Category: ROW80 Check-in (page 7 of 11)

ROW80: The First Check-in of 2012

It’s my first check-in post of 2012! I’m at the end of my month-long winter vacation, and preparing to head back to school on Tuesday. I’m reluctant to leave my parents’ house — I’ve had a wonderful break, and I hate saying goodbye to them — but I am trying to remember that I have slightly over six months remaining in Santa Barbara, and then I will be back here for at least another year, if not two.

The last week has been a bit of a muddle in terms of tackling goals; I imagine that once classes start up, it will be easier to maintain a normal schedule. Here’s what I’ve managed to get done in the meantime:

Writing: Nothing new here, though I finally received my copy of THE BARBARY COAST, Herbert Asbury‘s 1933 “informal history of the San Francisco underworld” (Asbury is also the author of THE GANGS OF NEW YORK, which Martin Scorsese adapted into film). I’m excited to read through the book, as it’s much-needed research for my steampunk tale, TELL ME NO LIES.

Day Job: I had promised my advisor that I would have a complete draft of my thesis to her around December 15th, but between family, the holidays, friends, and getting sick last week, I fell behind in my work. I am happy to report, however, that I am roughly 2-3 paragraphs away from completing the dratted project. There are still holes that will need to be filled in before I defend the final version, but for the moment it is mostly done. It is just over 25k, which is about 75 pages long, and while I can’t help but glare at it (this is what happens when one has been dragging along the same project like a ball and chain for over 3 years), deep down I have an inkling that it is not altogether terrible work… and might actually be rather good.

Social Time: Ironically, this is the one area where I have excelled this week. On Monday my friends and I went out for a sing-along showing of West Side Story, followed by cocktails and sushi. I’ve seen one of my other friends twice this week for study parties/marathons of Big Bang Theory, my new favorite television show. And my mom and I have gone out a few times for shopping and eating out.

Social Media: I fell behind here — no new blog posts besides Monday’s ROW80/Inspirations post, and not much by way of blog-hopping, except for the ROWers I was able to visit on Monday and Tuesday. This is another area I’m hoping will improve once I get back to school and fall into a routine.

Exercise: Another place for lots and lots of improvement. I haven’t gotten any exercise this week (my mom is currently yelling at me to get a move-on, so I really need to take her advice), but tomorrow I will hopefully pull it together and get started.

50/50 Challenge: This is actually a goal that I forgot to include during my first ROW80 post. I’m taking on the 50/50 Challenge, where participants pledge to read 50 books and watch 50 films during 2012. I haven’t watched any new movies yet (except for maybe half of Contagion, which was okay, but not nearly as good as Outbreak), but my reading has shot through the roof in the last week, thanks to my brand-new Kindle. My progress can be found on my shiny new 50/50 Challenge Page.

I’ve read a total of 8 books since 2012 started, including Diane Capri’s wonderful CARLY’S CONSPIRACY (a must-read for anyone who enjoys murder mysteries and lady sleuths), Shelly Adina’s steampunk novel LADY OF DEVICES (I’m currently reading the sequel, HER OWN DEVICES and loving it), and Suzanne Collins‘s HUNGER GAMES trilogy. I am narrowly resisting the urge to write in caps about how obsessed I am with THE HUNGER GAMES, and Katniss, and Peeta (swoon), but suffice it to say that I have not been this taken with a series since I read Karen Marie Moning’s FEVER books last fall.

Next up on the TBR list is the 2nd-4th books in Diana Gabaldon’s LORD JOHN series (the spin-off from the OUTLANDER books), followed by a few novels by my WANA friends: AGAIN by Diana Murdock, DRAWING FREE by Elena Aitken, and ELEMENTAL MAGIC by Angela Wallace.

-oOo-

There’s definitely room for improvement, but in my defense, I am slowly easing my way into this round of ROW80 (thank goodness we have 80 days!). How’s everyone else doing so far?

New Goals and A Bit of Inspiration

January 2, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 35 Comments

Today, I’m combining Monday Inspirations with my inaugural post for Round 1 of A Round of Words in 80 Days, the writing challenge “that knows you have a life.”

First up is a summary of my goals for this round, which runs from January 2nd – March 22nd, with a bit of inspiration in the form of the magnificent Neil Gaiman at the end.

THE GOALS

This is my third round of ROW80, and I’m so excited to get started. I’ve been missing all my wonderful ROW-ers (you guys rock so hard), and I’m also delighted to welcome a couple of great writers into the fold: Sony and Willowfaerie. They were two of my first writing friends when I got started last year, and Willowfaerie in particular has been instrumental in helping me to pull PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE together. Swing by and show them both a little love!

I’ve got a total of 5 goals in place for this round, a few of which look pretty similar to previous ones:

Writing: I’ve got two unfinished WIPs taking up space in my head, and countless ideas for shorter projects whirling around. I want to continue writing, editing, and polishing up PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE and TELL ME NO LIES, though at the moment I don’t have a concrete battleplan in place. My goal is to spend an average of one hour each day on writing-related tasks, including (1) a complete outline for PPT, (2) an overhauled outline for TMNL, and (3) world-building for both projects.

Day Job: I have a lot to accomplish in the remainder of the school year, chiefly defending my MA thesis and steaming forward on plans for the dissertation. I will need to spend two hours each day on research-related tasks, including reading and note-taking. I’ve found that I have gotten abominably lax at writing on a regular basis, so I am going to try to write 2-3 research memos each week, that way I can keep track of how my ideas are developing. If I’ve learned anything with ROW80, it’s that forcing myself to write something on a regular basis is better than waiting ages for inspiration to strike.

Social Time: I wasn’t going to add this in as an official goal until last week, when I was visiting with my best friend and her aunt looked at me and said, “You are too much alone.” I started to protest… and then I realized that she was right. I’ve been trying to go out every so often, but I haven’t really been making much of an effort to invite other people out. With that in mind, I am aiming for one social event each week. It can be as simple as grabbing tea with a friend, or hitting up the happy hour circuit on Friday nights, but I have to do something so I’m not wallowing away in solitude.

Social Media: I’m going to aim for four blog posts each week, along with 1 hour each day of author platform/blog-hopping fun.

Exercise: I integrated an exercise component into last round’s goals with mixed results. Over the holidays, I’ve come to some important conclusions: it’s imperative that I adopt better practices with both exercise and eating habits.

It’s not just about wanting to fit into my favorite pair of jeans, although that’s definitely an incentive. Over 10 years ago I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), an endocrinological disorder that affects somewhere between 15% and 20% of women. Its root cause is insulin resistance, which results in all sorts of yucky effects like infertility and excess weight, but studies have shown that the effects can be reversed by regular exercise and a healthy diet.

I’ll be writing more about my experiences living with PCOS over the next few months, but my goals for the moment are the same as last round: exercise 4-5 days each week. The addendum to that, of course, has to do with diet: I need to ease off the salts and sugars, and aim for lots more fruits and veggies. Training myself out of bad habits is going to be difficult, but it has to be done.

-oOo-

As always, I expect that my goals may fluctuate over the next 80 days, but I think these general benchmarks will be handy to help me move forward and make 2012 a wonderful year for success in all levels of my life.

And now, your weekly dose of inspiration…

Neil Gaiman’s “New Year’s Benediction” is from 2010, but his words continue to be powerful. I’ve reproduced the text below, for anyone who has problems with the embedded video.

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. May your coming year be a wonderful thing in which you dream both dangerously and outrageously.

I hope you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and you will be liked and you will have people to love and to like in return. And most importantly, because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now – I hope that you will, when you need to be, be wise and that you will always be kind. And I hope that somewhere in the next year you surprise yourself.

– Neil Gaiman

Don’t forget to wave hello to the participants who have signed on for Round 1!

ROW80: Winding Down

December 18, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 11 Comments

It’s difficult to believe that Christmas is only one week away, New Year’s Eve a scant two weeks away, and that this round of ROW80 is rapidly coming to a close. It’s been a packed and busy 80 days, but I’ve managed to get a lot done.

There were my original goals:

Write, edit, and polish the MA thesis, 8-10 hours/week.

Outcome: The thesis will be finished as soon as I tack on an introduction and conclusion (which is happening today). My time schedule didn’t always work out, however, and I’ve found that it’s easier to work on research when the mood strikes me. It’s not the most organized way to go about projects, but right now, it seems to be the way I’m operating. For those of you who are interested, I wrote some reflections about my thesis-writing process, and how it compares with the way that I write fiction. Surprisingly, I’ve found that the two aren’t all that different.

Write, edit, and develop WIPs, 8-10 hours/week.

Outcome: This mostly worked the way I wanted. The 8-10 hours/week came in handy during October, when I was focused on plotting and planning for NaNoWriMo. Of course, once November rolled around, the timeframe went out of the window and I more or less wrote every day (and I won NaNo! I’m still tickled pink.). I think that may be my goal for next round: do something writing-related every day.

Overall, I now have 2 novels that are sitting on my computer, mostly-finished and unpolished. Moving forward, my priority will be to finish them before taking on any new projects.

Tinker with author platform/social media stuff.

Outcome: Kristen Lamb’s class was absolutely fantastic, and I not only learned a lot, but I made lots of new friends in the process. I decided to try a MWF schedule, which I’ve been rather mediocre at keeping. I think this past week is the first that I’ve managed to post something on all three days. What I’m learning is that I actually need to write my blogs before I try to do anything else, which seems a trifle backwards, but if I save blogging for last, I’m usually too tired to write all that much.

Exercise 4-5 times each week.

Outcome: This was my weak spot. I slacked off more than once, so now I’m trying to play catch-up. The best part about being home is that I have my mom around to whip me into shape — she’s also on a health kick (she recently learned that her cholesterol levels are really high), so now we’re workout buddies. She also makes sure that nothing too sugary or fatty enters the house, which makes my life a lot easier. Hopefully I can build up some good habits while I’m home that can carry me through when I return back to SB.

And that’s Round 4!

Overall, lots of positives, with a few misses here and there, but I don’t feel too terribly about that. For next round, I think I want to add a blog-reading goal. I definitely didn’t make it around to as many ROWers as I wanted to this round, which really bums me out, but next round (which coincides with my winter quarter for school) should be a little less overwhelming.

Don’t forget to check up on the other ROWers this week, and wish them well as we wind down Round 4!

ROW80: ROW-ing Through the Snow

December 11, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 9 Comments

ROW-oh-ing, ROW-oh-ing through the snow, writing bells are ringing…

Happy Sunday, friends and ROWers! Yes, that is my one-line attempt at a ROW-flavored holiday song. For fun, here’s Nat King Cole singing the original:

I’ve been back in San Francisco since Thursday, and right now, life is good. Here’s my mini-list of exciting accomplishments:

Work: I’m half-way through grading final papers, and for the most part, the students have done a wonderful job. I’ve been reminded of my favorite part of TA’ing ethnographic methods classes: I get to supervise students’ research and watch their projects (and their skills) develop over the quarter. Many of them have come a long way since the first few weeks of the course, and have written up excellent accounts of their research projects. Even better, some of them actually read the feedback I provided on past assignments (you’d be surprised how rare this is), and incorporated my suggestions and edits in their papers.

School: I had a great, albeit somewhat impromptu, meeting with my advisor before I left. She’s asked me to help her with a research project that she and I have been discussing for the past couple of years, and I’m really excited — it involves archival research about religious communities (i.e. Catholic nuns) in the United States. The project is in its preliminary phases, but if she can get funding I can come aboard as a paid research assistant. We also started discussing plans for the dissertation fellowships I’m going to apply for next year, which is really exciting.

Writing: Now that NaNo’s finished, I’m back to rotating between my multiple unfinished projects. After some not-so-gentle nudging from the characters of my steampunk tale, I’m working on a plan for edits and rewrites. Apparently I’m also writing a short story or two of prequel-esque backstory, because Tempest Dumont has demanded it, and she’s the sort of gal that one can’t refuse. I pantsed the first draft of TELL ME NO LIES, and now I’m struggling to impose some structure on my sprawling mass of scenes. It’s too short — only 51K, with about 35 scenes, so now I have to figure out where to fill in the blanks, and what to add. I won’t lie, the whole thing is incredibly daunting. Sometimes I think I’d be better off sticking with short stories or novellas…. but we’ll see how things go.

Now that we’re firmly in the midst of December, how is everyone else holding up?

ROW80: The End-of-the-Quarter Vortex

December 6, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 38 Comments

I should be writing a 1-2 page self-evaluation for my feminist studies course, but the thought of trying to expand the single sentence that I’ve managed to write into at least 1 page makes me feel pretty “meh” at the moment. Seriously, how else can I say “Give me an A because I came to class and did the work and participated in discussion”? Talk about the worst assignment ever. :/ So here I am, writing a very rare Wednesday ROW80 check-in!

I haven’t touched anything blog or social media-related in quite a few days, and wow, I’m going through withdrawals. But I thought I would try to be a responsible sort of student and close Tweetdeck and Google Reader so I could focus on all the work that I have to do — painful, but necessary.

Classes ended last Thursday, and after that I fell into the spiraling madness of thesis-editing and final paper-writing. It is a strange vortex, rather like an alternate universe, where I forget the days of the week and maintain really odd sleeping hours, punctuated by brief sprints of writing and odd breaks filled with television and/or video games, and longer periods staring into space and avoiding work altogether.

This weekend, the television show in question is the original UK version of Being Human, which is so bloody awesome I cannot contain my glee. It is about a ghost, a werewolf, and a vampire who share a house and grapple with their attempts to fit in with humans without revealing their supernatural status — a genius premise, if you ask me. It is dark and somewhat creepy and funny and touching, all at once (for the record, I cried twice during the first 3 episodes, which I was not expecting at all). I’m almost through with Season 2, and I highly recommend it.

On the writing/work front, things are coming along. I finished writing a 14 page final paper for my feminist studies class today, which actually turned into a paper that I am proud of. Better yet, it opens up some interesting ideas that I can potentially explore for my dissertation.

The thesis-editing is finally happening. My methods section is totally finished and I’ve tackled rewrites and line-edits for half of the findings section. Now all I need to do is finish the second half of the findings section, tack on a few transition statements here and there, brush up the introduction, and write a conclusion. Cross your fingers that I can get the whole thing fixed and shiny by mid-month, so I can send it off to my advisor and be done with the whole business (at least until I get her edits back in January, that is).

Things are lightening up, but I’m not out of the woods just yet. My students submit their final papers tomorrow afternoon, so grading is my weekend priority. And I take off on Thursday morning for my parents’ house, where I’ll be for the next month (so exciting!). As result, blogging will continue be a little sparse through next week, but I will hopefully be back in full force once I vanquish all my school stuff. I have countless ideas for blog posts floating around in my head; the challenge is finding time to sit down and write everything out!

Finally, on a fun note, I did get a chance to get out over the weekend and pop into my favorite store that sells sparkly jewelry things. I found these amazing peacock earrings and had to buy them, since I am building an accessory wardrobe of feathered headbands, hairclips, earrings, and necklaces.

The longest, most epic earrings ever.

I’m excited to get back to my Google Reader and check out all of the posts that I’ve missed from y’all. Can’t wait to get back to blog-hopping!

ROW80: 50k, is that you?

November 26, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 53 Comments

Well, I did it. I’m not quite sure how I did it, but the seemingly impossible has occurred: I’ve written over 50k for PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE, validated the novel, and gotten many shiny things and goodies for winning NaNoWriMo.

Yes, that’s right. It bears saying once more: I somehow won NaNoWriMo. And I totes have proof:

WINNING.

I suppose I shouldn’t be completely shocked; after all, I won CampNaNo in August. But I wasn’t working or going to school in August, and the experience was completely different. I ran out of story half-way through the month, lost a few days obsessing over exactly what I was doing, and basically made up a ton of stuff in order to squeak my way past the finish line.

PPT is far from finished. It’s pretty much unreadable at the moment, filled with tons of holes and missing words and placeholders and characters with horrible names. There is no discernable system of magic (and, er, this is supposed to be a fantasy novel), a romance subplot that currently hasn’t taken off, and all sorts of twists and turns that I haven’t figured out. How does my MC manage to save the world and avert certain danger? I have no friggin’ clue… but for once I have the confidence that I’ll figure it out.

In the meantime, I am going to keep working on this novel, though I have others that have decided to surface in the last few days. TELL ME NO LIES, my steampunk murder mystery, beckons. I’ve managed to evade it over the last few weeks, but I had a moment yesterday. I spent the afternoon in San Francisco, and saw a protestor in Union Square wearing a creepy sort of gas mask. He carried a protest sign with a George Carlin quote: “That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.” The image struck me, and made me think about how my steampunk world, set in late 18th century San Francisco, might not be so different: there are the haves and the have nots, and a whole set of outspoken rabble protesting the existing social order. It’s just one of a whole host of things I want to add to the tale, and I’m itching to get started.

And let’s not talk about the idea I had for a semi-new story based on a short piece I wrote in high school about an all-women’s academy called “The Court of Enchanted Oaks.” The original story was a fantasy tale that was a combination of Harry Potter and my high school experiences (I went to an all-girls Catholic school on a campus nicknamed “The Oaks”). This new twist turns it into a steampunk world, where the students find themselves inadvertently in the forefront of an unexpected war. My muse tells me that this is a story about the clash between female lore/magic (the “old ways”) and the enlightenment science/engineering stuff that has replaced it (masculine rationality, etc.). It is a tantalizing idea to toy with, one that echoes the main theme that keeps cropping up in my work: challenging binaries and bridging social divides. The MC, at least as she exists at the moment, could unite both old ways and new, and somehow help to end the war.

Seriously, I don’t know where this stuff comes from. I just write it down.

Before I can really do much with my writing, however, I have decreed that the first half of December will be known as LeTheWriFort: Lena’s Thesis-Writing Fortnight (rolls right off the tongue, don’t it?). I have a thesis draft to finish, a final paper to write for my feminist studies seminar, and come December 9th, a stack of 30 final papers to grade from my students (although I will just note that this is nowhere near as much work as I usually have to grade at the end of the quarter).

Anyway! This is a rambly sort of update, potentially due to the fact that I am exhausted and need to get some rest, as tomorrow morning I leave my parents’ and make the 5 hour trek back to school. I’m not terribly excited to go — this visit was far too short, and I’m not ready for it to end. However, I’ll be back by mid-December. Better yet, I’ll have an entire month to do nothing but read books, write fun stuff, and visit my friends — pure bliss.

I hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a wonderful, restful holiday. For my fellow WriMos, I wish you luck with completing your writing goals, whether or not that involves the 50k finish line or another of your own choosing. As always, be sure to swing by and visit the other ROW80 participants, and cheer them on as they tackle their goals. 😀

ROW80: Writing Like a Fiend

November 19, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 41 Comments

Before I get to my update, I want to thank everyone who commented on Wednesday’s post. I didn’t quite realize how my story of finding community among this wonderful group of writers would resonate with so many people. Thank you for sharing your stories!

On the housekeeping front, wordpress.org users have finally been upgraded to the snazzy wordpress-run subscription widget. Since Feedburner’s been acting wonky, I’ve disabled it in favor of the WP one. You’ll see it on the right sidebar on the home page, and on the footer of each page. If email subscription is your thing, feel free to sign up. 🙂

Writing: This week has been a lot better than last week. I’m actively editing my thesis, so progress is being made on that end. Even better, I’ve broken out of my NaNo slump; at the time of writing this post, I’ve reached 33,687 words, which places me slightly ahead. I am writing, as my title suggests, like a fiend, embracing imperfection as fully as I can. By the end of the month, I’ll have the first layer of a novel that will need lots of TLC, and quite a bit of work, especially where world-building is concerned, but something is better than nothing!

I’d like to write another 1400 words or so before bed tonight, because I doubt that I’ll be able to write at all Monday or Tuesday. I’m on campus from 9 till 6 on Monday, and Tuesday I’m driving to San Francisco so I can spend Thanksgiving with my family. I am so unbelievably excited; all I want to do is load up my truck, hit the highway, and head north. No stopping, no looking back, no collecting $200 till I make it back to the Bay. 🙂

Exercise: This, friends, is where I have failed. I worked out 5 days this week, but I’m trying to undo some bad behavior from a couple weeks ago, when I was sick. During that time, I didn’t exercise because I was worried about my asthma flaring further. That would have been okay… if I hadn’t decided to buy a bag of ginger cookies from the store and devour them in a single weekend.

"No Cookies," by Mike R. Baker

Yeah, that’s me, face stuffed full of cookies. Needless to say, my pants are definitely tighter than they should be, and it’s sort of discouraging, because those same pants were starting to get loose just a few weeks ago.

I’ve had to make some difficult decisions regarding health and nutrition. I’ve been buying at least one bag of cookies, and/or bar of dark chocolate, and/or pint of ice cream each week since October, all with the promise that I would only eat a little bit at a time. Clearly, my self-control is non-existent. Until I can get to the point where having 1 cookie doesn’t turn into the entire damn bag, I’m banning myself from sugary things.

I keep trying to remember that I have succeeded at breaking these bad habits for longer than a week. It’s a hard transition, replacing candy with fruit, cookies with veggies, empty foods with healthy, filling ones. If anyone has any good suggestions for healthy snacks (I’ve got the 3 main meals covered, but snacks are my downfall), I would love to hear them.

Anyway, that’s it for me today! Be sure to swing by and check out how everyone else is doing this week. Also, stop by the Fun Not Fear! blog, where Em and I are hosting the weekly check-in thread. And, hey, while we’re at it, have a wee snippet from my NaNo tale, PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE.

Image: Photography by BJWOK / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I hate writing synopses, but here’s the basic gist: Liandre, the main character, was stolen from her birthplace 20 years before. Raised as the daughter of a king in a distant land, she learns of her true identity at the start of the novel. Her homecoming has been less than auspicious: her claim to the throne is challenged by one of the major political factions, isolationists who don’t take kindly to a “foreign” woman becoming queen. This scene is a snippet of Liandre’s first meeting with her mother since she was taken.

-oOo-

Simone slipped out of the room on silent feet, and shut the door behind her just as quietly. I was alone with my mother at last.

Mother. The word was foreign on my tongue. Once, when I was a little girl, I had tried to imagine what it would have been like to have a mother in addition to my beloved father. I dreamed of how she would love me and cosset me, tuck me in at bedtime, sing me precious lullabies. I had eventually grown out of those fantasies; what else could I do, believing my mother to be dead? But now here I was, sitting before her, and I had no idea where to start.

Here in the privacy of her chamber, there was little trace of her famed ferocity. She looked tired and gaunt, her shoulders hunched, face turned from mine. I could only imagine what she had endured during my absence, a queen beset by invaders and internal conflict, heartbroken over the abduction of her only child and heir.

Moved by a sudden surge of emotion, I reached out for her hand. An unexpected jolt went through me as our fingers brushed, and I swallowed back a sob. She must have felt it as well, for she started in surprise. We sat in silence for a long moment, hands linked, heads bowed.

When she spoke, her words were halting, abrupt. “Your journey. Was it agreeable?”

“It was… an adventure, to say the least.”

“Good.” There was another awkward pause as she pulled her hand from mine and turned away. “I knew you for my own the moment I saw you.” Her voice was harsh, fierce with barely-suppressed emotion. “How any could challenge your claim is beyond my ken.”

I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer. It had been my deepest fear that she would reject me, the same way the hecklers had challenged my identity during my formal reception, but she knew me. She was willing to claim me as her own, to love me, and in that moment it didn’t matter that the rest of the country seemed resolved to hate me. So long as I had her love, I could endure any challenge that came my way.

She brushed the tears from my cheek with gentle fingers. “The mark of our line is stamped upon your face, in the arch of your brow, the curve of cheek, the point of your chin. All will acknowledge it before long, I promise you.”

“Mother?” There, I had said it, and the warmth of her smile soothed the anxiety that thrummed through me.

“Aya, you once called me. It is a name that only children use, but…” Her hand trembled in mine. “Would you humor me, gosling? When you come of age, I promise I will treat you like the woman you are.”

I tried the word once, twice, and then nodded, for this word fit better than any other. “Very well, Aya. I would be honored.”

ROW80: Tryin’ To Get That Feeling Again

November 12, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 36 Comments

Yes, the title of today’s post is indeed a reference to Barry Manilow’s hit song, and yes, that’s a clip of him performing it in concert below. It is, I promise, relevant for today.

You see, I have hit the mid-month slump. My pretty NaNo novel, which seemed so sparkly and wonderful and exciting when I started it at the beginning of the month, now seems rather… lackluster. Insipid. Boring? Metaphors and figures of speech are unwieldy, not to mention a bit cliche, my characters are revealing some crazy inconsistencies, and I’m starting to see the holes in my lovely outline. One of the problems is that I’ve been working on the voyage sequence (where my main character has been sailing to the strange and frightening land of her birth) for over a week, and I think I am just sick and tired of talking about it. I need to get poor Liandre off the darn ship and onto solid land, so the rest of her journey can take place.

I can’t complain terribly about my NaNoWriMo progress. The beginning of the week was a challenge, but I’ve caught up with my word count. At the moment, I have 19,311 words, and by the time I finish writing tonight, I will have hopefully added on at least 2k more. When I sit and really think about this, I can hardly believe that I’ve written so much in such a short period of time. It’s not perfect — far from it — but I think by the end of the month there will be some salvageable bits that can be edited, polished up, and (maybe) turned into something real and substantial.

I think I’ve reached the mid-point blahs with everything, not just writing. Monday marks the beginning of Week 8 in our academic quarter (there are 10 in total), and oh god, I am just… squeaking… by. I spent the past couple of days laboring over a 5 page paper that I should’ve been able to write in a few hours. I can barely stand reading for class. That thesis thing that I’m supposed to be writing? Yeah, that’s not happening either. I’m a bit tired, a little low on energy, lacking in excitement, and all I really want to do is go home and see my family. Thanksgiving can’t come soon enough.

Pictures of kittens make everything better.

On the other hand, I will say that I’m surprised that I didn’t hit this bump earlier in the quarter. I’m tired, my desire to juggle is flagging, but I’m not unhappy, and that’s more than I can say for previous quarters. By week 5 of each quarter, I’m usually indulging in escape fantasies — you know, plans to drop out of grad school and join the circus, or become a makeup artist, or move to a commune in the forest. I’ve managed to avoid escape fantasies this quarter, which I count as progress. Things are getting done, just not necessarily in the time frame that I’ve intended. However, slow and steady wins the race, etc, etc.

Anyway, if I go a little quiet on the Twitter/blog/social media front, you’ll know why. We’re entering the stretch when I have to tackle the most immediate things first (i.e., all that stuff that I’m getting graded on). I’ve got plans for this week’s blog posts, and some drafts, but we’ll see if I can actually pull them together. I missed Friday’s post because I mistakenly thought that I should be responsible and take care of my 5 page paper before everything else. Had I realized that the dumb paper would’ve taken 2 days to write, I would’ve just gotten the blog post and my NaNo writing out of the way first. Juggling — it is a fine art, and one that I have yet to perfect.

So that’s where I am this week! Just as a reminder, Em and I are hosting another Fun Not Fear! check-in, which I highly encourage all WriMos, and WriMo cheerleaders, to visit. And don’t forget to swing by and wave hello to the rest of the ROW80 community.

ROW80: Buckling Up for a Bumpy Ride

November 6, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 16 Comments

First up, my ROW80 update, with the mix of highs and lows that have marked this week. Second, I (re)introduce my NaNoWriMo tale, PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that November has always been a challenging month for me, between trying to balance school, health, and other challenges. We’re barely a week into the month, and I already feel like I’m on a rollercoaster. There have been a mix of highs and lows, and though my head is spinning, I’m trying to stay focused.

The Good: I’m meeting my exercise goals (4 times/week), and I almost succeeded in my MWF blogging schedule. One cool thing is that I hit my 100th post on Monday. I’m still a shocked that I’ve made it so far. Many, many thanks to everyone who reads and comments — you all keep me motivated!

Em and I have also posted the first Fun Not Fear! check-in, with the usual NaNo mashup. If you haven’t already, swing by to share your progress, or to cheer on the WriMos in the bunch.

The So-So: My NaNo word count started out strong, but I faltered on Saturday. I attended a local meetup of WriMos in the area, but didn’t get any writing done. And in terms of my thesis, I started out strong here as well, but life got wonky before I could finish the sections I had hoped to get done this week.

The Could-Be-Better: I received some unsettling news about an illness in the family last week, and it upset me more than I realized it would. I’m better now, but the couple of days I spent in the Depths of Despair have thrown my schedule off kilter.

At the moment, I’m also trying not to get sick. The temperature dropped suddenly, and my asthma is flaring. I ended up sitting outside for Saturday afternoon’s NaNo meet-up, and although I thought I’d be warm enough in my sweater (hey, it had sleeves, and it covered my chest), I was feeling pretty poorly by the time I got home, and didn’t get anything done.

The Bottom Line: I’m feeling better about things, though I’m slightly overwhelmed by everything that needs to get done this week. I’d usually pull a few all-nighters to get myself back on track, but given the health thing, I need all the sleep I can get. “One step at a time” will be my mantra for the next few days.

(Re)Introducing PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE

On Friday, as part of the Warm Fuzzies blogfest, I posted three songs that inspire my current WIP. I’ll be talking about this story for the rest of November as way to keep me motivated through NaNoWriMo. I’m terrible at synopses, but the one that I’ve drafted goes like this:

Liandre, a sheltered princess who dreams of adventure, gets her wish when the death of her father exposes the terrible secret of her origins, catapulting her into an unexpected world of danger and discovery. Along the way, she’ll cross paths with allies and adversaries, watch legends come to life, and find magic more powerful than any she’s ever encountered. Better yet, she might just uncover the threads of identity she thought lost.

If PPT sounds a little familiar to you ROWers who have been visiting me for a while, it’s because I was working on it during the end of Round 2 and beginning of Round 3. 25,000 words in, I abandoned it. My protagonist, Liandre, felt incredibly flat, and I had given away the identity of the ultimate villain within the first four chapters — a definite no-no, especially since his identity is key to a larger conflict that won’t be resolved until Book 2.

Taking time off to rethink my plot (which was pretty much nonexistent) has proven incredibly beneficial. I now have a better sense of where the novel is headed, the ultimate goals I need to achieve, and what has to be done in order to get there. Better yet, I decided to switch the POV from 3rd person to 1st person. Suddenly, my flat-as-cardboard protagonist came to life. She needed to be the one telling her story, without the filter of a narrator, and now that she has the mic, she has come to life. 😀

For NaNo, I’m bracketing the first 25k I wrote, and starting in the middle, hence my semi-rebel status. I don’t know if I’ll end up using any of that original material, but my goal right now is to just move forward, and worry about the beginning when I know exactly how the novel ends. 😀

Anyway, have a wee excerpt! This is taken from the very end of Part 1, where Liandre is “crossing the threshold” from her old life into a new world filled with danger and uncertainty.

Dawn came upon swift wings, the ebon sky yielding to the blush-and-gold of sunrise. Unlike Edric’s departure for Laehira the year before, there were no well-wishers assembled to see me off, no band playing jaunty farewell tunes, no father to bestow a formal blessing upon me. I was no longer sister of the newly-crowned king, but the scion of a land most believed to be little more than myth.

Even if Edric had been at liberty to tell our countrymen the truth of my origins, few would be able to comprehend it. To them, Vao Artan was a fable, a cautionary tale told to disobedient children. My own governess had recited the dreaded tale before bedtime when I was young, and it haunted me still.

“Beware the bird-women across the sea,” she always began, “for they feast on the flesh of naughty little children, and use their bones to line their nests.”

To think that I was now one of those frightful bird-women, that their blood, their magic, flowed through my veins, marked me as different was a fact that I could hardly bear. My skin prickled at the knowledge, as though it no longer belonged to me.

Not perfect, of course, but since it’s NaNo, that’s allowed. 😉

ROW80: A Quickie Check-in

October 30, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 49 Comments

This is a quick check-in, as I’m getting ready to head out to a Halloween party. Yes, my friends talked me into abandoning my plans to watch scary movies and work on my NaNoWriMo outline, and I’ve somehow cobbled together a “costume.” I’m going as a high-glam version of myself. This involves a cocktail dress (the final decision on which cocktail dress to be made sometime in the next hour), my favorite pair of black patent leather platform heels, a mini top hat fascinator, and lace gloves and stockings. I’m currently grumbling about how this party better be worth my time, but I know that once I get there and fall into my “yay, people!” vibe, it’ll be grand.

As far as my goals go, I’m coming along fairly well. Here’s the breakdown:

Writing: Parts 2 and 3 of my NaNo novel are outlined, and I’ve identified the goals I need to reach for the climax and Part 4 to make sense. I’m hoping to take a little time in the next 2 days to finalize a list of characters and places, a family tree or two (why in the world I chose to write a sweeping fantasy novel that involves tons of royal families, I’ll never know), and to do a few last-minute character profiles.

Thesis: I’ve made a “battleplan” for finalizing my first draft by mid-December. I’ve started working on the outline, which is a ton of fun, and I’ve also given the thesis a temporary title: “‘Money Can’t Buy You Class’: Symbolic Capital, Etiquette, and the White Wedding.” Yes, that’s a reference to the absolutely horrible (but addicting) song from “Countess” Luann of Bravo’s Real Housewives of New York City, and yes, I am going to reference the song in the introduction. *snicker* Gotta make academic writing fun somehow.

Exercise: Ugggh, I’ve done so badly here. I worked out 2 times this week, which is nowhere near my goal of 4-5 times a week. I’d like to say that there’s a great excuse for why I wasn’t able to get this done, but it’s really just sheer laziness. :/

A preview of coming attractions:

As many of you know, I took a little time off from regular blog posts (beyond ROW80 checkins) to reevaluate my blogging strategy. I’m happy to say that I’ve landed on a schedule that I *think* will work well. I’ll be blogging on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with a single ROW80 check-in post on Sunday (unless I find a way to combo my Wedneday post with a check-in; we’ll see how that goes).

I’m still toying with theme days, but at the moment I think I’m going to return to the idea of Monday Inspirations. Instead of focusing on things that inspire my fiction (the original goal of Monday Inspirations), I’ll be talking about inspiration on a broader level. Wednesdays will involve some form of things I love/like/am currently obsessed with (right now I’ve dubbed them Wicked Wednesdays, in a ‘favorite vices’ sort of way), and Fridays will be Fiction Fridays, where I talk about my WIPs and other writing-related topics.

That’s my week in review! For those of you looking for posts about NaNoWriMo, I highly recommend checking out the latest mashup that Em and I have thrown together. Also, as a reminder, the first check-ins for our Fun Not Fear! gang will begin on Friday. Fellow WriMos, stop by and share your progress; cheerleaders and supporters, swing by and give us a wave. Finally, looks like the NaNo website has launched the “writing buddies” section. Feel free to friend me, and don’t forget to share yours on our Fun Not Fear! linky, if you so desire.

Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy