picspam – Lena Corazon

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ROW80: The Party’s Here!

I’ve been having so much fun dancing to ABBA, drinking pina coladas and nomming on cupcakes and jalapeno poppers and pizza that I almost forgot to write my mid-week ROW80 check-in post! So here I am, reporting in on the progress I’ve made on my goals so far. Feel free to munch on some cake while you read on.

Oh, and have a mimosa, too. Fresh berries have been added in for garnish. 😀

Mimosas, anyone?

I wanted to thank everyone for all the awesome comments on my first post, though I had to laugh at all the comments about how organized I am! I have to admit, trying to become an organized person has been the quest of my life. I was always the kid who forgot her homework in her desk, or at home, or lost it in her backpack. And I was always the kid who was chronically late to class (though this was more my mom’s fault that mine), who managed to lose pens and pencils and shoes and toys…

So the whole “let’s get organized” quest (can we make that a song and sing it to the beat of “Let’s Get Physical” by Olivia Newton-John?) is a little scary for me, and something I’ve been trying to attempt for a long, long time.

Thus far, my attempt at following a schedule has been fairly successful. My classes are all in the morning, and after a few months of staying up till roughly 3 or 4 am, and not getting up till 11 am, adjusting has proven a bit difficult (but not impossible).

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that when my alarm goes off each morning, I need to launch myself out of bed and not look back. I tried this Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday mornings, and ended up jazzed, energized, and super energetic for the rest of the day. Tuesday I decided to just lay in bed for a couple of hours and blogsurf, and yiiiiikes… I dragged the entire day.

Anyway, here are the concrete accomplishments this week:

Thesis-izing: Progressing a bit slowly here. I got in roughly 30 minutes yesterday, but ended up taking a nap because I was so low on energy. I’ve actually been feeling a little down about my work and its importance, but after seeing Prof. Melissa Harris-Perry speak at my campus last night, I had a sudden resurgence of excitement about my work and the direction it might take for the dissertation. For the record, MHP is an amazing public intellectual, an inspirational black feminist, and a dynamic speaker, and I got her autograph and a picture with her. Seriously, I’m still giddy over this.

Work on WIPs: I’ve been doing a little outlining and brainstorming for NaNo, which is proving interesting. I think the project I’ll be tackling is actually going to end up being written in the 1st person, so I’m trying to get into that mode by reading some of my favorite 1st person novels (Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander and Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart series). I’ve also been trying to write this new story that hit me the other day, but words are proving difficult to come by. I’m hoping that wears off over the next few days.

Social Media: I’m a little behind on visiting everyone’s blogs, but hopefully I’ll catch up by the weekend. I have to say, though, that I have been having way too much connecting with all my ROW80 peeps today. 😀

Exercise: I worked out Sunday and Monday mornings, and I’m hoping to get some time in on my glider tonight, so I’m on schedule to meet my goal of working out 4-5 days this week.

And there we have it! I’m hoping that all my energy and excitement for tackling goals and responsibilities and whatnot continues throughout the end of the week. In the meantime, I offer a few more party pics…

Cupcakes for all!

And we can’t forget the mixed drinks. What’s a party without something cold and tasty in a martini glass?

Finally, I will be rocking my giant 80s hair for all of you as I prance around in my favorite sparkle shoes and froufy dress and dance to the party playlist. Be sure to swing by the other ROW80 partiers and wish them well!

Monday Inspirations: The Moulin Rouge

August 15, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 14 Comments

For this week’s installment of Monday Inspirations, I’m thinking about setting. While plot points and characters are important elements of a strong novel, setting is also essential. My favorite stories are the ones where the setting functions like a secondary character, and so as I work through tell me no lies, my steampunk romance/murder mystery, I’ve been focusing on how to bring the world of 19th century San Francisco to life.

My main character, Tempest Dumont, is a singer at The Belladonna, a popular saloon located in the rough and tumble Barbary Coast (sometimes referred to as “Hell’s Half-Acre). Given that this is a steampunk tale, I can engage in a bit of revisionist history, so I’ve decided that The Belladonna is a female-owned saloon that caters to the wealthy playboys of San Francisco, those who want to experience the vices of the Barbary Coast without having to deal with the dangers of the run-down dive bars. It’s also a lot more glamorous than the other bars in town, with red velvet curtains and gold accents and fancy things like that.

While there are some fun examples of saloons in Hollywood’s classic western films, the movie that I’ve been drawing inspiration from is Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, which tells the tragic story of an idealistic young writer who falls in love with a courtesan who works at the infamous nightclub.

One thing that I love about the film is the glitz and glamour. Luhrmann does an amazing job in creating a fantasy world of fueled by color and drama. However, there’s a dark side to the stage life, as we see in the clip below. This is one of my favorite moments in the film. The rendition of Queen’s “The Show Must Go On” is poignant and bittersweet (the chorus and background orchestrations are so awesome), and captures the darkness that pervades tell me no lies. I also love the behind-the-scenes shots of the theater being prepared for the big show — the seamstresses at work, the stagehands placing finishing touches on the sets, the angst that lies beneath the performers’ smiling faces.

Jack's Saloon, circa 1890

The real saloons of the day, of course, weren’t nearly as glamorous as the Moulin Rouge. Archival photographs (my favorite, as we all know!) show some run-down dives, and newspaper accounts also describe some seriously sketch places. An 1889 article from the San Francisco Chronicle, for example, makes mention of the “hoodlum beer saloons” of the Barbary Coast where “sitters,” or “men who [would] go in, get 5 cents’ worth of beer once in a while and sleep all they want” would hang out.

Interior of the Cobweb Palace. Source: James Smith, SF City Guides

The Cobweb Palace was one of the popular establishments in San Francisco during the latter half of the 19th century. Founded in 1856 at Meiggs Wharf by Abe Warner, the Cobweb Palace was named for the webs that were used as decoration inside the tavern.

According to James R. Smith, the bar was also known for Warner’s collection of walrus tusks and shark teeth, along with his set of nude paintings (apparently he amassed over one thousand of these). Even better was his live menagerie of monkeys, talking parrots, occasional bears or kangaroos, and other small animals.

Entrance of the Cobweb Palace (note the monkeys). Source: James R. Smith, SF City Guides

One of Abe Warner's monkeys. Source: Calisphere, UC Libraries

By the end of the 19th century, the Barbary Coast had reportedly calmed down (translation: fewer cases of theft, violence, and murder). Still, the rough-and-tumble half-acre of San Francisco lives on in memory and legend, and provides me with a wealth of inspiration for my own work.

How do you brainstorm setting? What inspirations do you draw on when it comes to world-building?

ROW80: Still on Track!

August 10, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 24 Comments

Not too much to report for this mid-week ROW80 check-in. Blogwise, I’ve been keeping up with my theme days — I wrote a steampunk fashion post on Monday and a fun music post yesterday — and I’ve got drafts of the remaining two posts for the week queued up.

In the realm of writing, tell me no lies is coming along. I’ve been tweaking the plot, and taking time to work out the kinks and details for the latter half of the story. My MC now has a fleshed-out backstory that is much more, and I have a better idea of what the climax will look like. Better yet, my antagonist, a sociopathic serial killer, is sending very creepy letters to my MC (creepy to the point where I am getting the heebie-jeebies). The story has reached 16k, which means that I have another 34k to write in order to ‘win’ CampNaNo. Shockingly, this doesn’t seem too far out of reach, so maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a working draft of this novel by the end of the month. *crosses fingers and looks hopeful*

If I can maintain the pace of writing roughly 1500 words per day, I might consider giving my other two WIPs the NaNo treatment, focusing solely on one for a month or so, hammering out as many words as possible, and then setting it aside to move on to the next tale. I am almost certain that I am going to attempt NaNo in November, and if I indeed do so, I am going to take the month to edit and finish Path to the Peacock Throne. I’ve had glimmers of ideas for the latter two-thirds of the book, and I think by the time November rolls around, I’ll be more than ready to get back to my world of magic and legend and lore.

The other thing I’ve been doing this week is playing around with flash fiction. Up till this point, I’ve avoided it like the plague, mostly because I tend to be quite a wordy sort of writer. I like detail and backstory and description, and the thought of having to cram all that into a teeny tale was more than I could bear. But I figured I’d try out a challenge involving the seven heavenly virtues, and surprisingly, I’m having a blast. I’ve covered the first four — Chastity, Temperance, Charity, and Diligence — and I have some ideas simmering in my head for the final three. At 100 words each they are a bit of a challenge to write, but oh my, I’m having fun doing it.

-oOo-

And now for a cool historical tidbit! For this check-in, I offer a collection of pretty pictures, courtesy of the Library of Congress’ Photocrom Print Collection. This collection showcases travel photographs taken around the world between 1890s and 1910s, and are all in color. I highly recommend checking it out, as the photos are all incredibly gorgeous.

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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.

Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy

Tag: picspam

Monday Inspirations: The Moulin Rouge

ROW80: Still on Track!

ROW80: Digging Through the Archives

Lena Corazon

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