Progress Report

Progress on Swan Queen is slow, but moving forward. Not because the story is bogging me down, but finding time to work on it between shuttling kids and working is interfering with my writing time. However, I have managed to carve out enough hours to get myself into chapter six.

It's funny how writing characters that came to me years ago feel when writing them anew. Swan Queen is told in multiple point of views, which was the experiment when first writing this story as I'd only written single POVs up until that point.

Some of the characters need more work to flesh them out, others feel like slipping into my favorite jeans and going for a walk. Leoric (a young suitor) continues to be a favorite as does Kenric (the antagonist). (Jarvis (captain of the guard) needs personality help. Maribella (AKA The Princess) is getting a major character do-over. She was far too cookie-cutter the first time around. Now she's got moxie!

The biggest goof, or change, depending on how you look at it, is the fact that I began rewriting without realizing that I'd swapped the name of Maribella's country with that of one of her suitors. It didn't even occur to me until chapter three that I'd made the switch. That's the beauty of rewriting from scratch. My subconscious often knows best. I like this much better.

You'll get to meet all these characters and many more in my upcoming April A to Z Blog Challenge, which, holy bovines, has grown to 1085 participants and counting! My characters stand ready to meet you because I'll be (hopefully) deep into writing a sci-fi novella for April Camp NaNo. I love that the word goals are now adjustable for camp so I can legitimately aim for 25k.

Now then, back to working on chapter six and juggling the five submissions I currently have out.

Getting Crafty: Book Page Roses

You gave me a dozen roses and I'd be happy. But they die. Pretty quickly. And, well, while I appreciate the sentiment, sometimes thinking outside the box is even more appreciated.

So when I saw these, I wasn't about to wait around for someone to make me some. Hell no. I'll give myself some roses thank you very much.

More specifically, I made myself some roses out of book pages. Double win. If you guessed this was yet another excuse to tear into my already torn and worn dictionary, you'd be right. I also used Henry the Eighth because that dictionary isn't the only one sitting on my craft pile.

So how does one go about making book page roses? Well you get yourself an old tattered book or two (the kind you'd otherwise throw out, not the valuable vintage sort) - one with lightweight pages and one with a little heavier pages. Any pages that have colored or worn edges are best. Yes, you could paint the edges, but I like the natural look.

Official supply list:
Tacky glue
Brush
1/8 wooden dowel that is longer than your pages
Book pages you never plan to read again

1. To make the stems: Take full book pages and apply glue to the outside edge. Roll using the dowel and smooth the glued edge. Pull out the dowel, and hey, you've got a stem. Lightweight pages work best for this as they are easier to roll this tight.




2. Cut a 1.5 x length of book page strip and fold over one corner. Glue this onto the stem and then wrap, pleating the paper a couple times to create interest. This makes the center of your rose.




To fill this giant gap between pictures, I'll tell you that once I had the process down, each rose took about five minutes to make.










3. Cut a selection of petals. For the heavier book pages, I made the petals roughly two inches long by about 1.5 inches tall. For the thinner pages, I made the strips 5 inches long because I could pleat them a I wound them around the center section.

4. Start with a heavier page petal. Varying the paper weight adds some substance and interest to the petals. My pages were also slightly different colors, with the heavier one being a darker page with a red edge, though not all of the petals came from the edges of the page. Manually pleat the heavy page petals. These can be done all at once or as you go.

5. You will need to hold the heavier page petals in place for a few seconds until the glue sets a little. Then follow that petal with a lighter weight one. Sprinkle the heavy pages throughout. I used three to four per rose. The heavier pages are bulkier so keep that in mind when working around the underside of your rose or it will end up with a huge base.


6. Keep adding petals all around, making sure to vary the length of the petals to keep the rose round and somewhat natural looking. You know, as natural as a rose made of book pages can be. Overlapping the petals an inch or so also helps keep them looking like petals.



7. Once you have the desired amount of petals pinch down the bottom against the stem. Cut a 1 inch by 5 inch strip of lightweight paper and wrap it around the underside of your rose to make the base. This serves to clean up the underside a little and transition the clump of petals into the stem.



8.  Cut a couple leaf shaped bits. I used one or two per stem and placed them roughly two inches below the rose. Glue the leaf onto the stem.

There you go. Now go wash all that glue off your hands and enjoy your roses.





My bouquet is sitting in a vase on my writing desk. The best part...they'll never wilt. Also, if I ever need a word beginning with B or C (as that's where I am in my dictionary), I can simply consult my roses for inspiration.

Reading and Echoes

Ever have the feeling your email must not be working because there's nothing in the inbox? So you check it. Frequently. Because darn it, something should be in the inbox.

