Tag: social media (page 1 of 2)

ROW80: Have You Ever Heard an Alpaca Whine?

Happy Sunday, folks! I’ve successfully completed my first week of work as the front counter assistant at my local Boys and Girls Club, and now I’m ready for a little silliness. What could be better than a visit with some awesomely fuzzy animals at the petting zoo?

There were chickens, rabbits, sheep, goats, and (my favorites) a pig, tortoise, and alpaca. I may have been more excited than all of the kids who were gathered there. 😛

Oliver, the cutest pig ever. (Photo Credit: Lena Corazon)

This baby goat was head-butting Oliver, the precious pig. (Photo Credit: Lena Corazon)

Baby, the alpaca who wouldn’t stop whining. (Photo Credit: Lena Corazon)

The alpaca pictured above had the strangest tendency to whine incessantly. It was such an uncanny noise that I had to take some video footage.

Isn’t it the cutest thing ever?

This week’s progress:

Day Job: I was a little stressed out about starting work this week, so I gave myself the week off from all dissertation-related activities. Starting tomorrow, though, I’ll be tackling the edits to my academic journal article, which are due on Friday.

Writing: I also decided to take a little time off here, as well. #teamsprinty is adding an evening writing sprint (7 pm Pacific/10 pm Eastern), so I’m going to be taking advantage of that in the week to come. My goal is to edit the next 2 chapters of TMNL, to get back on track.

Social Media: I used my mornings before work this week to work on blog posts (I know–even I’m shocked). I’ve got one queued up for tomorrow about the aerial scavenger hunt I took to an old WWII training camp, and an awesome video clip for Friday. I’ve also discovered the wonders of the WordPress app for iPhone, which makes commenting on blogs way easier.

So that’s about all for me right now! I’m looking forward to inching back into the world of blogging, digging into my research again, and making some progress with edits.

How’s the week going for everyone else? Don’t forget to say wave your pompoms for the rest of the ROW80 community!

ROW80: Better Late Than Never

July 13, 2013 / Lena Corazon / 26 Comments

Heyyyy! Okay, I’m a couple of weeks late for Round 3 of A Round of Words in 80 Days, but I finally made it. Anyone have a cool drink to share? I need something to keep me cool during these unexpectedly warm summer days. 😛

It’s been a crazy few months, as most of you have been able to tell. But I’m happy to report that I’ve managed to wrangle at least few things in my life into some semblance of order. As far as the dissertation is concerned, I’ve completed almost all of my archival research, and my committee has approved my proposal. I wrote my very first academic journal article (whoo-hoo!) and while it still needs to undergo the review process, I got an early thumbs-up that eases a lot of my anxiety. And as far as my creative writing goes, I’ve finally been able to dig into TELL ME NO LIES, my steampunk romance/murder mystery/thriller that I’ve been trying to finish for two years now.

Things are definitely coming together.

With that, here’s my list of things to accomplish during Round 3:

WRITING:

Complete edits for Act I of TELL ME NO LIES, and create a detailed outline for Act II
Participate in July’s Camp NaNoWriMo, and write 15k towards SOMEWHERE IN THE WEST

DAY JOB:

Finish archival research
Complete dissertation proposal edits
Start analyzing all the data that’s already been collected
Draft dissertation chapters 1 and 2

BLOGGING:

Aim for 1 ROW80 check-in and 1 regular blog post each week
Visit and comment on at least 5 blogs each week
Brainstorm changes for my blog, to put into action during Round 4

My biggest goal for this round, I think, is to ease back into things without crippling myself with anxiety or fear or any of the other things that have been holding me back this year. I’m feeling a lot more positive and excited about the work I have before, so hopefully that’ll translate into getting lots done!

A Little Progress, and A Very Special Birthday

October 4, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 5 Comments

It’s Wednesday (or at least it was when I started writing this post), which means that it’s time for the mid-week ROW80 check-in. But before I get to that shiny list of goals and progress, I wanted to pause and say a big, fat HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the WANA1011 class!

The WANA1011 Hall of Fame (Image created by Rachel Funk Heller)

A little background: Back in October 2011, the awesome dipped-in-glitter Kristen Lamb, author of We Are Not Alone and writer/blogger extraordinaire, offered a two month course called “Blogging to Build Your Brand.” 100 people signed up, and we made our way through social media bootcamp. Somewhere along the way, we also became a fantastic group of friends, staunch allies, and a warm and welcoming community to which I’m proud to belong.

I’m not exactly sure how a year has gone by so quickly, but we’re celebrating all over the web for the next few days (okay, okay, I say “few” because the birthday was technically October 3rd and I’m not going to get this posted till the 4th).

And now, onto the progress from the first few days of ROW80:

Day Job: I’m easing slowly into this. By the end of the week, I’d like to accomplish the following:

review notes from my “little conversation” and hammer out a rough outline for my revised dissertation proposal
create a preliminary reading list for my 2nd round of research
look at upcoming grant and scholarship applications, and figure out if applying for any of them is feasible
contact dissertation committee with plans for our next meeting, which will hopefully come in January 2013

Writing: #OctPoWriMo is going really well. I’ve written a poem each day (found here on tumblr), and I have a whole list of ideas and drabbles for future poems. For those of you who write poetry, or even who have been thinking about trying to write poetry, I encourage you to visit the website and get involved. This community of writers is supportive and nurturing, and Morgan and Julie have been posting some fantastic prompts.

By next check-in: I should have 4 more poems written. I’d also like to get a little more brainstorming on the #NaNoWriMo project done.

Exercise: Mom and I walked three days so far this week, 4 miles each day. I may have indulged in one too many sweets yesterday (mmm, pistachio-flavored French macaroons!), but I won’t be making that a habit.

By next check-in: 2 more walks, hopefully at 5 miles each, but it depends on the weather.

Social Media: I’m still pretty quiet on Twitter, but I’ve managed to comment/RT/like at least two blogs each day. I also posted about 20th century poet May Sarton on Monday, and included a couple of her poems.

By next check-in: Hopefully a Friday post, which is partly drafted but needs lots of polishing. Not sure if it’ll get done, as my Thursday is a little packed.

Self-Care: My 7 am wake-up sessions are still working. Taking time for free-writing and journaling has done a world of good for helping me to feel grounded, deliberate, and present in my life, instead of flailing around like a headless chicken, the way I usually do. 😛

Are you easing slowly into Round 4, or diving in headfirst? Be sure to swing by and visit the other ROWers checking-in this week!

ROW80: In Which Lena Vanquishes Her To-Do List

September 12, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 23 Comments

Yup, you read that right. My massive summer to-do list has been conquered. Given that it’s been almost a month since my last check-in, it’s really exciting to have good news to report. Here’s the Awesome List of Success:

This is what happens when I am stressed and trying to procrastinate, and the cat decides he wants to distract me.

Day Job: I wrote my Very Big Paper, which ended up being 45 pages on the history of Catholic sisters in the United States during the nineteenth century. Next, I finished the Paper From Hell, a 16 page paper on conduct literature that included lots of social theory and more big words than you can shake a stick at. And Tuesday night I hammered out a 3.5 page dissertation mini-proposal, complete with some preliminary research questions and a tentative chapter outline. Add in the 6 hours of archival research I’ve been doing each week, and you have one very, very vanquished to-do list.

Now that all the hard work is out of the way, I can head back to Santa Barbara and meet with my dissertation committee next week for my “little conversation,” the final requirement that I need to advance to doctoral candidacy. Accomplishing that means that I’ve jumped all the institutional loopholes — coursework, papers, and all that jazz. In other words, the only thing standing between me and my PhD is the dissertation.

Writing: I didn’t get a chance to talk about this, since I’ve been stuck in the writing cave for the last few weeks, but I did end up winning Camp NaNoWriMo. STRANGE BEDFELLOWS is the poster child for the zero draft, with plotholes wider than the Grand Canyon, inconsistent characterization, and a million other problems, but I think there’s a fairly strong skeletal structure underneath it all. And, you know, it’s like 66k long, and I can’t complain about that.

For fun, and to keep up my writing momentum, I thought I’d try out my first round of Fast Drafting with a nugget of an idea that’s been nagging at me for a few months. (Yes, I am an overachiever. And yes, I am quite clearly a glutton for punishment.) I’ve fallen off the Fast Draft train over the last couple of days, derailed by migraines, the Paper From Hell, and my dissertation mini-proposal, but I am going to try to get back on track over the next day or two. Right now this little project (tentatively titled SOMEWHERE IN THE WEST) has a little over 17k — nowhere near my original goal, but still pretty awesome.

Exercise: I really fell off the wagon in terms of eating well and exercising, but my mom and I have a new plan that we have been implementing for the last couple of weeks. We are now walking 5 days a week, a minimum of 2 miles each day, and we’ve eliminated all the sweet, sugary things from the grocery list. I’m seeing a tiny difference, which will hopefully become a much larger difference in the weeks to come.

Social Media: My blog reading and commenting has been sporadic, I’ve been pretty quiet on Twitter, but I’ve been hanging out on Facebook a little more often. I’ve got a few blog posts drafted, so I might be able to start blogging again in October. This, of course, depends on whether or not I can have some time to unwind and chill out.

-oOo-

At the moment, my most immediate goal is to deal with my “little conversation” next week, and then to spend the rest of September doing nothing but gorging myself on novels, naps, and video games. I will also be carving out time to blog-hop and respond to comments, something that has been next to impossible with my brain all messy and overwhelmed, and my internal settings set to so-anxious-can’t-even-breathe.

Once again, Napoleon is my mentor in the art of leisure.

So yay! How is everyone doing? I’ve missed you all a ton! This ROWnd is winding down, but I’m hoping to wave at all my fellow ROWers in the days to come.

ROW80: A Bloggy Birthday

May 19, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 34 Comments

Happy Sunday, ROWers! This weekend is a special one, as I’m celebrating my blog’s first birthday. I’m actually a week late — my very first post, a ROW80 check-in, was posted on May 15th — but better late than never, right?

In celebration, I’m bringing out Party Sloth…

…and you know that festivities would be incomplete without Hugh…

For fun, I thought I’d make a mini-vlog, just to wave and say hello. It’s nothing fancy, but I wanted a chance to thank all of you in “person.” Without this amazing, wonderful, phenomenal community, I think I would’ve abandoned both the blogging experiment and my writing attempts ages ago. 😀

I missed last week’s check-in due to grading, but here’s how things are going so far:

Day Job: The stack of midterms is never-ending, the reading is never-ending, the homework is never-ending. The quarter ends in three weeks, and till then, I will be furiously working my buns off to get things done. My brain is buzzing, I’m learning a ton, and I really am having fun… I just wish the pressure would ease off just a teeny bit. But grading will be done on Tuesday, and I’ll have a couple of weeks to take care of my work before it’s time to tackle the students’ final papers.

Writing: Okay, so, the week before last was my awesome writing week. The plot for STRANGE BEDFELLOWS dropped into my lap, completely unbidden, and I wrote about 4500 words between all 3 of my projects. Not much has happened this week, though, but I did raid the university library for books on 19th century San Francisco as part of my research for TELL ME NO LIES. Now, er, I just have to find time to read them. 😛

Exercise: I’ve been a little under the weather for the last few days, so I scaled back to a couple of short workouts instead of the usual 4 mile walk. But altogether I had 4 days of activity, which is pretty good.

Social Media: Ugh, a total bust. I’ve been unplugged for the last week because I can’t concentrate on grading otherwise. Operation KEEP TRYING is in progress.

Here’s what I’ve been reading and watching this week:

I finally got around to reading, CONSPIRACY, the fourth book in Lindsay Buroker‘s phenomenal EMPEROR’S EDGE series. The EE series is a blend of steampunk and fantasy, and features an unlikely band of outlaws striving to evade the law and do enough good deeds for the emperor to clear their names. Like the previous three, CONSPIRACY is a ton of fun — lots of tension, lots of action, lots of humor, and a great plot.

As far as movies go, I finished the last two episodes of the Zen miniseries, and I think it’s an absolute crime that it was cancelled after only one season (seriously, y’all, it’s soooo sad). I also caught The Raven, which I enjoyed, though not as much as other creepy period pieces, like Perfume or The Prestige. Next up is the miniseries Case Histories, starring Jason Isaacs, which I’ve been dying to watch.

…And with that, I am crawling back into my reading/grading/working cave. Hope you’ve all had an awesome week!

ROW80: Sunny Days Are Here!

April 29, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 10 Comments

Happy Sunday, folks! The sun is shining in my part of California, and that always leaves me feeling upbeat and excited. I feel like I’ve got a lot to look forward to. My parents will be in town for a couple of nights at the end of the week, as they’ll be moving my sister out of her apartment in LA for the summer. And I’m getting my 1st tattoo on Friday! I’m filled with all sorts of nervous anticipation (mostly about the pain, ugh), but I really can’t wait.

Before I get to my goals, I want to take a minute to hand out the fantabulous Sunshine award. I posted my response to the requisite 10 questions on Friday (you can find them here). I’m passing it on to the following bloggers:

Now, onto the check-in!

Day Job: The dissertation reading continues. Some days, the reading is hampered by anxiety: I am all too aware that my time in Santa Barbara, and therefore the time I have to figure out my research topic, is rapidly dwindling. I’ll hopefully be meeting with my committee members in the week to come. Their insights and suggestions are always valuable, and hopefully they’ll give me some ideas for wrangling my many ideas into something that makes sense.

Writing: Another slow week with writing. Most of the brainstorming I’ve been doing has taken place during undergrad lectures — lots of scrawled scribbles in the margins of my notebook. I really wanted to treat the first few weeks of this round like my own personal NaNoWriMo, and boy, am I failing miserably. I suppose the goal for the coming week will be the same as last week: to figure out exactly what I am capable of achieving in terms of fiction.

Slightly off-topic, I shared 7 random facts about my writing on Friday. For those of you who expressed an interest in Pierce, I will have you know that it has gone completely to his head, and he is almost too smug to bear at the moment. He would like me to thank you all, as he thinks that maybe now he’ll get bumped up in the in-progress queue (and he is quite compelling, so perhaps he will succeed in convincing me). And, yes, I realize how completely crazy this makes me sound, which is why I’m glad that I am not the only writer who admits to having conversations with make-believe characters.

Exercise: I’m still holding strong here, with 4 workout days this week. I wake up each morning looking forward to my walk, though I think my enthusiasm has been improved by the sunny weather and the fact that my clothes are fitting better. 😀

Social Media: I was only able to write 1 blog post last week, but I have 2 scheduled for the week to come. I’m getting back into the groove to blog reading, which has been so much fun. I think I made it to 12 ROWers last Sunday, and another 8 or 9 blogs during the week.

Finally, for fun, I thought I’d include a bit about what I’m watching and reading this week:

Films: I saw The Five-Year Engagement on Friday, starring Emily Blunt and Jason Segal on Friday, and it was absolutely brilliant… if you ignore the fact that it basically sums up my biggest fears about my professional life in academia: having to relocate somewhere very cold, dealing with “trailing spouse” syndrome, etc.

Outside of all that, I totally recommend the movie. There are lots of awesome shots of San Francisco (enough to make me crazy homesick, and very happy that I’m moving back in 2 months), many moments of hilarity, and a great ending.

Fiction: I finished His Good Opinion, Nancy Kelley’s lovely retelling of Pride and Prejudice from Mr. Darcy’s perspective. For those of you who ever wondered why Darcy falls for Elizabeth, and what’s going on in his head that leads him to make such a lovely transformation by the end of the novel, you should definitely check it out.

Non-Fiction: I’m working my way through Beyond Slavery: Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacies for the course I’m taking on gender and religion. The book is a collection of wide-ranging essays that

examine why Roman Catholicism and other branches of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam accepted slavery for so many centuries, and they consider how slavery shaped gender and sexual ethics in these three religious traditions. They also consider how Jews, Christians, and Muslims can draw upon the compassionate values of their traditions to overcome the lingering effects of slavery.

The essays are incredibly thought-provoking and fascinating, and raise lots of important implications for modern-day issues like marriage, employment and labor, the criminal justice system, welfare, and many other social institutions.

So that’s my life at the moment! Be sure to swing by and cheer on the other ROWers this week.

How are things going for the rest of you? Anything fun to look forward to in the weeks to come?

The Sunshine Award, and 7 Random Writing Facts

April 27, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 16 Comments

It’s been ages since I’ve written a post for Fiction Fridays, but I have an awesome excuse to do so this week: I’ve been given the lovely Sunshine Award from a few of my wonderful writing friends, and I’ve been tagged to take part in the “7 Facts” meme. Somewhere along the way, the latter morphed into the 7 Writing Facts meme, and that’s what I’m doing with it today.

First up, the Sunshine Award. Lynette Conroy, Em, and Shah Wharton were all gracious enough to pass this cheery award along to me. Many thanks, ladies!

The award requires that I answer the following 10 questions, and pass the award onto 10 more recipients. I’ll be passing the award along on Sunday as part of my ROW80 check-in. In the meantime, here’s the required Q&A:

Favorite color: It has, and always will be, deep, dark royal purple.
Favorite Animal: One word: SLOTHS. I know, you are shocked.
Favorite number: I rather like the number 9.
Favorite non-alcoholic drink: Tea. More on that in the 7 Facts below.
Facebook or Twitter: This is a toughy, ’cause I use them both but in very different ways. Facebook is where I find out about babies being born and childhood friends getting married. Twitter is where #teamsprinty gets into trouble and I catch up with my online buddies. Let’s call it a draw.
My passion: Letting my imagination run wild and creating stories out of the wreakage. Also, submersing myself in research, teaching college kids how to hone their critical thinking skills, and working towards social justice.
Getting or giving presents: Oh, very well, I’ll be honest — I LOVE getting gifts. So much fun. 😀
Favorite Pattern: I have a serious “thing” for art nouveau patterns of all kind, especially if they involve peacock feathers. The print below, taken from Eugène Grasset’s L’animal dans la décoration (1897), is a good example.
Favorite day of week: Friday, because there is an entire weekend that stretches before me, filled with all sorts of wonderful possibilities for relaxation, merry-making, and potentially-disastrous fun.
Favorite flower: Orchids, most specifically the phalaenopsis.

-oOo-

Next up, the Seven (Writing) Facts.

Because I am feeling silly, these are numbered in Tagalog, or as I like to call it, the “Father-tongue” (my dad’s from the Philippines). Enjoy!

Isa. When I was younger, writing was like a grown-up version of playing pretend. It gave me the chance to explore different careers and life paths, and to envision a world beyond the mind-numbing dullness of middle school and high school (oh, the joys of being way more mature than everyone else). As a result, almost everything I wrote between the ages of 12 and 22 were self-insert fics. Now that I’m more or less a grown-up person, self-insert fics are unnecessary, and all of my characters are original. Each of my female protags, however, have a teeny bit of me in them.

Dalawa. I have a soft spot in my heart for fan fiction. My earliest stories revolved around 90s boy bands. This includes the only story I have ever finished, the creatively-titled “Fan Fiction #3,” where my 3 best friends and I (the multi-platinum selling girl band, Eclypse) go on tour with ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys only to have hilarity and chaos ensue. These days, I’m more likely to read fan fiction than write it — the Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and X-Men fandoms are my favorites — but I will admit to having recently penned a couple of DA stories. I will also admit that TELL ME NO LIES began as a fan fiction, but has been considerably revamped over the last few years. 😛

Tatlo. Music drives my writing. I have playlists for every story, for individual characters, for relationships, and for specific scenes. There’s something really visceral about music that helps me to tap into emotion, and allows me to envision characters and their respective worlds. TELL ME NO LIES features an odd blend of late 90s alternative rock, Americana/folk, and country; PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE is all about Celtic music of the Loreena McKennitt/Cara Dillon variety; and STRANGE BEDFELLOWS is driven by ancient Mediterranean-inspired music, especially the Gladiator soundtrack and anything by Lisa Gerrard/Dead Can Dance.

Apat. In addition to music, my muse requires copious amounts of tea. Black Currant-flavored black tea is my absolute favorite, but I also love Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Jasmine Green, and Ginger teas. After 5 pm, however, it’s all about cocktails. Here, I defer to Hemingway’s advice.

Source: tumblr

Lima. Growing up, it always bothered me that I rarely found books with characters who looked like me or shared my background. As a result, most of my characters are people of color, and I try to create worlds (especially in my fantasy novel) that aren’t based on a western European model. I think a lot about the social location of my characters as well. Some occupy positions of relative privilege (Liandre from PPT and Alaia from SB, both royalty, fit here), while others, like Tempest from TMNL, find themselves on the margins of society. So social inequality, in whatever form, is something that’s always in the back of my mind when I write, along with the creative ways in which I can challenge those inequalities. Above all, I am deeply interested in the ways in which my characters draw upon their own strengths and agency to navigate worlds that attempt to constrict their freedom (that’s the feminist studies scholar in me, I think).

Anim. I used to think that my training as a social scientist, with all of its emphasis on method and theory, rationality and objectivity, was a roadblock to my endeavors in creative writing, but I’ve found that the exact opposite is true. The sociological imagination, as we call it, is really useful, especially when it comes to world-building. It allows me to look my characters and their personal problems, and understand how those problems are related to the larger social issues within their worlds. I am constantly thinking about the social institutions, practices, norms and values that structure their lives. Even better, those theoretical paradigms that I once dismissed are actually really handy. Marxist theories of conflict, along with issues of social location and position that emerge in feminist theory, are particularly relevant in TMNL; Emile Durkheim’s work on the “elementary forms of religious life,” as well as queer and feminist critiques of marriage, are instrumental in PPT.

Hugh Jackman, the man behind the character.

Pito. I’ve been ~~obsessing over~~ ~~abusing~~ writing the same character, Pierce, for the last ten years. He is an amalgamation of Hugh Jackman, the various characters that Hugh has portrayed, and my own devious imagination.

Pierce has been everything from an 18th-century Scottish warrior, modern day English duke, divine and omnipotent ruler of the universe, criminal profiler, brooding dom, sexy submissive, gentle painter and gardener, semi-perfect husband/father of five, and countless other things that I have doubtlessly forgotten. He is the (fictional) love of my life, and is currently more than a little put out that I have decided to place two other novels before his. But one of these days I will get to STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, where he is a rebel prince turned plaything to the imperial princess, and he will have his time in the spotlight.

ROW80: Down the Rabbit Hole of Academe

April 22, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 17 Comments

As the title of this ROW80 check-in attests, this last week has been all about the day job and not much else. I spent my weekend doing lots of reading, lots of thinking, lots of note-taking, and in my downtime, lots of videogaming (I am simultaneously replaying Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, which really deserves a blog post all its own). Here’s how things played out:

Day Job: I’m all caught up with the work that piled up while I was sick, which is great. Better yet, I’ve embarked on all of the reading and thinking work associated with the dissertation. There’s now a lot of information in my head; I’ve spent the weekend reading a ridiculous array of books and articles. I can now tell you about the early modern period and the construction of the English “Christian gentleman,” the ways in which modern-day upper class white men in France and the United States conceptualize social status and morality, and the importance of French phenomenology in current feminist thought.

I am not only shocked that my brain hasn’t yet exploded, but that it seems to be hungry for more. We’ll see how long this productive mood lasts, but cross your fingers that it continues indefinitely, because I have so friggin’ much to do in the next 6 weeks. In the meantime, there will be lots of tea-drinking (as tea is essential for the production of scholarly knowledge, lol) and lots of thinking.

Writing: I wrote roughly 800 words this week, not nearly what I wanted to get done. My class schedule this quarter conflicts with the #ROW80 writing sprints 3 out of 5 days in the week, which means I am going to have to figure out where I can fit writing into my (semi-) daily routine. I am coming to the conclusion, however, that the day job is going to have to be my priority during this round. Not sure how/if that translates into changing my writing goals, but we’ll see.

Exercise: I worked out 5 days in the past week, which is absolutely fantastic. The daily walk/at-home Pilates session is starting to become a habit that I look forward to. My clothes are fitting slightly better, which is also a good thing.

Social Media: This is another fail, along with the writing this week. This is actually my first time touching my laptop in 3 or 4 days, which is crazy for me. So, yet again, I’ve got something to work on in the week to come.

-oOo-

So that’s my life right now: lots of books, and lots of unwinding through escapist fantasy of Mass Effect-land. Hopefully there will be more writing in the week to come, but in the meantime, I am retreating back into my wee rabbit hole. 😛

How’s everyone else doing?

ROW80: It’s all About Bitty Baby Steps

April 14, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 40 Comments

As I mentioned in my post on Friday, I got derailed this past week by an unexpected bout with food poisoning. I’m back to normal now, thank goodness, but my ROW80 progress has been pretty limited.

Day Job: I ended up missing a full week of school because I was sick, but I’ve done a teeny bit of reading towards the dissertation proposal. Also, I found out a few days ago that a paper proposal I submitted for a conference in November was accepted. The paper is going to be an adaptation of my MA thesis, and will also serve as prep for both my dissertation proposal, and the journal article I’ll be co-writing with my advisor. I am going to make this paper work for me. 😛

Writing: I wrote 3437 words this week, most of them towards PATH TO THE PEACOCK throne. PPT wasn’t really on my radar until I used it to answer the Lucky 7 meme and was reminded how darn AWESOME this book is. TELL ME NO LIES is still on the agenda, but I might switch my focus to PPT for a while. It’s got a surprisingly strong structure, and while I’m fuzzy on how it’s going to end, ideas are flowing.

Exercise: I managed two short workouts this week, which isn’t too terrible. I think I may have lost a couple of pounds from being sick, so right now my goal is to keep those pounds off, and hopefully lose a little more. Walking and at-home Pilates are on the docket for next week.

Social Media: I wrote one blog post this week, but I haven’t had a chance to really visit any blogs. It’ll be something to work on in the week to come.

-oOo-

Before all the yuckiness hit, there were lots and lots of fun times! We kicked it off with the amazing and wonderful #ROW80 Twitter party, co-hosted by my partner-in-crime, Barbara McDowell. Once again, she and I were the last partiers left standing, which I think ought to earn us some sort of medal. 😉

Even better, I channeled my awesome ’80s side-ponytailing for the occasion. I’m showcasing the original, ’cause it really did rock:

It's ALL about the side pony.

Barbara and I will be going through all of the entries for the photo/blog contest over the next week. If you created a post with the “throwback” theme and didn’t post it to the linky, go ahead and add the link in the comments below.

Who else is easing into this round with bitty baby steps like I am? Or are you blazing along, tackling your goals effortlessly? Let me know, and while you’re at it, be sure to swing by and wave at the other ROWers who are checking in.

Jumping Aboard the Lucky 7 Meme-Mobile

April 4, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 40 Comments

I won’t lie — I absolutely love watching memes spread through the interwebz like wildfire. The Lucky 7 meme has been particularly fun to watch, because there’s nothing like seeing snippets from other writers’ WIPs.

Thanks to the ever-wonderful Rachel Funk Heller and J.R. Pearse Nelson, Lucky 7 madness has made it to Flights of Fancy. These are the rules:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP

2. Go to line 7

3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written.

4. Tag 7 authors, and let them know.

I’m posting 7 sentences from page 77 of PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE, my fantasy WIP that I worked on during NaNoWriMo 2011 (synopsis here). I have resisted my inner perfectionist’s urge to tweak/edit/overhaul the heck out of it (’cause seeing excerpts in raw form is part of the fun), so be gentle. 😀

I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until the waterskin touched my lips, and then I was guzzling down the clear liquid greedily, splashing the rest over my face. Flynne watched, a bemused expression on her face at my enthusiasm. “You’re going to have to freshen up before we reach shore. You’ve clearly spent far too much time among us.”

I returned her grin, her words filling me with a strange mix of pride and regret. I wasn’t ready to leave the Diomedea, but then again, when had anything happened to me when I was ready? My father had been taken long before his time; my home, brother, and very identity had been stripped in a single swoop, no warning involved. This voyage over the sea had seemed like the whole and sum of my world, and yet it was just a short break in a much longer, and much more scary, journey, an interim of sorts.

To continue the chain, I’m tagging the following authors. Go to it, friends!