Two posts in one week, hope you guys can stand the excitement. Yeah, I’m slow to get back to this.
So today’s adventure is index cards. Yup. Purple index cards. What? You expected me to use regular white ones when there’s a rainbow of options? Silly people. This story is in a purple binder, I’m using purple post-its, and purple index cards. Do you think a purple pen would be overkill?
Index cards. I’ve been struggling with the particular story, “The Devil You Know,” for a while now. Part of it is because it’s the darkest story I’ve ever written. The rest of my problem is just trying to get the story structure down. I have that problem with every story by the way and I’m struggling to find a book/blog/whatever that explains it in simple English. I’ve been reading through my story notes and I like a lot of what I have but it’s spread out all over the place, so index cards. I’m going to put each scene on an index card and write them. In no particular order. Oh yeah, I’m really throwing caution to the wind on this one. Well, maybe not because I rarely write a story completely in order.
That’s one of the plans I have for the weekend. I still need to update “On The Way Down” with the couple of pages of notes I’ve made then print a new copy, one with the page breaks so I can move pages around easier. Yeah and before someone suggests I could do this on the computer I know I could but I’m old school. I like working with paper.
A week later and I’m not much further along with the writing than I was on the 1st. I’ve got a couple ideas I’m mulling, there’s a writing challenge I tripped across and it has me thinking. Yup, that’s the burning smell you’ve noticed.
For as much as the writing is stalled (sort of) the crafting is coming along. I’ve finally gotten the urge to quilt, so instead of just putting quilt tops together and doing nothing else now I’m actually finishing projects. That’s a great start and I’m sure I’ll blog more about that over on the blogspot blog.
It’s still a frozen tundra outside. I think part of the creeping depression of the last week or so has been the lack of sunlight. I’ve got the curtains closed because, well I didn’t want to see all that snow and for at least 2 days there I couldn’t see out the window for the blowing snow anyway. But I’ve bitten the bullet and the curtain is open and as I type this I can see all that disgusting snow. Sorry folks, it’s stopped being “pretty” on December 26th and won’t be “pretty” again until December 24th 2010.
So, since I’ve pulled myself away from the games on Facebook and I’m actually typing, maybe I should dig into one of the half-dozen stories I have just waiting for some attention. Wonder what the girls are in the mood for?
p.s.
when did the spell check here become a spell/grammer check? Geez people.
Yup, I’m a bad blogger. I’ve been a bad writer too. See, I got lazy and found excuses and have fallen behind on my goals. And at this point I’m getting good at finding excuses. First it was the plague (okay not really but might as well have been) then once I was behind it got hard to catch up and now . . . my laptop coughed up a lung. So I sit here on my netbook trying to keep up with things while I wait for my new laptop to arrive. One constant is I’m worried I didn’t back up my pictures, especially the ones from my great-aunt’s birthday party. The upside is my writing is backed up but good. I’ve been doing some one file updating trying to get all my handwritten notes on the computer and when I did that I backed up the files so nothing was lost there. My other fuss is hoping my iTunes loads up on the new computer okay. It should since NONE of it was actually on the hard drive of the laptop. All that fun and lovely stuff is on an external hard drive. Of course I’m don’t have a way to charge my iPod and I’m desperately wanting to listen to my music . . . but it’s only half charged and . . . guess it’s time I buy a stand alone charger for the little sucker huh?
On the writing front I’ve had another story step up and take center stage, or rather the hero of that story stepped up and announced himself. So now that I’ve got a couple obligations out of the way I can focus on the writing. Oh and I think this is the story whose playlist I deleted. Don’t ask me why, it’s not like it really took up any space but that’s what this silly little writer did. Have I mentioned I have no access to my iTunes?
Anyway, just wanted to stop by and let everyone know I’m still here and slowly getting back into the swing of things.
How’s it going with you guys?
Yup, that’s me, on the verge. Of NaNoWriMo that is.
I’ve spent this week doing little, if any writing. I did get the bare bones outline of the story down, but the manuscript I wanted to get to 120/150 pages is stalled at 104. Not happy with that. I’ve got 2 more days to get some work done and I’m planning just that. I’m currently grooving to some wonderful music (Thievery Corporation) and once I’m finally done playing on the internet I’ll switch over to my story’s playlist and write. Yup, it can be that simple if I’d just let it happen.
Fall has returned, after that quick visit by Winter. I’m very happy about this. I usually enjoy Fall more, but I just wasn’t prepared for the snow. Not that I ever am. All the more reason for me to move onward and southward, just a little. But those are plans for another time.
I’m sitting here on day . . . 2, maybe 3 of little motivation to write. Well that’s not true. I want to write, on the NaNo story I have scheduled for November instead of the manuscript I have spread out here next to me. It’s not that I don’t like this story because I do it’s just the “new shiny” is calling. Again. I worry about this as it’s not the first time I’ve done this. It’s far from the first time I’ve walked this road.
I putter way the day and the evenings, well let’s just say Winter has arrived and it’s hard to push beyond the urge to curl up and veg in front of the television. It certainly doesn’t help when the placeholder for the NaNo story is on tv for large chunks of the evening. I’m distracted and coming up with excuses. I know that. I’m not sure what I’m going to do either. I don’t want this story, or any story, to become drudgery. I don’t want to resent a project either.
So guys, what do I do?
So, I sat down with an 83 page manuscript and worked with good old fashioned pen and paper and I now have a 101 page manuscript. All fresh and pristine from the printer just waiting to be marked up and flagged. Okay so maybe I didn’t actually work all 83 pages. I got antsy around page 72 so I decided to just update what I had. It was really good to break that 100 page threshold. The word count is 2600 and some change.
The one thing I’m trying very hard not to get hung up on here is that my word count and page count don’t jive. Yeah, I know, I’ve blogged about this before and I know why . . . which is why I’m trying not to let it bug me too much. The fact that four hours after printing I’m still grinning about this says it’s working. The other thing keeping me grinning over here is that I’m well on my way to meeting my month end goal of 150 pages. One goal down, two more to go.
As for one of the remaining goals I’ve been thinking a little about last year’s NaNo book. I think I need to go back to the nearly original placeholder for the hero. It worked better in my head. Hell, I did NaNo with “him” as the hero so it’s not like I’ve done much work I have to undo. Most of what I have to tackle with my first read through, in December, is to take out all the flags I put in when I was going to do a major re-write (I was going to change the heroine’s career).
Now I just have to settle on this year’s NaNo project. I’m thinking numbers in a hat may not be such a bad idea.
Oh and I just impressed myself, with no spelling errors. That rarely happens.
I’ve been thinking some about what my NaNoWriMo project is going to be this year. I’ve been saying, mostly to myself because well I’m the only person I talk to some days, that it’s going to be my fluffy romance. No, don’t get mad at the term, it is fluffy and I really like the idea and the fact that it’s the first story I’ve had . . . probably ever that didn’t have a tortured heroine or hero. So fluffy is a good term. Now I have a problem. I’ve been thinking about an idea that was either a previous NaNo story (2 years ago) or it was when I participated in “Sweating with Sven” don’t remember. It’s not fluffy. I really wanted to do fluffy. I’m hoping by the end of the month the girls in the basement will have gotten back on track (oh crap I don’t think challenging the younger Miss Bennetts is such a good idea).
So other than this, it’s been a week. I’ve gotten a little more writing done, not as much as I’d like but life has gotten in the way a little and left me exhausted or distracted, or both. Neither of which, is really the proper mindset for writing. I did get a Writer’s Market book (the one with the online subscription included) on Friday. I got post-it flags and plenty of highlighters, so I’m ready to start that research.
I’m taking baby steps, but at least I’m moving forward.
I wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who stopped by here yesterday. I had more page views yesterday than ever before, including the day the Michael Ruhlman linked to my blog and I really never thought I’d be able to do that just by posting a link on my Facebook account.
Okay, back to the writing. It’s been slow today but I’m plugged in now and getting some words on paper.