That's my inbox the past month and half. I'm usually a pretty patient person when it comes to the submission waiting game. I really am. But I've got four projects floating out there at the moment and they've all been out from one to six months. Usually there's at least one project that bounces back with a quick form rejection to prove that my inbox is indeed operational. Not that I'm begging for a quick form rejection, that just how the submission game usually works.

Now that I've broken down and complained about it, the rejections will come flying in. That's also how it usually works.

Deep cleansing breath.

While I'm waiting, I've been busy writing. Swan Queen, which I've been searching for a new title for now that I've adjusted what I'd originally set out to do with the theme, is creeping along. Chapter three is now done.

I've also been busy reading. However, not much from my TBR pile. That pile has been there long while as have two books I'm in the middle of that I just can't seem to finish reading. Nothing is lighting my fire at the moment. Meh. Even a trip to the bookstore didn't reveal a book that I knew I could dive into and love. Tis a sad state of anxious emotional affairs I've worked myself into.

Instead of reading from my pile, I did critique a full novel last month. My month of reading accomplishments isn't totally lacking. I also had the driving urge to read Trust and Chain of Gray. Not for editing, but for enjoyment, though I did fix a few lurking ninja typos. Sneaky bastards.

Now it's time to get back to chapter four and, yes, waiting.

Getting Crafty: Recycled Dictionary Page Coasters

In another fit of craftiness, I cut into my old dictionary for writing related words. There are an awful lot of them in you get specific about it.

By the time I had gotten sick of finding words and their definitions, I had quite a pile. In fact, I ended up making four sets of coasters and still had a pile left over. I suppose that means there is another project in the wings.

All the stuff you need.

To make a set of coasters, here's what you'd need:

Ceramic tiles
Mod Podge
A brush
Words
Tissue Paper

1. Cut a square of tissue paper to fit the top of your tile and apply a layer of Mod Podge.



Mod Podge Tissue Paper to the tile

2. Once the paper is affixed to the tile, find the words you want to use. I went several different ways with this. On one set, I burned the edges of words that had long definitions. On others, I used stripes of words and made more of a collage.

3. Mod Podge the words on top of the tissue paper.

4. Let the tile dry.

5. Apply a top layer of Mod Podge.



Mod Podge your words onto the tile.

6. Cut a square of felt or cork. I used felt because it seems some mice got into my shed. (Where I'd last used the cork to make a new washer for my rustic water pump. Some ants had eaten the old one. Stupid ants.) The mice ate my cork. Stupid mice. Shredded cork doesn't work very good for this so, yes, I opted for felt. Felt is also much cheaper by the way.

7. Using Tacky Glue, affix the felt t o the bottom of your coaster.

8. Sit back, have a tall, sweaty drink and enjoy your craftiness.

Some of my finished tile coasters.

Rewriting: To write again

So I've launched into a major rewrite of an old project. I'm not talking a little revising here either. Now that I've seriously been at this writing thing for a while, it's interesting to see how far my stories have come. For instance, the novel I wrote back in 2007 that I thought I loved.

Don't get me wrong, I still love the idea and the fact that it was my first attempt at writing a novel through multiple POVs. I rather like all my characters. But the level of telling and the whimpery female MC... Gah. It makes me cringe.

And so, the rewriting process, or mine anyway, goes a little something like this:

Open document.
Consider reading entire story from 2007.
Decide re-reading story will taint new ideas because I remember what the main issues where that made me shelf the thing in the first place.
Paste entire story into a new document.
Close the original and back it up for safe keeping.
Adjust new document to novel format to make eyes and brain happy.
Shuffle original words to halfway down the page.
Read the half page of words.
Scroll back up and start writing from scratch.
Once the gist of the original text is rewritten, delete old text and queue up the next half page
Write more.
Delete more.
Delete entire crappy paragraphs without rewriting them.
Enjoy ah ha moments where I can pull the story threads tighter.
Enjoy making characters much deeper.
Delete more old words.
Rub hands together evily.
Write more.

Yes, my method introduces new typos. Oh well. The retyping of all old words allows me to make better word choices, sentence structure changes and maintain the current voice of each POV character as I round them out much better than before. Allowing myself to keep old sections makes the voice and telling inconsistant with all the progress I'm trying to make.

I hope all this effort will be worth it. I'm already loving how the story is coming together and can see fixes to some of the plot problems that bogged it down before. The percolator has been mulling this one over for a long time.

Chapter three is halfway finished and I'm gleefully writing the twisted mind of Kenric. Not that he's totally twisted, he just sees the situation a little differently than the other characters.

Now, please excuse me as I go milk the giant cow and get back to writing...err...rewriting.