The Collage

I finally got my act together and assembled the collage for the story I'm doing for Fast Draft!  Here's the picture:

I'm sure the text is too small to read, so the top one is a quote from the beginning of The Hobbit.  It says:

This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected.  He may have lost the neighbors' respect, but he gained-- well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.

The other one says:

"Nothing Happens without risk."  Anne Packard

It's on a magnetic board, and the round things are all magnets I made for the collage.  Some are just pictures, but most of them say something, like "Keep Calm and Rock On" or "Keep Calm and Do It Anyway".  A couple are Big Bag quotes, including "I'm clearly too evolved for driving" and "I am not crazy, my mother had me tested".

The pictures all represent a character or group of characters or some aspect of the story.  The big 3 is to remind me that in stories, things often happen in threes.  So if I'm stuck, look for something that needs to repeat.

I guess that's it.  If you have any questions about any of the images, or can't tell what they are (the overall picture may be a little small if you don't already know what you're looking at), just ask.

I've already procrastinated the day away, so I'm going to go poke at a blank page and see if I can't at least rack up a few words before bed.

Lip Balm of the Day: White Cranberry

Jumping In, Head First

I've been amping myself up, in secret, for doing Fast Draft.

In secret because I can't stand the idea of my parents knowing about my writing.  1. Because it immediately comes with the high pressure nagging to start submitting stories to publishers.  (Bugging someone to submit before they're ready is not helpful.)  And 2. Because I know that they would thoroughly disapprove of what I plan to write.  It would be a hard enough secret to keep if I wasn't living with them and I got a story published.  But, emotionally, living with my parents is like living as an exhibit at the zoo.  Everything is know and noticed.  There's no mental privacy.  If they knew I was writing, they'd want to read it.  If they knew it was published they'd want to buy it and read it and tell their friends.  And while I feel no shame at all in what I read and intend to write, they'd be deeply ashamed of it, which gets in my head and scrambles it.

So, anyway, I was telling you how I was getting myself mentally prepared for Fast Draft.  That's two weeks of pedal-to-the-metal writing.  5,000 words a day is the goal.  (Although I give myself full permission to do less if that's beyond my limits.  But I want to stretch myself and see if that's possible.  If not, less is more than none.)  I've been mostly just *thinking* about writing.  Thinking about what music is inspiring me right now, looking at images that I might want to add to a collage.  Stuff like that.

And then last week, out of the blue, my parents start hassling me at dinner about my writing.  Now I admit, I have a pretty thin skin when it comes to anything that I'm trying to do and keep to myself.  If I hadn't been thinking about trying to write again it probably would have rolled right off my back.  But with that writing desire so close to the surface it upset me a lot.  My immediate response (which I did not voice, because even if they'd just "ruined it" for me, I still didn't want them to know what I was thinking about doing) was to not do it.  To give up.  I was pretty pissed for a while.

Today I said, "screw it," and I signed up for Fast Draft anyway.  I'm just going to have to find a way to put up steel bars, castle walls, and a moat all around me, to protect what I need to be intensely private from the intrusion of the unwelcome.  I'm not quite sure how I'm going to manage that without creating A Thing in the house.  Like the Mom in Everybody Loves Raymond, my mother has a very limited sense of boundaries, and feels that everything is her business.  I don't particularly want to deal with butt hurt while simultaneously attempting to write a novel.

So that's my frustration at the moment.  In lighter news, I did a bit of pre-work today by poking around looking for songs for the soundtrack and images for the collage.  I'm loving it all, although the whole thing is a bit schizophrenic.  Tone and imagery are all over the place.  I'm hoping that some of this settles into a semi-coherent something between now and next Sunday, when the class starts.

Like I said before, the goal is 5,000 words a day.  That's 70,000 words over the course of two weeks.  Not unheard of, but quite a bit longer than the average m/m story.  So I'm thinking, if the 5,000 words per day turns out to be doable, I'll end up writing two stories.  The first one I'm thinking of is the riff on The Hobbit that I toyed around with and wrote a few lines for last November during NaNo.  I plan to read The Hobbit this week, as soon as I find my old copy, make it to the used bookstore to get another copy, or break down and pay the outrageous $10.99 that Penguin is asking for a Kindle copy.  I really want a digital copy, but not at that price.

The idea for the second story came directly out of all the image searching I did today.  I'm thinking either A Rare Duck or An Odd Duck for the title.  A guy who collects rubber ducks is searching for one particular, rare duckie, and another guy is trying to block him from having it.  First thought was that something was smuggled into the country inside the duck.  Second thought is that maybe he's on some weird, Amazing Race type hunt, and he's looking for a clue hidden in the duckie.  I'm not sure, but I've got a week to figure this stuff out.

As a thank you for making your way through all this rambling mess, here is a video with one of the songs I've picked for the soundtrack and a few of the images I have so far.  You'll see what I mean about them not fitting together in tone AT ALL.  But this is what it is, so I've got to work with it.

Sarah Jarosz is a relatively new discovery of mine, and I completely adore her.  So talented.

Eyeliner Dude

I was going to put the crazy guys in the Hobbit story in a
van with a wizard painted on the side, but I thought that
was a little on the nose. So maybe they'll drive one painted
like the A Team van. Or maybe the Mystery Machine, who knows.

Cool Joe Duck

Love Duck

Vintage airplanes. Not sure where I'm going with this one
*at all*.

Disco Ducks!

Someone in this story has a dog?
Who knew?

Rockin' duck toilet seat

Christmas cookies, because who ever heard of too many
Christmas cookies?

And now, some more pretty boys.

I have him labeled as "Brad". Not sure
who Brad is, but I'll figure it out eventually.

This lovely specimen is apparently "Ethan". 

Not sure who this is yet, but he's got
attitude to spare.

Gotta love a kiss.

And this guy is just hot and wearing
a scarf.

Coolest Card EVAR!

Check this out!  I got the coolest card in the mail today.

Does that not just rock?  I think this one is going to have to go on my permanent magnet board, once I get the damn thing hung again.

In other news, I don't have much news.  I'm reading A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant, which is pretty amazing so far.  There's been a lot of buzz about this one, and if the rest stays as good as what I've read so far, it will be totally deserving.  I'll let you know how it goes.

I saw on twitter that Candace Havens is getting ready to run another Fast Draft class, and I'm seriously considering signing up.  Has anyone taken it?  Any advice?  Apparently the idea of the class is that you're supposed to write 5,000 words a day, so at the end of the two weeks, you should have a 70,000 word first draft.  That's one unusually long m/m romance, or quite possibly two average-ish length ones.  I'm not sure if I'm up for that kind of pressure, but it sure would be a kick in the ass to get writing.  And the class is only $20, so it's not like it's a huge financial investment.  (Although a significant time investment if I'm really going to do it.)

As far as the rest of my resolutions go, the cleaning one isn't going exactly as I planned, but I am making progress.  Today was trash day, and I managed to ditch a whole trash bag full of crap.

I have the next knitting project for myself planned out, but I'm trying to wrap up a few ongoing projects before I start it.

The "read less" resolution is in the toilet.  I looked at my little red book, and as of the first of the year I only had 295 books to read to reach 1,000 since I started logging them.  I think I'd rather hit 1,000 this year, so 295 is my new goal.  I have, however, managed to not buy a book for 5 whole days.  That's pretty good for me lately.

Let's see.  What else?  I haven't done any exercise since that little bout on the Wii last week.  I haven't bothered with the picture a day thing, either, although I'm still enjoying taking pictures with my Samsung thingie.  Mostly of the cat.

I think that's everything new and interesting.  Or even not so interesting.  I'm not even wearing any lip balm today!

What I Want

I think this picture expresses pretty perfectly what I want for myself in 2012.

I used to dream.  I dreamed that I'd at least walk, if not run, the Disney marathon.  I dreamed of settling down and raising a family.  I dreamed of being a published author someday.  And I worked toward those dreams.  I trained for that marathon, and I did a lot of 5k's and even one 10k, although the marathon never happened for me.  I kept my eyes open for the right guy, the one I'd want to raise a family with, and I never found him.  Or, I should say. I haven't found him yet, although the hard realities of my life make never having had those kids more of a blessing than a regret.  And until I got sick and discouraged and, let's face it, depressed, I worked on my writing, too.

It's time for me to discover what my dreams are again, to believe in them, and to start working toward making them a reality.  I know I still want to be a published author, maybe more now than before, with some of those other dreams gone.  So that's the one I'm going to work on right now.  I'm not entirely sure *how* I'm going to work on it.  I feel like I've got a whole set of muscles that have forgotten how to move.  Is there such a thing as author's therapy?  Writer's rehab?  If so, I need to check myself in for an inpatient program!  Short of that, I need to start flexing those creative muscles again, playing with ideas and possibilities, laying the groundwork in my head for putting words on paper.

I'm going to wear those pendants as much as possible this year, to remind myself to Dream and Believe.  Dream and Believe and then Act.  It doesn't get you where you want to be if you don't have all three.

In Flux

I don't know about you, but for me the week between Christmas and New Year's is always an odd one.  The old year is over, but the new one hasn't started yet.  It's a time for wrapping up old business and gearing up for the new.

For the old business, I'm mostly making sure that my book and knitting records are up-to-date, bills are paid, that kind of thing.  Reading the last of the holiday stories-- tonight's is Carol of the Bellskis, a m/m Hanukkah story.  And wrapping up a stray knitting project-- a hat made from the leftover yarn from my brother's Christmas socks that I intend to donate to a local homeless shelter.

For new business, I've started my first knitting project for myself.  It's this sack sock to collect all the random plastic bags that I keep finding all over my room.  (For someone who rarely leaves the house and shops almost exclusively online, I have a shocking number of plastic bags floating around the place.)  (Bonus, it will help me keep my room clean!)  I've picked up a couple of songs that inspire me for the beginning of a writing soundtrack.  I'm not working hard yet, but I'm poking in that direction.  And I've got my eye on a reading challenge over at Goodreads that should help me control the ebook buying issue.  I felt like crap today (monthly surge in symptoms, plus I'm just worn out from the past week or so), so no activity whatsoever, and no cleaning.  I think I might need the same for tomorrow.  But Wednesday, look out!  I'll poke around and do something or other.  My favorite Wii game encourages me to compete against myself, to always go just a little further, so once I get into it again that should help keep me motivated.

So, progress.

And with that, I will leave you with a picture.  I got up to go to the bathroom, and when I came back I discovered someone had stolen my spot.

It's a little hard to tell, because the bed is so cluttered.  But that green thing is the hat, almost finished then, and completed now.  There's also a cone of white/black/pink yarn that I'm using to make my sack sock.  I'm getting an interesting swirling stripe effect as it knits up.  I'll take a picture in a day or two, when I'm further along and it's easier to see what's going on.

'Night, all!

It's Coming

It's almost here.  No, not Christmas.  2012.  I've been thinking a lot in the last few weeks about what I want to happen, what I want to do, in 2012.  The first decision I made was that I want to cut my reading way back.

I'll give you a moment to recover from that bombshell.

Right now I'm on target to read 300 books in 2011.  That's a lot of books, and I've enjoyed all that reading thoroughly.  But I want to expand a few horizons in 2012, which means I'm going to have to spend less time reading.  My goal is to cut the reading in half-- I'm aiming for 150 books in 2012.

The big reason I want to cut the reading time is that I want to significantly increase the writing time.  As in, actually do some.  My goal is a little fuzzy in this area, but I think I want to go for two completed pieces in 2012, with at least one of those stories polished up and ready for submission.  (I know that sounds massive, but I'm thinking novella length, not 80,000+ word novels.)

I really want to knit some stuff this year.  It's been fun getting back to knitting after taking off most of 2011.  (Depression and joint pain pretty much killed my interest in it for a while.)  I'm thinking about doing a 12 in 12.  That is, 12 projects completed in 2012.  But not just any projects.  I want them to be stuff for ME.  I knit things for other people all the time, but I don't remember the last project I made for myself.  I have a boat load of sock yarn, with one slow going sock on the needles.  I have a *gorgeous* beaded scarf that I started like two years ago and have never finished.  I have a wacky shawl that I started a few months ago and had to set aside for other projects.  I just want to do some stuff for myself.

I want to get into the habit of gentle, regular exercise.  I know it will help me significantly.  Exercise is one of the major recommendations for people with Fibromyalgia.  Physical activity kills me right now, and it probably will for quite a while once I get started.  But I can't use that as an excuse anymore.  I have to do it.

Part of the reason I want to improve my condition and stamina is that there is not just one, but *two* conventions I'd really like to go to in 2012.  RT (Romantic Times) is in Chicago in April.  That's too close to miss if there's any way I can make it.  If I want to do anything other than sleep in my room all week, I've got to get my body used to moving and doing again.  The other convention is Gay Rom Lit, which is in October in Albuquerque.  Getting there will be a bit of a pain in the ass.  Either I'll have to fly, which will be quick and hopefully painless.  (Minus any body cavity searches security might decide to run.)  My other option would be to take the train.  Which actually sounds fun and romantic, riding the rails and all.  But it adds at least two days of travel both directions, and that might do me in.  (If I get a room with a bed, which I would absolutely do on a trip of this length, the price will be about the same as flying first class, which I kind of need to do for the larger seat size.  So pricing isn't the issue so much as how hard each travel option is likely to be on me.)

My thought process right now is that I'll try RT and see how it goes.  If I have a major problem, well, home is only a couple of hours away.  If I make it through RT without a hitch, then I have a better idea if I'll be up to the trip to Albuquerque in October.

You didn't think I would make it all the way through a list of goals without saying something about my disaster area, did you?  I want to do a little bit of cleaning every single day.  I'm not up to big stuff.  Just the thought of tackling the whole thing is enough to make me roll over and go back to sleep.  What I'm going to do is put on some music and clean to at least one song every day.  If I clean to one 3-5 minute song a day, it adds up to 20-35 minutes of cleaning time a week.  That will make at least a small dent in the disaster every week.  There are plenty of things I can do for 3-5 minutes without even leaving my bed.  Like clearing all the accumulated junk off my nightstands.  I think clearing out the crap and clutter will make me feel better emotionally.  It will probably help physically, too, because we've gotten well beyond the "write your finger in the dust" stage in spots.  (I give the computer screen and a short set of shelves by the bed a quick swipe with a Swiffer duster when I think about it, which isn't often.  Everything else is on its own.)

Finally, this is kind of a new idea to me, and I'm a little unsure about it.  But I think I might want to try the 365 Project.  If you're unfamiliar, the idea is to take a picture every day for 365 days, and post them.  I've really enjoyed snapping pictures with my Samsung thingy, and it might be fun to challenge myself to find something interesting to take a picture of every day for a year.  The challenge would be that I rarely leave the house.  At least 320 pictures would need to be taken from inside the house.  (And that may be a slightly generous on the side of how many out-in-the-world pictures I actually manage to take.)  I feel like this might push me a little, in a good way.  So I think I'm going to do it.

So, there you go.  Seven sections of goals for the new year.  (I'm also considering a book buying cap.  I have enough TBR books on the Kindle right now that I could make my 150 books goal and still have some left over.  But not buying books that I want is HARD, especially when you've got gift certificates or there's a sale on.  I'll be contemplating this one a bit more.)  Will I make them all?  Who knows.  But it feels like they're all pretty reasonable.  They're all action in a positive direction.  So I think for now they'll do.

In Which Our Heroine Forgets to Read Her Own Blog Post

I made a little bit of progress on the NaNo story today.  85 words.  Which is really only about two paragraphs.  So it's minimal progress.  But I'll take what I can get.

Last night I went to bed with two characters in my head-- Ethan and Harry.  I don't really know anything about these guys yet, but I figure if I stick with it I'll get to know them this month.  And then I woke up this morning with two paragraphs in my head about Mark and his bowel habits.  Who Mark is, what his relationship to Ethan and Harry is, and why he (or I) think anyone cares about his bowel habits is completely beyond me.  But I'm going with it.  hur.

I think, and I could be totally wrong here but it seems about right, that Mark is a bit of a Sheldonesque character.  (From The Big Bang Theory)  And I think that Ethan and Harry come in and disrupt his life in ways large and small.  In fact, I think Ethan and Harry are sort of modern day Gandalfs, and Mark is Bilbo, and the story is going to end up being a riff on The Hobbit.  Ethan and Harry drag Mark along with them on a Big Gay Adventure.

Hmm.  Ideas are churning.  This is good.  I'm supposed to be getting ready for my mom's Mary Kay Holiday Open House that starts on Friday (I have a few hand knit things that I'm putting out), but I may spend the day putting together a collage and soundtrack instead.  If I'm lucky I may even add another 85 words to my story.  At this rate I should hit the 50,000 word mark on June 13, 2013.

In goofy news, I was very proud of a new In Which statement that I came up with this morning, and I mentioned it in a comment on the last post.  And then I went back and re-read the post and discovered that I'd put it in the body of the post when I wrote it yesterday, and then promptly forgot it.  Because that is how my brain works.  (Julie's smooth brain has nothin' on me.)

So that's my progress so far.  And now, I think my sleeping pill is finally kicking in, so I'm going to post this and then go to bed.

'Night All!

In Which a Plan Is Born

Just in case you've been living under a rock (or, you know, you don't run in the same writerly circles I do), it's NaNo time again.  In honor of this annual event, I've changed my blog theme again.  Isn't it nice?  Much less shocking than the fall foliage.

So, we're over 24 hours into the grand event.  How many words have I written?  Nothing, nada, el zippo.  Despite spending the last two months in Lani's writing classes, preparing for this moment, there is nothing in my head.  (Totally not Lani's fault.  The lack of firing synopses in my brain is my problem alone.)  It's echoing in there like the inside of an empty 55 gallon drum.

But I did get an idea a few minutes ago.  In fact, I shamelessly stole it from Deanna Raybourn and her blog.  Every post starts with, "In Which".  Examples from the last week are: "In which we were just talking about Nora", "In which this is just BIZARRE", "In which I am out and about", and "In which I'm leaving on the proverbial jet plane".

So, this is what I'm going to do.  I'm going to start every section with an "In Which".  The first one will be, "In Which Our Two Heroes Meet".  I have not the slightest idea who these fellows are or what they're going to do.  But I like this "In Which" idea, so I'm going to run with it.  Or, more realistically, waddle with it.

Next challenge: come up with enough "In Which" statements to keep me moving for the rest of the month.  I have a few more off the top of my head:

In Which a Good Time Is Had By All
In Which Our Heroes Encounter a Problem
In Which Our Heroes Are In For a Bit of a Surprise

But I need a bunch more than that.  If you've got any ideas for "In Which" statements, please share them in the comments.  I'm hoping to have one for every day of writing, and that they'll help steer the story along, because right now I don't have a flipping clue.

Lip Balm of the Day: Shamrock Shake

I'm Magic, Baby

Today was the last day of Lani's Making Magic class.  We talked about Discovery and how important that is to your writing.  Very inspiring stuff.  (I'm still a little unclear about the difference between Magic and Discovery, especially since two of the homework assignments are the same, but if it gets the juices flowing I guess it doesn't matter.)  I have lots of ideas bouncing around in my head, and I'm pretty sure those ideas are going to lead to other ideas which will eventually lead to a good story.

Yay, me!

Next weekend the Discovery class starts.  The first lesson is Soundtracks.  I might refine the one I've already put together in Magic.  I've already done a little bit of fiddling with it.  But mostly I want to poke around in tropes and with my collage (which is still 99% in my head and 0% assembled.)

Have I shared my soundtrack yet?  Here it is:

Back to December- Taylor Swift
Fuck You- Cee Lo Green
Hit the Road Jack- Ray Charles
Human Heart- Carey Ott
If We Ever Meet Again- Katy Perry/Timbaland
Last Christmas- Glee Cast
Lush Life- Natalie Cole
Make You Feel My Love- Adele
Need You Now- Lady Antebellum
Turning Tables- Adele
Valerie- Amy Winehouse
What'll I Do- Rosemary Clooney
Breathe- Melissa Etheridge
Come On Up To the House- Sarah Jarosz
St. Patrick's Day- John Mayer
Big Bang Theory- Barenaked Ladies

St. Patrick's Day and Big Bang Theory are new additions.  St. Patrick's Day sparked a thought about structure (believe it or not), and led to some interesting (IMO) changes and plans.  I'm not 100% sure Big Bang Theory really belongs, although it sort of feels like it does.  Don't know why yet.  Mostly I just added it because I started watching the show this week (one of the local channels started airing two episodes a day during the "everyone else is running the evening news" time slot).  I don't know how I missed this show before. It's very funny, and the theme song is fucking addictive.  I figured, if I'm going to be humming the damn thing constantly anyway, might as well add it to the soundtrack.  I'd been thinking that Ethan was perhaps a tad bit nerdy, and this just reinforces it.  (Oh, please God, tell me I'm not going to have to learn how to play some table top, roll playing, 20 sided die game as research.  I love me some nerd boy, but that is totally not my thing.)

I think Breathe is going to have to come off the soundtrack, though.  The more I listen to all of it, the more I think that it's the other guy's song, not Ethan's.  And while some of those songs speak to the relationship as a whole, this is mostly Ethan's soundtrack.  The other guy will have his own soundtrack later.

Oh, oh, oh!  Good news!  The Other Guy has a name!  He's Jack.  It was right there, staring me in the face, and I finally got it.  (Hit the Road Jack.)

I think that's about all the writing news I have at the moment.  Eventually I'll get the collage done(ish), and I'll post a picture of that.  Oh, and while we're supposed to be working on soundtracks, which I feel pretty solid about at the moment, I'll be working on Kelley Armstrong's Outlining 101.  It's fabulous.  This is the program I followed (in my own special, Becky-ish way) in 2007, which was by far my best, most productive NaNo year.  (National Novel Writing Month for anyone unfamiliar.)  I want to mesh some of Lani's Magic/Discovery work with Kelley's Outlining 101 to hopefully get me on the right track and revved up for November 1st.  (I hadn't been planning to NaNo this year, but what the hell.  And since I'm off in my own world, doing my own thing and making it up as I go along, I might just start before Nov 1!  I know.  I'm such a rebel!)

If you're interested in checking out Kelley's writing info, go to her website, kelleyarmstrong.com, and join her forum and the OWG (Online Writing Group).  That's where you'll find her NaNo prep stuff, as well as lots of talented and welcoming fellow writers.

And now I think I really am done.  Pretty jazzed about all the work ahead of me.  But it's fun work.  Fwerk!

Brainstorming

I don't remember if I told you this or not (I started to write a post about it, fairly sure that I never finished), but I'm taking one of Lani's writing classes, Making Magic.  Last week we worked on soundtracks, this week we're doing collages.  I'm not visually artistic, so I'm struggling a bit. (Well, except for knitting, but that's more about following a pattern and mastering the mechanics.  You're on your own with collage.)

I'm supposed to be picking placeholders-- pictures of people, often actors, who represent the characters.  Sometimes it's the look, sometimes it's about the attitude or personality.  Whatever you need to help you make that person real in your head, until they take over and become their own person.  (People who've done much in the way of fiction writing will know what I mean.)

One of my characters, Ethan, is coming in pretty strong for me right now.  This is his story, told from his point of view.  He had this great boyfriend who dumped him suddenly right before Christmas, and he can't get over it.  He's bitter.  He doesn't understand why.  And now Christmas is coming around again, and so is the ex.  My big problem with Ethan is that I can't settle on what he looks like.  He's kind of an amorphous blob at the moment.  He shifts every time I look too close.  I can feel what he's feeling and know what he's thinking, but he won't let me see his face.

I have an image for the ex.  He's a pilot, I think.  I don't know what his name is yet.  So far he's been Dave, Dan, and Brad.  None of them fit.  So I'm just going to keep playing the "what name pops into my mind first" game periodically, and see what else comes up.  My biggest problem with Dave/Dan/Brad is that I don't know what is motivating him.  He basically walked out on Ethan, completely gone, out of his life, a couple days before Christmas.  Why?  What made him do that?  As far as Ethan is concerned, it was a douchey thing to do.  I know Dave/Dan/Brad had a reason for behaving that way.  It's got to be realistic, understandable, and redeemable.  Because I want these two guys together again.  But I don't know what the reason is.

What could make someone walk out on a relationship so suddenly?  What would make them change their mind a year later?  In my mind it feels like commitment phobia.  But does anyone want a hero who walks away utterly, no contact at all, and then appears a year later and says he wants you back?  How do you justify it?  How do you forgive it?

I did have one big revelation today.  It has to do with the structure of the story.  The first part is unquestionably Ethan's.  He's a teacher, so the story starts off at the beginning of the school year.  As the school year progresses, he finds himself rehashing the relationship.  Remembering the good times, re-examining those moments that might have been warning signs of what was to come.  Because he was really hit out of the blue when Dave/Dan/Brad walked away.  As we get closer to Christmas and the one year anniversary of the break up, Ethan gets madder.  The story ends with Dave/Dan/Brad knocking on the door a year after he left.  (You can play with stuff like this in m/m.  There's a lot more flexibility.  But it would never fly in mainstream romance.)

The second part of the story picks up from there.  It's all told from Dave/Dan/Brad's point of view.  (I really need to get a name for this guy.)  It will also cover two parallel time lines, his build up to walking out a year ago and his present struggle to get Ethan to take him back, with a little dash of how much he missed him after walking out.

So for the immediate future, I'm not too bad.  Ethan's story is first, and while I can't see him very well, I can feel him.  My biggest concern is that without knowing for sure what's going on with the Other Guy (I just can't type that list of names again-- it's getting depressing), I can't layer it in at all.  But then, Ethan is also clueless about what happened, so maybe it's not too bad.  More a question of whether or not I want to clue the reader in before Ethan figures everything out.  (That balance between letting the reader feel smart for figuring it out without making the character look dumb for not figuring it out.)

So.  Thoughts?  Why do people just get up and walk out one day, and what changes inside to let them come back?

Merry Christmas, Darling

I know I keep saying this, and then I never do anything.  But this time I really mean it.  (I think.)  I'm going to start writing again.

One of the m/m publishers that I've been reading a lot lately has a call out for holiday short stories and novellas.  5,000-18,000 words, due September 1st.  I can do that.  I just have to get into a Christmas frame of mind.  To achieve this I've been listening to Christmas music.  The fact that it's been in the middle 90s (a solid 15 degrees above normal for Indiana this time of year) isn't helping.  But I'm going to give it the old college try.

Tomorrow I'm going to start poking around the interwebs, looking for images to inspire me, both hunky and Christmassy.  If you have any favorites, please be sure to link them in the comments.  I could use all the support and inspiration I can get!  If I can figure out how I did the last computer collage, I'll make one and post it when it's ready.  If not, I might have to resort to paper and glue stick, and then God help you if you want to see it, because I haven't the foggiest where my digital camera is.  So, keep your fingers crossed that I find the collage website.

While you're crossing fingers, keep 'em crossed that I manage to get beyond the soundtrack and collage phase.  'Cause I'd really like to write this Christmas story and get it submitted!  (Once I get it written and into the hands of an editor I'll start worrying about whether or not anyone actually wants to publish it.)

Oh, and since I haven't done this for a while, my lip balm of the day is the thoroughly un-Christmassy lavender lemonade.

Happy Days Are Here Again!

Another round of good news on the medication front.  My doctor's office called this morning.  The makers of Savella (my other Fibro medication) approved my patient assistance, and there was 3 months worth of free meds waiting for me at the office!  Yay!  My Fibro meds are the only ones I take that are too new to have a generic, which means they are the most expensive.  Now that I'm getting both of them for free, my monthly med costs have gone down by about 3/4.  That's huge-- a significant line item in the monthly budget slashed.

In other news, I've got the Kindle down to 724 items.  So far it hasn't made a bit of difference.  In fact, the battery is dying even faster.  But that might be because of all the clicking around to delete stuff.  I'll go back to more normal usage for the next couple of days and see if there's any improvement.

And more good news-- I have a solid story idea to work on.  Last night I was thinking about a story I started almost 15 years ago and abandoned.  The actual pages are long gone at this point (trust me, it's no loss), but the idea lingered.  As I was falling asleep last night it fused with another scrap of an idea, and suddenly I have a viable story idea.  In the next few days I'm going to work on Kelley Armstrong's Outlining 101, and then I want to start writing March 1st.  I'm not going to push myself to NaNo it.  I'm afraid I'll flame out in a couple of days at that kind of pace.  But I'd definitely like to finish March with a nice chunk of pages.  I've also had a little bit of a brain wave about the story I was working on last fall during Discovery.  So I think I may end up outlining both at the same time.  We'll see how confused I get.

Lip Balm Flavor of the Day: Gingerale

Feeling Weepie

After reading several really good books lately I'm in that moody, creative place where I feel like I want to start writing again.  I've been listening to music again, something I haven't done much of in the last couple of months. 

I don't have much on my mp3 player, comparatively speaking.  (Someone I follow on twitter said today that she has 10,005 songs on hers, and was pondering if she should if she should delete 5 songs to bring it back to a tidy 10,000.  My old but serviceable mp3 has about 1/10 that capacity.)  But there's still enough stuff on there that I forget what I have.

So I was cruising through the other day, looking for something good, when I rediscovered The Weepies.  I only have three of their songs, but I've been listening to those three songs on repeat ever since.  I'm thinking about taking the $2 in free mp3 downloads that Amazon if offering right now (promo code: VDAYMP3S) plus some of the gift certificate credit that I have saved up and downloading a few more songs, or possibly their whole catalog.  I could see this music being the core of a soundtrack.  I know I said this before, but I just logged in over at Wiz IQ, and I'm going to go through the Discovery class again, this time with less moving and distractions.

And here is a video I found for one of the songs I've had on repeat.  It's not an official video, they don't appear to have made one, which is a shame.  But it's still pretty good.  I'd love to know where the images are from, if anyone knows.  Looks like something Japanese to me, and while I have wide ranging tastes, this is an area that I'm completely unfamiliar with.  Some of the clips look pretty romantic, and I'd like to check them out.

And now, Take It From Me!

Re-Discovering

Last fall, in a burst of creative desperation, I took Lani/Lucy's Discovery class.  I'd just moved away from the home I loved to live with my parents on the other side of the country.  The yankee side.  The class was my attempt to hang on to my image of who I was as a person before my health trampled me.

It wasn't a terribly successful venture, not through any fault of Lani's.  The day after I arrived in Massachusetts my parents got an offer on their house.  What might have been difficult suddenly became impossible.  I attended all the classes, but there was no time or space or energy to do the assignments or participate in any meaningful way.

At about the same time I got the idea for the book review blog, and suddenly my attention was split even further.  About a month ago I decided that I really wanted to get serious about the blog.  I want the reviews to go up like clockwork.  I want to have interesting reading related essays at least a couple times a month.  Good steady content will drive more people to the site and increase comments.  Eventually, it will become what I want it to be: a conversation about books among people who love them.  But that relies on me reading and reviewing at a steady rate, at least once a week.  My current reading project, which should wrap up next week I hope, hasn't allowed that.  But after the first of the year I want to be going great guns.

The desire to review, the personal train wreck of the class, and the fact that I've done basically no fiction writing in the last four years led me to the idea that fiction writing wasn't the dream for me anymore.  I decided to quietly shelve the idea.  Nothing else about my life was what I'd dreamed or hoped or even wanted.  Walking away seemed like the right thing to do.

That, of course, is when the itch returned.  The idea, the very, very small idea.  Someone laughing.  They're happy.  I have not the tiniest clue who they are or what their story might be.  But I think I want to write it.  Just for me.  Not for a publisher.  Not for my imagined future adoring fans.  Just for me. 

My happiest times writing were back when I first started.  Every night I'd come home from work, eat dinner, and then sit down to write on my word processor.  (Did you ever use one of those?  It was like the bastard child of a typewriter and a Speak & Spell.)  Every night I'd work on my story.  I wasn't picturing the beta readers, I wasn't wondering what some editor or agent might think.  I was just telling my story to a very interested party-- me.  I want to go back to that.  I want to write because it's fun and I like it, and damn what anyone else thinks.  But first I need a story.  So I'm going to do Discovery again.

Lani leaves the class recording up and available to class members.  Tonight I downloaded them.  Maybe next week or maybe sometime after the first of the year I'm going to go through them again.  I want to find out who that laughing person is.  I want to know why they were laughing.  And I want to laugh along with them. 

Ordinarily I'd wonder if I was setting myself up for another fall, to do this again after failing so recently.  But you know, it's funny.  It was only two months ago, but it feels like a lifetime.  Like I was a different person then than I am now.  I think there's value for me in those lessons if I just play around with it, take it at my own pace, and see what happens.

I still intend to pull my act together with the book blog.  I feel bad that I haven't been as steady and organized as I would have liked.  (Also, with only two of us reviewing, the work load is much heavier than I anticipated.  If anyone else would like to write a review or two, please let me know.)  I think if I can develop a routine for all of my writing, and that includes blogging here, too, the whole process will smooth out.

It's the getting started that's hard.

It's Almost Time

Three weeks from today it will be November.  You know what that means.  NaNo time.

I haven't really done NaNo since 2006.  That was an excellent NaNo for me.  I made serious progress on a book that I really loved, and only got a little lost at the end.  As opposed to other years where I started out strong in the first week/week and a half and then scrambled to throw any old words onto the page to finish out the month with my 50,000.

I'm not sure what I want to do this time around.  I've kicked around three ideas.  First, there's the story that I've been working on in Discovery.  It's a good concept, definitely one worth working on.  But it's... big.  Slippery in my mind.  And I keep finding the most creative excuses not to do the homework for class.  (Embarrassingly, I fell asleep in class yesterday and missed about half of it.  Lucy, if you're reading this, it was all me, not you.  I woke up long enough to type I'M A GREAT WRITER!!!! and then fell asleep for another two hours.)  I strongly suspect that this is just too much story for me at this time.  I haven't done any writing worth mentioning in almost 4 years.  Maybe I need to start with something smaller, with less at stake.  I really want to try something with this story, and to do that I need more confidence, more practice under my belt.

My second idea is to write anywhere from 3 to 10 short pieces aimed at the Harlequin Spice Briefs line.  I don't mean to say that these are easy to write.  It takes skill to take a small concept and turn it into a full story without any extraneous bits or feeling like there's stuff that's been left out.  Not to mention these are hot stories, and if you can't write a heck of a sex scene, you're sunk.  But I think this is something I might be able to do this year.  Take a moment, a look, a touch, and spin it into a story.  Too short for saggy middles.  No wallowing around, trying to figure out what to do next.  It starts, they do it, you tie it all up.  At NaNo pace each one should take me anywhere from a few days up to a week.  (The length requirements are 5,000-15,000 words.)  But can I come up with 3 to 10 little fantasies to write about?

My third idea, which has merit just for it's ridiculousness, is to just wing something, some silly, fun story, and blog it.  Let any commenters throw out ideas when I get stuck.  Something that will be just pure fun.  Strictly writing for the hell of it.  That winging it, writing on the fly type attitude strikes me as particularly NaNo-ish.  And provided I can keep going and actually find a way to wrap up whatever mess I've created by Nov 30, I think it could be a pretty satisfying way to jump back into the writing pool.  The only problem is, I have not the tiniest idea what this story would be about. 

So, what do you think?  Set my self up for failure with the big scary book, go nympho for the month and write a series of sexy shorts with an eye toward submitting one or more of them by the end of the year, or should I go foo foo crazy and blog the results for all the world to see?

Collage!

Check it out!  I made a collage!

Discovery 2010

see more of my photos

This was homework for the Discovery class I've been taking.  My computer has been in the shop for most of the last week and a half, and I was feeling pretty frustrated.  But I got my baby back today, and I was able to spend a couple of hours finding just the right images (I'd already picked out some) and putting them together.  This probably isn't the end of the collaging for this project.  There's still a boat load of stuff I need to figure out.  But this feels like a good start.

It's In The Cards

Discovery class starts on Sunday, and to prepare I've been doing things to top up the creativity tank.  The last few weeks have sucked a lot out of me, and I rather desperately need the refill.  I've been reading everything I can get my hands on, particularly stuff I've been looking forward to but haven't read yet for one reason or another.  I've been listening to my mp3 player and song samples on Amazon.  (The first lesson is on creating a soundtrack for your book, and I'm really looking forward to that.)  And yesterday I did something I haven't done in way too long-- I pulled out my tarot deck.

I have an on again/off again relationship with the tarot.  It's an interesting study, but it is a study, a discipline.  It takes work to master reading the cards, and work is something I haven't done much of in the last few years.  (I'm trying really hard to purge the word "lazy" from my vocabulary.  I am not lazy.  I have chronic, involuntary health problems that suck up energy and brain power.  There's a world of difference.  Maybe if I keep telling myself that I'll believe it some day.) 

Seven or eight years ago I took a tarot class, and periodically I pick up a book again and try to drum the meanings of the cards into my head.  They don't stick.  Probably because I need to stop reading the book and start looking at the cards.  There's intuition in there somewhere, after all I'm a Scorpio.  I just need to find a way to trust it.

Anyway, last night I picked up my cards and shuffled through them to see if anything jumped out at me.  Two did:

Nine of Wands

Eight of Cups

The Nine is from the deck I use, Hanson-Roberts, and is the card that made me want to buy the deck years ago.  I couldn't find a Google image of the Eight from Hanson-Roberts, so this is the Rider-Waite image.  They are very similar.  Choosing the Eight was instinctive, but after thinking about it for a minute it totally makes sense.  This card is about walking away, starting over, which is where I am right now.  What didn't dawn on me right away is that the Nine has almost the exact opposite meaning: persevering, staying the course.  I think the Nine might be the card of my life overall.  My health is something that I will have to deal with every day for the rest of my life, and unless there's a major change in treatment options, I don't see it getting significantly better.  But the way I was attempting so soldier on just wasn't working for me.  I had to walk away and start over.  So in a weird way, these two contradictory cards really express where I am in my life. 

I appreciate the insight, but I'm hoping that if I look through the cards again in a few days that they'll tell me a little bit about my characters this time!