Just a Lyric in a Children's Rhyme

The Life and Times…

2011-08-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

Goodness. I think should win the Prolific Blogger of 2011 award, you know, with all that blogging I've been doing this year.

Um…… yeah. Anyways.

What I've been up to:

Went to the UK with my best friend for almost two whole weeks!! Best part was Edinburgh, and seeing David Tennant and Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing, and riding British trains. And the tea. Mmmmmmmmmm tea!!
Read Mark of the Horselord by Rosemary Sutcliff. Super good, but… :-(
Read Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee and am partway into Gold Unicorn. She creates the most intriguing concepts/worlds.
Got about 900 words into a rewrite of Whale and the Tree… several months ago…
Know the beginning and the ending of the sequel to Seer and have been making copious notes. I'm sure the middle will surface soon.
Pondering rejoining the NaNoWriMo fray this year to write the abovementioned sequel to Seer.
Went tubing on the Salt River with a group of friends and didn't get sunburned too terribly bad. I'm vaguely tan for the first time in my life! Weird.

And that's what's been happening. Pretty exciting, right?

Brain Wave

2011-04-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

I had a brain wave in the shower yesterday. Several, in fact. My mind nearly exploded with creative possibilities and brilliant ideas. I took it as an excellent sign.

I'm totally going to attempt The Most Ginormous Revision Ever.

'Cause really, shower brain waves don't lie. True facts.

Books and Movies and Not Really Much Writing (oh my!)

2011-04-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

So somehow it's April, and I don't know how that happened! Guess I'd better do my taxes soon, right?

Still haven't gotten much done on the writing front lately, although my subconscious has been doing some serious noodling the last couple of weeks, which is generally a good sign. Either a hardcore revision or a story/novel about post-apocalyptic Camelot should be seriously in the works soon. (Yes. Post-apocalyptic Camelot. Don't ask.)

Just got The Ring of Solomon and Sapphique in the mail from Amazon, so I'm super excited to read them. Also bought copies of StarCrossed and Plain Kate via one of my local Borders' going-out-of-business (sad face) sales. I ordered Rosemary Sutcliff's Mark of the Horse Lord, too, but it's currently out of stock on Amazon, so don't know when it will arrive. Love me some Sutcliff.

Which reminds me, I went to see The Eagle back in February (I think), and despite some book-to-movie-adaptation changes, I liked it a lot. Still think they should've kept the original title, but you'll have that. The movie was great, and the scenery was completely to die for. Dude.

Also saw the new Jane Eyre a couple weeks ago (I actually won a pair of free tickets via a GoodReads promotion, which was pretty cool), and although I heartily approved of the casting and costumes and sets and scenery, the movie didn't really do it for me. It felt a little like cliff-notes, and it was missing… I don't know. Something. Somewhere in the adaptation process they lost something important in translation. I was expecting the most awesome movie version of Jane Eyre ever to grace the silver screen, and it just… wasn't. Which made me sad. 'Cause, as I sad, the casting was awesome.

I'll leave you with this adorable little video: It's a Book!

1/11/11

2011-01-11T22:03:00.000-08:00

So happy 1/11/11 to all and sundry!

I am very sorry to announce that I have been doing absolutely nothing in the realm of noveling lately. Haven't worked on anything since November and am developing a serious need-a-creative-project twitch, so I've decided to attempt that revision of Whale and the Tree I've been meaning to get around to since, you know, July. Got as far as officially upgrading to Scrivener 2.0 this evening before getting distracted, but that's a start, right?

Just started reading Rosemary Sutcliff's The Lantern Bearers, which is the third of her loosely-connected series of books set in Roman Britain (the first of which, The Eagle of the Ninth, is hitting the big screen next month!!). Finally finished Pegasus, which I had mixed feelings about, and am also partway through Beowulf, which, embarrassingly enough, I've never actually read before. Awaiting an Amazon package that has gotten lost somewhere between Phoenix and Mesa but will hopefully show up soon—it contains my very own copy of StarCrossed, and the fourth Bartimaeus book, which I'm soooooooooo excited to read! I keep meaning to do a "Best of 2010" book list, but I haven't gotten around to it yet…

Here's to a challenging and rewarding 2011!

Re-reading

2010-12-09T11:54:00.000-08:00

I'm a hardcore re-reader and re-watcher and 99.9% of the time order exactly the same thing at restaurants and coffee shops and ice-cream parlors because I like repeating fantastic experiences. Well-loved books and movies (and sandwiches) are like old friends. You can always count on them to look and feel (and taste) the same, to move you in the same ways.

I've been re-reading Megan Whalen Turner's Attolia series over the last week or so, and while, admittedly, nothing is quite like the first time through, with all those wonderful startling revelations and aha! moments, I still very, very much enjoyed them. In fact they were still eliciting audible reactions from me, to the point where my roommate looked up from her important doctoral studies to remark, "You do realize you've read that before." :-)

Another reason I re-read is that if I don't read a book at least twice, details tend to fade, and I'm left only with vague impressions of I liked it or didn't like it, which isn't ultimately very useful. And some books stand up to multiple readings more than others; some I find kind of "meh" on a second read, some I find as amazing as I remembered, and some—like, for example, the Attolia series—you almost have to read more than once to soak up all the awesome and intricate things that are going on.

And then there's mood to consider. As much as I love them, sometimes I'm simply not in the mood to adventure into a brand new book and unknown territory. There's a certain amount of comfort in knowing exactly what's coming and looking forward to parts I already have completely memorized and revisiting beloved characters and just experiencing the story again.

Man, now I want to go re-read Lord of the Rings. It's been a few years…

What about you? Are you a habitual re-reader?

Mysteries of the Universe: Sleep

2010-11-30T20:12:00.000-08:00

So sometimes I ponder the mysteries of the universe (because, really, somebody has to). Today I spent the better part of my 25 minute drive to and from lessons pondering how people ever got out of bed before alarm clocks were invented. Did they just wake up with the sun or what? I finally had the sense to google it this evening, and happened upon an enlightening article.

Really interesting stuff, and it makes me want to write a novel featuring water clocks. But now I have more questions.

How did the church bell ringers and the knockers-up know when to wake up? Did they always have to employ the bladder-control method (which struck me as completely hilarious)? If they overslept mightn't they throw off the equilibrium of an entire town?? Would anyone even notice? How did they know what time to ring the church bells anyway?

Also, does anyone else ever feel bad for fictional characters' sleeping conditions? Maybe it's just because I'm a light sleeper and always have a horrible time nodding off in unfamiliar or less-than-ideal surroundings, but I'm always in awe of characters who can fall right to sleep in the woods or a cave or a prison cell and wake refreshed and ready to conquer the world. I can't even fall asleep on a comfortable couch unless I'm deathly ill, and if I'm running on less than six (but preferably eight or nine!!) hours of sleep I can barely function. I think I would be pretty much useless on an actual adventure—characters in novels don't seem to have these problems.

They don't have chapstick, either, which is one reason I'm happy to be living in this lovely modern era. I mean, I read once that pioneers put axle grease on their lips to keep them from getting chapped, but that's just gross.

And there you have it.

(Apologies for the glimpse into my peculiar brain. This is what happens when I'm not actively working on a novel.)

Video Monday!

2010-11-29T10:43:00.000-08:00

Happy Monday, intrepid readers! In lieu of any actual news (I'm writing a synopsis; not exactly riveting, is it?), I thought I would share some vids:

First up, How To Be a Secret Agent (Scarecrow and Mrs. King)

"I feel like I'm lying and sneaking."
"You are lying and sneaking. You're working for the government."

Next up, Everybody Loves Me (Merlin)

And last but not least, a Sherlock/Doctor Who crossover? If only it were true!

Book Reviews: Starcrossed and Plain Kate

2010-11-23T23:11:00.000-08:00

Reading a really, really, really good book is pretty much my favorite thing in the whole world—it's right up there with rainstorms and purring cats and Chopin Ballades. The only thing better is reading TWO really, really really good books right in a row.

Enter Starcrossed, by Elizabeth C. Bunce, and Plain Kate, by Erin Bow, both of which I had the pleasure of nabbing at the library a week and a half ago. Seriously, WOW.

Starcrossed follows the story of Digger, a thief-turned-lady's-maid who's being blackmailed to spy on a bunch of nobles in a snowbound castle. Set in a Renaissance-inspired fantasy world awash with religious persecution, magic and secrets abound…

I adored this book. It's like the Attolia series and Crown Duel meets BBC's Merlin, which is all kinds of amazing. Fabulous character development, fantastic writing, lots of interesting-and-unexpected-plot-developments, and an all around beautiful and compelling story. I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel, Liar's Moon, due out next fall (I think?).

Plain Kate is an exquisite gem of a novel that captured my heart and then proceeded to wrench it thoroughly. It's the story of Kate, a skilled wood carver accused of witchcraft, who trades her shadow for the means to escape her town. It's Russian in flavor, and filled with color and heart; the prose is deceptively simple and as gorgeous as it is unusual. The story itself just about made me break down sobbing in several places; it has real resonance and depth. I finished it last Thursday and still can't quite stop thinking about it. Also, there is an amazing and adorable TALKING CAT, for whom I fell completely head over heels. (Heart you, Taggle!!) A really, really wonderful book.

Both are HIGHLY recommended, and are for sure going on my "Best Reads of 2010" list.

Pacing, or, What I Learned Whilst Revising My Novel

2010-11-15T12:20:00.000-08:00

So my second draft has been complete for a whole week now, and while trusty people are reading it for me, I'm busy working on a query letter and synopsis and researching agents. I read through draft #2 myself last Monday and Tuesday, and after trimming scattered unnecessary verbiage and deleting a scene from chapter three, I successfully wrangled it down to 80,055 words, which was my hoped-for word count from the beginning. So that's pretty awesome!

At any rate, I thought I would do a sort of follow-up to my post back in March about experimenting with revision techniques, when I was first figuring out how I wanted to tackle this second draft.

Probably my biggest focus during Draft #2 was fixing the PACING. As the shrunken manuscript pointed out at the very beginning, this was a HUGE problem area for this novel, and something I wrestled with a lot when creating my handy-dandy revision-battle-plan spreadsheet outline. That outline was THE BOMB. It really helped me work on the big-picture plot-and-pacing issues without getting bogged down in the prose, and even when I was entrenched in the actual slog of re-writing, it kept me on track. There were a few times where what I'd decided to do on the outline and what worked in the actual manuscript were two different things (most notably in a handful of the ending chapters when I tumbled down that GAPING PLOT HOLE). But for the most part it was invaluable, and I don't think any outline should ever be so rigid that you can't take the story in a slightly different direction if the narrative demands it.

Reading through the second draft, I was excited to see how much the pacing really had improved. All the scenes were there for specific reasons (except for that scene in chapter three, which is why it got axed), and the arc of the narrative felt more natural than before. I'm still vaguely uncertain about a few things that happen towards the end, especially whether or not I successfully filled that plot hole (that's what my intrepid readers are for :-)), but overall I'm really pleased. I'm almost beginning to think that revising is more rewarding than first drafting, even though it's more painful (and takes a heck of a lot longer)…

In any case, I've learned a ton about my revising process over the last ten months, and I feel more equipped to tackle revisions in the future (which is good, because I have a lot of them looming).

Without further ado, I give you Things I Learned Whilst Revising My Novel (a list):

The spreadsheet outline is THE BEST.
Numbering all the scenes on the hard copy of my manuscript is excessively helpful.
Rewriting takes longer than first drafting, it just does. My subconscious needs time to work through problems.
Actually fixing things in the manuscript is harder than figuring out how to fix them on the outline.
Deleting unnecessary passages and scenes—even if I like them—is very, very freeing, especially if I stash them in a could-salvage-later-if-I-need-to folder.
Finishing a second draft feels GOOD.

And there you have it.

I FINISHED!!! + Novel Stats

2010-11-08T14:21:00.000-08:00

As of 2:19 this afternoon, I typed the final words of the second draft of Seer and I am DONE! Took me months longer than I'd hoped and I still have to do a read-through to make sure I made it better and not worse, but the important thing is that I FINISHED IT!! If you couldn't tell by all the caps and exclamation points, I'm EXCITED!! :-)

And in a long-standing tradition, I thought I'd give you some STATS:

Initial idea: December 23rd, 2009
Outlining: 10 days (January 7th—17th)
First draft: 7 weeks (January 18th—March 7th)
Word count: 70,018
Revision outline: 3ish weeks (March 25th—April 18th)
Second draft: 6 months and 3 weeks (April 19th—November 8th)
Word count: 81,937

So from initial idea to completed second draft took me about ten and a half months, and from draft one to draft two I gained nearly 12k, which still makes this the second shortest book I have ever written.

EXCITED EXCITED EXCITED!!!

Libraries

2010-11-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

So whilst revising this week I was thinking about libraries, because my main character was sitting in one, pulling books off the shelf and searching for ANSWERS. And then I realized this happens a lot in my novels.

Of my six completed manuscripts (which are set in four completely different universe-systems), all have libraries—some just minor settings, some crucial to the plot, all backdrops for Important Scenes. There's even an underground library in that not-so-short-story I wrote last fall.

I don't know that this is especially significant, but I thought it was interesting. I wonder if all the libraries could get a trans-dimensional-cross-universe-interlibrary-loan thing going on. That would be pretty cool.

On Plot Holes, and Falling Into Them

2010-11-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

Soooooooooo, as you know, today is November 1st. (I haven't a CLUE how in the world there's only two months left in 2010—this year has lasted approximately a week and a half.)

I am sorry to report that I did not finish draft two of Seer by last night. I still have four chapters left to get through. I was bookin' along, churning out two or three chapters a day, and I really really thought I was going to make it and then

BAM!!!!

HUGESET. PLOT HOLE. EVER.

I was aware of the problem area before I got there, but I'd thought that some simple rearranging and minor revisions would fix it.

It very definitely did not.

After the initial horror at my poor novel's predicament, my brain went into creative over-drive. There was much head-scratching, late-night pondering, and, of course, running-around-in-circles-in-despair. As of yesterday morning (I was paying attention in church—I swear), my brain presented me with a solution. I think it's going to work. I think it might even be a little bit brilliant. It certainly makes more SENSE than before.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the park and spread a blanket under a tree and studiously re-revised two chapters in preparation for the Big Plot Hole Fix. Today I have to actually fix the plot hole.

Which might be why I just spent an hour and a half cleaning my entire downstairs and writing this blog.

Here's to climbing out of the hole!

Linkage!

2010-10-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

Still boogie-ing through my revisions. I actually think I'm gonna make it by my self-imposed deadline of Sunday night, which rocks like nobody's business. I'm feelin' GOOOOOD about this thing!!

And in other news, I've run across a spattering of Awesome Things on ye olde internet this week that I just have to share. So here goes.

First up, the most awesome NaNoWriMo song ever set to the tune of "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" from Pirates of Penzance:

Next up, the good ol' BBC gets some love:

Next up, a special NaNoWriMo preview version of Scrivener 2.0 is being offered for FREE through December 7 (for Mac AND Windows) here. I've fallen in love all over again! Trust me, it's AMAZING. GET IT YOU WILL LOVE IT!!!

Next up, a review of the fantastic Sufjan Stevens concert I had the privilege to go to last Friday. Me and the roommate got to sit ten feet from the stage which was AWESOME, and I tried to take some video but it didn't work out because I accidentally pointed the camera at the ceiling, which was NOT awesome. But you'll have that. This gives you a small and rather inadequate taste (we had much better seats than this person!!) of the awesome.

Revision Ponderings

2010-10-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in my living room, waiting for pot pies to finish baking (store bought—I'm not that domestic yet), and listening to the cars on the road and the sounds of yet another football game emitting from the elementary school across the street. (Before I moved here I didn't know that they had football games at elementary schools. But that's really beside the point.)

As of earlier this evening, I've made it through Chapter Eighteen of ye olde revision, and despite the fact that I've eleven chapters still to go and only six days left in the month, I'm feeling pretty good about it. Who knows, maybe it's possible to revise eleven chapters in six days. I'm going to find out.

I also have a mini confession to make:

In spite of my bellyaching about how much I HATE revising, I've come to realize that I sort of like it. Okay, "like" might be too strong of a word, but there's something satisfying about making one's writing better. Having enough distance and presence of mind to recognize the inherent crappiness of certain sections and then proceeding to fix them is all kinds of wonderful. It's really quite nifty to be able to reshape a story so that it more closely adheres to the original vision. It's hard and frustrating and sometimes makes you just want to run off screaming and become a botanist, but ultimately I think it's even more rewarding than finishing a rough draft.

At least I hope so. So far I know Draft #2 is vastly superior to Draft #1, and that's a really, really awesome feeling.

Pot pies are done. Time for a late dinner!

FINALLY…

2010-10-18T21:37:00.000-07:00

I FINISHED CHAPTER FIFTEEN TODAY!!!!!

It's been giving me all kinds of trouble, and this is an immense accomplishment. Plopped myself in Starbucks (last non-free-wireless zone known to man) this afternoon and plowed (wow—just spelled that "ploughed"; I've clearly been reading British fiction again) on through. YAYYY!! Now it's on to the really good stuff: true love! eeeevil! revelation of dark secrets! KISSING! :-D

Erm. Anyhoo.

Guess I'd better get back at it if I expect to have this thing wrangled into shape by the end of the month…

Fifteen Books

2010-10-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

So over on the Blueboards everyone's posting fifteen books that they'll never forget.

Here's my list:

The Lord of the Rings (especially Return of the King), by J.R.R. Tolkien—as much as I love the movies, the books will always be better, if not least because book-Faramir/Eowyn are vastly more amazing than their movie counterparts. Frodo lives! :-)
Middlemarch, by George Elliot—an immensely great novel (and oh my gosh WILL LADISLAW!!).
Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky—intriguing both for its subject matter and the way Dostoevsky makes you sympathize with a guy who killed two old ladies with an axe.
Beauty, by Robin McKinley—a gorgeous little novel I've loved and re-read for years. Poetic and stirring and just really special.
The Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis—deep and haunting and disturbing in places; I'll never forget the time I stayed up late to finish the ending of Perelandra. Still gives me the shivers (in a good way).
Villette, by Charlotte Bronte—I both loved and hated this book. It was lyrical and beautiful and immensely frustrating.
Persuasion (well, everything), by Jane Austen—I didn't really appreciate this novel the first time I read it because I found it so frustrating, but a re-read illuminated just how brilliant and beautiful it really is.
The Far Pavilions, by M.M. Kaye—haunting, gorgeous, epic: this is the novel that nearly made me break down sobbing in the middle of Panda Express.
The King of Attolia (well all of the Attolia books), by Megan Whalen Turner—I know I always talk about these books, but they're really that good. Really.
Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones—so not what I expected, but gripping and fascinating and just all around awesome.
Crown Duel, by Sherwood Smith—I've read this so many times I'm pretty sure I could quote the entire thing from beginning to end.
The Bartimaeus Trilogy, by Jonathan Stroud—still in awe of these.
East, by Edith Pattou—gorgeous fairy tale retelling, with fascinating multiple POVs.
The Winter Prince, by Elizabeth E. Wein—haunting.
Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine—another one I've loved for years. Vastly better than the movie.

