Crappy Timing

Yeah, so I've missed all of the NaNo events since we kicked off at the beginning of the month. Which kind of sucks. Honestly, it's been a busy month. Fitting 2300+ words into the MS every night leaves very little time for anything else. Not sure how everyone else manages to find the time, but I'm cramming a lot of stuff into my weekends to make up for lost time during the week.

And then I hit up the NaNo message boards yesterday, only to find out that the 12-hour marathon has been cut down to only 8 hours, and that it overlaps with—of course—my staff Festivus party. The write-in starts and 6pm and, lo and behold, my staff party starts at 6pm. By the time dinner and drinks are said and done, it'll probably be well past midnight. Doesn't leave me much time to drop in at the write-in before it's over!

Could I blow off the staff party in favour of the write-in? No, not really. We're a staff of five. My absence would probably be noted... ha!

Oh well. Maybe the meet-up at Denny's on Monday?

S.

Done.

And another Halloween has come and gone. My favourite day of the year, and it's not even a holiday. Damn. I failed pretty epically this year with my costume, and to a lesser extent, the decorations. I had a great costume idea earlier this year and I procrastinated like a boss until I ran out of time to put it together.

Fall back costume: The devil-in-pleather.

I think I missed my A-game on the decorations for two reasons: Idiot#1 didn’t bring the decorations up from the basement until two weeks after I asked for them, and somewhere in that timeframe it decided to snow and turn cold outside. Not encouraging for decorating. Still, I did get some trick-or-treaters:

Joe (aka. Idiot#3) as Robin and Madd-man as Batman!

And it wasn’t a total holiday failure:

Work Pumpkins. Mine is a rendition of George, my boss’s dad. Scary, yes.

Halloween Sugar Cookies, for knit club last week.

And roasted pumpkin seeds!

If I ever decide to run for Prime Minister of this country, just know that I will in fact make Halloween a national holiday. Perhaps even a week-long holiday.

Anyway, NaNoWriMo starts in less than three hours. Plus the Epic Month of Blog Posts, so you’ll see me again real soon... you’ve been warned.

S.

The Real Day 1

Normally, I loathe Mondays. However, I have high hopes for today!

I'm on the first weekday of my staycation. Right at this moment I would normally be settling in at my desk for the workday. Instead, as the temperature begins its climb from 7° overnight to the 29° forecasted for this afternoon (yes!!) I'm going go take my friend's dog for a walk and then start writing. Right after I cook up an iced coffee, naturally.

*Sun peaks from behind a cloud, illuminating my writing desk*

No, today just doesn't have that typical F-U feel that a Monday usually entails.

XD

S.

Anger

My head is pounding.

I've got crappy neck muscles. I suffered for years with tension headaches that would last for days, no matter how many Advil 400s I popped.

It wasn't until this year, when the headaches started getting bad again, that I decided to try a chiropractor for the pain. And lo and behold, it worked. Headaches started becoming less frequent, less intense, and not as long-lasting. In fact, a few weeks ago I had a headache start around 4:30, just as I was leaving the office. I took three different painkillers between when the headache started, and when I got to work the next morning. Nothing worked. I called and re-scheduled my next appointment for that morning and was getting my neck adjusted within hours.

An hour after getting my neck adjusted, the headache was completely gone. It was awesome.

The reason I'm regaling you with this story? Well, I'm angry. Today I woke up with one of these headaches. It's supposed to be a beautiful day, I was supposed to start writing nice and early with a large iced coffee at my side, enjoying the sunshine, and instead, my body decided to start jackhammering inside my skull. Stupid body.

And sadly, the chiropractors's office isn't open on Sundays. Damn.

At least I know if I'm still in pain tomorrow morning I can go get it fixed. I'm just pissed in general that I'm not going to enjoy the day to its fullest.

Rant over.

S.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

It's been a slow week. Not only did it seem to drag (Friday took forever to get here!) but every day was kinda the same thing, over and over. Work was the same old hat, I managed to squeeze dinner and at least an hour of writing in most evenings, and then an hour of reading before bed.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

But the weekend is here! I might manage an hour of writing here right away, though I don't expect to achieve much more. I mean, come on, look at this forecast:

So, yeah, rafting today for sure. Hope to hit the Bow around noon with three or four buddies, and then we're having a walleye fish fry afterwards for a friend's birthday. The day is going to be lost to shenanigans.

