story: tell me no lies – Page 2

Tag: story: tell me no lies (page 2 of 3)

ROW80: It’s Business Time

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*

New Goals and A Bit of Inspiration

January 2, 2012 / Lena Corazon / 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!

ROW80: ROW-ing Through the Snow

December 11, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 9 Comments

ROW-oh-ing, ROW-oh-ing through the snow, writing bells are ringing…

Happy Sunday, friends and ROWers! Yes, that is my one-line attempt at a ROW-flavored holiday song. For fun, here’s Nat King Cole singing the original:

I’ve been back in San Francisco since Thursday, and right now, life is good. Here’s my mini-list of exciting accomplishments:

Work: I’m half-way through grading final papers, and for the most part, the students have done a wonderful job. I’ve been reminded of my favorite part of TA’ing ethnographic methods classes: I get to supervise students’ research and watch their projects (and their skills) develop over the quarter. Many of them have come a long way since the first few weeks of the course, and have written up excellent accounts of their research projects. Even better, some of them actually read the feedback I provided on past assignments (you’d be surprised how rare this is), and incorporated my suggestions and edits in their papers.

School: I had a great, albeit somewhat impromptu, meeting with my advisor before I left. She’s asked me to help her with a research project that she and I have been discussing for the past couple of years, and I’m really excited — it involves archival research about religious communities (i.e. Catholic nuns) in the United States. The project is in its preliminary phases, but if she can get funding I can come aboard as a paid research assistant. We also started discussing plans for the dissertation fellowships I’m going to apply for next year, which is really exciting.

Writing: Now that NaNo’s finished, I’m back to rotating between my multiple unfinished projects. After some not-so-gentle nudging from the characters of my steampunk tale, I’m working on a plan for edits and rewrites. Apparently I’m also writing a short story or two of prequel-esque backstory, because Tempest Dumont has demanded it, and she’s the sort of gal that one can’t refuse. I pantsed the first draft of TELL ME NO LIES, and now I’m struggling to impose some structure on my sprawling mass of scenes. It’s too short — only 51K, with about 35 scenes, so now I have to figure out where to fill in the blanks, and what to add. I won’t lie, the whole thing is incredibly daunting. Sometimes I think I’d be better off sticking with short stories or novellas…. but we’ll see how things go.

Now that we’re firmly in the midst of December, how is everyone else holding up?

Fiction Fridays: The Music of Tell Me No Lies

December 9, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 16 Comments

Today’s Fiction Friday post is brought to you by the voices in my head. Yes, my characters not only try to dictate my storylines and plots, but now they are conspiring to stage a coup and take over my blog posts as well. 🙂 Because Tempest Dumont, the main character of my steampunk WIP, TELL ME NO LIES, has demanded it, I’m going to talk about the music behind the story.

For anyone who’s unaware, TELL ME NO LIES is my crazy steampunk romantic thriller, set in 1890s San Francisco (the Barbary Coast, to be specific). Tempest is a popular saloon singer who finds herself targeted by a mysterious serial killer who is bent on murdering those scandalous “ladies of the stage,” Jack-the-Ripper-style. The police refuse to believe that the murders are connected, and so she sets off on a one-woman crusade to find the killer and bring him to justice. Along the way, she receives the help of Adam Davenport, the one detective who believes her claims and wants to see justice served. The two of them are like oil and water, and they struggle to set aside their differences (and ignore the growing of attraction between them) to solve the murders.

Tempest is one of those characters who just won’t shut up. She’s incredibly different from my other MCs — loud, brassy, and cynical. She had a rough upbringing, ran away from home when she was 15, and ended up falling in love with a ne’er-do-well airship pirate who eventually broke her heart and tried to frame her for one of his crimes. Now she thinks that she’s heartless and incapable of love… but she just might be wrong.

The playlist has a distinct folk/country feel to it. Even though the tale takes place at the end of the 19th century when San Francisco has become refined and urban, there’s this residual “wild west” vibe that I can’t quite shake.

