A Look at Birthday Presents Chapter 10

It's going to be a while until I post this on fictionpress, but I wrote this today:

Sasha loved the feeling of moving meditation; it was as if her attention existed in the eye of a storm, while the elements blazed around her.  Beyond herself, she sensed Mortimer’s body. The energy within him was patient and fluid, but uncompromising, like the rise and fall of the tides that carved away the sand.  When she moved, it was not to lance out with her physical body, but to facilitate the energy within her in a battle of the elements. 

And yet, each fighter’s essence was intricately tied in with the way the element was expressed.  When she channelled Water, it came to her like a fast flowing rapid under the summer sun.  In Mortimer, it was the suffocating shock of a tropic downpour, or the freezing rainy patches in a fog.  The exchange was more than blows; it was a tale of the experiences inside each fighter.

Sexual Innuendo

So I was looking up sexual innuendo for... er... writing purposes.

I came across this bit of gold.  

Could Liam = Emron?

I can't get Birthday Present out of my head, so I suppose this is the project I'm stuck with at Christmas.  Poor Vert Glace.

Hang on, why am I talking about my stories as though they're entities in their own right?

For the last 2000 words, I've been setting up the two male leads to have a big clash upon meeting, but now that I'm up to that part... I can't seem to make it work.  They just won't be nasty to each other.  MY CHARACTERS ARE REBELLING.  

This is the beginning of the end.  

To top things off, I'm pretty sure I have gastro.  I'm pressed to find strength enough to do a poo let alone get my characters back in line.  It's odd how they work.  I mean, they're suppose to be 100% my creation, and yet, they sometimes don't do what they're told.  How the hell does that happen?  And how am I suppose to create cliche romance drama?  

I went hunting on google for a picture of two blokes fighting, which is what is suppose to be happening.  Instead, I found this gem:

If I ever get to cast Emron, Liam Hemsworth would be it.  Thanks for your sage dating tips, Liam.  This picture captures Emron's main character concept.

Who am I kidding?  If I get to cast anything, I'd throw all my weight in on trying to get Jessica Alba to do something.  Anything.  Doesn't matter.  

I know what kind of story I want to write

So December contest is over, and to my surprise, I won!  I was sure that T Rasa was going to get in this time because his was chilling to the bone, but I'm not complaining.  I'm really happy that people actually read my stuff and like it.  To me, that's always a pleasant surprise. I think the small group of writers on Labyrinth do really well with putting up with me.

I was watching the Fifth Element today. It's one of my favourite movies of all time.  I really admire the characters, the pace, the cinematography and the spoken script.  If movies were books, that would be the kind of book I want to write.  Amazing.  It was created in the 90's and it still stands up to scrutiny today.  Also, you don't get much hotter than Mila.  ;)  That girl sure can emote.

iTunes is sentient

Chapter 5 of Birthday Presents is edited and up.  Thank you as always to my nameless beta reader.  It's a thankless job.  

I pressed the shuffle button on iTunes, and it started up Jizz in my Pants by The Lonely Island.  Why does it always know exactly what I want to listen to?  

Not sure if you like Matthew Reilly?

Well, now you can sample his work for free!

He did something similar a while back with a book called Hover Car Racer which he released for free in installments.  He also wrote a book that was a free giveaway, called Hells Island, available with a newspaper.  Generosity pays off, I suppose.

Roger Ascham and the King's Lost Girl is a prequel to his new book, The Tournament.  On facebook, he announced that he would be releasing it for free today, and he certainly is a man of his word.  I haven't read it yet, but I know what I will be doing for the next few days.  ;)

Powering Ahead

Now that the contest for the month is over in the sense that there's no more work I can do, I'm powering ahead with work on more chapters for Birthday Presents.  I'm about two chapters ahead of what I have posted.

I do need to work on Vert Glace, but I need to have time to write solidly, which I hope I will have time to do over the Christmas period. I'm adding another layer to the first part of the story, and then re working some of the second part.

Working on Birthday Presents in the mean time keeps my head in the game, and helps with the world building.  In many ways, it's a lot more challenging than Vert Glace to write, because it's my first foray into the romance genre.  I've been browsing the romance section and book stores lately, and I'm not sure if I like reading about all the hot and heavy.  This being my first trip to romance land, I'm not sure what kind of romance I will write.  I'll keep my options open, but I'm pretty sure this story won't involve penetrative sex.  ;)

The mind of a Wolf

I don't know how I feel about T.Rasa.  I really don't.  I would not be surprised if that author turned out to be a sentient animal, I really wouldn't.   It does happen from time to time, that an animal gains human like sentience, and learns to use a computer.  I've found evidence of it on google images.  I shall post my findings below.

His entry for the December Contest is pretty flipping cool.  Again, it's from an animal POV, which is starting to become a signature of his.  

Anyway, to what we've all be waiting for... sentient animal pictures:

just because he's not wearing pants and smoking a pipe doesn't  mean this little creature can't see straight into your soul.  

Is this a dalmatian or a great dane? Because let's put it this way; when such a large dog humps you, it's not just humping your leg.  Now, on a bicycle, it can get at you faster.

... if that mouse has gone to that much effort, he deserved that damn block of cheese. 

First, reading.  Then, the world. 

For days when the soccer mum had a little too much champagne with her friends over lunch.  

December Continues

Fyloefox has posted up the entries so far for the December Contest.  So far, I'm really liking Tante Liz's take on Rumpelstiltskin.  It's a cross between The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and The Man in the Iron Mask - twins of heritage, gypsies, gentlemen, tomfoolery... what more could you ask for?

So far, everyone's gone to paint the villain in a kinder light.  There must be something in the zeitgeist of us few writers about bad guys being misunderstood/having tragic events leading up to their evilfication.

Forget about Christmas! There's more important things to do in December....

December writing contest, ahoy!

So I've posted my entry, Woodsman, for the December writing contest.  I spent half an hour messing around with the graphic for the story.  Again, I've gone for a pattern to make it match the other entries

I just re-read it again after posting and found a bunch of mistakes.  I've fixed them up, but I'm sure to read it tomorrow and cringe at the silly mistakes.  My internal editing system has always been non-existent.

Pretty keen to read other people's entries. *rubs hands together*

Whose Crazy Idea?

Why, oh, why am I up at this time in the morning?  

Yesterday the genius in me made a writing schedule.  It included a stint in the morning from 6:30am - 7:15am before work.

I don't know how long it will last.  I didn't even know my body could wake up this early.  The last few days have been chain slapping snooze.

But for now, I'm here tap, tap, tapping away at Vert Glace. 

My favourite anime series of all time

WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR ANIMATION STUDIOS TO MAKE MORE FULL METAL PANIC?!?!?!

Can you guess that I've just finished chain watching The Second Raid?  

You know how sequels normally suck?  Well, FMP is the exact opposite.  When I first watched the original FMP series, I thought that it was a pretty solid anime at the time.  It hit the action notes, mecha notes, and high school romcom notes... which is not so easy to do.

And then when Fumoffu came along, I laughed so hard that I nearly laid an egg.

Then Second Raid, in terms of anime quality, character development and story-line, was in a class of it's own.

Three days until the end of nano and I've resigned myself to the fact that I probably won't finish this year.  I am still writing stuff, and I look forward to getting back to Vert Glace in December.  

Nano no-no

Unless some miracle happens, I'm probably not going to finish nano this year.  It's disappointing, because I managed to get there last year and I was so hoping to do it twice in a row - which would be a record for me.

I'm about 20000 words in, and would need to pull a whopping 6000 words a day to finish on time.  With full time work, all these social engagements that I've managed to get suckered into, and the growing-fat-and-lazy-living-by-the-beachness, I don't think I can make it cap'n.

Nevertheless, I will continue to try and write as much as I can.

I don't volunteer as tribute!

I went to watch Hunger Games: Catching Fire with my partner this weekend and...

WTF?

I thought Katniss was suppose to be a heroine, but really, she's a pawn in the revolution?!?! Things would be easier if I actually read the books, or looked up the plot on wiki, but where's the fun in that?

Matthew Reilly's 'The Tournament'

Against my better judgement, I stayed up last night to finish the book.  I knew I had to facilitate a group today... but here I am, I survived.  All is well.

Subtlety is not Matthew Reilly's middle name.  If you like The Avengers movie (and not just for the parade of mancandy, ladies), specifically the simple and effective story line, the pace, the good vs evil stuff, and the goofy foreshadowing, then you're going to like The Tournament.  I loved it.

