Reboot/Juicing Prep Days 2 and 3

So I realized I didn't post any pictures yesterday or anything really (I know, you're also wondering about book news, stay posted though it's not much!) regarding the second day of our juicing prep.

So what Logician and I decided to do was thus: We have two juices a day and then dinner as normal. The first day we had our own juice creation for breakfast, I ate left over spicy boiled fish from a local restaurant for lunch while Logician had the last bit of the breakfast juice and then for dinner he had fish and I had the Gazpacho juice.

Note on the Gazpacho it was tasty, however I was lazy and didn't peel the lime which killed it. It was somewhat like torture to drink. But if the lime had been peeled it would have been epic!

I had a hard day Monday. My body was not really enjoying the lack of solid food and I ended up having to eat a little more when I got home simply because I was really on the edge of an irrational emotional meltdown. I had a very small bowl of rice and some Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer tea and all was well.

So yesterday I woke up feeling sore EVERYWHERE! I was exhausted and grumpy. I got a 90 minute massage which was heavenly and very helpful, and then we had this AMAZING dinner of rice and what we call Indian Hamburger Helper (yes I know, processed food = bad but the ingredients in this one were fairly good) called Tempting Lentils with Sorrel leaves. To which we added a couple tilapia fillets and an AWESOME salad. Seriously food tastes so much better already.

Hi Blog!

Hee hee... Hi. *sheepish wave*

So NaNoWriMo? Huge fail. Epic in fact, because the story never came to me and when I tried to force on it fell flat on its face.

It didn't help that in mid-November I lost my job, but I was very lucky to find another one fairly quickly! A Massage job too - oh yea.

So I made some Bento since I work tomorrow all day and will need something healthy and yummy to eat.

BENTO!

Yea I'm pretty happy with these. They aren't the cutest I ever made, but after being out of Bento making for quite some time I'm happy with them.

One of my goals for the new job is to make Bento when I work. That way I always have something healthy and cute to eat. It will hopefully help me condition my body for working as a therapist full time, and help me lose some more weight this year.

Here's hoping!

I lied... Again.

So as it happens every year when I pick a story, I open writing program on November 1st and a different story comes flying out of my fingers! This year I am apparently continuing last years' theme by writing the first book of the Otherworld (or the Sensational Nonfictional Account of the Secret Order of the Tree Fort).

It's a lot of fun so far. Already at about 1400 words, which is not bad seeing as how I just started!

Woo for NaNoWriMo!

Music and Writing

I don't think there has been a single line of a single story that I have ever written that did not have a theme song in the background. It's very interesting how much music makes my stories for me. I generally begin a story, get a few (fifteen or so) pages in and then go compile a soundtrack. Sometimes a song inspires the story and for a long time I just listen to the single song on repeat.

Because I've gotten back into editing I've been considering this music business again. When I had wrote the original version of LoE:FC (yes it's an acronym now) I didn't have a song for it. I simply holed up in my little mostly unfurnished room and wrote furiously (by hand). When I began to rewrite it (by hand) we had moved and I worked in retail so I had a fluctuating schedule. The theme song at that time was May It Be, by Enya from The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. It didn't make sense to me at the time because back then the story had this horribly tragic ending that was a resemblance of the relationship I was "in" at the time. I couldn't see the forest for the trees so to speak.

When I finally sat down in 2008 to do my first NaNoWriMo I thought of LoE:FC but it didn't happen, I wasn't ready to see the forest yet. Oddly enough LoE:FC doesn't have it's own playlist yet, it piggybacks off another playlist I made in about 2006. May it Be is still a very important song for this story, and likely will still be the theme in my head. But now I see the forest and I understand why the song is so important to the heart of my story.

So this year, since I'm still deciding what to write, I'm trying to look to the music I'm attached to and see if the story lies hidden in the music. So far it seems the music is leaning towards two story ideas. One I call Hitori (Phoenix in Japanese) and the other I'll call Cassandra. Both have been attempted but neither have gotten passed maybe the third page in writing. So I'll be interested to see if either of these stories ends up being the one to get written. There is another that almost always lurks in the shadows waiting, Star Rose, but it's got something like fifteen to thirty pages typed already so I would have to write 50k more than that for the challenge. So I'd be writing closer to 75-90k. We'll see.

