Scribery

Unintended SRS BIZNESS? Head For the Hills!

2012-01-28T21:29:00.000-06:00

So, since my last post, I've written... oh, bugger. Excuse me while I go write the last 59 words required to make it a round 3k.

*sounds of anal-retentive typing*

Ahem. So, since my last post, I've written exactly 3,013 words. This means, basically, that this last week has been my single most productive week since I graduated from high school, not including NaNo, and not including the Sekrit Santa short story that I totally didn't put off writing until the last minute so I totally don't know what you're talking about. >.<

Anyway, this is a supremely exciting thing for me. I love writing. It's been a long time since I could let myself love writing. I got some of that through NaNo and the short story, true, but it's been a long time since I've been able to write without feeling the pressure of holy-crap-I-have-no-idea-how-this-is-going-to-turn-out-it'll-never-be-publishable-holy-crap. Because, y'know, I'm one of those very foolish people who worry about publication before they've even gotten into the meat of a novel, much less finished one.

...wow. Confessing that actually makes me feel a little better.

I do give the self-righteous answers: I don't write with an eye towards publication, I write strictly for the joy of it! Half of that's true. I write for the joy of writing. Three guesses as to which part's false, and the first two don't count unless they involve cookies. (What? I like cookies.)

I'm going to be honest: my greatest goal in life is to make a living off of my writing. Improbable? Yes. Impossible until I actually start finishing things? Oh, heck yes. This is what contributes the most to my stress about writing, and possibly prevents me from investing in a project after I hit the first bump. I get a problem, freak out because this obviously means I'll never finish the plot in a thousand bajillion years, and then latch on to the first shiny new idea to cross my brain (average elapsed time: 3 seconds) in the hopes that this is the one, this is the project that will get me across that distant finish line and onto the road of editing that leads to the shiny city of publication in the distance (so my metaphors suck, what else is new?).

I can't imagine myself doing anything other than writing with my life, and not just because I love writing with all the passion of a thousand bajillion icy stars. No, it's also because I can't imagine myself being able to function in any other job. I can't function as an adult--this becomes painfully more clear with every day that passes here at college. I can barely handle doing my laundry; I can barely handle showering more than once a week; phoning anyone other than my mother, including close friends and siblings, freaks me out way too much to be healthy. Writing is the one thing I'm confident I can do. Or, I am when I'm looking at it objectively, which I don't do all that much.

So, every time I drop a project, another little part of me becomes convinced I'll never be able to make it in the world. I'll starve to death because I can't hold a job, because I can't handle people. Or something.

...I really think I had a point going into this, but it's gotten lost in the sea of angst. Urgh.

I guess what I'm saying is, this nice, consistent at-least-100-words-a-day (I'm finding somewhere around 350 has been my average so far) thing is really kind of helping me with the writing-related stress. I still have loads of it, but... some very small part of the confidence I once had that I could get published one day, that I might even--gasp!--be able to make a living off of the words I pull out of my head, is returning, or at least sending letters and sounding out the situation at home to decide if returning is really in its best interest. And, at this point in my life, when I'm this very close to getting my first real-person job and freaking out about time management and dealing with other people, that little bit of (potential) confidence is definitely making a difference. A small difference, but it's there, and I really appreciate it.

...okay, I swear this just started out as an update post, not a touchy-feely admitting-I-fail-at-being-a-real-person post.

And, like, what's with all the crappy metaphors?

Aaaand... Quick Update

2012-01-21T15:50:00.002-06:00

'Cause I know the whole Internet's just waiting with bated breath to hear the latest in my ongoing non-exploits. *crickets*

Ahem. Anyway.

Yesterday, I wrote 154 words. All world-building. None horrible, none too great. Some which can't possibly be correct because of certain world-building details, but I honestly haven't done any in-advance world-building on this project yet so that and more is kind of to be expected.

Bottom line, I got the first (non-badly-written in Japanese) words on this or any project for the first time since the twentieth of December, and I'm feeling pretty good about it. I love writing. I'm just also absolutely freaking terrified of it. Why? No idea. Maybe the act of writing itself worries me--I do tend to get pretty wrung-out, emotionally, just from writing, even the not-tense-at-all scenes. Maybe I'm scared of failure. I mean, failure's scary. I know I'm scared of commitment, and I believe I may have a problem with getting close to my characters--emotional intimacy issues rearing their ugly heads. Again.

And, there's this fancy little thing called Club 100. I don't know much about it beyond what I've read on AW, though what I do know involves writing 100 words a day, every day. I think that's a good philosophy to adopt. So, I'm going to try that. How well will that work out? We'll see, but I'm hoping I can achieve some sort of consistency with this. Maybe. I'd love to be able to say I'm a consistent writer, and not claim to be a writer and then have to admit the sight of a blank page scares me so much I don't actually write anything.

Sometime soon I want to investigate the actual "rules" of this Club 100, but for now I'm just settling for my own personal goal of 100 words before I can sleep at night. Period. Sheesh, at this point I'd even settle just for typing out the numbers one to one hundred... okay, maybe not that desperate for wordage, but I'm definitely getting there.

I wonder if there's any irony in the fact I can blather on and on and on in a casual email or a blog post, and yet I can barely manage to write, and when I do, it's all minimalist description. (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes I worry about my average exposition-to-dialogue ratio...)

よっしゃ！がんばるぞ！(Translation: Bravado, I Haz Eet)

2012-01-11T21:57:00.000-06:00

Yo, people!

...

...

...

Yeah, remember when I said I'd either finish November with 50,000 words or die trying? Well, apparently, I'm writing this from beyond the grave. (World's first ghostly blogger? Is there an award for that? 'Cause that would be AWESOME.)

Anyway. I want to say I have new resolve, y'know, new year and all that, but... quite frankly, I'm the same old me, with the same old bad habits. Which probably will result in the same old lame writing productivity.

That doesn't mean, though, that I'm giving up. I'm still alive, still stubbornly insisting I'll be a real, professional writer someday, and most importantly, I'm still insane. So--I'm going to give it my all again, this year. Even though my "all" isn't all that different from my "this looks like half-baked but I assure you I tried".

Ay, me.

You Know You're Excited for NaNo...

2011-10-15T21:56:00.000-05:00

...when you dream about it and you're only halfway through October.

Last night, I dreamt of NaNoWriMo. Also, random family feuds and demonic butlers. But the important thing about all that is NaNo.

I am the most psyched for NaNo this year that I've ever been for any NaNo ever. Including my first one. (Incidentally, I totally don't remember my first NaNo--not what I wrote for it, not how far I got, and not even what year it was. But I'm pretty sure I wasn't this excited.)

I have a story I love. I have a ton of elements in this story. I even have a subplot! (Sort of. Maybe. Kind of. Okay, maybe not. Kind of hard to tell at this point.)

I'd originally vowed not to think about this story at all until November, in the hope that I'd be able to keep up my enthusiasm without overthinking things. Well, that didn't exactly work out. But now I'm more psyched than ever. And I freaking want NaNo to start NOW. I just want to write.

Of course, having another half a month to do some nice planning and research, that's pretty nice.

But I still wish I could start writing now.

NaNo. O. Mi. Gosh. Louise.

2011-10-14T19:28:00.000-05:00

I've been hanging out on the NaNo forums, and for some reason this has made me absolutely positive that November is, like, two days away. Oh, do I wish...

At this point, I just want November to be here.

And then I remember I have a short story to write for a Christmastime Sekrit Santa exchange of stories for AW. And I technically have research and a little bit of plotting to do before November rolls around. And then I hope November never comes. And then I hate calculus, just for a change of pace. (I could write a whole blog post on why I hate, hate, HATE the calculus at my college. But I digress.)

Did I ever mention I'm in college now? 'Cause I am. And it's AWESOME. ('Cept when it's not. Like during calculus class. But I digress... 'cause I do that a lot.)

Anyway, for those of you not (yet?) caught up in the insanity of NaNo... November is National Novel Writing Month, and during November, a ton of people try to write 50,000 words of novel in 30 days. (This amounts to approximately 1,667 words per day.) Cue loss of sanity.

I've participated, um, I think four or five times. Technically. Twice, I got past 3,000 words. Two years ago, I got to almost 30,000 words. Last year, I got to about 15,000 words (I blame senioritis).

This year, though? This year... I have two options.

One: I will win. I will get to 50,000. I might even finish the story. I might even get over 50,000 words. Like, y'know, 50,001.

Two: I will die.

No, really. By December 1st, I will have 50,000 words of first draft... or I will be dead. Which means I will have 50,000 words, because dying would just be unfair to my roommate. (Seriously, you think anyone would believe I died of novel failure? No. Which logically means people will assume I was murdered. By my roommate. Because logic is totally my strong suit. Ahem.)

I have four characters. Three of them are named. I have... some scenes. I have a source of conflict, assuming I can figure out who the antagonist is.

Now, what I need: an idea of how the magic works, because that's kind of important. Possibly the main character's "special ability" thing will change. Which could be an issue, but maybe not.

Oh, boy. I don't even really have a plot and I already have plot holes. Where's my muse trap...?

Also, fair warning: I may attempt (key word: "may") to use NaNo as an excuse to post... stuff. Often. With little to no relevance to life. Like word counts. Or complaints about word counts. Or even... word count angst. (I apologize in advance.)

Alternately, I will completely forget the blog again. Because I tend to do that. So... yeah.

No, seriously, anyone seen my muse trap?

Self-Publishing. Also, I'm a Liar.

2011-07-12T15:07:00.001-05:00

Self-publishing vs. traditional publishing. It's a time-honored debate in the writing industry. It's not one I should be worrying about, considering I haven't really written anything yet. But I'm not so good with the concept of, like, "logic."

I will never self-publish. Not for some silly reason having to do with some industry bias against people who self-publish--it's because I wouldn't want to spend time trying to design an epic cover, or copyediting, or typesetting, or making sure the margins are the right size, or all those other technical things, when I could be writing. Or REVISING. And REVISING. And... oh, yeah. REVISING.

Also, my self-promotional/marketing skills are, I'm pretty sure, nil. So that would be a bit of an issue. Also, self-publishing is very much a business, and I'm sure my business-management skillz are pretty much right in the "nil" category with my self-promo skills.

But mostly the cover thing. Srsly. (Not a typo. I mean, not not on purpose. That's also not a typo.)

This post was a lot funnier in my head.

I apparently lied. I DO have access to a scanner. Well, okay, I didn't lie--MY printer/scanner/copier/wondermachine is packed away. However, we apparently have not one but two scanners functioning downstairs. So, I present to you: pictures of jewelry. That have nothing to do with writing. YAY!


Matching necklace/earring set. First thing I've made to include beads with matte finish, incidentally. ...Actually, I don't know why I just wrote "incidentally." I do not believe there was reasonable cause to write "incidentally." Y'know what? It's my caption. I don't care. I'll write "incidentally" if I want to, dangit!

Tie pin. No, really. I promise that's what this is.

[Okay, yeah, these pictures aren't much better than what I got from my camera, but they're the best I could do, and I want to INDULGE, dangit!]

Oh, and as a side note--I'm thinking of ditching the 2,321 words I've written so far and rewriting from the beginning now that I have a slightly clearer sense of what's happening in the story. Which is totally not related to the supposed subject of this post at all, but whatever. I made pretty jewelry, so I laugh at logic.

Logic? HA! HA! HA! HAHAHAHA!

Ahem.

On Chain Maille... and Life.

2011-07-11T16:55:00.001-05:00

I'm back. Again. Because I seriously don't know when to call a blog truly "dead."

Oh, well.

This week, I wrote 2,321 words. Yayness! This is not a great wordcount for a whole week, but considering I really only wrote two days (Thursday and Saturday), I call that good. Also, I haven't written even a thousand words since school let out and I graduated (SQUEE!) back at the end of May, so I've kind of gotten out of practice.

Also, my camera really sucks at taking pictures of jewelry. I'd thought to post some pics of the necklace/earring set and tie pin I made for some family friends, just to have pictures and also to totally showcase my amateur jewelry-making skillz, but my camera really, really doesn't like to take non-blurry pictures of things. Also, the jewelry is too small. I've heard scanning jewelry can make for some awesome-quality pictures, but my printer/scanner/copier/machineofAWESOME is currently packed. Bugger.

Also, Half Persian 3-1 chain maille weave, I loathe you with all the passion of ten fiery, burning stars. Stupid weave. Why won't the stupid jump rings line up right??? Gaaarh.

Also, Scherzo chain maille weave, I love you with all the passion of ten fiery, burning stars, but why oh why won't you work with 6mm and 4mm jump rings from Hobby Lobby? Why? What did I ever do to you?? *cries*

Also, Hobby Lobby, why are you so bloody expensive?

Why, yes, I am kind of a beading/chain mailling nerd wannabe. Why do you ask?

And, in other news... PENGUINS.

Also, "chain maille" is totally not a typo.

That is all.

Fruit Can Totally Mummify. For Reals.

2011-03-16T19:10:00.002-05:00

I found a mummified kiwi yesterday noon-ish.

I am totally not making this up. Also, I have pictographic evidence. Photographic. Eh, "pictographic" sounds cooler, and also it is apparently a word because Firefox didn't give me the angry red line, even though it totally gave me the angry red line for "didn't" before I added the T even though "didn't" is totally a word.

Ahem. Pictorial evidence. (Apparently, that is also a word. Actually, I think I already knew that...)

Mummified Kiwi, FTW

Also, FTW is not a word. But I really hope everyone knew that already.

No, I did not just get on to post pictures and no story. So, here is the ~~pathetic excuse for a~~ story that goes along with the delightful mummified kiwi.

I was hanging out in the front yard, putting off working on my novel (which reminds me I need to update the word counter), and basically digging around in the dirt because our front yard has awesome stuff like abandoned snail shells and pieces of glass and also a giant bolt that I think came out of the push-mower we borrowed from some people last summer. Anyway, I came upon this... thing. I had no freaking clue what it was. I didn't want to touch it, either. But I wanted to know what it was 'cause I'm morbidly curious like that. So I poked it with a stick.

...yes. That is the normal response. Don't know what a strange object in the lawn is? Poke it with a stick! That answers all of life's questions!

Except this one. The stick broke, because we're still technically in winter and it snowed a few days ago so the stupid stick was wet and dead and just generally fragile. Still afraid to touch it, I lifted it with two sticks and brought it over near a rock I had stuck in the ground a few minutes prior. Don't judge me.

The dirt was, unfortunately, the only surface within reach of that rock, and each time I tried to poke the thing, it just got more dirt on it. So, I re-relocated it, this time to a larger rock on the lawn.

At this point, I decided trying to break open a strange organic object whose outer covering resembled leather with a rock and a stick simply wasn't going to cut it. Thus, I touched it. With my actual hands. Not, like, fake hands; unfortunately, I do not have a pair of fake hands. I would love some, assuming they didn't replace my real hands, not least because I enjoy discovering stuff in the dirt and some of that stuff is just too gross to touch with real hands.

I digress.

I still could not figure out what it was, so I continued my attempts to open it, since at this time I'd decided it would be better to dissect it than just to poke it with a rock. I peeled it, hoping the leathery outer layer would just be, say, layers of rotten plaster-cloth-stuff and eventually I would get to the center. Well, no such luck. Then I thought, what if it's an animal or bug of some sort, and I get it open and touch bug ichor? That thought disgusted me enough that I went back to the rock.

(If I thought it really *was* an animal, or a living thing in general, I would not have continued my attempts to open it. However, if it had been alive, it was dead by this point, and also I was pretty sure I'd seen this thing before last summer, so it was safe to assume it was very, very dead, or a plant.)

Long story short--well, actually, no, 'cause really this took two seconds or so--the thing opened, spewing forth the most marvelously disgusting green ichor. (I love that word. Firefox has decided it's not a word when followed by a period. However, the first time I typed it, followed by a question mark, Firefox failed to point it out with its red squiggly line of FAIL. Now it underlines it whether it's followed by a question mark or not. Way to exhibit selective spelling racism, Firefox!)

In the end, I decided it was a mummified kiwi. This is the only conclusion that makes sense. Why? The thing is the approximate size of a kiwi, and its innards were green. That is hard-boiled PROOF, peeps!

Anyway, I will post a picture of this marvelously disgusting goop, because I feel like people today haven't been scarred enough by life yet. You're welcome.

I just realized you can't really see the goop, because it totally looks like part of the rock. Oh, well.

And yes, I was being sarcastic.

Update: Even though I actually wrote in the post that I needed to update the word counter... I forgot. Bad Lilli. I'll go do that now.

I'm Insane. I Have Proof.

2011-03-11T20:52:00.000-06:00

I’m reviving the blog again.

You know the definition of insanity? Doing something over and over again, expecting different results? This describes me and blogging. I am insane. When it comes to blogs. What is that, blog-sane? Wait, that sounds like the opposite. Bligsane?

…ahem. Right. Let’s not even dignify that one with a comment.

So, me and my lovely ramblings are back, and we’re here to stay. At least, we’re staying until I latch on to some other shiny new project idea. Or until AP homework finally manages to crush me to death under the sheer weight of paper.

That latter option? More likely.

And we are totally going to start posting pictures. Because statistics say that helps blogs. No, I don’t remember where I read that. Yes, there is the possibility I pulled those stats from behind my ears just now. No, I don’t particularly care how authentic they are.

Picture time!!

Flower Arch of DOOM

Wow. I just realized I suck at photographing stuff. My self-esteem totally just took a hit.

A Writerly Survey

2010-09-05T22:31:00.000-05:00

I found this survey from Creative A over at *Headdesk* ages and ages ago, and it was so interesting and writerly that I figured I'd try it out. (About time it got posted, too; this thing's been burning a hole in my post list for the longest time. Lots of answers to change.)

1) What’s the last thing you wrote? What’s the first thing you wrote that you still have?

The last thing I wrote would be... well... I wouldn't call it necessarily a short story, but at the same time, it kinda is... see, it's a letter, but there's kind of a story between the lines. Hard to explain, really, and it's something that is definitely drafty, but I think I'll end up fixing it up for... something. The only good thing I've gotten from my "honors" language arts program in two years, actually--it's from a class prompt.
The first thing I wrote that *I* still have is my crappy 20-something-k novella. It's technically an accomplishment, because I finished it. But at the same time, it sucks. Now, my mom probably has my handwriting practice sheets from kindergarten somewhere. If I toss a story, she saves it... that's kind of how things work at my house.

2) Write poetry?

Only for a class, and then very reluctantly. I don't like poetry. I don't like rhymes, and my free verse pretty much sucks. The poems I like invariably end up classified as "suckish" by anyone I show them to. I don't mind so much, though; I prefer prose.

3) Angsty poetry?

Nope. Well, I don't think so. Maybe sometimes if the assignment was a sad topic. But I'm not one to write about my personal life, and I like to think I don't angst too much about things other than myself. Although, some of my earlier prose writing is packed with layer upon layer of melodrama, which may conceal angst.

I mean, I'm sure I've written angst before, but I'm not exactly sure how to identify my own writing as such.

4) Favorite genre of writing?

Fantasy. I love to worldbuild and I love magic and supernatural things. About 95% of my stories are fantasy, 2.5% are science fiction, and the rest is what I term "realistic fiction," by which I mean it takes place on Earth with no paranormal elements.

5) Most annoying character you’ve ever created?

On the page, I'd have to say The Summoner, a lady who never summoned anything, talked in a weird accent, and never actually moved the plot forward. She's annoying because she's flat and crappily drawn, which bugs me. (She also inhabits that crappy novella of mine...)

Off the page, I've got two. They're twins, fraternal, brother and sister, and they never go away. I've pretty much decided I'll never be able to write their story because I don't know what it is. They just pop up everywhere. They've been in so many plots it's not funny. And they never rest. It's like it's their life's goal to force me to write nothing but the crap they shove down my throat for the rest of my life.

6) Best plot you’ve ever created?

I don't create plots. Plots require endings. ...well... Actually, I had this really complicated plot once for a book called THE RISE OF THE PHOENIX, which I'm semi-proud of because it was so complicated and yet I planned it from beginning to end. I never did write it, though. (And never will, because I was, like, nine at the time, and it sucks.)

I've never really plotted anything I liked, to be honest. The one time I wrote with a full outline, the stupid thing morphed beyond recognition within 2k.
7) Coolest plot twist you’ve ever created?

Eh... heh... I hardly ever get far enough to make the twists plot. I mean the plots twist. I guess I'd say the one in FOUR VISIONS where one of the four "victims" of this one thing turns out to be working with the runners of the thing.

Ah! Hah! Look at the vague!

8 ) How often do you get writer’s block?

I no longer believe in writer's block. I have issues from time to time as far as starting things goes. Sometimes I don't know what's going to happen next, but even those don't develop into full-fledged blocks. I can spend up to an hour and a half trying to start a writing session, though, during which time I may try out a good three dozen versions of a sentence or paragraph.

But I don't believe in writer's block. It's possible to break a block by forcing yourself to write, even if you'll have to edit the crap out of it later. (This is DESPITE what the *cough*slackers*cough* in my creative writing class claim.)

9) Write fan fiction?

Used to. I started out writing original stuff, switched to fan fiction for awhile, then switched back to my own stuff. I still fantasize about fan fiction if my own stuff is going really badly, but I haven't written any for a good five, six years.

Funnily enough, I never really wrote fanfics about books. It was always focused around video games. Huh. I wonder what that says about me...

10) Do you type or write by hand?

I write longhand if I can't get to a computer, but I still firmly believe that my best stuff comes from the keyboard. I type a lot faster than I write longhand, and I usually feel freer to make little experimental side-trips when I type because I don't feel like I run the danger of forgetting what's supposed to happen in the end.

11) Do you save everything you write?

