Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy

Tag: writing (page 7 of 7)

Fiction Friday: Reflections of a Novel-Writing Sociologist

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.

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ROW80: ROW-ing Through the Snow

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?

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ROW80: The End-of-the-Quarter Vortex

I should be writing a 1-2 page self-evaluation for my feminist studies course, but the thought of trying to expand the single sentence that I’ve managed to write into at least 1 page makes me feel pretty “meh” at the moment. Seriously, how else can I say “Give me an A because I came to class and did the work and participated in discussion”? Talk about the worst assignment ever. :/ So here I am, writing a very rare Wednesday ROW80 check-in!

I haven’t touched anything blog or social media-related in quite a few days, and wow, I’m going through withdrawals. But I thought I would try to be a responsible sort of student and close Tweetdeck and Google Reader so I could focus on all the work that I have to do — painful, but necessary.

Classes ended last Thursday, and after that I fell into the spiraling madness of thesis-editing and final paper-writing. It is a strange vortex, rather like an alternate universe, where I forget the days of the week and maintain really odd sleeping hours, punctuated by brief sprints of writing and odd breaks filled with television and/or video games, and longer periods staring into space and avoiding work altogether.

This weekend, the television show in question is the original UK version of Being Human, which is so bloody awesome I cannot contain my glee. It is about a ghost, a werewolf, and a vampire who share a house and grapple with their attempts to fit in with humans without revealing their supernatural status — a genius premise, if you ask me. It is dark and somewhat creepy and funny and touching, all at once (for the record, I cried twice during the first 3 episodes, which I was not expecting at all). I’m almost through with Season 2, and I highly recommend it.

On the writing/work front, things are coming along. I finished writing a 14 page final paper for my feminist studies class today, which actually turned into a paper that I am proud of. Better yet, it opens up some interesting ideas that I can potentially explore for my dissertation.

The thesis-editing is finally happening. My methods section is totally finished and I’ve tackled rewrites and line-edits for half of the findings section. Now all I need to do is finish the second half of the findings section, tack on a few transition statements here and there, brush up the introduction, and write a conclusion. Cross your fingers that I can get the whole thing fixed and shiny by mid-month, so I can send it off to my advisor and be done with the whole business (at least until I get her edits back in January, that is).

Things are lightening up, but I’m not out of the woods just yet. My students submit their final papers tomorrow afternoon, so grading is my weekend priority. And I take off on Thursday morning for my parents’ house, where I’ll be for the next month (so exciting!). As result, blogging will continue be a little sparse through next week, but I will hopefully be back in full force once I vanquish all my school stuff. I have countless ideas for blog posts floating around in my head; the challenge is finding time to sit down and write everything out!

Finally, on a fun note, I did get a chance to get out over the weekend and pop into my favorite store that sells sparkly jewelry things. I found these amazing peacock earrings and had to buy them, since I am building an accessory wardrobe of feathered headbands, hairclips, earrings, and necklaces.

The longest, most epic earrings ever.

I’m excited to get back to my Google Reader and check out all of the posts that I’ve missed from y’all. Can’t wait to get back to blog-hopping!

ROW80: 50k, is that you?

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

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

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.

 

Wicked Wednesdays: The Importance of Community, And Blog Awards

Today’s Wicked Wednesday post is a little late, but it was one of those days where everything else seemed to take precedence to blogging. But according to my clock, it is still Wednesday, so here we are. Today, I’m thinking about the magical, wonderful online community of writers, and passing out shiny new blog awards!

Finding my way to the online writing community is probably one of the best things to happen to me. Not better than, say, finishing college or getting into graduate school, but pretty darn close.

See, I’ve always been something of a loner. It wasn’t necessarily by choice; I was labeled the Smart Kid in elementary school, and never really grew out of it. As many of you might know, becoming the Smart Kid is akin to social suicide: the cool kids think you’re lame, no one wants to hang out with you, and everyone assumes that you’re nothing more than, y’know, a pulsating brain in a chair — no personality, no wants or needs, just a vat of intelligence that’s there to dispense information.

“Lena, what’s the answer to number 3? Lena, will you do my homework for me? No? But you understand this book so much better than I do, and…”

No, I’m not bitter. Seriously, guys, I swear.

Anyway, as a result, I didn’t get much more social than hanging out with my tiny cadre of fellow outcasts during lunch breaks. I spent most of my time alone, immersing myself in make-believe worlds of books, poetry, and creative writing. That solitude became my refuge, and after a few brushes with clingy, toxic friendships in high school and college, being alone seemed far preferable than anything else.

But humans are social creatures, and we crave connection and intimacy with others. I tried to go it alone after my writing partner and I “broke up” after 5 years of working together (the relationship rather imploded in the messiest and most painful of ways). After close to to years of writer’s block, though, it became really clear to me that the Silent-Loner-Writer thing just wasn’t going to work. I didn’t want to collaborate again, but I needed people. I needed feedback. Better yet, I needed non-grad students who I could talk to about writing and books, about things that weren’t anchored in the dysfunctional dynamics of academia, or my thesis topic, or the other old conversations that make grad student gatherings feel so suffocating.