And I've gotta give an honorable mention to Brian Jacques's Redwall series, most especially Mattimeo. I devoured those when I was younger and absolutely adored them.

So that's my list. What's yours?

Currently reading…

2010-10-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

Finished Linger yesterday (sniffle!) and am partway into The Shining Company (can you tell I'm on a Rosemary Sutcliff kick lately?).

What are you reading?

From the Mixed-Up Archives of a Youthful Novelist with Aspirations of Grandeur

2010-10-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

So I have a box in my closet that looks like this:

It's stuffed with miscellaneous writing projects, the earliest of which date back to when I was short and little and didn't need to wear glasses to see things more than six inches away from my face. Yes, folks. We're talkin' THE EARLY NINETIES (oh, the horror!).

Today, I thought I would inflict you with the first story I ever wrote, complete with illustrations. This dates to second grade, that illustrious time when I was reading a ton of Bobsey Twins. Here goes:

And with the immortal line "The four mystery solvers

walked down the road," a career was born.

As you can see, this was before the day the

concept of spacing meant anything to me.

Or capitalization, for that matter.

Because everybody wants a shed!

Not really sure what the big deal is about the chalkboard…

"The four grils" heeheehee

Gotta love the Bad Man's evil laughter. :-D

I love that I misspelled "right" as "wright."

Who DOES that? :-)

Things I love about this page:

1. The Bad Man is wearing an ape suit.

2. The Bad Man is giving out balloons.

3. Anna wants a balloon even though

they're being handed out by the Bad Man

4. HER MOM GIVES HER PERMISSION.

There's a lot of note passing in this story.

Also, glad to know our heroines could take the time

from mystery-solving to eat some ice cream!

For obvious reasons, I never finished this story.

I like how I managed to rhyme the last couple of lines.

And now I will demonstrate why I gave up on illustration:

The Bad Man in the infamous ape suit.

Clearly there is LOTS of happiness. And food.

So there you have it. The very first (unfinished) story I ever wrote. I like to think I've come a long way since then… :-)

Thoughts on NaNoWriMo 2010

2010-10-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

So I have this thing about first drafts.

I LOVE THEM.

I love brainstorming and outlining them. I love writing them. I wish I could write first drafts every single month of the year!!! They're so SHINY! So INSPIRING! So EXCITING!

The only problem being first drafts aren't perfect. They need revising. And revising takes a lot of effort, and isn't as much fun, and is really really HARD.

After a while, those first drafts really start to pile up.

Let's review.

Summer 2005:
I discover the existence of NaNoWriMo, and am inspired to push through to the end of a floundering draft and actually FINISH my very first full-length novel, On Journeys Bound.

NaNo 2005:
I discover that it is possible to write an entire first draft in a month, and complete my very first fantasy novel, The Rose Queen.

Spring/Summer 2006:
I wrestle with revisions of The Rose Queen, and manage to wring out a second draft. I also start Draft 2 of On Journeys Bound somewhere in there.

NaNo 2006:
I discover that it is possible to write 100k in a month, and complete Draft 1 of The Whale and the Tree.

Spring/Summer 2007:
Third draft of Rose Queen, more work on Journeys, and possibly a bit on Whale.

NaNo 2007:
I discover that I have Very Big Ideas, and write only half of the 209k tome later to become Draft 1 of The Fire in the Glass.

Summer 2008:
Second draft of Whale.

NaNo 2008:
I don't really discover anything groundbreaking, but I do write over half of the 190k tome later to become Draft 1 of The Silver Crane.

Summer 2009:
Attempt at revising Fire. More revision on Whale. Queries sent out. A pitiful attempt at another revision of Rose Queen. A bit done on Journeys. First draft of a not-all-that-short-story (18k), Seraphine.

NaNo 2009:
I discover that sometimes my ideas are not as great as I thought, and write 40k of the as-yet-unfinished The Last Garden, and 50k of the as-yet-unfinished The Blind King, which is a sequel to On Journeys Bound.

Spring 2010:
First draft of Seer, completed early March. Revisions commencing a few weeks later. Much procrastination.

Summer/Fall 2010:
Still floundering in revisions for Seer, poking at Journeys 'cause it won't leave me alone.

Which brings me to some Stats:

Completed first drafts—6
Completed revisions—2, (but they're not REALLY completed—both Rose Queen and Whale need re-drafting. Again.)
Revisions in progress—2 (though Journeys is more a rewrite than a revision)
Incomplete drafts—2
Unrevised novels—2

All that to say, and the data is pretty clear—I have yet to successfully figure out HOW TO REVISE. Or at least how to FINISH a revision. Kind of frustrating.

Which leads me to my point (I do actually have one):
I don't think I have any business starting a Brand New Novel for NaNo when I have SO many more projects to work on that I feel are more important to furthering the Hope of being able to hop back on the submission wagon again sometime this century. I know I can write a book in a month—it's super fun and I adore doing it, but I need to prove to myself that I can FINISH a revision, not just a first draft, which leads me to the conclusion that I should sit out NaNoWriMo this year. :-( :-( :-( :-(

HOWEVER.

If I finish my second draft of Seer by the end of October, I have decided to issue myself the following challenge (reward??) :

To write the second half of On Journeys Bound AND the second half of The Blind King during the month of November, thereby joining the frenzy that is NaNo (albeit as a self-declared rebel), and finishing two projects I've been meaning to get to for YEARS.

And those are my long, rambling, and conflicting thoughts on participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

Why I Hate Revising (a poem)

2010-09-30T23:20:00.000-07:00

It started out so perfect,
Inspiration in the night,
I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat,
Compelled to write and write and write,
And then I reached the climax,
And then I typed "The End"
And then I found the awful truth—
The REAL work had yet to begin…

I realized that my plotline
didn't make a lick of sense,
my characters were too cliché
my adjectives too dense,
The beginning truly terrible,
The ending really cheap,
The middle pretty awful too
(But there was a paragraph—it's true—
on page one hundred thirty-two,
Quite beautiful and deep.)

First I took the pages
And shuffled them around,
Then I tore my heart out,
And trod it on the ground.
Then I ate some chocolate
and stared blankly at the wall,
Pondering the reason
I had started this at all.

Then I watched some Netflix
to forget about my woes,
Then I baked some cookies
and put polish on my toes,
Then I did some laundry
and made a cup of tea,
And sat staring at my MacBook screen
and wrote a word (or two, or three).

I deleted a whole chapter,
I wrote a brand new scene,
I went to wash the dishes
'cause I saw that they weren't clean,
I visited the Blueboards,
in search of inspiration,
then killed the MC's mother
(to give him motivation).

I moved a scene from chapter one
into chapter four,
I really didn't think
I liked this novel anymore.
Frustration quickly settled in
and morphed into despair,
There was no way in the whole world
This horrid thing could be made GOOD
I didn't even care!
I was a hack, I was a fraud,
I'd never find a way—
and then I had a brilliant thought
and plowed on through my problem spot,
and finished for the day.

So maybe after all there's hope
And this isn't just some cruel, cruel joke
And this book will finally be The One—
But this really isn't any fun
And why on earth am I not DONE?

A long bank of cloud

2010-09-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

So I guess I did sorta drop off the face of the planet. Or at least the blog-o-sphere. Or something.

I have been writing. Okay, not so much this last week, but I've definitely made progress since the last post, and I did pen two whole scenes today. I'm currently in the middle of Chapter Thirteen, and am struggling to get the middle bits of my novel to make some sort of coherent sense. The last two chapters I've found myself straying from my revision outline because the novel seemed to demand it, so that's thrown me off a bit. But I think it's for the best. Hopefully. Currently Draft #2 stands at 82,256 words, which is 12k longer than Draft #1. I'm kind of thinking it's not going to get a LOT longer than that, as I'll be deleting as well as adding material in future chapters… But as always, I really have no idea. I just want it to be over already. Did I mention how much I hate revising? 'Cause I do.

… Which is why every once in a while I sneak off to work on On Journeys Bound, which I still really, really want to finish. I'm all the way through Chapter Twelve now, and up to 55,796 words. Long ways to go yet, but I'm definitely flirting with the middle now.

On the reading front, I recently finished Rosemary Sutcliff's Dawn Wind, which is a gorgeous historical fiction set in Britain in the Sixth Century AD. I really love her storytelling and characters and her talent of letting you hear and see and feel the things in her books. Her prose is quiet and lyrical and compelling, as shown by the opening paragraph:

The moon drifted clear of a long bank of cloud, and the cool slippery light hung for a moment on the crest of the high ground, and then spilled down the gentle bush-grown slope to the river. Between the darkness under the banks the water which had been leaden gray woke into moving ripple-patterns, and a crinkled skin of silver light marked where the paved ford carried across the road from Corinium to Aquae Sulis. Somewhere among the matted islands of rushes and water crowfoot, a moorhen cucked and was still. On the high ground in the loop of the river nothing moved at all, save the little wind that ran shivering through the hawthorn bushes.

Lovely, lovely stuff. The kind of writing I aspire to!

I'm also about halfway through Heroes of the Valley, by Jonathan Stroud (author of The Bartimaeus Trilogy), which I like a lot so far. It's kind of about Vikings, which is awesome.

Let's see, in other news, BBC's Merlin is back for Series Three, the first two episodes of which were Epic and Awesome and Lord of the Rings-esque. I can't wait to see how the storylines and characters are going to develop over the rest of the series! Going to be interesting, for sure.

And that will about do it for now. I think I'll go work on my novel… or read… or goof off on the internet… one of those. :-)

The Girl Who Was On Fire

2010-08-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, haven't blogged all week! But don't worry, I'm not about to drop off the face of the planet again. :-)

Finished reading Mockingjay last night at midnight, but didn't go to bed until one-thirty, as I found I needed some processing time. I'm still processing. Not going to say anymore because I refuse to spoil it for anyone, but look for a review sometime soon-ish.

On a side note, I'm never pre-ordering anything again. My Mockingjays weren't in at Borders on Tuesday like they were supposed to be, so I ended up buying two different copies so's me and the roomie could actually read them on release day! The other copies still aren't in yet, and I'm not looking forward to the fun ordeal of returning them when they do show up. *sigh*

You'll be shocked to hear that in amongst devouring Mockingjay, I actually did some writing! About halfway through Chapter Seven, and it's going well. So far I've added nearly 9,500 words to the novel in Draft #2. This is frightening. I feel like Draft #3 is going to be all about finding things to cut cut cut cut cut. And here I was all excited that I finally wrote a short novel!!

I will leave you with a couple pictures taken in the new abode's LIBRARY. Yes. It's okay to be jealous. :-)

My bookshelf against the freshly painted walls!

Tea in the library! And yes, that's a TARDIS teapot. :-)

Hanging in my comfy green chair, about to get some noveling done!

It's Frrriiiidayyyy!!

2010-08-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

And to celebrate you get a smorgasbord of random links:

First up, the YA Fantasy Showdown, where characters from YA fiction are being pitted against each other in fictional battles, the outcomes of which are decided via voting. Currently about to delve into round four, my beloved Eugenides (from the Attolia books) and Howl (from Howl's Moving Castle) are still in the game!! I will be awash with glee if they both make it into the final round, although I'll have no idea which one to vote for…

Next up, the plural of "octopus" is explained.

Next up, I was invited by the lovely Irene Pynn to write a guest blog, and after some deliberation penned my heartfelt—albeit entirely unscientific—thoughts on How a Book is Like a Piano.

Next up, Nathan Bransford's excellent How to Write a Query Letter.

Next up, Gail Carson Levine discusses POV shifts in her latest blog.

And last but not least, author Maggie Stiefvater noodles on a childhood that shaped her as a reader and writer.

Have a good weekend everybody!!

P. S. I FINISHED CHAPTER SIX!!!!

In Progress

2010-08-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

Look at me, three posts in a row! :-)

Yesterday I:

Worked a bunch on the elusive Chapter Six of my novel—it's soooooo close to being done now! SO CLOSE! Ideas are spilling out, and words too, and it feels absolutely marvelous to be back working on it again!
Finished The Silver Branch which I quite liked, though it wasn't quite as inspiring as Eagle of the Ninth. I want to read the third book in the loosely-connected series (The Lantern Bearers), but the library doesn't have it, so I see special ordering in my future.
Started re-reading The Hunger Games in anticipation of Mockingjay next week. I find that when you read two books in the space of four days, not-quite-a-year later some of the details tend to fade, so I intend to remedy that. I'm just about to start Chapter 6.

Today I will hopefully:

FINISH Chapter Six of Seer.
Read more Hunger Games.
Drink lots of tea.

I've already gotten one cup in on that last item.

Happy Wednesday everyone, and keep up the good work!!

Just One Week Left…

2010-08-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

…till Mockingjay (third and final installment in the wildly popular Hunger Games trilogy) is released!!

Have you pre-ordered your copy?

And Peeta? or Gale?

:-)

There's a Viking in the Building!

2010-08-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

I've been out of college for five years, but I still feel like the year really begins in late August, not January. Fall semester! New stuff to learn! Autumn! Jeans and converse and long sleeves and socks!

…That is if you happen to live in a state where you have autumn and can wear the aforementioned jeans and converse and long sleeves and socks before the end of November. But I'm quibbling. Hopefully us poor Arizonians will get out of the 100s sometime soon and at least down into the 90s. Hopefully.

But that's really beside the point. What I'm saying is, life has been completely crazy this summer. I've moved across town, nearly tore the bumper off my poor car by backing into a pole, painted a room, learned how to cook chicken, watched all seven seasons of Buffy, spent a week in Georgia eating ridiculously amazing watermelon, continued staunchly refusing to eat raw tomatoes (because I don't like them, okay??), and got a grand total of absolutely nothing done on that novel revision I started back in March. Not to mention I haven't been blogging, either.

What I'm saying is, it's time for the fall semester, which means a new year and a new beginning and a new chance to dive back into noveling and blogging and getting stuff done. I don't have to wait for January! The time is now!! I am novelist, hear me RAWRRRRR!!!!

**puts on a horned helmet brandishes a battle-axe, and hollers like a viking**

Erm. Anyways. Guess I'd better get to it then, right?

I am, in fact, still breathing

2010-07-29T11:57:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note to assure any readers still out there that I have not fallen of the face of the planet! I'm moving across town this weekend and as my world has thus been in a terrible state of upheaval, I haven't had the chance to do any noveling—let alone blogging—for the last several weeks. But never fear, faithful ones! I shall return soon with a vengeance, gracing the blogosphere with my much-missed witticisms.

Until then, I had better go find some lunch. And keep packing.

Will Write for Motivation

2010-06-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

So I have a bad case of the blahs and have been procrastinating like a bandit on that revision lately. I've written exactly one scene and a couple of sentences this week and that is IT. I still haven't finished chapter five, even though I'm really close!! I've got pages upon pages left to get through of my Revision Check-list, and even though it's laid out in lovely color-coded order, it all seems like such an overwhelming amount of work and I'm feeling like I'll never get it done and if I do it won't matter anyway. At the same time, of course, I know very well that this novel is Important and might actually be The One and I just can't give up!!!

I clearly need some motivation beyond the someday-maybe-it'll-be-all-shiny-and-published variety. Any suggestions? Threats? Bribery? Horrifying ninja monkeys of doom?

What do you do to stay motivated???

Better late than never

2010-06-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

So this post is shamefully overdue. Sadly this is not because of werewolf attacks or dimension-transporting tornadoes or anything remotely interesting. I've mostly just been feeling lazy and didn't have anything to blog about. True facts. But in any case, it's time for some UPDATES!

Writing:
I'm still working on revisions for Seer, and at this rate will probably be working on them until the end of time. I'm in chapter five. Of twenty-nine. Needless to say it's going SLOWLY, and I will in no way be finished by the end of June. On the plus side, though, I'm happy with the changes so far. I'm focusing mainly on fixing my structure/pacing, and it seems to be working. Hopefully it'll start going faster sometime soon.

I also keep poking at On Journeys Bound, the novel that refuses to leave me alone; I've written at least a couple thousand new words on this thing but am still floundering in the depths of the Dreaded Middle. I really need to finish. I've been working on this draft for a grand total of four years—not steadily, of course, but still.

I just read through the 41k of my failed Nano novel from last November, and you know what? It wasn't that bad. Bits of it were actually pretty interesting. I get why I abandoned it and it does need some restructuring, but I think there's definitely hope. Not that I know when I'll ever have time to get back to it, but you'll have that.

Reading:
I'm way too lazy to properly review the fabulous books I've read lately, so you just get a couple of sentences each:

When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead—this year's Newberry Award winner is set in the late seventies and follows the adventures of a twelve-year-old girl who starts receiving mysterious notes from the future. It's kinda like Fire and Hemlock meets Doctor Who. Really lovely writing.

The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold—an adult fantasy filled with well-drawn characters, fascinating settings, and intriguing philosophical ponderings. It's hard to explain. But quite good.

The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff—I read this back in high school and though I remembered liking it didn't actually remember that much about it, so I re-read it. LOVELY book. Its style is a little old-fashioned (it was written in the fifties), but I really liked that about it—makes a nice change from more modern in-your-face-nonstop-explosions types of books (not that those don't have their place, too :-)). The story takes place in Roman-occupied Britain and is about young Centurion Marcus traveling to Scotland to reclaim the eagle of his father's lost legion. They're making it into a movie starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell, due out in February—hopefully they do it justice!!

