Lena Corazon

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ROW80: It’s Business Time

January 15, 2012 / / 43 Comments

It’s my 3rd check-in for ROW80, and I seem to be making some progress with my goals! I’m still not completing everything that I’ve pledged to do, but this week was another strange, rather jumbled one. I spent all of Tuesday traveling (that 5.5 hour drive is no joke), Wednesday unpacking and prepping for class, and Thursday and Friday recovering.

One surprise that happened is that I had to drop the one class I was going to take, as it overlapped my TA-ship by 50 minutes and I wasn’t able to get permission to leave early. That means that I will now only be going to campus Wednesday nights for class, and 2 hours Tuesday mornings for office hours. I now have a lot of free time on my hands, and that makes buckling down to a regular routine all the more imperative. Starting this week, it will be Serious Business Time, and I will hold myself to my goals.

Here’s my week in review:

Writing: I’ve decided that for this round, I want to accomplish 2 things with writing: (1) finish a rough draft of TELL ME NO LIES and (2) figure out how PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE ends (I want to be able to finish my draft of PPT during Round 2). My goal is to rewrite and edit the first 4 scenes of TMNL, and I got started with that through the ROW80 wordsprints on Thursday and Friday. I wrote 1486 words on Thursday and 1631 words on Friday, which isn’t too shabby at all. I also spent a couple of hours brainstorming and reading more of THE BARBARY COAST for research purposes.

Day Job: I finished the first draft of my thesis last Sunday, and gave my advisor a hard copy on Wednesday, despite technology’s attempts to thwart my efforts (I had to deal with not one, but two, on-campus printers running out of paper, along with a paper jam and other ridiculousness). She’s promised to have it back to me ASAP, so I have more editing in my future (although she tells me that she thinks the changes will most likely be minimal).

I actually have a full plate when it comes to school, including brainstorming dissertation topics, working on a conference paper proposal, and preparing a grant proposal. I’m also a research assistant for my advisor, and so I need to set aside time to do some work for her. Not taking classes is actually a blessing in disguise, provided I can buckle down and get things done. In the week to come, my focus will be on my research assistantship and dissertation brainstorming.

Social Time: I’ve been really good at this! Monday I had a ‘farewell dinner’ of sorts with one of my high school besties, Tuesday I went to a ‘welcome back to town’ late-night happy hour with a couple of grad school friends, and this morning I had a brunch/work/shopping outing. I’m really proud of myself, though, because I invited a few friends out for drinks at my favorite bar tonight. Given that I rarely initiate things (I have been burned in the past by people who say they will come out and instead flake), this is progress.

Exercise: There’s been incremental improvement here. I went for a 2.5 mile walk on Wednesday, and a 4 mile walk on Thursday. I had wanted to throw in a couple of days of at-home Pilates, but going to bed late and not getting enough sleep meant that when I woke up Friday and Saturday, I was less than inclined to work out. The goals for next week: go to bed by midnight, wake up by 7:30, do some form of physical activity at 8 am.

50/50 Challenge: I finished three absolutely wonderful books: HER OWN DEVICES by Shelly Adina, STEAM & SORCERY by Cindy Spencer Pape, and HER DARK BARON by fellow ROWer, Nadja Notariani.

I also got started with a little movie-watching: The Peacemaker starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman (meh), Peter Pan starring Jason Isaacs and Jeremy Sumpter (cutesy, a little cheesy, but Jason Isaacs is really hot), and The Warrior’s Way, which is this absolutely amazing collision of ‘East-meets-West’ — it’s about a disgraced Asian assassin who flees to a tumble-down Wild West town to escape his vengeful clan, and ends up learning about love and life and things beyond murdering people. It’s bloody and gore-filled in a sort of comic book way, but I loved it. Geoffrey Rush has a small role as a drunken former outlaw.

-oOo-

Is everyone else getting down to business time, or are you flailing about like me? To encourage everyone pursuing Serious Business, I leave you with the New Zealand duo, Flight of the Conchords. Their song, “Business Time,” might be one of my favorites. 😀

*insert requisite ‘put-down-beverages’ warning*

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ROW80: The First Check-in of 2012

January 7, 2012 / / 52 Comments

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?

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New Goals and A Bit of Inspiration

January 2, 2012 / / 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!

 

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Waving Goodbye to 2011

December 31, 2011 / / 3 Comments

This is a bit of an unscheduled post, but I spent most of the week running myself ragged and fighting a cold (the cold, sadly, has won), and I haven’t had the chance to blog in a few days. I’m closing out 2011 much in the same way that I ushered it in: curled up in bed, pajama-clad and sneezing. This year, however, my  cold is waning, and I’ll hopefully make a full recovery by the beginning of the week. In an effort to feel a little less lame, I am blasting Britney Spears and quaffing glasses of sangria (a gal’s gotta find a way to feel a little festive, right?).

2011 In Review

Marking the turn of the year is always a time of introspection for me, and I know I’m not alone in that. In so many ways, though, 2011 has been a decidedly odd twelve months. Because of the academic trajectory that I’ve been on over the years, I’m used to feeling like I’m on an escalator flying upwards. Each year brings a set of challenges and benchmarks for me to tackle and to overcome, and at the end, I almost always have a list of successes to tally: important academic achievements, conference talks, and other such things. I won’t lie — I’m an overachiever, and I hoard those little accomplishments the way a miser collects coins.

This past year, though, has been different. I declared that this would be a non-conference year (I’ve presented on at least two panels over the last 3 years) so that I could have more time to focus on my research. At the same time, the thesis dragged on much longer than I anticipated. Without having the thesis finished, I haven’t been able to move forward in my grad program, and so I’ve felt a little like a plane circling around and around in an endless holding pattern, just waiting for the signal from the control tower to swoop down for a victorious landing.

On a personal level, I’ve had my share of ups and downs as well. I started the year with loss, as my boyfriend of almost two years and I broke up during Thanksgiving 2010. I don’t think I quite realized the emotional stress I would experience, especially given that he was, in essence, my first love and my first relationship. I spent six months fighting back unexpected waves of anger, which of course gave way to bitterness and sadness and grief and a whole host of other things that I’d rather not feel.

The highlight of the last year has been my writing. I began 2011 wringing my hands and lamenting that I would never find a good idea ever again, that I would be doomed to be without words for the rest of my days. Somehow, through a combination of hard work, unexpected strokes of inspiration, the support of some wonderful communities, words have returned to me. Between two NaNo events and ROW80, I’ve written well over 100k on various projects, which is more than I’ve written since maybe 2008 or 2009. I finally feel like I have a foundation for building work that is far more mature than anything I’ve tackled before, stories and tales that reflect who I am, and where I am, today.

Looking Forward to 2012

2012 is all about change.

With school, I’m on schedule to finish my coursework by June 2012, and to advance to PhD candidacy sometime during the summer, as I close out my 4th year of graduate school. This means that my chapter in Santa Barbara will be coming to an end. I’m fully-funded for my 5th year (huzzah for small miracles), and so I’ll be moving back in with my parents, where I’ll stay for a year or two to write and finish my dissertation. I’ve been waiting a long, long time for this, and it’s scary and exciting and wonderful all at once. I have six months left in SB, and I hope to make the most of it.

More immediately, I’m marking a major milestone in February — the big Quarter-Century Birthday. Given that I spent most of my teen years wishing that I was 35 years old with a husband, family, and a career, I’m not scared to get older… but twenty-five is kind of a big deal, and it’s the sort of birthday that gives me pause. I am mostly on track with the Life Schedule I made for myself in high school (yes, there really is a spreadsheet with my life goals between 18 and 30 sitting on my hard drive), though I feel a strange need to treat this birthday with some form of reverence, or something.

One of the things that has become clear to me during my holiday break is that I need to get back to being me. This is a quest I will be talking about at length over the next few months, but the bottom line is that I’ve dropped a lot of things that I’ve loved since I got to grad school. Writing was one, and I’m delighted to have that back, but there are a host of other things that I’ll be working to re-integrate into my life.

So with that in mind, here’s my somewhat-random list of things I want to tackle in 2012:

  • Get a tattoo (or three). I’ve been nursing the idea of getting inked for over a year now, since my break-up, but I wanted to hold off so that I was sure that I wasn’t going through a rebellious phase. But I’ve figured out what I want (an art nouveau-inspired peacock, plus a couple of quotes), where I want it (a quote on each forearm, and the peacock on the back of my left shoulder), and the artist (Siri, a former illustrator who works at Black and Blue Tattoo in San Francisco, and did this amazing peacock). My first will hopefully be a quote from A.S. Byatt’s POSSESSION: “Words have been all my life.” 
  • Finish a novel. I suck at finishing things, just for the record, and I want this to be the year when I finally stop sucking at it. I have 2 partly-finished WIPs that need some tender-loving-care, and I’m going to make sure that they get enough of it so that I can have at least one completed draft to my name.
  • Stop being so scared of love. I think I’ve healed up from my last break-up, but I have been reminded that I’ve sorta sealed myself off like some uber-fragile object, all encased in bubble wrap and styrofoam peanuts and other forms of insulation. My best friend’s aunt, who is quite adept at reading people, has told me that I have been “too much alone,” and it’s true — living in my happy fantasy worlds with my lovely made-up characters is endlessly entertaining, and means that I don’t have to worry about getting my heart stomped on. So I’m not saying that I’m going to be hunting down a boyfriend, but I am saying that I am not averse to the possibility of one somehow landing… nearby.

Better yet, I’m thrilled to have another year of blogging, socializing, and supporting all of my online friends. I’m looking forward to another round of ROW80, which starts on Monday (get your engines revved, people!), to jumping into the 50/50 Challenge (reading 50 books and watching 50 films in 2012), and all the other magical, unexpected surprises that will crop up along the way.

Happy New Year, friends!

ROW80: Winding Down

December 18, 2011 / / 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!

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Fiction Friday: Reflections of a Novel-Writing Sociologist

December 16, 2011 / / 26 Comments

As I write this, I am almost through with the first draft of my MA thesis. It’s currently 66 pages long (about 23K, for those of you who think in word counts), and once I add the introduction, conclusion, and a few transitional paragraphs, I estimate it will clock in around 70-75 pages.

On the surface, academic and creative writing are a world apart. In academia, we build on the work of previous scholars. We draw heavily on the research that’s come before us,  and try to fit ourselves within an established framework while still demonstrating how our projects stand out.

In creative writing, get to wield our imaginations to the best of our abilities. While we have to fit ourselves into the boundaries of a genre, our success depends on the uniqueness of our voices, our ability to create worlds and characters who are distinctive, fresh, and compelling.

As I struggle to reconcile my two selves together, I’ve found that these worlds might not be as incompatible as I’ve always believed. I begin creative and academic projects in similar ways: immersing myself in research, reading as much as I can, and mapping the field.

Although my thesis will probably never make for exciting bedtime reading (unless you’re thrilled by sociological discussions of etiquette and social inequality), reflecting on the writing process has led me to realize that some of the lessons I’ve learned from creative writing are applicable.

1. It all begins with a question.

Source: f-oxymoron via flickr

In creative writing, we constantly ask questions about our work, our characters, and our worlds constantly. Trying to answer those questions helps us to invent new tales or to jumpstart flagging ones, and so we find ourselves toying with ridiculous scenarios, just to see what will happen.

What if a horde of zombie chimpanzees crash-land a spaceship in the middle of a cornfield just as the protagonist and her on-again, off-again boyfriend are arguing?

For academic research, questions are just as powerful and pivotal. Here, it’s usually “why” and “how come?” that orient us. (Yes, academics were probably the most irritating toddlers on the face of the planet.)

My thesis is no different. It was born out of countless questions, including one that came to me as I was working on my senior undergraduate thesis:

Why has etiquette played such a large role in shaping wedding practices in the United States? If etiquette is as important as historians of the wedding suggest, why hasn’t anyone else studied it in-depth?

Some of my favorite fiction projects have started the same way, as ideas that have tumbled around in my head, not quite substantial enough to explore in-depth, but too shiny and promising to ignore completely.

Learning to question our work throughout the writing process, to view it with all the curiosity and excitement that motivates us at the start of a project, is one key to unlocking our creativity.

2. Long projects are long.

By this point in my academic career, I have mastered the art of bullshitting crafting a 10-15 page paper. I have a sense of how I need to organize my ideas, the number of extended excerpts I can mobilize, and the number of subsections I’ll need to plan. With longer forms of writing, however, all those rules go straight out the window.

Nothing is scarier than being faced with a mountain of words — or, even worse, with the blank Word document, the one that will eventually become a mountain of words, but is nothing more than a empty sheet of possibility. We’ve all felt that stab of panic as we stare at the blanking cursor, waiting for the words to flow, and so each word, each sentence, each paragraph feels like a tiny victory.

As I grapple with understanding the structure of the novel, I am also struggling to grasp the mechanics of long-form academic writing. Scholarly writing is much more straight-forward, at least on the surface. There are no plot points to figure out, no need to sort out character motivations and overarching themes. Academics are expected to tell and not show, to reveal the our results in the very first paragraph (this makes me sad, because sometimes I’d like there to be a big reveal — I toiled in the archives for days and weeks, and hunted for clues! At last, the meaning of etiquette books was revealed to me…).

My adventures with NaNoWriMo have taught me that while I benefit from outlines, I am a nonlinear, scene-by-scene sort of writer. I’ve penned the thesis in the same way: in odd bits and pieces scattered around Scrivener, culled from past seminar papers and conference talks. Those chunks of text are somehow cobbled together by a form of alchemy that I can only guess at, fitted together to form a seemingly coherent product.

My take-away from all of this? Write, no matter how short or silly or stupid the idea is. Scrawl as many memos and notes as possible, keep track of how ideas jump around and leap about and evolve. Eventually, some sort of structure will emerge to unite some of those pieces together.

Continue reading

ROW80: 50k, is that you?

November 26, 2011 / / 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 / / 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.”

Fiction Fridays: Tapping Into Writerly Extrasensory Perception

November 18, 2011 / / 15 Comments

Today marks the final day of the Warm Fuzzies blogfest. I’m not quite sure where the last four weeks went, but here we are, over halfway through with November, hurtling our way to the winter holidays.

Our prompt for the week is a bit of a timely one, given that I am easing my way out of a rough writing patch and trying to regain momentum with NaNoWriMo:

This week, post what makes writing worth it for you and most importantly, post one of your Warm Fuzzy moments. It can be a scene from a WIP, short story, poem, anything that strikes your fancy. Visit one another’s posts and enjoy the writing you find there.

Writing involves blood and sweat and tears (the blood is hopefully metaphorical, unless we are discussing paper cuts). It can be stressful, frightening, disheartening. Sometimes I can end my writing time feeling down-in-the-dumps pathetic, like I’m the worst writer to walk the face of the planet, and how in the world am I ever going to turn this piece of tripe into something that people want to read, let alone pay for?

Sometimes, it helps for me to think of writing as a sort of treasure hunt, or some vast archaeological dig. I like to imagine myself the intrepid adventurer on a quest, armed with a map and some tools, along with a folder holding the bits of research and scraps of paper and a clue or two.

Image: taoty / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

No matter how detailed my preparation for the excursion, however, I never fail to wander into unmarked territory. It’s in those unmarked spaces that I find the most unexpected gems, the most valuable pieces of treasure. It’s in those off-the-beaten-path spots where I suddenly find the capacity to listen.

Sometimes the things I hear resonate with the guideposts on my map; sometimes they take me into brand new territory. No matter what, this is where the magic happens.  Characters suddenly reveal a handful of new secrets. Mundane settings become more vibrant. Flat, uninteresting plots gain complexity, along with a few twists and turns. Ideas are infused with life, with passion and vibrancy and wants and needs,

This is why I write, aside from the fact that there are characters chirping in my ear, demanding that their stories be told. I write because I can’t get enough of this strange extrasensory perception, this third eye that allows me to see and to hear things that don’t exist. I write because I have the faith that my hard work will be rewarded with those wonderful, incandescent moments of joy, when a scene that’s been hazy and vague suddenly crystallizes in my mind.

Given the furious pace of NaNoWriMo, it’s been difficult to tap into my writerly ESP, to take the time to sit down and just listen to what my characters want and need. It’s one of the things that I’m hoping to do this weekend, because I know the story needs an injection of vitality, a little (or maybe a lot) extra oomph.

All of this is a roundabout way to preface my excerpt, which is not taken from my NaNo novel (sorry, guys, it just doesn’t have that “zing” right now). Instead, I’m posting a flash fiction piece that I wrote for a Halloween-themed challenge last month. You can find the original post here. I love this piece because it’s a little creepy, moody, and dark, which is out-of-the-ordinary for me.

Enjoy, and be sure to swing by and visit the other bloggers taking part in the Warm Fuzzies blogfest!

-oOo-

“Midnight Walker”

It was a small thing, really: a single globule of blood, no larger than a dewdrop and just as delicate.  If Alaric hadn’t been starving, his veins parched and dry, it would’ve been easy enough to ignore.  Restraint and willpower had always been his strengths, even before he was reborn.  But then again, he had never been deprived of sustenance for so long. There was no way he could withstand such temptation.

That drop of blood was a siren’s song of lust and desire, flooding his mouth with saliva, sharpening his gleaming fangs.  It gleamed in the flickering glow of the streetlamp, adorning the whore’s neck like the most precious ruby.

She’d been bitten already — a sloppy kiss from a drunkard, for her intoxicating bouquet was tainted by the acrid, burnt smell of whiskey. With his preternatural senses, he could hear the beating of her heart, the borborygmic trembling of her stomach; she was hungry as well, her face pinched and pale beneath a heavy coating of rouge.  It mattered little. By the time Alaric was through, food — or lack thereof — would be the least of her worries.

The whore turned limpid eyes upon him, lips parted in a drawl of invitation, and Alaric’s hands shook as his slid the coin into her hand.  A thrill of delight coursed down his spine as he followed her into the dank alley nearby, even as his conscience uttered one final whimper of protest.

He would hate himself come morning, when the alleys would be strewn with evidence of his excesses, but the salt-sweet elixir on his tongue drove away all regret.

 

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