August entry

Whoever said that stories are never finished, they're just abandoned, well...

I have abandoned The End of a Stormy Night on fictionpress, and I'm not looking at it again!  ...until at least tomorrow.  I know it needs to be edited more and what not.  It's odd dabbling in a genre that you know nothing about.  That's not to say that I write flawlessly in any genre, but gothic has never been on my to-do list.  But pride's a funny thing.  It would have become a broody angry thing if I hadn't written something for the August writing contest.  I'm not expecting to win this time round, but I'm not going home until someone hands me an 'I Participate in a Race!' ribbon.  

I actually forgot to mention that I saw Guardians of the Galaxy a while back.  For future reference, if any movie adaptions of mainstream comic books come out, especially DC (which I know Guardians isn't...), just assume I've seen it.  I mention this movie in particular because I'm listening to all the 70's songs on it's soundtrack right now.  :)  It's the first time I've actually listen listened to the Pina Colada song.  Scandalous.

Richer and cleverer than everyone else

I just realized that I get most of my reading/writing done when I'm sick or injured.  This time, it's sickness.  I don't know what that says about me.  I'm sitting here at 8pm at night, wrapped in a blanket like a granny and falling asleep.  I often wonder if this is what old age feels like.  I must be old.  I feel old.

Enough.  I'm not here to talk about how old I am.  I'm here to tell you about the bookbone I have for The Gentleman Bastard Sequence by Scott Lynch. Scott's world is an amazing word wizard who has build an amazing word world.  The cities, the religions, the calendar, the food (the everything)...  all this is fed to you with the most delicious words.  Oh, and the insults.  Who could forget about all the awesome insults? The books are worth it for the education in new and exciting ways to insult people.  The story is told in snippets of the 'present' and the past that intertwine in ways that are nostalgic and meaningful.  The storytelling is very clever.

Here are my thoughts per book:

Book 1:  Gentlemen Bastards are suave as hell
Locke Lamora is a name that just rolls of the tongue, doesn't it?  For the first third of this book, you just get sucked into how smoothly everything is going.  When you think you know what game Locke and his crew are playing... well, you don't know anything!!!!! Then of course, things take hilarious and horrifying turns.

Book 2:  Gentlemen Bastards are Oceans 11  AND Swashbucking Pirates
After reading the first book, I was a bit skeptical about the second, given that it was set on the high seas.  How do city thieves fair against the waves?  Magnificently.  Not only are there plenty of laugh out loud moments, you also somehow manage to pick up some fun language and traditions (much of it fictional) concerning sailing.  I am never setting foot on a boat again without feeling the need to bring a cat with me.  And I don't even like cats.

One thing that is worth noting is that this book treats women pretty well.  When you've read enough fantasy books, you just get use to the absence of women in the backdrop of the world.  Scott's bringing back the ladies, which deserves two thumbs up.

Book 3:  A Plot:  Gentlemen Bastards do Karthain, B Plot: Gentleman Bastards put on a play
If you're not into watching a man trip over again and again and again because of his lady love, fear not, for this book is really two in one (and the second story has much less romance in it than the other part... that is, if you can call it romance and not outright punishment).  It was great to have the twins of the group back in the picture - their departure was greatly mourned.

Book 4 is slated to come out this year.  I can't wait.

4 days till deadline

August contest entry is coming along swimmingly.

Ok, I lie.  But it has those arm floaters on, and it's floating in the kiddy pool.

What I mean to say is that I've made a start.

It's just that when my brain is this confuzzled from the flu (yes, yes, yet another one), I keep getting distracted with 'research' on the internet.  Gothic isn't something I'm overly familiar with, and even though I've crammed a number of trademarkedly 'gothic' elements into the story, it just isn't working that well.  I want to write something that's like The Hound of the Baskervilles.  What I am actually writing is a sad excuse for a fairytale that makes the Brothers Grimm turn in their graves.

The most interesting part of my life at the moment (apart from my beautiful, smart, caring, generous partner, of course...) is reading through the Locke Lamora books.  I'm 3/4 though the third one - Republic of Thieves, and I'm pretty sure the fourth isn't out yet.  There is no sound of appreciation in this world that adequately describes how much I like reading these books and how much Scott Lynch's words are blowing my mind.

...I will hopefully have the gothic contest piece finished by the end of the week.

This is why editing for Wolfie is so much fun

My reliance on Google continues

I've been preaching time management for years, but my own waxes and wanes.  Upon reading some advice from another writer, I've started keeping a bit of a schedule/record of my days.  So basically, I plan  my week in advance, and it's depressing to see that a large chunk of my day - the majority of my waking hours in fact - is spent on work and work related activities (such as traveling to work).  From this, I've discovered that on afternoons when I'm not tutoring students (which technically counts as work too... damn it!), reluctantly catching up on chores, or having religious types talk at me, I have between 1 and 3 hours to write. 

:)

And not a day have I kept to plan, but you know what, just having activities planned makes me more productive.   I would have never remembered to wash and hang up my clothes if I hadn't blocked out time for that on my precious Google calendar.  I wouldn't have finished betaing Val's story.  I wouldn't have worked on Woodsman at all.

So the point is, that while things don't always go to plan, planning has made me more productive.  Funny that.  Hopefully I can sustain it.

In a blink of an eye, it's suddenly the middle of August.  My year goal of having a manuscript ready for querying is not going as planned.  I haven't finished my second draft yet.  Hopefully by the end of September I will have beaten a path of order through the wild forest of chaos.

Potato baby.

One of my friends gave birth yesterday.  Now there is one more human being on this planet.  Horray.  Life is a miracle.  He kinda looks like a potato at the moment.  Miracle potato.

Wow, it's already six days into August.  Time flies when you're sick and exhausted.  :)  I thought I'd do something useful with myself tonight, so  I edited and posted another chapter of Shadechasers.  Not as impressive as... you know... giving birth.  But yeah.

Home is where the plane takes me

I've fixed the zipper to my bag, and I feel like Macgyver.  The trip to the city this month was quite eventful, and my bag is full to bursting, which means that this is the king of bad timing for broken zippers.

And perfect timing for an awesome feat of mind over matter.

Still trying to recover from a lingering malaise that comes along with maybe-a-bacterial-maybe-a-viral-infection.  I'm blogging as I wait for the powers that be to announce that boarding for my flight has begun because staying awake is preferable to sleeping when waiting for a plane.

Red Seas Under Red Skies.

This is the second book in the Locke Lamora/Gentlemen Bastards series.  Needless to say, I did finish the first book.  It was definitely an excellent book, at least a 9/10.  I'm going to finish the other two books that are out in the series, and then I will do my review thing (with the usual caveat in place, that is, if things aren't too devastating at the end.  I'm hoping the main character will have the last laugh, given how brutal the second part of the first book was).

Writing wise, I've been a super slacker.  I've got 2 stories I'm suppose to be betaing, and I'm late to finish writing one.  So not sure if there's going to be any activity on the creative front from me for the next few weeks, except maybe participation in a Labyrinth contest, if Fyloe sets one.  Four days in and it looks like it's going to be a slow month.  :)