I started this quest for community just over 1 year ago, when I signed up for a Livejournal account and started poking at the world of fan fiction again. A month or so later, I broke up with my boyfriend of almost 2 years, and the imperative to write and connect became even stronger. I latched onto writing communities on LJ, and while that helped a bit, there were only a handful of people who were involved and committed.

Fast-forward a bit, to May 2011, when I accidentally stumbled upon A Round of Words in 80 Days. When I say “stumbled,” I do mean it. One of my LJ friends linked to the Plot Whisperer, and I went peeking at her site. I started poking at her blogroll, and eventually I found one that was talking about some ‘ROW80 check-in.’ I followed that link, and lo! History was made.

ROW80 led me to an amazing network of supportive, engaging, creative, and wonderful people. It also pushed me to dust off my long-defunct Twitter account so I could hang out over at the #ROW80 hashtag. In turn, Twitter opened the doors to the #myWANA crowd, and to an unbelievable treasure trove of blogfests, writing challenges, writing blogs, fun communities… Really, I could go on and on.

If someone had told me last November that, in a year, I’d be furiously writing my way towards winning NaNoWriMo, I would have laughed in their faces. If that same person had added that I’d have over a dozen flash fiction pieces and three novels in-progress to my credit, I would have laughed even harder. And if that strange, bizarre, crazy person also said that I’d have over 600 followers on Twitter and a Google Reader bursting at the seams with amazing blogs written by people I would call friends, I would’ve checked them for mental problems.

But it happened, improbably enough, and as we speed ever closer to Thanksgiving, I find myself more grateful for this community than ever. My mother, who knows me better than anyone, told me recently that this is the happiest I’ve been in ages. I know it’s due in large part to the enthusiasm, support, and genuine caring that I’ve found from all of you. So consider this blog post a sort of love letter to all of you, dear friends and readers.

As part of this mutual lovefest, I am passing out blog awards! It seems as though I’ve been accumulating them over the past few weeks, hoarding them up because I haven’t had the chance to pass them along, but I am sending them along at last. 🙂

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ROW80: Tryin’ To Get That Feeling Again

Yes, the title of today’s post is indeed a reference to Barry Manilow’s hit song, and yes, that’s a clip of him performing it in concert below. It is, I promise, relevant for today.

You see, I have hit the mid-month slump. My pretty NaNo novel, which seemed so sparkly and wonderful and exciting when I started it at the beginning of the month, now seems rather… lackluster. Insipid. Boring? Metaphors and figures of speech are unwieldy, not to mention a bit cliche, my characters are revealing some crazy inconsistencies, and I’m starting to see the holes in my lovely outline. One of the problems is that I’ve been working on the voyage sequence (where my main character has been sailing to the strange and frightening land of her birth) for over a week, and I think I am just sick and tired of talking about it. I need to get poor Liandre off the darn ship and onto solid land, so the rest of her journey can take place.

I can’t complain terribly about my NaNoWriMo progress. The beginning of the week was a challenge, but I’ve caught up with my word count. At the moment, I have 19,311 words, and by the time I finish writing tonight, I will have hopefully added on at least 2k more. When I sit and really think about this, I can hardly believe that I’ve written so much in such a short period of time. It’s not perfect — far from it — but I think by the end of the month there will be some salvageable bits that can be edited, polished up, and (maybe) turned into something real and substantial.

I think I’ve reached the mid-point blahs with everything, not just writing. Monday marks the beginning of Week 8 in our academic quarter (there are 10 in total), and oh god, I am just… squeaking… by. I spent the past couple of days laboring over a 5 page paper that I should’ve been able to write in a few hours. I can barely stand reading for class. That thesis thing that I’m supposed to be writing? Yeah, that’s not happening either. I’m a bit tired, a little low on energy, lacking in excitement, and all I really want to do is go home and see my family. Thanksgiving can’t come soon enough.

Pictures of kittens make everything better.

On the other hand, I will say that I’m surprised that I didn’t hit this bump earlier in the quarter. I’m tired, my desire to juggle is flagging, but I’m not unhappy, and that’s more than I can say for previous quarters. By week 5 of each quarter, I’m usually indulging in escape fantasies —  you know, plans to drop out of grad school and join the circus, or become a makeup artist, or move to a commune in the forest. I’ve managed to avoid escape fantasies this quarter, which I count as progress. Things are getting done, just not necessarily in the time frame that I’ve intended. However, slow and steady wins the race, etc, etc.

Anyway, if I go a little quiet on the Twitter/blog/social media front, you’ll know why. We’re entering the stretch when I have to tackle the most immediate things first (i.e., all that stuff that I’m getting graded on). I’ve got plans for this week’s blog posts, and some drafts, but we’ll see if I can actually pull them together. I missed Friday’s post because I mistakenly thought that I should be responsible and take care of my 5 page paper before everything else. Had I realized that the dumb paper would’ve taken 2 days to write, I would’ve just gotten the blog post and my NaNo writing out of the way first. Juggling — it is a fine art, and one that I have yet to perfect.

So that’s where I am this week! Just as a reminder, Em and I are hosting another Fun Not Fear! check-in, which I highly encourage all WriMos, and WriMo cheerleaders, to visit. And don’t forget to swing by and wave hello to the rest of the ROW80 community.

Fiction Fridays: Writing Soundtracks, the NaNoWriMo Edition

For today’s first edition of Fiction Fridays, I planned to write a bit about the music that is the inspiration for my NaNoWriMo novel. Coincidentally, the theme for Week 2 of the Warm Fuzzies blogfest is to share something that inspires our current WIPs, so I can kill two birds with one stone.

Having a soundtrack tailored to each WIP is incredibly important to me. Music fuels my mood as a writer, and it also helps me tap into the emotional tone that I want to evoke in my work. I spend far too much time pulling my playlists together — and yes, that is multiple playlists. I usually have a list for the WIP as a whole, plus songs tailored for individual characters, songs that reflect friendships and romances, and songs that inspire specific plot points and scenes (you know, battle scenes, sad moments, sappy moments).

Utilizing a musical soundtrack is also incredibly helpful when it comes to transitioning between projects. TELL ME NO LIES, the novel I most recently worked on (a steampunk murder mystery/romance), has a very distinctive vibe, with lots of folk and country music that remind me of 19th century San Francisco. Disentangling myself from that world and the incredibly vocal characters that inhabit it is a difficult process, but using music to ease that shift makes things a bit easier.

I’ve culled through the current playlist to find the three songs that I think are the most representative of the mood and tone of this novel. As per the rules for this week’s Warm Fuzzies challenge, I’m not going to tell you what the novel is about. Based on the songs I post, you get to guess exactly what this tale might be about. And I see you there, about to peek at my works in-progress page (I’m shaking a finger in admonition, I hope you know). We’re going for honest guesses, folks, so no cheating. 😀

Cara Dillon, “Black is the Colour” (Lyrics)

Cara Dillon is a contemporary Irish folk singer, and her ethereal voice always sends shivers down my spine. She released four studio albums between 2001 and 2009, all of which include a blend of traditional Irish ballads and original music. “Black is the Colour” comes from Cara Dillon, her first album.

Lisa Gerrard, “Sanvean”

Lisa Gerrard is an Australian singer, and former member of the band Dead Can Dance. If her voice sounds familiar, it may be because you recognize it from the Gladiator soundtrack, which she co-composed with Hans Zimmer (“Now We Are Free” is one of her most popular tracks from that album). If you’re wondering exactly what language she’s speaking in “Sanvean,” it turns out that she’s using an invented tongue, one that she created as a child to “talk to God.” She has employed it in a number of her songs over the years.

Loreena McKennitt, “The Old Ways” (Lyrics)

Loreena McKennitt is one of my all-time favorite singers. Her music is lush, evocative, and intricate, and always feels somewhat magical to me. She draws from a wide range of inspiration, from European literature (including Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” and Noyes’ “The Highwayman“) and traditional Celtic music, to broader Arabic and Mediterranean influences. McKennitt is an accomplished singer, songwriter, and musician. “The Old Ways” comes from her fourth album, The Visit.

And there we have it! Any inspired guesses about what my current WIP might be about?

As a sort of “preview of coming attractions,” I’ll be sharing more about the details of my project in my Sunday check-in for the A Round of Words in 80 Days writing challenge. Also, I’m cohosting a discussion about NaNoWriMo progress in today’s post over at Fun Not Fear! All WriMos are invited to pop over and chat about how the first few days of NaNo has gone; for those of you who aren’t participating, we can always use cheerleaders, so please feel free to stop by and say hello.

Ghouls Galore: Vampire

Eeep, I can’t believe I forgot about the final week of Lady Antimony’s Ghouls Galore October flash fiction event! The word of the week is “borborygmus,” and the overall theme is Pick-Your-Own-Creature.  I’ve chosen the vampire, for old times’ sake.  Back in the day, The Vampire Diaries by L.S. Smith and Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause were my books of choice (both of them are better than Twilight, IMO), both inspirations for the mediocre vampire fiction I loved to write.

As a Halloween treat, I give you both flash fiction and poetry.  The poem was originally written in 2000, one of those things I scribbled in math class when I was 13, a silent protest against learning algebraic equations. 😉 I’ve tweaked it a bit, however.

David A. Ludwig has written a lovely summary of the challenge, along with links to the other participants’ work, so be sure to swing by and check it out.

And as a final fun note, this is my 100th post! It totally snuck up on me, too. 😀

-oOo-

“Midnight Walker”

Blood:
Source of life for all,
elixir of the chosen
drink of the Damned — those more-than-mortals,
the living dead.

Forced to forever stalk the living,
chained to the night,
without rest, without peace
Midnight Walkers forever.

 

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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