Knock Knock... Echoes

Anyone still here? Yeah, I know, it's been a while. I have excuses.


A combination of being brain dead and easily distracted got me a few months ago. Then the evil place known as my day job got whiney. I dealt with it but sought more mindless distractions. Finally a wedding in my family. Ah the drama. She doesn't read here so I can admit she turned into bridezilla. I'll give her a few days before I tell her that (it was only 2 days ago) but she has already apologized via text message so... And before anyone gets on the text thing, it's the easiest way to get a hold of me and she knows it.

So, on the writing front. As you may have noticed the rest of the website isn't up yet. Don't go complaining to Webyeti... grad school is more important. So now the goal is this summer. I have a couple small scenes ready to go up and more in the works.

As a sometimes blogger, I also follow a few blogs myself. It's not always the blog itself but the links referenced that get my attention. That's how I got to a Tess Gerritsen blog commenting on a couple of editors commenting about the impact of the internet on publishing. They got blasted for saying it hasn't had much of an impact but I honestly can't fault them. Yes I spend a lot of time here. However, while I read a lot online these days (see references to mindless distraction above) particularly at work I don't buy a lot of books here. I have Amazon and Barnes & Noble online accounts, wishlists, etc. but most of my book purchases are at the actual book store. They talk about a lot of sales being from big box stores like Walmart. I can't say I buy a lot of books there unless I'm travelling and can't find an actual bookstore. Guess I'm an atmosphere sort of girl. What about the rest of you?

Thoughts? SK

Cold, Ice, and Friends

Greetings from the frozen north. Or at least from the frozen Midwest. We got hit with a combination of ice and snow this week. It all makes me very happy that when I bought my place it's only three blocks from work and I do not have to drive in this stuff on a daily basis. I only have to drive when I really want to.

Even though the weather is it's usual Midwest winter that keeps me holed up inside it's still a good weekend. Webyeti is back for winter break... my best friend is back for a few weeks. Of course I'm excited to see him. Why should the rest of you care? Well, he has plans. *grin* This blog has been addressed to go with a website for a year now but has stood alone instead. Before January is out, there should be a whole lot more. Or so I'm told. Heh.

My piece to this is obviously content. To that end I've made a few notes on some new stuff but have mostly been editing what I already have. Until the end of the year I only have three days left at work and one day of family obligations. Having the time to spare, there should be several scenes if not full stories posted soon.

Stay tuned.

SK

NaNoWriMo Success

As I posted a month ago, I spent the month of November taking up the NaNoWriMo challenge for the first time. And yes, I succeeded. At just over 51,000 words it is the longest story I've written. It does have an ending... then more after.

It was an interesting experience and one I think I will attempt again next year. In the meantime I have a lot of editing to do. My local region for NaNo celebrates the crap we write during November... sometimes quite loudly I found out... so I don't feel too bad about it. The person who read what I wrote throughout the month seemed to enjoy it.

One experience I didn't expect and I'm still not sure about is writing on camera. The local t.v. station sent a reporter and camera guy to interview us one night at a coffee shop. Webyeti is wanting to post a link to that video on the website so perhaps... If that does happen, yes I am one of the people in there writing. No, I'm not going to say who. Those of you who know me in person know and I'm content with that for now. I will also say that I did not know they would be there when I decided to go that night.

I know a couple of odd expressions crossed my face that night while writing. This is because I was to the point of killing off my initial bad guy that night... in bloody little bits even. Should Webyeti get that video hooked up to the site, I'll focus on getting that particular scene edited so it can be posted too. Then you might understand the expressions? Heh.

Since December 1 I haven't done much writing or editing. I just needed the break and got started catching up on the books and movies I missed out on during the month of November. There are a few who will laugh at that last line... I've gotten sucked into the Twilight saga. The books are really good. I loved the movie even if it didn't hold entirely true to the book... that's never been a big deal to me as long as the spirit of the story remained.

So what are all of you doing now? Read anything good lately? Seen any good movies? Or is there a movie coming up that you're anxiously waiting for?

SK

Coffee Shop Writers

Tonight I'm doing something I don't normally do. I've loaded up the laptop and settled myself in the corner of a coffee shop. There's half a dozen people here, most of them attempting NaNoWriMo. I have honestly never watched someone else trying to create before.

Directly in my line of sight is a married couple who are both working on stories. She has a laptop while he has a word processor device. I forget what they are actually called... alpha something. She keeps fidgeting with things, making notes, then goes back to typing. His fingers still at the keyboard periodically then start moving as he stares off into space.

Since my own characters aren't talking to me tonight I'm indulging in people watching. I can't see the other writers very well so I'm not positive what they are up to.

What quirks do you have?

SK

Everything In One Day?

They say life goes in cycles. When it rains it pours. There's a lot of cliches to that effect out there. That is what happened to me today. And it resulted in me getting zero writing done. Very depressing.

Day started great. Got to work on time, things were relatively calm, only had one meeting on the calendar, thought I'd get to go vote when there was no one in line around mid-morning. Then another meeting popped up over lunch. And another mid-morning. Okay, not so bad. I'd just go vote mid-afternoon. It was only a few blocks from work so no big deal. Then those meetings happened and while I was unavailable all hell broke loose. People who do not understand what they are talking about should not share that bad knowledge with sales people. They wig out and before you know it the executive vp for the company is trying to find you. And when he can't find you he goes looking for your boss who has absolutely no idea what is going on. Then you cancel all other meetings for the day and spend the following hours calming everyone down over a non-issue.

Finally around 3 I just walked out and walked down to vote. I considered it more important at that point. Admittedly I'm in a state with relatively few electoral votes and all the polls say McCain doesn't stand a chance here. But I still think it's important to go vote. There's more than just the presidency on the ballot though that does overshadow most anything else. Half my ballot was whether a bunch of judges should stay in their positions. I didn't recognize a single name but I was still there. Why when I'm really not a fan of politics and think it's monkey game do I do it? Because I am here. I have a voice beyond this blog or my writing. And I do care about my state, country, whatever. I have six nieces that even when I think they're spoiled brats I want to be a good example for. And I prefer to believe I'm not a hypocrite. When I feel the need in a year or two to bitch about what the president is doing I want grounds to do so.

The question my dad always asks is who I voted for. He never asks if I voted... he knows better. And since I turned 18 I have always refused to answer his question. I am more than aware of his stance on politics and just how rabid he is about it. Even when I vote the way I know he wants me to I won't tell. I admit that some of it's to antagonize but it's also because my belief is my own. I'm not going to criticize anyone for voting they way they feel they should. I applaud them regardless because they are using their voice.

And now that I've said my piece I'm going to get some writing done before going to the airport and returning Fuzzybutt who has been with us again for the past week. I only managed 250 new words for NaNoWriMo yesterday. I'd like to think I can do better than that in the hour I have tonight.

Are any of you doing NaNoWriMo this year?

Windblown

You know it's really windy when you're in your car, stopped at a light, and swaying enough for motion sickness. That is my city today. More than one cardboard box has found its way from the dumpster across the alley up onto my second floor balcony. Good thing we don't have a professional NFL team trying to play outside today.

My first deadline is creeping closer. This is the first writing contest I've entered since I was a high school student. If you know me you know how long that's been. If you don't, well let's just say it's has been a really long time. My story is chosen out of the massive pile and been through a couple of edits. I'm going to fire it off to a couple of readers for any last minute comments before I submit next week. Distractions have been enough lately to keep back the nerves. Besides, it's not as if I'm submitting anything under my 'real' name so no one can tear me apart to my face. Right?

Speaking of my alter egos, under another I've signed up for a challenge. NaNoWriMo. For those of you who are not familiar with this, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write a novel in 30 days... November 1 to November 30. For purposes of the challenge a novel is defined as 50,000 words. This is all pre-editing and all that jazz. Just serious amounts of creativity. I've been preparing for this excursion... stocked up on tea and chocolate, reading and watching tv/movies a lot to get the 'what if' mentality going, getting vet appointments out of the way. Dozer got hurt bunny-chasing a few weeks ago so here's hoping that's out of his system for a while. He's now snoozing on a dog bed beside me while Moof has managed to fold himself under my desk. Evidently he thinks he's Fuzzybutt who lived with us for a few months but is half his size so fits at my feet easier.

That's all the updates on me. Work is still in reorg transition limbo so I don't have anything to report there. When it stresses me, I'm trying to focus that into my writing. Job insecurity turned motivation to change my career. Here's hoping it works.

SK

Mental Comfort

I thought I had it all in gear for getting back into this writing thing. I even had multiple blogs ready to go up here. Then my evil day job did a reorg. I can say that I have survived the cuts… at least for now. But my department is no more. Half got cut and the rest of us are being split up. Thus I have been in limbo for two weeks with the promise of another two to three weeks before things settle. Spiffy.

With the mental and emotional turmoil it’s been tough to concentrate on my stories. Thankfully Samhain is the end of this month so I’ll at least get a long weekend there. In the meantime I’ve been trying different ways of getting my creativity back up and running. Various reference books that have helped in the past just didn’t do enough. A couple of new ones I’ve purchased or received as gifts this year have started a couple things percolating in the back of my brain but nothing’s even close to done cooking yet. I moved my ‘office’ from my bedroom to my living room for a change in view. I managed a little editing on the computer files there. I’ve also been trying to read more of other’s stuff. The novel collection has expanded significantly in the past month and I’ve found a few new authors I’m intrigued by.

Today it’s all about comfort. Hot green tea, cinnamon jelly beans, two computers (one running an rpg I’ve played through dozens of times). And my ultimate in comforts when trying to write… notebook and pen. Events drive a lot in my stories but so do characters. Today has been about creating characters. Using an online random name generator I’ve been creating new friends. Lycurgus, Seosamh, Luben, Caleigh, Margarid, and Evgenia so far. Nope, I don’t do Tom/Dick/Harry type names very often. There’s far too many options in this global world we live in. With somewhere in the vicinity of 7000 living languages… plus the so-called dead languages our current ones evolved from… there’s a lot of choices out there. In exercises like today’s I go through a lot of names until one sparks in my imagination. Then the pen hits the paper and I start fleshing out what I see with that one name. I’ve discussed creating a character before the name before and I find this works much better.

SK