The Crazy Cometh

From my yard: Sunbathing squirrel
"Nothing to see here. I'm just a shingle.
Move along."

"What is that tapping sound?" asks Ms. Wildstar.

Nekar cocks his head and listens. "I'd call it more of a banging."

Blue checks his shiny new translator and jabs a tentacle upward. "I'm getting a distinct Kablam Kablam Kablam."

"I'm pretty sure that's not a word," says Nekar.

"It might be. You don't know them all," says Ms. Wildstar.

"I've been keeping an inventory of everything that's fallen down here since I arrived. I've yet to see that one."

Blue rubs his bulbous head. "Please don't imply that this translator is also malfunctioning."

Ms. Wildstar gasps. "No. It can't be." She shrieks. "Oh great word processor save us! She's dancing with that nano zombie--remember that cute boy? Tyler, I think his name was. Didn't one of you take care of him, Nekar?"

"I thought we did."

Blue accesses his database unit. "Did you burn it? According to your all-knowing wiki-"

"We don't get access to wiki down here. That's for She Who Taps The Keys. But hey, what else does the all-knowing wiki say?"

"Nothing." Blue hides his database unit behind his back. "I must remember to keep my advanced knowledge from the locals. It causes nothing but problems. Rule one, Blue. Must remember these things." He slinks away.

Nekar watches Blue leave and scratches his chin. "What is going on on up there?"

"I think She Who Taps The Keys has lost her mind."

"Are those bruises on her forehead?"

Ms. Wildstar peers through a pair of binoculars. "It sure looks like it."

"Where the hell did you get those?"

"I uhh...found them." Ms. Wildstar darts into the mountains of crumpled paper.

"Will someone please tell me what is going on around here?" Nekar yells.

A post-it note flutters to the ground at his feet. June. Camp NaNo.

On your mark, get set, June!

Camp NaNo has arrived. I spent my first day working. Not even working on my computer where I could sneak in a lunch break of writing, but out doing vinyl installations. When I finally got back home after enough errands to make me dizzy, I still had to work until 10pm to catch up (sort of) from being out of the shop all day. So what do I do when I finally get time to write? Yeah, I create a regional camp logo because my work brain wouldn't shut off.

So what am I writing this month? Well, I fully admit I never intended to embark on a new novel. Instead, I plan on reaching my 50k by writing whatever project I'm working on that day. I know I can write a novel in a month. What I need to do is clean up some projects and finish them. So yes, I'm pretty much bending this challenge to my needs. I need to make time to write. That's the challenge.

First up is rewriting a couple opening chapters of Trust - the motivation hammer and the percolator aligned in a way that made the angels sing. Or maybe that was just my ears ringing... Either way, I've found a way to fix some issues I've been told where there and I knew were there, but I couldn't see around my baby to do what had to be done.

After Trust, the plan is to open the dusty file of Swan Queen and see if I can't find out where the hell that story was going. It needs the last third written and the rest needs revising. The poor novel is several years old and I don't know about you, but my writing style significantly changes over the years.

That should be enough to keep me busy for the month but if I hit a rough patch, the percolator is working on a short story set pre-A Broken Race, and I have a couple other short story starts from May and a failed YA short from two years ago that's been knocking at my creative doors with the invitation to get dark. I might have to RSVP to that.

May writing challenge summary

Blooming in my yard today: Sweet William 

So what did I get out of this crazy A Story A Day In May challenge? Aside from the stress of realizing there was no way in hell I could work long days AND come up with a story idea AND write it to completion every day, I managed to birth five short stories I'm pretty darn happy with, one so-so story and five starts that either I ran out of time to work on this month or didn't go anywhere. My percolator also got quite a workout.

Was it worth trying? Yes. I wrote more than I would have if I hadn't roped myself into participating because I felt I had to write because I said I would no matter how darn busy I was.

Would I do it again? Perhaps. But only if I went into it prepared with my own prompts/ideas for each day I planned to write (you don't have to write every day and I had at least intended to take Sundays off). The provided prompts didn't work for me / didn't inspire me / sounded like things I would normally avoid writing or complain about in a critique. I'd hoped to work with at least a couple of the provided prompts but not a single one lit a creative spark. Perhaps my spark is just fickle - it was certainly lacking in fuel even on a good day.

So what did I end up using for prompts?
Tickle and A Little Thing Like Death came from upcoming magazine prompts.
Sunset Cruise was inspired by my recent reading of Friedman's Fables.
Taking a Breather was inspired by a 100 word story I wrote a year ago. Though, it completely twisted from what I set out to write. I love when that happens.
Found came straight from the percolator. I sat down. Words came out. And as a bonus, they made sense! It's pretty awesome when that happens too.

Tune in during June to follow my trials and triumphs of participating in Camp NaNo. 

May Writing Challenge: Week 4

Before we get to the weekly update of shame, I'd like to take a moment to thank Ian over at Views From The Bald Patch for the Kreativ Blogger award. The discarded gang thanks you too (and Blue promises not to eat you).

According to the Kreativ Blogger rules, I need to:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated me for the award, and provide a link back to their blog.

2. List 7 things about myself that the readers might find interesting.

3. Tag 7 other bloggers, providing links to their blogs, and letting them know.

Seven things about me that you may find interesting:

1. My favorite flower is the Iris. They smell soooo good. Here are some of my favorites from my yard.

2. I got married in my garage. On Halloween. Our big costume party reception (also in the garage with a huge tent attached) was a riot. As a bonus, one forgets our anniversary.

3. My favorite hair color is blue. The problem is that it stains everything that it touches so I've not been blue for a while now. There's just to much cleaning involved after the dyeing takes place.

4. I can't watch other people brush their teeth. No sir. It grosses me out to no end. When there are teeth brushing scenes in movies or on tv, I'll look away until it's over. Like people who get all squeamish shots or gore, that's me with foaming toothpaste.

5. As a kid, I grew up processing deer. Hey, I live in Michigan. Deer season is holy around here. Not being a hunter, I took care of the other end - the skinning, sawing, cutting, grinding. I spent most of my elementary through high school years hoping that I'd washed all the blood off my hands and arms before I went to school. In fourth grade, I took a brain to school in a cool whip container for show and tell. No one would touch it. Wusses.

6. I have OCD-like issues with necklace clasps and tags. It gets worse when I'm drinking because that cancels out my introverted tendencies and propels me across the bar to fix any stranger's offending tag or clasp I spot. Not fixing it and knowing it's there makes me so damn uncomfortable and distracted that its just easier to go take care of it. However, after my friends caught on to my 'I'm just going to go talk to that person over there for a minute' issue, they started flipping their tags out and wearing their necklaces backwards just to bug me. Since then, I've gotten better about controlling my urges-mostly just to spite them.

7. My favorite color is grey. It used to be black but as I grew older, my favoritism faded. As a side note, spelling it gray drives me nuts. Yes, I know that's the proper way to spell it in the US, but I work with color all day and in everything I do, it's spelled grey, so darn it, that's how I spell it. Don't correct me.

Rather than specifically tagging people, I offer up a free invitation to my regular blog readers. Consider yourself tagged. No go forth and share seven interesting bits about yourself!

And now, onto the topic of shame:
A Story A Day In May update:


May 21: Didn't get any writing of note done at all.

May 22: Wavered on quitting this crazy challenge all together and worked on finishing up the first round of edits on A Broken Race. Damn that feels good to have it all sitting pretty on its second draft.

May 23: Ripped the lid off the percolator and pulled out a story idea from last week. Wrote and finished: Found - a 2,800 word short story about a little boy and hiding.

As much as I'm not fulfilling this challenge very well, I do love the feeling of writing a complete story and calling it done in a day--not counting percolating time, of course. At least I'm coming out of it with more written than I otherwise would have made time for during this insanely busy month.

May 27: Oh hey, surprise, thanks to working long hours, I haven't written anything in days. Unless an awesome idea hits me, I'm now going to devote my scattered energy and precious few minutes of writing time toward preparing for Camp NaNo which begins in four days.

May Writing Challenge - Week 3

A Story A Day In May update:
(a daily log of  victory and shame)

May 14: Took a break from writing today (or trying to write) and finally read Hunger Games. All of it. Today. Because that's how I read (devour) books. I was very disappointed in the ending. I hate 'buy the next book to continue the story' endings. A story should end, leaving me the choice to continue on with what happens next or not.

I don't usually read YA, but I'm percolating my June Camp NaNo project--which is to revise (and write in the last half and ending of) an attempt at a YA fantasy. I figured getting in the YA mode of thought might help get the ideas flowing. Overall, I liked Hunger Games. It was an easy, enjoyable read and had some touching moments. However, I kept waiting for something really drastic or unexpected to happen but it never did. Maybe this says something about me when twenty-two kids dying horrible deaths inflicted by one another just isn't drastic enough to wow me.

May 15: Yanked last week's failed story from the percolator. Got the first couple hundred words down and realized it still has no goal. It is slightly more funny though so hey, that's something. I shoved it back in the percolator. Worked on catching up on crits and revising A Broken Race instead.

May 16: Got a good idea for a story but beyond the opening line, didn't get time to write it down. Maybe tomorrow. On the other hand, I did get some more revisions of A Broken race completed.

May 17: Wrote opening scene for as of yet untitled story and have the rest all laid out in my head. I'm liking this one--it's inspired by a failed short I wrote during NaNo two years ago. Spent the rest of the day prepping for annual garage sale.

May 18: Ran annual garage sale singlehandedly AND worked then volunteered for four hours at night at school for PTO event. No writing.

May 19: Garage sale all day AGAIN and cleanup. Worked on the ending of story from the 17th in my head, though I didn't get a chance to write any more of it down on account of crashing, exhausted and with a migraine into bed at 8:30pm.

May 20: With the garage sale done I was really looking forward to a day of writing after my busy week. I curled up with my laptop, got yet another idea for a short that brought together several ideas I'd had floating around for quite some time and started writing. Damn that felt good! That is, until my husband reminded me that we had agreed to spend the day at our property picking up the thousands of sticks from over the winter. (insert excessive amounts of internal swearing.)

In summary: This week sucked for writing.