Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy

Day: October 8, 2011

ROW80: The First Week

Week 1 of ROW80, and the second full week of my fall quarter, is complete! For me, the past seven days has been a crash course in organization, scheduling, and trying my darndest to work at my various projects and responsibilities consistently.  Reviewing everything that I managed to do (and those few things that fell by the wayside), I’d say that I’ve done mostly well in reaching my goals.

Writing. I pledged to spend 8-10 hours on WIP-related tasks, and judging from my count, I managed to reach 8 hours. A couple of those were spent struggling through an idea I had for a novella, and the rest with brainstorming and plotting for NaNoWriMo. I also had a chance to write a short flash fiction piece for the “Ghouls Galore” writing challenge I’ve decided to tackle for October. It’s a fun challenge — 4 creepy ghouls over 4 weeks. My first piece is “The Fourth Floor,” about a haunted mansion, one very angry poltergeist, and two high school students who are in way over their heads.

Thesis: I had a really hard time digging into the thesis this week. I originally projected that I would work on it for about 8 hours, and I think I managed to squeeze in maybe 5 or 6. My attention span has been virtually non-existent, though, and I can’t really handle more than 1 hour of work at a time. However, I think I should have the draft of this chapter finished by Sunday night. It’s far from perfect, but I really need to have feedback on it before I go any further. Cross your fingers that I can score a meeting with my advisor in the next week or so!

Exercise: I had hoped to work out 4 or 5 days this week, and I successfully got on my glider 4 times. My clothes are starting to fit better, and I’ve been able to liberate a few items out of my “too small to fit right now” pile, so this is a plus. Now I just have to maintain my momentum, and not fall by the wayside like I always seem to do.

Random things that I’ve learned:

  • Reading dense theory takes a sickening amount of time, especially when I’m trying to absorb material and take notes. I can speed-read an academic chapter (roughly 45-50 pages long) in two hours; I need over three hours if I want to do a good job of understanding things.
  • On the other hand, reading fun novels takes no time at all! In two days I have read the first two novels in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series, and I am holding myself back from devouring the last three. I made a major library run the other day, and have Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker in queue, as well as Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches.
  • I seem to be evolving into a disgustingly cheerful morning person — not sure how I have managed this, but I am grateful.

So, yeah, overall I’d say that I’m off to a decent start. I’ll be recalibrating things as I go (for example, do I need to spend 8 hours each week on the thesis, or can I do what I need to do with fewer hours?), but for the moment, I think tackling time targets is working well for me.

As a side note, I just want to add that I’m really grateful that I have friends in town who force me to go out and have a social life. I’ve had my nose to the grindstone for the entire week, trying to juggle everything, and I probably would work straight through the weekend if I didn’t have people forcing me to leave the house. Tonight I was persuaded to go out for dinner, and tomorrow I’ll be back to the weekly ritual of church with one of my friends. Then I will get to spend the afternoon at the movies with another buddy of mine. We are going to see Real Steel, and I will have 2 hours to fangirl squeal over the magnificence that is Hugh Jackman. Granted, I still have a research abstract to write, and thesis edits to do, and roughly 150 pages more theory to read, but I suppose having some relaxation time is important as well. 😀

How’s the first week gone for everyone else? Any need to tweak goals yet, or are things progressing swimmingly for the moment?

ETA: I would totally love to have a ROWbuddy for this round! I have no specific requirements, but it would be grand to have someone about for general encouragement, and maybe to do some writing sprints, especially as NaNoWriMo approaches. I am in the Pacific time zone (U.S. west coast); Twitter and email are my favorite modes of communication.

Ghouls Galore: Poltergeist

Today marks the first day of Lady Antimony’s #GhoulsGalore flash fiction challenge. We have four weeks, four paranormal beings, and four key words to integrate somewhere into our 250-word drabbles.

Today, we’re tackling the poltergeist, which Wikipedia defines as “paranormal phenomenon which consists of events alluding to the manifestation of an imperceptible entity” which includes “inanimate objects moving or being thrown about, sentient noises (such as impaired knocking, pounding or banging) and, on some occasions, physical attacks on those witnessing the events.”

The key word is boustrophedonic, which “relates to texts written from left to right and right to left in alternate lines.”

This flash fic piece is inspired by Kohl Mansion, where I attended high school. The mansion itself is rumored to be haunted by Freddy, the original owner, and tales have been passed down over the years about strange sightings and visions occurring after dark. Though I never witnessed such phenomena, I’ve always wanted to venture there after hours to see what I might encounter.

An old photograph of Kohl Mansion in California

-oOo-

“The Fourth Floor”

Velzie’s heart slammed against her ribs as she confronted the spindly staircase that would lead her to the mansion’s forbidden fourth floor. She had never before ventured there, too frightened of the rumors and the headmistress’ wrath, should she be discovered, but tonight she had little choice. She couldn’t hold back a whimper as the floorboards creaked beneath her feet.

“We shouldn’t be up here, Faye. I’m frightened.”

Faye whirled at her words, green eyes narrowed to thin slits. “You translated that blasted parchment. All of this your fault!”

“I found it in the library,” she mumbled, cheeks stinging with embarrassment. It had seemed so innocuous at the time, the parchment sticking out between a stack of dusty tomes in the rare book section, a boustrophedonic text just waiting to be translated. “I didn’t know it would call him!”

“Quiet,” Faye hissed. “He knows we’re here.”

Just ahead they could see a chair hovering impossibly in the air. Before either of them could speak, it flew across the hall with astonishing speed, slamming into a wall with a crash.

“Oh dear.” Velzie’s hands trembled, clammy with sweat. “I don’t think he’s very happy.”

“That’s the understatement of the year.”

The temperature had dropped precipitously, and the air crackled and snapped with livid insistence. There was a dull glow in the distance, and unbidden, Velzie moved towards it, arm outstretched. The light called to her, soothed her fears, muted Faye’s screams. When it consumed her, his laughter resounded in her head.

© 2024 Lena Corazon

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers: