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ROW80: Quickie Progress Update

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!

Linkspam Mondays Commence!

July 11, 2011 / Lena Corazon / Comments Off

I’ve been kicking around the idea of blogging more often than the usual Sunday/Wednesday ROW80 check-ins. I have a rather ambitious idea for daily themed blog posts, but given my very, very short attention span and notorious inability to follow-through on my most inspired and brilliant plans, it might all fall through. But for the moment, I dub Mondays ‘Linkspam Mondays,’ where I share interesting articles and other sparkly bits gleaned from the interwebs. Think of me as a particularly industrious spider, hoarding glittering gems of internet goodness, for your weekly enjoyment. 😀

So what’s on the list for today?

Edwardian interiors, from the wonderful Edwardian Promenade

Edwardian Promenade, a source for all things related to the Edwardian Era, posted a useful and interesting look at the period’s interior design. One of the details that I find particularly interesting is how the decline in domestic labor (servants, particularly those working with a family for life) contributed to the need for ‘time-saving’ technologies, particularly because it ties in with patterns that I’ve noticed in etiquette books from the 1920s. Writers like Emily Post highlighted the “servant problem,” and proposed potential solutions for to make the lives of servant-less women easier.

“The First Cyborg Horror Story,” from io9

I saw this on my twitter feed this morning and about died. I’m in the midst of trying to brainstorm technology and gadgetry for my steampunk tale, tell me no lies, so seeing this English ballad about a man with a mechanical arm (published in the 1830s, no less) is really fascinating to check out. The author’s discussion of 19th century fears and preoccupations with the impact of technology is thought-provoking as well.

“Improving Creativity: The Connect Brainset,” from Livia Blackburne

A look at the brain and how we can improve our creativity, which is useful not only for working on fiction, but any other endeavors that require a bendy, elastic sort of mind and the ability to engage in problem-solving (I’ve found that academic research is actually an incredibly creative endeavor, and requires many of the same skills as fiction-writing). The other 2 installments in Livia’s series on the creative mind are also really useful to check out: the Absorb and Envision mindsets.

“Writing the Killing: Managing the Threads with Scrivener,” from David Hewson

I LOVE Scrivener so very, very much. In fact, I think it helped to rescue me from getting muddled in length word documents, and has made me a much better writer, both for fiction and my academic work (I’ve blogged about using Scrivener for academic writing here). Anyway, author David Hewson blogged today about how he uses Scrivener to manage the different storylines in his novels. He includes some excellent tips that I will have to utilize, especially as my WIPs grow more complex.

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!

Daily Progress Update: Brainstorming and Character Sketches

July 8, 2011 / Lena Corazon / Comments Off

I cheated a bit on my Thursday to-do list and got a little carried away with brainstorming and character sketches. I gave myself a limit of 45 minutes; I ended up working for 2.5 hours, but oh man, I just couldn’t help myself.

As I’ve mentioned before, Path to the Peacock Throne has been in a bit of a muddled spot — I encountered a rather tricksy patch during a really pivotal scene that is necessary for revealing a number of truths and moving the action forward, and I haven’t quite known what to do with it. To top it off, Liandre, my main character, hasn’t been cooperating at all. Upon rereading the first few chapters, I’ve found her rather flat and two-dimensional, prone to such cliched actions like crying in every scene (seriously, I think it occurs in roughly 4 or 5 scenes in a row), and altogether cardboard-like and frustrating.

I’m perhaps being a bit too hard on her (and on myself), but the bottom line is that I’m going to have to do some serious overhauling… but only once this first draft is finished. Until then, I’m moving forward, though with the intent of digging deeper into Liandre’s personality, character, and motivations.

I stumbled upon the Emotion Thesaurus over at The Bookshelf Muse, and reading through the different lists of attitudes and emotions has given me much food for thought. There is hope for salvaging Liandre from the wreckage of cliches and Mary Sue-ness. 😀

With that, the stats for Thursday:

General Brainstorming, Path to the Peacock Throne: 838 words
Character Sketches, PPT: 925 words
Drabbly Scenes, PPT: 411 words

The downside? Nothing done on the thesis, with the exception of a few hastily scrawled words before my afternoon nap. Meh, not something to be proud of, but I suppose ‘tomorrow is always another day.’ I am therefore banning all creative pursuits for Friday, at least until I get some academic stuff done. It’s all about incentives, right?

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.

Daily Progress Update!

July 5, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 1 Comment

Okay, so I’m trying something a bit new. In addition to the bi-weekly ROW80 updates, I thought that perhaps I’d try adding a quick aside each day to sum up the day’s progress, so I can have a more detailed history of what I’ve done and where I’d like to go in the next few days. We’ll see how it goes.

Today’s success was facilitated by a video chat session with my best friend who lives in San Francisco, which forced me to sit in my chair and just work for a few hours. I managed to do the following:

Thesis: I managed to hammer out 1000 words discussing the use of mythopoesis (or the use of anecdotes and storytelling) in etiquette books. Okay, so I cheated a little and employed the substantial use of quotes to make it to 1000 words, but excerpts are important, right? Tomorrow’s goal is to clean up what I’ve written and add more, as I’d like to have a rough draft done by the end of the day.
Path to the Peacock Throne: I’ve been horribly stuck with this story, but I was somehow able to add a little over 1300 words in the form of edits and tweaking, as well as starting a new chapter. I’m pretty confident that I’m going to have to rewrite the pivotal chapter where Liandre learns the truth of her parentage and origins, but I’m now convinced that I’m not going to know exactly how it should go until I’m finished. Instead, I’m moving on to the next two chapters, which follow Liandre on her journey across the sea to Vao Artan, the mysterious and legendary land of her birth. The ship is crewed, I’ve decided, by a handful of women who are unlike any that the princess has ever met, and they will help to ease her transition into the new world she will encounter.

And that’s it for me! I’m going to have to switch gears soon to start contemplating my steampunk tale, which is the one downside of trying to juggle multiple WIPs: constantly disengaging and reengaging in different ‘verses and worlds and characters. But it keeps me on my toes, if nothing else!

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!

ROW80: Motoring Along

May 29, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 3 Comments

Another Sunday, another ROW80 check-in! I’m currently lamenting the weather for this year’s Memorial Day Weekend: blue skies, sun… and winds up to 45 MPH. We’ve been under a severe wind advisory for days now, and it’s such a downer, because the weather would be perfect for the beach otherwise. As it is, I have to stay shut up inside because the wind is wreaking havoc with my allergies.

But let’s talk writing! I finally broke through the block that was holding me back with that coronation scene (well, to be honest, I abandoned it, though it’s mostly finished) and sketched out the next four scenes. I’m working with the wide paintbrush at the moment (or, to return to last Wednesday’s analogy, my machete) and aiming for getting the main points of each scene onto paper: dialogue, action and movement, and other “big” developments. I’ve found that working on the finer points, like sensory details and description, take more time than I actually want to spend, so I am going to set those aside and fill in the blanks when I return for edits.

The current manuscript stands at 15,529 words, which means that I’ve written something like 5,000 words since Wednesday. I’m really over-the-moon with this, though I know my output will probably slow down over the next couple of weeks, between the final papers I will have to grade, and the traveling I will be doing to my parents’ place and back.

However, I have the first “Act” of the book outlined. It will be 5 chapters long, and traces the beginning of Liandre’s journey from the comfort and safety of the “Ordinary World” to the start of her adventure in Peridion. As I move forward, I am going to have to give plenty of thought to the development of Liandre as a character. She is going to have a lot of hard truths to adjust to — the truth of her parentage, being forced to abandon everything that she knows and loves in order to return to the land of her birth — and I want to make sure that she responds to these changes in a way that feels realistic.

But those are concerns for another day! I will spend this Sunday grading (blech) and luxuriating in the wonderful feeling of reaching 15k. And, er, I’m not going to think about the new story idea that won’t leave me alone… or the fact that I’ve given it a title, and a cast of characters, or the fact that I know exactly who the murderer is going to be. We’ll see how strong my willpower is, lol.

Happy Memorial Day weekend to everyone!

ROW80: Back in the Saddle

May 25, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 6 Comments

Whew, it’s been a busy week with a ton of stuff going on in my non-writing life. I missed Sunday’s check-in, sadly, but I am back for the midweek report!

First, the happenings of real life. I delivered a 45 minute guest lecture last Thursday about my MA research, and it was received really, really well. I have been informed that I am (1) ready to teach my own course (always exciting to hear) and that (2) my MA project is clearly coming together.

I spent the weekend doing a mad rush of grading and prepping for the second guest lecture I am giving (tonight, in fact). I also met with my advisor, who had many lovely things to say about the progress I’ve made with my thesis. Sunday and Monday were spent thesisizing, and I am happy to report that I wrote over 2600 words, bringing up to a total of 12,000 words. I’m nowhere near done yet, sadly, but I have the summer to finish up and pull things together. If I give myself a nightly word limit, the way I do for my fiction, I think I’ll be able to pull this off. 😀

Now, onto writing. Between the stress of school and work and just being bloody tired last week, I found myself in a bit of a rough patch with Peacock. I was flailing about for direction with this coronation scene that I wrote, and while I’ve managed to tidy it up a bit and get it back on track, I know I’m going to have to come back through later on and shorten it up. I’m just not certain that everything that’s currently in there is necessary… but I am challenging myself to wait until the 1st draft is done (or almost done) to start major rewrites and edits.

At any rate, I have broken the 10,000 word mark (never thought I’d actually do that!), and I now stand at 10,222 words. Judging from my wee graph, I almost made my goal of writing 2100 words/week.

Daily word counts

Wordcount graph
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Looks like I’m about 500 words short, but given everything that’s been going on, I’m not about to berate myself. So yay me!

Moving forward, I’ll be hoping to make my way out of the expository stuff by the weekend. I’m utilizing Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey” (summarized quite nicely here by Eliza W.). The simplified version, in twelve steps, looks like this:

The Ordinary World
Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Meeting the Mentor
Crossing the First Threshold
Tests, Allies, and Enemies
Approach
The Supreme Ordeal
Reward
The Road Back
Resurrection
Return with the ‘Elixir’

Right now I’m toiling within the “Ordinary World,” which I have realized is actually anything but ordinary. Rather, it’s in the midst of major change — the death of Liandre’s father, King Roland, the coronation of her brother, Prince Edric, and a whole set of new pressures and challenges.

At the moment, I plan on combining steps 2-4 together: Liandre will meet her mentor in Chapter 3, but when her mentor tries to tell her the truth of her lineage, the princess will refuse to listen. This will set off a whole set of conflicts that will result in the call being reissued, only this time in a way that Liandre cannot ignore. From there, it will be time for Liandre to journey across Peridion and over the sea to the country of Vao Artan, a realm she once believed was little more than legend and fantasy.

When it comes to my writing process, I rather feel like I am trying to forge a path through a jungle with nothing but a machete in hand — slashing and hacking wildly to form the beginnings of a road. I cut through about a quarter of a mile before pausing, pulling out a smaller set of garden shears, and back-tracking to pretty things up a bit. Once I’m satisfied with my work I can pick up the machete and force my way through the jungle a bit further. Right now I feel like I’ve done enough manicuring with my shears; I want nothing more than to push ahead and set my heroine onto her path towards adventure.

Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy