Books Read in November

1. The Gaslight Dogs, by Karin Lowachee
2. My Life as a White Trash Zombie, by Diana Rowland
3. Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
4. Shine, by Lauren Myracle
5. Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word, edited by Toni Morisson
6. Goliath, by Scott Westerfeld
7. How Long, poems by Ron Padgett
8. Kissing Kate, by Lauren Myracle

Read reviews on my livejournal.

Turkey and Pecan Pie and Writing and Writing and Card Games

I had a lovely, relaxing four day weekend with my family. In addition to a full weekend of fabulous food (half of which was gluten free) — candied yams, leftover turkey sandwiches, leftover turkey soup, cookies, brownies, and four different kinds of pie — we also participated in nightly rounds of 31 (a card game).

On Friday, we went to see The Muppets, which was fabulous. It was exactly what a muppet movie should be: fun, funny, wacky, and heartfelt. Also, “Am I a Man or a Muppet?” has to be the best song ever:

“Am I a man or am I a muppet?
If I’m a man that makes me a muppet of a man.
Am I a muppet or am I a man?
If I’m a muppet, then I’m very manly muppet.”

My whole family was singing this song and quoting from the movie for the rest of the weekend, and we are all in agreement that we want to own it.

When I wasn’t hanging out with the fam, I was on my computer either writing or being distracted from writing by the internets.

I’m currently at 26,700 words on my Untitled Werewolf Novel, which I’ve been trying to pound out in one go for Nano. I probably should have pushed myself a little harder on getting my word count up, but I kind of just let it be what it was in terms of progress. I have a right to have fun, too, and I did manage to get another 10,000 or so words down. I won’t be completing the Nano challenge this year, but I’m planning to keep working on the novel. Hopefully, I’ll manage to get draft zero completed by the end of December.

I am feeling fairly good about this Werwolf novel and there are some good scenes coming out. I can already tell that there is going to be some serious rearranging that’s going to have to take place in order to shift the emphasis on certain relationships and to make sure there’s conflict from page one. I’m not sure that I’m starting at the right place at the moment.

Draft zero writing is practically like outlining for me. Even though I have most of the novel planned out in my head, I spend most of my time figuring out who these people are and where they want to go. It become exploratory, which is an important step in the process. As I go along I insert notes into the text to help me know what I might want to change in previous chapters (such as putting more focus on the father-daughter relationship at the beginning).

In my next draft, I’ll be able to nail things down a little more solidly and will begin to share it with my writing gang.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]

A couple things mentioned on my livejournal, but not here.

1. Nano has started and I am, um, participating this year. *gulp*

I haven’t actually launched into my word count yet, partially because I’m reluctant to start on the novel, when I have just a few scenes of my short story “White Noise” to finish up (and of course they are not coming easy). Anyway, going to a couple of writins is sure to get me moving.

2. I have a series of short stories going, called The Many Adventures of Fay Fairburn.

Fay Fairburn is a mysterious character with a love of life and chaos and being silly. Her hair color changes often (currently it’s electric blue). As for her background? Well, she hasn’t told me too much about herself yet, so we’ll all discover more about her as the stories progress.

I’m doing these stories as a part of a livejournal contest, called LJ Idol. A new prompt is posted each week. I write a Fay story on it (other people write other things), and then all the entries are voted on. It’s fun and is pushing me to come up with a lot of new stories that I might not have thought of otherwise.

If you want to read the Fay Fairburn stories, you can click here.

I shall not cry; I shall write.

My story, “Shaking Hands,” was rejected by the Machine of Death, Vol. 2. I really, really, really wanted to get in. But considering they had almost 2,000 submissions and they only had room for 30 stories, that’s not anything to feel bad about.

The form letter suggests that the editors might create some other kind of project at a later date, as they liked a lot of the stories provided to them. So in a way, my story is still in the running, but as they are focusing on getting Vol. 2 to print, it will probably take a while to hear back on that front.

*shrug*

No worries. In the meantime, I have to rewrite and find a place to submit “The Witch of the Little Wood,” finish and go through rewrites on “White Noise,” keep posting Fay stories for LJ Idol, and also somehow get a Nano novel written — I have a lot of writing to keep me occupied. (^_^)

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]

Books Read in October

1. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin
2. Sweetly, by Jackson Pearce
3. Push of the Sky, by Camille Alexa
4. A Room with a View (audio book), by E.M. Forster
5. By Grit and Grace: Eleven Women Who Shaped the American West, edited by Glenda Riley and Richard W. Etulain
6. Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom, written by Joe Hill, art by Gabriel Rodriguez
7. Paper Covers Rock and Triplicity: Poems in Threes (poetry), by Chella Courington and Kristen McHenry
8. The Canterbury Tales (graphic novel), by Seymour Chwas
9. Deadline, by Mira Grant

Click to read the reviews on my livejournal.