Writing without music is like breathing without air, at least to me. 

FALL!

I'm more than a little excited about the awesome patch of cool weather that's come through. There is no time I love more than a cold day at home with some awesome music playing!

I'm trying to focus myself into finishing the last half of edits to Line of Eternity, but it's pretty stop and go right now. I'm almost to the end of the first edits notebook and have written a lot of new scenes in Scrivener. It's been a very good run so far. I am greatly looking forward to seeing the second draft in paperback form.

Yes I am crazy and I will have a paperback version of each draft. I will display them all together and laugh maniacally as I see it come together into a wonderful book.

Each time I edit a scene I am reminded of how much depth this book was missing during the craziness of NaNoWriMo and how that is happening again in 28 days. 28!!! Less than a month! I love the writing without a care chaos that is NaNo. I can't wait for it this year, though I still have no clue which story I am going to write.

I've completed a bunch of paperwork to get the ball rolling for classes at the Community College, in the hope that by starting there in the Spring (I hope, I hope, I hope) I can really hit the ground running and get this B.S. in Psychology done ASAP. Then I just have to take the GRE and apply to grad schools. Woo!

The cooler weather always energizes me, which has always amused me being that I was born right smack in the summer in Florida. Now I just have to figure out some time to get to the beach and soak up that cool weathery, watery, goodness.

Peace!

The Editing Continues

We didn't get any hurricane weather, which was some what disappointing. Although I suppose the devastation wouldn't have been worth some rain.

I've been working on my book again (Lines of Eternity) off and on for the last week. Today I finally reached the portion where I have a whole batch of new scenes to write. I've been doing all the editing by hand (and then typing them into the awesomeness that is Scrivener for Windows) but opted to start these new scenes in typed form.

This is why I am starting to really like Scrivener (still in Beta). It allows me the freedom to make a new folder and index cards for the scenes that I need to write. I should really do all my edits this way but it's more fun to see the notebook filling up with new revisions.

I don't know how the second draft will be. There have been quite a few plot shifts and things happening in different ways than they originally did but it's been a lot of fun for me. I am hoping that the gaping plot holes I left in the first draft will be fixed. So far a lot of things that are being added were happening only in my head during the first draft.

It seems like so long ago that this story was first born in it's infant creation, back in 2002. I remember writing just as feverishly as I have been with my edits to get the story down on paper. It was only thirty three hand written pages back then, and I have that many edits this time around. In fact I might be over editing because I haven't left a single scene untouched since the first five pages.

If I ever get this book into a format that people seem to be reading it I will be amazed.

There is one problem coming up! NaNoWriMo!!! It's almost September which means I need to buckle down and start outlining which of the many stories that will become this years insanity stream of consciousness. I am leaning towards a story about a woman named Hitori. I don't know if it will end up being the one that gets written though.

I have so many little ideas, each of them with wonderful merit, some started some not that need attention and love. NaNoWriMo is usually my chance to give them that love. Right now it is between Hitori, Delta Sierra, Fate and Fayth; and trying to write the first book to last years OtherWorlds series finale.

I guess we'll see!

Ha ha ha... Oh right I have one of these....

So I might not be the worst blogger in the world but lately I have been fairly bad! I've been busy, busy, busy so now that things are slowing down again I can try to write more!

I've been working on the second group/batch of edits to my book Lines of Eternity (not sure about that name thing, but later for that!). I managed to get through about a third of the book before the need to type it up took over.

So I downloaded the beta of Scrivener and started typing it from scratch... I have to admit I am still learning to use Scrivener (for Windows) but I am loving it! If the outline made any sense to me right now I would likely love it even more, but as I have never really researched submitting a novel before now I don't really understand all the bells and whistles.

The thing I like the most about it is that I can see how absolutely ridiculous it would be to try to chapterize my book at this point. And yes Chapterize is now a word, because I used it in a sentence.

I am trying to split the scenes and organize them into groups that might later become chapters, but we'll see. Right now I'm just enjoying having my hands back in the writing/editing pot. I initially intended to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo for August and then turn around and do NaNoWriMo in November but August snuck up on on me without my permission and I was completely unprepared.

If they do the writing challenge again next July I will do it. Because I love writing and it helps get these long living, barely started plot bunnies (read: monsters) out of my head!

Off to edit!

Story progression: Origin and Editing (A long post)

My schedule has shifted a bit in this last week and I got to spend the majority of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday editing my NaNoWriMo 2009 story. It's an enjoyable process that I have to admit is helped by seeing the progression of my story.

The story is currently titled: Lines of Eterminty: French Charades it was originally thought up in 2002, and was my NaNoWriMo 52k word story in 2009.

In 2002 I was living in Northern California and on the verge of some life altering events. One night I had a dream about a young woman wearing a noble's dress while wielding a sword. There was a short conversation that was mostly in French and my main female character (MFC), Arien, was born. 

The next three days saw me locked inside my room scribbling furiously as I committed her (then tiny) story to paper. It was one of the most horrible things I have ever written and an example of my writing style in those years. Lots of dialogue with no real back drop. 

Originally my main Male Character (MMC) was based off men I knew in real life. Two of them specifically but they were an awful lot alike. At the time his name was Kai. I knew that the original story wasn't long enough and wasn't the whole story so in 2003 I set out to rewrite it by hand. 

I purchased a lovely hard bound blank journal from the bookstore and set about neatly writing the story in pencil. Thirty three pages in I lost the story. It ran from me as if I had abused it. I put it down and walked away from it, though at the back of my mind Arien was begging me to complete her tale. 

My life changed years passed and in 2006 I moved to a four year university. I picked up the story again and started trying to write it on the computer. Something was wrong, the story would not move beyond the introduction of the MMC. 

Frustrated and sinking into an insane college life I put the story down again. Then I met Mike (MC Etcher). He was talking some sort of nonsense about an insane writing challenge called NaNoWriMo. I'd heard it whispered before when I used to spend countless hours on LiveJournal but had never known anyone insane enough to attempt this in real life.

With Mike and two other people talking NaNoWriMo in my ear I decided to join the challenge and on November 1st, 2008 I opened a blank Word Document and prepared to put Arien's life on paper.

It didn't happen. Instead of her story another flowed, one that was largely for healing. I wrote and wrote and though that story is unfinished, unedited, and lingering in a digital sanctuary it is complete. Arien was not pleased and demanded to know when her story would be completed!

Let me pause a moment to mention to you that if you have never written you do not understand. Stories are not created, they show up in your head and bang on the furniture until you allow them to move through you. They live inside your head waiting for opportune moments to interrupt, such as during exams. So I usually have a cacophony of voices running amok demanding me to write their stories. It's only when one of them rises above the normal din of conversation that I can actually sit and write.

I attempted to put pen to paper (as it were) over the course of 2009 and failed miserably. I knew that NaNoWriMo would be my time to shine. I wrote out information about the characters, reread the three incomplete drafts, and plotted till my eyes were sore. I was sure I would come to the end of this journey.

When I opened my Word document on November 1st, 2009 my story was still wrong. I didn't know it then but would find out when after writing for several hours I reached the introduction of my MMC, aka Kai. As I typed the name Kai on the page it was as if someone had politely knocked on the door.

"Excuse me," He said softly, "That is NOT my name." 

I was stunned and pondered this revelation for nearly an hour. Not his name? His name had always been Kai. For seven...... Then it hit me. My story was stagnated because my MMC was incorrectly cast! Kai was not the man intended for this story. 

"So then what is it?" I asked eagerly, fingers poised over the keys.

"I am Victor." And so he was.

******************************************* (To rest your eyes and give you a stopping point!)

I think I was done two weeks early. The ending was different, characters were related that hadn't even spoken before. There were plot twists and intrigues. This story ACTUALLY had potential. I am still astonished by the fact that I believe that.

Until NaNoWriMo 2009 I wrote stories for myself or for one specific person. Usually fanfiction these stories were for fun. I wanted to write professionally, but it was a dream for other lives.

Then I found out that NaNoWriMo had partnered with CreateSpace and the winners of NaNo 2009 got a free proof copy of their book.

That's right a free, paperback, you design the cover, you write the synopsis, your name across the binding book.

It's one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I squealed with joy when I opened the cardboard that came in the post. It still makes me warm and fuzzy when I look at it. 

It's real.

And - it sucks.

I know what you're thinking, I just said it had potential and now I'm saying it sucks. And you're right. I am crazy, mad as a hatter but it still sucks.

And I still love it.

So I decided that in 2011 I was going to edit it (my NaNo 2010 story and I are still not talking), but this would mean writing all over my beautiful.... Oh right - through the course of 2010 a few people had read my proof copy, and I had read and reread it several times. It was bent, it was no longer perfect, it was ripe for scribbling all over.

So I cheated. I used my NaNo 2010 CreateSpace code to order a second proof copy of my NaNo 2009. It's in the mail and I should get it in two weeks. 

So I selected three highlighters (yellow, orange, and green), got my favorite pencils, and my favorite pen. Collected together a blank spiral notebook, my laptop, and my proof copy. Then I went nuts.

And that's just two pages. I'm only twenty or so pages in but most of them look like those. Whole scenes begging to be rewritten or moved. Two lines of narration concealed an entire scene of dialogue. Characters who were marginal before actually have names and personalities. 

There's life in this damn thing and I'm going to find it! 

NaNoWriMo Day 11

My story continues to go well despite the fact I have been taking time to study for the MBlex and working some extra hours.

36k on day 11 is nothing to shake a stick at.

I have to admit I enjoyed my first Write In today. Although it was a bit strange (it's hard to adjust to people listening to tunes loudly while writing and whispering the words) it was also enjoyable. My laptop battery sucks so I did some outlining and processing on how I want to wrap my story up.

After all the last 10k is all about wrapping up.

I seems that I have five or six more chapters to write, along with an epilogue. Then I will have to go back and remove the introduction and make a new one for this book.

Today I learned that I changed tenses in my story and I have to fix that while I'm editing. I fixed some already but not much. It's hard to write in first person!

NaNoWriMo 2010 - Day 8

So I am plugging right a long with my story despite the fact that on 10/31 I had no idea what I was going to write. I am sufficiently caffinated thanks to Logician and getting ready to get to writing for today.

Then it's time to study my arse off for my state boards for Massage Therapy. Woo!

In case you're interested here is the playlist for my novel (at least so far), you'll note it has a lot of strangely mixed tunes. It's a strange story.

Name                                                                                      Artist     

Breaking the Habit                                                              Linkin Park           

Somewhere I Belong                                                           Linkin Park           

By Myself                                                                            Linkin Park           

What I've Done                                                                    Linkin Park           

Easier To Run                                                                       Linkin Park           

Leave Out All The Rest                                                      Linkin Park           

In The End                                                                            Linkin Park           

Shadow Of The Day                                                            Linkin Park

Place For My Head                                                              Linkin Park

Morning After (Julien K. Remix)                                       Chester Bennington           

System                                                                                  Chester Bennington           

Crawl Back In                                                                       Dead By Sunrise                  

Cross My Line [*]                                                               Aaron Waters      

Do You Call My Name                                                        Ra                           

Echo                                                                                       Trapt      

Enjoy the Silence                                                                 Depeche Mode                   

Bring Me To Life                                                                 Evanescence        

Going Under                                                                         Evanescence        

Haunted                                                                                Evanescence        

Broken f/Amy Lee                                                               Seether 

Giving In                                                                               Adema                                                                  

Gravity Of Love                                                                   Enigma  

Harder To Breathe                                                               Maroon 5             

Helena                                                                                   My Chemical Romance                      

Here with Me                                                                       Dido       

Higher Ground                                                                     Red Hot Chilli Peppers                       

I Stand Alone                                                                       Godsmack             

I Still...                                                                                    Backstreet Boys    Max Martin/Rami

Incomplete                                                                            Backstreet Boys   

Siberia                                                                                    Backstreet Boys    Alexander/Max Martin/Rami            

Let Me Go (iTunes Originals Version)                              3 Doors Down                      

Listen to Your Heart (Edmee's Unplugged Vocal Edit)   D.H.T. Featuring Edmée                     

Lonely Ghosts                                                                       O+S                        

Mistress                                                                                 Disturbed

Awaken                                                                                  Disturbed

Red                                                                                         Chevelle                               

Redeemer                                                                              Marilyn Manson  

Return To Innocence                                                          Enigma  

She Will be Loved                                                               Maroon 5                                                             

Slept so Long                                                                       Jay Gordon                           

A Song for XX [Ferry Corsten Chilled mix]                     Ayumi Hamasaki                  

To the Moon & Back                                                          Savage Garden    

The Truth Is                                                                         Kristine Sa                            

Unendlich - Album Mix                                                      Silbermond                          

The Way I Loved You                                                        Taylor Swift                          

                

Random enough for you? I thought so. :)

Go WriMos go!

A Poem before a story

So one of my longer brewing stories seems to be edging out the others for NaNo selection. I have the urge to begin writing it, but beginnings of stories are my least favorite. I always feel like they don't do the story enough justice. So instead I wrote a poem.

Her Choice

The blackest edge of night is nothing,
When compared with the sorrow of a heart.
One that was once bound completely to another,
One that carries unexpressed grief.

Standing alone on the desolate battle plain,
With a broken scythe in her bloodied hands;
She faces agony, defeat, death, and a choice.
A Black gate stands to her left, a Pearl Gate to her right.

The tie had been broken, though severed polietly
The darkness still looms around her
The cut is too deep, her soul bleeds out as tears
And it threatens to swallow her whole

Her choice seems unthinkable, unbearable to her
To continue forward alone without...
The whisper in her ear, the hand holding her back
Her protector had fallen away leaving her heart exposed.

Her blood boils with the injustice of it all,
And she knows her path is unfeeling.
Holding the broken blade in trembling hands
She turns tears to anger.

The love burns in her like fire,
But blocked by time and circumstance -
It fills her veins with gloom and ice
Turning maiden into warrior.


She will wield the scythe of death
Giving life to the sorrow that consumes her.
And she will become the great guardian
Of the now dying flame.

Unfolding black wings and steeling her hardened heart
She leaves the gentleness where she stood
Setting her mind and body to task
And returning a warrior to battle.


This poem is about my stories main character Chandra. It's a title-less story at the moment, and some of the details were co-authored over the years by friends of mine who dared to dabble in my crazy mind. She has been nagging at me recently, no doubt due to wanting her story shared.

My characters are like my friends, neglect them too long and they come crashing in. Chandra is no exception, and likely the noisiest of all the characters who have not had their stories put to paper. Chaos reigns when she is unhappy.

Now off to contemplate beginnings...

NaNoWriMo 2010 - The build up

So while perusing Mike's Ramblings I found his entry regarding NaNoWriMo and the fact that it is only a few short months away!!! NaNoWriMo is a yearly contest held in November where you try to write a 50k novel in the month of November.

Last year was so easy for me, I flew through my story and it was probably the easiest typed story I have ever written. I make the distinction here of typed because back in the 90s when I preferred pen and paper I would write stories in a matter of days. They sucked but they were finished :D

I haven't really edited my story from last year, although I did get the printed proof copy. I keep intending to edit it and then get distracted by shiny objects a few minutes later. So the proof copy in it's miserable glory lies under a table in the bedroom unloved and feeling unwanted. I try to reassure it that it was not a cheap November thrill but I doubt it believes me.

So this year I face an interesting choice. It will be my third NaNoWriMo and the story from the first year was never intended to be completed. It was a therapeutic exercise and now I feel no need to finish the story. Last years story has well over 50k more words in it, but the catch of NaNoWriMo where you cannot edit, only add new words means that I would be stuck writing new scenes into badly setup structure. I just don't think I can tolerate that.

Logician prefers the method of starting cold turkey on November 1st and writing what comes. His story last year was an interesting read and a large part of me is sad I a) haven't read all of what he wrote and b) it was never finished. He plans to do the same thing this year for his second NaNo.

So here I sit, July is half over and August is on the horizon. 3 months to go and no really clear direction to go in on November 1st. I have at least 15 stories in my head that are unfinished, haven't made it to computer land from old lost pen and paper versions, or haven't even been fully created yet! But I have no idea which one to pick.

Do I want to write the Vampire story? Or a scifi Firefly meets Star Wars mix up? What about these two new ideas that recently popped in my head; a Greek demigoddess/muse or a story about magic and technology.

All of these stories are insanely cliche and over done. So I suppose I will just see what falls loose in the next few weeks. After all August is 'Select a story' month, September is 'Outline your life away' and October is 'Oh god it's almost here but I can't write yet.'

Stories are strange word beasts, that they are.