ROW80 Check-in – Page 10

Category: ROW80 Check-in (page 10 of 11)

ROW80: Searching for Harmony

One of my favorite sounds in the world is that of an orchestra tuning.

It doesn’t always begin so pleasantly — sometimes instruments screech and wail, hitting a sharp note or a clunky flat one. But after a few minutes of searching, each section comes together, and the result is a single, suspended moment of harmony. The orchestra sings, and it never fails to send chills down my spine.

When my writing is surpasses the point of mediocrity and inches its way towards brilliance, I feel it in my bones, that perfect harmony of nouns and verbs and adjectives, that magical interplay of character and setting and theme.

Sadly, my WIP is far, far from that.

I’m at the point where each word feels like a dead note, sloppy and carelessly placed. Certain sentences are a droning monotone, others are just painful, and the whole endeavor feels forced. Unpleasant. Sticky and slow and yucky. To make matters worse, my inner editor has emerged from her lair to point out all of my flaws and mistakes, and I’m having a time locking her away again.

So that’s where I’ve been for the past few days — battling it out with words and trying to bend them to my will. The frustrating thing is that I actually have an outline and a summary of this chapter… but for the moment, it refuses to be written. Perhaps the pantser in me is rebelling?

In order to force myself to at sally forth (because words written, no matter how bad they may be, are words that didn’t exist before), I decided to pull a crazy and join Camp NaNoWriMo for August. I might fail miserably, but at least it will encourage me to try and hammer out tell me no lies. And who knows? Maybe somewhere along the way, my muse will return from cocktail hour and decide to help me out a little.

Still, not all is doom and gloom. I have managed to be somewhat successful on other fronts:

– Exercise: Jumpstarted the workout regime by going for a 4 mile walk on Monday on my favorite trail. It felt so good to get moving again. I’m pledging to jump on my glider at least 3 more times this week so I can keep up the routine.

– Writing: Even though the words might be less-than-stellar, I did add about 1700 words to tell me lies. Not all is lost!

– Networking: I’m making plans to attend the Central Coast Writers Conference. I’m so excited — it’s taking place the same weekend I planned to drive back down to Santa Barbara, and as it’s being held in San Luis Obispo, it’s on my way. What I’d really like to do is to make a mini-trip of it, and stay overnight somewhere like the Madonna Inn. My mom will be with me, and it’ll be a couple of days after her birthday, so I can turn it into a networking-for-me/celebration-for-her sort of thing.

– Grading: 1/3 of the way through with final exams, and I think I can have the rest cleared out by Thursday. Once I do that, summer officially begins!

– Fun Stuff: I have a Pottermore account! I still have no idea what Pottermore is supposed to be, but I’ve got an account and a user name (FelicisMahogany64), which means I will get to play around with the beta. I’m really squealing like a five year old over all of this.

And that is all for me. The day promises to be sunny, which will be a welcome change from the whole “foggy, highs in the upper 60s” weather that we’ve been having. Mark Twain was dead-on when he said that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco — the fog can chill to the bone here when it’s blazing hot everywhere else.

For those of you who are living in those blazing hot places (these seem unreal and mythical to me), stay cool! And don’t forget to do a little bloghopping — comments and love are the best way to celebrate hump-day.

ROW80: Packing, ugh.

July 27, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 28 Comments

I’m currently sitting in the midst of overflowing suitcases, bags of books, stacks of books that won’t fit into bags, and a few pairs of shoes with no home. Ugh.

The last day of summer school is today, and my original plan was to drive to my parents’ house near San Francisco early Thursday morning. Trouble is, I started getting antsy Tuesday afternoon, eager pack up my truck, hit the road, and feel the wind in my hair. Once I get that notion into my brain, well, there’s really no way to hold myself back.

So here I am, doing a terrible rush job at packing. I really only have one rule at the moment: grab everything, put it in some form of container (suitcase, paperbag, etc.), and rope it into the back of the truck with bungie cord. I only have 3 bungie cords, so I’ll have to get creative — it’ll be like one of those terrible logic tests. We’ll see how this goes down.

Needless to say, this will be a short update. I had all sorts of interesting archival tidbits to share (including mugshots I found of lady pickpockets who preyed upon wealthy men in San Francisco during the 1880s!), but I’ll save those for Sunday.

-oOo-

Blogging: Looks like Mondays around here will be dedicated to a post on world-building and inspirations. I’m focusing on the elements of the world I’m creating for Path to the Peacock Throne, my fantasy WIP. My post on costuming went up the other day, and I’m proud of it for all the pretty pictures. Architecture, I think, will be next Monday’s topic, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Writing: I finally gave 750words a try, and wow. The researcher in me was seduced by all the stats that were automatically generated: not only a graph showing my word count, but colorful pie charts that demonstrate the overall mood of the scene (mine: DEATH) and countless other things. I kinda want to steal whatever algorithm thingie that they use to figure out all of this stuff, because it would make the data analysis for my thesis (a textual analysis of 1920s etiquette books) so much easier.

I’ve been working on tell me no lies since Sunday night, and wow! I went from zero words to roughly 4900 words since then, so I’ve definitely exceeded my nightly writing goals. I’ve got some loud characters on my hands, and a steampunk world that is coming together. It takes place in the late 19th century, where San Francisco’s harbors are now home to airships. Robots are utilized by the police in their investigations, and two female-owned, Moulin Rouge-esque saloons dominate the nightlife on the Barbary Coat (the Belladonna and the Palace Grande). There are loose women and wealthy bohemian playboys, opium and booze, and a cynical chanteuse torn between a strait-laced detective and a rakish air pirate. I actually just found out about this love triangle last night — always nice discovering something new about your plot, isn’t it?

Thesis: Met with my advisor on Sunday and she had nothing but complimentary things to say about the first chapter of my analysis section. There are weak points, of course, but overall she tells me that I’m on the right track. The best thing that she had to say: “I am just having so much fun reading this!” Squeeee.

I’ve only got one more substantive chapter to write, and I actually think I’ll be done with the first draft by the end of summer break. As this coincides with the end of Round 3, I will make this a goal.

-oOo-

Unless I fail at getting the rest of my things together, I’ll be on the road by 5 pm and back at my parents’ by 10 pm. I downloaded Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander audiobook to keep me entertained, and with a little caffeine to get me going, I should be grand. Comments will be sparse from me till the weekend, when I’ve recovered from the travel lag, but know that I am offering warm fuzzies and happy thoughts to all!

ROW80: Rolling Right Along

July 24, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 28 Comments

Happy Sunday, friends! I’m currently feeling a touch under the weather, so it’s going to be a Josh Groban, tea, and fuzzy socks sort of morning for me. 🙂

I want to extend another welcome to the bloggers who are visiting from the SheWrites Blog Hop. It’s gotten bumped down a bit, but my official welcome message is here. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all! For those of you who haven’t checked it out yet, please do. There are many of wonderful writers who have joined up.

I’m slowly trying to give this blog a bit more structure and life instead of only using it for ROW80 updates, so over the next few weeks you will see more posts on non-check-in days, covering a wider variety of topics. I’m toying with the idea of book reviews, wee blurbs about the historical research that I’m doing, discussions of world-building (which is one of my favorite past-times), and maybe a post or two on how I’m using philosophy and sociological theory in my work.

I added my first “experimental post” yesterday — a few idle musings about love and romance in the Odyssey, one of my favorite works out of ancient Greek literature. I’d love to hear any feedback that you may have!

Now then, onto my update:

The Life List Club: I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the ways that I can strive for a more balanced and healthy life, and so I am throwing my hat in the ring for the Life List Club. I’ve created a page for my list, which includes ten goals that I will pursue over the next year. I’ll try and report in on these, maybe during my Wednesday check-ins.

Social Networking: I downloaded TweetDeck on Thursday! I think I spent the first twelve hours just staring at it, because it is so very pretty. I am now learning the ins and outs of hashtags, and twitter communities, and lots of other awesome stuff like that, and I am having an absolute ball chatting with people.

Relevant to this: the Pew Research Center has found that spending time on social networking sites actually leads to a strengthening of interpersonal bonds, and helps to foster trust in others.

Writing continues on. I’ve been meeting (and, at times, exceeding) my goals over the past few days, which is awesome. Strange Bedfellows is coming along quite well, and I’m basically forcing myself to throw down words for Path to the Peacock Throne. I’m trying to lay down the overall skeleton for the final half of the book, and I am ignoring the perfectionist inside of me that keeps wailing that it isn’t absolutely perfect. I’m also struggling to find my MC’s voice, so I’m doing lots of writing exercises in the 1st person… and wondering if the story might actually be better served as a 1st person tale, rather than 3rd person.

Today’s goal includes finally getting around to tell me no lies, the story that is starting to feel like the neglected middle child (yes, my stories have feelings). I’d like to have the first chapter laid out — just the action and the dialogue. I’ll fill in the blanks with description and whatnot later.

Finally, the thesis is slowly taking form. My thesis advisor sent along a list of helpful suggestions and critiques yesterday, and she and I are meeting today to chat about my progress. I think I am going to approach this draft the way I do my fictional work: put the words onto paper, finish the draft, and then sit back, review, and figure out how to make it amazing.

And that’s all from me! I’m off to drink more tea and grade the rest of these papers before I have to dash off to meet my advisor. Enjoy the rest of the weekend, all!

ROW80: Recovering from Vacation

July 20, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 8 Comments

Happy Hump Day!

I’m back home from the family holiday, and it feels good to be snug in my little apartment once again. Flying always takes a lot out of me, especially when I have to deal with layovers (and Santa Barbara airport is so tiny that I almost always have at least one layover), so all I want to do today is curl up with a blanket and a good book and do absolutely nothing. The instructor that I’m TA’ing for is wonderful and told me to go ahead and take today off, so I plan to devour one (or two!) of the Georgette Heyer regency romance novels I have sitting on the shelf. Grading and thesis-work will commence tomorrow once I’m rested up.

The second half of the trip was absolutely wonderful. We left my grandfather’s house in southern Nevada Sunday afternoon and made our way to the Las Vegas Strip, where my parents renewed their vows to mark their 25 wedding anniversary.

The Happy Couple

The event turned into a mini-Jamison reunion, with my mom’s younger brother and sister, niece, and father in attendance.

The family (except for me, as I am taking the picture)

All in all, it was a wonderful trip, especially because it was the first family vacation that we’ve taken since I moved out of the house for grad school, three years ago. Now that my sister has moved out to go to college, finding time for all four of us to be together is a major challenge. It’s good to be back in Santa Barbara and to have a little quiet time (three women in one family = lots of squabbling), but I do miss having all of them around. However, I don’t have to despair for long: summer session ends next Wednesday and fall quarter doesn’t begin until the 3rd week of September, so I’ll be driving back to San Francisco next weekend. I will have six weeks for lots of family time, and even better, lots of non-school time. I’ll also be able to work on the thesis without other distractions, which means that I should be pretty productive.

Now, for my ROW80 check-in. I didn’t have internet access Sunday-Tuesday, so I basically worked my smartphone to the bone. I now know how to utilize my Twitter app, the WordPress app, the MS Word app, and the copy/paste function — all incredibly useful tools for when I’m on-the-go. I also managed to write for an hour or so each night since the last check-in. Yesterday was the exception, as I was basically was sitting in an airport or airplane for six hours straight with nothing but my ipod, a blank notebook, and pen (that sounds like some sort of desert island challenge!), so I did a lot more brainstorming.

The breakdown, project-by-project:

Thesis: I took a break from the behemoth that is my thesis for the last few days. I have a check-in meeting with my advisor by the weekend, so cross your fingers that her feedback is favorable!

Strange Bedfellows: The characters for this story won’t shut up, so at the moment I am a slave to their whims. However, I was able to put a hold on the snappy and snarky dialogue to focus on developing the first couple of chapters, which is good, because I’ve been writing scenes out of order, just to get them out of my head. I added another 1400 words to this, which brings the current MS up to about 12,700 words. I went through my notes the other day and realized that this project took over my life at the beginning of July, so yeah, I’m a little shocked at this total word count.

Path to the Peacock Throne: I haven’t written anything new, but I devoted all of yesterday to working on backstory, world-building, and character development. There’s a lot of stuff that goes down in this tale before the story even begins, so the challenge is (1) getting the details all straightened out and (2) finding a way to allude to the backstory without a major infodump. I now have many handwritten pages with notes about systems of magic, and fictional civil wars, and my MC’s personality. She is shy and a bit aloof, I think, with a secret wish to travel and explore the world. She’ll get her wish in Act 2, though not quite in the way she imagined.

That’s all from me right now. Off to do a bit of bloghopping, and once I am done with that, to grab a book and enjoy a decadently lazy day.

ROW80: Last-Minute Rally!

July 17, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 21 Comments

Another short post from me today. Vacation continues, and we’re having an excellent time. The highlights so far have included catching the midnight showing of Harry Potter, and taking a daytrip to Zion National Park, where we took a short tour via shuttle bus, and took many, many photographs of pretty rocks. I’ll post those sometime in the coming week, when I get the chance to upload them to my computer.

When it comes to progress, I seem to have done better over the past few days than I did earlier in the week. I’ve noticed that it’s easier for me to satisfy my goals between Wednesday – Sunday, probably because the weekend makes my responsibilities a bit lighter, so I’ll have to see how I can take this knowledge and use it to my advantage. I’ll potentially end up saving up my writing for the latter half of the week, when I know I’ll be able to have the time to go beyond 500/night.

So, without further ado, this week’s accomplishments:

Thesis: I finally managed to tidy up the latest section of my findings and send it off to my advisor. As I’ve warned her, it’s a very, very rough first draft, there are holes and things that are missing, and many things that will need to be cut. All the same, it is 19 pages long (almost 6000 words), which brings the current draft to about 40 pages in length. I estimate that I’ll need another 15-20 pages to talk about the next set of findings, along with another 10-15 pages to encompass other details (methodology, conclusion, etc.) which means that the complete first draft will approach somewhere upwards of 80+ pages. Granted, I don’t know what will happen during the editing process, but I feel rather proud of myself. After three years of stressing and reading and pursuing countless ideas, I’m finally at the point where I feel like I can say, unequivocally, that I will finish this. When I am done, I have promised myself that I am going to utilize my esoteric knowledge of 1920s etiquette and apply it to a new story, one that involves flappers and bootleggers and vampires, or something paranormal. 😀

tell me no lies: I managed to get some research done last night. As a grad student I have access to digital newspaper archives, so I availed myself of the San Francisco Chronicle‘s collection of issues from 1887, when “tell me no lies” takes place. I started combing through all the stories on crime and murder (a cheery topic, let me tell you, though infinitely fascinating), and stumbled upon some real gems, including a trial for the murder of a “Chinese highbinder.” From what I can tell, highbinders seem to have been the Chinese version of the Italian mafia. An article from an 1886 issue of Harper’s Weekly compares the Highbinders to the Freemasons, except with lots more blackmail and bribery. It’s a fascinating read, for anyone who is interested, though it drips with the casual racism that was prevalent during the period.

Strange Bedfellows: I added about 2000 words to this between Wednesday night and late Saturday night. I’d like to say that it was difficult, but at the moment I feel like I’m just eavesdropping on my characters’ conversations and transcribing them. Out of all my WIPs, I know these characters the best. They’ve been salvaged from earlier abandoned projects, and so we’ve managed to “form a rapport,” if you will. The hardest thing about this story is slowing myself down long enough to scrawl out some decent descriptions, but I managed to hammer out an opening scene (the aftermath of a very bloody battle) that will satisfy me until it’s time for rewrites and edits.

All in all, not too bad. If I am doing the math properly, it looks like I more or less squeaked past the goal post by the skin of my teeth this week! I’d say that this is an excellent time to head to Las Vegas, as a bit of partying is in order. 🙂

How’s everyone else holding up? Has anyone met or exceeded their goals for the week? Anyone else need to tweak things a bit?

ROW80: Quickie Progress Update

July 13, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 11 Comments

Oh, boy. I had a sprawling, ambitious to-do list for the week, and I’ve utterly failed at almost everything on it. Between grading, going to class, running errands, and furiously packing my bags, I haven’t had much time to squeeze in writing. It’s late and I have to be up in a few hours to head to the airport, so this is just a short little update on progress (or lack thereof):

Thesis: I stuck to my 500 word goal on Sunday, but ended up transitioning into edits and rewrites yesterday. As we all know, word counts can decrease after an intense round of editing (which is, many times, a very good thing), but I’m not keeping a strict count right now. I had wanted to have a complete chapter ready for my advisor by this evening, but that definitely didn’t happen. Crossing my fingers that I can clean up the rest and make it somewhat presentable by the end of the week.

Fiction: Not much to report here, since the thesis has stolen the spotlight. I did a little research during office hours today (looking up the development of electric lighting in theaters, since the main character of my steampunk tale is a saloon singer), and halfheartedly scribbled a 68-word opening for tell me no lies. I added another 100 words to the first chapter of Strange Bedfellows in-between rounds of packing (and unpacking, and repacking…), but again, nothing earth-shattering.

Anyway, I’m out for the next week or so. I may attempt to update via mobile, but as my thumbs are not incredibly dexterous, this could prove to be a challenge. Hopefully everyone else has managed to stay on track this week!

ROW80: Hijacked by the Day Job

July 10, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 6 Comments

This is my life right now:

I’ve spent the past couple of days in thesis-land, and for that I’m grateful. I had the sinking feeling that I would find myself inundated with story ideas and completely unable to focus on my day job, but after the spurt of fictional pursuits earlier in the week, I’ve transitioned back to my research.

When it comes to my weekly goals, then, I somehow managed to meet both my thesis and fiction-writing goals. Luckily, I spent the beginning of the week binging on fiction; I wrote about 3475 words for Path to the Peacock Throne, which is a hair under my 3500 word goal. For my thesis I’ve also written roughly 3500 words, so yay! I’ve managed to complete Week 1 of ROW80 and remain on target.

Right now, I’m crossing my fingers that I can have a section of my findings drafted and delivered to my advisor by Tuesday. In case I haven’t mentioned this, I’m a historical/cultural sociologist, and my MA thesis is a textual analysis of 1920s etiquette books. There are a number of things that I’m doing with this project, including a study of wedding etiquette and a larger discussion of the author’s role in interpreting the laws of so-called “polite society” for the reader. I’ve been working on the thesis for almost 3 years now, and I’m ready to be finished, so as much as I’d like to work on fiction, I really do need to tackle my day job first.

I’m also looking forward to going to Las Vegas for my first trip with my parents and younger sister in 3 years. This means that I might be a little absent over the next week, as I’m not sure what internet access is going to look like. If I can, I’ll post ROW80 checkins via mobile, but we’ll see.

At any rate, I hope that everyone has had a wonderful weekend! Good luck on progress for the rest of this week. If you can, hop on over to visit the other ROW80 participants and cheer them on!

ROW80: Digging Through the Archives

July 6, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 6 Comments

Since there’s only been a couple of days since Round 3 started, I thought I’d talk a bit about some of the research and world-building that I did during the hiatus between Rounds 2 and 3. My progress update, posted yesterday, can be found here, but the bottom line is that I was a good kid yesterday, and cranked out 1300 words for Path to the Peacock Throne (I’ve been stuck for a few weeks, so this is good), and roughly 1000 for my thesis. So, yay, progress!

As I mentioned Monday, I’m taking a steampunk writing course this month, which will hopefully help me to start writing tell me no lies, my steampunk murder mystery tale set in late-19th century San Francisco. I’ve done a lot of brainstorming, world-building, and outlining (I actually have most of the main events of the tale figured out, along with the identity of the murderer), but zilch by way of actual writing. To be honest, I’ve been staring at the empty word processing page in absolutely horror, thinking, “But I don’t know how it starts!” So to fire up my imagination a bit, and bring some words to the fore, I’ve been digging through digital photo archives for inspiration.

The Library of Congress is an excellent source for all sorts of old and archived photographs, but my favorite collection at the moment is Lawrence and Houseworth collection — over 900 photos of California taken between 1862 and 1867. The collection captures the ‘Wild West’ in all its glory — boom towns, mining sites, redwood forests, and (my favorite) amazing shots of San Francisco. There are photos of the docks, aerial shots of the bustling city, interiors of ramshackle saloons, and exterior shots of the imposing hotels, mansions, and buildings that dominated the skyline before the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed much of it.

Each photo tells a story, like this one, a shot of the “Ladies Aid and Preservation Society”:

After doing a little bit of searching, I found a listing for the Society, along with roughly a half dozen other charities in San Francisco from this period dedicated to dealing with alcoholics, orphans, and other “needy” cases. Given that I’m writing about saloon singers and street urchins, a character or two from the Ladies’ Protection and Relief Society just might pop up, ready to dispense Christian charity to the poor unfortunate souls of the Barbary Coast (though whether or not my rabblerousers accept that charity is another question altogether!).

Finally, I’ve been using Pinterest, a website where you can make digital ‘pinboards’ (sorta like scrapbooks) of pictures found on the internet, to organize my favorite photos from the Lawrence and Houseworth collection; the pinboard can be seen here. Just as a side-note, Pinterest has also become incredibly handy as I attempt to piece together inspiration pieces for costuming (the board for tell me no lies is here, and has lots of cool steampunk outfits).

That’s it for me! Today is Wednesday, which means it’s the last day of summer school for the week, and another long weekend stretches before. It will be filled with thesisizing, grading, writing, and hopefully multiple trips to the beach, if the sunny weather holds out.

ROW80: Starting off With a Bang!

July 4, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 5 Comments

Happy Independence Day, all! As I write this, I can hear the echoes from the firework show over at Stow House, about 10 minutes from where I live. I took advantage of the holiday to do a bit of relaxing and ended up writing much, much more than I planned, which is a welcome change from the past few weeks.

I ended Round 2 of ROW80 a bit earlier than I had intended. The end of the quarter, grading papers, traveling, and trying to deal with my schoolwork proved to be a bit more trying than I expected, but that’s why I love ROW80 — I didn’t feel too terrible or guilty taking a brief hiatus from my writing because I knew that Round 3 was right around the corner.

So here I am, tossing my hat into the ring once more. I’m starting at a pretty strong place: Path to the Peacock Throne stands at 20k words, and while I’m gingerly feeling my way through a bit of a sticky section, I know that with a bit of perseverance and patience, I’ll make my way through the rough patch. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve also given in and started scribbling down ideas for two other tales: a steampunk tale set in late 19th century San Francisco, tentatively titled tell me no lies, and a fantasy-esque tale in the vein of Anne Rice’s Claiming of Sleeping Beauty and Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart, called Strange Bedfellows. At the moment, Strange Bedfellows stands at roughly 7.5K words, which have poured out of me over the past few days. I’m not complaining, though!

With that, here are my Round 3 goals:

Write an average of 500 words/day on any project. This means that I’m doubling my Round 2 word count goal, which makes me slightly nervous, but we’ll see how it goes! I found myself exceeding the original 250 words/day goal consistently, so I don’t think this increase will be too burdensome.
Complete Act 2 of Path to the Peacock Throne, and resist the urge to do too much editing to Act 1.
Move from brainstorming and world-building tell me no lies to working on the first draft.

And, for fun, some things that I am eagerly anticipating for Round 3:

Participating in an online writing seminar, “Steampunk from Aether to Zeppelin,” taught by Suzanne Lazear, from July 5th – July 29th.
Celebrating my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary with our first family trip in 3 years, from July 13th – July 19th. (Vegas, baby!)
My annual 6-week summer vacation in San Francisco, from August – mid-September.
Finishing the first draft of my MA thesis, hopefully by September.

I’m looking forward to another 80 days of creativity, scribbling, and imagining, and I’m also excited to connect with everyone else who will be participating in Round 3!

ROW80: Super-short Update

June 2, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 2 Comments

Friends, I’ve had a day. I hit the ground running early this morning with some high-gear multitasking: grading my final set of papers for the week, washing out some clothes in the bathroom sink (cheaper and easier than hauling everything to the laundromat), doing the dishes, and furiously trying to clean up my apartment. I leave tomorrow (today, really) for San Francisco, where my parents live, so packing and cleaning are essential.

After grading and handling my chores, I somehow found the time to work out, shower, dress, run errands, and then drive to campus for the end-of-the-year department potluck. Afterwards I hung out for a couple of hours before going to my weekly reading group meeting, which ran over two hours, ending at 9:30. Then it was back home to do more cleaning and pack. I have way more than any sensible person will need for a 1 week stay, but given that it has been 55 degrees and raining in SF, I need to have winter and summer options available. Whew.

At any rate, writing! I feel like I’ve got whiplash from how fast this year seems to be speeding by; I’m not quite sure where May went, and here we are, half-way through the year! What has astonished me is how much progress I’ve made with this novel in such a short period of time. I began writing at the beginning of May, and it’s really taken shape over the past few weeks. To illustrate:

Daily writing output

Wordcount graph

I’ve done my best to add on a little bit each day since my last check-in, and I’ve found that writing first thing in the morning seems to work really well. My mind is fresh, I’ve had a chance to “sleep on” the problems or challenges I may have run into the day before, and after a little tweaking here, and a bit of adding there, I end up reaching my daily word count goal without too much strain.

Once I’ve dealt with grading final papers and the like, I may bump up my daily goal to 500 words, since I’m surpassing 300 words so easily. Now that my confidence has been built up a bit, I can make myself work a little harder.

I’m excited for my 5 hour drive tomorrow, since I’ll be able to let my mind wander. I’ve got a pocket recorder downloaded on my cell phone so I can record any interesting writing ideas that come to mind. In the days to come, I’m going to be focused on characterization. My protagonist, Liandre, has just discovered that her whole life is a lie, and I want to make sure that her reaction to this news is realistic. We’ll see how it goes!

Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy