Just a quick heads-up to say that I’m having a few wee technical difficulties over here: something is a bit wonky with my blog that’s thrown off the formatting and obliterated the sidebar. At the moment, all my plugins have been deactivated, and my beautiful sidebar is in shreds because I uninstalled the theme, reinstalled it, and lost all of my original changes… Anyway! The short story is that I think I know what is wrong, but it’ll take me a little time to fix, as I am not a programmer and do not fully understand code. I will therefore need to poke about a bit. Thanks for your patience!
Lena Corazon
Flights of Fancy
Page 15 of 24
I didn’t expect to write an entry for the 3rd and last challenge for the Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign, but the muse struck me unexpectedly. Here are the parameters for this challenge:
Write a blog post in 300 words or less, excluding the title. The post can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should show:
- that it’s morning,
- that a man or a woman (or both) is at the beach
- that the MC (main character) is bored
- that something stinks behind where he/she is sitting
- that something surprising happens.
Just for fun, see if you can involve all five senses AND include these random words: “synbatec,” “wastopaneer,” and “tacise.” (NB. these words are completely made up and are not intended to have any meaning other than the one you give them).
I think I captured all 5 senses, and I’ve done my best to show, rather than tell. I’ve also added all three made-up words, which was tons of fun. The final piece is exactly 30 words long.
Anyway, enjoy! I had a lot of fun writing this. Also, please check out the other wonderful entries for the challenge, and leave the participants lots of feedback and warm fuzzies.
-oOo-
“A Time to Live”
Gravel crunched beneath Bryna’s booted feet, tiny black pebbles that gleamed in the rays of the rising sun. It was peaceful there by the sea, the waves lapping at the rocky shore, the gulls squawking with cacophonous glee. Such delights were lost on Bryna, for ennui weighed heavily on her mind. She fingered the tacise sheathed at her waist, the metal cool to the touch. There was a time when the thought of sinking its sharp tip into her enemy’s chest would have brought her unspeakable pleasure, but that had passed with the defeat of the Wastopaneer and the advent of the Synbatec’s peace. Heaving a sigh, she dropped onto a stay piece of driftwood, shoulders slumping forward.
“I never thought to see you like this, Commander.”Bryna scrambled to her feet, face flushed and hot. Sebastian stood before her, crossbow gripped in one hand. “‘Tis not a criticism,” he added. “You’re only human, rumors to the contrary. You’re allowed to relax.”
The intensity of his blue eyes made her stomach clench unexpectedly. She swallowed hard but asked instead, “What are you doing here?”
“Thought I’d do a bit of hunting.” He frowned, nostrils flaring wide. “Seems someone’s left their kill out to rot.” Without warning, he took her by the hand — an unthinkable gesture between a lieutenant and his superior — and tugged her away. “There now,” he murmured as the breeze carried away the fell stench. “Isn’t that better?”
“Lieutenant –”
“The name’s Sebastian,” he corrected, tugging her close.
“I hardly think this is appropriate –”
“The war’s over, Bryna. Our unit’s been disbanded.” He brushed two fingers over her cheek, sending a shiver down her spine. “It’s time for you to live.”
The taste of his lips, spiced and delicious, drove all arguments from her mind.
The third challenge for Ghouls Galore involves the word “absquatulate,” a synonym for “abscond” that dates from the 1830s, and the gormagon. The gormagon is a mythical creature described as a “beast with two backs,” with “six eyes, three mouths, [and] eight legs,” among other less-than-savory characteristics.
Charming, huh? It’s definitely not something I’d ever want to encounter, but unfortunately, Jack and Tempest (two of my characters from TELL ME NO LIES, my steampunk WIP), aren’t so fortunate. I’d actually love to expand this 250 word piece into something longer, ’cause imagining this grotesque beast in the middle of 19th century California sparks too many ideas for me to capture here.
“Stranded”
“This is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” Tempest trembled head-to-toe with anger. “You just had to waltz into that bank and absquatulate with everything in the vault, and now look at us! Our escape plan was foiled, the cops have shot us down, and we’re in the middle of nowhere. The hell were you thinking?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Jack mumbled, regarding the wreck of his airship with scarcely-concealed disappointment. The hull was damaged, and it would take days to repair it. More troubling was the fact that the police ship was nowhere to be found.
“Strange,” he said. “Why didn’t the cops haul us in?”
A low rumbling sounded in the distance, an ominous punctuation to his words. With a curse, Jack grabbed Tempest and tugged her down behind the wreckage just as a nightmarish creature that came into view, thundering towards them with single-minded purpose. Multiple limbs protruded from its body; a half-dozen eyes rolled and twitched in red-rimmed sockets. Most disgusting of all was the genitalia grotesquely positioned upon its body, male and female alike.
“A gormagon,” he spat. “That’s why the cops left us out here. They don’t think we’ll make it through alive.”
Undaunted, Tempest stood, the air crackling with energy as she powered up her raygun. “We’ll just have to disappoint them, won’t we?”
“That we will, sweetheart.” The gormagon pawed the ground with its many feet, preparing to charge them once more. “Let’s go hunting.”
I’m pretty much on track with my goals, though I didn’t make my 8 hours of writing time this week. I’ve been falling asleep every time I try to outline, which either means that my story is just really boring (unlikely) or that I need to start working on it before 8:30 pm (more likely).
If anyone is interested, I have another book recommendation — Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches. I first saw the book on the shelves at Target over the summer, and it was love at first sight (or, at first glance at the blurb). I finally got it from the library last week, and read it in a single sitting on Friday. Here’s the description:
Deep in the stacks of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries — and she is the only creature who can break it’s spell.
There are so many magical “everything-Lena-loves” keywords here, like “Oxford” and “scholar” and “bewitched alchemical manuscript.” I spent quite a bit of time studying in the Bodleian library while I was abroad in Oxford during my junior year of college, and Harkness does a wonderful job bringing the city to life in her book. What the blurb doesn’t mention, however, is the really sexy, ancient vampire who allies himself with Diana, or the romance that springs up between them (best part, IMO). It’s the first of a series, and I am now dying to know what’s coming next.
Reading was exciting, but the absolute best part of the last few days came on Friday, when I met with my advisor to go over the latest thesis chapter that I’ve written. Based on her feedback, it’s actually not as bad as I thought it was; there are some things to clean up, but for all intensive purposes, I’ve written almost everything that I need for the first draft.
My new goal, then, is to have the polished up first draft written by mid-December, so my advisor can read it over winter break. She’ll have her edits back to me by the start of the new year, I’ll tweak what needs to be fixed, then circulate it to the rest of the committee once she thinks its ready.
I can’t quite articulate how darn exciting this all is. I started grad school in 2008 and hit the ground running like the Type-A personality that I am, immersing myself in research for the project. I had expected to be finished at the end of my second year, in 2010, but so many things got in the way: schoolwork, my TA-ship, and the fact that the scope of my research shifted countless times as I refined my focus.
It’s been difficult, watching my classmates earn their degrees before me and move on. More than once I’ve felt like a failure for not being fast enough, quick enough, but the truth of the matter is that most of them decided to go “quick and dirty” with their MA projects, tackling something small so that they could move on to other topics for the dissertation. That was never my goal. From the start, I’ve wanted to write a MA thesis that would act as a launching pad for my dissertation and beyond. With this project, I think I have that.
Anyway! The really exciting bit about all of this is that I *might* be able to defend my thesis in February, depending on how long it takes the committee to read through and give me feedback… and that means that I just might have a MA degree in time for my 25th birthday! If that is the case, I am having the blowout party to end all parties, since there will be a ton to celebrate. 😀
Finally, I just want to remind everyone that Fun Not Fear!, the NaNoWriMo support group that I’m running with Em, has been launched. If you’re interested, check out our welcome post where you can introduce yourself and learn a bit more about what we’ve got planned. Also, be sure to check out the crazy-awesome mashup of links that we’ve pulled together. There’s everything from reflections and thoughts on NaNoWriMo to a host of resources on writing craft, plotting, and planning.
Be sure to check out this week’s updates from the rest of the ROW80 community. Swing by and show them some love!
Week 2 of the GhoulsGalore flash fiction challenge asks us to write a 250 word piece on Lucifer, using the word “chthonic.” My entry is a bookend piece to “The Dark Prince,” which I wrote for last week’s extended edition of Glitterlady’s Tuesday Tales.The main inspiration for this piece comes from “N.I.B.”, my favorite song by the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, “N.I.B.” Geezer Butler, the song’s lyricist, once said that “the song was about the devil falling in love and totally changing, becoming a good person.” Like the Lucifer of “N.I.B.,” my “Dark Prince” has finally found the woman of his dreams, and won’t rest until he has claimed her completely.
-oOo-
“Eternity”
Desperation. Fear. Desire. The air is thick with all this as I make my way through the dank tunnels leading from my chthonic lair. In the silence, I can hear your blood pounding, your gasps high and tight and heaving.
You have run from me, seized by the silly fears that have driven us apart time and again. When will you realize that the peace you seek, the serenity that you desire, will only come when you surrender? When you will learn that the answer to all your questions can be found in the circle of my arms?
I can see you in the darkness, even as you cower behind ruined pillars of stone. I can feel your heart beat as though it was my own — don’t you realize how connected we are, how truly and inextricably our souls are linked?
When I was cast into this abyss, when my body was chained here in the bowels of the earth, I did not feel despair, for I knew there would be one who would join me in my solitude. Aeons have passed since my fall from grace, and still I have waited.
Now here you are, trembling and confused, mere feet from my grasp. You cannot understand how your soul has compelled you to seek out my twisted love, but I can help you see the darkness that dwells deep within you. I can show you where you true destiny lies.
Embrace me, love, and taste eternity.
Midweek check-ins are always a little sparse for me, mostly because I spend Mondays and Tuesdays just trying to deal with school stuff. A few things fell through the cracks and came back to haunt me yesterday (namely the stack of grading I was supposed to hand back this morning), so I pulled an unexpected all-nighter last night, staggered into class this morning like a zombie, and had to take an impromptu nap this afternoon to recharge. But I am up, and I will hopefully find the time to tackle the household chores today, because my apartment is a disaster.
Whew.
But it’s not all bad! I’ve done a few things of merit so far, including:
- Exercise: I’m on track to fulfill my 4-5 days/week quota, as I have gotten on the glider 3 times this week.
- NaNoWriMo Support Group: Today, Em and I launched our “support group,” Fun Not Fear! As she mentions on her check-in post today, the name of the group emerged out of a few conversations she and I had about our fears over tackling NaNo this year. We decided that we needed to focus on the fun aspects of the writing gauntlet, and given the success we’ve both had participating in ROW80, clearly the best way to have fun while writing is to have the support of friends along the way. So pop on over, leave your NaNo profile on the linky list, and introduce yourself. We’ll be hosting “check-in chats” every Friday, and throwing out our linky mashup of NaNoWriMo goodness.
I’ve got quite a few things to work on:
- Thesis Edits: The early feedback I received from my advisor basically boils down to the fact that the latest chapter needs to be dramatically tightened up and my arguments “better embedded,” or something along those lines. I more or less expected this, so I have a number of notes to make before I meet with her on Friday. For the record, I just have to say that I HATE first drafts with every gosh darn bone in my body. Like… I bloody HATE them. So I am really relieved to be moving into edit phase, so I can slash and burn all the things that don’t fit, and fix the things that do.
- Writing: My WIPs are currently sitting in the corner with sad faces on them, looking like poor little abandoned creatures. I’m can’t wait until November gets here; this extended period of doing nothing but taking notes and outlining (or attempting to, at any rate) is starting to drive me a little crazy.
- Spending less time on G+: I’ve recently discovered that Google+ is like this amazing, wonderful, phenomenal candyland of cool people and fantastic ideas, and it has sucked me into its Vortex of Awesome with the force of a massive black hole (seriously, one of these days I will write an ode to G+). Sadly, I think I spent something like 3 hours having great conversations with people, and it was a total blast… but, er, I probably should’ve been doing other things with those three hours (i.e., grading). But just look at the hilarious things I have been finding!
- I am obsessed with this entire “occupy fictional places” thing.
- Working on blogging ideas/writing posts: I really miss blogging about more than ROW80 highs and lows, and I’ve been jotting down a few ideas for posts and theme days that I will
hopefullyeventuallymaybedefinitely write. I just, er, have to find the time to do that, but maybe if I spend less time on G+…
So that’s the current lay of the land. I’ll leave you with the trailer of this wonderful movie that I watched yesterday, Last Night, starring Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington. It tackles that tried and true topic — a married couple tempted to cheat on each other — in a way that I found incredibly compelling and beautiful. This is the sort of movie where the nuances of body language and expression need to be absorbed, not just the dialogue. It’s currently streaming on Netflix (which is how I ran across it), so if you have a chance and it strikes your fancy, check it out.
[tube]qFaTD9kljsU[/tube]
It’s been a bit of a rocky week, with vestiges of that yucky migraine lingering until Thursday night and lots of work to get out of the way. However, I think I’ve cleared a major hurdle (for the moment), so I’ve been celebrating with a bit of downtime.
The Successes:
- I read books 3, 4, and 5 of Karen Marie Moning’s FEVER series between Thursday and Friday night, which is probably a record reading binge for me. A huge thank you to everyone who recommended the series, because wow. It is epic and wonderful and amazing, and I am so glad I read it. Now I am going to sit on pins and needles like the rest of Moning’s fans to see what the upcoming films are going to look like. If they mess up Barrons, I am going to pitch a major fit.
- I had a movie marathon last night. I was planning on doing some writing and stuff, but instead I curled up on the couch and watched a couple of old favorites. I started with The Inheritance, a made-for-TV movie based on an early Louisa May Alcott novel, followed it up with The Princess Bride (so. darn. awesome), and then finished with Love’s Kitchen, which I hadn’t heard of until Netflix pushed it on my radar. It has a shockingly low rating on imdb, but I really, really loved it. The film involves food and cooking and people falling in love (three of my favorite things), and stars real-life married couple Dougray Scott (who I have had a huge crush on since he did Ever After) and Claire Forlani. It was definitely the feel-good movie that I needed.
- Outlining my NaNo project is coming along. I’ve started using the corkboard function in Scrivener, where I can lay out 3×5 cards to organize my ideas. I’m not exactly working in a linear fashion, so I have Act 2 laid out, with short summaries for each scene, but little else decided beyond that. Over the next two weeks I’ll be brainstorming so that I can hopefully be ready to roll by November 1st.
- I finally finished the draft of the latest chapter of my MA thesis. It’s rough, and there are holes in it that will need to be filled in, but the hardest work (I think) has been done. I didn’t realize until I emailed it to my advisor exactly how stressed out finishing this chapter has made me feel, but I do feel like I have had a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. I can’t slack off too badly — I have lots more edits to tackle, along with a couple shorter sections to write — but I am going to step away from the project for the next few days and catch up on my writing.
Places to Pick Up the Slack:
- I only worked out 3 days this past week, instead of 4 like I had hoped, so I’ll need to make up for it in the days to come.
Fun Stuff to Check Out:
- As I’ve mentioned before, Em and I both decided to tackle NaNoWriMo this year. For an extra bit of fun, and because there seem to be quite a few first time WriMos out there, we decided to create a support blog of sorts, where everyone can pop in once a week and share the challenges and successes that they’re facing during November. We should be launching sometime this week, so keep your eyes peeled!
- The photo contest finalists from our ROW80 twitter party have been posted over at Jenny Hansen’s blog. Swing by and cast your vote — there are some awesome shots.
All in all, it’s been a pretty good week. How’s everyone else doing, mid-way through October? Don’t forget to visit the other ROWers checking in today!
I’m a little confused how Wednesday got here so quickly. Weren’t we all just checking in, like, yesterday? This week seems to be careening forward, but I’m okay with that, since it means that the weekend is all the closer. 😀
The past few days has been a mixed bag of highs and lows.First, The Good:
- Had an incredible Sunday that somehow fulfilled all my mind, body, heart, and spirit needs. It started with a great morning at church with my colleague and friend, Megan, followed by shopping at the Farmers’ Market, and, finally, 4 hours of studying and gabbing on the beach. To illustrate:
My worksite of choice.
- I’m close to being finished with the chapter of my thesis that I’ve been working on since, er, July. It is over 7000 words long, which seems so darn short for the amount of time I’ve labored over it (and given how much will need to be overhauled in the final draft), but I’m proud of it nonetheless.
- I have a ROWsista! Elizabeth Anne Mitchell, my fellow academic, writer, and Round 3 veteran, has agreed to team up for this round. We are going to keep each other accountable, and have lots of fun in the process.
The Bad (because, sadly, you knew it was coming):
The migraine that I thought I vanquished Saturday night with my usual remedy (an Excedrine migraine pill, followed by 8 hours of sleep) came back with a vengeance Sunday night, after the aforementioned Day of Bliss. The migraine refused to retreat until late Monday night, and was bad enough that I skipped my morning Monday class, and had to suffer through my afternoon class feeling super gross and nauseous.
I was back to normal this morning, but of course the whole episode threw off my carefully-wrought schedule. It also called into sharp relief, once again, the fact that I need to make sure that I’m taking care of myself. I never had a migraine till I got to grad school, and I’m almost 100% certain that migraines are the way that my body responds when I’m stressed, worried, and underslept.
This means that I need to finish my schoolwork by 7 pm at the absolute latest. It also means that I need to cook myself dinner. I started off really strong last week, and then sort of tapered off to the point where I was, er, munching on cookies in the evening and calling it a meal. And this also means that I need to make sure that I’m in bed by 11 pm, and/or taking midday naps when I need them.
To tackle during the rest of the week:
- Exercise. I’ve slacked off on this over the past two days, so I’ll need to hop on my glider every day for the rest of the week to make up for it.
- Thesis stuff. I promised the draft of this latest chapter to my advisor by the end of the week, so I need to make this a priority.
- Writing. I used my writing time today and yesterday to write more flash fiction, this time for Glitterlady’s weekly Tuesday Tales. The resulting story, “The Dark Prince,” was a fun distraction, but now I need to get back to prepping for NaNo.
- Reading. I am still at the start of Book 3 in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series, and it is driving me wild. For all you KMM fans out there, I highly suggest checking out the extra scene she’s posted — a steamy scene told from Barrons’ POV. It’s NSFW, of course, but well worth your time. 😉
Finally, stuff to look forward for on Sunday:
- Blog awards!
- News about an awesomely amazing, totally wonderful NaNo support group that Em and I are currently plotting.
And with that, I’m off to bed. Happy Hump Day, all!
This week’s edition of The Glitterlady’s Tuesday Tales is a special Extended Edition, with the word limit increased to 1000 words. This is the inspiration photo:
-oOo-
“The Dark Prince”
I’ve been trapped here countless times, locked in this maze of dank, fetid passageways, this tangle of crumbling tunnels and halls.
I’m no stranger to this world of darkness, and yet familiarity doesn’t lessen the panic that clenches my heart. As always, blood roars in my ears and adrenaline pumps through my veins. I forget to breathe while I am here, confined, claustrophobic, hunted. He is in the shadows, watching, stalking, waiting for me to crumble, the dark prince that consumes my thoughts and, it seems, my dreams. It’s his castle that holds me, his dungeons that imprison me.
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.
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