Let's just say I'm very glad I didn't jump the gun and post any bursts of good news a couple weeks ago. For those who weren't privy to this as it played out, (a big thank you to those who were. Your support is very much appreciated) I present my last couple weeks through therapy puppet theatre!
Player One sits down and opens up her board game, Lifopoly (the board game I seem to have mashed together in my previous post). She sets up all the game pieces with care, making sure to follow all the instructions and sits back to see if anyone wants to play the game with her.
Player Two happens by. "Say, is that Lifopoly? I love this! Can I play?"
Player one says, "I'd love to play with you! Have a seat."
"Thank you!" Player two sits down. "I really like what you have here, why don't you go directly to Go and collect $200?"
"Really? That's awesome! Thanks!" Player one picks up her thimble game piece and starts to move toward the Go space.
Player Two's brows furrow. "Oh. Hmm. I couldn't help but notice that you're using a thimble. Would you be opposed to using the iron game piece instead?"
"Sure. No problem."
"Oh. And how about instead of car game pieces, you call them hover ships?"
"I can work with that."
"Would you mind changing all the people pegs from pink and blue to yellow and purple?"
"Uhhh. I guess not."
"Great. Let's play."
Player one wipes her brow and moves her iron closer to Go.
Player two rubs her chin. "I just thought of something else. How about we skip the number three when we roll or spin."
"Umm. Okay." Player one gets out a sharpie and turns the number three on the spinner into a snowman and makes an X on the three side of the dice. "Can I move to Go now?"
"Do you have a full house?"
Player one blinks and looks from Lifopoly to Player two. "Uhh, what?"
"A full house. Do you have one? Maybe royal flush?"
"This is Lifopoly, not poker."
"Looks a lot like poker."
Player one surveys the game again and then notices the cards in Player two's hands. She cocks an eyebrow. "Well, I suppose they are both games."
"Lifopoly also reminds me of Cribbage."
"I don't even like Cribbage."
"Nevertheless, it reminds me of Cribbage. And Go Fish."
"Huh? Really?" Player one picks up the hover craft with it's family of purple and yellow pegs inside and examines it. "Well, they are all games so I suppose you could call them connected."
"I don't like card games. Unless you change Lifopoly into croquet, I don't want to play."
Player one picks up the iron game piece and pictures whacking it around the lawn with a mallet. "I guess I'll see what I can do."
Player two gets up, jarring the game board and sending all the game pieces flying. "You know where to find me if you want to play croquet."
"Yeah. Thanks." Player one watches Player two leave. She lovingly picks up her game pieces and packs them away in the box, one by one. She takes one last look at the Go space and then folds the game board up. "Well now, that was interesting," she says to the empty chair. "Guess I'll put this game away for a little bit while I decide whether croquet is my thing or not."
She picks up the box and gets ready to leave. The corner of the box rattles and lifts up ever so slightly. Player one notices a high-pitched hum and waves her hand in the air, thinking to shoo away a mosquito. A tiny, bright red hover craft wizzes in front of her face. It's purple and yellow occupants have grins on their little bulbous heads. She briefly wonders how they are driving since they have pegs for bodies, but shrugs the thought off in light of everything else on her mind.
"We're free!" They cry. The hover craft does one more lap around player one's head and speeds off.
The therapist snaps his fingers. "Hello, cazy writer lady, time to put the puppets away now."
"Oh. Right. Sorry."
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Remaining nameless
I sit here this morning, surveying my plethora of discarded characters, not wondering, as you might think, where one of them might be or what they are up to. No, I'm wondering which ones I can lure up to my desk to rip our their names.
Why this sudden need for names? Well, due to certain events, I find myself in the position where I must rename several main characters in order for my novel to proceed down the path of possible success.
Why does this suddenly sound like a board game? In its current state, my novel does not pass go or collect $200. It doesn't even get that piddly job where you get $12,000 every payday. (Where can I get that job in real life?) And please don’t let me land on that ‘you just bought a skunk farm’ space!
While I am rather attached to the current names of my characters, I also like the idea of passing go. The names that belong to these that are milling around on my floor amongst the crumbled papers and adverb crates aren't doing anything productive at the moment and I like them too. As a plus, these guys all came from the same novel so I don’t feel quite so much like I’m grabbing names from thin air.
You might imagine I’m sitting here, perusing my character stock with steepled fingers and pursed lips. You’d be right.
They’re going to notice me and get suspicious soon. If I don’t post on Friday, you’ll know this didn’t go well.
“Hey you.”
“I have a name, you know.”
Not for long…
Why this sudden need for names? Well, due to certain events, I find myself in the position where I must rename several main characters in order for my novel to proceed down the path of possible success.
Why does this suddenly sound like a board game? In its current state, my novel does not pass go or collect $200. It doesn't even get that piddly job where you get $12,000 every payday. (Where can I get that job in real life?) And please don’t let me land on that ‘you just bought a skunk farm’ space!
While I am rather attached to the current names of my characters, I also like the idea of passing go. The names that belong to these that are milling around on my floor amongst the crumbled papers and adverb crates aren't doing anything productive at the moment and I like them too. As a plus, these guys all came from the same novel so I don’t feel quite so much like I’m grabbing names from thin air.
You might imagine I’m sitting here, perusing my character stock with steepled fingers and pursed lips. You’d be right.
They’re going to notice me and get suspicious soon. If I don’t post on Friday, you’ll know this didn’t go well.
“Hey you.”
“I have a name, you know.”
Not for long…
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Guilt monkeys
I'm writing again. Whew, that feels good!
I finished a short story today. Well, I wrote half of it last night and this morning. I wrote the other half three weeks ago when I noticed an intersting prompt and thought, "Heck, I have three weeks to get something together for that. No problem." Ha.
It shouldn't have been a problem. I'm annoyed with myself for taking that much time off. I have excuses, one of them possibly very exciting, but that will wait for another post when things are confirmed. But we all have excuses, don't we? The trick is to not accept them and keep writing.
I must better learn to be my own 'nagging grandmother' as Vayen would say. Let me tell you, if I had to actually vocalize to someone the excuses I make for not writing, they would likely sound far more lame that I try to rationalize.
It's time to break out the guilt monkeys until I can get myself back in line.
Normally, I save the guilt monkeys for November during NaNoWriMo. I also have a pack of rabid, cybernetic attack weasels, but they're off saving the world during the off season. So I'm using the monkeys.
Depending on who you ask and how much sugar or liquor they've recently injested, you might be told that guilt monkeys are actual monkeys or they are your support network. I'm inclined to tell you both--because I have posters I'm printing for my NaNo region to prove it. However, for the purpose of this post, let's call them your support network.
How it works: I tell as many people as possible that I'm going to write something. Something with a goal works best for optimal results. Such as: A short story today, a rough draft of a novel this month, finish a round of revisions on chapters one through ten this week, etc. At least one of my drafted guilt monkeys will follow through and ask how that progress is coming along. I then either have to say, "Awesome! It's done / I'm half done / I'm working on it" or "I didn't get to it because.... (insert sure to sound lame excuse here). I hate sounding lame.
Some people are great at setting goals for themselves and reaching them. Some of us need accountablity... and guilt monkeys.
Where can you find your own guilt monkeys?
-Facebook updates
-Blog posts
-The jungle
-Your friends
-Your critique group
-The produce section of your grocery store
-Your family (but I've found they accept the lame excues a little too easily because they want you to feed them)
And now I must go polish and submit this thing before I get pelted with banana peels.
I finished a short story today. Well, I wrote half of it last night and this morning. I wrote the other half three weeks ago when I noticed an intersting prompt and thought, "Heck, I have three weeks to get something together for that. No problem." Ha.
It shouldn't have been a problem. I'm annoyed with myself for taking that much time off. I have excuses, one of them possibly very exciting, but that will wait for another post when things are confirmed. But we all have excuses, don't we? The trick is to not accept them and keep writing.
I must better learn to be my own 'nagging grandmother' as Vayen would say. Let me tell you, if I had to actually vocalize to someone the excuses I make for not writing, they would likely sound far more lame that I try to rationalize.
It's time to break out the guilt monkeys until I can get myself back in line.
Normally, I save the guilt monkeys for November during NaNoWriMo. I also have a pack of rabid, cybernetic attack weasels, but they're off saving the world during the off season. So I'm using the monkeys.
Depending on who you ask and how much sugar or liquor they've recently injested, you might be told that guilt monkeys are actual monkeys or they are your support network. I'm inclined to tell you both--because I have posters I'm printing for my NaNo region to prove it. However, for the purpose of this post, let's call them your support network.
How it works: I tell as many people as possible that I'm going to write something. Something with a goal works best for optimal results. Such as: A short story today, a rough draft of a novel this month, finish a round of revisions on chapters one through ten this week, etc. At least one of my drafted guilt monkeys will follow through and ask how that progress is coming along. I then either have to say, "Awesome! It's done / I'm half done / I'm working on it" or "I didn't get to it because.... (insert sure to sound lame excuse here). I hate sounding lame.
