A little self-reflection is a good thing

For ENGL 646

Creating a list to answer the question “why do I write” didn’t work. Lists are for work; things to do and cross off. “Why do I write” requires sentences and paragraphs.

Why do I write? The quote “my job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” makes me giddy when I use it to explain why. I want to connect to people, to evoke empathy and to make them squirm. Fiction holds up a mirror to the world with all the black and white and shades of grey present in real life. Escapism is valid, but it is better when you can escape into an ideal of how the world should be. Most of the fiction I write is escapism—science fiction, fantasy, mystery—and I’m not ashamed of that. The world needs idealism.

I have been made ashamed before. I started writing stories down when I was eleven-years-old, mostly reworking books I had read. Richard Peck’s ghost stories enamored me, and I created my own psychic protagonist trying to deal with the evil things that go bump in the night (had Ghost Whisperer beat by a few decades). That series no longer exists because I went to a church-sponsored youth retreat that convinced me that writing about psychics was Satan’s work. So the good little Christian that I was burned those stories and cried. No surprise that I later opted out of organized religion.

Teaching of writing should avoid making any child feel ashamed of what they write. Plenty of people out in the world will fill the position. Janet Emig’s essay stressed the positive points for writing as a function of learning, but overall, I wasn’t impressed by it. I know I learn by writing, so I don’t need to have it proved to me with scientific studies. Yes, I know, academics need studies.

The strongest resonance with Natalie Goldberg is her stance of writing through pain. I can’t point to the section in the finished novel, but I remember riding a bus to my car after spending the day at work and watching the World Trade Center buildings fall and feeling so numb as the bus TV was set to even more news. I pulled out my manuscript and wrote, suddenly blitzing through a scene that had given me so much trouble. I could control the words, even if I didn’t understand anything else taking place.

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The BookWorm

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MONTHLY GOAL

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There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Catching Up Before I Get Behind

Projects for ENGL-646

• Reading response journal - due weekly


• Ongoing writing project = Zy's novel Chp 9 - 11 - due weekly


• Mini-research project - due ?


• Book project & presentation - due ?


• Mini-lesson plan & presentation - due ?


• Lesson plan & presentation - due ?


• Final paper/final version of ongoing writing project - due ?


• Final exam - due

Projects for ENGL-650

• 15 page research paper - due March 15/March 22


• Class presentation of research paper - due March 15/March 22


• Two 3-page play analysis papers - first due March 1


• Journal with 10 reaction entries on classmates presentations - due weekly


• Attend at least 2 Black History Month presentations for Feb 8th class - due ?

I need to have everything written before March 31st - April 3rd. I don't plan on missing class April 4th or 5th, but I'm not giving myself any presentations those two days.

ENGL-646 projects I think I'm going to hold back so other classmates with thesis and comps and more strenuous papers can go first. Though since I got this weekend free (bad weather again), I'm proably going to be working on homework. Get as much written as possible before it's actually due.

Also need to write the cooking show scripts.

Research topic: why is picking one in this subject so hard? I guess I'll start with Ashe Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans and have Zora Neale Hurston as my backup. Third choice is "Myth of the Negro Past."

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is one of the required readings for ENGL-646. I think it's been recommended by just about everyone who has written a how-to-write book. It's simply about how empowering the act of writing is, how the only rule is practice everyday, how to care about the process and not worry so much about the product, how to get into the Zen state of writing. Powerful little book.

For the writing project inside of ENGL-646, I'm going to use Zy's Novel--at least the next few chapters. I already finished my outline: concrete details for Chapter 9 - 21 and no blank chapters now. If I need a break a break in the prose, I can fleshout the aliens and other background material tasks.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

In honor of Barbara Seranella

I don't think I read her works and I'm already an organ donor, but if you are not, you should sign up. She died waiting for a liver transplant. MJ Rose put out the call on her blog. Sign-up for the organ donation here.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Writing as meditation

For ENGL-646

Writing Down the Bone was always on my list of will-read-someday books. Recommended by Heather Sellers (Page After Page) and other writers, but I never remembered to seek it out. I don’t know why I waited with as much as I highlighted in the first half. Like The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life by John Daido Loori, it reminds me of the Buddhust practices I want to turn into habits for my life: more meditation, less ego-centric head trips. But I’m finding lots of writing tips as well.

I started timed writing practice this morning and my hand cramped up with five minutes. It was hard sitting down words without a planned “this is what I want to write about.” I know I need this practice time to help me not get wound up when I’m actually working on a composition. The “Fighting Tofu” chapter touched on what has felt like my writing problem for the last few years. If I get froze up over writing, I try to use discipline to beat my lazy half into working and then just feeling more guilty when that doesn’t work. I love the idea of writing out lists of your obsessions; maybe, part of the reason why fanfics have been so easy is the degree of obsession involved.

Okay, my bias is improving my current work habits. I can see using the practice technique in a classroom setting to get used to the idea of writing before scaring students with structure like plot, scenes, and characters. Goldberg’s ideas fit in with Donald Murray’s implications that you need to teach writing as a process and not a product. Looking back at my own grade school experience, I remember lessons on brainstorming and essay form (prose fiction I learned outside of class), but no lessons on rewriting. Almost like the implication was we are supposed to write a perfect first draft and just look over it for spelling mistakes. I know later when I was helping people write fanfics with a series of tutorials, editing was the part most understood the least.

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The BookWorm

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MONTHLY GOAL

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There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth deserves all the awards it has gotten so far, especially since that caused its US partners to release it near me, yeah!



I got to see it in Baton Rouge right after work. The trailer only gives you a glimpse. I'm guessing the Fascists in Spain are about the same stripe as the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy, but my Spanish WWII history is practically non-existant.

But this movie... I want to write a del Toro fantasy and have him film it.

He also directed Hellboy.



Yes, I am having fun with YouTube; why do you ask?

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Read now!

Now if only Lucas had been actually writing this story....

A New Sith or Revenge of the Hope

It's not enough to make me actually like Episodes 1 - 3, but it helps. It made me giggle.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Nobody yell at me

No outlining plot didn't get done this weekend. Instead I finished entering last year's bank data into Quicken, reconciled all the statements, and hit the budget button. I need to fine-tune the budget, right now it's just telling me what I spent last year and I overspent by 412 dollars each month. I need to tweak it into what I want to spend within my income levels before it becomes a Secret Plan for financial success.

I also need to read the For Dummies book on Quicken 2007 to make sure I know how to do that.

But it's not happening now. Eyeballs are crossing from too many numbers. But I think I found some big tax deductions besides my house. Yeap, that's the next number crunching to do. After budget.

Oh and the Saints aren't going to the Superbowl, so the Universe is off the hook for imploding now.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Writing Weekend

Though I may have to add clean the office to it so I have desk surface to work on writing with.

Yesterday and Friday were nil in terms of actual writing, but I did get the outline typed up in the manuscript. And then I went digging into my files. What I had a suspicion about was Family, Friends, and Foes, a fanfic but the last work of fiction of size and scope (over 126,000 words), and resembling what I'm attempting with Zy's Novel.

What I did learn from the freelance gig was outline made everything work out better. Zy's Novel outline on Chapter Nine - the end make up 2 pages and a paragraph on the third typed. Family, Friends, and Foes's outline had 13 pages including a timeline of the novel, characters list, plot and subplots lists.

Even with a couple of timelines figured up in Excel, my outline is hardly there. Which I guess means I shouldn't be surprised when I dig into my brain and find the story barely there as well. So really this weekend is going to be getting my vague notions on paper, where I can and probably will deviate from, but at least I can say "yes, that resembles a book."

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Important Questions for today that I'm in no mood for

#1. If I hadn't come to work, would the leftover UNIX have ever been done?

#2. How much more annoyed can I get in one day?

I'll explain later.

It's later. But where to start? UNIX is the manual way of processing checks on my job. Yesterday, I had a check that wouldn't scan and didn't get a chance to put it in UNIX myself. Okay, it has to be done in the morning today.

I didn't get into work until 12:30p.m. And the check is still in the bucket to be done. *Sigh* Yeah, the supervisor says she's going to talk to the rest. Probably on Tuesday at the office meeting. Maybe one of these days, I'll actually listen to myself when I tell myself that I don't give a damn about this job other than doing what I have to do to get my paycheck.

So the rest of the day: the bank aggravation grows. I'm P.O. at Capital One for no contact but I may have to keep the account open while I attend SLU. They closed my account due to lack of funds Friday, Jan. 12th, and I didn't contact me. Had they contacted me, I would have told them I'm expecting a direct deposit of my financial aid refund Jan. 15th, the date according to SLU (and they have an exclusive contract with Capital One).

So I only discovered this fracas over the holiday, and basically got word from the national customer service that I'd be able to get my money Thursday morning. So here it is Thursday morning, wet, nasty, and about ten degrees warmer that it has been. Lobby doesn't open until 9am, guess who thought it was 8am and had to wait in the parking lot for an hour? Only to be told there is no deposit anywhere in the system. Go see Southeastern.

Now I'm getting panicky because I told everybody I owed money to I could pay on Thursday. Southeaster says they haven't sent out any refunds and lender's checks are probably arriving next week (Controller's Office), don't cancel direct deposit because Capital One will reopen you account (Payroll and Capital One workers at SLU), and lenders checks will be cut on Friday, bitch (Financial Aid). Actually, "bitch" wasn't said, but implied.

So I didn't cancel the direct deposit and have no idea when my money will arrive. I'll keep the account open with $100 but I don't trust it with anything like my bills again. And since I will be sticking to my budget this year and not loaning out any money, I shouldn't run dry in August and December again.

Luckily, this week is a payweek so I was able to pull out cash and pay the most pressing bills and buy books for school. My mystery class tonight is African-American lit, which I'm having a hard time building up any enthusasism about. I still haven't been paid for my freelance gig. I don't know if I got rooked but I wish I had used the escrow account now so I could complain.

More later: The class is actually African-American drama/performace art. I don't get any credit for it due to sharing a number with another class I took, but since both classes qualify as electives, I don't feel like finding another. Teaching Creative Writing is the Wednesday night class, and looks to be interesting. I'm debating whether to use the Mary Sue stuff for BMFM as one of the "lectures." The class ended up being fairly split between not-employed-by-the-Dept. of Education and employed-by-the-Dept. of Education, so the prof. is giving us some leway in what we present.

Jan. 20th: It's much later, and I'm still waiting on school money that SLU says they released Jan. 18th. That's right, the same day I went looking for it and nobody can find it. I think Capital One has it now, and are holding it until it clears. Now why this takes them a week when at my job it takes at the most 2 days to get our electronic deposits cleared (and it looks like they're bringing that down to one day at the bank's end), I will never understand. Still waiting for my freelance money. And hopefully Wednesday will have my student meal plan and Laignnaipe account reopened. Yeap, Thursday had them unusable after I made my fuss and everybody in charge should have known I was getting money.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Today's progress

I have class tonight if it isn't canceled, so I doubt I get to work on the total anymore today.

Read Free!
The BookWorm


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There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Plan of attack

348 words yesterday, and I got started while juggling job assignments. Not to bad. I still feel bad about my fill-in-the-blank aliens though. So here's the plan for today:

• Finish typing what I have written


• Type out the outline as it stand now for the rest of the book in the manuscript


• Check with Writerly--or whatever Google is calling it now--and see what I need to upload to bring it up to date


• Work on alien creation and finish filling out my describing sheet on at least one of them.


• Eventually need to start working on cultures and languages

Not too overly ambitious, I hope.

I also remembered this morning, after fighting with my computer, why I wait so long between backups. There's no bloody way to do it cleanly. So I guess I'll just have to be content with saving the My Documents and Program Files sections, and hope that those recovery points actually do something when I need to reboot the computer from scratch.

Read Free!
The BookWorm


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There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

U2 and GreenDay The Saints Are Coming - LIVE - New Orleans

I'm not a sports fan. But even I'm getting excited with one game away from the Superbowl. If they actually manage to go, Hell is freezing over. If they win, the universe will implode.

Yeah, it's a big deal down here. And Greenday and U2 gave us the anthem for the year at the first game to open the Superdome. (Yes, I know it's a remake but that doesn't matter.) Actually, you get a pretty good selection from their concert in this clip.

The video is up at YouTube too, but more political than I feel right now.

How much crap have I been hauling around?

I'm pretty sure my problems are at least PMS crankiness, but I'll be damned if I'm going to apologize for yesterday's phone call. Only if I get an apology for suffering through constant telephone conversations with a partner who suddenly only has a five-word vocabulary. ("Yes", "no", "stop", "ditto", and "what")

Yesterday was just bad. So in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't try to do anything beyond reading, even though I had a list. The bank upset me--and now my refund should be there on Thursday so I can get the cash in my grubby paw and move it to my credit union (that has issues but at least communicates with me). I didn't eat right all day. Chad been logical and obtuse didn't help the emotional breakdown. So I sulked, had a good cry, got my back popped, had Mexican, and went to bed early.

Today, I'm marginally better. Maybe the cold front helped. I'm still sulky towards Chad about the damn phone thing (Why am I being punished for your decision to hate phone calls? Have to remember to ask him that.) but less sulky towards life in general. I should write today. Not that knowing that I should makes it any more likely that I will write.

Then Wil Wheaton finds the formula for procrastination.

I got nothin'.

I'm going to go write. And if the sulky mood still makes me cause the planet to die in a supernova, I fully expect somebody to tell me it doesn't work and I need to try again.

I'm at least typing today on the stuff that I had written previously. And the title of the post refers to what I said when I dumped my black bag out at work. Two of the folders in it I thought were lost in my office.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Now that was romantic

Websnark: Submitted Without Comment: The Most Important Post I Will Ever Make. Especially when set to music. Hint, watch the MP4.

The overall feast was fun, mixed with a couple of bad pangs of feeling like a damn third wheel. I'm beginning to think I need to see a shrink over my inferiority complex that keeps popping up. Wasn't made too much better this morning by my man declining to have breakfast with me so he could finish sleeping off his legally prescribed medication. Which part of me wants to be reasonable and understand since an allergic reaction almost sent him to the hospital last week, and part of me wants to whine "He's so selfish. It's always what he wants and my sleep schedule and when my body is used to eating should conform to his sleep schedule." I don't think the second half got enough sleep last night.

*Sigh* I don't know what's wrong with me besides loving a man who once demonstrated an awkward romantic side that matched mine, but has since moving back to Lafayette has turned it off completely. And I want more romance; or if he wants us to act like the old married farts everyone assumes we are, I WANT THE MARRIAGE AND THE CO-HABITAION AND SOMEONE TO GO HOME TO BESIDES MY CAT! Considering if I had all that, I probably wouldn't be so icky girly touchy-touchy in public with him (which is what he seems to have issues with). And maybe I was less publically demonstrative when he lived in Hammond and I was seeing him everyday, so he should understand why that's not the case anymore.

Or on last note, this could all be PMS fueled and it's just the hormones talking.

So I arrived home not really in a mood to do anything but play on the computer and read. So I'm playing on the computer and reading. Yeah, I'll end up doing something work-ish related, but not anytime soon.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

My first freelance gig

It was the EBook on organizing. Final word count as of last night: 11,116 words. I'm pleased with the results, but it's not done until my employer say so. I won't know until Sunday, Saturday is booked this weekend.

What I have learned about my first freelance job? Actually having a final word count helps work out how long it will take to do the job. I roughly write around 400 words an hour, but it goes much faster with an outline. Scary fast, and I think I may end up in my fiction doing what I did in this project: inserting a bullet list of points to hit that get deleted as they're hit. I usually put fiction outlines elsewhere, but getting Zy's novel worked on....

Hunting show news: 5 men illeagelly killed 10 deer and an alligator because they had nothing better to do. Yes, I want to smack them too. This is about the only time I listen to talk radio, and this station has interesting shows pre-seven a.m.

So today is Saturday: I have to go to Lafayette for a cast meeting and then a garbbed Twelfth Night feast. I'll probably come home on Sunday to work on office paperwork. Yeah, it's a three-day weekend this weekend, but we got the camping site clean-up next weekend in Lafayette, and I need to write fiction and the cooking show. Plus getting ready for school and cook some meat I found in the back of my freezer.

My weight is hideous. Not my all-time worse, but damn it keeps creeping up. This past week had me coming straight home for two to three hours of writing time to get my freelance job done. But I need to go to the gym to workout because working out at home I just don't do it. I'll figure something out on it, when I can think about it. I guess on Sunday or Monday. Hopefully practicing the dance for work will burn some off. I have to start that on Sunday too.

That's all I got for now. Time to get chores done and pack the car.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Yes, I know I've been hiding

And I'll tell all about it later. For now just gaze at these lovely, lovely, lovely totals.

WEEKLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

MONTHLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

Yes, I am immensely pleased with myself. Now I have to edit.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Busy holiday

I haven't been on my schedule since Thanksgiving. Chores have been done in splurges, usually on the weekends. Paperwork and the back bedroom stacks threatened navigation through the house. Cleared space to work in the kitchen shrunk, but was still wider than the clear space in the office. The house and I limped through Christmas. Chad coming over for New Year's inspired me to find the vacuum cleaner lest his allergies send us to the emergency room.

Since being broke really does limit what you can do to entertain yourself, I ended up cleaning. The back bedroom wasn't that bad. The stacks I had made were just right in the door and I had to pull them out and rearrange. Some stuff did end up in the closet that will disappear with the bathroom remodel, but since I don't know when the bathroom will be remodeled, I might as well use the closet. Paperwork got sorted and tossed and some filed, though filing is going to be a work in progress for a while yet.

On Tuesday, Chad went home and I checked off everything on the chores checklist. I sat writing on my freelance job with one ear cocked for the Twilight Zone theme to start playing. Wednesday went equally well, though I have to finish up some new Wednesday chores tonight. It's computer stuff: weekly backup of My Documents and Quicken entry.

Mustard has claimed the back bedroom bed as his. If he's not in my face, he's curled up on it asleep. I haven't had the heart to shut the door and cut off his access.

I got a freelance job, yeah, and it's cruising right along. I want 2007 to be the year I meet my writing goals steadily. So far so good.

Upcoming agenda:

• Finish personal financial outlook with Quicken and new workbook


• CHORES! Catch-up


• Website updates


• Help Mom just short of going nuts


• Writing list
  • Uncle Keith's obit - Mom needs to edit
  
  
  • Alien species outlines for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Alien languages for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Pages in Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Editing Blue Man
  
  
  • Editing Covenant
  
  
  • Outlining webcomic project
  
  
  • Printing and double checking June mailout
  
  
  • Research markets
  
  
  • Goto State Library for research
  
  
  • Finish freelance job


• Find dice for Eric's Twelfth Night Feast


• Drink more water and go to the gym


• Buy 2 more Ikea shelves


• Sort File papers


• Get give-away box put together


• Take all give-away boxes to Mom's store


• Apply for gas card


• 15 minutes on back bedroom, office, and kitchen


• Time myself on writing up a subject so I can figure out what prices to charge.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

WEEKLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Ugh, is it over yet?

Jeff Foxworthy's rule of marriage: "If she ain't happy, you ain't happy. Booing it doesn't make it any less true."

I think it applies to my mother this Christmas. Her reasons for not being in a holiday spirit are vaild, but do they make a good reason to spoil everyone else's good time? And how bad does it make me not wanting to hear about the various problem stuff anymore (i.e. being used as a sounding board to a jackhammer)?

Maybe the answer is to take over the major holidays, if she'll let them go. Hmm, I like Wil Wheaton's idea of making Christmas memories instead of the Christmas junk, but I don't know how to make it fly. Have a whole year to figure it out I guess.

Yesterday was better: time with friends I haven't seen in ages. The baby shower went well (mainly due to fun obliviousness--which is easier to do when you aren't related) and I dragged myself out of bed after four hours of sleep unregretting the time spent.

I didn't get everything on the list done though a lot has fallen off. But before looking at the short term, I want to focus on goals for the new year.

To accomplish in 2007

• Lose some weight--at this point I'm not picky about numbers but I want to buy clothes under the size I'm in now (not above)


• Meet at least three of my financial goals
  • establish a nest egg of 3 months of expenses
  
  
  • start savings for construction project
  
  
  • straighten out Roth IRA
  
  
  • start Faire and vacation savings
  
  
  • payoff outstanding debts
  
  
  • pay on mortgage principle


• Sell some writing


• File paperwork more often


• FINISH the damn scanning project


• Visit friends more


• Sew more


• Color more


• Write more


• Be more spiritual and try out new spells I found


• Stress less


• Screen in front porch and install cat door and cat gym

Maybe some of them fit more under guidelines than actual goals. And it all sounds better than resolutions, but I'm using that in the labels so I can find them again.

Now for the short term plans.

Upcoming agenda:

• Finish personal financial outlook with Quicken and new workbook


• CHORES! Catch-up


• Website updates


• Help Mom just short of going nuts


• Writing list
  • Uncle Keith's obit - Mom needs to edit
  
  
  • Alien species outlines for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Alien languages for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Pages in Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Editing Blue Man
  
  
  • Editing Covenant
  
  
  • Outlining webcomic project
  
  
  • Printing and double checking Dec. mailout
  
  
  • Research markets
  
  
  • Goto State Library for research


• Find dice for Eric's Twelfth Night Feast


• Drink more water and go to the gym


• Buy 2 more Ikea shelves


• Sort papers and file


• Get give-away box put together


• Take all give-away boxes to Mom's store


• Apply for gas card


• 15 minutes on back bedroom, office, and kitchen


• Time myself on writing up a subject so I can figure out what prices to charge.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

How it went

Well, 5 sites for freelancers: 1 had to pay for membership, 3 let you sign-up for free, and craigslist.com is a site of classified ads. Dismiss the one for pay. Out of the 3 that let you sign up for free, 2 need you to upgrade to paying memberships before bidding on jobs. Okay, if I was freelancing for all my money that would be a necessary expense. So I emailed one add on Craigslist and bid on nine projects at GetAFreelancer.com. And it's competitive there. But I had fun with some of the bids after I got tired of just listing my skills set.

"How does a third-generation pack rat try to break free of messy habits and become organizied? This would be the approach I would take. No preaching to the audience, but a fellow disorganizied scatter brain bettering herself is the approach I would take this project. And I'm happy to research new ways of organizing time and space to include in this book." -- I'm not as happy with it this morning (seeing ways to improve it), but it's more fun than "I can write; hire me."

"I'm the handy(wo)man in this household. I would fully research each and every topic assigned to me on power tools." -- I still like this one.

But the free account limits you to 15 bids in a month, so I have to use them carefully. I'll be keeping my eyes open on the other sites might let me start bidding, but not holding my breath.

Upcoming agenda:

• Call Dad about Demco stuff today


• Finish personal financial outlook with Quicken and new workbook


• Buy Christmas presents for Dad, Hannah, and Krista. Get wrapping paper from Mom.


• CHORES!


• Wrap up Billy and Misty baby gifts so all I have to do is pack the car.


• Put together Ikea shelves and rearrange movies.


• Enter the pile of new books into BookCAT


• Website updates


• Help Mom just short of going nuts


• Writing list
  • Uncle Keith's obit
  
  
  • Spec letter to Uncle Dean
  
  
  • Alien species outlines for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Alien languages for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Pages in Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Editing Blue Man
  
  
  • Editing Covenant
  
  
  • Outlining webcomic project
  
  
  • Printing and double checking Dec. mailout
  
  
  • Research markets
  
  
  • Goto State Library for research


• Find dice for Eric's Twelfth Night Feast


• Drink more water and go to the gym


• Mail spec letter to Uncle Dean


• Bring pile for Marian to WORK


• Get LEO password and business card to fax payroll info


• Buy 2 more Ikea shelves


• Bid on 10 freelance jobs

I'm going to have to make the crossed-off stuff disappear over the weekend. But for now it gives the illusion of progress.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Sad money situation

Okay, I've been money stupid in 2006. Really money stupid. And while I have cash coming in January from student loans, I think I need another income source I can dedicate to this list:

1. outstanding debts


2. emergency savings


3. construction projects


4. Faire expenses


5. vacations


6. retirement--moving Roth IRA from CD to something with stocks


7. 1 or 2 CDs for safety sake


8. mortgage

therefore leaving the regular paycheck for monthly bills, groceries, and fun splurges. This is the rough draft; I have to finish my Quicken bookkeeping before I have concrete numbers to work with. But I can see the red ink already; I just don't know how many numbers between the minus sign and the decimal point. Income streams are paycheck and student loans. Fiction hasn't paid yet, neither has AMF writing gig.

So I need another source of income that pays but it has to be flexible with the rest of my schedule. Freelance writing looks to be the only option. I have 5 websites that are reputable. They all have jobs I can do.

But I'm scared.

Oh this is absolutely fucked up. How the hell did I turn into a writer that is scared of writing? Scared of trying anything new?

Okay, anxiety police, self-esteem demons, etc. I'm freaked over being broke. This is a temporary condition and I have a plan to fix it. My writing skills are part of the fix and I have good ones.

I will not crack under this pressure.
I will be working all weekend to clease me, my house, my finances, and get a good hunk of that list done so I am free to focus.
I will get back on a schedule.
I will restart my fiction.
I will also apply for a gas station credit card so I will be free from the worry of getting back and forth to the paying job.

Tonight--regardless of how drained I feel--I'm bidding on at least 10 jobs (2 on each site). Wait 3 days and bid on 2 more each site again.

You know, I think this is the first time I have called the anxiety crap out. ANd it worked. Wow. I feel so much better now. Even about the agenda list that keeps getting longer. Now I have to go print this post out to remember everything I need to do.

Upcoming agenda:

• Call Dad about Demco stuff today


• Finish personal financial outlook with Quicken and new workbook


• Buy Christmas presents for Dad, Hannah, and Krista. Get wrapping paper from Mom.


• CHORES!


• Wrap up Billy and Misty baby gifts so all I have to do is pack the car.


• Put together Ikea shelves and rearrange movies.


• Enter the pile of new books into BookCAT


• Website updates


• Help Mom just short of going nuts


• Writing list
  • Uncle Keith's obit
  
  
  • Spec letter to Uncle Dean
  
  
  • Alien species outlines for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Alien languages for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Pages in Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Editing Blue Man
  
  
  • Editing Covenant
  
  
  • Outlining webcomic project
  
  
  • Printing and double checking Dec. mailout
  
  
  • Research markets
  
  
  • Goto State Library for research


• Find dice for Eric's Twelfth Night Feast


• Drink more water and go to the gym


• Mail spec letter to Uncle Dean


• Bring pile for Marian to WORK


• Get LEO password and business card to fax payroll info


• Buy 2 more Ikea shelves


• Bid on 10 freelance jobs

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Sleep is for mere mortals!

Scholars' College would make T-shirts. One of the years before I went (1995) had a top ten "statements" list. #1 was "Sleep is for mere mortals!" I don't remember what number it was but another statement that was passed on was "I worship the great god Caffine and his consort Ramen." And yet, I got burnt-out on too much funkiness like that, go figure.

Upcoming agenda:

• Call Dad about Demco stuff today


• Finish personal financial outlook with Quicken and new workbook


• Buy Christmas presents for Dad, Hannah, and Krista. Get wrapping paper from Mom.


• CHORES!


• Wrap up Billy and Misty baby gifts so all I have to do is pack the car.


• Put together Ikea shelves and rearrange movies.


• Enter the pile of new books into BookCAT


• Website updates


• Help Mom just short of going nuts


• Writing list
  • Uncle Keith's obit
  
  
  • Spec letter to Uncle Dean
  
  
  • Alien species outlines for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Alien languages for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Pages in Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Editing Blue Man
  
  
  • Editing Covenant
  
  
  • Outlining webcomic project
  
  
  • Printing and double checking Dec. mailout
  
  
  • Research markets
  
  
  • Goto State Library for research


• Find dice for Eric's Twelfth Night Feast


• Drink more water and go to the gym


• Mail spec letter to Uncle Dean

I have good intentions but I have to stop going to Mom's. One hour spent there and I'm wiped out and no good for whatelse I need to do that night.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Am I Back?

Remember what I said about plans and me? Wednesday night I found out that my cousin wanted to babysit the sick people and Mom needed me to drive to Austin. So it was quick run there and back, packed my tools and clothes, and drove to Lafayette.

It was site clean up, and with 6 people on Saturday and 5 people on Sunday we accomplished what we set out to do. Plus we had a look at the shady area:


Faire's going to be gorgeous this year.

So Kai and Atticus are safely back in Austin, I'm safely back home, and should have a whole week at work this week. *Knocks on wood* However, I'm having the hardest time getting back into the routine. As in, there is no routine established yet. Maybe by the holidays.

Upcoming agenda:

• Call Dad about Demco stuff today


• Finish personal financial outlook with Quicken and new workbook


• Buy Christmas presents for Dad, Hannah, and Krista. Get wrapping paper from Mom.


• CHORES!


• Wrap up Billy and Misty baby gifts so all I have to do is pack the car.


• Put together Ikea shelves and rearrange movies.


• Enter the pile of new books into BookCAT


• Website updates


• Help Mom just short of going nuts


• Writing list
  • Uncle Keith's obit
  
  
  • Spec letter to Uncle Dean
  
  
  • Alien species outlines for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Alien languages for Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Pages in Zy's Novel
  
  
  • Editing Blue Man
  
  
  • Editing Covenant
  
  
  • Outlining webcomic project
  
  
  • Printing and double checking Dec. mailout
  
  
  • Research markets
  
  
  • Goto State Library for research


• Find dice for Eric's Twelfth Night Feast


• Drink more water and go to the gym

*Headdesk* Wake me up when December ends.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Just when you think life is back to normal

Me and plans. You would think I'd know by now that we are incompatible, but I am addicted to plans. I cheerfully made my plans that this would be a normal week.Chip away at my writing list, go to the gym, get research done, go to work for a full week. As it stands now, Mom has to drive Kai and Atticus back to Austin and the rehab hospital wants to release MaMa Thursday. And since I have to go to Lafayette this weekend, driving to Austin got pushed to Wednesday. So I have to stay home with my grandmother.

Which I can use to my advantage, but I don't know what it's going to do towards me saving up time to take off in April. *Sigh* Being the good girl sucks.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Many round ups?

I tend to write blog posts out on paper when I'm too busy to type or away from my desk. I date them right, but sometimes they all go up at once. I started this handwriting while playing a game to wind down for bed Saturday night.

Saturday was spent enjoying the company of my sister and nephew. SO nothing got done much house or writing-wise. But it's not often I get to do the doting aunt thing, so I splurged with quality time.

Sunday was supposed to be a get back on schedule day and test new alarm clock. It didn't happen. I think I slept right through it. It ended up having a vivid dream that hatched a new story idea. I probably need a better way to store plot bunnies. I cooked and tried to work on some graphics stuff, but nothing was pleasing me. Annoyed that nobody said anything about Alt BM Site changes. Yeah, less work? *shrugs* I guess everyone is happy with it for now. I ended up playing a couple of computer games and rewatching the Ghosthunters Season 1 DVDs.

Today is looking halfway good. Alarm clock worked; I just couldn't pull myself out of bed. And if the Saints can kick the Cowboys collective butts all over Texas, I can can get my happy butt to the gym for 30 minutes. I need to get back into the routine of writing, or at least do some background alien work. I'm not as far along as edits as I would like and I still haven't figured out when I can have a marketing day. But I'm feeling hopeful about it.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Life getting back to normal slowly

My first time back in the gym since Ocotber. Damn, it was a hard 30 minutes but I made it through it. Of course the last 15 minutes we're spent going "you made it now how about 5 more minutes?" until 30 had passed.

Uncle Scott is finally back in a regular hospital room. He had surgery Tuesday and the CAT scans and MRIs since then show that they got all of the tumor. There is a slight weakness in his left side, but therapy should bring that back.

Now the pathology said it was a low-grade, malignant tumor, so therapy is necessary. Mom wants chemo rather than radiation. Regardless, my uncle will have to go in for MRIs every three months for the rest of his life. At leat now we can calm down and take a big sigh a relief.

I haven't started on any of the website work, and last I checked there were no responses from Alt. Biker Mice Site. But I found a new toy I want to use at the Library. At DoomBuggies.Com, they have audio controls on the page (scroll down and you can't miss them). Now the first page has embedded sound, which drives me crazy because you can never shut them off. And that was always a drawback to included the songs in the stories because they would just play over and over again and drive viewers batty like me. But this control would allow me to put the song with the lyrics and give the viewers a choice to listen or not while reading and it will stop after playing once. More research is necessary to figure out how to do it.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

The Finals are Over; Long Life the Finals

Yeap, done a day ealry. But at the same time I feel like crapola. I suppose that really shouldn't be that surprising, given everything that's going on. And how wonky my sleep schedule got.

I should have brought coloring to work on today. Instead it's writing. I'm still undecided if it's a good day or bad day for that.

Tomorrow is my mailout extravaganza and I'm not ready. Nothing researched, nothing edited, noting printed. I hate to delay it...

*Pauses to go get much needed caffine*

Much better. Try just having one can tomorrow. Today has to be 2. Where was I? Delaying the mailout. I've done the mailout blind before and failed miserably. But delay too long and run into holiday issues. And SLU library will now be closed at 4:30pm Monday - Friday and closed all day Saturday and Sunday. *headdesk*

There is a backup choice. The State Library closes at 5pm, but I'm only four or five blocks from it. I usually squeeze through before the doors are locked. Unfortunately no Saturday hours either but they have magazines.

So the plan has changed: Library on Fridays, mailout Dec 28th, and me in the gym tonight. Already stress is easing. I was feeling bad about no research.

Now the mailout list:

• The Front Porch
• the Rose
• Father's Love
• Dreams of the Dead
• the Blue Man on the Porch
• Covenant of the Restless
• Hitchhiking Highwayman

Blue Man on the Porch and Covenant of the Restless are not ready for publication, so I will hold them back until June's mailout unless a miracle happens in the next twenty days (and I think I spent all my saved up brownie points on Uncle Scott).

I think that covers everything I was worried about writing-wise. Now to concentrate on editing something.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

A Question of Epics

12/05/06 9pm: Note to self: replace alarm clock radio with a version that requires two-button sequence for changing time.

Hopefully stree will end soon. I'll probably have to be late on my mailout extravaganza because as of today--nothing is printed, much less edited.

Kilroy and Tina is pausing its run due to creator burnout (I'm being positive about it coming back). The Green Avenger went on pause due to creator crisis that hit very close to home right now (need to send her a note). Elf Life is doing something again, but set after the epic wedding story (and on the site I wasn't watching of course) because the wedding story was "too epic to tackle." That's 2 out of 3 that ended up saying "epics are hard."

I'm not denying burnout. I feel so burnout that the ashes are smothering the creative spark. I'm curious and a bit fretful and a fan that will miss the product.

Curious: Is it just a case of vision exceeding capabilities? Is it just a case of creating one thing but the medium has turned it into something else?

Fretful: If I do a webcomic, especially the one that lurks in me brain, am I doomed for failure?

You seem I'm thinking epic (7 main characters and I just added 3 more, plus flashback characters), I already know it will be huge, but I'm thinking graphic novel with beginning, middle, and end that is serialized page by page.

Yes, I'm being silly since I need to have it scripted and find an artist first. This is what happens when an academic is wornout and abused by life in general. Brain goes in a weird direction.

12/6/06 1:22pm: Funny, I write out my worries and find Websnark discussing the same thing with Cheshire Crossing; At least once in this essay, I wrote 'Weir" as "Weird." I'm certain no one has ever done that before in Andy Weir's life.

I hadn't thought of this method, waiting until the whole chapter was done. So brain has stopped fretting about this topic for now.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

So tired

Sunday: Kai and Atticus arrive via train to New Orleans. Me go get. No matter what Kai gets on when I have to pick her up, she's later. Train supposed to be there at 4pm. Got in at 8:30pm.

Uncle Keith's funeral was Monday. We went. It actually went pretty decently. Let here for having a formal dressed Marine in the cemetary. Yes, Uncle Keith was a Marine. Yes, he should have stayed in. Nope didn't go to 'Nam, but told everybody he had.

Tuesday, Uncle Scott has to gave an MRI before surgery. Surgery scheduled at 10:30am. We got there at 6am. Then they didn't tell us he went straight from MRI to surgery. Surgery actually started noon-ish, got finished 3:30pm-ish, and neurosurgeon said it went well. COurse we really don't know anything until the biopsy of the tumor comes back from the lab. As of 5pm, both Mom and Uncle Scott's girlfriend Sherry had seen him but he was still waiting in recovery for a room. He was talking and knew stuff (his head hurt and they put a cathater in him again). We went home with a detour at Target to buy stuff for Atticus.

Very tired, trying to get the computer shut down so I can go to bed and get back on routine tomorrow. At least that is my plan as far as that goes.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Family drama has already started

Just when you hope the family is going to pull together and act right, they have to go and prove you wrong. I missed the worst display of it being at work and Uncle Scott made out his list of who he didn't want to see because "they're just crazy." But I know Our Lady of the Lake staff is talking about those crazy coonass Vamprans.

As I asked Chad last night, "Does it mean there's hope for me since I'm the product of the two sanest people of their respective families?"

Uncle Keith's funeral arrangements were made without consulting us and his wishes aren't being followed. My aunt Marsha is preaching the service. Granted, I've come to get really annoyed with ordained preachers who treat a funeral not as a celebration of the deceased's life but as an opportunity to get a Sunday sermon into the gathered crowd, but we have ordained cousins and friends of the family who would do it for the family. The train wreck is Monday and I don't know what my mother and grandmother are planning to do.

Uncle Scott's surgery is Tuesday. My sister Kai is coming in by train this afternoon. My sister Krista is coming in sometime Monday. My grandmother is set up at a rehab hospital and is liking it so far. No, the bleeding ulcer wasn't treated with anything since it was scabbing over, so she's still bleeding.

I finished the paper, so today I've got to get the finals 90% complete, as well as go to the store, go pick up Kai and Atticus, and squeeze in a visit to MaMa. Though I'm thinking if I end up taking off the next two days from work, I might be able to put off the visit part.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Uncle Keith died

My aunt Marsha found him dead at 5am this morning. I just found out now.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Oookkkaaayyy

Well, I thought company licensing deliveries was on rotation not actually doing them. And I wouldn't have made this Kindra's week after Kindra missed 2 days. *Shrug*

I've been fighting with myself over starting another long project while still working on Zy's novel, and with everything else is going on. I made a notebook this morning for the Strix project, but I think I've decided to work on websites instead with this excess energy. Short duration project just feels right. I can have website updates wrapped up by the time to next semester gets started.

I also have the mail out to get ready. And finishing assignments this weekend. So let's go for something completely distracting.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Reprieve of sorts

No, paper not done but he extended it till Monday night. And both finals are take homes. And unless it's to go to the hospitals, I don't think I'm leaving home this weekend.

Update on the medical as of yesterday because I haven't seen anyone in the family today: Uncle Scott responded well to the steroids and was talking coherently. He has the same type of cancer that killed Savanna. Mom's worried because a) no cancer doctor yet (I'm not about to try to spell that Latin, I can say it though) and b) they haven't shown us the CAT scan and MRI results. I'm probably going to stop in after work tomorrow night.

MaMa Ree (my grandmother) just had a bleeding ulcer and expected to come home today. Mom sent her sister-in-law to take care of that. I left my cell phone number at my parents' house in case they ended up taking my mother to Jackson (where the state mental hospital is) because her mother came home now. No one called so I guess North Oaks Hospital has kept her longer.

That's all I know right now.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

So you know what's going on updated

Uncle Keith has gone to my aunt's house with 24-hour care provided by the VA.

Grandmother is having a scope done sometime today. She had 3 pints of blood put in her Monday, and looked a lot better yesterday.

Doctors are saying the mass is a tumor and that means cancer. And that his stroke 3 years ago may have been cancer too. He's only 41 years old. Of course all Mom can think about is Savanna.

I was sent back to work. And I have a 1000 word essay due on Faulkner tomorrow, and finals next week.

The docotrs is going to start removing Chad's stitches in 3 weeks, starting the week before Christmas.

Yeah, I think that's everything for now. I need to write about incest now.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

So you guys know what is going on

My mother's oldest brother Keith was admitted to North Oaks hospital Saturday. By Sunday he was diagnoised with terminal liver, stomach, and intestinal cancer. Monday morning, my mother's mother who lives with my parents had blood in her stools and needed to be admitted to the hospital. Not quite as unexpected, since we were talking about sending her in for CAT scans and observation.

What was unexpected in my mother's baby brother Scott was found unconscious by his girlfriend and airlifted to Baton Rouge. The trauma center and ER at Our Lady of the Lake found a mass in his brain. At this point they won't commit to a tumor or infection or a stroke, but "tumor" was the first word a nurse told my mother when she reached him and she went all too peices.

It was midnight before a bed opened in ICU to put Uncle Scott in. And I don't know what's going to happen today.

Read Free!
The BookWorm


Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Weather and a new plan

Cold! 32 degrees F in November is unreal. But the house is warm.

I worked a little on creating Zy's reports on the murders. But it was after class and I didn't get very far. I've also placed needing to create a star map with systems and hyperspace lanes in the back of my head. I'm not ready to draw that with my awful drawing skills.

I should be working on homework and just can't face any more Faulkner. Maybe tomorrow.

Found an empty half-inch binder to expand Zy's Novel working notes into. (As opposed to the rest of the notes that fill a two-inch binder.) And got annoyed with the outline available all over again while packing it yesterday. I need to play with the printout options for yWriter, but I forgot to do it after class and trying to figure out how much Zy knows at this point with seven victims.

Aliens: Make me much happier than Faulkner. Have that out to work on during slow time. So far, I'm developing the describe-the-attributes sheet. Should look familiar to all roleplayers. Yeah, I'm going slow on filling it out, but with 20 aliens at last count, I don't want to have to repeatedly turn back to the book.

Submissions: Finished flagging Page After Page two nights ago, and reread her chapter on submissions and being published. And I want to change my strategy. Current strategy: Tell myself to send out two submissions a month and send nothing out. You can see why it needs work.

I'm thinking of combining Heather Sellars tactics with the one she talks about in the exercise for the chapter. Sellars says she send everything she has out twice a year, which corresponds to the ends of semesters (she is a creative writing professor). The exercise says to follow five days of writing with a marketing day to research markets. I like the idea of sending everything out once you have a list of markets for each work, and I like the idea of taking a day to research.

So let's pick a day in December and June to send out a pile of manuscripts: the 8th (it's my lucky number). What needs to go out in December: The Front Porch, the Rose, Father's Love, Dreams of the Dead, the Blue Man on the Porch, Covenant of the Restless, and Hitchhiking Highwayman. After those are in the mail, it's time to start on a new short story for June. As well as keep working on Zy's Novel. Just occured to me that I can only use the last three in my thesis project that will be soon approaching, maybe along with the "Gingerbread Girl." A vacuum of creative project seems to exist for me now.

The second correlation is to follow five writing working days with a marketing day. Always easier said than done but I want a schedule. I like schedules. I'm thinkg of using Saturday and going to SLU's periodical room. Maybe heavy on the journal side, but I think I have a chance of finding samples to read. Provided I go between 9am and 4pm and starting Dec 1st because they're closed this Saturday because of happy gobble, gobble day.

*Snort* I need to finish my edits and post "Let Us Give Thanks" pretty damn soon. I forgot my seasons in relation with the story. That will be tonight once I get some work on aliens done today.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

OJ book deal back to a not book deal again

GalleyCat report

I know, I know. Everybody's sick of it already. Last word, unless OJ does go to a vanity publisher as so many are encouraging him to do.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

What Tarot card are you?

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Good words from J.A. Konrath

Your Daily Motivational

And some more news from Galley Cat on OJ

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Big day for book-news

Boycott OJ's book. Boycott OJ's TV special about the book.

Whether he's guilty on innocent doesn't really feature into the equation. All I can keep thinking is "Gee, she's dead and he's STILL abusing her."

For better summations see these articles at GalleyCat: Point, Counterpoint in OJ Book Deal Reactions, Booksellers React, Adapt to OJ Book Deal, and OJ Book Deal: A Tale of Two Statements.

Happier news: "He's A Pirate - Tiesto Remix" from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest soundtrack doesn't really sound piratey--though there are spots were the use the overall movie them--but it will be fun to dance to. Don't bother if you hate techno. Okay, pulling out the sword mid beat is kind of piratey.

Story work: Took a note while I was reading last night of something I had thought of during the writing conference back in June. Checked my notes for it. Missing of course, which peeved me to no end because I know I had typed it into yWriter. Then I remembered the savings problems I had with the program on the laptop. *Sigh* Luckily, I did remember the detail upon which hangs a damn good deal of the plot, but it serves as a highlighter for my need some sort of system to keep this stuff organizied in. What particular method that organization is going to be, I don't yet. Wanted to find a new folder to separate draft stuff from the notes and apparantly all folders are in use right now. Added to the aggravation. I'm fighting the urge to just turn all my notes into confetti because that will be worse after the momentary aggravated insanity wears off.

Still working on aliens when I can. We had a coworker with a seizure and taken to the hospital. And trying to do our section's Thanksgiving party today. As well as still having to do the paying job work. Yeah, all that before 10am.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Day off

Done with all school assignments, so I've decided to take a day off of narrative and work on background stuff. I'm going to flesh out aliens.

Why? I'm getting to the part where the racketeers are playing a bigger role before they croak. I need to know more than "person in an alien suit and what the alien suit looks like," which is the technique I have been mostly using. That won't fly with the science fiction crowd. The second reason is I think I've been giving the forensics a short shrift mainly to avoid the different biologies. While I don't want to stumble into hard science fiction, I do want to make sure everything gels. Third reason, the blue skinned people who I initially conceived of as filling the place that humans fill in most other science fiction space stories (Star Wars and Star Trek for example) need to be named. I'm tired of them not having a name. Fourth reason, I'm embarrassed by the section I just finished writing, where the aliens are barely described as well as not named.

So aliens. If the scheduled outage doesn't interfere, I may have something to put on Discipline Under Fire.

8:57 pm update: The paying job conspired to make me do most of this at home along with rereading Aliens and Alien Societies by Stanley Schmidt. The first bit is on planet building though not to the same level as World Building by Stephen L. Gillett. I decied to go with it because it has been onver a year since I read this book, and I take the reader to other worlds. Sketching worlds out now for later fleshing out might not be so bad.

So I what I spent a couple of hours tonight doing was combing the manuscript for alien races. I'm up to 16 named alien species plus three described that I don't think I've named yet. Man, I love my P'kins inserts! IF I managed to finish this thing and get a series published and they make me take them out; I'm so doing her guidebook for the series in her voice with her title.

Moving back to current problems, I copied what I had in manuscript to the new Aliens file, but haven't progressed further than that. And now Mustard is jumping in front of the monitor to tell me to get off the computer. Mez, what I'll probably end up doing is post the alien stuff as I finish a species to Discipline Under Fire and turn the comments on for that post so you can tell me where I'm being really unscientific. So I'm off to bed, with book in tow to at least finish the chapter and jot down the specifics that I will then translate to questions for the file.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Well, I'm done with classes this week at least

Thursday night class is canceled due to professor's confrence, so we moved discussion time to optional Tuesday night. 5 of us showed up. :p So now I just have to do the online stuff and then done with this week. I'll probably end up starting the final paper this week for the Faulkner class. And I need to find out what the expectations are for the third project in History of the Book.

Writing energy has consequently been sucked into school energy for the past couple of days. Today's a good day for getting back on track; icky weather. It's been bad since 3am. That's when I set the alarm because I needed to wash my hair, and it's been taking me an hour to get out of bed. The alarm went off and I was wide awake, not the typical stumbling fog that has been the morning routine for the past few weeks.

...

I hate daylight savings time. Though more factually, I hate the shifts between it and regular time that make my body's sleep cycle screwy. So now what? Force my body to get used to 4am (which it thinks is 5 and hey, you're not going to work SLEEP for 10 hours now!) or keep getting up at 3am and have an extra hour to do something with?

After Holly Lisle's recommendation: I think I want it: WriteItNow. Especially as I'm trying to build a zillion alien races for Zy's novel. Actually I'm pretty sure it's only 12 at this point but it seems like a whole lot more when you start losing notes.

So I'm speeding reading through Page After Page again to flag what I consider important points with the sticky Post-It plastic flags. And when I reread the part on focus; it raised a red flag that I only answered when I abandoned my daily scribble in notebook for blog trawl today.

I've lost my ability to focus without the big honking deadline flashing "danger Will Robinson!" over me.

I'm not so young any more, and I want to have a productive writing career, and the last minute PANIC sessions to get everything done are killing me slowly. I need to rediscover the focus writing grove. She has some suggested exercises that I'm going to start tonight. Right now, I need to struggle with this dreaded exposition in the text. I'm beginning to wish my bad guy wasn't so good at killing people.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Notes for today

Actually, some of this is what I jotted down Thursday and didn't get to typing. Still relevant.

Remember: Zy needs to study Dolbest reports while waiting to report to the Chief.

It's actually moving. It has never been the words, but making myself write the words. Yes, it's okay to suck in this draft. Just get to the end without skipping the major points already outlined and worry about naming aliens later. Just get to "The End" so you can take stock of your writing career and see what you need to be doing for your writing career.

Why is it every time my office is in crazy disarray, my writing life feels the same? Yes, I know external reflecting and influencing the internal. Doesn't change the fact that I need to clean the office and file some written stuff properly. Find the stuff to end out and clean the desk to deal with new work.

Also in this imaginary purge, I need to go over my budget. I hate budgets, mental garbage from growing up poor. I always feel like I'm flunking life when my finances get out of whack. It's a gut reaction that I have trouble dealing with every now and then.

And the holidays: what will happen on the Lafayette side of things is presented to me carved in stone. Oh so that it completely disregards my family's traditions doesn't occur to anyone but me (and my mother when I tell her). And I'm still in hot water for having fucked up last year's. At this point, I don't know which side is more open to compromise and running to Kai's in Texas is looking like a better and better idea. I have two weeks, I just have to believe like Henslowe.

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?
Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Hugh Fennyman: How?
Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

Philip Henslowe was one of the historical characters in Shakespeare in Love, played by Geoffrey Rush. I forgot to cite my quote.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Just in case anyone is interested

Marvel 1602 is an eight part mini-series collected into one hardback. In it, Neil Gaiman starts the Age of Marvels 400 years early, and at the opening of the story, the world is in danger because it has started early. The Marvel characters interact with historical characters such as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I, and Virginia Dare.

The covers of each part become a full page panel. They’re done in a style called scratchboard, which looks like colorized woodcuts. The first real panel is an establishing shot of Dr. Strange walking down a castle corridor. The time and place header is enclosed in tan box with torn edges to resemble a manuscript. The other boxes are overheard conversation between Queen Elizabeth and Sir Nicholas Fury, who are introduced by sight before the end of the page. Most of these panels are action-to-action transitions with a few establishing panels and large panels of tight focus mixed in to add intensity.

The next location and a new set of characters are introduced via a page of aspect-to-aspect panels. The page is turned and you are given the full page panel of the scene given in just pieces before. Motion in one panel shown by phantom figures is used with Matthew Murdoch exclusively. Breaking-the-fourth-wall panels don’t start being used until Part Seven when the Grand Inquisitor reveals himself as Magneto. The use of those increases as the book gets closer to the climax. The artwork is done in a realistic style, almost like each panel is a painting, and supports the 1602 feeling for the entire book.

My week 12 assignment with a lot of Scott McCloud technical language.

The teachers' workshop was a success even though we only had 6 teachers show up. But as Chad pointed out, they were all excited about the Faire and they were all from schools that could easily bring 200 students. We had more sign up, but when you offer anything for free, they tend to decide at the last minutes it's not worth the effort We'll probably have another workshop in February.

Full week this week and I have to get back into the groove. And then next week is Thanksgiving and Chad at my house which will promptly unhinge it again. Oh well.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

How much done?

Everything's finished but the page in Zy's Novel. I did write some, just not a full page. And then I went back to reading Faulkner (big, long words don't scare me but was the period key broken on your typewriter, man!), started to pull my hair out, and turned to coloring.

And since no one's heard from London in about a year, I don't mind break my "artist sees it first" rule.


Still not taupe, which means I better hold off on Stoker pictures until I buy the right shade. And take the color pencil with me to the store. I thought up a nifty symbolic reason for the green--the camo colored uniforms that make no sense--they're fighting to turn Mars green again. But I like to be sensible and not get shot at so green very small bit of my uniform. I'm not sure why the pants are rolled up either, maybe I'm in Chicago and not the desert? Or maybe inside the base to piss Carbine or who ever my commanding officer is off?

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Civic Duty done

Just in case anyone in America reads my blog, GO VOTE! Your country depends on it.

Now, I'm done with voting and town errands, but no coloring orgies until I've finished this list:

• daily chores


• daily ammount to stay on top of homework


• one full page in Zy's Novel


• find my office again uder the stacks of reference books


• hook up printer scanner to computer

Now burning CDs runs concurrent with all this.

And looking around, I didn't do all my town errands. I forgot about taking the laser toner cartridge for recycling and the library books. :p So coloring orgy may get interrupted by that. But everything else, I so totally got to get done.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Assignment is done

No readings, I just had to type up an essay explaining why I did what I did. Now finished.

Oh and I did a goofy thing and added the totals of the Guide and Workbook together. Reason, well, when I came up with my 40,000 word goal they were both together. Separating became a good idea sometime in August. (It's still a good idea BTW.) Got 43,000 words and some change I can't remember. Now I just have to burn 52 CDs tomorrow without any hiccups.

And it's been a LONG time since I colored anything. Once I started printing pics out that I had been saving and making the stacks divided by artist in the living room, I decided I need to add it back in as stress relief. Haven't really worked out the details on that other than "color when you feel like tearing you hair out" or "color when you finish a project."

Anyways, after all that hype about an orgy and I only got one picture finished.



The new mousey version of me from BlackStorm done entirely in Prismacolor color pencils. I think I ended up crispier tan than I intended that color to be. So before I start on anybody else, I need to go shopping for more browns--really need taupe--and metallics--they must have hid silver from me at the store. I'm hoping to find those separate pencils in Hammond some where; I just don't when I'm going to have time to shop for them.

So I will be working on Zy's Novel today, whew! In other writing news, I want to create a vampire. He's actually been popping up in my head for a bit. I think it's probably due to the Hellsing fan-comic orgy I just experienced, but I might be able to work the vampire and his ghoul into my secret project.

So the vampire that's haunting my head wants to be different from the stereotypical vampire. Not inhuman monster; not sauve, sexy man, he wants to be a bumbler. He doesn't much like being a vampire and living forever and watching everyone he knows and loves dies. But he has a strength too, thinking the best way of getting rid of his undead life is to kill off his amoral/immoral sire. And his ghoul really didn't want to be his ghoul, he slipped her some of his blood so she could save both their asses. And he loves his ghoul even though she's exasperated by him most of the time. He offers to turn her because she'd make a much better vampire than he does, but she wants kids and grandkids if she could ever pick up a guy to settle down with while she's stuck with a whimpy vampire master and his sire that could kill them both.

I toyed with the vampire as being a friend of Allie's and Allie as his ghoul. I loved the dynamic, but he needs something beyond fanfiction and a ghoul who is fixtated on the hypothetical because of a lack of pulse yet there's still a possibility of something deeper between them. Then I thought about my special project, which concerns a world of vampires that I keep feeling wishy-washy over because it is so stereotypical. The world as I have envisioned to this point is very circular, dealing with one family of vampires and how it is connected with a family of vampire hunters--narrow focus. And then I got the idea of throwing the bumbling vamp and his exasperated ghoul into this world, with his battle against his sire. I think the world has just cracked open.

Now to copy all that and cross post it in Discipline.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

FINISHED!

Out of the 74 activities I had planned, I got 34 into the 2007 Workbook. 53 pages, 7930 words. Haven't calculated final time spent on the Educators' Guide project yet.

2007 AMF Educators' Guide Workbook Started with 1945 words

Progress Bar from Writertopia

MONTHLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

Other than looming deadline decisions, my scanner died was the other consideration for what activities went in. Anything needing to be scanned in (like the color your own illuminations) has to wait till next year.

Oh, I can get the pictures off the camera now. I really need to do that.

I still have to double check if I'm done with my homework. I think I'm done on the project part, and the way my brain feels right now, I'm going to have to save any reading for tomorrow. The dead scanner only slows down the coloring orgy a little bit. I actually have a spare. Chad insisted on keeping the 3-in-1 printer, scanner, fax machine that my Dad was getting rid of. He thought he could fix the printing part that had gone wrong. Well, he kept it at my house and I should get it hooked up and tested on Tuesday. Day off for elections. I go vote and I can play with the computer and do house work and do homework and burn CDs of the PDF files and WRITE my fiction!

Yes, my brain is fried and I finished off all the leftover Halloween candy this weekend. Why do you ask?

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

2007 Educators' Guide Finished

Under my goal, but I still added 7525 new words and edited a lot more than that. And that original word count counts the Activities section which isn't in the 2007 Educators' Guide. So really I added 9470 new words. It's 102 pages, I added running footers along with the page numbers and actually got the Table of Contents is the right font this time.

2007 AMF Resource Guide Started with 27,709 words

Progress Bar from Writertopia

Next is to create the Workbook out of the previous Activities Section after I eat lunch.

2007 AMF Educators' Guide Workbook Started with 1945 words

Progress Bar from Writertopia

Read Free!
The BookWorm

MONTHLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Oh yeah, it's Friday

You know it's a strange day when you have to remind yourself of that fact.

I'm down to the Medieval Vocabulary section, and figured this morning (after getting up late and in my hurry up and get dressed routine), take the stuff to work and rough out the edits on paper. That way I can put them in tonight and have all day Saturday to pretty up the layout, and combine into one huge file, and work on the Activity workbook. Get it all finished on Saturday and spend the rest of the weekend on a coloring orgy to give the brain a rest. I even figured out where to go buy Prismcolor color pencils at in Baton Rouge. (The page that convinced me.)

And I packed everything I needed but my flash drives. And I neglected to print out the latest version of Medieval Vocabulary. So I have no current record of what I have already changed. So all I've managed to get done is research. :p

I do have some other projects. Pages to do in Zy's Novel. Sticking in small Post-it tabs to pages I have highlighted in Stephen King's On Writing and Page After Page by Heather Sellers. Start reading Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels by Scott McCloud. That's research on the project that keeps tingling in the back of my brain, which I'm think to use as a carrot for Zy's Novel progress. (Yo brain, work on the novel during the week and I will give you a day off to explore the experimental idea.) Right now, my brain doesn't think I'm serious about it. Can't say that I blame it, but it's been putting me into a jam over deadlines lately.

I'm going to stick and read now, and maybe something will jar loose for Zy's Novel.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Tired, Cranky, and Annoyed

So it's a perfect time to STOP working and do some tallys. I did finish Medieval Life section, though, except for the minor details of getting books and illustrations cited.

Well the monthly total looks awful. To explain: I wrote 3429 words (still not a great number but par for my course) and deleted 2148. Need a better way of tracking edits. So far November's total is 75 deleted words.

I've logged in 59.27 hours on the Educators' Guide since July 17th. Now if I could only make that more consistant.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Zy's Novel

Progress Bar from Writertopia

2007 AMF Resource Guide Started with 27,709 words

Progress Bar from Writertopia

MONTHLY GOAL

Progress Bar from Writertopia

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

New Month, Same Plans

Yes, Virginia, there is no more trick-or-treating in Pumpkin Center. Or alternatively, I need to trim my trees because you can't see my porch light from the road. So now I need to roll willpower checks against the bowl of Reese cups that is in the fridge. Good thing I only bought one bag.

On a double goody note, I learned some new spacing tricks with Microsoft Word with headings and paragraph leading. So now I can make changes to the Educators' Guide that the class suggested. I'll give you that it's not a good layout program for the creation of books, but it's all I have right now. And actually it's surprising me what I'm able to do.

I'm stuck on Medieval Life, having corrected the other four sections' spacing and tweaking pictures. With all the added words for the Food and Cooking threw everything off. I've ended up with one paragraph divided into two columns on the last page and it wouldn't let me put the last picture in the right spot. So I think I'm going to have to start using the tricks I was going to put off so I can get the 45 pages into the rest of the book.

After Medieval Life, I need to finish Medieval Vocabulary (Middle English), make sure the lists--Bibliography and Illustrations--are up to date, tweak the remaining pages--cover, thank you, declarations--and shove it all together and create the table of contents. And then get the Activities Book put together. Luckily it's technically already started; it's just not separated out of last year's book. And I have some new activities I want to put in.

So writing so far hasn't changed, other than deadline clock ticking louder and louder. Homework hasn't changed either, but its deadline clock not as loud. All the same I better get cracking on it.

And all my number stuff is at home, where I'm trying to make the words on the page look pretty and I forget about putting them up. :p Maybe this weekend.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/