Not that I mind. Summer was made for shenanigans. Plus, I only have five days left at the office and then I'm on holidays for ten days! Hope this amazing weather holds for that long, because I am really, really looking forward to a week of iced coffees and margaritas in the sunshade with my writing...!

S.

The Dining or Writing Room

My house has a dining room. Idiot#1 and I don't actually "dine" in this dining room. Plate on lap works just fine for us, whether its outside, in front of the tv, or with a book in hand.

Thus, my dining room is actually the writing room.

@BA_Matthews said last week that she can't write at a desk—uncomfortable and uncreative. I imagine that's the same for a lot of other writers out there (and other creative types, whatever their media may be), but for myself the opposite is true.

I'm a graphic designer. For eight hours, five days a week, I sit at a desk and have to turn on the creative gears. Doesn't matter if I'm in the design zone or not (like writers block, but with graphics and pictures and copy), I just gotta do my job: sit down at desk, be creative, coffee, design some stuff, lunch break, be creative some more, yell at the staff, design some more, go home.

After so many years my brain is wired like sit at desk = imagine + create + drink coffee.

So at home I find my best environment for writing is actually—wait for it—at a desk!

The desk.

The bookcase.

The Vietnamese iced coffee.

The new chair. May the old one burn in hell.

The Jade plant.

And that, folks, is the writing room. My favourite part is, of course, that I'm in front of the patio door looking outside. When it's too chilly to actually sit outside at least I can pretend I'm out there.

Until next time,
S.

Character File: Alicia Bowmyn

Yesterday evening I puttered around on a Manga-Avatar site, building sketches of all my characters from I Had To Fall. As a graphic designer, I like visual things. I thought it would be most excellent if I could draw out my characters and always have them as references, helping to make them more real when I'm writing about them. (By the way, if you're thinking, "you're a graphic designer, just illustrate them yourself!" then you should know that I'm not a graphic artist, but designer. I'm a strictly stick-figure kinda illustrator.)

So I avatar'd all my characters. Then I thought, wouldn't it be cool to do a blog post tomorrow as a character study, and show off one of the new avatars, along with a description?

Things just snowballed from there.

I didn't post this morning because I thought, hey, instead of just slapping the avatar image in with a description, what if I made like a faux case-study sort of thing? That would be cool. But for that I needed some of my design software, which I don't have at home. So I packed up my lunch an hour early and headed into the office, where I promptly started designing a folder to build the character content into.

By the time I was supposed to start work I'd decided it would be best to make the character study like a sort of police report / case file, complete with the Hunter's emblem at the top and a hand-written-in report on what the Hunter's might know about the character. Plus maybe they'd found a scrap of paper (like an excerpt from a book about said character...?) to put in the case file too.

So I spent my lunch hour finishing everything up. It's not my best work (this isn't really my kind of design anyway) but with a little more tweaking I think I'll be happy. So without further ado, here's the character study for Alicia:

So, thoughts anyone? Improvements I could make? Because I'm going to do these studies for all the characters, plus some studies on each race specifically. I have to kill time on my lunch break anyway, right?

Hahaha...

S.

Miss the Writing

So far 2012 has been all about editing I Had to Fall. I started with my critique partner's notes and worked through all the minor changes she recommended. She'd brought up some bigger issues and ideas, so I allowed those time to percolate. Lots of percolation time.

The trade show business is busiest here from early March until early June. I end up working ten hour days and weekends (paid overtime, thank god) and, after I get the house tidied and dinner done, I basically go to sleep. So I had a bit of lull during those months where the editing was on hold.

I picked up my work again after the Global Petroleum show and worked on it fairly regularly. So I'm clipping along at a good pace now, getting about a chapter done (the major edits now) per day. Which is great. I like where the story is going. But...

I miss the writing! I can't even remember the last time I was working on something I was actually writing instead of editing. I miss plotting, and dialoguing, and finding things out about my characters I didn't know, or having them take me places I didn't expect. Don't get me wrong, I love editing - it appeals to that side of me that likes to have to-do lists for my to-do lists, all alpha-numerically organized of course. Writing is the creative side, and I really miss it.

I've got at least three more weeks until I'm finished editing I Had To Fall. I'm not sure what I'm doing with it after that - trying to find another beta reader, or querying it into the world - but I know what my next project is going to be: something that needs writing!

That was my little rant for today. Since I discussed so much editing, I think tomorrow I'll show you all some pieces from Scrivener and how I use that in my editing process. Until then...

S.

Fingers Crossed

I wish writing was my day job, the one that pays the bills. But it ain't.

However, my office building was undergoing renovations that started on Friday at noon and are supposed to have been completed last night. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that the contractors fell behind schedule (it does happen!) and that when I roll up at 8:30 I end up getting sent home because the building isn't ready yet.

Wouldn't that be nice? I could probably finish the edits to chapters five, six and seven if I had the whole day off today!

But let's face it. Today is Monday, and Mondays never go well for me. Hell, I'll probably end up having to work late or something.

Anyway, chances are it will be a regular ol' day at the office, in which case I'm just going to sit down tonight and hopefully get a full chapter of critique done for my beta reader, and at least finish my edits to chapter five.

S.

Big Changes

Man, I'm tired.

No desk job for me today. It was Emergency Graphic Design Only - the rest of my day was spent in the production department, on my feet, trimming graphics and installing displays.

But I still managed to get through chapter nine of my editing process tonight, despite the exhaustion... and yes, I am clearly a wuss.

I was never really happy with the ending for chapter nine. I've re-written it at least twice already, but I still wasn't happy. My beta reader also ran into some confusion there, which just reinforced my opinion that it needed work. I had a wonderful 'Aha!' moment this evening, when I came up with a solution.

My MC, Deyl, suffers from a bit of a Dr. Jeckyll / Mr. Hyde thing, though she is fully aware of the existence of Mr. Hyde. I've struggled with incorporating this alternate personality since my very first rewrite, and I had pretty much decided to cut it altogether. However, there were still some vague references to it scattered throughout the novel, probably because I liked the idea and couldn't really let it go.

My beta reader liked it. Wanted to see more of this Mr. Hyde personality. Bolstering my resolve, I've made comments during this edit on how / when / where I can work Mr. Hyde back in, and make it better for doing so.

And one of these spots is the end of chapter nine. I've just made comments for now, but I am definitely excited to rewrite and see if and how this all comes together. With any luck I'll have chapter ten edited tomorrow, at which point I think I'll go back and put together a more cohesive rewrite plan-of-action, with some questions for my beta...

White Stuff

Ah, Calgary. We don't get even an inch of snow in January, but come April...

Maybe I'll be snowed in and can't get into work tomorrow? Ha... if only. That excuse used to work when I drove a Civic, but I don't think it'll fly when the boss knows I have the Silverado at my disposal. Oh well.

Made it through three and a half chapters worth of notes from my critique partner tonight, after a lovely Vietnamese dinner in the midst of the snowstorm. She's brought up a lot of good points: some things that have surprised me, some that made me face-palm at my own stupidity, and other things that I already felt uncertain about. I'm hopeful that I'll make it to the end of her notes tomorrow so I can create a kind of road map for revisions over the weekend.

A weekend at the house. I was going to go out camping with Husband, until we realized the spot we were heading to is supposed to get like three feet of snow between tonight and tomorrow. So maybe the next weekend...

a day in the life

Ever wondered what it's like to be a graphic designer?

No?

Well, I'm going to show you anyway:

Vacation!

So I'm still alive. Nothing in real life has slowed down since my last post, and I've been completely absent from my digital life for weeks now. And I miss it.

But, I am about to embark on a holiday. Which is exciting. I don't travel often... in fact, I believe I've crossed the Canadian border twice in my entire life. Yup. I did the family trip to Disney World when I was in grade eight, and I drove into Minneapolis some time in high school to see a concert.

With that in mind, planning a ten-day trip through San Fran, L.A. and Vegas has been a bit of a whirlwind.

And while I am really, really excited to go, there is that part of me that's excited to get back, to settle into some kind of normalcy in my life again. By mid-November all the major trade shows are over, so life at the office is going to slow down, at least until January. I have two knitting projects to complete before Festivus, and other than that I can get back to... writing!

So this is it until I get back... see you in a couple weeks!

Good Morning

Morning again, my favourite time of day. Yesterday we had a wildly beautiful sunrise, which I snapped a couple crappy photos of on my way into the office. Here:

So that was yesterday. Another dawn, another day. Today I've got to run around Calgary, errands, errands, and more errands. In fact, "Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time."

You do know where that quote is from, right? Right?!?!

I'm probably not going to get any writing in until later this evening, because it's supposed to be something like 29°C today, and I refuse to coop myself inside during the very last of the summer weather. It's just wrong.

Maybe I'll bring my Air outside and write...? We'll see.

Growth: Why I hope writing is like designing

Last post I talked about character development, and then I disappeared for a few days. Because I was busy busy developing characters ;)

Now I've got a full cast of well-rounded, multi-dimensional characters to work with, a solid 25K outline that covers everything right up to climax of the story, and I'm ready to start writing!

This is, of course, the best part of the project. And this time, I'm facing the challenge of a main character who interacts with—but doesn't speak to—any of the other characters until a third of the way through the story. Yes, challenge indeed.

Speaking of challenges, I'm also in the midst of learning how to critique others work. I'm beta'ing novels from two different writers and I've already found that it's a very different thing from critiquing my own work. Another interesting thing that's come up, is when one of the writers was worried I'd be offended by her comments. I assured her that I wouldn't be, but it led me into some further connections between my day job as a designer and my evenings and weekends as a writer.

I've mentioned here and elsewhere some of the similarities between the two. There is another aspect of writing that feels like design (and probably like many other jobs, but hey, this is my experience): Growth.

I went to college to study graphic design. My profs taught me the how-to and the rules of design, and then sent me off to give it a go. I laid out my ideas, thought they were amazing, only to have the Profs turn around and tear them apart. They showed me -- either gently or ruthlessly -- what I was doing wrong. Sometimes the feedback was bad enough to nearly put me in tears.

So I tried again.

For three years.

By the time I received my diploma I could hardly bear to look at the work I'd done in my first year--it was so hideous! I'd come a long way since then, and I never would have if I didn't have my professors and colleagues ripping my ideas and my work to pieces.
Then I went out into the Real World. I picked up a job in Calgary almost immediately after I finished school, designing trade show booths. That was four years ago. When I compare my early days there, to the work I do now, so much has changed. I've really learned to separate my ideas from myself—when someone hates my work, it's the idea they hate, not me. Thick skin, that was a big change. Also:

I'm faster. A job that would have taken 8 hours of design four years ago now takes me 2 or 3.

I'm better. I used to have to work through five or six different concepts with clients, making radical changes, before I got what they wanted. Now the design is usually signed off in two or three proofs, covering only minor revisions.

I'm smarter. Four years ago I struggled to see the problems in my own designs, what I could do or change to make the client happy. Now if a client comes back to me feeling unsure about how something works in the layout I can see immediately what I need to change to fix it.

What I'm saying with all this rambling is that I hope, when everything is said and done, that my writing evolves the same way my design has. I spend a lot of time writing, and I think what I write is good. Now I'm having beta readers tear it apart, and that can only be a good thing. I hope I learn a lot from seeing my work from their viewpoints. And I hope in a few years I'll be able to look back on my early writing and cringe.
I hope that, with time and effort, I'll be a faster, better, and smarter writer.

Has that happened for you? Or are you like me, looking ahead and just hoping?

Just a quick note

Super busy the past couple of days, at work and just... life in general. I've still managed to get some more outlining and storming-of-the-brain done on my WIP, but that's been about all. There simply isn't enough time in the day!

My boss came back today after being gone for three weeks on holiday. With a small staff in a small office, that kind of absence takes it toll on the rest of us, so I'm damn glad she's back. This should mean I can start, sometime in the next month, to work a normal eight-hour day again! Very exciting. Think of the possibilities. I might actually get to sleep again.

Anyway, I gotta cut out early. Lots to do... and miles to go before I sleep!

Not dead yet!

It's been an expanded, exciting, exhausting, exhilarating, epic summer break, but it's not endless. Returning to writing in the next week or so, as soon as my boss is back in the office and my life returns to some semblance of normalcy. So you now you know I'm not dead.

I hope you get a full refund on that tombstone...

the End is upon us!

Very excited tonight. I've got two or three small sections of chapter twenty-five to revise/rewrite tomorrow evening and I'll be finished the all the major changes I wanted to make to I HAD TO FALL. I'm working all day Saturday (setting up all those nice trade show displays I've been designing) but after that I've got a week scheduled for making a few last minor revisions to the story, and then another week for a line-by-line polish of the copy.

And then it's done. Like, really done.

To share in my excitement, I've got a nice little excerpt for you here. One of my biggest changes to the story was the relationship between Cal and Deyl. Their interactions and face time remained the same, but their opinions, treatment and feelings about each other changed significantly. This is from chapter twenty, a bit of Cal and Deyl working together towards a common goal. Not that they wanted to, but they didn't have much choice.

(Yeah, I know you have no context for this. Sorry. Hope you love it anyway.)

I turned slowly towards Cal, who was dropping the choked body to the ground. We just stared at each other, his breathing heavy against the steadiness of my own. In that moment I knew something between us had changed, our uneasy truce complicated by the bond that came only from fighting side by side together.

"We have to clear this," was all he said.

I nodded.

Blood would leave the most visible signs of our ambush so I grabbed the two bleeding men first, taking one by the arm in each hand and dragging them across the narrow road into the dark shade of the birch trees. Beside me, Cal carried two more. In a minute we had the road cleared of the bodies and all trace of the fight.

The last man dropped from my arms. It was the tall one with my knife still embedded in his chest. I pulled it out as he fell to the grass at my feet, wiping it clean on a nearby patch of moss before tucking it back into my shoulder strap.

"Nice toss," Cal remarked, his tone casual.

Gazing up at him, I tried to gauge his thoughts. His expression was carefully closed. It struck me that he meant it.

A broad grin lit up my face, the adrenaline crashing and making me feel a bit giddy.

"Thanks," I said smiling even wider. A distant, low boom echoed on the morning breeze. We both turned to look towards the sound.

The charge had blown.

Cal turned back to me and I met his gaze soberly, the giddiness evaporating. He snatched both shotguns up and tossed one to me.

"We need to move."

"Right." I fell into step behind him again.

The Muse

Muse. Music.

Similar words. Coincidence?

I was thinking about the idea of the muse today, watching it trend on Twitter. I'm certainly not the only writer out there who finds inspiration in music. Haha, seems to me that most do.

But I need variety. I always find it interesting, when a writer blogs about the music they listen to while writing, to go and check out the band, or that specific song (thanks, YouTube). What kinda blows my mind is that a lot of what's listed is the same genre of music. Several different bands that a writer will listen to, but all with a similar sound or style.

Maybe it's just me. I'm constantly plugged into some source of music. My iPod alarm wakes me up in the morning. I turn on the stereo while I'm getting ready for work, though there is a half-hour break while I'm doing a German lesson. Then the iPod's plugged in for the drive to work, I play tunes all day at work (design needs a muse, too), and iPod again for the drive home. Once I'm home I've got my headphones for while I'm gardening or exercising, a stereo for the shower (not kidding) and then slap on the headphones again when I sit down to write. The hour of reading I cram in before I hit the pillow is usually music-free. Hm. Usually.

Added all up, that's probably about 15 hours of music each day. 100 hours a week. So you see, I get tired of the same old music really quickly. I need variety!

This is where you come in: Got any good suggestions? Someone new, or off the beaten track, that I might not have heard yet? Tell me about it. I'm always on the lookout for great new tunes!

Which begs the question, what do I already listen to? So here I go, following in the footsteps of all other writers that have come before me, listing my faves:

Nine Inch Nails
Rammstein
We Are the Fallen
She Wants Revenge
Foo Fighters
Iced Earth
Dresden Dolls
Evanescence
Smashing Pumpkins
Weezer
The Fray
Megadeth
Nirvana
Rolling Stones
System of a Down

There. That's a nice little sampling of what I'm into. Just the tip of the iceberg, but please, make suggestions!

Down Time

I'm in the midst of a bit of a writing break. I spent the weekend in Edmonton checking out Rammstein and Into Eternity, both awesome shows by the way. Then I returned to work on Monday (in case you aren't aware, I loathe Mondays) only to have my computer not turn on.

Just heard back from IT today. Hard drive is shot.

So, I'll pretty much be living at the office for the next couple of days, trying to recover what work I can and run damage control on my client work. In the midst of oil-show season.

I'm just going to keep looking forward to the weekend and hope fervently for three uninterrupted days of relaxing and writing. That's all I want in life. Seriously.