Some people are great at setting goals for themselves and reaching them. Some of us need accountablity... and guilt monkeys.
Where can you find your own guilt monkeys?
-Facebook updates
-Blog posts
-The jungle
-Your friends
-Your critique group
-The produce section of your grocery store
-Your family (but I've found they accept the lame excues a little too easily because they want you to feed them)
And now I must go polish and submit this thing before I get pelted with banana peels.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Another monday
They have a way of coming around every seven days, don't they? Unlike many people, I like mondays. They are the return to order around my house. A day when I can pick things up and they might stay put away for several hours because everyone else has gone about their monday routines. For a brief moment, I might get a glimpse of my house as I see it in my head, that tidy, newly redecorated place that breathes calm into my often hectic life.
Every weekend has been busy and rainy, driving me to even further appreciate my mondays--the day when mother nature likes to spite all the work away from home people by offering sunshine and perfect temperatures. Working at home does have certain benefits. Assuming the work I need to do that day isn't the sort that requires me to remain inside, only to gaze longingly out the windows like everyone else.
This monday also marks my summer return to the groove (or at least in much closer proximity to the groove than I've been in a long while). I have decreed it so.
My latest book addiction session was just what I needed to catch my breath and take a step back.
For the past few months, work, projects around the house, and child obligations have severely hampered my writing time. But now...
The kids, home for summer break, have fallen into their own mostly self sufficient routines and have found friend's houses to hang out at on occassion. My flowerbeds (if I could get a few consectutive days without rain, it would be most appreciatated) are almost done and are to a point I can finish whenever I get to it. The house is mostly put back together after the big redecoration project--only one slipcover and eventually putting in the laminate flooring that is taking up space in my garage remain to be completed. My annual (one month late thanks to my fractured ankle fiasco) garage sale is done as if this past weekend, and all the stuff that didn't sell is put away or crammed into the back of my car waiting to be dropped off at Goodwill. My job board is as clean as its been in months after busting my behind lately to push jobs through.
Join me in a deep inhale exhale. Ah, that's better.
Every weekend has been busy and rainy, driving me to even further appreciate my mondays--the day when mother nature likes to spite all the work away from home people by offering sunshine and perfect temperatures. Working at home does have certain benefits. Assuming the work I need to do that day isn't the sort that requires me to remain inside, only to gaze longingly out the windows like everyone else.
This monday also marks my summer return to the groove (or at least in much closer proximity to the groove than I've been in a long while). I have decreed it so.
My latest book addiction session was just what I needed to catch my breath and take a step back.
For the past few months, work, projects around the house, and child obligations have severely hampered my writing time. But now...
The kids, home for summer break, have fallen into their own mostly self sufficient routines and have found friend's houses to hang out at on occassion. My flowerbeds (if I could get a few consectutive days without rain, it would be most appreciatated) are almost done and are to a point I can finish whenever I get to it. The house is mostly put back together after the big redecoration project--only one slipcover and eventually putting in the laminate flooring that is taking up space in my garage remain to be completed. My annual (one month late thanks to my fractured ankle fiasco) garage sale is done as if this past weekend, and all the stuff that didn't sell is put away or crammed into the back of my car waiting to be dropped off at Goodwill. My job board is as clean as its been in months after busting my behind lately to push jobs through.
Join me in a deep inhale exhale. Ah, that's better.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
I'm free
It's over. I closed the book this morning, having reached the last page after getting up an hour early with the intent to finish this thing! I am immensely thankful that Jacqueline Carey doesn't pump out books every few months or my own productivity would be seriously hampered.
As it stands, Naamah's Curse is to blame for:
• My sunburned back--I was too busy reading and forgot to roll over when I was supposed to.
• Several hours of missed sleep
• My garage sale being delayed a day--I was too busy reading to get out to price and set things up yesterday.
• A bird almost hitting my daughter--I was attempting to be interactive while reading and so sat on a quite secluded bench on my desk which I infrequently use so I could 'watch' my daughter pick seeds from my prolific lilies to sell in the garage sale. A cardinal flew over the bush behind me and, finding me invading the bird feeder space, freaked out and flew off at top speed, missing my daughters face by a mere inch. At least she thought it was cool.
• A sore back. I discovered reading while laying on my stomach isn't as comfortable as I remember it being. I think I'm too used to sitting at a computer these days. Unfortuately, use of the late night reading light demands I use that postition for optimal extension of the 'turn that freakin light off already' factor.
Beyond my list of grievences, I feel it was good to have my children witness me in full reading frenzy with an actual book. I read on my computer all the time, but I could just as well be surfing the web for all they know. They both remarked several times how much I must really like the book to be reading it so much. Darn right. Now go read one of your own!
There are very few books that allow me to lose myself in them without that infernal internal editing voice piping up every few paragraphs and my hand twitching to make notes. Perhaps spending so much of the last two years critiquing others hasn't been entirely a good thing. I'm happy to say, this was a most enjoyable read. As if you hadn't figured that out already.
I laughed. I cried. I cried several times to be honest. There is a lot of emotion packed into this story and all her others. The characters may change, and with the second trilogy, that was a little jarring, but with this, the third, knowing she will take good care of me as a reader, I'm much more accepting. I was not let down.
Unlike many authors of long series, she hasn't fallen into predictable or come to rely on a formula. As much as I might enjoy a two or three books by an author, if the one reads too much like the other, I'm done with it. Enjoyable as they might be, I'd rather read something new. With these, the adventure continues, swirling about the world in new places with new challenges. The only predicable thing I've come to find is that when a character says they are happy, they won't be by the next page. The good thing is I never know why until it happens.
My one regret with this novel is that I won't get it signed. When Naamah's Kiss was released, I had the pleasure of meeting Jacqueline Carey at a book signing (I got lucky with a book tour stop only five minutes away!). She was very kind... and patient with whom I discovered were several other fellow aspriring authors who also lingered in the seats lined up in front of her table. Between signings she answered all our questions, telling us of her practice novels, getting her first novel published and the best wisdom of all, "you'll never know if your novel will get published unless you start sending it out."
Having been stuck in an endless cycle of revision--as it seemed so was the rest of the endless question lobbing group--this was exactly what I needed to be smacked upside the head with.
Yes ma'am. I'm sending it out!
As it stands, Naamah's Curse is to blame for:
• My sunburned back--I was too busy reading and forgot to roll over when I was supposed to.
• Several hours of missed sleep
• My garage sale being delayed a day--I was too busy reading to get out to price and set things up yesterday.
• A bird almost hitting my daughter--I was attempting to be interactive while reading and so sat on a quite secluded bench on my desk which I infrequently use so I could 'watch' my daughter pick seeds from my prolific lilies to sell in the garage sale. A cardinal flew over the bush behind me and, finding me invading the bird feeder space, freaked out and flew off at top speed, missing my daughters face by a mere inch. At least she thought it was cool.
• A sore back. I discovered reading while laying on my stomach isn't as comfortable as I remember it being. I think I'm too used to sitting at a computer these days. Unfortuately, use of the late night reading light demands I use that postition for optimal extension of the 'turn that freakin light off already' factor.
Beyond my list of grievences, I feel it was good to have my children witness me in full reading frenzy with an actual book. I read on my computer all the time, but I could just as well be surfing the web for all they know. They both remarked several times how much I must really like the book to be reading it so much. Darn right. Now go read one of your own!
There are very few books that allow me to lose myself in them without that infernal internal editing voice piping up every few paragraphs and my hand twitching to make notes. Perhaps spending so much of the last two years critiquing others hasn't been entirely a good thing. I'm happy to say, this was a most enjoyable read. As if you hadn't figured that out already.
I laughed. I cried. I cried several times to be honest. There is a lot of emotion packed into this story and all her others. The characters may change, and with the second trilogy, that was a little jarring, but with this, the third, knowing she will take good care of me as a reader, I'm much more accepting. I was not let down.
Unlike many authors of long series, she hasn't fallen into predictable or come to rely on a formula. As much as I might enjoy a two or three books by an author, if the one reads too much like the other, I'm done with it. Enjoyable as they might be, I'd rather read something new. With these, the adventure continues, swirling about the world in new places with new challenges. The only predicable thing I've come to find is that when a character says they are happy, they won't be by the next page. The good thing is I never know why until it happens.
My one regret with this novel is that I won't get it signed. When Naamah's Kiss was released, I had the pleasure of meeting Jacqueline Carey at a book signing (I got lucky with a book tour stop only five minutes away!). She was very kind... and patient with whom I discovered were several other fellow aspriring authors who also lingered in the seats lined up in front of her table. Between signings she answered all our questions, telling us of her practice novels, getting her first novel published and the best wisdom of all, "you'll never know if your novel will get published unless you start sending it out."
Having been stuck in an endless cycle of revision--as it seemed so was the rest of the endless question lobbing group--this was exactly what I needed to be smacked upside the head with.
Yes ma'am. I'm sending it out!
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