A Twist of Things to Come

First off, up on GC Friday, we had Amalia the Savage's On the Set of Thor, complete with behind-the-scenes video. (The lead is cute and Kenneth Branagh is directing, so, WOW. I still want to punch Natalie Portman in the face for comparing eating meat to 'condoning rape' and then signing that freaking Roman Polanski petition (Really, Natalie?), but I guess everyone's allowed to be stupid once in a while.)

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For the writers on my flist, here's a pep talk that Neil Gaiman wrote for NaNoWriMo a few years ago. It resonates with me right now because I'm so there, Dude.

The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist. And instead of sympathising or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm---or even arguing with me---she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, "Oh, you're at that part of the book, are you?"

It's vaguely comforting to know that even people who make their living full time by writing get the 4th quarter blahs. I know I just have to keep going. Pick another word and put it down. Pick the next one, put it down.

I'm up to 76,000+ words, and have about 80 pages to re-work my way through before I get to the end of them and start adding new ones. I got through about 20 pages in just a couple of hours yesterday. I can get a few more hours in before I have to go to a birthday party this afternoon.

Next week is a camp week for my youngest, so I hope to have some extra morning time to write while i wait on the West Bank for camp to finish.

It's all going quite well. I got a piece in for teh writing group, and I am suitably antsy about it. Forward ho!

First things first. Last week we had an update from Amalia the Savage on the Thor movie, in Thor Concept Art. Pretty cool. I know jack about Thor, but this is starting to look fun.

Today we have Pearce's take on Splice - Not a Fish Rabbit Human Frog Chicken Horror Movie, which is just as much fun as it sounds like it might be. *chuckle* I'm not huge into the horror genre, but Pearce always makes it sound fun.

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My overly ambitious weekend went like this. Got up Saturday and gutted the middle third of my novel, slashing and re-writing sections of it. I was in the zone, I think. A slightly altered state of consciousness, anyway. So focused that I had no concept of time passing, except that I occasionally needed to use the bathroom. I didn't eat or drink, and long about 5pm I realized that I was developing a distinct stutter in my typing, especially with verb forms ending in 'ing'. Like, "dividing" became "divididiing". Thank Microsoft for the wee little red squiggly lines to tell me I was messing up, because after the third of fourth time I realized I was very thirsty, my head hurt and my belly was making unusual noises.

Also, I saw a roach and had a full-scale freak out. Most bugs don't bother me, but roaches? *shudder* Besides that, what the heck was it doing in my bedroom? There is no food in here! My Beloved killed it, picked it up on the edge of a paper and chased me out the door with it, saying, "Gonna put it on you."

Of course he didn't, and we all had a good laugh. :) I am so seldom in hysterics that my family found my reaction very amusing, and I can't really blame them.

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Sunday we hit the zoo, and got caught out in the rain, which was warm and pleasant. Bought groceries. Then I had to prepare for my first New Orleans Writers Circle meeting. There was no reading or critiquing, so I still don't know how tough it's going to be. But the host for the meeting is in UNO's MFA writing program (and got blasted for writing a story they considered 'genre') so I have a feeling I will have a real opportunity to grow here.

There was a filmmaker, a military baker with a few sales under his belt (literary and genre), two awesome school teachers (one was the MFA student), one retired English teacher, one college student, the organizer and me. I wasn't the oldest one there, even -- most of them were in their 30s and 40s.

I'm hopeful, and a little afraid to hope. Then again, so much has come together for me since I've been here, why shouldn't this?

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After all that with the novel, though, I'm still not caught up with the end of what I already had written. The gap is less than 100 pages, though, so that's pretty good. I have almost 76,000 words, now, but I'll be doing more slash and burn/re-writing, so heaven only knows what I'll end up with.

Today has been a good day.

First off, over at GeekaChicas, Nightsky kicked off our Comic Con build up extravaganza with The Chicas Review Comic Book Movies: _The Roketeer_, which I thought was a fun, insightful look back at a pretty cool movie.

It's also worth noting that all the Chicas have been quite productive, lately, and it's been hard to find a balance between getting things up in a timely manner and letting each person's article get fair time at the top. But so far, so good.

Then for the afternoon fluff, I put up Advanced Cat Yodeling, a video by the fellow responsible for The Engineer's Guide to Cats.

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In other news, I made up the writing goals I'd been shirking by writing over 3000 words today on two separate projects. (About 3/4 of it on HMOWK, in case anybody wondered, which brings me (I think) to the end of the next episode. I'm going to let it settle over the weekend and see what I think of it then.)

I'm up to nearly 10,000 new words on the untitled novel re-write. I haven't gotten to the place where the first draft started yet, so that is actually pretty good considering everything else.

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The hubby is coming home again tonight, so that's good.

Hope all my American friends have a great holiday, and the rest of you have a great weekend.

(I need to post the WORDS! Meme from narniadear but it may be tomorrow.)

Had a longish talk with my Beloved today. It seems there's going to be a labor strike in South Africa in the next week to ten days, and he really, really doesn't want to take us into that sort of situation. SA has 40% and no welfare programs to speak of, so high food and fuel costs mean many people will be hungry. You know what they say -- no society is more than three meals away from revolution. At the very least it will probably mean riots, and SA is already the second highest country in the world for annual number of murders (second to India, which has a HECK of a lot more people, and this is raw data-- number of murders not murders by percent of population).

So, yeah. Staying here. :) I think the boys will be pleased, actually, because they didn't really want to go. The plan now is that we'll go with him when he's not working and we can all stay together and hit the wildlife parks and things.

Also, the company's prospects for domestic work are improving, so the travel may not be as large a factor in our lives, soon.

So, pretty much good news all around. :)

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Now, for the Unfinished Novel Meme, gacked from nearly everyone, but cristalia most recently, I think.

I figured it would be good for me, since I need to face my demons. And my biggest demon is the Fear of Success demon and the Self-Sabotage demon, which morph collectively into the Can't-Finnish-A-Long-Story demon.

( List below the cut, with short descriptions of the Angst )

In any case, I managed to write some short stories, and even to sell one this year while wrestling with various mountains of crap/novels. ;) So I feel pretty good. I think I may do a list of short story ideas, too, because that will likely be what work on next.

Novel chapter creaking up on being done. The first time I wrote it, I started with word counts and deadlines in mind, but I had not yet gotten a handle on the plot. It was all over the place, with a few fun bits.

This time around, the secondary characters have some texture and the relationships feel right. I'm very pleased with the humor in it, too.

Down to the stats for yesterday:

Title: Shift (Second draft)

Word count: 867 (Had to stop because I hadn't eaten and only realized I was hungry when I couldn't type properly. After six tries at typing the word "protest" and failing, it becomes obvious that you need a sammich.)

Total for the week so far: 2642

The style is not particularly memorable at this point, but I'm very pleased with the story. :)

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Had lunch with L, the PTA mom I get on with so well. Before I knew what I was doing, I had told her the deepest desire of my heart -- to write stories for the rest of my life. I'd also love for people to read them, but that doesn't feel as important right now, for some reason.

Y'all know all about that, because I blab about it here constantly, but I almost never articulate that to people in real life. It's like I've been afraid to actually speak of what I want out loud, and now I've realized that I'm not anymore. That has to mean something, though I'm not sure what.