Yes. Occasionally I toss something, but for the most part it all gets saved somewhere. I have yet to lose something due to computer crashes, though, which is really just dumb luck. I came (-) this close to losing a 30k draft due to file corruption, but I still have the draft because I just so happened to print the thing right before it corrupted. Dumb luck, indeed.

12) Do you ever go back to an idea after you’ve abandoned it?

Absolutely. I jump from project to project, and old projects come back as often as new ones come in. It's rather annoying, actually.

The most memorable project, I think, came from a WIP I can't think of a suitable title for. Let's call it NORTHERN for now. I'd completely forgotten about it. One day I was daydreaming some scene about a guy about to be killed when this little girl runs in and gives herself up to save his life. Much to my surprise, when the guy yelled at her to stop (like it would make any difference at that point), the name he called her was the name of the female MC in NORTHERN. Of course, everything had changed in the story, but it was essentially the same project.

13) What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?

Ah, right now I think it's that opening scene from THIRTEENTH HELL. I really love Jaina, the main character. She has a sense of humor that I really enjoy, though it's not over-the-top. Rather, it's a bit dry at times. But she calls the guy who kidnaps her "Muffin." I still crack up over that, even though it's a bit... well... meh.

14) What’s everyone else’s favorite story you’ve written?

Um, that would have to be my failed NaNo from 2009, I think, for the sole reason that it's pretty much the only thing I've shown to anyone else over the last year or two, where I think my writing has improved the most. (That would be the 30k lost to corruption, for what it's worth.)

15) Ever written romance or angsty teen drama?

No. I hate romance, and I get enough of the angsty teen drama in my life (I'm currently a teen, and all my friends are teens, and the people at my school are so loud one can't help but hear everyone else's angst in the halls and things) that I don't want to write it. That's not to say I never write angst, but it's not of the "my life sucks so much everyone hates me no one understands me" variety. (I get enough of that in my head and at school, thanks much.)

16) What’s your favorite setting for your characters?

Wild areas, definitely. I don't get to write those sorts of places much, though, because I rarely get to scenes in stories and such that take place outside of a settled area. Also, I'm sure I don't do such places justice when I do write about them.

17) How many writing projects are you working on right now?

I'm working very hard to ignore my lovely SNI (Shiny New Idea) and focus on my pretty-well-but-not-quite-completely-developed SEVENTH MAGIC project, but I'm failing. I'm trying not to get sucked into working on two projects at once, but... at the same time, I think it might be an interesting exercise to try out.

18) Have you ever won an award for your writing?

Nope. I've been nominated for a school-related writing award, but those results won't come until this September or so.

19) What are your five favorite words?

Baleful, obfuscate, fate*, moor, echolocation.

*This is strictly due to sound. I despise fate in real life and literature. Too often, people take it as an excuse for just sitting back and doing nothing and letting stuff happen to them because "it's FATE this has to turn out this way." Ugh. Cry me a bloody angsty river already.

20) What character have you created that is most like yourself?

Rachael, I think, from FOUR VISIONS. I didn't realize how much she acted like me (or, at least, the parts of me that I consciously recognize) until someone mentioned that she seemed a lot like me. I definitely wasn't going for that, though, and that aspect of the character really bugs me.

21) Where do you get your ideas for your characters?

They appear, usually with a name, with a personality fully formed. I rarely have to try to explore my characters. The problems with characters that I run into stem from the fact that their dimensions don't always translate properly onto the page.

22) Do you ever write based on your dreams?

Yes. Almost always. Most of my favorite stories came from dreams. DREAMERS did, and NORTHERN, and TIMELINE*, and a good many others that haven't gotten titles or anything yet.

*I actually don't remember what this project is. This answer has been preserved from when I first wrote this post manymany months ago. Go figure.

23) Do you favor happy endings?

I wouldn't know. I never get to the end. Usually, the stuff I finish ends well for the "good guys." I don't think I've ever written anything that ends badly for the protagonist(s).

Oh. Well. Maybe I have. A short story ends with the death of the POV character. But I don't really think of either character from that particular story to be any sort of "good guy" or "protagonist" because, well, they're both vampires. And I hate vampires. But they demanded I write their story, so... ugh.

24) Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?

Not consciously. I'm one of those freaks who can pound out perfect spelling and grammar without thinking about it. I catch almost every typo. This doesn't really affect my writing speed. I like it, because editing for grammar drives me nuts. I have friends who think I'm obligated to check their grammar, and friends who give me stuff and ask me to check grammar, and while I don't mind helping friends out, grammar checking is tedious and thankless and no one seems to implement even half of what I correct anyway. It'd be doubly annoying if I had to do it on my own stuff.

25) Does music help you write?

Yes. Until recently, I couldn't write while listening to music with lyrics, but now I can listen to any song and still be able to write. The problem with lyric music now is that sometimes I'd rather sing than write, and it sort of tends to show.

Oh, but an exception to the past lyric music rule: about three years ago, I think, I got the idea for SEVENTH MAGIC* and the soundtrack for Wicked within the same week, and proceeded to listen to Wicked while writing SEVENTH MAGIC, especially the song "No Good Deed." Now, I can't listen to a song from Wicked without feeling a certain measure of guilt for not yet having finished SEVENTH MAGIC. Sheesh. How many times can I plug in my own book's title?

*The very first idea, which bears only a vague resemblance to the current incarnation.

26) Quote something you’ve written. Whatever pops in your head.

I've got several I can think of. Here goes.

1. He was... cute, I guess, but not the kind girls go all giggly over.

2. Death hurts. A lot. I should know--I've done it three times. Died, I mean.

3. I picked the legwarmer up with metal tongs, because there was no way I wanted to touch a possessed object with my bare hands.

4. Biker-looking guy. Pink, green polka-dotted, possessed legwarmer. A toy poodle named Blitzkrieg. Yes, this was going to be one of "those" cases.

It's Just a Question of Clarity!

2010-09-03T20:22:00.000-05:00

Clarity--or, rather, the lack thereof--really bugs me.

Now, since this is a writing blog, I will briefly assert that this post was inspired by writing.

And now, since I try to be more honest than that, I will admit that it was actually inspired by romanized Japanese. Oh, but, hey! That is, technically, writing, as it is, technically, written down, right? Right??

Clarity is something that some pieces of writing lack, to great effect. Other pieces lack the same, to a less-than-stellar effect. I'd like to wax philosophical on this, but the fact is, clarity is something I don't really get. I think that, for writers, clarity is something you can really only monitor and adjust the levels of through an outside reader's eyes. After all, as the writer, you know--or should know--the basics of everything you put on the page. Armed with that knowledge, the writer cannot always see--in fact, hardly ever sees--places where the clarity is lacking.

So, the moral of that is: beta/outside readers are ABSOLUTEly essential to understandable WRITE-ing.

No. No subliminal messages in this post. What, what, you think I'm that clever? (You could, of course, answer this in the affirmative. I won't complain!)

Just a small, token rant on what inspired this post: romanized Japanese.

First off, why wouldn't you at least learn the phonetic alphabet, if you wanted to learn Japanese? This makes no sense to me. It's like... like... eating cake intravenously. I mean, what's the point? How much of the culture can you really absorb, if you won't even learn the writing? Even the most reluctant, hard-headed, stubborn idiots in my first-level Japanese class picked up on the phonetic writing system in, like, a month, so any normal person should be able to do the same.

Second, if you are going to romanize any writing you do, why not do so in such a way that people reading can use to, say, learn the proper spelling of the words you use? Granted, this is only problematic when you consider elongated "o"s and "tsu" with a dakuten, but...

Well, I suppose, if you're not trying to teach a part of the language to people, it doesn't really matter what romanization system you use, but...

See, there are two ways to elongate the "o" sound: using the character represented by "u," and using the character represented by "o." Sometimes, the word can be completely changed by switching the elongation method. But, there are two ways I've seen to romanize Japanese words that do not allow a person to be sure of which way it goes.

Example One: one system indicates elongation by putting a line over the "o" (I have no idea how to write this on Blogger, or I'd put a better rendering).

Example Two: one system indicates elongation by putting an "oo", with no distinction between the "u" and the "o" method of elongation.

In both cases, a student of Japanese wishing to know how to render the word in kana can, at most, be reasonably sure of the elongation method.

For the "tsu" with a dakuten, the sound is pretty much always represented as "zu," which is identical to the representation for a completely different character.

Right. See what I mean about clarity?

...this has been a rant by example.

...Did What Now??

2010-08-30T17:53:00.000-05:00

Picture this: You just watched a teacher you really, really dislike transform into a cobra the size of an apartment building. It is now trying to eat you. So, you turn on your heels and run. So far, natural response, right?

Now, your phone rings.

Do you: A) keep running; B) chuck the phone at the snake, hoping it'll decide it likes phone innards better than people guts; or C) answer the phone?

Well, if you tend towards the saner, smarter end of humanity, you probably picked either A or B. Only an idiot would pick C, right? I mean, avoiding the giant snake-monster would probably take precedence over answering the cell.

Apparently not everyone thinks so, because the character in the show I just ever-so-subtly described answered the probably non-lethal phone.

At this point, I totally missed everything the person on the other line said, because in my head I was going, "What the blazingflyingdefecating flying trout is this?" This thought took pretty much the entire phone conversation to complete, because, being opposed to cussing on general principle, I can't just think "What the ****?" and be done with it.

Who in their right minds takes the phone over avoiding death by cobra stomach acid?

This sort of idiocy jars me out of the story, whether it be a movie, TV show, or book. Well, I have yet to see something on such a giant-snake scale in a book, but I imagine an occurence like that would cause me to hurl the offending book against the wall, or the ceiling, thus ruining the popcorn stuff and sending asbestos raining down on my head, which would not be a good thing. (But again I digress. Ooh! Bug!)

How does everyone else react to illogical character reactions? Does it result in a blank screen or a dented wall? Or are you more forgiving than I am?

Or, in this phone-centric age, would it actually be more natural to pick the phone over the snake? Honestly, I'm not entirely sure I'd be surprised if this were the case.

Culture Shock

2010-08-10T22:32:00.000-05:00

I've been in Oregon the last ten days or so, visiting my dad and his side of the family, and it's been quite an... interesting experience.

My family is the one poor family in two generations of hard workers and extremely wealthy, successful people on my dad's side. (This has a lot to do with the state of my dad's work ethic, but that's not the point here.) So I've grown up with the mindset that money is something to be put towards bills and food.

So I come to Oregon, and suddenly I'm thrust into this "culture" where people commonly spend upwards of $30 on a meal for two people.

My grandpa's a retired doctor. I have no clue what my aunts and uncles do, but they're all just as well off as my grandpa is, at least compared to my own family's financial state. Also, they're all very close. My cousins are real buddy-buddy with each other. (Not with me--my family has never been close to my extended family on my dad's side, mostly because of horror stories he's apparently told about my mother, none of which are true.)

I have never felt so uncomfortable.

These people have no problem spending money. Save three cents a gallon on gas if you've got a Safeway card? Oh, no, that's fine, it's just three cents. Leave a $20 tip? No problem. Spend over $100 on books in one day (something I have always wanted to do)? Pocket change.

This whole mindset of "price doesn't matter" is so completely alien to me. When I go to restaurants, particularly if someone else is paying, I get the cheapest thing possible. Here, the restaurants we've gone to, the cheapest thing is $14. This actually causes me physical discomfort. (Really, it does. I swear.)

And this has made me realize why I hate politics. Politics is the rich man's pasttime, in my world. People who don't make enough money to pay mortgage on a regular basis quite frankly don't have the time to listen to all the mudslinging people do in Washington that passes as political talk. Politics make people unpleasant and argumentative. There are a grand total of three people in my dad's side of the family who don't give a crap about politics, and they are me, my mom, and my sister. (Used to be my brother, too, but he's been corrupted recently.)

Right. I realize this is somewhat ranty, but I can connect this to writing! Really!

I will probably never be able to write well in the point of view of someone who doesn't care that they're paying $14 for chicken and dumplings. The whole idea of that rich-guy mindset is just so alien to me that I'd feel like a complete poser if I tried to capture that worldview through writing.

Anyone else feel that way about certain mindsets? Or am I just a freak? (Both options are equally possible, I assure you...)

Nothing's As Expected, Apparently

2010-08-09T20:15:00.000-05:00

Today, I officially finished my evil, evil Frankenstein essays. They are DONE. And the last one, I'm pretty sure, is going to get a big, fat F.

This is not me bemoaning my perceived lack of writing talent. (Well, actually, that's part of it, but we'll just pretend that's not the case for the sake of argument.) This is me realizing that the theme I argued in that essay is probably not an "accepted AP answer."

Let me share an anecdote. I'm sure it's not angsty or anything...

Ahem.

Third quarter, last year, we had a block period in English class to read a really interesting article by Annie Dillard and write an analytic essay response to it. I enjoyed the essay. It was about babies.

Ha! Despite the fact that my Google-fu sucks, after twenty minutes of fruitless searching, I finally remember a name from the text, and I have it: it appears to be an excerpt from Dillard's book For the Time Being, and was (as far as I recall/was able to Google-find) used at some point in an AP English test.

Anyway, to make things short, the excerpt is in the viewpoint of someone who is certainly not a nurse. This person describes a part of some obstetrics ward like a kind of assembly line, and just basically treats the whole thing like some giant baby factory.

The accepted AP answer for this is: nurses are disillusioned about babies. Without this, one cannot hope to get more than, like, a 3 on this essay, because if you don't get exactly this answer, you have gotten the wrong answer.

My answer? The narrator is disillusioned about babies. Why? Because all the imagery that is supposed to make us think nurses don't like babies after being around them so much is in the narrator's point of view. Thus, the narrator's view of the world colors the text, not a nurse's. (It is made very clear in several places that the narrator is not a nurse.)

I know that I got my answer partly because I view literature through the lens of a writer. And I was "wrong," because I got the "wrong" answer, because I do not get the right AP answers. I get the answers I think make more sense in the context of the fiction-y things that are happening in the text. Like the little issue of who's actually got the point of view.

But, had I written that in a proper AP exam, I would not have scored well.

Does this strike anyone else as, like, wrong?? English is all about analyzing stuff. How does a person analyze something incorrectly? Analysis is, practically by definition, individual to each person, with infinite variations colored by each person's life experiences. So how can you say that a person's analysis is "wrong"?

I encounter this in the whole AP English curriculum quite often. It gets me quite annoyed. But of course the English teachers think it's perfectly natural.

So, really, does anyone else feel this way, or is my whole view of analysis completely "wrong"? I'd hate to labor under the delusion that I'm in any way correct, or anything...

Not As Evil As All That, Really

2010-08-06T22:24:00.001-05:00

I'd intended to post my backlogged rant on clarity today, but something happened that I have to comment on.

I have, officially, found a book I hate on principle more than Twilight.

(Gasp! Impossible! Surely you jest!)

No. It's true.

The book?

Frankenstein.

And not entirely (but, admittedly, partly) because I had to read it for school.

Modern interpretations of Frankenstein's monster, I think, tend to portray him as an unintelligent beast who can do naught but murder. (At least, that's my experience, although sometimes this is a bit skewed for comedic purposes.) I feel that such portrayals do the poor thing a great disservice.

For one, he taught himself to talk, and read, without any healthy human interaction.

This book sickens and disgusts me for one very powerful (in my mind) reason: the absolute bigotry.

People judge this poor monster because of his looks. Frankenstein himself, upon seeing the monster (he never even gets a name!) is sickened by the guy's ugliness. It's his own fault for making the poor creature all out-of-proper-human-proportion and ugly. It's not like the monster had any say in the matter.

Further, everyone treats him like a monster because of his looks. The one person who shows him kindness is the old blind man, and this because he is, indeed, blind. Frankenstein's creation is a very articulate, intelligent, kind person while talking with this man, which shows the potential he has in the world, if only people would ignore his ugly outer shell.

The worst part, of course, is that this view is presented as "good." Walton, who opens and closes the story through his letters to his sister, is enchanted by Frankenstein, describing him in terms that nowadays would have earned him the label "homosexual," and completely shares his view that the creature is a monster.

And then, the monster is remorseful that he caused his creator such suffering. And Walton still views him as a monster.

The monster should feel terrible remorse over killing people, and feel compassion for the suffering he inflicted on Frankenstein, but he treats Frankenstein like some martyr. The guy caused his own troubles by rejecting completely what he, in his pride and stupidity, created in the first place. The monster has no reason to revere Frankenstein, or call him--and I quote--"the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men."

This whole thing makes me realize why I hate classics so much--they're filled with bigotry. I know that was simply the mindset of the times, but I simply can't stand books filled with misogyny and xenophobia when those things are presented as right and proper.

Ahem. And this concludes my indignant tirade against all things classic, but especially Frankenstein.

And, to you, Mr. Frankenstein: You are a poopy-face.

Goals. Goals? What Goals?

2010-08-05T20:45:00.000-05:00

Arrgh!

This is me in panic mode. Because I have only--

Wait, why is my computer clock stuck in February 2006?

Ahem. Sorry for the derail. Went to my handy calendar to check the date, and my computer is apparently not just a good twelve hours behind; it's a whole four years, six months, eight days, and twelve hours behind.

Not sure how that happened.

Ahem. Back to your regularly scheduled panicking.

I am panicking because I have only thirteen days left until school starts, and less than a week before my out-of-state vacation ends, and I reallyreallyreally need to get those Frankenstein essays done before Friday. And I haven't even finished the freaking book yet.

Ah, well. It's my own fault if I don't finish. Doesn't keep me from panicking, but keeps me from being too depressed. (Don't ask how. I have no clue. I'm just a freakish alienbrain like that.)

And now I don't remember why I started writing this blog post in the first place. This happens to me a lot, when writing, I think.

Ooh! I should blog about that!

Oh, right. I decided on my project for SeptNo, and will probably begin writing it before then. Meh. It's an unofficial NaNo-type challenge, after all, so I can just go with, "If I write 50k total on it in September, it still counts!"

Unless I finish it, in which case I count it anyway. Muahaha! I haz ebil laff!!!

What, me, slap-happy? Nah, can't be. I'm too awake to be tired.

Just PRETEND This Title Is Witty and Goal-Oriented

2010-08-04T18:30:00.000-05:00

So, previously, I talked about goals, and the differences between ones that help you and ones that hinder you. So, now I'll take the time to be shamelessly egocentric. ('Cause, y'know, I've never been shamelessly egocentric before, or anything like that...) Ahem.

I'm in an... er... "honors" language arts program at my high school. I completely despise the program, and the teacher, but there are two very, very, very good reasons why I haven't dropped out. And there's one not-so-great reason, but hey--nobody's perfect, amirite?

1.) I really want the endorsement I get for finishing the thing. I mean, it's not like the national program--baccalaureate something-or-other, I think?--but it just sounds cool. I get an endorsement on my transcript! Awesomesauce! (Note: "Awesomesauce," or the use thereof, is a sure sign I've been spending too much time over at AW.)

2.) I refuse to quit things. I hate quitting things. I do that enough with my writing projects. Plus, the only time I quit something really BIG (a school musical), I felt horrible about myself afterwards. But mostly I don't want to be like Traitorboy, who quit the program and is now forever doomed to be tormented by those who remained.

3.) I really, really, REALLY want to do the big senior project. One, the teacher lets seniors have time to, say, work on writing (the theoretical focus of the class) instead of wasting their time with pointless "literary discussions." Two, I'm going to prove, once and for all, the thing I came so close to proving last year (twice): it is PERFECTLY POSSIBLE to write a whole freaking novel for the senior projects. Yes. Yes, it is. And I will prove this. And yes, this is petty, but I am proud to be petty if it means I finish a novel.

Anyway, the focus of this post is in the senior project. Sorry for the derail. I derail quite often, in case you can't tell from previous posts.

So. I decided, for the sake of getting the teacher off my back, to plan the steps of my project ahead of time. This is not something I do very often. It doesn't help much, so, uh... Well, anyway, I worked out a project plan, going up to December. And I thought I'd post these goals here, so that any loyal blog minions that might be lying around with nothing better to do can go ahead and poke me incessantly should I stray from this project plan and neglect these goals.

Heh, this is going to be a long post. Oh, well.

August:
1. Plan project for SeptNo.
2. Write at least one short story.
3. Research at least ten agents and/or agencies.
4. Begin list of agents to query.
5. Blog. Weekly. At the least.

September:
1. Participate in SeptNo. 50k FTW.
2. Revise last month's short story.
3. Research at least ten more agents and/or agencies.
4. Update list of agents to query.
5. Blog weekly at least.

Hm... y'know, I think I'll leave it at that for now. Around the end of September, I'll post a progress update. Or, at the least, I'll post the next two month's goals.

What? Me? Actually work on August's goals in a timely manner? Surely you can't be serious.

...somehow, a lack of AW smilies detracts from any sort of smiley effect one might attach to a post. Ah, woe...

And.... GOOOAAAL!!!

2010-08-03T17:49:00.001-05:00

Yes, well, I spent a good half-hour last night trying to come up with something witty to call this post, and I got nuthin'. So, you get this title. Sorry muchly.

So, goals. Goals are shiny. Goals can really help writers, I think, because they can give a person a concrete place to aim for, and a way to measure progress and thereby think he or she is doing something right.

Let me call attention to the key word up there: concrete.

Certain "goals" are not actually goals, but hopeless wishes. A goal--one that can actually benefit the goal-setter--is something that you, personally--"you" being the "goal-setter"--has the ability to attain without regard for outside influences that directly impact the fulfilling of the goal.

So, a "workable" goal, for writing, would be: I will write twelve chapters this month. A non-workable one would be: I will become able to support myself through my writing and give up my day job.

Why is the second one unworkable? Because, quite frankly, the odds of being able to make a complete living off of writing are about the size of a quark. Or, like, one-millionth in 4,866,723,609,127 times infinity. Probably less. (Naturally, these odds only apply if you actually write, which is another post in and of itself.)

Setting unrealistic goals for yourself is only going to hinder you. So, set goals you have a chance of completing. Stuff that relies on you doing it (ignoring possibilities of illness or whatnot), and not on some happy miracle deciding to settle on you (like the above example, and winning the lottery or whatever).

I've been setting goals lately. Writing goals. Which I now think I may save for another post. Because this one seems to be getting a little long.

And, for no particular reason at all...

If you find yourself at a crossroads, and bad guys are coming for you in three directions, take them out for ice cream. Bad guys are notorious for their severe ice cream allergies.

Next time: More shiny, shiny goals!

Refreshed and Ready for Another Go

2010-08-02T22:42:00.002-05:00

What, no posts since May? Oh, shame on me. Shame.

Well, looking back on my last post, can I just say: bitter much? Yes, life sucks, but it's much more bearable when it's both fun *and* sucky.

Right. So, the blog has undergone many changes. All aesthetic, of course. (Me? Make a useful change? Pssh. As if.) The most dramatic, naturally, is--or will be--this rule:

No. More. Whiny. Posts.

So, loyal blog minions (*cough*if you exist*cough*) feel free to poke me mercilessly if I break this rule.

This post would be longer, but this computer I'm using is missing both the left shift and the "A" key, and is driving me nuts. Will have more patience tomorrow.

Also tomorrow: Goals! Shiny, shiny goals.

Summer. Yay.

2010-05-22T21:52:00.000-05:00

Well, looks like I survived AP. Somehow.

And look, school's ended. I'm so happy. Now I get to spend my summer resting! ...not.

So, what happened to summer vacation being... y'know... a vacation? I have craptons of homework for AP English and AP Chemistry. Thank heavens AP Calc and AP Government decided not to invade my summer. Not that it makes much of a difference. I'm looking at, at the very least, a good 50 hours of homework, probably more, because it looks like I'll need to do extra review for the chem assignment since I last took a chem class two years ago.

What? Me? Complain? Never...

Although, happy things do happen. For one, looks like I'll get to host a Japanese exchange student long-term (a few months, anyway) next year. Very, very excited about that, even if it means I have to help my mom clean the entire house this summer. Plus, I may be getting an online Japanese penpal this summer.

...too bad my email program won't seem to display Japanese characters. Not sure if it's the computer or the program, but so far I haven't been able to figure it out.

Also, this is the Writing Summer. College essays, many. Short stories, hopefully many. Novels, hopefully at least one. I'm setting aside the first hour or three of my mornings for writing. We'll see how well that works out.

Because, you know, the best-laid plans...

Dialogue

2010-04-08T20:21:00.000-05:00

Well, that weird analogy from the other day about bad dialogue got me thinking.

I'd say I'm at least semi-decent at dialogue. At the very least, I can recognize the really, really bad stuff (I think) and I know that mine isn't quite that bad. But I could be wrong, which would frankly suck.

Anyway. I thought I'd share a few thoughts on what, to me, can drag dialogue down.

1. The classic "As You Know, Bob" line. Most of the time, these lines seem to really jump out, but sometimes they're very subtle. (I totally had an example of a subtle line until just now... I hate when that happens!)

Non-subtle: "Hello, Bob. It is I, your brother, who has been missing for over five thousand years."

Subtle...ish: ... ... I still got nothing. Maybe these lines aren't subtle. But I swear I had an example for this one...

2. Lack of contractions. Of course, this mostly applies to native speakers of a language, as you wouldn't expect a language student to necessarily contract things. But someone who grew up in, say, the US (because that's the only sort of English I know, heh) probably wouldn't say:

"I will go there now. Do not follow me. I cannot protect you."

(Okay, to be fair, I doubt anyone would say the above like that, but... ahem. Moving on.)

3. Talking like a textbook.

I'm on the staff of my school's literary magazine, and we've got this twenty-page story in there (these are regular sized pages, twelve-point font--it's a freaking novella). Overall, it's a great story, with a pretty unique take on the whole "zombie pandemic" theme. But... the dialogue is not that great.

Why? Because the people talk like they're narrating.

It's hard to describe. I think the biggest thing that struck me was that a lot of the characters use parallelism. Not that I'm dissing parallelism. Actually, I think it really bolsters writing. But I, for one, don't hear people on the street using it. (Maybe that's because I'm in high school, where the average IQ is roughly that of swamp gas, but... we'll look over that for now.)

Of course, if it weren't dialogue, it would be amazing writing. Try this: think of your favorite passage of narration. Or just any passage of narration you think is well-written. Can you imagine a person saying that passage in a casual conversation? (Ignoring, of course, the topic of said passage.) It would probably sound off. (Well, maybe not if it's in first person, but even so...)

4. ... ... ...nah, that's it.

Soo.... yeah. Dialogue. It's really hard. (Actually, writing this, I'm starting to worry maybe all my dialogue *does* sound awful...) But I don't think a bad dialogue writer can't improve. There's always room for improvement.

At the least, I hope I've given you something to think about. If not, I obviously haven't done my job. ('Cause I ALWAYS do *that*...)

Emphasizing words is fun...

Viruses, How I Loathe Thee...

2010-04-07T15:27:00.000-05:00

Bleargh.

It seems that Vista Smart Security 2010 is a virus of some sort. Malware. Is there a difference? Anyway, I kind of guessed, because I'd had a virus once before that was all like "ZOMG!!! U gotz spywarez!!! Buy this nao n killz it!!!" Also, I couldn't find the so-called program anywhere, and I figured if it was legit, I could remove it. Also, the "scan" it runs claims there's a virus in an excellent program I bought new and installed ages ago, which I've never had problems with.

Sigh.

Ah, well. Viruses stink, what can I say? Like dialogue.

Bad dialogue is like a virus. It can look as legit as it wants, but all it does is weigh down the story.

I take pride in finding odd analogies for things.

Oh, the Menagerie...

2010-04-06T11:18:00.000-05:00

Pets.

Can't live with 'em. Can't live without 'em. Can't write anything with 'em, either. I've got one cat wailing in the background while simultaneously knocking over anything that makes an audible crash. The other cat thinks I'm some sort of chair and tries to sit on my arms every five minutes, which impedes my typing progress. The dog whines every two-point-eight-six-five nanoseconds because she thinks there's room on the computer chair for her. Finally, the four rats make this horrendous racket as they grapple for possession of a single lab block (food).

Because it's not like there's, I dunno, seven other pieces of food in the dish.

Although, what with being sick and having no way to write on my personal computer, thus being forced to work on the Internet computer with all its distractions, the pets are hardly the worst.

My computer is officially out of commission until I can get that bleeping Vista Smart Security 2010 crap off. I'm not even connected to the Internet and it pops up every minute or so, warning me about supposed spyware infections. Maybe my computer IS infected, but, hey! No Internet connection. According to the VSS2010 program, practically the whole world is monitoring my computer usage.

So, what with all that, I've been forced to do most of my writing longhand, which really sucks, because my hands cramp really bad after the first few minutes and then it's a pain to keep going. At least I have this computer for the moment, since my mom's off at work. I *should* be at school, not missing important notes, but I'm sick. Ugh.

Oh, well. At least I've got a good project going. It's urban fantasy. Unfortunately, I'm worried that my protagonist is getting too cliche. She's kind of... well, a smart mouth. But she's so fun to write. I'm the type of person who wishes she could be witty all the time--or at least some of the time--so I get vicarious thrills from writing all of this character's awesome retorts.

She nicknames an antagonist "Muffin." If only for that reason, she is currently my favorite character.

Occupational Hazards

2010-03-21T16:32:00.000-05:00

Whew! I'm back from a refreshing week of housesitting, armed with new lufferly insights! Now, now--don't all groan in excitement at once, you hear?

You hear about occupational hazards all the time. Researchers of deadly diseases might contract the diseases themselves. Zoo workers might get eaten by their charges. Writers might fall into despair and kill themselves because they're sure that "It's just not for us" is code for "u suck we all hate u go get a real job not writing this crap".

Housesitters also have occupational hazards. Besides the usual--burglars, housefires, alien abductions--you have certain dangers unique to particular houses. The hazard I faced this last week can be summed up in two words: Demon. Cat.

The people I was sitting for are old friends of my mom's. I've known them my whole life. They've always had criminal numbers of cats. Right now, it's four. Not that I mind--I've got two cats of my own, I'm not allergic, and three of the said four kitties definitely do not pose a significant threat to my health.

However, the fourth cat is Demon Cat. Also known as "Oni Neko," which is Japanese for "somebody put that cat in a freaking asylum because it's going to kill someone really soon."

The hair on the back of my neck prickled so much I thought I was getting allergic to cats after all. Practically every time I turned around, there *he* was. Demon Cat. Glaring at me with those evil yellow eyes of his. I was almost afraid to go to sleep at night, sure that I wouldn't wake up again. Or, if I did, it wouldn't be for long, because DC would be... well... eating me.

I did, indeed, survive. The cost was great. I may never get that patch of hair to grow back. But it was worth it. One word: FastInternet. Hah! I cheated. But it's one word. So there.

Hm... wit. Some people have it. Some don't. Haa...

Decisions, Decisions...

2010-03-12T21:15:00.000-06:00

Okay, being on the Internet right now might not be the best of ideas. I just tried to spell "decisions" with first an initial "des" and then a "desc." Twice. Each. Ugh. The funny thing about being me is I never get to look back on stuff I wrote when I was really tired or typing really fast and giggle at some serendipitously hilarious typo I made because I catch a good 99.999999% of them.

And now I can't remember why I titled this "Decisions, Decisions." Dang, there I go with the almost-typoing again!

Oh, wait, now I remember. (Don't give groans of appreciation all at once, now, hear?)

So, I was planning out some maybe slightly witty-ish blog post in my head (as I try to do because I pretty much have no spontaneous wit section in my brain, woe is me) and an odd little discussion occurred. Yes. I started debating with the blog post that hadn't even been written yet. I wasn't even sure I was going to post tonight. But I digress.

Lilli: Blah blah (I don't remember what this part was, in case you can't tell) blah... I love Japanese grammar... blah... grammar... blah... drug of choice... blah...

Post: This is boring. Do I have to come into existence?

Lilli: If I want you to. Yes. Yes, you do.

Post: Shouldn't you be writing something else?

Lilli: (Here goes the Stare of Intimidation.) Like what?

Post: Two words: Urban. Fantasy.

Lilli: ...I have no idea what you're talking--

Post: You sound just like Jaina there.

Lilli: ...

Post: Remember? That one character you think is funny? The one you were giggling madly over while writing that scene today--

Lilli: Maybe I want to procrastinate.

Post: You always want to procrastinate.

Lilli: It's legitimate! I... I have a fear of commitment! And intimacy! Even when talking about a fictional story!

Post: You know those people on AW with finished books? (Awkward pause.) Yeah. Them. You could totally do that if you spent half the time you spend complaining about how you can't write on writing.

Lilli: Was that grammatically correct?

Post: I refuse to formulate until you start writing something productive. Other than me.

Lilli: ...I hate sentient posts. (Here goes the Glare of Ultimate Rabbit-Infested Doom.)

Bah. That wasn't exactly how it played out, but that's the gist. I've decided I'm going to write some more of my currently favored WIP. With breaks for random shows in Japanese.

Have I mentioned yet that I almost literally get high on learning new Japanese grammar constructs?

On Breaking Twilights...

2010-03-11T20:01:00.000-06:00

...and other screwed-up titles.

Lots of people dislike Stephenie Meyer. I've been thinking lately. I think some of the hate might be jealousy, but a lot of it is that Twilight is crap.

I'm not going to get into it. Honestly, I'm sick of anti-Twilight ranting, both from other people and from me. Twilight has... a very, very few good points, I think. And Stephenie Meyer isn't necessarily a bad writer just because she churned out the Twilight books.

A list! List! List frenzy! I can has list? Hoo... I think I'm slap happy! ...does that need a hyphen?

Anyway...

A random Stephenie Meyer-related list of wonder! !! !!! !!!! (Enough with the freaking exclamation points. Sheesh.)

1. I actually like part of Twilight. Namely, the part between the "preface" and the part where Mr. Sparkly Melodrama Pants comes in. After that, I hate it. It just took me four books to figure that part out.

2. I loved The Host. And I still do. I love the characters and the idea, and I usually hate alien invasion stories.

3. Ergo, I think SMeyer is only a bad writer in terms of the Twilight books.

4. Why on earth was there ever any debate on who Obsessive Girl was going to end up with? Hm. Mr. Sparkly Pants vs. Mr. Angsty Werewolf. MAW was a convenient plot tool in the first book. OG is the female lead. Female leads don't fall in love with convenient plot tools.

5. I love the MAW's chapters in the fourth book. Or, rather, the titles. Freaking hilarious. I wish I had wit.

Seriously. Wit is nice. Wit makes people like you. If I had wit, my life would be perfect. [/scapegoat]

Is SMeyer ever going to write something else? I'd love to read another book like The Host.

On an unrelated note...

I'm so sick of getting new ideas. I just need to finish something. Stupid lack of self-discipline. Stupid Internet--it's such a distraction. Stupid scapegoating. [/scapegoat2]

I jump from project to project way too much. Who says I've got attention defi--ooh! Shiny!

Epiphany

2010-03-06T17:21:00.000-06:00

So, I've been doing some thinking lately. Life sucks. I've known this for a long time. I'm a pessimist. I've known this for awhile, too. Something I haven't really been able to believe, though, is that happiness is, at least partly, a choice.

I tend towards the negative side. It's just my natural attitude. And I don't remember very often to try to be happy. That's just a foreign concept to me--either I'm happy or I'm not. I've never been good at trying to be happy. But being in this play has taught me something.

I had a bad experience with the previous show. There was just too much stress involved and I wasn't enjoying it because I really have a hard time respecting the director. He's not very effective, and that put a lot of stress on me because I have this tendency to worry about stuff I don't have control over--like whether we'd get the whole show blocked before opening night. The same thing happened with this show. I almost quit because of it. The only reason I didn't was because said director--and my relatively few friends in the theatre group--are really persuasive.

I hated doing this show, pretty much up until opening night. The final rehearsal, the day before the first performance, was great, however. And I didn't really get why at first, until I figured out that I'd been trying to like the show, because I missed enjoying theatre.

And there's the kicker. Once I realized that trying to like it helped, I tried to enjoy the performances. Guess what? It worked. I'm in love with the theatre again, and if only for that reason, sticking with the show was totally worth it.

So, I'm not promising results, but from now on I'm going to try to look on the bright side of things. Like I said, doing so is unnatural for me. But maybe if I do it long enough, it'll become a habit. And maybe by doing so, I'll become funny, and reading my blog will be slightly more fun than porcupine juggling.

Huh. Somehow I thought that would be wittier. Oh, well...

One Day Away From Death

2010-02-28T18:49:00.000-06:00

Whew. That was exciting. I just wrote a lovely little rant about my theatre woes. So glad I got that off my chest.

Long story short--this coming week I'll be at school from 7:30 to probably well past 10:30 due to both classes and the ever-so-lovely school play that I would love to quit. To put this in perspective, I usually go to sleep around 8:00 or earlier, and if I don't, I usually crash around 8:30. So that's just going to be lovely. On top of that, I'm getting sick.

But I am absolutely not complaining, because this is me being POSITIVE about the play. Because I am a POSITIVE person. And I am POSITIVE I will end up deathly ill or worse because of this stupid play that I stupidly allowed myself to be talked out of quitting by both my director and a few drama nerd friends. I miss being a drama nerd. My school's drama program has slowly but steadily sapped away my love of theatre. Likely, this will be the last school play I ever audition for.

...wow. I totally just depressed myself.

Anyway, I'm really trying to be positive about things (hard to tell, huh?). It's kind of hard for me under normal circumstances, though, and I've felt miserable for the past two days. And I'm so not looking forward to this coming week. I'm only half-convinced I'm going to die from it, but that half is quite extremely convinced of it.

On a lighter note, my writing's going semi-okay-ish. I got an idea for a short story that I think I can actually handle writing, and I might just get around to it and the other two shorts I've been thinking about during all my off-stage time at the uber-long rehearsals coming up. Man, am I wordy.

I got pretty harsh in my review of some pieces submitted to the school's literary magazine, which I'm on the staff of. (That sentence sounds really awkward.) The funny thing is, though, it was only harsh because I was too tired to censor myself. Usually, I write down every strong point I see and only point out one or two of the weakest points. Today, going through the packet, I just wrote down every weak point. Every strong point, too, but I think I was a little too tired and frustrated to notice the points I usually would have. It didn't help that I hadn't taken my antidepressants yet. In retrospect, not the greatest idea, but to be fair, I was perfectly fine when I started on the packet. However, reading endless pages of grammar-mistake-laden prose can really fray my nerves, no matter how good said prose is when looking beyond the mechanics. Number one strong point in the pieces: good voice.

I also realized I get way more technical with my criticisms and praise with the lit mag submissions than anyone else does. Maybe it comes from having frequented writers' forums for the past, I dunno, four or five years, and obsessively reading writing articles. Too bad I didn't write as much as I read about writing. Then maybe I'd have a good-sized working portfolio.

I feel cynical. Man, I hate Sunday nights. Too close to Monday.

This rant has been brought to you by the letter I.

On Outlines

2010-02-21T10:39:00.000-06:00

A quick update: The water's back on, thankfully, though now the washing machine's totally broken. School continues to disrupt my plans for consistent posting. I have a major case of writing-phobia, which means I've hardly written anything since my JaNo story died at somewhere between 22k and 30k. And I still can't bring myself to write out of chronological order.

Lots of writers disagree on lots of points about writing. However, it seems the biggest debate of them all focus on the planning process, or lack thereof. I am speaking, of course, about Outlines vs. Winging It.

Now, I have nothing against either method. I've tried both. Neither has gotten me to finish a novel, of course, but both have gotten me past the 20k mark on separate projects, so I think I can work with both.

I like outlines. They're nice little guidelines to follow. This is the general path the story will follow. As far as I know, the biggest problem wingers have with outlines is that outlines theoretically "stifle creativity." I can see where some people might have problems in this way with outlines. If a person sticks too closely to the outline, without allowing it room to change or completely divert its path, the story can become stunted and unpalatable. However, the key word there is "allow." I had a lovely, well-thought-out outline for my 2009 NaNo project that went all the way from beginning to end. When I actually started writing, though, I replaced a major character, and then changed the nature of a setting, and it completely changed the story. I had to fix the outline. I did, up to a point. If I'd just stuck with the outline, I think the story would have suffered for it. But I allowed the story to change, and the outline with it.

I can also see where people who dislike winging projects come from. Having no structure can make things much more difficult than they need to be, especially for certain people with mild obsessive tendencies (like me). Winging it can be a good thing too, though, because it puts less pressure on following a set path and allows you to follow different avenues in the story, possibly leading to something that could seriously strengthen your story. My JaNo project proceeded as a winging project, though I had a sort of rough mental outline. At some point, a character disappeared. I hadn't intended her to disappear. Actually, it was sort of funny; one of the major characters was freaking out because that character (we'll call her K) wasn't around, and I was freaking out, too, because K wasn't supposed to leave. She was sort of like this glue I needed to hold the other characters to their sanity, and her disappearance caused all sorts of problems. But then I realized she'd been captured by a new character I'd never thought of before. Turned out he played an integral role in the overall storyline. Or will, actually, because I haven't finished it yet.

I've had good experiences with both methods. Personally, whether or not I use an outline depends on the project; some projects lend themselves more easily to my outlining style than others. My outlined projects are often the only projects with a definite ending--or hint of one, anyway.

My approach seems quite sensible to me, but then of course that's a natural response. Probably a person wouldn't think his or her own preferred method of doing something is insensible. It's almost like an ego thing, I'd think.

Gosh, I love writing...

Wretched Water Worries

2010-01-09T09:48:00.000-06:00

Oy.

So, yesterday, the pipes at my house either froze or broke. We have absolutely no water.

We've been hoping the pipes only froze, because if they broke we are in deep manure. See, fixing a broken pipe--and the only metal pipe we have left is buried underground--would cost roughly a thousand bucks, which we definitely don't have. All we can do is wait and see.

Needless to say, it's been really difficult dealing with the lack of water. My mom had me hauling in about a dozen buckets full of snow (at least, for the moment, we have about a foot of snow outside piled up from all the storms we've had over the past week or so...) to melt so we have water with which to flush the toilet. We had almost no drinking water whatsoever yesterday, which was an issue; my four rats went almost the entire day without water. Luckily, we had some frozen water bottles in the freezer, so when those thawed out we had at least a little.

Today, some friends from church are supposed to come over and bring us some bottled water. So things should be good, at least until we figure out if the pipes froze or broke.

Whew... writing about real-world worries is strangely exhausting. So now I'll touch a bit on some writing news.

Last night, I discovered something odd: I managed to use three examples of very obvious alliteration within 350 words of each other.

"bored beyond belief"
"seemingly solid surfaces"
"some semblance of sanity"

I really hate alliteration. I very rarely use it. My excuse for the above atrocities is that it was eleven at night and I was freaking out about whether or not I'd get my 2k done. Somehow I managed, and I also wrote 230 words about what's going to end up happening next, so I don't think I have to worry about running out of materials too soon.

Water trouble + alliteration = really tired Lilli.

Wordle Mania

2010-01-08T10:51:00.005-06:00

I officially blame hope101 for this post. Without her amazing post about Wordle, I would never have discovered the procrastination-worthy fun of making word cloud things. (Note: I apologize for the linking frenzy. But the pages above are just so... linkable...)

Anyway...

And that is the word cloud thing, made with Wordle, for my current WIP (work-in-progress). The working title is "Dreamers," until I find something I like better. Like "obfuscate." "Obfuscate" is a good word. Yes, it is.

Funnily enough, "that" did not feature as prominently as I expected that particular word to feature. That's odd. I use "that" altogether too often, at least that I know of. (Ha! Ha! See what I did there? I think that I'm clever...)

And in other writing news, I have discovered two wonderful little things--let's call them "feathers"--that I am putting away in my writer's toybox to use later in my WIP. Last night, I discovered, in the course of getting my WIP up to 14k, that certain little things happen in my stories that might have a chance of appearing later. Like demon-amoeba-in-a-jar. (No, I am not making that up. It's urban fantasy. Sort of.) And the natural leader of the little protagonist group going missing. Turns out she's been kidnapped by a crazy demon. Which will definitely affect the way future events turn out.

Woah. Like, seriously. I totally had not realized until just now how that character's absence would affect the other characters.

I so cannot WAIT to write that part! Too bad it's still a good 4 or 5k away... Sniff...

And this one was made from the content of this post (excluding this paragraph). And now I know why "that" was missing from the first one: apparently, Wordle ignores the word "that," because it is a "common English word." Meh. Oh, well. We all know where "that"'s rightful place is!

The Joys of the Writing Life

2010-01-07T09:30:00.004-06:00

So far for 2010, I have managed to write around 2,000 words per day. Naturally, this makes me EXTREMELY happy.

NaNo was a really good idea for '09, and I can't wait for November of this year to roll around. In fact, it turned out so well (even though I failed miserably), I've decided to attempt a personal NaNo every other month in 2010, starting January. Conveniently, my "personal" NaNo schedule includes November, so I'll be doing the official NaNo this year, too.

For those not in the know: NaNo is short for National Novel Writing Month. Long story short: you write 50,000 words in 30 days, for about 1667 words a day.

I can write fast, as I discovered during NaNo. I can pound out 2k in an hour and a half, easy--assuming that I'm not having trouble stringing sentences together, which happens more than I'd like. Of course, the stuff I write doesn't turn out to be the best quality, but considering that the NaNo pace (for me) isn't different from my taking-the-time-to-consider-the-options pace, the first-draft quality of both turns out roughly the same.

So, NaNo taught me the value of backing up. Sometime around the seventeenth--I forget the exact date--I had a really bad writing day. Like, REALLY bad. It took me an hour to write a hundred words, and I ended up scrapping those. In desperation, since I had no idea where to take the plot next and I had not quite accepted the NaNoer's philosophy of "it doesn't have to make sense," I printed out what I had to show to my brother, who usually serves as my first reader, to get his take on it. Luckily, I had a good 2k extra words from better writing days in the past, so I'd still be on track if I didn't write that day. My computer had some problems when I took the flash drive out, but I thought nothing of it. My ONLY copy of the 30k or so words I'd written was on that flash drive.

The next day, I found that my file was corrupted.

I tried everything to fix it. I even downloaded some freeware off the Internet that promised to save the file (stupid, stupid, stupid--the freeware gave my computer a very annoying Trojan virus), though that didn't work. Nothing worked. If it weren't for the fact that I'd printed out everything I had up to that point, I'd have lost everything.

The whole thing upset me so much that I quit NaNo at that point. It didn't help that it fell right in the middle of my school play drama. So I completely failed NaNo in '09.

But I discovered something: when I set a regular writing schedule (as in words per day), my writing output increases dramatically. I'm less likely to put off writing, and when I write so many words a day, eventually I have to finish something. Thus, the personal NaNo goal was born.

At the moment, I'm somewhere between 12k and 14k in the novel I'm working on this month, and I haven't fallen behind even once. I like the story, I have a fair idea what's going to happen that should last me to at least 30k, and I also have some things that happened before the point I started the story at that I can work on if I hit a plot block once I run out of chronological material. (And it's saved to four different files in several different physical locations, so hopefully I won't lose it this time.) I AM going to "win" this personal NaNo, even if it kills me!

...well, maybe not quite. But it's the thought that counts.

Death Is Me -- Not

2010-01-06T17:59:00.004-06:00

I did NOT die.

So, with school and everything, I started losing track of that wonderful little thing known as "time". Before I knew it, one week had gone by... then two weeks... and then there was a HUGE issue with the school musical, which somehow screwed with my schoolwork, health, and writing. Which reminds me, I have good writing news to share. Well, okay-ish news.

I am not dead, and I think I will try to resuscitate this lufferly little blog, but no promises. I am now going into the second semester of my junior year, and I need to prepare for two or three AP tests and the ACT while simultaneously dealing with craploads of schoolwork, idiotic classmates, and trying to keep to my newly made goal of 2,000 words per day.

...

Typing all that up has now made me very, very terrified. It so doesn't help that I already know the novel I'm working on now has to be trunked, as I don't have the skill to pull off its execution quite yet.

I should probably go write now. Le sigh...

I'm In AP Heaven

2009-09-08T17:36:00.004-05:00

I officially love AP History.

I hate it, too--there's an awful lot of reading, and our textbook is about as exciting as watching snot congeal. Plus, I refuse to let myself skim over the chapters just to find the stuff to answer the question we have every day, unlike at least half my class. Anyway, that's not the point--sorry for the tangent.

So, today we were talking about the Revolutionary War (the American one). I don't quite remember what we were talking about at the moment of my breakthrough (though I still managed to write it down in my notes). Anyway, I got to daydreaming about the world I'm currently building, and discovered a new piece of history.

My world now includes--at one point in history, anyway--the vast Gora Empire.

I'd also gotten the idea for the Border Wars from that class.

So, however much I hate having 2+ hours of reading every night, it's totally worth it. My world is really fleshing out.

Ahh... I love history...

Psychopathic Trends

2009-09-05T20:58:00.005-05:00

In the past two months, I've started several stories featuring psychopaths. One story features two psychopaths, both of whom think they're vampires. One story technically features a sociopath, but for the purpose of this post, I'm lumping psychopaths and sociopaths into the same little category. I've gotten a few ideas for shorter works that also feature crazies in one form or another.

I'm also, apparently, cursed. My creative writing teacher gave us a prompt the other day wherein she effectively had us draw a character type out of a hat and try to flesh out a character that fits the type. Guess what I drew? A psychopath.

Oy, oy, oy.

It started with the guy who thought he was a vampire. Then another one joined the party. And they just kept stacking up.

Sometimes I worry about my state of mind.

Vampires and Hypocrisy

2009-08-25T16:38:00.010-05:00

This is not another badly-disguised rant about vampires. I reallyreally promise.

Sometime last school year--maybe halfway through second semester--I created a story with a theatre troupe consisting (mostly) of "vampires". There's not a better word for them, just because they have a disease wherein they need to ingest large quantities of hemoglobin in order to live. Yeah, yeah, I'm a hypocrite. That's not the point, though.

So, what is my point?

Well, the two main characters--two of three, anyway--are Reg and Belinda, the leaders of the theatre troupe (Reg formed it at Belinda's insistence). They're also my favorite characters in the book--not that that says much, seeing as how I really only have three other characters in the story at the moment. Anyway, these two just *happened* to sidle into my thoughts the other day.

So, naturally, I walked up to them (in my head) and demanded to know if they were going to start pulling the same crap that certain *other* characters have pulled in the past. Namely, changing their storyline over and over until it doesn't resemble in any way, shape, or form the original storyline. This has happened with two certain characters in the past--manymany times. Perhaps it's a bit premature to worry about it now, considering nothing of the sort has really happened.

My paranoia knows no bounds. Dramatic sigh... Belinda, Reg, why do you incite my paranoia so? Why must you torture me? Melodramatic sigh...

Bouncing Back: The Week from Hell

2009-08-24T17:28:00.004-05:00

Whew! This past week has been a nightmare.

My house has two working computers and assorted desktops that probably haven't worked since the Lithuania sank. One of those computers has Internet access; the other one--mine, and the better one, or it would be if it wasn't slow all the time--doesn't. My mom is currently working towards a degree so she can get a better job, etc.

This last week marked: A) the last week of the semester for one online college; B) the first (full) week of her work; and C) the first week of the semester at her new online college. The set of courses that ended last week included some major projects involving a lot of work time, such as a fifteen-page paper on a Shakespeare play of some sort.

Mom also took the computer with her (it's a laptop) to work so she could get school work done whenever possible (she works for the school district at the bus lot). So, even though I get home a few hours before she does, I couldn't sneak on before doing homework. Not that I could have wrenched it away from my brother, but...

Luckily, though, I managed to get a half-hour or so when my mom and brother went out to do errands, which was just enough to get my AW blog chain post up.

Hopefully I'll be on more regularly now. Whether or not I'll have much to blog about, writing-wise, is up for debate, but I'll at least have Internet access. This is a good thing for me; I practically live off of AW's writing resources.

Ahh... Hell hath no fury like a writer scorned...

Absolute Write: August Blog Chain

2009-08-18T16:43:00.004-05:00

I'm sure I've mentioned Absolute Write before. If I haven't, shame on me. AW, as it's affectionately called, is a writer's forum and probably one of the best resources on the Internet. Some AWers have started up an August blog chain, in a sort of Q&A format.

The question I'm to blog about comes from JamieMT of The Variety Pages. Ahem: If you could see into the future, and found out that you would never be published, would you keep writing? How would it change the way you write, or would it?

Now, this is a fascinating question. Honestly, I don't think it would affect me so much at the moment. I write wholly for pleasure. If I were currently in the habit of writing more, and more often, I might cut down on the writing time.

My dream is to one day be able to live off my writing. Naturally, if I were to discover without a doubt that I would never publish, that would put a big damper on my plans. I don't have a clue what I'd decide to do instead. If I decided to do something that required a huge time commitment--like, say, theatre, not that I'm saying I'm a good actress or anything--I'd likely have to cut down my writing time. At the moment, that's a bad thing. I write little enough as it is. I don't need to give myself more excuses to procrastinate. Get that story written, dangit!

This discovery wouldn't change how I write at all. I write like I eat: I dive headfirst and don't sit there, planning out how I'm going to eat, what size bites I'll take, how fast I'll chew, how many times I'll chew before I swallow, et cetera. This has been causing plenty of problems for me with my current scifi project, because all the little details I *could* put in a notes folder tend to find their way, info-dump-like, into the exposition. Thank heaven for revision...

Anyway. Long story short: I might write less, but I'd still write. The way I write wouldn't change at all.

Huh. I'm suddenly struck by the way I seem to be able to write a long rant about something I can rephrase in just a few words... maybe that's why I get good grades in English. My teachers see a solid wall of text, and they think, I don't want to read this; let's just slap something on there and call it good. Where's my random letter generator?

I digress.

My question for the next poster, ealexis of Evie Alexis: The Obsessive Writer: What, in your opinion, makes your writing stand out? How?

I apologize if my question is very stupid (or, as people with my limited knowledge of Japanese might say, totemo baka). I apparently suck at trying to figure out what sorts of questions fit which people...

Here's the list of the other peeps involved in the blog chain, and in order:

Claire Crossdale http://theromanticqueryletter.blogspot.com
razibahmed http://www.blogging37.com/
aimeelaine http://www.aimeelaine.com/
bsolah http://benjaminsolah.com/blog
dnic http://four-lettered-words.blogspot.com/
JamieMT http://thevarietypages.blogspot.com
LiliCray http://mutteringsofascribe.blogspot.com
ealexis http://eviealextheobsessivewriter.blogspot.com/
errantruth http://www.sputnitsa.wordpress.com
Lady Cat http://randomwriterlythoughts.blogspot.com
Proach http://desinfocenter.blogspot.com/
Simran http://dark-horse-adaptations.blogspot.com
lostwanderer5 http://www.lostwanderer5.blogspot.com
Forbidden Snowflake http://www.alleslinks.com
coryleslie http://corrinejackson.wordpress.com/
Angyl78 http://jelyzabeth.wordpress.com/
Bookdragonette http://pannarrans.wordpress.com/
RavenCorinnCarluk http://ravencorinncarluk.blogspot.com

The Lives of Characters

2009-08-12T09:47:00.003-05:00

So. Two things have inspired me to write this post.

One: This post by sputnitsa. 'Tis a fascinating read.

Two: I was fixing the grammar in an online article that I wanted to print out and put into my "Resources" binder, and Word 2007 kept wanting me to change "who" to "that" in the context where "character" was the subject. Now, I almost never listen to Word's grammatical advice anyway, but it sure got me thinking. Why can't you call a character a "who?" What's wrong with it? Characters are people, too. I mean, they may not physically exist, but... they don't know that! Hehe.

So.

I have a tendency to find characters that feel very real to me. It's not uncommon for a character to get into fight with me about what they want to do versus what I think they should do. Of course, they always win (except in the case of two particular characters who have lost the privilege to win seeing as how their freaking storyline keeps changing all over the place...).

Characters generally "appear" to me fully-fleshed. I mean, as fleshed out as I get them before writing them. I don't do much to "discover" characters before writing--I prefer discovering them as I write. I feel like I can't get a true feel of who they are except through actually writing.

It's a rare day when I have to really think about the sort of character I need. I'm really lucky like that, I think. I just wish I had the skill to make my readers feel the same way I do about my characters... le sigh.

However, naming characters often throws me for a loop.

I have a really bad habit of not seriously delving into a project unless all the main characters have their "right" names. One story I'm working on hasn't progressed much for this reason--I have the name for the male protagonist, but the female protagonist hasn't yet given me her name. She's tentatively taken the name "River," but it doesn't feel right.

This is also an issue in a sci-fi thing I'm working on at the moment. I just started writing it yesterday. I've got three character names so far, all of which came without a problem (although, unfortunately, one of the characters dies in the first scene...). The main antagonist has no name yet. It's very frustrating. It doesn't help that the nameset so far is a bit difficult to fit other names into... I've got Adella, Thalisyn (nicknamed Thalli), and Teryn. Adella's got the last name Kessyn. And I'm having a heckuva time finding a good antagonist name to fit in with that set...

In case anyone's wondering, it's Adella who dies. I cried when it happened. I really liked her....

The Joys of Writing

2009-08-12T09:16:00.003-05:00

I'm very proud of myself. I've managed to write at least 10k in the past month. I think it's more like 12 or 14k, but I haven't actually counted it up.

However, I'm only keeping about 4k of it so far. The other 6k+ went to the "Old Versions" folder.

Is this common? Do writers often find that they discard as much as they keep?

By the time I manage to finish a good-sized work, I have a feeling my discarded words will have increased dramatically. But, funnily enough, I don't really see it as a waste, either of time or effort. All writing helps a person increase their abilities. Besides that, most of what I've discarded so far is complete and utter drivel.

Although, at least half of what I've written for one particular story is info-dump, which I'll definitely have to cut before it's finalized. Oh, well.

Someone said, "I love writing. It's the paperwork I can't stand." I don't remember who. I'm not sure if the person meant, like, contracts or something, or if he/she meant the actual putting-words-on-paper part. I've always thought the latter. If so...

I can totally relate.

The Wonderful World of Vampires

2009-08-10T07:19:00.005-05:00

...sort of. I promise to keep this one short. (I apologize in advance for the rantiness. My next post won't be a rant--really.)

Now, we all know these modern super-hot vamps that've been floating around lately. The ones that regular humans fall in love with. The ones that angst! About! Their immoral! Situation! And maybe their lost soul!

Seemingly without fail, these beings are described as "perfect." Right. 'Cause no one would fall in love with them if they weren't, huh?

Now, when you take a look at the original vampire--and I don't mean Dracula, although at least he never "fell in love" with his human food--what do you see? Not super-sexy angsters. Scary things. Creatures that rose from the grave to return and suck blood from innocent villagers. Evil beings. Things that couldn't handle crosses and stuff like that.

Most modern vamps never even mention crosses. They'll mention mirrors. Sunlight, sometimes (Look, Ma! I glitter!). Stakes, ocassionally. Fire, usually. Some types of vamps are absolutely impossible to kill except with one certain method (Look, Ma! I can pull pieces of myself back together!). Remember the original vampires? Weaknesses: crosses, stakes, sunlight, fire. People--regular humans--could kill them if the stars aligned properly and they actually tried. Certain "modern" vamps? Weaknesses: Maybe fire. Maybe a stake or two. Or maybe they're practically invulnerable. Regular humans don't stand a chance against the "modern" vampire.

To be fair, Dracula had some sort of trance thing that pretty much made it impossible to fight against him. But, then again, he didn't like garlic, did he?

Ten Major Query Offenses

2009-08-05T17:39:00.003-05:00

Someone posted about this on Absolute Write. It turned out to be so interesting that I couldn't resist doing a double-post today.

This blog post, by Tumblemoose from Tumblemoose Writing Services, is a list of querying offenses that, most likely, afflict every writer at one point or another. At least, some of them do. Sometimes unavoidably--even the best writers can't catch every typo.

Comical, a good read, and overall quite insightful.

Magic Bites

2009-08-05T11:15:00.007-05:00

So, besides writing, my great passion is reading. Pretty much, if I'm not writing (which, unfortunately, happens more than I'd like it to), I'm reading. From time to time, I encounter one of those great page-turners that really leave an impression on me.

Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews is one of these books--for me, anyway. It's book I of the Kate Daniels series, which currently consists of three books and had better be coming out with a fourth soon... or else I'll cry. Horribly. For days and days and days. And then feel like an idiot...

Without further ado, I'd like to present a book review of Magic Bites. I tried not to include spoilers, but... (Oh, and here you can find Ilona Andrews' site.) Well, that was mostly a bit of ado about nothing (see what I did there?), but now, without any further ado (really!), I present Lilli's official Magic Bites review! (Hey... where'd those crickets come from?)

I have to admit that, at the moment, one of my favorite parts about this book is the vampire concept. I’m sick to death of those modern super-hot-sexy vampires with the smoldering eyes and the marble skin and the glittery stalker aspects, and Andrews’ take on the vampire is a refreshing break. Vamps in Kate Daniels’ alternate-universe Atlanta aren’t, by any stretch of the imagination, sexy. Nothing but skin, muscle, and bones, if they don’t have a necromancer telepathically controlling them, the vampires kill anything that bleeds, driven by pure bloodlust. No thinking for them, which also means no angsting or moaning about the immorality of their unfortunate situation. Not to mention, most if not all vamps are created voluntarily.

Of course, that’s not even really a huge deal at this point in the series. Whether or not vampires become one remains to be seen.

Kate Daniels is a wisecracking, blade-crazy mercenary with the talent to annoy everyone around her to either death or attempted homicide. The whole tough-Amazon thing might be a bit stereotypical nowadays, but Kate’s characterization is so masterfully done that one can’t help but forgive her for that. Every instance of dialogue is peppered with sarcastic asides that really bring the story to life. It helps that Andrews is a great writer in her own right.

Me being the grammar Nazi that I am, I couldn’t help but notice a few instances where someone failed to put a comma. The shapeshifter concept also threw me for a bit of a loop—shifters in the Daniels universe are exceedingly powerful and most end up being pretty good-looking, too. Normal humans don’t stand a chance against them unless they’re armed with silver. Lots and lots of silver. But, considering there’re a lot of other things lurking in AU Atlanta that could give the shifters a run for their money, the unnatural strength makes a bit more sense.

I read this book ages ago, and rereading it was quite an experience. For one thing, I’d forgotten quite a few things that happen—including the false climax. I say “false climax;” I mean that what you think should be the final showdown isn’t. Not that one could really expect it to be, considering it happens in the middle of the book, and very few books have resolutions that double the book’s size. Still, I was a bit surprised when the Big Battle came and it turned out there were still loose ends.

Not to mention that I’d forgotten who the bad guy ended up being. I went through almost the whole book thinking that one particular character was the ultimate evil mastermind, and ended up being completely disappointed. Well, not quite disappointed, since I kind of liked that character, but I digress. I actually felt guilty for thinking this guy was a criminal. A very minor, cameo character also appeared, and I didn’t feel guilty at all for hating him; he turns out to be quite the little *euphemism deleted for wimpiness; insert appropriately angry term here* in the second book of the series. Again, I digress. Alas. Woe is me. Or… digression is me. Meh. Whatever.

Ilona Andrews became one of my favorite writers within the first five pages, the first time I read Magic Bites. Kate Daniels became one of my favorite fictional characters at the same time. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy, or anyone who wants to read something for the heck of it.

Finally, I apologize for opening this review with a not-so-subtle vampire rant. I’m being saturated with vamps of all shapes and sizes at the moment, and most of those shapes are so-called “perfect.” It’s driving me nuts.

Introductions are in Order

2009-08-01T07:55:00.000-05:00

I'm one of those socially awkward people whose talent seems to be invisibility. But that's not my defining trait. My "defining trait" is writing.

I am a writer. Writing is my pride and joy, my future career, my life. I adore writing. I adore creating characters and worlds, I adore exploring worlds and stories. Sometimes the words flow somewhat easily; sometimes I have to drag them out of my brain, bucking and hollering. Sometimes I like my characters. Sometimes my characters are annoying pests who hands-down refuse to back off and leave me alone. Sometimes people think I'm completely insane.

I've been truly serious about writing for nigh on five years, now, but it's only been in the past year and a half or so that I've started to notice how much I'm improving. Starting around about fifth grade, I began writing an "epic" fantasy story; I finished it in seventh grade. Turns out, it's the most melodramatic, coincidental, contrived, plotless piece of drivel I've ever made. When I read it, I cringe so much my face gets stuck in that position for a week. But that's a good sign--I know I've improved.

This blog's purpose is mainly for writing about writing, and about books in general. I'll try very hard to keep the ranting to a minimum--editing's a great tool for this.

So, that's the lowdown. Me = writer. Blog = stuff about writing and books. Pretty simple, ne?