The Sunbird and The Lion Hunter, by Elizabeth E. Wein—these books are the next installments of Wein's Arthurian/Aksum sequence, continuing on from The Winter Prince and A Coalition of Lions. Really, really lovely books, in an intriguing setting—ancient Ethiopia. These two books (and the last in the sequence, The Empty Kingdom, which I have on hold for myself at the library and I very much hope is waiting for me today!), are more connected than the first two, and follow Telemakos, the son of Medraut (who, at least in The Sunbird, is still working through everything that happened in Winter Prince). Gorgeous writing and wonderful characters, these books are small but incredibly moving.

And that's all for now, folks. Enjoy the rest of your week! Go read some books!!

Revision Woes and Linger

2010-05-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

Funny thing about revision. I finally finished the horrendously problematic chapter two (and am pretty happy with the changes!) and promptly ran into an even bigger snag in chapter three. I happened to realize that I'm missing some crucial backstory—not for the novel, really, but for my own personal understanding—and am now finding myself chronicling (read: making up) the entire history of my fictional world from the beginning of time. It's rather exhausting and plenty confusing and has ground revisions to a halt. *sigh*

Today, to be honest, I didn't even open the novel file. I was busy wrestling with the ending of a short story I wrote for a contest (deadline: Friday). I never have trouble with endings. Endings are my specialty. Most of the stories I write excite me because of the endings. But this one just eludes me. I've written three different versions of the ending and none of them feel right. Argh!!!

At any rate, I finally got around to reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which I found fascinating and informative. I am now slightly-less-clueless about military campaigns than I was before, and I know exactly what kind of generals to hire for my next fictional battles! :-)

Also, the lovely Jaclyn Dolamore, author of Magic Under Glass, has compiled a fantastic list of 10 Awesome Books for Fantasy Worldbuilding that I've been drooling over. I actually ordered a used copy of The Courts of Europe from Amazon yesterday and am looking forward to getting into it when it arrives!

Also also, the lovely Maggie Stiefvater, author of the poetically sniffle-inducing (and NYT bestselling) Shiver, is having a contest to promote her gorgeous stop-animation book trailer for the sequel, Linger:

This post is alive with the sound of music!!

2010-05-05T00:25:00.000-07:00

In lieu of anything interesting to report (still revising, in chapter two, having difficulties), I thought I'd share a smorgasbord of music I find beautiful and inspiring for your listening pleasure. So here goes!

First up, my favorite singer/songwriter of all time, the lovely Loreena McKennitt, with her adaptation of The Highwayman. I first heard this song over ten years ago and it still gives me goosebumps:

Next up, British indie rock band Keane with Atlantic:

Next up, British rock band Muse with the epic Butterflies and Hurricanes, complete with rad Rachmaninoff piano stylin' in the middle:

Next up, the lovely Vienna Teng with My Medea (which was the main inspiration for that not-really-very-short-story I wrote last fall):

Next up, British indie rock band (are you seeing a pattern here?) Snow Patrol, with the heart-wrenching Make This Go On Forever (with bonus Doctor Who video :-)):

Next up, the banjo-playin' Sufjan Stevens, with Casimir Pulaski Day, one of the saddest/most beautiful songs I've ever heard:

Next up, the champions of esoteric-yet-beautiful lyrics, The Shins, with Pink Bullets:

Next up, obsessed-with-gorgeous-but-melodramatic-things The Decemberists, with The Hazards of Love 4, final track of their latest album:

Next up, recent favorite Laura Veirs, with the gorgeously mellow Wrecking:

And finally the weirdly-addictive M. Ward, with Chinese Translation, which has pretty much been going round in my head for the last week or two:

Hope you enjoyed at least a few of those! What are your favorites?

Revision Update, Reading List, and Some Links

2010-04-28T00:20:00.000-07:00

So I'm still in Chapter One. Ugh. I always forget how looooooooong it takes me to revise. Not that I've exactly been faithfully plugging away at Draft #2 of Seer… I keep getting distracted. On Journeys Bound is niggling away in my brain again and a deep philosophical conversation with the BFF about Whale and the Tree has gotten me thinking about another revision… which is a pretty clear sign I'm done querying it for now… which is sad but kind of okay I think… maybe? (Don't worry. I'm gonna stop with the ellipses now.)

But I do quite like the revisions I've gotten in thus far, and I am almost finished with Chapter One and am completely determined to plow through this second draft. Just have to step up my game a bit is all. I can dooooo it! There are six check marks on tRLoHLA so far but there will soon be many more. Many more!! Raawwwwwwr!

Erm.

On a semi-related note, my cold-hearted villain scrounged up a spark of humanity in the scene I finished rewriting today. Made me kinda like him. Aw.

Also, after a horrible dearth of reading material during which I discovered that the Phoenix Public Library system has drastically cut back their hours (the branch near me isn't even open on Mondays anymore :-( ), I am happy to announce that my TBR pile is stacking up nicely. Just finished Diana Wynne Jones's Dogsbody, which was lovely even though I wasn't *quite* satisfied with the ending, and am partway into The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, The Sunbird by Elizabeth Wein, When You Reach Me (this year's Newberry award winner) by Rebecca Stead, and Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken are waiting in the wings. I know virtually nothing about any of these books—they're all mostly recs from reliable internet sources—but it's almost more fun that way. Excited to get into them!

And now for some links:

The controlled schizophrenia of writers (via inkygirl)
An interesting article on the theory of mind as applied to creating believable characters.

Hunger Mountain
The VCFA Journal of the Arts—I subbed a short story to them a while back and haven't gotten a response yet (though I'm expecting one soon). I'm thinking of entering one of their writing contests, just have to figure out if I can tweak a story I've already got or if I need to write a new one! I have until June 30th to get my submission ready.

Omniglot
A thoroughly fascinating guide to the languages and writing systems of the world.

And that will about do it for today's Blog Post of Random Disconnected Stuff (BPoRDS).

Until next time!

Take Two!

2010-04-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

I officially started Draft #2 of Seer today!! Whooooooooo!

I finished working through the scene outline on Saturday, and have dubbed it The Revision List of Hi-Lighted Awesome to make it sound like loads of fun. (But it is hi-lighted. And hopefully awesome.)

I only made it through three scenes.

You see I was suddenly inspired to write a query letter, so I worked on that most of the afternoon in lieu of revisions. Queries, in case you were wondering, are still really, REALLY hard. Boiling down plot + character + voice into one or two paragraphs is no easy task! I think this one actually turned out pretty good, though. Too bad I can't exactly use it yet!!

So anyway. Revisions. The Revision List of Hi-Lighted Awesome (tRLoHLA) is nearly six pages total, and gives me a lovely breakdown of all the scenes that will be included in Draft #2, some new, some moved, some facing complete and total rewrites, and a few (a very few) that will get mostly left alone. Draft #1 had twenty-six chapters and Draft #2 will have twenty-nine, so even though I'm deleting a number of scenes (and the entirety of chapter three), I'm guesstimating I'll gain 5-10k by the end of it. My novels always get longer when I revise them. I'm really glad this one began life at only 70k. Gives me lots of wiggle room. :-)

I'm hope hope hoping to have Draft #2 completed sometime in June so's I can hand it off to a few trusted souls who'll tell me if it's any good or not (hopefully gently, if it's the latter :-)).

This revision train is off and running!

… as long as I don't get too distracted tweaking that query letter.

Revision Science (sort of)

2010-04-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

Been pretty quiet on the ol' blog lately. Sorry about that.

I am hard(ish) at work on getting my revisions for Seer sorted out, and am pleased with the results so far, even though I haven't made any actual changes to the manuscript yet. I'm working exclusively with the scene-list outline I compiled during my read through a couple weeks ago, and am loving this method—it's forcing me to focus on the big picture instead of getting hung up on the details of the prose, which is helping a proverbial ton with my pacing issues.

There's a heck of a lot of new scenes getting added in (mostly having to do with developing a character barely mentioned in Draft #1), lots of rearrangement, and of course some inevitable deletion. What's great about doing all this revision on the outline is there's no risk of accidentally messing something up in the manuscript, plus it saves you from reading the novel so many times you haven't a clue after a while if you're helping it or hurting it.

I'm pretty excited about all these changes! The novel is going to be sooooo much better (and stronger! and actually coherent!) when I'm done with it. Kinda makes you wonder why on earth I couldn't have come up with all this stuff the first time around, but I think sometimes you have to do something one way in order to figure out that's not the way you wanted to do it at all. First drafts are like science experiments—you don't know what's gonna happen until you try. Revisions clean up the inevitable mess, lay everything out in an orderly fashion, and calmly put it back together right.

Or something.

At any rate, I'm in Chapter Fifteen on the outline, so I'm a little over halfway there. Can't wait to finish so I can actually get these changes made.

Onwards and upwards!

The Attolia Series, by Megan Whalen Turner

2010-04-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

I've now read A Conspiracy of Kings (twice!), and felt compelled by its awesomeness to write a review, which is impossible without at least mentioning the previous three books in the series.

So I'm going to attempt reviewing the entire series.

With as few spoilers as possible.

Which will be a trick. :-)

Here goes.

Book #1: The Thief

After bragging that he can steal anything—and flaunting the pilfered king's seal in a tavern to prove it—Gen winds up in prison. Fortunately, the king's adviser, the magus, needs him, and Gen finds himself bundled along on a cross-country trek in pursuit of the mythical Hamiathes' Gift, an object which can only be retrieved by a thief.

But this isn't just a straightforward adventure story. Set in the three countries of Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia, MWT gives us a wonderfully-drawn world inspired by the landscape and culture of ancient Greece, complete with her own pantheon of gods. She's so exact in her story-telling, so deft with her characterization and so careful with every single word, that you don't notice the subtleties of her impossibly tight plot until it whacks you up top the head at the end and you find your jaw sitting involuntarily on the floor.

This would be why The Thief garnered a Newberry Honor.

Book #2: The Queen of Attolia

In many respects, The Queen of Attolia feels completely different from The Thief. It reads more like a YA novel, and is told in third person instead of first. Gen—or Eugenides as he's referred to in this book—is still the main character, but the third person POV changes things a bit.

In Queen, Eugenides is forced to deal with a terrible loss, and the third person POV gives a certain amount of needed distance from this loss. We learn as much or more about Eugenides's character than we did in The Thief, but the focus is slightly different. He's vulnerable in a way he wasn't in the first book, and as we mourn for him we wonder if he can go back to the way he was, we wonder if that's even possible.

And while we're worrying about Eugenides, MWT is busy with her careful descriptions and meticulous character studies and oh-so-subtle-and-understated plot threads. There's war, political machinations, a new threat to our trio of countries in the form of Nahusersh, the oily ambassador from the Mede empire, and last—but certainly not least—one of the most intriguing romances ever to grace the boundaries of fiction. We're talking rivaling Eowyn/Faramir and Doctor/Rose, here, so you know I mean it.

Oh, and I started reading this series because of Queen's cover. Intriguing, no?

Book #3: The King of Attolia

This is the book I can say the least about without completely giving everything away. It's narrated in third person by a young soldier named Costis, but is still very much about Eugenides—we get an even further wide-angled view of him than we did in Queen. It's a great, great book, filled with all the MWT surprises and subtleties and complexities and heart we've come to expect.

And that's really all I can say. :-)

Book #4: A Conspiracy of Kings

Narrated largely in first person by Sophos, a character from The Thief, this, again, is a different book entirely from the other three in the series. Eugenides is important but even more distant than before, and for once this isn't his story—it's Sophos's. We find out what he's been up to since the first book, and follow his journey from timid, insecure boy, to mature, hardened-yet-vulnerable king.

Sophos is a great character, albeit very different from Eugenides (whom he sort of hero-worships, which is adorable), and I really enjoyed getting to know him. I read Conpsiracy last Wednesday and again over the weekend because I couldn't stop thinking about it.

You really almost have to read these books multiple times to understand/appreciate all the subtleties and motivations; MWT is a careful, meticulous writer, which is why rereading her books is so rewarding—you inevitably find things you missed the first (or second, or third) time around.
There's a definite sense in Conspiracy of things-being-set-in-motion-for-epic-ness-to-come (there's two more books planned in the series), which left me feeling a ttiiiiiiny bit unsatisfied, because I know there's going to be a long wait to find out what happens next.

But only a tiny bit. :-)

___________________

That was hard. I started this post on Tuesday.

Revision, Stage No. 1 (with pictures!!)

2010-03-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

So I've decided (realized?) that revision, with any method you use, comes in three basic stages: Identifying Problems, Figuring out what to Do with those Problems, and, finally, Fixing those Problems. Last night I successfully completed my initial read-through of Seer, hi-lighters, spreadsheet, and shrunken manuscript in tow, and have identified a heck of a lot of problems (though thankfully I found as much cause for hope as despair).

I really found the hi-lighter method, the shrunken manuscript, and the scene-list-spreadsheet to be immensely useful in assessing what I've got to work with and in pointing out my problem areas (of which there are many), and found myself jotting down notes for each chapter and ideas of how to fix/change/rework things. Hopefully this will make the transition to the much harder and not-quite-as-much-fun revision stages two and three. I'll let you know.

And without further ado, I give you my 70,000 word novel in glorious shrunken form:

Close up:

I marked POV (green for Braise and purple for Iria), Parts that were Interesting and Awesome (orange stripes), and any scene I really really really liked got a heart sticker (or two or three). As you can see, there are LOTS of spots missing orange stripes and hearts. This is, of course, Not Good, and one of the main things I'll be working on fixing!!

Here's a closer-up on one of the pages (I had to do the dual column thing to make everything fit):

Here's a manuscript page, complete with hi-lighting and scribbled notes:

I was getting into quite a little system: orange to keep track of any world-building/room description/character description details; blue for anything having to do with the enigmatic Ethereal Plane; yellow for repetitious type stuff; pink for anything that was either not working or was inconsistent; and purple and green, respectively, for tracking certain phrases in my two MCs' voices. Quite an excellent way of gathering information! Here's hoping I can make good use of it...

On to Stage Two!!

Me 'n the Shrunken Manuscript

Book Review: Incarceron

2010-03-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

Incarceron, by Catherine Fisher, is about a prison—vast, sentient, and possibly malicious—and two people desperate to unlock its mysteries: Finn, a prisoner who believes he came from Outside and longs to Escape; and Claudia, the Warden's daughter, who's doomed to an arranged marriage and life in the stifling falseness of the Queen's court. Connected by identical copies of a mysterious crystal Key, both Claudia and Finn begin to dream that Escape is actually possible...

There were a number of things that impressed me about this book. One was Ms. Fisher's deft handling of POV changes and snappy scene divisions; the two main voices are Claudia's and Finn's, but occasional viewpoints of other key characters are woven in seamlessly. Her pacing is extremely impressive, as are her settings: the dark menacing weirdness of the prison and the glittering facade of the Outside world. Though the first part of the book didn't suck me in quite as quickly as I'd anticipated, I was pleasantly surprised by the plot twists and unexpected revelations in the last hundred pages or so and accidentally stayed up until 1:30AM the other night finishing it. I'm not at all sure I can wait until December for the American version of the sequel, Sapphique, to be released, so might have to dig up a British copy online. We'll see. :-)

One other thing: I'm curious as to how people are labeling this, genre-wise. To me it comes off firmly in my pet genre, science-fantasy; I really don't feel like it's one or the other. What do you think?

And so it begins...

2010-03-25T00:54:00.000-07:00

So, so, so: I plunged into Stage #1 of revisions for Seer today. Pretty sure it's the shortest amount of time that's ever passed between rough draft and edits for me, but I just couldn't bear to wait any longer. The story wouldn't leave me alone, and that's a good thing, right? It's been several weeks, at least. That's something. :-)

Anyways. I wanted to try a slightly different tack than my normal scribble-on-my-manuscript-with-colored-ink-and-make-lots-of-notes-and-get-lost-in-overwhelming-bouts-of-wallowing-despair revision process, and through various tweets and links and Google searches, am attempting a combination of the Shrunken Manuscript Technique, a spreadsheet outline, and working through Anita Nolan's wonderful-looking revision checklist. We'll see what sticks and what doesn't.

So far today I printed out a shrunken manuscript and marked the different POVs, then began working through my regular-sized manuscript page by page, making notes and hi-lighting things I want to keep track of (like world-building and character details), and marking things I realize aren't working (like much of chapter three). If I find a scene that's Interesting, Intriguing, and Filled With Wonderful Tension, I get to mark it on the shrunken manuscript. So far only one scene has made the cut. o_0 As I'm reading through the scenes, I'm also filling out my spreadsheet, which thus far includes the categories Voice, Location, Time, Synopsis, Point of Scene, Notes, and # of pages.

By the time I finish my first read-through, I'll hopefully have identified all the problem areas and have three different ways to look at the novel (shrunken, spreadsheet, scribbled-upon-manuscript) and figure out how to fix it.

Hopefully.

I'll keep you posted. :-)

A Conspiracy of Bookstores

2010-03-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

So today is March 23rd, a day I have been looking forward to for some months, as it is the day that the fourth book in Megan Whalen Turner's ridiculously-amazing-but-I-can't-really-tell-you-much-about-them-for-fear-of-spoiling-the-awesome Attolia series, A Conspiracy of Kings, was released.

Too bad none of the Borders or Barnes & Nobles in the greater Phoenix area seemed to notice. >:(

Oh glorious A Conspiracy of Kings. What lies between your pages? Will I ever know???

The Oregon Trail!

2010-03-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

A few pics from the Oregon trip, highlights including a trip to Mount Hood, the coast, and—of course—Powell's Books. :-) Your regularly scheduled novelistic blogging will resume shortly. :-)

Oh my gosh! Snow!

My faithful traveling buddy!!

Gorgeous mountainy-cloudy view through the car window

SUCH a gorgeous vista—and sooooo cold!

We found a whale after all! :-)

Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach

Shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day!

Apparently huge weird mushrooms make me deathly pale.

The Oregon coast from Indian Beach

So beautiful!

A weeeeee bit windblown!

I've got some serious reading to do!!

Portland Ho!

2010-03-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

So the sis and I are headed to Portland for the week to catch some rain, go to the awesomest bookstore in the history of ever, and drive up to the coast to see the ocean crashing in magnificent fashion against the gorgeous jagged coastline. We wanted to go whale-watching, too, but apparently whales don't come out until April. :-)

Anyways. I got about 500 words written on On Journeys Bound the other day, and I've been noodling on revisions for Seer (and honestly can't wait to get started on them), but that's about it on the writing front. I figure I deserve a break. :-) If all goes according to plan, I'm gonna tackle Seer Draft #2 at the beginning of April. I've decided I need multi-colored pens/hi-lighters to assist me in this endeavor, so I'm going shopping for those when I get back (any excuse to buy school supplies is a good excuse in my book).

Started reading Incarceron and really like it so far. Can't wait to see where it's all going!

Also: A Conspiracy of Kings comes out ONE WEEK FROM TUESDAY!!!!!!!! I am SO ridiculously excited about that. You don't even know.

And that is, as they say, that.

See you on the other side!

That's a Wrap!

2010-03-07T14:32:00.000-08:00

It's official!! The first draft of Seer is DONE!!!!!!!!!! 70,018 words, 26 completed chapters, and 157 not-quite-double-spaced-to-save-paper pages! You can tell by all the superfluous exclamation points that I'm EXCITED!!!! :-) :-) :-)

I also sorta don't know what to do with myself now. All the wisdom of the ages says to put it in a drawer for at least a week before I dive into revisions. Sad. But true.

At any rate, as a variation on the weekly stats, I give you:

Things I Learned While Writing This Novel

Apparently it is possible for me to tell a story in under 100,000 words. :-)
It's okay and sometimes necessary to change your outline on the fly.
I am definitely not above bribery-by-chocolate.
World-building as you go is an adventure, but it works out okay in the end. I think.
Random things inserted at the beginning to add flavor to the narrative might turn out to be important later on.
I have a very poor grasp on the actual floor plan of my building-where-everything-happens. Stairs and rooms and hallways pop up in rather odd places.
Stories tend to develop their own sense of internal logic. This is pretty awesome. Run with it.
I can't remember physical descriptions of minor characters.
I'm really good at making up history for my world and then being inconsistent with the details.
All important conversations happen in hallways.
I am so addicted to Facebook that I will check it during my writing time, even if I happen to be in the middle of the climax.
I like to sit by a window when I'm writing, so I can stare out of it in proper daydreamer fashion if I happen to get stuck.
I'm convinced my main characters have medical problems. Their hearts and stomachs do pretty strange things when they're happy/scared/sad/excited/experiencing any kind of emotion at all. They might should get that checked out.
My mind is a strange, strange place. But I guess I knew that already. :-)

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**does the excited dance of first draft done-ness**

60K and Beyond!

2010-03-03T21:19:00.000-08:00

Yikes, I can't believe it's March. When did that happen? Wasn't yesterday Christmas 2008? I'm pretty sure it was. Weird. I never got around to buying a 2010 calendar, so I'm using last year's. As long as I don't look at the days it's not too confusing. :-)

So, noveling. It's coming along, more-or-less. I kinda wish it was over, but if I don't stop procrastinating I'll never get it done. I'm soooooo close now! Just gotta get my female MC to figure out how to save my male MC, and Robert's your father's brother (I already know, but she doesn't. It's very frustrating. True love conquers all, and so on. :-)).

Anyhoo, in lieu of anything more interesting to report, I give you this week's STATS:

Word Count: 60,881
Chapters Completed: 22/26
Number of Times Author has Stopped Action to Reveal Pertinent Backstory: 3 (ugh, I KNOW)
Number of Old People Being Disturbingly, Nay, Disgustingly Kissy-Face in Scooters: 2
Number of Times Author has Eaten Ice Cream This Week: 0 (very, very sad)
Number of Episodes Author is Behind on in LOST: 3

Yep, I think that about covers it. :-)

The Beginning of the End…

2010-02-23T20:18:00.000-08:00

Happy 5-week-a-versary to Seer!!

It's the beginning of the end, and this novel is getting INTENSE. Yikes. You don't even know. I always enjoy writing something that's new and different from anything I've ever written before, and Seer certainly fits the bill. My brain, I tell you, is a scary place to be. I hope I can make it through to the end relatively unscathed…

Also, did I mention that this book exploded in my subconscious and became a TRILOGY? 'Cause it did. I'll definitely be taking a break before tackling the next two books, but still. I can't believe this all snowballed from a short story idea.

Do you SEE why I can't write short stories?

Yeah.

Time for some stats:

Word Count: 52,072 words (I FINALLY MADE IT TO 50K!!!!! :-) :-) :-))
Chapters Completed: 18.75/26
Intensity Level: 96%
Number of Times Author has Gotten Disturbed: 4
Evilness of Villains: Ridiculously Evil
Number of Shocking Revelations: 2/4
Number of Times Author has had Trouble with Pacing: 7
Number of Times Author has Dreaded Revisions: 12
Number of Times Author has Wished Sci-Fantasy was a Viable Genre: 100,000,000

Friday, the someday-I'll-make-it-to-50K edition

2010-02-19T12:08:00.000-08:00

Yep, so a week later my novel is only 6,500 words further along. I've been meaning to make it to 50k for the last, oh, four days or so. Yesterday I wrote a grand total of 382 words, the day before I definitely didn't break a thousand. But I guess you'll have that, right? At any rate, I'm in the final third of the novel, and the stakes are about to get very, VERY high.

In other news, I've now seen both series of BBC's Merlin (and highly recommend them. Wow.) and am eagerly awaiting the third; I'm still reading The Ropemaker and will hopefully finish soon; I ran a half mile today (a huge accomplishment if you're me); and I'm having an Emma tea party tomorrow and am way excited about it. :-)

That's pretty much it, but I thought I'd share a tiny bit about my novel, which is titled Seer:

They meet for the first time when they’re six years old: blind Braise, who is destined to be a Seer and wield the powers of the Ethereal Plane, and Iria, the orphaned daughter of a Councilor, who is chosen as his Reader. Growing up together in the Seer’s Tower, Braise and Iria's friendship gradually turns to love. But the year they turn sixteen Iria discovers the sinister truth, and everything changes…

Yes, I'm being purposefully vague. Don't want to give everything away, now do I? :-)

Happy weekend, everyone!

40k Friday!

2010-02-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

Woot! I had a pretty great writing week, so you all get another stats post. Lucky you! :-)

Word Count: 40,040 (I just figured out how to add two more words to produce that lovely round number :-))
Chapters Completed: 13/26 (For those keeping track, I decided to add a new chapter to the outline, different from the one previously nixed.)
Novel Weirdness Level: 94%
Number of Times Author has Listened to Laura Veir's July Flame Album Whilst Writing: 40+
Chapters Left Until First Kissage: 1.5 (YAY!!!! :-))
Number of Random Surnames Invented: 2
Number of Times Characters have been Stopped by Other Characters in Hallways to Have Important Conversations: unfortunately way more times than I can count
Number of Scenes that Feel Suspiciously Regency: 1
Number of Airship Rides Thus Far: 1
Number of Merlin episodes watched since last Thursday: 15
Number of Pulled Muscles During Embarrassingly Non-Vigorous Jogging: 1 (OW!)

Here's to a great weekend and 50k by my book's four week-aversary on Tuesday!!

30k!!

2010-02-09T23:35:00.000-08:00

Not a very creative post title, but you'll have that. I was secretly hoping to be at 40k today, but 10k a week seems to be all I can muster lately... which makes my hopes of finishing this thing by the end of the month kinda slim. But we shall see. Still, 30k is nothing to sneeze at, right?

In other news, whilst getting slightly *cough* VERY *cough cough* addicted to the adorable BBC show Merlin this week, I got to thinking about my two main characters from On Journeys Bound / The Blind King with much fondness, and decided to re-read the beginning of The Blind King which, if you'll recall, was the second of two unfinished novels attempted during NaNoWriMo last November. I read it—sat there for two hours reading it—and you know what?

I really, really liked it. I mean it had all the usual rough draft kinds of flaws, but overall I was heartily impressed with myself. I only wish it had a middle and an end in addition to a beginning. Guess that's something I'll have to fix, right? Anyways, I was encouraged to discover that November wasn't quite the complete and total failure I thought it was. YAY!

And now, the moment you all have been waiting for—this week's stats!

Word Count: 30,030 (yes I stopped in the middle of a sentence so I could have that lovely number)
Chapters Completed: 10/25
Age of Characters: 16! Finally!! Now they can properly fall in love! :-)
Number of Ominous Conversations Overheard: 1
Number of Times Author had to Bribe Herself to Keep Writing: 7
Number of Times Author was Sitting in Barnes & Noble and Saw a Strange Person in a Bright Yellow Skin-Tight Over-the-Face Cat Suit: 1 (Yes. Really.)

20K and on till morning...

2010-02-02T21:45:00.000-08:00

Happy end-of-Tuesday, everyone! Today marks my WIP's two week anniversary, so of course it's time for some stats:

Word count: 20,426
Chapters completed: 6 of 25 (I nixed one of the chapters from my outline because it wasn't adding anything to the plot, in case you'd noticed the discrepancy with last week's stats.)
Status of characters: Sleepy. (They had a big day. :-))
Number of times the author has gotten disturbed: 2
Number of strange things Googled* since last week: 3
Next up: a huge argument, followed by a deathly illness
Guesstimated total word count at this juncture: 80,000

Writing is going pretty well—I had a few slow days last week, but have been making up for it so far this week. The Plan is to finish the rough draft by the end of February, which means I have 26 days to write approximately 60,000 words—doable, if I can keep the momentum. We'll see.

Have I mentioned that this novel is strange? 'Cause it is. It's kinda freaking me out. As I'm writing, I'm learning more and more about the world and everybody's motivations and exactly what it is that my evil government is up to and it's a little disturbing. My main characters are thus far unaware that they are being manipulated, and it's kinda sad. :-( Writing is so weird. It gives you these connections to people and places that, really, you invented yourself, and yet they don't really feel invented at all. It's like they're real human beings who actually exist somewhere, and they pop up every now and again to tell you stories about themselves. Very strange. But then I'm rather crazy.

Anyway.

In other news, I've gotten a hefty pile of rejection letters for The Whale and the Tree, and am contemplating letting the whole query process rest for a while. Sad, but true. Hope springs eternal, however, so I'll probably send at least a few more out. We shall see.

And that is pretty much that.

______________________

* One of these happened to be "drilling holes in the head," which led me to read about trepanning, which was a key factor in disturbing myself.

It's my party I can write if I want to, write if I want to! :-)

2010-01-27T10:59:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday to meeeeeeee!! (And also Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lewis Carroll :-)) I'm enjoying a lovely cloudy rainy day—which isn't the norm here, I promise!—and got in 1k on my novel at Scooters coffee house this morning. Yay!

Today is also, apparently, the release of the mysteriously fancy (fancily mysterious?) new Apple Tablet, which is reported to be the coolest thing since sliced bread. I'm sure it's very cool (it's made by Apple, after all), but I'm feeling rather protective about my books. I just can't see myself ever being okay with reading a novel on anything other than printed, bound, tangible paper. This means, of course, that I need to hurry up and get published before they stop printing books anymore. Wahhhh! Somebody find me a time machine!!! (Extra points if it comes with a 900 year old alien in a long brown coat, of course. :-))

And speaking of my novel (well, a paragraph ago), it is now a week and a day old! Woot!!

Some stats:
Word Count: 11,082
Chapters Completed: 3 of 26
Conversations about Soup: 1
Emotional State of Characters: happy. (Little do they know what's in store for them! bwa ha ha)

So it's going pretty well! I'm still enjoying the story, and my characters are super fun to write about—they were supposed to instantly click and they completely did, and I love how they sort of bounce off of each other and are the best of friends. They're so cute!! Erm. You know.

Have a great day everyone! :-)

Rainstorms and Novels and Tea, oh my!

2010-01-21T21:34:00.000-08:00

Wow, so the greater Phoenix area is a awash (literally!!) in the most ginormous rainstorm ever! It's been raining ALL DAY, roads are flooded, power lights are out—all that good stuff. And then I guess tonight we had a tornado watch, which is about the craziest thing I've ever heard. Tornadoes? In ARIZONA?? Weird. Still raining pretty hard and fairly steadily. I think I might need to invest in a boat if I want to go out tomorrow!

But at any rate. As of this evening, my novel is 5,757 words, and there's just one scene left to go until I'm ready for chapter three. I'm writing at a much slower pace than I usually do during NaNoWriMo, but I'm okay with that—I feel pretty good about what I have managed to get down on paper (well, Scrivener) so far.

What's really interesting is that I'm telling the story partly from the first-person point of view of my blind MC, and I'm having to learn different ways of describing things, focusing on textures and sounds and smells instead of the usual visuals. It's challenging to not even be able to say things like "He smiled," and to give a sense of a room's space without talking about green chairs or light flooding in from windows or whatever. I keep catching myself writing things that are absolutely impossible coming from my MC. I'm really enjoying his voice; he's technical, inquisitive, and feels quite at home with math (unlike me!). I'm excited to get to write more from my other MC's point of view in the next chapter.

Also, I think I drank about a hundred cups of tea today. I had one this morning, a small pot at White August Tea this afternoon (noveling during a rainstorm at an adorable tea shop = HEAVEN), and another cup this evening during lessons. I wonder if I'll get any sleep tonight. :-)

Rainily yours,

Joanna

ETA: Yep, definitely had too much caffeine. Tried to sleep, couldn't, so got up again and noveled until 3 AM. I'm now up to 6,236 words (and kinda tired, but you'll have that)!

Beginnings...

2010-01-19T23:27:00.000-08:00

Well, ladies and gents, I started my novel today (well, technically yesterday; I really ought to be in bed)!

I have a grand total of 1,469 words, two scenes, and one (very short) chapter. The writing is going slow, but I really like what I have so far, which is exciting. :-) I'm expecting to be able to pick up the pace a bit once I get into the groove of the characters/world/voice.

Projected word count: 60,000-75,000 words. Er, hopefully. According to my outline, I'm going to have twenty-six chapters, none of which I expect to be any shorter than 3k, most of which I expect to be longer than that (with the exception of the first chapter). I did a little math, and concluded that 75k is a rather conservative figure. But you'll have that.

At any rate, this has to be some kind of record for me, from initial idea to first draft stage—the outline took all of a week and a half! I'm hoping to have the rough draft completed by the end of February, a sort of off-season do-it-yourself NaNoWriMo (which, by the way, I still totally love even though I kinda failed at it last year). I shall keep you posted. :-)

Here's to crazy novel ideas and awesome characters who invade your brain!

Update!

2010-01-15T09:35:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd give you all a brief update on the status/progress of my latest Shiny New Idea:

I've been busily outlining via the Snowflake Method all week, and as of yesterday afternoon (exactly a week following the initial Niagara Falls gushing of inspiration, for those keeping track), I'm a couple of chapters into step eight, the invaluable List o' Scenes. Still going well, still totally in love with the idea, and already have almost a whole page of notes regarding the SEQUEL. 0_o I think my brain has gone into overdrive or something. Not that I'm complaining!

Let's see, stuff I can tell you...

One of my MCs is blind
The government is evil (though I guess that's redundant, isn't it. ;-))
It's a mixture of science fiction and fantasy, a genre BFF and I have dubbed "sci-fantasy," though in future query letters I suppose I'll just have to label it sci-fi *grumble*
I am already thinking about writing query letters. But not to worry, I adhere to the don't-even-think-about-querying-before-your-manuscript-is-completely-written-revised-and-polished rule.
There are air-ships (well, at least one), glass and metal lifts (yes, "lifts." Sounds so much cooler than elevators, and hey, I'm an Anglophile from way back. BFF: Can everybody in this world be British? Me: I'll think about it.), and electricity that's not electricity but something rather more nefarious (duh duh DUHhhhhh).
I feel like this is a weirdly convoluted (but awesome) cross between Hunger Games and The Bartimaeus Trilogy

And I'll leave you with this brilliant little exchange from yesterday:

Me: So I guess what I want is six or so of these kids to one governess person who's teaching them, you know, basic, rudimentary stuff. Like shapes and numbers and language building and so on.

BFF: You mean like a preschool?

Me: Yes. That.

Favorite Reads of 2009

2010-01-13T11:21:00.000-08:00

There's been lots of "Favorite Books of 2009" lists floating out there in the blog-o-sphere lately, so here's my humble offering, in no particular order:

The Bartimaeus Trilogy, by Jonathan Stroud
Hunger Games and Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones
Curse Dark as Gold, by Elizabeth C. Bunce
The Claidi Journals, by Tanith Lee
The Winter Prince, by Elizabeth E. Wein

What were your favorites?

Lightning Struck My Brain!

2010-01-10T16:51:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago (December 23rd, to be exact—I just looked up the date in my handy dandy Molskine idea notebook :-)), I had this random idea for a story concept I thought was pretty intriguing. I actually have no idea what triggered it. As you may have gathered from my previous post, I've been experiencing some pretty hefty creative BLOCK lately, and was beginning to despair of ever writing anything again. But this past week I was really wanting to WRITE something, and thought maybe I should dabble in some short stories.

So Thursday afternoon I took notebook and pen to White August Tea to brainstorm on three different ideas I'd had semi-recently, including the one from December 23rd. I jotted down the three ideas. I wrote a paragraph on one of them, turned the page, and proceeded to do the same with the December 23rd Idea. I wrote a paragraph, and then another paragraph, and pretty soon I'd written several pages and had three-quarters of a plot and the definite feeling that this was Absolutely Not a short story. It was a novel. I was hearing character voices in my head, seeing their surroundings, getting scene ideas, discovering back story, and so on and so on and so on. Basically ideas were gushing out of my brain, Niagara Falls-style. By Friday I'd pretty much figured out what happens in the end, and even decided that there might be sequels (which is a huge tip-off that I'm not planning on killing anyone important, haha).

Friday evening I started Snowflaking, after briefly considering plunging head-first into writing the novel sans outline. As of right now, late Sunday afternoon, I'm halfway through Step Five of the Snowflake, with only three and a half steps left to go. The story is still exciting me, and ideas are still pouring out of my brain, and I am totally going to plunge into writing the first draft as soon as I finish my outline. I am so, so, so, SO excited!

The novel has a title (which literally popped into my head thirty seconds after jotting down the original brainstorming paragraph) that I'm not going to share just yet, and I'm not telling you what the idea is, either (sorry; I will as I get further along in the writing process, promise :-)), so I'll just leave it at: a sort-of sci-fi-fantasy-dystopian-possibly-steampunk-young-adult-romance novel. Don't worry. I won't put that in the query letter. :-) :-)

Excited to be excited again,

Joanna

So this is the New Year...

2010-01-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, just a quick post to let you all know that I haven't fallen off the face of the planet.

Four things:

I have writer's block/no motivation with current projects/frustration with current projects/despairing of ever writing anything good again. It's a vicious cycle.
I read Tanith Lee's The Claidi Journals over the Christmas holidays, and loved them immensely. Gorgeous prose, unusual and striking world-building, unique and stirring characters... everything you could ask for in a YA fantasy. The fourth book was a little bit of a let-down from the others, but still worth reading to soak in the strange beauties of Tanith Lee's world, and find out how all the various storylines are finally resolved. The books are: Wolf Star, Wolf Tower, Wolf Queen, and Wolf Wing, respectively. Go hit up your local library or bookstore! That's an order!
The Doctor Who finale was breathtakingly awesome and heartbreakingly brilliant. David Tennant, John Simm, and Benard Cribbins all acted their proverbial socks off. A fantastic ending to a fantastic era of Who. The mighty D.T. will be thoroughly missed. :-(
I'd like an agent for my birthday, please.

A Long and Dark December

2009-12-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

Hey all, apologies for lack of blogness lately. Still reeling a bit from my nano disappointment, I think, which has been reflected in my writing progress (or lack thereof). Feeling slightly more encouraged today, though, and beginning to think that maybe I can get through this weird writer's block or whatever it is.

I'm working on three different things: Seraphine, the not-really-all-that-short-story, the second draft of On Journeys Bound, and notes for an as-yet-untitled project.

Seraphine is at the beginning stages of editing, which, for me, means I've read through it all, made lots of notes in the margin, and am now trying to come up with a game plan of what exactly I want to do to it. Sometimes I know what needs to be done but don't know quite how to do it, which means I get to do lots of brainstorming and ask myself rough questions (like: Why do they fall for each other? and: where exactly is this food coming from???) and scribble things down in my notebook and bang my head against the wall until I can come up with a viable solution. After I figure out what to do, I'll probably re-type the whole story, which forces me to consider every sentence and every word and if I really want to keep it that way or not. My biggest challenges with this story are the middle (or lack thereof—I sorta skipped it), and consistency of details (a result of discovering things as I went along—I wound up contradicting myself a LOT). Overall, I really, really like this story and think it could be quite special if edited correctly.

I go back and forth with digging On Journeys Bound. It's such an old story idea that dates back to when I was twelve and obsessed with horses and Lord of the Rings (okay, I'm still obsessed with LOTR; that was when I first discovered it. I belong to the elite community of fans who adored the books before the movies came out. :-)) and journeys and adventures and mysterious identities and so on, but something about the characters and their stories keeps me coming back to it. Originally a short story of 18,740 words (which was monstrous at the time) penned in '97/'98 or thereabouts, I later expanded it into a novel, and finished the first draft the summer of 2005; it clocked in around 75k.

A couple of summers ago I started working on the second draft, fleshing out characters and inserting scenes and subplots and tightening up the writing and so on. One of my main characters was horrendously boring, and I had to figure out a way to make him un-boring. I think I've managed it. I dunno. There's a lot more story in the beginning of the second draft, which is going to make the finished product at least 100k. I'm currently at 48,914 words, so there's a waaayyyys to go yet. But after I get through the next 10-20k, the changes become a lot less major, so it ought to be fairly smooth sailing towards the end. It shouldn't need much editing after that besides some prose tightening (is that a valid expression?), and then I'll have another FINISHED BOOK. I don't know of course if anyone but me would ever want to read it. I'll have to figure out a way to send it back in time, 'cause it's the kind of story my twelve-year-old self would have adored. :-)

It's basically about Bren, an apathetic prince, and Connor, the bitter slave forced to serve him. Both of them have shadows in their past they would rather leave untouched. Neither of them have that luxury. There are battles and journeys. Tragedy and loss. Regret and betrayal. Fire and death.

It's certainly rather darker than its early incarnations.

At any rate. Currently, Connor has just rescued a little girl from a snowbank, and Bren has narrowly evaded another assassination attempt. Go him.

As for the third project, I'm still in the brainstorming phase, but the idea has me quite excited. It's a love story (go figure), or possibly two, and is set in the same world as The Whale and the Tree and The Silver Crane. It might even have a happy ending. *grin*

And that, as they say, is that.

Book Review: The Bartimaues Trilogy

2009-12-04T22:26:00.000-08:00

Just finished reading Ptolemy's Gate, the third installment in Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy. It was SO GOOD. Wow.

But I'm not being very coherent. Sorry about that.* I'll try and do better. Let's see.

The first book, The Amulet of Samarkand, introduces Bartimaeus, the fabulously snarky, famously famous, shape-shifting ancient dijinni of Incredible Power**, and Nathaniel, a twelve-year-old magician's apprentice who's out for a spot of revenge. Told in alternating chapters, the story traces their reluctant alliance*** against formidable foe Simon Lovelace, a powerful magician with some diabolical plans of his own.

The second book, The Golem's Eye, finds Nathaniel grafted into the British government****, with the much abused Bartimaeus back to try and salvage the mess he's making of his career.+ Enter a third viewpoint character, the fiercely idealistic Kitty Jones, who, along with a group of commoners called the Resistance, is fighting against the government.++ To make matters worse, a creature wreathed in shadow is wreaking havoc in central London, there's an insane skeleton on the loose+++, and the magicians have a traitor in their midst...

The third book, the aforementioned Ptolemy's Gate, finds Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, and Kitty forced into a tremulous alliance tied together with the shadows of Bartimaeus's past.++++

These books are fantastic. Lovely writing, compelling storyline, the characters evolve and grow... Just the right mixture of humor and pathos and history and detail. I'm excessively sad that they're over now^ :-(, but awesomely enough there's a fourth book coming next fall!^^

____________________

* It comes from being human, no doubt.

** And hilariously sarcastic footnotes. Like this one. Only funnier. And more sarcastic.

*** aka Forced servitude on the part of Bartimaeus. Darn magicians.

**** Which is made up entirely of conniving, power-hungry magicians.

+ The idiot couldn't do it on his own, of course.

++ ...by sneaking around in the dark and pilfering magical items. It was the best they could come up with, being human and all.

+++ Don't ask.

++++ Hardly compelling, I know, but I wouldn't want to spoil it for you.

^ Who wouldn't be??

^^ Readers rejoice!

NaNoWriMo 2009: Thoughts

2009-11-30T23:12:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a strange November.

I started two different novels, writing a combined 91k in the process, and didn't come anywhere near to my original goal of completing an entire first draft. I sort of feel like, 91k aside, I failed rather miserably. Why? Well, I have no book. I have the beginnings of two different books (both of which, I fear, are quite badly written, though there's perhaps more hope for the second one than for the first), but nothing, well, substantial. In the previous two years, even though I didn't actually finish my novels during the month, I wrote hefty chunks of them and at least got halfway through.

I don't know.

It's like, it's like...

I know what it's like. It's like my piano recital senior year of college. Specifically, Beethoven. More specifically, Beethoven's sonata nicknamed The Tempest (for obvious reasons if one happens to play it/listen to it). Now I never had a very good relationship with Beethoven (I much prefer Chopin and Bach, though that's beside the point), but I practiced that sonata until I was blue in the face, and was as prepared as was possible for my recital. The first six pages of the first movement went marvelously, so marvelously, in fact, that I psyched myself out and managed to totally blank on the last page and a half. Which, in a manner resembling a train wreck or a cascade of perfectly placed dominoes or a really bad horror movie, derailed me on the other two movements. I got through them, but I didn't play them nearly as well as I was able to, because my mind was still chewing on what exactly had gone wrong with that first movement.

Rambling anecdotes aside, I think that's partly what bothered me during this year's NaNoWriMo. After penning an alarmingly awful 41,000 words of a novel I had been planning on writing for almost a whole year, starting completely over was more than a little disconcerting. I had never written such horrific prose before. It was shocking, I tell you! Shocking! Don't get me wrong, previous NaNo's have produced some wince-worthy passages, but they were always balanced out by some (in my mind) rather lovely writing.

This year? I found myself writing the same phrases over and over. I didn't connect emotionally with the characters, the scenes, the settings, the situations. I began wondering if I had somehow cracked and was incapable of writing a nicely-crafted paragraph ever again. I began wondering, in fact, if I had ever written a nicely-crafted paragraph in my life, or if I was deluding myself.

I got depressed, of course. It wasn't very pleasant, but you'll have that.

So I started The Blind King, which went a lot better, and had its moments, and got me comfortably to 50k, but still left me feeling restless and lethargic about my writing (and life in general—you know how it is with creative types). I'm pretty sure TBK could be a super awesome book, but a few of things need to happen before I revisit/restart the draft:

It honestly needs outlining. The beginning is worked out pretty well in my head, and I vaguely know what happens at the end, but the middle is completely nebulous in terms of actual form.
I need to finish the rewrite of On Journeys Bound, the book it's a sequel to. It only makes sense. Plus then I can make sure I'm properly continuing threads instead of sort of remembering previous events and inadvertently creating loads of inconsistencies.
I need to do some more world building, figure out things like the layout of buildings, roads, towns, and firmly decide what level of technology these people have.

In other words?

I'm not going to have a shiny new first draft of anything any time soon. Rather disheartening. I feel like I ought to have gleaned some sort of a useful lesson from this. Maybe:

Some ideas can't be forced.

Or:

Sometimes not even extensive outlining helps.

Or:

This just wasn't my year.

Hmmm. This all sounds rather depressing. I am, to ease your minds (is anyone still reading this? I feel like I've been rambling on for at least 50,000 words at this point), feeling much more optimistic about things. I've decided to dive back into the rewrite of On Journeys Bound while my mind is noodling on ways to rework The Last Garden (which, incidentally, I am still planning to write at some point). I'm also seeing revisions of Seraphine (which, incidentally, I've decided I like quite a lot) looming in the near future. **determined eyes**

All that to say, it's been an odd month, and I'm kind of glad it's over. But in a good way. Mostly.

Happy December,

Joanna

NaNoWriMo Day 23: Green Bar!!

2009-11-23T16:47:00.000-08:00

Wordcount: 50,107
Chapters Completed: 8
Number of Characters Being Badly Treated: all of them, in various ways (heh heh heh)
Sanity of Author: 67%
Overall Quality of Prose: Absolutely Atrocious
Color of Bar: GREEN!!!

Look, everybody! My bar's GREEN!

*dances wildly round the library, to the disapproving stares of the young woman simultaneously texting and browsing one of the computers, the lady with the patterned red skirt perusing the reference books, and the old man in the green sweater conversing with a lady in coral-colored pants who sounds exactly like Emma Thompson*

Okay so I'm not literally dancing. You know.

Last week I was about ready to give up on this thing entirely, but a much-needed Saturday writing marathon with good company and yummy tea boosted me up to 47k, and also reminded me that, horrible writing aside, I actually do like this novel. :-)

In non-NaNoWriMo news:

I just finished reading the first book in Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy, The Amulet of Samarkand, which I enjoyed heartily. It is narrated in part by a snarky djinni who employs footnotes with spectacular sarcasm. Very much looking forward to book two.

I meant to link to this in my last post; it's an interview with the fantastic Megan Whalen Turner, author extrodinare of The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, and the forthcoming A Conspiracy of Kings.

And that about wraps it up!

Loving the color green,

Joanna

NaNoWriMo Day 18

2009-11-18T11:35:00.000-08:00

As of last night, I have 40,033 words on Novel No. 2. That's 1k shy of my word count for Novel No. 1 before I scrapped it, which means I've written 80,000 words this month. Yikes. I'm feeling kind of exhausted.

The Blind King is progressing nicely, I think. I've been outlining-as-I-go with the handy dandy notecard feature in Scrivener (oh Scrivener, how I love thee), and haven't run out of scenes yet, so that's definitely a good thing. I'm currently in the middle of Chapter Seven, and have scenes jotted down on virtual note cards through Chapter Nine, so the outline is progressing at a slightly faster rate than the draft.

I have no idea how long this thing is gonna be. Long, for sure. At this point I'm guesstimating somewhere in the neighborhood of 150k, though it could (and, knowing my track record, probably will) be longer than that. I dunno. We'll see. I haven't decided if I'm going to keep powering through the rough draft after NaNo is over (it's quite clear I won't have finished by then), or shelve it for a while, finish rewriting the book it's a sequel to, and work on rewrites for a couple of other novels. So many decisions.

But this is the most boring blog post ever (superfluous paranthetical remarks and all). Lemme see if I can remedy that.

Stuff that's been happening in my novel:

Two not-quite-but-almost lovers are reunited after six years, the very day the female character accepts a marriage proposal from a different guy. They spend several thousand words shut up in a room together arguing about this.
A rather foolish sixteen-year-old boy gets himself lost in the mountains and captured by enemy soldiers. I'm sorry to say that a stint of enslavement in the silver mines lies in his very imminent future.
A princess being blackmailed into espionage has arrived at the palace of a newly-crowned king and (surprise, surprise), is beginning to fall in love with him.
An impulsive twelve-year-old girl is about to run away to the capital to try and uncover the secrets of her parentage.

And that's pretty much that, as far as Novel No. 2 is concerned.

In other news, the Doctor Who special Waters of Mars that aired in the UK (and, er, elsewhere, if one knows where to look... :-)) on Sunday was mind-blowingly awesome. Words cannot describe.

And to top everything off, it's link time!

Gail Carson Levine, author extraordinaire, has a fabulous blog filled with authorly insight and writerly wisdom. Some really awesome advice here.
Robin McKinley has a twitter. Robin McKinley has a twitter. Robin McKinley has a twitter!! I cannot emphasize this enough.
Duotrope's Digest is a fantastic free resource listing over 2700 current fiction and poetry markets
I'm pretty sure I was going to link you to a couple of other sites, but I forgot what they were. Stay tuned.

Okay, I think maybe I'd better go work on my novel, now.

Onwards to 50k (and lots more paranthetical remarks),

Joanna

NaNoWriMo Day 13: Novel Love

2009-11-13T23:46:00.000-08:00

Wordcount: 30,060
Chapters Completed: one scene short of five
Awesome Content: 100%
Mood of Author: gushing sonnets

Hey everybody! Apologies for not getting around to replying to your comments on the last post. Your sympathies and encouragements were greatly appreciated. :-) And I do have a good excuse for not blogging for the last few days:

I've been writing on that new novel, and am totally rocking it. Today, in fact, I passed the 30k mark! Wahoo!! Which means, wordcount wise, I'm almost at the same point as I was with that other novel (shudder) this time last week. Weird.

At any rate, I'm really digging this novel, though that's not to say I haven't produced some pretty horrific prose over the last five days, 'cause I have, and it's not to say this thing won't need the usual amount of editing, 'cause it will. But I like this novel, nay, I submit that I love it. This thing is making me feel downright giddy!

The whole sans outline thing is working out pretty well. This story has literally been in my head (in one form or another) for ten years, and I feel like all the characters are old friends. And it's just so dang FUN! I mean I've got love triangles (two different ones), blackmail, espionage, secret identities, epic misunderstandings, betrayal, war, escapes, death... pretty much everything awesome, as a matter of fact. :-) And I have six different viewpoint characters, so I'm not stuck with one voice like in that other (shudder) not-novel.

Anyways. It's late. I must away ere break of day to seek the long forgotten gold and so on.

Clearly having too much fun with my novel,
Joanna

NaNoWriMo Day 9: Let's Start Over Again

2009-11-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

Wordcount: 5,556
Sanity: 3%
Mood: bemused

So this morning I was all set to buckle down, write 11k, and pass that glorious 50k mark a good twenty-one days early.

Instead, I wrote 2,000 words, and realized how much I loathed my novel. We're talking extreme hatred, here.

And so I started over on a completely new novel.

I know, I know. Shocking turn of events, right? I feel like The Last Garden could, possibly, maybe, one day in the distant future be wrangled into something resembling a book. But this is not that time.

NaNoWriMo Day 5

2009-11-06T09:59:00.000-08:00

Word Count: 35,132
Chapters Completed: 5.1/16
Worlds Visited: 2
Sanity Level: 65%
Mood: pensive

So it's 10:48 on the morning of November 6th, and I've yet to write any words (well, besides these ones). I'm at the very beginning of Chapter 6, and although the story is rolling along nicely (more or less), I'm still struggling to find this novel's voice. Voice is never something I struggle with (plot, yes. pacing, yes. voice? no), so it's a little frustrating. I don't know if it's because my main character wasn't fully formed in my mind when I started writing, or if the idea needed some more time to percolate or what.

And then yesterday, whilst driving to piano lessons, I had a completely crazy idea: what if I were to narrate the story from the point of view of my main character's dead sister?

I thought about it, and thought about it (I'm still thinking about it), and I could be completely and totally wrong, but this shift in narration might be the spark I've been missing for the last 35,132 words. I can hear her voice in my head, and last night I scribbled out a possible new beginning that just felt incredibly right.

Not exactly sure where this leaves me. I'm definitely not, at this point, going back to rewrite everything, but I'm thinking about shifting the narrative style right where I'm at (smack dab in the middle of a scene at the beginning of Chapter Six), see what that does for me, and rewrite accordingly after NaNo is over.

And that is probably WAY more information than anybody needed about the strange inner workings of my brain during noveling.

Need to get dressed now,
Joanna
aka
Who-Wouldn't-Want-a-Dead-Child-for-a-Narrator Smith

NaNoWriMo Day 4

2009-11-04T20:55:00.000-08:00

Word Count: 30,046
Chapters Completed: 4
Worlds Visited: 1
Sanity Level: 65%
Overall Quality of Prose: poor

So it's the end of Day Four. I'm sitting in Borders (which, incidentally has just recently implemented free Wi-Fi), having just hit my 30k (woot!) and am thoroughly exhausted and all worded out for the evening! Yesterday the words just sort of poured freely from my fingertips. Today I had to bribe/force/threaten them out of there.

I weep for the overall quality of my prose.

I weep for the flatness of my main character.

I weep for the reality of one's flawless ideas staring back in all their blatant black and white imperfections from one's computer screen.

But I still made it to 30k.

:-) :-) :-) :-)

As a sidenote, I keep meaning to link to my NaNoWriMo profile, where you can keep track of my progress and read the deplorable excerpts I post from time to time. So there you go.

Off to watch Stargate,

Joanna
aka
Penner of Pepostrously Perilous Prose

NaNoWriMo Day 3

2009-11-03T12:08:00.000-08:00

Current Word Count: 21,111
Sanity Level: 85%
Chapters Completed: 2.9/16
Character Deaths: three. 1 young child (before the story started), 1 old man (he had a full life! promise!), 1 mermaid (poor thing didn't have a chance) :-(

I should be noveling, as I'm headed for 25k today (yes, I am insane), but my brain was demanding a break, so I thought I'd blog instead.

Currently at the tail end of Chapter Three of The Last Garden, and getting excited because in another half chapter the story's really gonna get going! I've come to the conclusion that although I've been penning some truly atrocious prose, I'm having a hard time finding the novel's voice, and I'm a little afraid my poor, adorably bespectacled main character is rather uninteresting, I think the actual story is worth telling, and with a lot (a heck of a lot!) of future editing/rewriting/revising, it might come to resemble something akin to a real book someday. Well, maybe. :-)

I have also learned that I am woefully unquallified to write historical fiction. I fear I've been inadvertently altering Victorian history in the greater London area. But oh well. I'll do all that research I ought to have done earlier... later. :-)

Happy Writing!

Joanna, aka Murderer of Mermaids in Vaguely Historical Victorian London

And We're Off!

2009-11-02T12:33:00.000-08:00

Writing commenced with a bang this weekend in Dallas! Thanks to the 10k scribed in the company of five other crazy novelists, three adorable cats, and lots and lots of sugar, my grand total thus far for Day 2 of National Novel Writing Month comes to 13,441 words.

Back to my mermaid in the Thames,

Joanna, aka Mighty Writer of Words and Hugger of Cuddly Cats

Quick Note and a Warning!

2009-10-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! Just thought I'd jot off a quick post to say:

1) I'm off to Texas this weekend to kick off NaNoWriMo in epic style with people I met on the internet (don't worry. They're cool. :-))

2) Two days till noveling season!! Posts will be sporadic, brief, and filled with word counts.

Consider yourselves warned.

Where Do Ideas Come From, Anyway?

2009-10-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

Since I only have today, tomorrow, and Thursday to outline for NaNo (heading to Texas for an epic kick-off on Friday, so can't outline then!), I figured it was a perfect time to procrastinate and write a new post instead. :-)

I'm sitting here with my window open, sipping black currant tea (which is hands down the greatest invention since sliced bread; I'm thinking it's the nectar of the gods), and pondering the mysteries of the universe. Or something.

At any rate, I thought I'd take this moment to talk about inspiration.

Inspiration is weird. Ideas can come from absolutely anywhere, which is why having a notebook and pen glued to one's self at all times is imperitave. I get inspired by all kinds of things, normal stuff like books and movies and music and paintings, and weird stuff like bathroom floors and the way the sky looks and patterns on plates.

The Whale and the Tree, for example, was inspired by a whole jumble of random things: a single frame from The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants movie that for some reason made me think of mermaids, the atmosphere and mood of Keane's then-newly-released-album Under the Iron Sea, a serving plate emblazoned with an esoteric shape that looked (to me) like a yellow whale, the idea of using myths in the novel ala Megan Whalen Turner's (completely fabulous) The Thief...

The main idea for The Fire in the Glass was sparked, I must admit, by watching Star Wars episode three (the one where I-can't-act teenage Darth Vader turns into I'm-just-a-torso-in-a-scary-suit actual Darth Vader). It was that fiery planet at the end that did it. I started wondering if people could actually live on a world seething with lava, and why they would be there in the first place, and how they would escape... Everything spun out of control from there.

Last year's novel, The Silver Crane, was inspired by a random conversation about cupbearers. I started wondering about cupbearers, and what it would be like to be one, and if they chose their job or if it was chosen for them, and...

This year's novel was born when a friend told me that one of my characters from Fire in the Glass ought to have her own adventures. As it turns out, she's not the main character, but she's gonna be in it a lot, and I decided to give her a Pegasus, because Pegasuses (Pegasi?) are undeniably cool.

So there you have it, a strange and perilous glimpse at the inner workings of my mind.

What inspires you?

Who's Been Outlining? This Gal!!

2009-10-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

So I've actually been outlining, and I'm getting super excited about my novel. Go figure. :-)

I gave up wrestling with my ending (for now) and have started Step Eight of the Snowflake Method, which is the one, the only, the invaluable List O' Scenes. This is absolutely the most useful step of the Snowflake, in my opinion, as it's where you get to take grand sweeping statements (like, for instance, "They fall in love") and figure out specific scenes that put your beautifully vague ideas into a format you can actually use. This saves SUCH a lot of headache time during the actual writing of the first draft. I love knowing exactly what's coming next so I can just focus on the scene I'm writing and not worry about it.

Of course sometimes your characters/plot/storyline/whatever decide to do their own thing regardless of the outline, but it generally turns out all right anyway. I often have a hard time getting my characters to talk about what they're supposed to (I have no idea why, but if I leave two characters alone for an extended period of time they tend to wind up discussing Deep Philosophical Truths), but eventually I force them to behave. Well, usually.

But anyways. Where was I?

Oh yeah, Step Eight. I'm currently in the middle of outlining scenes for Chapter Six of The Last Garden. It's all about mermaids, and evil Worms, so basically it's gonna rock. ;-)

I have sixteen-ish chapters planned, which leads me to this Very Exciting Hope:

I really think I can write the entire novel during NaNoWriMo. It's a pretty straightforward storyline (well, as straightforward as you can get when your plot revolves around ten different worlds), and only follows a few characters. Last year I had multiple storylines, six main-ish characters, and lots of (badly written) political drama. The year before it took me the entirety of November and 100,000 words just to get my two main characters into the same universe so they could meet each other.

So it's really looking good.

I think.

Successfully puting off outlining to write this blog,

Joanna
also known as
Guardian of the Doors between Worlds

No. 51

2009-10-18T22:11:00.000-07:00

Well, it was an interesting week.

On Tuesday I went to pick up Sacred Scars (sequel to Skin Hunger) from the library, and when it wasn't on the holds shelf, I realized with a rapidly sinking heart that I might have waited too long to get it. So I approached the librarian at the desk and inquired after it—she looked up my card, saw that a different hold (Enna Burning; I've had it on hold for months now and it's yet to appear) was still active, and told me as much. I explained to her that, no, it was a different book I was after. She produced a Binder of Lists, and informed me that I was indeed too late to get it, and that it had been sent back. She looked at me and said, in a Very Superior Tone: "It waited a while but it could only wait so long."

I felt myself to be summarily snubbed. I went afterwards to Target, where I managed to misplace my wallet in the parking lot for half an hour. That was fun.

Then I sent out two new query letters, as I'd begun to despair ever hearing back from the full.

On Wednesday, I was attacked with a strange malady of Nausea Induced by Violently Spinning World, and had to stay home from teaching, alternately laying in bed moaning and reading Octavian Nothing.

(Which, on a side note, I finished, and liked a lot, though it was sad and disturbing and a bit unsettling in places. It was excellently written, with an intriguing story, characters, and very interesting viewpoint on the Revolutionary War. I highly recommend it if you can handle some disturbing concepts/scenes.)

Wednesday evening commenced, also the Weekend of Housesitting for Crazy Dogs, which consisted muchly of laying on the couch watching Stargate SG-1 on Hulu (I'm, er, partway through the second season now).

Then came Thursday and Friday, during which I taught piano lessons, housesat, ate ice cream, worked on my outline a liiiiiittttle bit, and watched Stargate. On Saturday, I popped home for a while and received a Large White Envelope in the mail with F & W Publications written on the return address. For about thirty seconds, I entertained wild notions of a multi-million dollar book deal from that errant full, and then I opened it to news almost as good:

My short story, The Painter and the Sky, won an Honorable Mention in the Writer's Digest annual writing competition! For proof, I direct you here. I'm number fifty-one on the list, which means, I suppose, that there were fifty stories esteemed more highly than mine, but, conversely, that there were forty-nine esteemed lower. ;-) Or it could mean nothing at all. Whatever. The point is, out of 13,557 entries (in ten different categories) in a national contest, I got an honorable mention!!! :-) :-) :-)

And that was my week!

Off to outline my novel *cough* watch Stargate *cough*,

Joanna, the Yellow Dart Smith
also known as
Genre Short Story Honorable Mention Winner No. 51

A Sordid Tale

2009-10-12T10:26:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there lived a young woman who procrastinated working on her NaNoWriMo outline, even though November was just a few weeks away.

On Thursday, before lessons, she procrastinated by reading about mermaids and the National Archives on the interwebs at Paradise Bakery after writing only a few sentences. (Mmmmmmm cookies!!)

On Friday, before lessons, she procrastinated by reading Octavian Nothing whilst getting her tire fixed, then shopping (at Walmart!! She never shops at Walmart!). In the evening, she procrastinated by eating pizza and watching Seinfeld with friends. (Mmmmmmmm pizza!)

On Saturday, she procrastinated by getting up at four in the morning to take her sister to the airport, then returning to said sister's apartment and zonking out until noon-thirty. At which point she procrastinated by drinking tea, watching a movie, showering, and cooking eggs. Which effectively wasted the entire day, because after that she went to a bachelorette party and ate WAFFLES. (Mmmmmm waffles!)

On Sunday, inbetween church services, she procrastinated by going shopping and buying a fabulous hat, and when she finally returned home circa nine in the evening, she procrastinated by watching three episodes of Stargate SG-1 on Hulu and chatting on Facebook until she passed out from exhaustion.

Right now, she is procrastinating by writing this blog.

Things are looking very grim for that outline.

The Most Boring Post Ever

2009-10-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Wednesday, peeps!

Not a whole lot going on over here in Joanna-land, I fear. Been outlining The Last Garden (and keep finding plot holes—argh!!), enjoying the suddenly gorgeous weather (SO gorgeous), and trying not to think too much about the full still floating out in agent-land. **sigh**

In other news, I finished A Coalition of Lions yesterday and liked it pretty well, though I didn't find it quite as haunting or compelling as The Winter Prince. I'm still eager to read the third book, though.

And that's about it. NaNo lifts off in twenty-four days!

I'm off to make some tea and enjoy the clouds. :-)

NaNo is Coming! NaNo is Coming!

2009-10-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

It's October, and you know what that means? Less than a month till National Novel Writing Month begins! The site's been relaunched. It's all fresh and shiny and waiting to inspire thousands of crazy people all over the world to write a novel in a mere thirty days. Feel the power. Eeeeeeee!!

So to celebrate, I thought I'd give a low-down of my NaNoWriMo experiences thus far:

2005
My first NaNo. Ah, the memories! Wasn't sure at all if I could a) write a novel in a month, or b) write a novel in first person that was a mixture of fantasy and very-badly researched historical fiction. :-) I committed to writing 2,000 words a day to give myself a buffer zone, and when, lo and behold I hit the glorious 50,000 word mark with part of the month still left to go, I decided to see if I could buckle down and get to the actual end of the novel. I finished The Rose Queen on the 30th of November with 84,495 words. Yikes!

2006
Year two. The fear: could I really do this again? The answer: yes. I was way excited about my crazy story idea and went in armed with a detailed outline. That helped. On November 30th I had 104,009 words and the completed first draft of The Whale and the Tree. Did I mention I get a little obsessive and competitive when it comes to word count? Um, cause I do.

2007
Year three, and my first year participating in the NaNoWriMo Viddler group (which rocks). I gave up trying to deny the fact that I was going to go way over 50k, and started typing like a fiend. By the end of the month, I had 103,888 words, but only half of a novel (my main characters had only, erm, just met). It took me until the end of March to finish the monster that is The Fire in the Glass, which eventually clocked in at 209k.

2008
Year four. I kicked it off in Tucson (a drab little town a couple hours south of Phoenix. Sorry people who live there, but it's true) with fellow writers I met through the Viddler group, and proceeded to once more lose myself in the delicious heady rush of noveling at high speed. On November 30th I had 112,253 words and another unfinished novel. I completed the first draft of The Silver Crane at the end of March with just under 193k.

2009
Year five. The goal? Actually finish the novel during November. Wish me luck with that. :-P

So those are my NaNos in a nutshell. I cannot gush enough about what a fantastic experience NaNoWriMo is. I've met fabulous people, written a proverbial ton of words, and drunk lots of tea whilst staring out windows. What isn't to love about that??

Off to get lunch and make me a donation and buy me a t-shirt,

Joanna

In Which Joanna Finishes her Story

2009-09-30T22:10:00.000-07:00

Evening, ladies and gents! I would like to announce the successful completion of Seraphine, clocking in a few hours ago at 18,110 words. My weird little not-really-all-that-short story is doooooone!

*cue fanfare and flowers and marriage proposals*

Ahem. Anyways.

Not remotely sure if this story is a) coherent b) good or c) anything like what I originally envisioned. Kinda scared to read it, to be completely honest, but I'm sure I'll succumb to temptation momentairly. :-)

At any rate, I'm rather sad that it's all over—I enjoyed my little whirwind romance!

Goodbye, Seraphine.

Hellooooooooooooooo NaNo prep time!!

The Novelist and the Not-Quite-Happy Ending

2009-09-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

I hate how the smell of coffee can permeate one's clothing in under thirty seconds. Especially if one happens to be a tea drinker. I spent a couple hours in Starbucks writing this morning, and even after a shower I still stink. Yuck. And in case anyone was wondering, the tea at the old Bucks of Star leaves pretty much everything to be desired. What they lack in taste they make up for in central locations, I guess.

Anyways. Between Saturday and this morning, I pounded out another 3k on Seraphine and am hurtling myself towards the ending (at least I think so). Made an important discovery about the plot today, and am feeling kinda smug about how clever I'm being. Don't worry, that's sure to evaporate as soon as I go back and read this thing. :-) Also, there's no way out of my tragic ending. I'm such a hypocrite about endings. Happy endings with a tinge of bittersweet are my favorite kind to read, with plain old happy endings a close second. I hate sad endings. I don't know why I write them. Just following the demands of the story, I suppose.

Speaking of which, I was up until nearly one this morning finishing Shannon Hale's The Actor and the Housewife, which, incidentally, never quite made it over to my "Currently Reading" tab. The book follows the quirky friendship of Mormon housewife Becky Jack and famous British actor Felix Calahan. It's hilarious, and sad (I cried. Shannon Hale made me cry. We're talking Kleenex, here.), and didn't end the way I wanted it to, but the way it probably should, even though I'm not sure I want to admit that. Ms. Hale's writing is bright and bouncy and lyrical all at the same time, and she's penned some of the most witty dialogue in the history of prose. All told, an enormously touching book. *sniffle*

And now, for this week's goal: finish Seraphine by Wednesday.
And this week's incentive: ordering my NaNoWriMo t-shirt.

October looms nigh. Which means November is right around the corner. Which means I really need to figure out what's happening at the end of my novel.

After Wednesday, of course.

Here an Update, there an Update and another little Update

2009-09-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday, peeps! As the title promises, here are some updates:

Seraphine is up to 10,036 words, and I'm ready to be finished with it but I'm not yet. :-P How quickly the romance dies! I still like the story and I think it could be good, one day, after lots of editing, but I'm really feeling the lack of outline and wondering if it's turning out anything like the original idea. But I am glad I'm doing it, and I do think the story has merit, and I'm gonna finish it!! I'm hoping I can wrap it up in another 5k and be done by the end of the month. We'll see. Incidentally, what does one call a story that's 15,000 words long? Certainly not a short story and nowhere near novel (or even novella length). Hmmm. This is why I've been calling it a not-so-short story; guess that will have to do!

The partial of Whale and the Tree was rejected yesterday. :-( Sad, but the agent was very nice and the letter left me feeling ever-so-slightly encouraged. Maybe because I'm irrepressibly hopeful, but you'll have that. Still waiting to hear back from the full. Trying not to hope too much on that one, but... I definitely am. :-P I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for all your comments regarding the Roen/Wren post from Wednesday. I've decided I'm definitely keeping Wren's name, so hooray!

Rose Queen edits didn't get very far this week. I think I worked through part of a chapter on Tuesday, making a few very minor word-choice changes. So pretty epic fail on progress there.

And the elusive ending for this year's NaNo? Still elusive, though I feel like I'm *this* close to figuring it out. Here's hoping!!

Book Review: The Winter Prince

2009-09-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

First published in 1993 (Was that really sixteen years ago???), The Winter Prince, by Elizabeth E. Wein, tells the story of Medraut, eldest—and illigetimate—son of Artos, high king of Britain, as he struggles to come to terms with his jealousy of his younger half-brother, heir to the throne.

This is a gripping, powerful book, at times disturbing and dark, but always beautiful and elegantly told. The story, the characters, the setting, the history—all are marvelously drawn. The writing itself is exquisite. We're talking Charlotte Bronte-level gorgeousness of prose, here:

We rode through a tangle of dripping trees, then burst into a cloudy brown clearing, silvered over with mist, to see the rusty deer bright bounding through the winter bracken.

Sentences like that make me my little INFP heart soar. Dripping trees! Cloudy brown clearing! Silvered mist! Rusty deer bright bounding through the winter bracken! I want to marry this sentence!

Um, at any rate, this is a beautiful story told by a fabulously talented writer, and I highly recommend it.

A Naming Conundrum

2009-09-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've a question regarding character names. Let me 'splain.

My yet-to-be-penned 2009 NaNoWriMo novel is a sort-of sequel to two earlier novels (written in 2005 and 2007, respectively), and has a few characters who carry over. One of these is a rockin' female named Roen, and although she isn't the main character, she's quite important and is present throughout most of the novel. I'm also introducing a new female character (she's not the MC, either, but is also important) who wants to be named Wren. Question is this: Roen and Wren are really similar-sounding names. Are they too much alike? Should I call Wren something else even though the name seems to fit her? Or is it enough that the names look different on the page? What do you think?

And on a related note, I still can't figure out my ending. ARGH!!!

And on an unrelated note, the greater Phoenix area totally got gypped in terms of a monsoon season this year. No rain for me. Just sun. Forever. And ever. And ever. And ever. And ever. And ever. And ever. And ever. And ever. And ever...

I Don't Know Half of You Half as Well as I'd Like...

2009-09-22T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well, first off, a great big Happy Birthday to these guys:

(Yes, I'm one of those.)

Second off, my whale bag came yesterday!!! It's super cute, and today will be its first official outing:

And lastly, because, really, this post should have something to do with writing, I give you my Writing Goals for the Week:

Write as much as possible on Seraphine, and hopefully start edging towards the ending
Keep brainstorming for this year's NaNoWriMo novel, and hopefully figure out what exactly happens at the end!!
Keep editing The Rose Queen.
Try not to have a miniature heart attack every time I check my email. Er, I mean... Wait patiently to hear back from agents.

And there you have it. Hope everybody's week is off to a fabulous start! Don't forget to eat some cake for Bilbo and Frodo today! :-)

Update Friday

2009-09-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, so thought I'd jot off a quick update.

First off (and most important ;-)), thanks for all your input about the Adorable Whale Bag of Adorableness! I decided, after much thought, to go with the messenger bag, with possible purchase of the pocketed one to follow at a later date. I can NOT wait for it to arrive!! Wa-hoooo!! :-) :-)

Both of my status queries garnered very very nice responses—one hoping to have an answer by the end of the month, the other hoping to have an answer soon. I'm not exactly sure what this means, beyond the simple fact that both agents are exceptionally nice people and I get to wait some more. :-P / :-)

Seraphine is up to 7,027 words, and I've definitely reached the middle because I feel like it's started to flounder a bit. Still, I think I can press through and wrangle this thing on to the end. I think. Next task is to make my characters fall in love, reveal pertinent backstory, and then zap 'em with my beautiful but tragic ending. Sounds easy, right?

Finished reading Skin Hunger the other night, and I liked it pretty well. One of those stories that sort of starts out quietly and slowly builds up to something profound, but is written well enough to keep your interest. Except...

Let's talk about trilogies for a minute. You know how in most trilogies, the individual volumes, although very intricately connected to each other, have their own story arc? Build-up, conflict, at least partial resolution to the conflict, leading to a semi (or perhaps full-blown) cliffhanger ending. Right? You know those?

Skin Hunger didn't follow this pattern. It was starting to get really, really interesting when it stopped. Just... stopped. No ending whatsoever. And I know it's part of a series and that the second book is out (and I've reserved it at the library), but it left me feeling a bit cheated, because it didn't really feel like a complete book. It didn't resolve anything. But then maybe that was the point. I don't know.

What do you think? Should books that are part of a series be able to—at least partly—stand alone?

I'll leave you with a link to book editor Cheryl Klein's thoughts on what makes writing good.

The Adorable Whale Bag of Adorableness

2009-09-17T11:02:00.000-07:00

So, ever since I penned The Whale and the Tree, I've been irrevocably drawn to purchase adorable things with whales on them. So far, I have a t-shirt, and that's about it. And then, on two separate occasions, I saw people wandering around in public with the most fantastic whale tote bag that was an absolute must-have (if you're me). So I googled it, and found it, except there's a problem. There's more than one version.

The adorable tote with pockets:

The adorable messenger bag:

My problem? Which one do I want??? It's cruel to be forced to make this kind of decision.

What's your vote?

P. S. Aren't they ADORABLE???

P. P. S. The bags are made by Bungalow360, and you can purchase them on Amazon if you really wanna nick my style! ;-)

P. P. P. S. What? Writing? Um, yeah, I'll get to that later. Promise.

Muse: The Resistance

2009-09-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled bookish blogging to gush about Muse's new album The Resistance, released in the US September 15th.

So. Muse. First fell in love with them when I heard the song "Butterflies and Hurricanes" off the Absolution album. Mostly because there was a bloody PIANO CONCERTO in the middle of it. Can you say awesome??? I afterwards grew to love the rest of the album for the soaring melodies and strong, gorgeous chord structure that very much had it's roots in 19th-century romantic works. Plus they just plain know how to rock.

I bought their earlier album Origins of Symmetry as well as Black Holes and Revelations when it came out, both of which I liked a lot, though I was ever so slightly disappointed that they weren't quite as pianistically-driven as Absolution.

And then The Resistance happened.

Wow. Piano galore. One of the tracks (United States of Eurasia) actually features part of a Chopin nocturne, and many of them have lots of epic piano styling courtesy Matt Belamy. The first half of the album is good. The second half is phenomenal. Don't get me wrong—in amongst the lush orchestral harmonies, gut-wrenchingly beautiful chord progressions, and almost inhuman vocal prowess, there's a lot of good old-fashioned rocking out going on. Oh and at one point Matt sings in French. It's enough to give a girl a heart attack.

So, to sum up... THIS ALBUM IS BRILLIANT. Go buy it now.

Writing and Reading and Status Queries, oh my!!

2009-09-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

So I just did the scariest thing ever: I sent out status queries for that partial and full, at eight and nine weeks respectively. *shudder* I thought initial queries were terrifying, but no. SQ's are much worse. Probably because there's the possibility of a response. At any rate, I'll keep you posted.

I'm sure you're all anxious to know how my elopement with Shiny Idea is progressing, and I'm happy to announce that it's going pretty well so far. This might be love. :-) I'm at 5,500 words exactly (end of a sentence, too!), and I think I'm at the beginning of the middle, so keeping this thing under 20k is looking good at this point.

Writing without an outline is generally a Very Bad Idea, and I have hit a few snags, but for the most part it's gone smoothly, even if the story's already turning out different than I'd initially imagined. But then, most things generally do—and that is by no means restricted to the writing part of my life! At any rate, the story's called Seraphine, and is about a guy named Demetri who gets tossed into a labyrinth (sans David Bowie :-) ) to get eaten by a monster. It has a vaugely Greek mythology-esque setting, and is kind of a backwards Beauty & the Beast. Yesterday this rad underground library even showed up.

So. That's that. We'll see if I can stick to my guns and write the tragic ending originally planned... I'm already kinda wanting it to end happily ever after instead. :-) But you'll have that.

Finished reading Catching Fire on Thursday, but can't really review it without completely spoiling The Hunger Games, so we'll just leave it at: I enjoyed it, though not quite as much as the first one, and I'm really anxious for book three because I need some closure, dang it!!

And there you have it.

Book Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth

2009-09-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is another book review. I seem to be on a reading binge lately—the world is as it should be. :-)

The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan, is set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by the Unconsecrated, dead people infected with a disease that reanimates them, making them hunger for the flesh of the living. And yes that means zombies. :-) :-) Not the kind of book you normally find me reading, but online reviews combined with the title (it rocks) intrigued me enough to hit it up at my local library. Forest follows the story of Mary, who lives in a village protected by the fanatic Sisterhood, the Guardians, and a fence that keeps the Unconsecrated out and the living in. Her comfortable world (as comfortable a world as you can have surrounded by a Forest teaming with Unconsecrated) is shattered when her mother dies and she is forced to join the Sisterhood.

I have slightly mixed feelings about Forest. I liked it, mostly. The prose was gorgeous, the imagery vivid (dessicated zombie flesh and all ;-)), the themes deep and the storyline—for the most part—compelling. The first person present tense POV read smoothly and naturally (same tense as Hunger Games, incidently) which is a hard thing to do.

The first part of the novel reminds me strongly of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village, because the setting is so similar, but that isn't a criticism. Around a third of the way through, though, the story takes a different turn than I had been expecting and breaks away from The Village comparison almost completely. Somewhere around the three-quarter mark Forest seemed to drag a bit. (To me at least. This was where I read Sorcery and Cecelia, Fire and Hemlock, and The Hunger Games, respectively.)

(Minor spoilers in white, highlight to read.)
There were a few things that bothered me about this book. One was the love quadrangle. I didn't know who to root for, and so found the whole Travis/Harry thing kind of confusing and unsettling (of course, maybe that's the point). I also thought it a liiiiitle bit of a stretch that the only people who survived the attack on the village were all the people Mary was close to. I was also hoping for more of a reveal about what the Sisterhood was up to and at least some closure for Mary regarding them and what exactly they did to Gabrielle. I think part of my problem was I lost the connection with Mary partway through—I'm not sure why. And my word the death toll was higher than one of my novels, which is quite a feat! :-)

I did like the ending. There's a second book in the works, too, so that might answer some of the things I felt were unresolved.

So, to sum up. Slightly mixed feelings, but I mostly liked it. :-)

Shiny Idea Update

2009-09-09T10:08:00.000-07:00

So I thought I'd jot off a brief Shiny Idea update, because we have indeed run off together. :-)

Stats:

Word Count Thus Far: 2,087

Character Deaths: a pile of dessicated bones and mention of a before-the-story-started murder. Does that count as two?

Strange Winged Creature: 1

Times the Author has Gotten Disturbed: 2

Next-to-Last Sentence: It seemed that she sighed, though it came out more as a rush of air, hot and tinged with flame.

Thus far it seems to be going well. We'll see how long that lasts.

Did I mention this story is weird?

Book Review: The Hunger Games

2009-09-08T19:53:00.000-07:00

So I'm really glad I didn't read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games until the week the sequel was released. This way I don't have to wait whatever horrifying amount of time everyone else did (a year?? torment!) for the second installment. I am, as a matter of fact, sitting in Borders poised to get my greedy hands on Catching Fire as soon as I finish this post.

Any review—or even the briefest mention—of The Hunger Games I've ever read online gushes about this novel. So now I'm gonna gush a little, too. Because The Hunger Games was nothing short of fabulous.

Set in the ruins of North America, an oppressive government yearly sponsors the Hunger Games, a reality TV show where twenty-four randomly selected young people are forced to fight to the death as the entire nation watches. It's brutal. It's terrifying. And there can only be one survivor. The reason the government does this? To show all twelve Districts of the nation of Panea that they are in control. The story follows Katniss, who volunteers to join the Hunger Games in place of her little sister.

It's sort of a sci-fi thriller adventure dystopian borderline-horror (though not more than I could handle, which means it's mild :-)) novel that's fast-paced, to say the least. I finished it in between piano students today, gripping the book with white knuckles and forgetting to blink. I got to the end very, very happy that Catching Fire was only a bookstore away, and wishing eye drops weren't quite so expensive.

To sum up? Highly impressed. Hats off, Ms. Collins. May book two be just as fabulous and book three be swift in coming!

(As a side note, it seems like there were a lot of typos in Hunger Games. I'll often find one or two in any given book, but there were upwards of half a dozen in this one. Did anybody else notice that?)

Going to Gretna Green

2009-09-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

It's official. I'm thinking of running away with the Shiny Idea. It could very well be a brief romance that ultimately turns sour, but I'm frustrated with Rose Queen revisions, and I'm stuck at the end of Snowflake Step Four for this year's NaNo novel because I can't figure out exactly how my villain means to cause the collapse of the universe. (Troubling stuff.) I might do it. A little whirlwind writing never hurt anyone, right? Right? Besides, it has a shiny title, shiny character names, shiny not-quite-worked-out-in-my-head plot, shiny romance, shiny tragic ending. It's the Shiny Idea of my dreams!

Yeah, I think I'm going to do it. Sans outline and all. I'll keep you posted.

In other news, no word on the partial or the full; they're at seven and eight weeks respectively. Next week I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and jot off some status queries. *shudder* This Agent Hunt is not for the faint of heart.

Reading Hunger Games (ack, I'm still not finished with Forest!). Gave up on the library queue (I'd made it to 20 out of 60) and just bought a copy. Over three-quarters of the way through and really liking it. Hard to put down (in fact when I'm done writing this blog I might have to run off and finish it).

Signed up for an account on Goodreads this morning. It remains to be seen how much I'll actually use it, but for now the site seems pretty cool. I've realized lately that I have a hard time writing book reviews. I love talking about favorite books, and I'll do a fair amount of gushing (see post below :-)), but to wrangle a decent review out of me takes a lot of effort. I wonder why that is?

Went to Prescott this weekend (trees! temps in the sixties!) and wandered into a used bookstore downtown. They had a lot of great, great stuff in there, not least of which was an entire collection of way oldschool George Eliot (so oldschool they didn't have copyright dates). Tragically, I couldn't afford to buy the whole set, but I did nab Middlemarch (even though I already have a copy), because it's one of my favoritist books ever.

I love books. Did I mention that?

Speaking of books, Hunger Games is calling me.

And then I have to pack for Gretna Green.

Book Review: Fire and Hemlock

2009-09-04T23:37:00.000-07:00

Yes I know I posted once this morning. And yes I realize I mentioned I was reading Fire and Hemlock.

I spent the last four hours finishing it, mostly forgetting to breathe.

It was amazing.

But not at all what I expected. If I manage to write a book half that good I can die happy.

But that's not really a review, is it?

It all starts when nine-year-old Polly accidentally gate-crashes a funeral. She meets a man named Thomas Lynn, and they do a bit of silly play-acting together. Except it all seems to come true, right down to the giant in the supermarket. Ten years later Polly isn't sure it happened at all. But she still has the picture she stole the day of the funeral, the picture of fire and hemlock hanging over her bed. And she has the memories that she can't quite seem to reconcile with real life.

This book is gorgeous and gripping. Vivid. Intriguing. And it ended just a tiny bit too soon.

Diana Wynne Jones, you are my hero.

Any Other Name...

2009-09-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading Fire and Hemlock (yes, yes, I know my sidebar still says Forest; I'm reading that, too—nearing the end in fact—but got distracted again), and a random, extremely minor character popped up named "Joanna."

This got me pondering some of my reading excursions when I was a kid. Which got me thinking about the random books from my childhood I read because the main character happened to have the same name as me. Which got me googling madly until I actually found said books.

So here they are:

The Best-Kept Secret, by Noela Young, in which a magic carousel ride takes Joanna seven years into the future.

The Time Tree, by Enid Richemond, in which Joanna and Rachel befriend a deaf girl from Elizabethan England.

And that's all! I remember there was a grouchy old countess named Joanna in Catherine, Called Birdy (I hated this book, not sure why; I adored Midwife's Apprentice), and of course we can't forget Joanna the lizard from The Rescuers Down Under.

Okay, that's all. This exceptionally weird post is done now. :-)

Much Ado About Not Much

2009-09-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

So Far This Week:

Revising Progress: none
Notes for Shiny New Idea: a page and a half
Rejections Received: none
Responses to Outstanding Partial and Full: none
Sanity Level: none
Precipitation: a few giant rain drops on my windshield, and a light rain for about ten minutes.
Spelling Errors: three
Cups of Tea: four

As you can see, it's been a very exciting week so far.

Okay, not really. But I am quite fond of my Shiny New Idea. It's quite beautiful and tragic and will contain Greek names and hopefully a Greek-ish mythical feel. Not exactly sure if it's a short story or a short book. Guess I'll have to write it to find out. But don't worry, I'm not allowing myself to get distracted away from revisions for Rose Queen or outlining for November. Well, not that much.

Finished Sorcery and Cecelia on Friday and enjoyed it heartily! There were even a few squee moments at the end, so that's always a plus. :-) When I get through my to-be-read* pile, it's back to the library for the sequel!

Exactly like my sidebar would have you believe, I'm reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth. About halfway through, and really like it. The writing is beautiful, and the world well-drawn. Has to be said that it reminds me a lot of Shyamalan's The Village (a movie I adore), but not in a bad way. I'm extremely interested to see where all this is going...

And now, for your clicking pleasure, some links:

Behind the Name, an incredibly useful website with scads of names, their histories and etymologies
Inkygirl: Daily Diversions for Writers, fun cartoons and great information
A sneak peak at this year's NaNoWriMo shirts!
Pages, the adorable local Indie bookstore near me

And that, I believe, is that.

*The to-be-read pile includes, but is not limited to: Skin Hunger, Silver Phoenix, Fire and Hemlock, The Winter Prince, Enna Burning, The Hunger Games

In Which Joanna is Supercilious in Matters of Vocabulary

2009-08-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

Supercilious, adj., the word that was going around in my head on Saturday night. Yes I realize that's a little weird. Normal people get music stuck in their heads—I do too. It's just sometimes a word will rattle round in my brain and drive me crazy because I can't quite remember what it means and don't have a dictionary handy to look it up. If anyone was wondering, supercilious actually means: behaving or looking as though one thinks one is superior to others. It's also really fun to say. Supercilious. Supercilious. Supercilious. Okay I'll stop now.

In any case, I'm happy to report that I actually got a lot accomplished with Rose Queen edits this past week! I did decide to make the first chapter into two chapters, which worked great and didn't turn out as lopsided as I'd feared. New chapter is titled Daphne Dreams, which is not the most brilliant thing in the world, but whatever. It works pretty well with the rest of the titles. I now have the entire rest of the manuscript to slog through, in which I have to make some character—and possibly plot—decisions. Scary. I'm also considering changing a few of the minor character's names because initially I made them up and some of them just sound… stupid, if I'm going to be honest. But you'll have that.

Unlike my sidebar would have you believe, I'm not currently reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth. I've started it, mind, and like it (quite a lot, in fact, though it is kinda disturbing so far), and will definitely get back to it before the week is out. You see, I got distracted by Sorcery and Cecelia, a novel written in letters that detail all the Events (magical and otherwise) that are happening in London this Season. Enchanted chocolate pots? Check. Mysterious Marquis? Check. Ballgowns and parties and one's brother being turned into a tree? Most definitely check. At any rate, it's vastly amusing, and I must say a wee bit more comforting to read before bed. :-) Picked up Skin Hunger at the library yesterday, so my to-be-read pile is stacking up. I guess it's a good thing I'm number 30 out of 40 on the holds list for The Hunger Games.

And the Great Agent Hunt? Still no word. I think I might be eighty-four by the time I hear back.

Book Review: Around the World in Eighty Days

2009-08-21T12:20:00.001-07:00

Just finished reading this hilariously delightful novel a few minutes ago, so thought I'd post a quick review.

Sparked by a wager with the gentlemen of the Reform Club, the passive, mathematical, ridiculously OCD Phileas Fogg sets out for a tour around the world. He's accompanied by a recently-hired domestic, Frenchman Passporteau, and followed by the hapless detective Mr. Fix, who is convinced that Phileas Fogg robbed the Bank of England and means to arrest him (well, if that warrant ever arrives!). Along the way they pick up Aouda, a charming (if completely one-dimensional :-)) young Indian woman. Methods of transportation include: steamers, railways, carriages, yachts, trading-vessels, sledges, and elephants (well, one elephant). No balloons. For some reason I thought there would be a balloon.

This is a great book. I love the language, and there are some priceless one-liners. Really gives you a feel for the time period, in regards to both history and the way people viewed the world and different cultures back then. Nowadays this book would be woefully (often hilariously) politically incorrect, though I think that's a part of its overall charm. The whole novel comes off as firmly tongue-in-cheek, and at the same time conveys a lot of interesting information (bits of it almost read like a travel narrative), and some really beautiful prose.

Oh and the ending. The ending is nothing short of utterly fabulous.

Makes me want to pack a carpet bag full of banknotes and jaunt off on a world tour of my own. :-)

Five stars!

In Which Joanna Explains What She's Been Reading Lately (amongst other things)

2009-08-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

Isn't my new blog template shiny? *pets it* I spent waaaay too long fiddling with it the other day and absolutely adore it. :-)

As you can see from my sidebar, I'm reading Around the World in Eighty Days, and am enjoying it thoroughly. It's about this obsessive-compulsive British chap named Phileas Fogg who sets out to traverse the globe in—you guessed it—eighty days, because he bet a roomful of other British chaps that he could. :-) So far he's still acting very mathematical and precise, but I'm fairly certain he has hidden depths. I'm expecting a hot air balloon to show up at some point; other than that I really don't know what awaits me at the end. I'm certain it will be fabulous. Three cheers for classic books (and for Esther, who told me to read it! :-))!

When I'm finished jaunting round the world, I really want to read The Hunger Games, as pretty much every blog or comment regarding it gushes about its amazing-ness. I'm currently 37 out of 40 on the holds list at my library, though, so it looks like I might need to buy it if I expect to get my hands on a copy sometime this century. I also want to read The Forest of Hands and Teeth (even though I thoroughly expect it to freak me out), Skin Hunger (the dual storylines sound highy intriguing), and Enna Burning (because I adore Shannon Hale and haven't actually read it yet). I'm finding that one of the side affects of following YA book blogs and message boards is discovering lots and lots of reading recommendations. Which is fine by me. :-)

In other news, I saw the marvelous film Ponyo with Jenny on Saturday. It's the latest from Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki (who gave us Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, and others which I've yet to see), and is basically a Japanese Little Mermaid, with lots and lots of heart. Gorgeous and completely adorable, I highly recommend it!

Also, I'm not sure I've yet gushed about Vienna Teng here, so let me do so at once. She is utterly amazing, and writes some of the most beautiful, melodic, piano-driven music I've ever heard.

On the writing front, still not a lot to report. I am making a little progress on revisions for Rose Queen, though I have yet to make it out of the first chapter. I'm adding a few new scenes, which is making me ponder whether or not to split the first chapter into two chapters, as it's getting rather unweildly, though any split point that I've found so far would make the chapters really unbalanced in terms of length. If I do decide to go for two chapters, that leaves me with the task of coming up with a brand new chapter title, which won't exactly be easy. Hmm. At any rate, I'm really proud of my revisions so far; I feel like my writing has matured a lot since Rose Queen was first penned, so I'm glad this puppy is getting an update.

Other than that, I've joined an online writer's critique group! I've never been a part of one before, so I'm pretty excited about it. :-)

And the full and partial requests? At five weeks and four weeks, respectively, still no news. But I'm not going to start stressing about jotting off status queries (brief, polite notes that basically say: "Ummmmm haveyoureadmybookyet'causeI'mgettingimpatient'kthxbye.") for at least a few more weeks. Hopefully I'll hear something by then.

Despairing ever hearing back from the remaining five outstanding queries. One of them is nearly eleven weeks old! Yikes.

UPDATE: As of this morning, I've received another rejection, leaving the outstanding query total at four. No word on anything else.

And that, folks, is that.

Not Much to Report...

2009-08-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

Well ladies and gents, summer is pretty much over. In terms of the calendar, anyway. Temperature-wise, Arizona has a loooooong way to go, but at least there's the glimmering of hope that jeans and Converse weather is just around the corner.

The Kansas trip was A-mazing. Sleepy little village. Awesome kids. Gorgeous trees. Rain. Hugging kitties. It was pretty much perfect. :-) This past weekend I went camping with a friend in a ridiculously beautiful place called Lockett Meadow, which is near Flagstaff, AZ. Trees galore!! We went hiking, drank tea, ate hotdogs roasted over the fire wrapped in slightly-nibbled-on-by-a-chipmunk hotdog buns, and generally had a fantastic time. We topped it off with a trip up the ski lift at the Snowbowl. Great fun and a great view, though not nearly as scary as one might hope. :-)

Not much to report on the Great Search for an Agent. Got one form e-ject whilst I was in Kansas, other than that haven't heard a thing. Still waiting to hear back from the full and the partial, which are at four and three weeks respectively. Five queries still at large, though it's looking like a couple of them are lost causes at this point. What an excruciating process!!

Writing/editing has been really touch and go recently. I'm caught in-between projects and have fallen out of the groove and it's quite frustrating! I have been slowly pecking away at outlining my nano novel, which I am quite excited about. It's pretty much going to contain everything awesome that ever was, well, awesome. :-) I don't know why, but it always seems like once August rolls around it's practically November already. Dang I love November.

At any rate, all that to say...

I haven't gotten any writing done lately.

Better luck next week.

Process

2009-07-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

So if I've gone about it properly, this post will appear in the future. But I'm writing it from the past. Weird, huh. Wibbly woblly. Timey-wimey. You know.

Anyways, I thought I'd spew some randomness on the process of novel writing as seen by me. So here goes:

The Process of Novel Writing as Seen by Me
(a not-very-scholarly collection of thoughts)

Stage One: The Random Idea

I love random ideas. I have a Molskine notebook specifically meant for them, and I carry it around with me everywhere—one never knows when inspiration might strike. The weirdest things spark ideas: a mis-heard song lyric, a pattern on a plate that happens to look like a whale, a brief conversation with friends about the relative merits of cupbearers… Some ideas suck. And some turn into novels. That's why they're so much fun. I do think if a random stranger were to read through my Molskine they would definitely assume I was mentally unhinged. But you'll have that.

(There's sort of a half-stage that comes after Random Ideas and before Brainstorming, but I'm not sure the phenomena known as rattling-around-in-the-subconscious can be very clearly defined, so we'll just move on.)

Stage Two: Brainstorming

I'm currently brainstorming for this year's NaNoWriMo novel (I know I'm starting early. Shut up, you're just jealous) and I love it. I start a notebook for every novel I write, which is great because it 1) Gives me an excuse to buy notebooks, and 2) Gives me a place to jot down ideas without cluttering up the aforementioned Moleskine.

This is where I figure out basic storyline, characters, and world-building, and usually get ideas for a few scenes as well. This stage is fun because of all the POSSIBILITIES!! They're endless. The world is your oyster. And dang it if it isn't going to be the most amazing novel ever written!! :-)

Stage Three: Outlining

I never used to outline beyond your basic Beginning-Middle-Ending type of thing, which inevitably left me with a heck of a lot of head-scratching and getting into plot difficulties I didn't know how to get out of.

Then I discovered the one, the only, the amazing SNOWFLAKE METHOD and was immediately converted. (I know I've mentioned it on here before, but it's been a while and bears repeating). I really like this method of outlining, as it allows you to grow your story and your characters without it seeming forced or false. It's also super fun, at least most of the time. Oh, and I never go past Step Eight.

Stage Four: First Draft

Way back in the summer of 2005, I discovered the awesome that is NaNoWriMo, and despairing of the fact that Novemeber was months away, I did my own finish-it-or-bust challenge with my current work in progress, a novel then titled Connor's Journey. Apart from a book I'd completed pre-college that's not quite long enough to technically be called a novel and is way too embarrassingly cliché to actually talk about in public anways, Connor's Journey was my first novel. I'd been floundering in the first quarter of it for quite a long time, and decided I wanted to finish it. So I did. It felt amazing. And in the process I learned something: first drafts are fun, especially if written at high speed with a deadline hanging over your head.

It goes without saying that I adored NaNoWriMo. I've done it four times now, and am gearing up for a fifth. I love love love love love the amazing process of writing, especially on those days where you can't seem to type fast enough to keep up with your brain. Yeah, you hit slow days, but it only makes the non-slow days that much more awesome. And I love the freedom of a first draft. Doesn't have to be perfect. There just has to be words on the page.

Oh first drafts, how I love thee.

Stage Five: Revision

Oh revision, how I loathe thee.

Okay, maybe not loathe, but it's certainly a love/hate kind of relationship. Revision is just so painful, and it takes such a looooong time. Nowhere near as much fun (or as quick!) as those glorious first drafts. It's always rough when you're forced to admit to yourself that the perfect novel you churned out in November ain't so perfect. Blech.

At any rate, for me revision generally includes a heck of a lot of deletion/rearrangement/addition/restructuring/reworking of characters/list making. Figuring out what's wrong with the novel and exactly how I want to fix it is sometimes half the battle. Once I figure it out, I start over from page one and re-key the whole thing. Cringe-worthy, I know, but it forces you to consider every single word in a way that you don't really do if you're just changing a sentence or two here and there. It also helps you to get back into the groove of the story and lets your new scenes match the style and feel of the old ones.

In the event that I ever make it to line-editing (debating for five minutes whether this word or that one would be better, and you know I think this sentence needs a semi-colon), I'm always deleriously happy!!

I've only thus far wrangled two of my novels through the horrible revision process, and am back revising one of them (the 2005 nano) again—though it won't be near as extensive as the first time.

Stage Six: World-Wide Fame

Just kidding. :-)

So that's the noveling process as seen by me. If you actually read through all of that, you are amazing.

Cheers from the future (or is it the past? I don't know. I'm confused).

See you on the other side of Kansas!

Stats

2009-07-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

Happy Tuesday, world!

In lieu of more interesting things, I give you

Querying Stats Thus Far:

Number of Queries Submitted: 21

Number of Rejections: 13

Number of Fulls Requested: 2

Number of Partials Requested: 1

Currently Outstanding: 6 queries, 1 partial, and 1 full

Not exactly sure what any of this means (I certainly never claimed to be good at math), :-) but I feel like I have a decent enough percentage of requests-versus-submissions to give me some iota of hope regarding eventual agent acquisition. Plus, I haven't run out of agents to query yet, which is good.

Got the partial request yesterday morning and was quite happy about it, because 1) The query was 6 weeks old and I'd almost written it off, and 2) The submission included the synopsis, which I don't feel that great about, but the agent requested a partial anyway so I guess it doesn't suck quite as much as I feared. Anyways, huge YAY on that score!

No word on last week's full request as of yet, but I wasn't really expecting one, as the agent who requested it said she was way behind on reading manuscripts.

So we'll see.

*is trying not to be irrepressibly hopeful but failing*

In other news, the revision see-saw has definitely tilted towards The Rose Queen; almost finished with a re-read, and am rather optimistic that it can (and will! and must!) be fixed.

Didn't do any editing yesterday, mostly because I was wrapped up in re-reading The King of Attolia and squeeing at all the awesome parts (which, to be honest, are pretty much on every page) like I hadn't already read it three times. Oh man. SO much love for that series!! (I know, I know; you're probably all sick of me mentioning these books in like every single post, but seriously, they really are THAT awesome. Not even kidding you.)

Also, I'm going to Kansas next week, which will probably mean no Tuesday post, unless I'm really awesome and write one beforehand and figure out how to make Blogger post it for me in the future. Hmm. I'll have to work on that.

Over and out!

Ju-ly, Ju-ly, Ju-ly-y-y-y, It never seemed so strange...

2009-07-13T12:07:00.000-07:00

Well, we're smack dab in the middle of summer, now. Temps have been rising horribly into the hundred-teens, and I'm getting cranky. Especially when I realize that 1) There's three and a half to four more months of this, and 2) Billions of people across the planet live surrounded by trees and green growing things and can be outside during the summer without the flesh peeling off their bones and their inner organs gasping and dying like a bunch of shriveled-up raisins.

Not that I'm complaining or anything.

Okay, not much.

But really. It's HOT here. I mean, seriously! I tried to take a cold shower the other day, and there wasn't any cold water. If that's not bad, I don't know what is.

And now for an update on all things novel related:

As of last night, I have twelve rejections, eight outstanding queries, and one request for a full (which is a MAJOR yayyy! but doesn't necessarily mean anything).

Editing on The Fire in the Glass is going absolutely terrible. I'm very disheartened.

Re-reading The Rose Queen and thinking it might be possible to fix after all...

And that's it.

Guess I'll blame the heat for my increased levels of inactivity.

Dang heat.

Fantastic Reads!

2009-07-03T00:50:00.001-07:00

Today I give you a list (complete with mini reviews) of Children's and Young Adult Fantasy Books I Love (in No Particular Order). So, here you go:

Children's and Young Adult Fantasy Books I Love (in No Particular Order):

Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine

I discovered this book at the library as a kid, and have reread it multiple times over the years. Unlike the movie version that shares the same name (the movie was sorta cute in its own way, but the book is about ten thousand times better and completely different), Ella Enchanted is a quirky, imaginative, and touching re-telling of the Cinderella story. Complete with fairies, curses, masked balls, adventure, and ridiculously-adorable-romance-by-letter.

Crown Duel, by Sherwood Smith

An old favorite—pretty sure I could quote the entire thing from beginning to end. Originally published in two separate volumes (Crown Duel and Court Duel), this book chronicles the history of the spunky Meliara, Countess of Tlanth, from her role in a misguided war to her noble (but equally misguided) attempts at unraveling the multi-layred intrigue at the royal court. Complete with battles, dashing and mysterious members of the aristocracy (swoon), secret admirers, squee-worthy-Jane-Austen-esque-romance, and a fabulously satisfying ending.

Beauty: a Retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast, by Robin McKinley

Another old favorite, this gorgeous retelling of my favorite fairy tale is as touching as it is beautiful. Last time I re-read it, I got all teary, so you know it must be good. :-)

Jackaroo, by Cynthia Voigt

Another old favorite, Jackaroo is not quite fantasy in the traditional sense, as it contains no magical elements, but in my mind it still totally counts. It's a medieval-esque adventure-romance set in an invented land called simply "the kingdom," and tells the story of Gwen, an innkeeper's daughter, who happens upon the clothes of an infamous folk hero crammed in the back of a cupboard... Full of gritty details and touching realism, this story has a wonderful ending that you don't quite expect.

East, by Edith Pattou

A more recent favorite, East is a retelling of the lesser-known fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, which is sort of a mixture of Beauty and the Beast and the Cupid and Psyche myth. This is a gorgeous book, told in alternating first person points of view, which in some cases can be annoying, but in this case works marvelously. It's about a girl named Rose, and a White Bear under an enchantment, and an evil Troll Queen, and an epic journey North... Beautiful and gripping; first time through I read it all in a day.

The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner

Another semi-recent discovery. I first read The Thief on the plane en route to Michigan for a friend's wedding a few years ago, and devoured Queen and King shortly thereafter (I've read all three twice more since then). These are the kinds of books where the least amount of info you know going into them, the better you'll enjoy them. Which makes them kinda hard to review. I'll just leave it at:

Well-drawn and realistic world inspired by ancient Greece
Ridiculously intricate and clever plotting—with surprise twists and turns galore
Fascinating characters
Equally fascinating relationships.

Basically, read them NOW. You won't be sorry.

Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

Tragically enough, I didn't discover this wonderful book until last December. I've already read it twice. Basically, Sophie works in a hat shop, gets turned into an old woman by the Witch of the Waste, and becomes a cleaning lady for the heartless Wizard Howl. Filled with delightfully quirky characters, a rollicking (and complicated) plot, and deliciously amusing chapter titles (like "In Which Sophie Talks to Hats" and "In Which Howl Expresses His Feelings With Green Slime"). This is the kind of book that, once you get to the end, you want to turn back to page one and read all over again.

Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale

I know I mentioned this book a while back when I'd first read it, but it bears mentioning again! Based on a lesser-known fairy tale, Book of a Thousand Days tells the story of lady's maid Dashti and her Lady Saren, who get shut up in a tower for seven years because Saren refuses to marry the suitor chosen for her. The prose is beautiful and rhythmic, the plot fascinating--and surprising!--and the characters well-drawn. A great, great book.

Curse Dark as Gold, by Elizabeth C. Bunce

A very recent addition to my list of favorites, Curse Dark as Gold is a compelling reworking of Rumplestiltskin. It follows the story of Charlotte Miller, a young woman struggling to save her family's mill. When she accepts the help of the mysterious Jack Spinner, who can spin straw into gold, she fights against the idea of the old family curse, afraid of what it might ultimately cost her. As well as the gorgeous prose, great characters, adorable romance, and chilling fantastical elements, one of the neat things about this book is the attention given to detail; it almost reads like historical fiction set during the industrial revolution, and one really gets the feel for life in a woolen mill. A fascinating and intriguing read.

From the Mixed-Up Files of an Unproductive Novelist

2009-06-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

Another week, another Tuesday.

I fear I must report that absolutely nothing happened on the writing front over the past week. No rejections, no acceptances, and no, er, editing... I don't know if I just got discouraged or if the surge of heat has made me more than usually lethargic, or what.

Actually, come to think of it, I did start writing a short story. Start being the keyword. I also finished reading two more Diana Wynne Jones books, Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet, the first two books in her Dalemark quartet; they were quite fantastic.

Oh and I cleaned my room (don't look in the closet).

And I ate a lot of watermelon.

So I guess the week wasn't a total loss.

As of last night, this message board for children's authors and illustrators is quite fantastic. A prime opportunity for lots of procrastination--I mean valuable information gleaning. :-)

And, hmm. I think that's about it. Guess I'd better get my butt in gear and GET SOMETHING DONE so I have something exciting to blog about next week.

Another Tuesday Come and Gone (well it's not gone yet, but it will be soon)

2009-06-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

So it appears that I will be blogging on Tuesdays. At least, for as long as I remember/care/have something to write about.

Today I don't really have anything to write about. I've decided to improvise with random bits of information.

On the querying front, I've only one more rejection since last week, which brings my rejection total up to nine and leaves my queries-still-waiting-anxiously-somewhere-in-cyberspace at seven. Fascinating, I know.

On the editing front, I haven't gotten very far at all. Still trying to map out changes for Part III and being thwarted at every turn.

It's partly cloudy today. Sun is out intermittently with vastly dark dramatic clouds mostly to the north. Will it rain? Doubtful, but one can always hope.

I am still in love with the color green, in case anyone was wondering.

Haven't really been reading anything. Tragic, I know.

Yesterday I sorta tried to clean my room, which resulted in a two and a half hour bookshelf rearranging/dusting ordeal. At least my bookshelves look nice now. :-) On a side note, I have a few empty spots, which means, of course, that I need MORE BOOKS!! Excellent.

I'm starving, and should probably eat something.

I'm going to go eat something.