The first song that I’ll share with you is “Tennessee” by Gillian Welch (Lyrics). In so many ways, this is the definitive Tempest song, just from the first verse alone:

I kissed you ‘cause I’ve never been an angel
I learned to say hosannas on my knees
But they threw me out of Sunday school when I was 9
And the sisters said I did just as I pleased
Even so, I tried to be a good girl
It’s only what I want that makes me weak
I had no desire to be a child of sin
Then you went and pressed your whiskers to my cheek.

That scandalous, whiskered man? Gillian Welch is of course referring to Jack Davenport, the rakish airship pirate who broke Tempest’s heart and double-crossed her. In all seriousness, however, I love Gillian’s voice, and I am sorta convinced that this song was written for Tempest. It’s the perfect theme.

The second song is “Barton Hollow” by The Civil Wars (Lyrics).

Tempest is the sort of gal who doesn’t really believe in redemption, and who carries around a lot of baggage when it comes to dealing with her past. The chorus resonates with all those themes:

Ain’t going back to Barton Hollow
Devil’s gonna follow me ‘ever I go
Won’t do me no good, washing in the river
Can’t no preacherman save my soul

The final song isn’t folk or country, but pop — Pink’s “Glitter in the Air” (Lyrics).The entire album, Funhouse, is on the playlist, but this song is my favorite. Incidentally, I’m convinced that this may be the best awards show performance I’ve ever seen. Pink kills it here:

I love this song to the marrow of my bones. It is achingly beautiful, and the last lines of the song move me to tears sometimes:

Have you ever wished for an endless night?
Lassoed the moon and the stars and hold that rope tight
Have you ever held your breath and asked yourself
Will it ever get better than tonight?

This the song that plays in my head whenever I think of Tempest and Adam’s romance. They’re two souls who have been scarred, who are a bit bruised and broken, yet somehow fight their fears and allow themselves to be vulnerable to one another.

So there you have it, the music of TELL ME NO LIES. It’s not a definitive list by any means (the “official” playlist is over 60 songs long), but I think these three songs capture the overall vibe of the novel. Just listening to them makes me want to drop everything and start working on it again — or maybe that’s just Tempest talking. 😉

ROW80: 50k, is that you?

November 26, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 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. 😀

Ghouls Galore: Gormagon

October 23, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 6 Comments

The third challenge for Ghouls Galore involves the word “absquatulate,” a synonym for “abscond” that dates from the 1830s, and the gormagon. The gormagon is a mythical creature described as a “beast with two backs,” with “six eyes, three mouths, [and] eight legs,” among other less-than-savory characteristics.

Charming, huh? It’s definitely not something I’d ever want to encounter, but unfortunately, Jack and Tempest (two of my characters from TELL ME NO LIES, my steampunk WIP), aren’t so fortunate. I’d actually love to expand this 250 word piece into something longer, ’cause imagining this grotesque beast in the middle of 19th century California sparks too many ideas for me to capture here.

“Stranded”

“This is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” Tempest trembled head-to-toe with anger. “You just had to waltz into that bank and absquatulate with everything in the vault, and now look at us! Our escape plan was foiled, the cops have shot us down, and we’re in the middle of nowhere. The hell were you thinking?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Jack mumbled, regarding the wreck of his airship with scarcely-concealed disappointment. The hull was damaged, and it would take days to repair it. More troubling was the fact that the police ship was nowhere to be found.

“Strange,” he said. “Why didn’t the cops haul us in?”

A low rumbling sounded in the distance, an ominous punctuation to his words. With a curse, Jack grabbed Tempest and tugged her down behind the wreckage just as a nightmarish creature that came into view, thundering towards them with single-minded purpose. Multiple limbs protruded from its body; a half-dozen eyes rolled and twitched in red-rimmed sockets. Most disgusting of all was the genitalia grotesquely positioned upon its body, male and female alike.

“A gormagon,” he spat. “That’s why the cops left us out here. They don’t think we’ll make it through alive.”

Undaunted, Tempest stood, the air crackling with energy as she powered up her raygun. “We’ll just have to disappoint them, won’t we?”

“That we will, sweetheart.” The gormagon pawed the ground with its many feet, preparing to charge them once more. “Let’s go hunting.”

ROW80: Wrapping Up Round 3

September 22, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 9 Comments

With my mom in town and school starting back today, it’s been a busy few days since our last check-in. Mom and I have been out every day except for Wednesday, I’ve been doing a ton of driving for all of our adventuring, and I had a major case of the freak-outs yesterday, when I saw the syllabus for one of my classes (so many books and articles, I think my eyeballs will roll out of my head by December). I calmed myself down by remembering that this really isn’t anything new, but yikes, it was definitely a scary moment.

But onto fun things! Today marks the end of ROW80’s Round 3, and it is both an exhilarating and bittersweet feeling. Reflecting on Round 3, I’ve come to appreciate all the more the length and nature of this writing challenge. Having 80 days to work towards a set of goals, and being encouraged to be flexible with them if necessary, has been exactly what I’ve needed.

These were my initial goals for Round 3 (I actually had to look them up, because I changed them more than once, and forgot what the original ones were):

Write an average of 500 words/day on any project. This means that I’m doubling my Round 2 word count goal, which makes me slightly nervous, but we’ll see how it goes! I found myself exceeding the original 250 words/day goal consistently, so I don’t think this increase will be too burdensome.

Complete Act 2 of Path to the Peacock Throne, and resist the urge to do too much editing to Act 1.

Move from brainstorming and world-building tell me no lies to working on the first draft.

I ended up exceeding the daily word count quite a bit when I tackled CampNaNo in August. While I didn’t complete Act 2 of PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE, I did write over 50k for TELL ME NO LIES, which was a feat in and of itself. I also wrote roughly 13K for STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, although I’ve placed that on the back-burner for the moment.

I had a few other goals for the summer, in particular finishing the 1st draft of my MA thesis. I haven’t finalized the draft, but I did manage to write over 12.5K, retool the theoretical framework, and outline the remainder of the “results” section. I was feeling a little down about not having everything finished and wrapped up. However, I ran into my advisor at the grocery store the other day (oh, the perils of going to school in a small town), who told me to “take my time” finalizing the project. Definitely lifts a little of the pressure off my shoulders, though I do have my own timeline (defending by December?) that I’d like to maintain.

So that’s Round 3! Lots of success, lots of challenges, and lots of surprises. The best part, though, are all of the wonderful people I have met along the way, and who have been an amazing source of support and inspiration. I’m looking forward to ROCKING THE ROW with all of you when Round 4 starts on October 3rd!

In the meantime, I’m off for a visit with my younger sister this weekend, and to have a bit more fun with my mom before she returns back home next Wednesday. After that, it’ll be back to the grind of studying, thesisizing, teaching, and hopefully squeezing in time to work on my WIPs. I haven’t actually written much of anything in the past two or three weeks, and it’s starting to make me feel a little crazy.

I have a few ideas for my Round 4 goals, and I as I’ll be taking Kristen Lamb’s “Blogging to Build Your Brand” class, I’m sure some of these goals will include retooling and refining my blog. I also need to figure out which project I’m going to tackle for November’s NaNoWriMo, but I’ll be chatting more about this once October rolls around.

That’s all for now, ROW80 friends (you can find everyone here). Hope to see you all on October 3rd!

ROW80: A New Name, and Some Plotting

September 11, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 32 Comments

ROWers, the end of Round 3 is almost upon us! Here’s my short recap for the past few days:

The Grand Name Change happens at midnight! If you see “Lena Corazon” pop up on your Twitter feed, don’t be alarmed — it’s just me. In order to ease the transition as much as possible, I’ll be using WordPress’s site redirect service. This means that anyone who heads to jamilajamison.wordpress.com will automatically be sent to the new site (which should be lenacorazon.wordpress.com, unless someone steals it from me before midnight). So hopefully people don’t get too confused, but I’ll have a sticky announcement up on my front page with an explanation, just in case. For my Writers’ Campaign folks, I’ll send an announcement to Rach so she can put it on Friday’s announcement board.

I’ve returned to edits for TELL ME NO LIES in earnest. I plan to dig into the suspense and thriller aspects of the novel, tweaking the murder plot and adding in the details of the police investigation (this involves research into 19th century forensic techniques — fun!). I’m also putting on my sociologist’s cap, trying to consider the larger political and social ramifications presented by the novel’s main conflict: a serial killer is preying upon “ladies of the stage” in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. While these ramifications will play out in the background of the tale, they will, of course, have a major impact on my protagonists and their attempts to hunt down the killer.

I continue to make time for reading. I’m about halfway through Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, a book that seems to defy genre. I’ve heard it described variously as “post-cyberpunk,” “futuristic steampunk,” and “math fiction.” I’ll just say that it is speculative fiction at its best, and presents a futuristic world where nanotechnology is the norm, nation-states have been replaced by a proliferation of tiny city-states/semi-sovereign communities, and “Anglo-Americans” have returned to elements of Victorian culture in the form of dress, aesthetics, and etiquette. Stephenson is one of the most amazing masters of world-building, so I am simultaneously taking notes, marveling at his skill, and, of course, enjoying the story.

Finally, I’m obsessed with The Civil Wars, an awesome folksy music duo that’s making some gorgeous music. Adele apparently went to one of their concerts and declared that it was the greatest live show she had ever attended. I’ll have a chance to test this claim, as they’re coming to Santa Barbara in November. They’re offering one of their live albums for free download, along with their first single, “Barton Hollow,” is available for free download, but I’m going to share “To Whom It May Concern” with you. It’s my favorite song off the album (the lyrics resonate with my inner hopeless romantic), and I’ve been listening to it non-stop.

I’m also considering the slate of fall writing courses that have surfaced online, including Tiffany Lawson Inman’s The Triple Threat Behind Staging a Scene, and Kristen Lamb’s class on Blogging To Build Your Brand. I’d like to do them both, but I’m trying to be careful with what I add to my plate, since this is going to be a busy fall quarter. But we’ll see! It’s hard to pass up two incredibly amazing opportunities like these. 😀

That’s about it for me. Check in with the rest of the intrepid ROW80 cohort here, and cheer them on as we enter the final stretch of this round.

ROW80: And the Winner Is…

August 31, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 53 Comments

Well, friends, here we are at the end of August, and I have all sorts of lovely news to share. For starters, I did find out that I didn’t win the SheWrites contest I mentioned a couple of weeks back, although there are five absolutely amazing folks who did. However, there are lots of other things that have happened that give me warm fuzzies:

1. I WON CAMPNANO!

Eeep, it's so shiny!!!

Ahem, you will forgive me a wee bit of excitement. There were some days this month when I wasn’t sure if I’d ever reach 50,000 words, but somewhere in the small hours of the morning, I reached my goal. I can hardly believe that I did it, and I am soooo grateful for everyone who’s provided me with encouragement over the past few weeks (EmWantstoWrite, I’m looking at you — those tweets of yours have been wonderful!).

In honor of this success, I’ve posted the first scene of TELL ME NO LIES. It’s the version that I polished up for the SheWrites contest, though it will most likely end up getting pulled apart and tweaked later on down the line. Check it out if you are so inclined. 😀

2. Blog Love!

The second piece of awesome news: Last week I received my first-ever blog award!

I was given the Liebster from both Emilia Quill and David A. Ludwig, two bloggers and writers that I had the wonderful opportunity to meet during the 7 Virtues Flash Fiction Challenge earlier in the month. In addition, Isis Rushdan, a new friend that I’ve made through the Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign, gave me an honorable mention.

I’m incredibly grateful, especially because I started blogging back in May without any real expectations, beyond trying to be accountable for my writing goals through ROW80. Somewhere along the way, however, I have met some wonderful people who I am quite proud to refer to as friends.

More exciting than receiving the Liebster is the chance to pass it on. These are the rules for the award:

THE RULES:

Show your appreciation to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
Post the award on your blog.
Bask in the camaraderie of the most supportive people on the internet—other writers.
And best of all—have bloggity fun and spread the love.

With that in mind, here are my top five picks, chosen for their overall awesomeness and supportiveness. Ladies, you’re all wonderful!

EmWantsToWrite (@EmWantsToWrite)
Nadja Notariani
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell (@lapidaryprose)
Marie Andrews (@marie_andrews)
C.M. Cipriani (@crystalcip)

Swing by their blogs, add them on Twitter, leave them lots of love. Ladies, I look forward to seeing who will receive the Liebster to next.

On the topic of friends, I’m looking forward to going out to the Castro tonight to celebrate the 26th birthday of one of my closest buddies, Chris. We’ve known each other since 3rd grade, and still fondly reminisce about our “puppy love” days, even though he came out a couple of years ago.

My bestie and me, 5 years ago

Now that NaNo’s behind me, I think I’m going to take a few days off, as I’m feeling slightly frazzled and brain dead. I need to focus my attention on my thesis, since I haven’t gotten too much done on that front. I’ve also got a hefty stack of books on the TBR list, so I’m going to tackle those as well. I’ve also been a little swamped and missed Monday and Tuesday’s blog posts, so hopefully I can take some time to queue up a few posts this weekend. With roughly three weeks left until school starts back, I want to make the most of my remaining free time.

Don’t forget: Today’s the last day to jump aboard the Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign! It looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun (and I’ve seen some friendly ROW80 faces as well), so check it out.

ROW80’ers, we’ve only got a couple of weeks left of Round 3! How goes your progress? Swing by to check in on everyone here.

ROW80: A Rose by Any Other Name…

August 28, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 33 Comments

It’s been a jam-packed few days, dominated by helping my sister move in to her new apartment in time for the school year to begin. I spent most of Thursday and Friday either packing, driving, or unpacking, but in the midst of everything, I snagged a few spare moments to work on my NaNo tale.

I’m happy to report that I have less than 6.5K to write before CampNaNo ends on the 31st. While the story is in no means complete, I have an amazing foundation in place. I’m looking forward to crafting a world around my characters, beefing up my use of steampunk technology, tightening the mystery/thriller elements of the plot, and weaving in bits of backstory and alternative history. Editing, I think, might end up being more fun than writing the first draft.

The other thing that has been on my mind is the question of choosing a pseudonym. I’ve been pretty lax about keeping my writing and non-writing lives separate. With the school year looming before me, however, the urge to protect my writing activities from Google-obsessed colleagues and students has become much stronger.

Adopting a penname is a difficult decision to make because I like my name. Granted, it’s a name that is often butchered and mispronounced, so I’ve learned to respond to countless variations (“Jamz” is the most recent, bestowed upon me by my grad school colleagues), but all the same, it represents who I am.

Most importantly, my name feels like an almost-tangible link to a rich tapestry of family history, one that is made all the more complex by my multiracial heritage. Jamison, my mother’s maiden name, connects me with a family tree that has been traced back to the Civil War, when the Emancipation Proclamation freed my many-times removed great-grandmother from slavery. Sinlao, my father’s last name, connects me to the Philippines, where my dad lived until he was 15. I feel strongly about being both black and Filipina, and the thought of discarding name and identity is troubling.

Still, a pseudonym is necessary. I want to write, I want to publish, and I want to build a presence on social media that won’t infringe upon my professional career. The only way I can do this without stressing out is to just pick a darn penname and move on.

To stem the inevitable existential crisis, I’ve crafted a name that hearkens back to my roots. I’m adopting “Lena Corazon” as my writing name, “Lena” after my maternal great-great grandmother, and “Corazon” as my private homage to Corazon Aquino, the first female president of the Philippines.

I’ve spent the past couple of days trying it out. Slowly but surely, I’m making it my own, scribbling it in my writing notebook, setting up Gmail and G+ accounts, and, er, dropping it in conversation whenever I can (I think my mom is getting sick of hearing about it. :p). Once I can set up WordPress’ site redirection service, I’ll switch over my blog address and Twitter account name as well. The thought is a little scary and rather bizarre, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. 😀

So that’s me for the week! I will be traveling most of Sunday, heading back to SF, which means that comments and whatnot may be sparse from me over the next day or two. In the meantime, I wave my pom-poms of encouragement for all of my ROW80 compatriots as we near the end of Round 3. Keep up all the wonderful work, friends!

Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy