Time to get motivated

Ever feel like flinging your uncooperative character across the room? Well now you can! Want to stomp on their stupidity? Literally crush their limbs...err...whims? Yep, you can do that too.

Made from gloves, which I'll toss out the trendy term 'upcycled' to pretend I'm up on the lingo, these little guys (No, I didn't use that extra finger to make them gender specific) are ready and waiting for your abuse (a.k.a. motivation). They are posable and padded for to protect your knuckles.

I'll use one of my current characters as an example.

"Hey 152, can I talk to you a minute?"

"Okay."

"So in that last chapter, I thought I had issues with William slowing the pace down with all his tidbits of history."

"The Williams are bad."

"Yes, yes, we know that. But it turns out William wasn't my problem. It was you!"

"Me? What did I do?"

"It seems your killing people, even by accident is making you difficult to sympathize with. You're going to have to cut that out."

"But, it's not my fault. It's what I do. I don't want to change!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Okay! Okay! Rewrite me! I'll change! I promise!"

Yep. They work. And I feel better too. Win win!

Character motivators, coming to a OCGR Nano raffle near you. Or me. Yeah, mostly near me. Sorry.

Victims of the Knife: Malfunction

A distant scream yanks my attention away (yet again) from editing A Broken Race.

I spin my chair around and scan the paper covered floor. There, in the corner by last November's dismantled ream wall, characters run around like they've lost their minds. Delilah is on her knees, sobbing. Nekar throws adverbs left and right as if searching for one in particular. Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him shouts threats on the top of his lungs.

 The object of his threats comes into view as I draw closer. Blue sits in the middle of a bloody, uniform-strewn clearing. He appears to be chewing something.

 "Blue, what the hell are you doing?"

"Having a snack." He holds up the sleeve of one of the uniforms.

 Holy crap, there's a hand dangling from it! "You've eaten the Barthromians!"

 Blue smiles around his mouthful of pale flesh. "They were good."

 "Since when do you eat humans?"

"I don't. They were aliens. They just looked like humans."

Ms. Wildstar taps me. "He has a point. About them being human-looking aliens, that is. You said so yourself." I glare at her. "Weren't you the one screaming?"

"That was Trala." She points to the quivering woman on the ground beside Delilah.

"Oh. Weren't you supposed to be introducing Blue to everyone? How did this happen?'

Ms. Wildstar sighs. "He said he was hungry. I went to get him some food." She holds out a bowl of discarded undefined fantasy novel 'food'.

"Seems he was too hungry to wait." I pluck the new alien from his messy plate of a clearing. "Blue, seriously, what the hell? You ATE my Barthromians."

His eyes, on their foot-long stalks, blink at me unabashedly.

Nekar groans. "That was horrible."

"Shut up." I turn back to Blue. "Well?"

"I thought I made my intentions quite clear when you introduced me to everyone. I said I looked forward to eating them."

"No. I'm pretty sure you said, meeting. Guys?"

The gathered discarded characters nod.

"See? Meeting. Not eating."

"Stupid translator." His tentacles sag. "So when they were running around screaming as I tore them limb from limb, it wasn't because they were excited?"

"Um. No."

"Ooops."

Victims of the Knife: The New Guy

From the shadows under my desk comes a concentration-busting drone of sobs. I turn away from edits on A Broken Race and search for the culprit.

I discover a blubbering blue mass of tentacles. Ms. Wildstar sits beside it, patting one of the long, thick appendages. She glares at me. "What did you do to him?"

"I wrote him a nice letter."

"You call that nice? You dumped him."

"I dumped him nicely. I have other projects to work on and his wasn't going anywhere. Remember my resolution of LESS? This falls under cutting losses so I can devote my story-fixing peroclating time to stories that have a hope of getting published."

"But you hoped his story would get published. Why would you up on him?"

"He was created for a specific prompt. When he was rejected, I changed him for a wider market. He never quite flowed right after that. We covered this in the letter." I turn back to my laptop and the more promising story waiting for me.

A tugging on my leg proves just as distracting as the sobs had been. "What now?"

Drooping eye stalks atop a climbing mass of blue tentacles make their way up my leg. His prolific tears soak into my pants.

I sigh. "Since you're intent on not going away, I suppose you want to meet everyone?"

He bobs his eye stalks.

"Everyone, this is Blue. He's an alien. He's blue. Thanks to being horribly misled by our government, he's now very paranoid and will not be taking any vacations in the desert. He enjoys filing thorough reports, good food, females and the familiar comforts of his spaceship. And apparently most things beginning with the letter F. His dislikes are people that won't listen to him when he tells them their world is about to be destroyed, his boss, probes of any sort, and misinformation."

Blue raises a tentative tentacle and waves it. A shrill female voice says, "Hello." Blue turns a shade bluer and bangs on his translator. A booming male voice says, "Hello. That's better. Worthless piece of malfunctioning crap. I look forward to meeting all of you."

"Happy now?" I ask him.

"For the moment. Got anyone around here that can fix translators?"

Ms. Wildstar beckons to him. "Let her get back to work before she axes someone else out of spite. I'll show you around."

I let the two of them be and settle back into editing in silence.

Absence makes the heart grow...balls?

Dear short story,

When I wrote you well over a year ago, I loved you. You were witty. You were dark and you made me laugh.

Then I took you out to meet my friends. They didn't get you. They confided that you weren't quite right for me. That maybe you weren't as funny as I found you to be. Some were gentle, knowing that I loved you, while others outright said that we'd never work. Their words made me sad because I really thought we had a future together.

That's when we did that little stint in heavy duty counseling. I told you what I loved about you. You offered to change the things I didn't. We worked hard on our relationship for a few weeks. Tweaking things here and talking it out there. We even tried a little bit of a different direction, but it was never quite as fun as it was at first. We both knew that.

You went away for a while, promising to come back when the time was right. I moved on, though secretly waiting for the day when you'd show back up, all polished and trim, ready wow me and bring me back to that wonderful feeling we first had.

But it's been over a year and I hadn't heard from you. So, wondering how you were doing, I peeked in--not that I was stalking or anything, honest. You agreed to meet and I was excited. But when we sat down to catch up, all I got was a clammy, limp handshake.

You hadn't polished anything. In fact, you were far more lackluster than I remembered. Those weeks of intense counseling ruined you. They sucked out your humor--dark and misunderstood as it might have been. They turned you into something I'd never intended you to be.

While I had captured our magical first days together on my flash drive, we're too different now. I've moved on. That magic is gone. It's time for you to move on too. Thanks for the laughs, short story. We had some good times together. But its over. I hope you understand.

-Jean

Some Cyborg Weasel Fun

Immersed in editing mode as I am while A Broken Race works its way through its first round of critiquing, I've been staying busy with other little creative projects to get my 'make something new' fix. Sewing has been fun, but since spend most of my workday in front of a computer, sometimes its easier to sneak in some creative moments there.

So last night, I retired my two year old cyborg weasel cling and borged this little guy. Now he's armed and ready to stalk me during all those times I'm wandering around on the internet rather than writing.

I'd attempt to take some better close up pics of all the little details but the darn glossy finish made it very difficult to get even this pic to turn out half decent. Who came up with the idea of a glossy finish on a laptop anyway? Windex and paper towel manufacturers had to be in on it.

Thanks to Ian, I just had the realization that I have the file for this. Duh. How about I just crop some bits of it for close ups? *smacks forehead*

The temptation of a shiny new plot

I'm sure you've been there, set on a plot, in the middle of one, bored with one...and then along hops a plot bunny. It sits there, staring at you, enticing you with its promise of something better, something fresh, sparkling and new. Ooooh shiny!

It captures you with its hypnotic stare. Never easing. Never resting. Taunting you while you slog through your current project. Sowing seeds of doubt over which thing you should be working on.

"Just take a few days to get to know me", it says. Try this out. You might like it. You might like it a lot better than that thing you're working on.

But you know what? If you give in to the plot bunny... more will come! They breed like...well, bunnies! Lock them away until you need a new idea, but don't give in to their hypnotic stares. Oh, and keep them separated!

Yes, another NaNo raffle prize is born. Bunnies, monkeys, birds... what could be next?

Six Sentence Sunday: A Broken Race 3

Time to hop back on the SSS train. This week we meet the Matron and William. William is pretty ticked that I picked one of his less than shining moments to share with you, but he'll have to get over it.

In this scene the Matron isn't happy with the fact that a Jack has managed to break into the women's room and harass her charges.

“You take care of this, William, or we’ll all be sorry. You hear me?”

He put on his most placating smile. “I will.” 
“Oh save it, you impotent ball of fat. This is about reviving humanity, not about getting me to stop nagging you." 

Check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here.

Screw hearts, bring on the monkeys

Guilt monkeys that is. Yes, it's Valentines Day, but bah, it's time for yet another creative explosion! (I'm a total romantic, can you tell?)

This project was more fun than a pile of monkeys. I'd go with barrel, but I don't have enough (nor do I plan on making that many) to fill one.

I'm blaming this sewing tangent on Adrianne too. She didn't even have the pattern for it. No, all she did was suggest something I'd already been considering: adding actual guilt monkeys to our NaNoWriMo menagerie. 

The pattern came from prowling the internet. Evil, evil internet! My starting point came from here. I added a tail, because it seems I have a thing for adding tails. And really, what's a monkey without a tail? It's just wrong, that's what it is.

These unimpressed little guys take about 40 minutes each from cutting to stuffing and are all hand sewn. I've found this is the perfect project for placing me in front of the tv with my kids - not something I normally do - which my daughter has enjoyed. Since this is an easy and mostly mindless project, I'll likely keep at it for a little while. Next up, monkeys with different expressions. *rubs hands together*

But first, I should get a little writing done before they start flinging poo at me.

A little bird told me

My efforts to cut back on my various obligations has led to a little extra time which has in turn lead to a creative explosion. Not only have I been writing more lately, other projects have demanded to be worked on. My sewing machine has been getting a workout.

These Babbling Birds will be part of this year's NaNoWriMo prize selection. Ever wish you had one of those little birds everyone claims told them the juicy bit of info? Well now you can have one. Babbling birds are sure to offer all the best gossip on what your characters have done in their past or what they might do in a given situation. Who's going to hook up, keep a slave in the closet, or re-gifted that birthday gift from their mother and got busted? These little birds know and they can't wait to tell you. They really shouldn't. No, really they couldn't. But if you must know...

This little project was inspired by my fellow ML, Adrianne. She's always suggesting things that light my creative fire. Darn you and your creative distractions! She made this pattern for cute valentine gifts. I twisted them to avian gossip slingers. I'm sure this says something about us, but I'll let you draw the conclusions.

You can find her pattern and step by step instructions here. Along with not so innocent intents, I added wings, a fabric tail and button eyes. I would also like to add that good old cotton fabric is ideal for this project. I had some heavier stuff sitting around for other projects (which will be featured here soon) and tried it on the cream-colored birds, but as you see, they look a bit stiff. It was also much harder to turn their beaks right side out.

As a slight side blaming note, this project was encouraged by my need *cough* want *cough* to try out the Drtiz Tube Turner I'd purchased months ago (for yet another sewing project that I haven't really started yet beyond cutting some pieces out). These are awesome tools. I shall never sew small pieces again and dread turning them right side out. Now its so easy! I used it for the birds themselves and the wings and tails. The rounded dowels that come with the kit also are prefect for pushing stuffing into all those little hard to reach places-like beaks.

In search of a little funny

In my effort to be less this year, I'm seeking out ways to be less stressed. Laughing seemed like a good start.

The first book I read this year, Sara Barron's, People are Unappealing  made me laugh inappropriately in all sorts of places. When I spotted this book on the shelf, it was the title that grabbed me. Normally I'm a cover kind of girl. Titles aren't my thing. Usually. But this one was so damn true that I had to nod in agreement and skim a few pages. While I found it entertaining, it wasn't the sort of book I usually read so I put it back on the shelf and went about my search for books on writing--which was why I was at the bookstore in the first place.

A couple weeks later, still haunted by the amusing title, I made my way to the bookstore and sighed with relief when I found it was still there. I'm rather one tracked minded once I'm set on something and if the book hadn't been there, I would have had to drive to another bookstore until I'd found it. Ordering it, and then having to wait for it, just wasn't an option.

With my new purchase in hand,  I went home and cracked it open. And laughed. And laughed so hard that I had to leave the room with the book rather than attempt to explain to my husband what was so damned funny in front of my kids. FUPA anyone? Filled with all aspects of unappealing life from dealing with parents to sex. The vulgar observations were so up my alley that I brought this book with me everywhere. It fit right in my coat pocket. I even schemed my way out of the house for an extra half hour of quiet reading time by offering to drive to the pizza place, order, wait and then bring it home. I'm pretty sure the girl at the counter thought I was on something from the amount of snickering I was doing over a particularly amusing passage wherein real people are "renamed" to protect their identity.

I was sad when the book ended. I'd had so much fun laughing my way through that one that I had to get another. I went back to the bookstore and came home with four more books. One of which was Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Also known as the second book I read this year. Not quite as funny as the first book of the year, but still amusing and much safer to leave sitting around the house.

Filled with short essays that are the perfect lunch-break size, this book covers everything from speech therapy as a kid to drug binges, artistic expression, jazz bands, leading an unmotivated life, claiming the perfect boyfriend in order to have a house in France and attempts at learning French.

As a writer, the last section of the book where he divulges his daydream characters is by far my favorite. Anyone who desires to best describe their hair as cravy is all right in my book. Curvy, wavy, yep, totally makes sense to me. I've seen that hair. Some great character tidbits in that section, yes indeed.

Laughter. Yep, I feel less stressed already. I wonder what the third book of the year has in store? 

Feeling the love

After last week's rousing critique round of pointy sticks jabbed mercilessly into my uncooperative short story, I'm feeling the warm fuzzies of being back in crit land again. It's been almost a year and the masochistic part of me has missed it. I just need to put the warm fuzzies away and continue to jab the short story until it agrees to convey what it was meant to.

The Liebster Blog Award originated in Germany. Liebster means dearest or beloved, and Liebe is love.

While we're talking love--yes, I know I'm early but not a big fan of Valentine's Day anyway--I've been doubly the recipient of the Liebster blog award. Lots of love going around lately. So I must thank, Fred and Chrystalla, both of whom are wonderfully entertaining and talented writers.

If I'm playing by the rules of this award, I'm to pass along the love to five blogs that I love. However, A) Three of the five blogs I intended to pass the award to have already been loved and another didn't want to play along. B) I don't like rules. Therefore, as I sit here surrounded by bloody crit sticks, I'm going to announce that I love you all. There. I said it. Don't expect to hear it again for another year.

Now you'll have to excuse me, I have pointy sticks to sharpen and then I'm off to return them to their owners.

Six Sentence Sunday: A Broken Race 2

In this week's excerpt we meet One-fifty-two, one of the Simples. When I started this story, I never intended to have him become the foremost MC of the four, but with his emotional vulnerability and unique pov, he quickly became my favorite to write.

He’d had a name. A name of his own before he’d become One-fifty-two. He looked at the numbers stamped on his hand. They’d hurt when William had put them there with a needle and ink. But it was part of being a man, of growing up. He’d cried, but not too loud. No one had wiped away his tears.

Check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here.

Another new old project

What a difference years makes when it comes writing. After blasting through edits on A Broken Race, I was up for conquering another project that had been languishing on my hard drive. I picked Sahmara's Sunset because it had been giving me the puppy eyes the longest.

 Sahmara's Sunset as the distinction of being my very first NaNo novel from 2006. It was the first novel I wrote in thirty days. It proved that I could actually write something that didn't take years to finish. In fact, it was the first novel (and still is to this day) that I wrote knowing what the end would be before I started.

 If only I'd known the middle. This is also the novel I discovered that leaving vast tracts of 'connect the dots later', is a very bad idea. I've since learned that if I'm going to do this, to at least leave an outline and notes in that section.

 Other things I didn't know back before I joined a critique group and did some educational reading that are now driving me insane:

- Utter lack of proper formatting. I've since become a little OCD about this and won't even write a rough draft without it.

- Large blocks of telling. Blah, blah, blah. I'm even dozing off. - Repeating myself. Sadly, that one's never gone away.

- Chapter placement. Yes, chapter length varies, but an 11k chapter? Really? And no, it's not the only one.

- Unnecessary scene breaks. Why didn't I just change a couple lines up a little and continue on? No idea.

- This one suffers from the same thing as my early drafts of Trust and the reason why there are so many discarded characters running about: Anvilitus. Not just repeating myself, but making similar events happen repeatedly to drive a point home.

 But I think it has promise. So I'll continue wringing out my mop and keep my pruning shears sharpened as I tackle this project. One thing is for sure though, it's going to take a lot longer than the last one.

Six Sentence Sunday: A Broken Race

Today's excerpt is from the opening of a project from a few years ago that I'm finally getting cleaned up and ready for the big world. This is a conversation between Jack, one of the MCs and a man he's just captured during an attempted raid on his fortress. It neatly sums up what what the story is about.

Gunfire again filled the air.

The Wildman shook his head, tears running down his face. “Please, we just want a woman or two. You have so many.”

There weren’t many, barely enough to produce a steady population in fact, and far too many of them Simples. “Your women are not my concern. Your kind is full of the disease and fifth that got us into this mess to begin with.”

Check out all the other Six Sentence Sunday excerpts here

Racing through revisions

Wow, so when I said I thought revising A Broken Race would go quickly, I was right! It's done. Granted, that's about all I've been doing for the past few days, but I've really enjoyed getting back into these characters and the story again. Having only spent 30 days with them before, and that, a couple years ago, I was surprised at how much depth of character I'd crammed into 50k. Darn it, I even made myself a little teary a few times.

Since I've been plowing through NaNo rough drafts, I thought I'd share a few faults I keep finding.

• I do not use contractions. There must be some subconscious 'it counts as two words instead of one that way' thing going on.

• I repeat myself. I rephrase what I've just written, sometimes right after saying it. I get stuck on a particular thought and go at it until I've achieved total anvil status. Sometimes I rephrase a thought several sentences later. It makes for some confusing clean up work. I had to go back again and again to keep those spots straight and it got confusing. Hold on, didn't I just say that?

• I change people's names. In this year's NaNo novel, Nervo became Neko. In A Broken Race, Miranda became Emelda, and Violet who was dead twenty years suddenly was reborn. Oops! I do make notes as I'm writing, but its the secondary characters that sometimes miss out on being included in my orderly efforts.

• Consistancy. There's twelve women. Yet, there are more like forty of them. It was morning, now its suddenly night. When did that character get clothes on? He's only wounded a little. No wait, he's almost dead!

For you fellow CC folks, A Broken Race will be going up for critique very soon. Please feel free to tear into it as I know you love to do.

Onward into a new old writing project

With Trust and it's sequel finally off my writing plate, I'm finally able to give some of my other novels in progress some attention. Yes, I know, that's a lot of finally, but that's how it feels.

After waiting patiently for its turn, fantasy short: Children of the Leaves got a turn in the revision chair. It's up for critique in early next month. I can't believe it's been almost a year since I had a chance to submit anything to CC. And that last thing? It was the first version of Children of the Leaves. It's like I've been stuck in my writing cave or something.

Next up is A Broken Race, a dysotopian novella that was NaNo 09. I haven't touched it since I hit my 50k. The wonderful thing about this project is that it's the first NaNo I actually wrote from beginning to end. There are no sudden blank spots of doom. I set out to write a novella and I did! There are some troubled areas, namely the ending, but for the most part, I'm thinking this shouldn't be a massive undertaking to get it from rough to first draft status. Famous last words right?

So what's this new story about?

In fortress ruled by impotent men and protected by testosterone-ridden powerhouses, One-fifty-two is one of many, a simple man, a worker. But he's not quite as simple as the others thought, and when he sneaks into the the vault where the precious few healthy women are kept, he discovers the nasty secret the breeding masters have been hiding. And it's been hiding in the garden where his food is grown, no less. Emboldened by his new knowledge, One-fifty-two takes back his childhood name, Joshua, and vows to set the women free.

A single resolution, an edit, and a treat

A couple of my NaNo buddies latched on to this idea so I hopped on the boat (yes, a few days late). Pick one word for your 2012 New Year's resolution. It might sound a little odd, but my word is: Less.
Yes, I want to be less this year.
Less busy
Less distracted
Less obligated
Less stressed
I made some good steps toward this at the end of the year. Now I just have to keep going.

The first round of Untitled Sequel edits is finished! Wow, that went fast. Mostly it was cleaning up all the little notes I left to myself when charging through NaNoWriMo. Things like: go back and verify number of days between A and B. Or my favorite: Might want to give MC at least a sheet else he's fighting naked. Oops! Or maybe not... Ok, ok, I'll get him something to wear. Maybe.

There were also a couple typo-heavy sections that I obviously typed with my eyes closed while visualizing a scene. Untitled Sequel (nice title isn't it?) is now going onto the shelf. But, you can tune in to Flogging the Quill very soon and weigh in on the first page.

For the first time in seventeen days I was home alone all day. My beloved silence, how I've missed you! I treated myself to a viewing of the new Conan the Barbarian. As I wasn't expecting anything spectacular in the plot department, I found it entertaining. If you like good-looking, half-naked muscular men cutting each other up with swords, a little sex and generally watching Jason Mamoa do anything, you'd probably enjoy it too. Having watched the 1982 version a good dozen or so times over the years, I can easily say the effects, dialogue and general plot were much improved. There was a lot of blood, violence and the sound effects people obviously had a great time with wet, squishy blood sounds. So yes, pretty much what you'd expect from a Conan movie. I'd call it Spartacus lite. Speaking of which, I can't wait for Season 2!