The only thing that raises an eyebrow for me is the punishment of sexual promiscuity in this book.  Matthew justifies it by linking it with the development of QE1 in the book, but his approach to the subject, given that it's the first book of his that I've read that goes anywhere near sexuality, is bordering on preachy.  I'm also not overly fond of the 'hero saves the day/girl' moments.  I would have hoped that when he chose to tackle this sort of POV, there would be more girl relevant stuff in there (ie.  I've been told that John Marsden occupies the mind of a teenage girl scarily well).  For those that follow Matthew Reilly's work, you'll know what I mean when I say that this book desperately needed a 'Mother'.

I can not stress enough that if a young mind were to read this, it would melt or explode.  Definitely not for anyone under, say, 15 years old.  Actually... see, I don't know about that.  Some of the themes are explicit and gross, but it's written in a way that I think young people can access.  I remember my Grade 8 teacher picking out a monologue for me about a pedophile who was trying to rationalize his actions.  So... I suppose if a young mind were to be exposed to content that it will inevitably be exposed to anyway, I would say that The Tournament is a good way to do it.

Overall?  I'ma give it 8/10.

Thank you Matthew Reilly for another great book.

Half Way Through The Tournament

I don't write book reviews.  I don't know how to review for shit.  But when my favourite author puts out a new book, I want to shout it from the mountain tops.

Matthew Reilly doesn't have a track record for being the most highbrow writer.  Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoy his work.  His books read like movies, and always includes interesting facts melded into fiction.  They are entertaining, and entertainment is the reason I read.  Many a time I have broken a reading-drought with a Matthew Reilly book.

The Tournament, in many ways, is a classic Matthew Reilly piece (gory deaths, knock-out competitions, a main character that uses his brain over brawn), however, it is also in many ways not classic Matthew.

For one, it's written in first person.
By a woman.
And not just any woman...
It's Queen Elizabeth I.

And really, at that point, I think I've said enough, but I feel compelled to rant on.

I'm halfway though the book, and it's entertaining as hell.  It's like he's written a children's book, but for adults.  The moral-of-the-story points are simple and mainstream, like his 'never give up, never say die' style in Hover Car Racer, but there are some distinctly adult notes in this book.  I never thought 'Matthew Reilly' and 'Sexed it Up' were words that would ever appear in the same sentence, but here we are.  Shows that minds can still be blown away.

God Save The Queen

Wow, procrastination is sometimes really productive.  So instead of writing more of my nano story, I pottered around on fictionpress and updated all three of my stories there.  They're all pretty quick and dirty. I don't have housemates to look over my work now, so I'm afraid that the quality may drop because me trying to edit my own work is like a dog chasing its tail.

Ok, sleep now.  9:30 pm is waaay past my bedtime.  Ha.

Wow.  Now I'm googling the Queen.  It really is past my bedtime.

Writing, puking, stealing...

Nano's teaching me a valuable lesson:

There is no limit to the amount of crap I can pull out of my hindy hole.  110% of my story so far is just made up from nothing, just like that statistic.  It's not pretty.  Not pretty at all.

So predictably, I've fallen behind on word count again today.  I really should be writing more. I could probably get a couple more hundred words out of me before I retire for the evening at the very young and hip hour of 8:30pm, but here I am, singing along to Boston by Augustana in a way that's making even the ears of the tomcats in the area bleed I'm sure. 

Tomorrow I pack for an evening flight to Brisbane.  The last trip, less than a fortnight ago, had not been pretty.  The airplane was small.  And it had... propellers.  I haven't thrown up on a plane for about ten years now - the last time was on on my sister's Star Wars book - from memory, I think it was one with Han and Leia on Dagobah, but if that was never a thing, then maybe it's just my sanity unraveling.  Something about witches that could use the force, and  Leia almost marrying a prince... Nup.  Forget it.  Point is, I have a record to uphold, but these tiny planes and the winds that toss them around like toys are not helping.

Something I didn't mention in my last blog post, and that is when I went to Optus to get my USB internet thinggie, I came up with three crimes in the first minute of waiting around.  I think that if I ever quit my day job, I'd be a pretty good petty criminal.  Of course, I've never stolen anything in my life, but there must be circumstances under which I might steal something.  Maybe if someone's service was bad enough...  Maybe if I had to wait 5 more minutes that day...

Let's face it, MTV is never going to film an episode of Cribs here.

Deleted my last post because it was too much effort to change. Man, I am getting lazy.

If I had to describe my new apartment in two words, it would be...

Spacious.
I am the first to admit that I do not have enough furniture to fit this apartment.  My bathroom could literally be another bedroom.  I can't brush my teeth in the shower because the sink and bench are too far away.  That's never happened to me before in any house I've lived in.

Charming.  
Though it's been updated over the years, every now and then you'll walk into a patch of uptown 1970's.  My living room is framed with bare brick arches, and all the toilets have ridiculous tiles.  I have not one, not two, but three chandeliers. Enough said.

I'm going to get spoilt, I really am.  I'm already getting lazy, what's not to say that the next step won't be expanding my girth to take up all the empty space.  I'd never be able to afford such a cool place near major city centers.  The apartment in Brisbane was 1/2 this size, and we were paying $480/week for it.  Ridiculous.   I can see the beach here from my bedroom window.  Tiny apartments in the city sell for 500k, whereas out here, you could buy a pretty decent house for 300k.  I'm never going to be able to live in a city again.  I'm going to become one of them.  A bogan.   I'm going to start dropping the c-word like it's rain during a storm season.

If I end up staying, I'm soooo going to open a Nandos.

Writing-wise, November is still all about nano for me.  No time for anything else.  I've caught up to the daily quota today.  I think that's important enough that it needs to be said twice.  I caught up today.

Day 2 Nano

3364 words.  Clawed my way back to breaking even on word count.  Now to sleep.

How people get time to do these awesome cartoons while doing nano, I'll never know.

Internet Withdrawal Makes People Into Poople.

Can I swear?  Is it appropriate to swear where anyone could read it?

Cause holyfuckadoolies it feels lovely to be on the web!   I mean sure, I seem to share a neighbourhood with Wailord, but there's only so many walks on the beach you can do in a week!

I should be adding to my nano word count right now, heaven knows it needs all the help it can get.

I don't know how often I will be able to update this blog due to the internet situation.  I did start a re-write of an old story one evening, just for shits and giggles.

Why is reading important?

Thank you Neil Gaiman for showing us the way.  Every way.

It's safer to be a pessimist

Well, looks like it was too good to be true.  But now I won't have to name one of my future children Allegra, so fair's fair.

Name this feeling

You know that feeling you get when something that you're hoping for actually happens, and you're too scared to tell people just in case you've just imagined it, or it's a dream, or that something's bound to go wrong and you're going to lose everything because it's just too good to be true?

I have that feeling right now.  I might just have to make good on that promise of naming my fourth child something unusual.

Writing's just gone out the window today.  Funny that when I have a day to write, I'm doing everything but.

DEFCON 1

THERE IS NO NANDOS IN HERVEY BAY.

Ok, be cool, Augs.  There must be a way around this somehow.

...

...

...

Oh!  I will buy a freezer and fill it with Nandos chicken.  They're going to fly me back to Brisbane periodically for meetings and stuff, so I'll just have to be organized and have a sum of money I can exchange for chicken.

Crisis averted.

Roadtrip!!!

Wow.  Jut got back from driving four and a half hour straight and I'm feeling... surprisingly spry.  Thought I was getting too old for this shit.

On Tuesday, I got a call from a real estate agent asking me if I wanted to come and view one of the rentals on Wednesday.  I was fortunate enough to line up a couple more inspections, so I went on an impromptu road trip.

Stayed at an amazing place overnight, and apparently you can rent there, so I put in an application.  I seriously hope I get it.  I will be overjoyed if I do.  I will name my... fourth born (pending approval from the other half) after that place if I do.  If not, there's also a three bedroom apartment that has the feeling of grandma's house to it, which is also pretty cool.

Everything's right on the beach.  Talked to a guy with a metal detector and he showed me all the sinkers he found, and a pretty wicked ring.

Ducked into my new work place and said hi to everyone, then dumped about four boxes of books in my office and left my new manager, who was in a meeting, a note with a drawing to say that I'd been in.  I start on the 21st.  Hopefully I remember everyone's name.  ...Hopefully I remember some people's names.

.........hopefully I remember the receptionist's name.  I think it's Melanie. Maybe I can get away with calling her 'Mel' just in case it's a similar variant. I am a bad person.

In between it all, I got some writing done.  Started the impossible task of tackling Vert Glace Chapter 3.  Something about driving though vast, hilly country that was very inspiring for writing about Goats Island.

A Productive Day

Not so productive on the actual tasks I needed to get done, but a pretty productive day in terms of writing, and re-watching The Avengers.

I finished the second chapter of the Vert Glace re-write.  It is very dear to my heart.  I sent it to Will for reckoning.

I also got another chapter of Birthday Present up.  It's the one from Emron's POV.  I tried to make it funny.  Tried being the operative word.  :)  We shall see what happens.  It has a new follower.  I feel very loved.

And I refurnished the next chapter of Game in Play.  It always happens that when I am writing, I think that I am brilliant; a genius, a golden wordsmith.  Then, I read it over the next day and realize that the hype was just sleep deprivation.  I will sit on the chapter for a little bit longer, maybe get some feedback from my people before posting it.

But that's what I love about fictionpress. It's a place for my rough drafts.  I don't feel the pressure to be perfect there all the time.  Sure, I'd prefer not to post something riddled with errors, but it's a place where I can try out ideas and get feedback.  The process is interactive.  It's fun.

Talking about fun, my fellow writers on the Writing Challenge Story thread are still batshit awesome.  Someone needs to make this an illustrated collection.

A Plug, and not the butt kind

Garg.  I tried to post a kickass piece including examples about the Writing Challenge Story thread of the Labryinth Forum, and the formatting came out looking like arse. 

Still I wholeheartedly recommend it because of things like this:

ArcadianCrown:

She dragged her nails across the cave walls, their painted surfaces chipping as their ends began to split and fracture. Her baby-blue dress was pretty and trimmed with lace; small ribbons dotted the pockets and collars. Angry-looking stains splattered in slashes marked the front, dark and red.

"Mr Rabbit?" She called, her voice a pealing bell-like noise. "My tricky, tricky prince?"

I realize that I should be writing like this for every line of the stories I produce, but it's so damn hard ot maintain that level of word-ness (see!?!?  I'm already failing at the words) when you're also trying to focus on bigger plot elements.  

Black House Down

I just came back from watching White House Down for the third time.  It's not that I'm particularly attached to the movie (though, it was everything that the Die Hard movies have been lacking lately...), it's just that people around me who belong to different circles have wanted to see it, and I have no real aversion to seeing it again.

I do have one favourite scene in the movie.  It's when the president tells a little girl, who has a gun pointed at her head, that he can not give in to the terrorists to save her life, and she replies that she understands.  The expression on her face as she prepares for death is brilliant.  I'm surprised that anyone had the guts to write such a scene for a very mainstream movie.  I liked how the girl's actions were actually relevant to the movie, and not in an annoying way.  Well done, Emily Cale.

My mind always confused White House Down with Black Hawk Down, and my mouth compromises by calling the movie Black House Down which is quite horrifying for me and hilarious for those around me for obvious reasons.

Friday was my last day of work at my now previous job.  That evening, my partner organized a surprised 'writing retreat' at a hotel where we pigged out on room service and I tried to stay faithful to the idea by working on Vert Glace.  I've got the second chapter completely re-written, now I just have to feed it to Will and see how it comes out the other side.

Un-ended Tales Unraveled has nominated for everyone to read The Eyes of Magic.  To be honest, I've already read the first few chapters.  I read them after I read War and Her Quill because I was just that impressed.  The problem with reviewing for me is that I have to think of something smart to say...

Garg!  So many funnily captioned pictures.  I can't choose between them, so I'm going to repost them all.

A++ game it is then

The September contest results came out with Un-ended Tales Unravel on top.  Am I surprised?

Not at all. :D

If can't keep down food, let's see if beer is better...

Listening to the best of Blink 182 and drinking Kirin beer... It's slowly restoring my faith in life after the type of day I've had.

Emron is coming along swimming.  Or that can be the dragon-deer chimera in me talking.  I've been told that I am a very cheap date.

Oversharing is caring

Urg.  I'm swaying at my computer with not much sleep, and even less food in me.  It seems as though I had a disagreement with something that I ate last night.  No, disagreement is too polite a word.  I think whatever I ate set off C-4 explosives inside me and then cackled with glee as it took a joyride through the tubing of my body and out my various orifices.

Even now, my stomach groans like the wood of ancient temples being swallowed by the roots of the mountains.

Anything could happen from this point - and I don't  mean the Ellie Goulding song.

A change of View

Emron was marginally aware of Deleana’s attention as he was flocked with the good intentions of the young women of the party.  Keldary, as always, was particularly pushy with her affection, and her abundant and perfectly shaped cleavage more than made up for the drollness of her conversational content.  If he took her home tonight, it would not be because her opinions mattered to him.   

First time I've written from Emron's POV.  Fun, fun, fun.  

0000

Just reached 10 000 words for the Sasha story.  Now that's what I call L0 000VE words.

That was terrible.  I'm a terrible person.

But I had that pun in my head since 5000 words and with each passing thousand words, the urge to badpun only grew stronger.

Blood in the Water

Awesome.  Will got back to me.  I looked through his pinata coloured edits and fixed up as much as I could before I started to get dizzy and blind.  I will probably read through it again later on, notice a bunch of typos, cringe, and edit everything.

For now, it's been posted, but still a work in progress.

Crapload

I just noticed that I haven't posted anything in the past two weeks. Truth is, I've written about 80% of Game in Play; that much has been written since November 2012, but it's a load of crap, so I have to feed it through Will who reads it, edits it heavily, and gives it back to me to fix up.  He's had the John chapter for a week now, which makes me wonder if the chapter was even readable.  

I also have, excitingly, another part of Birthday Present written.  Two parts, actually.  Just finished the third chapter.  I'm not sure if the title is the most appropriate name for it anymore, but I've already made the image, so I'm not renaming it until I have to.  

Furthermore, I'm having fun reworking the second chapter of Vert Glace so that it's more show than tell.  It's challenging to create events that best set up the main character's background.

Will is going to need a mountain of prunes to get through everything. 

Love hurts

B-dog has actually read the whole of Vert Glace now.  He has given me some pretty good critique about the story that I will incorporate into the heavy editing I intend to do.  He pulls no punches, which is  painful in a good sort of way - kinda like waking up the next day after a really good work out.  Thanks, oh surly, grumpy, cackling, golden hearted housemate of mine.

I'm starting to edit, but I'm talking my time still because I want to make sure each chapter is as best as it can be.  Therefore, when I'm not 100% focused, I just do other writing.  Writing about Sasha Suter really helps me flesh out the world.  I find that I'm incorporating elements of that again into Vert Glace and Lordchaser.  Also, going back to the beginning after what must be now 200k words + notes in the same world makes the world building I can do so much better.  The process is invaluable to me.  this time around is the farthest I've gone in terms of writing and editing.  And I don't feel sick of the story at all yet!  That has to be a sign.  I've never felt more like an amateur.

I've been compulsively checking one person's fictionpress page because they mentioned something about possibly posting a new story this week.  Nothing yet, but I'm hopeful.

Welcome to the 21st Century

My friend went on a mandatory field trip out in the sticks today.  Her quote of the day, which she heard as she was getting onto the bus:

"Dad, it's the 21st Century.  I can listen to my iPod and do the herding at the same time."

Classic.

Friendly Competition 4

I did it again with the Boston Baked Beans.  I really want some now.

So there's a list of entries up for the contest.  There's still a chance for another entry to sneak in at the end there...  I've read all of the ones posted and I am sweating.  Competition is fierce, my friends.  I am honoured to be in the presence of such high caliber entries.

One that stands out for me is War and her Quill by Un-Ended Tales Unravel for the way it involves concepts as characters.  Very meta.  Very clever.

I feel very excited about this month's competition.  Competition inspires innovation.  Regardless of what happens this month, looks like I'll have to step up to my A++ game next time I enter.

Friendly Competition 3

I went to type in blogger, and ended up on a page about Boston Baked Beans.  Thanks, Solemn.

I had a particularly brutal evening at work yesterday, so I'm limping along the line for Friday.  I never would have guessed this in high school, but since working alongside physiotherapists, I've learnt that my headaches are actually caused by the muscles in my shoulders and neck becoming really, really tense.  I try and get some exercises in between clients. So awkward when my colleagues walk in on me doing the arching cat.

Today's the day for September Submissions to the Labyrinth Writing Contest.  I haven't accidentally stumbled across anyone's entries as of yet, but I know TanteLiz has an entry called Professionals.  So, right now I'm a bit like a horse with blinkers on, but once Fylofox posts the entrants, I'll be more of  a meerkat on the African plains.

I realized just now that the states is half a day behind here, so I suppose I'll have to wait to Friday to check out the competition.

I'm still finding romance quite a challenging genre, even when I'm relying heavily on all of the cliche stereotypes ("Archetypes!" wails Chris D'Amico, "they're archetypes!").

shielded from real writing progress

I watched the first episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. today and it wasn't bad.  I was waiting for Joss Whedon to bring in a bit character from another of his shows, and he didn't disappoint.  Hello, Shepard Book.

In the writing sphere, I think I just got chided on the Labyrinth forum by Aurelia Knight. Ouch.

In the not so ouchie part of writing, I've been working on the extension to Sasha's story.  At almost 9000 words, I'm beginning to now see a romance light at the end of the I-want-to-focus-on-kickassery tunnel.  It's a very different story to what I'm use to writing, but I suppose that's the point of the exercise. I'm determined to succeed in this.  It's another side project that's taking me from Lordchaser, but I really can't work on that enough at the moment anyway to do it justice.  I need long blocks of time (days long) to really get a good writing groove going.  If I do it in short bursts, then the story tends to be a bit choppy.  I'm hoping that after I move for my new job, I'll have more time for writing.  Ha.  I've heard all that before.  Welcome to the happy land of excuses.

Sasha vs Orion

Still, Orion’s cool never wavered, even when Sasha landed a hard blow on his shoulder.  The fighting was fierce and the staffs moved at blurring speeds.  The only sounds in the room were the clacks of the staffs coming together and the thud of feet against the wooden floor as they fought for ground.  For Sasha, it was a constant uphill battle.  No matter how much she pressed, Orion danced circles of defiance around her, refusing to be cornered.  Even as sweat flew off him as their bodies clashed together, there was no sign of fatigue, no indication of whether the young man was reaching his limit.  Had Sasha not fought him before, she would have believed him invincible by now.  

Bored of writing, did other writing

Last night I realized that I needed to do more world building before I could finish Lordchaser.  So instead of working on the story, I spent some time nutting out timelines, significant events, and background to the world.  It's not my favourite activity, but it's progress.

During the creation of the document, I got sidetracked and started another chapter about the aftermath of Sasha Suter's birthday.  There's now another 2000 words on the story.  I should really be trying to put more romance in it, but all I want to write are fight scenes.  First world problems, I know.

Watching Korra makes me realize that maybe the protagonist in Vert Glace is too mature for her age.  

Still reading

Bought Crown of Midnight today as I alluded to in an earlier post.  Haven't started reading yet.  Interesting hearing about 'Camp Chaol' and 'Team Dorian'.  I'm thinking a lot about how two desirable men in the same context can create popularity.  Even just proximity of not necessarily romantic interests can create this effect.  Definitely something to think about... *strokes imaginary beard*

Excused

There must be a negative correlation between how much I work and how much I write.

Manifesto

Spent about an hour fiddling with the image I wanted to use with the story before posting Manifesto.  Now I can get back to writing Lordchaser.  Yeah, right.

I tried to make the cover somewhat related to that of Birthday Present because even though they're very different stories, both are submissions for Labyrinth.  Note the patterns in the background.  I wonder if people will notice... probably not.  :D  But it makes me happy.

My sister has read the draft of Vert Glace and given me her comments.  I await the comments of one more reader before I will go back through it again.  Then I'll give it to Will.  Then, after he's torn it apart, I'll start querying literary agents.  Then, who knows what will happen?

Drained

I practically crawled up the stairs from the garage this evening when I got home from work.  The rain that served to dampen my already drowned spirits smelt like the colour grey.  And I tried to put my mind to Lordchaser, truely I tried, but it said, "screw you, I've nothing left to give."

So I spent the night reading stories on fictionpress and giving my September entry a comb over.

Will told me that I don't word well.  I write too much with too few words.  I've christened a new notebook.  It is called 'Words I Like From Books I've Read'.

Finished reading Throne of Glass.  Learned a lot.  Like, seriously a lot.  I'm glad I bought it.  I probably won't buy a second copy for keeps, but I will seriously consider the sequel.  My puerile curiosity nods in approval.  

A non romance story

I learnt my lesson last time.

I am not going to midnight rampage post my September entry for the Labyrinth Writing Contest.  

But here are the first two lines:

There are those of you who would look upon my deeds and call me evil. 

Ha!  

August Results

The Labyrinth Writing Contest for August has come to a close.  I think that I got my kicks from crafting a story to the theme and getting to write about some side characters - I really like to write.

Winning was just icing on the cake.

I've been thinking a lot abut popular writing vs good writing.  There were a few decent works in the competition this month.  I mean decent in terms of writing, plot, characters.  I wonder if my piece was just popular because it was a feel good romance story.  To be honest, Birthday Presents isn't really a romance story, but it is marketed as such.  Romance is prolifically popular - you only need to compare the reviews in the Romance section of fictionpress to any other section; or for people who leave their homes, go into a bookshop to confirm this.

If I'm to continue with writing competitions that don't have August in the title, I'll need a project to occupy myself.

So I'm going to do an experiment.  It's doomed to be meaningless from the beginning because there's no way I can control the variables that I need to blah blah blah reliability and validity blah blah.  But whatever.  Let's do this pseudoscience.

Hypothesis: Romance fiction is more popular than other fiction.

To test this, I'll alternate between romance and non romance stories for the competition.  So if I do participate in September, it will be non romance.  The markers will be votes in the competition and favorable reviews received.

Action packed weekend

Today was a day of many things.  I'm up to Chapter 33 of Throne of Glass and I'm still learning a lot about writing.  I'm making a study of female protagonists, as the main character in the books I am seriously working on features a female lead.  Celaena Sardothien is a different breed.  She is simultaneously fun, moody, angry, vulnerable, strong, naive, capable, prideful, doubting... many things.  There are many aspects of the book that make me raise an eyebrow, but that's good too - it highlights my expectations as a reader and my prejudices.  for example, I find it difficult to reconcile the idea of a successful assassin with a trusting and girly nature.  Of course, I'm not at the end of the book yet.  I'm probably going to have to eat my words.

Lordchaser has been a hard slog to write lately, but I made progress.  It's about the third time I've hit a rut with this story, and each time I just apply the tried and true method of turning off my inner editor and writing something.  Thanks nano.

I also spent a good part of this morning reworking the first chapter of Vert Glace to be less of an info dump.  My housemates are awesome.  B-Dog is reading through the whole story and Will read the chapter I revised today.  Will is a bit of a fantasy literary nut, so in terms of editing, he's a goldhole.

I'm thinking of creating a character called Floyd.

And this is not related to writing, unless I force the connection of female protagonist... the first episode of the second season of Legend of Korra has just been released.  It is not disappointing.

It's kinda cloudy outside...

Screw it.  I have a million things to do today but I'm going to spend the rest of the day at home reading, writing and drinking an assortment of different teas.

Reality can hold it's own until tomorrow.

Still reading

Chapter 13 of Throne of Glass. I'm learning a lot.  I know some people will hate me and call this book abuse but one of the things I've been doing when I buy a book is that I go through it with a pen.  I comment and underline all the parts I find interesting.  They're like my textbooks.  I'm not sure how much my writing is improving from this, but I am reflecting more and learning a lot.  Hopefully I'm accomplishing something by all of this.  I do love the books that I buy.  My love is just... different.

Surfing fictionpress today.  Stumbled across this trippy little gem called One by Infected Beliefs.  Main character becomes high as balls, but that's not the brilliant part - it's the descriptions.

I hope I'm not weirding out any governments that are tracking my web usage...

I'm doing research for the Shadechasers story on Fictionpress.  It's not the most popular, but it is fun to write when I'm taking a break from Lordchaser.  Anyway, I looked up dumpsters and got sidetracked google imaging bear cubs that get trapped in rubbish bins because they climb in to eat food.  Then I spent a good amount of time looking at escort services.

In no way was dumpster bear cubs and escort services linked in any way.  No way whatsoever, officer.

Oh god.  I made the mistake of googling 'sexy bear' to get this image.  Pro tip:  NEVER TYPE 'SEXY BEAR' INTO ANY SORT OF ONLINE SEARCH.  NEVER EVER.