I feel like doing as a friend of mine did when he got his 3rd degree black belt in taekwondo. He jumped around doing a little dance and chanting, "I'm done. I'm done. I'm done." Just picture a guy who's over six feet tall, knows multiple martial arts, owns multiple weapons both bladed and projectile, and wearing a TKD uniform and you'll get the humor.

So what is this story? Last Monday I woke up with this idea clearly in my head. A woman, early thirties, and head of her family by default due to having very selfish older sisters. The dream was the wedding of her now deceased brother's youngest daughter. I took that as the beginning of the story and built it out from there. I suppose, at the moment, this one would be classified as a supernatural romance since that's the primary focus of what I have. As I edit, I'd like to flesh out the mystery a bit more. It's all tied into the death of said brother and the killer now, 20 years later, coming after her and her nieces. Why 20 years later? Prison, of course. The guy may not have been implicated in the death of her brother but he had enough other crimes to his name.

Since I wrote the whole thing long hand (in part because a good bit of it was done at work), I'm off to type it up and start editing.

SK

So Many Ideas...

With a change in plans by friends of mine, I came to the realization a few days ago that I was going to have an entire weekend (Friday evening through Sunday evening) confined to just the hounds and myself. Being Signy, of course I decide I will immerse myself in writing for the full 48 hours. Now it is late Sunday afternoon, sun is going down, snow melt is beginning to refreeze, and what have I accomplished?

Book reading. Friday afternoon I decided to go out and have fun as I was cut loose from work for the afternoon. Why? Because I had to be up at 5am both Saturday and Sunday for work. Anyway, when I want to have some fun on my own I head to the bookstore. This time I managed to walk out with only two books. However, when I got home and realized only one of the tv shows I watch Fridays was even on those books enticed. I managed to read one in it's entirety curled up first on my couch with one hound on my legs then in my bed with both hounds trying to lay on top of me. Went to sleep at 1am; alarm went off at 4:30am.

Magazine reading. It is a rare occasion to even see me with a magazine, let alone spend time reading it. My only saving grace here is that it is a writing related magazine.

Internet research. Rather than chemistry, my searches this time were around publishers and agents. Have you Googled either of those recently? I'm a computer geek but oh my goodness! Hours later, I have 25 new bookmarks of articles to go back and read later.

Writing. Yes, I did finally do some writing. Unfortunately it wasn't on anything I already had started. The tv show I did watch on Friday was an episode of a show from 1996 about vampires and based on a role playing game and novels. Any guesses on what it is? Anyway, I got an idea in my head for an orphanage run by vampires feeling the need to raise and nurture children but unable to have their own because they are now vampires. That blossomed to coincide with a dream I had a couple months ago and wrote down about an evil guy, his extremely subservient but basically good wife, and the baby girl she had smuggled out of his control. Where did she end up? This orphanage, of course. Last night, while watching Pitch Black on tv I wrote all this down and started outlining the particulars of those two scenes as well as what might happen from there. 7 characters and 4 pages of notes later I went to sleep. Today, between internet searches, I've been transferring those notes to my computer. After another early morning conference call, of course. And no, at this moment the only character even remotely resembling Vin Diesel is the vamp who runs the orphanage and his only connection is that he's bald. Maybe I'll find a need for a brother vamp who can kick some serious ass.

Last but not least, I must add to this weekends list of activities the return of sunshine and my enjoyment of it. I've mentioned once or twice that where I am it's been absolutely frigid. This weekend the sun finally returned and temps got above freezing. *insert happy dance here* The hounds and I made it out for a nice long walk today for the first time in months. Given that they go to the vet in another week, I'm preparing to get criticized for letting the Dozer put on far too much weight this winter. Oh well, bound to happen. But add to that the bird song I heard today (didn't see any robins, though) and perhaps old man winter is losing his grip on the upper midwest for another season. Wait, on second thought, more snow is predicted for tomorrow. *sigh* And Iowa still hasn't finished their high school basketball tournaments. I grew up in Iowa and every year we got smacked with at least snowfall if not full blown blizzard during the girls' state basketball tournament. Okay, two more weeks then. I can deal with two more weeks.

Keep reading; funny pages if necessary.

SK