And also when I wonder why I ever started purposefully using cliches in my post titles . . . Maybe so I'm not tempted to use them anywhere else? I don't know.
Anyway, as some of you may know, the tune I have been singing thus far on this blog has been a mix of Mindy Gledhill's "Circus Girl" and paranoid caution.
The caution comes from a recent spat with an archiving policy on a writing website and, as a result, I have become very paranoid about putting whole pieces online, or even large chunks of pieces. I've been afraid of my work being claimed by the site it appears on or, worse, stolen by a troll who just happened upon it.
And while those are probably legitimate concerns the thought recently crossed my mind that the vast majority of the people who subscribe to my blog do so to sample my writing and/or give me feedback. And, also, that I'm probably not interesting or witty enough to carry a blog in which I talk about my writing but never share any of it. And I haven't gathered any trolls so far (at least not any as ugly as the one pictured above) so I guess I don't have any excuses not to share.
I'm changing my tune--"Miss Otis Regrets" and the first two chapters of Clocker (as soon as I have edited them).
I'm also working on a list of other blogs my readers should check out so expect that soon.
Sometimes I forget that this blog doesn't update itself--I half expect it to collect all the data from my life and turn out witty blurbs to keep every body else up to speed, but it never does and then I've gone months without blogging. Sigh.
I'm in two Creative Writing courses this semester (a trial I'm actually enjoying). In the Advanced class we'll be spending the semester working on a novel/novella. I had a really difficult time choosing which tale to focus on and if you've glanced at my upcoming projects list you know why. In the end I decided I shouldn't begin anything new when I'm so obviously falling short on the projects I've already begun so I chose to spend my academic semester with Clocker (my unfinished 2011 NaNo)and to spend my free time (if I end up having any free time)on my unfinished 2010 NaNo Iron Shoes.
Despite my resolution in my last post to return to all my most frustrating projects, I had totally dropped Iron Shoes until recently. My university has a weekly forum/devotional where a speaker is invited to address the students. Last week New York Times Bestselling author Jason F. Wright came to speak and I had the spectacular opportunity to eat lunch with him and a group of other students who are studying in the Humanities. In the course of the conversation I mentioned that I had an incomplete 65,000 word project and he told me that once I had invested that many words in a single project I had essentially lost the choice to discard it completely. So long story shortened, I'm going to finish it.
My main focus, however, has been on making Clocker coherent enough to be work-shopped. The issue has been that the world is a conglomerate of so many genres and cultures that I worried it would distract my peers from the actual story. It's also set in a gritty, nasty city which I would equate with Tortuga in Pirates of the Caribbean--essentially not a nice place--and I've been concerned that the callous portrayal of casual violence and squalor might prove offensive to my classmates. And then I took a step back and realized that, as long as it adds to the story's atmosphere, as crass as it sounds, I don't care if it offends someone.
So I'm researching weapons and old time London and vicious mythical creatures. To be honest I'm getting really pumped up to write a little of the darker stuff. I love weapons, especially the strange ones that hardly work but look really cool anyway. My favorite recent find is the cestus, the Roman gladiator's version of brass knuckles, which I am seriously considering making into my main character's weapon of choice. I'm taken with the idea of a female character who would rather wear a leather, studded boxing glove than carry a firearm.
But, to balance out that darkness so I don't spaz out and become a violence nut (any more than I already have) my music choices have become very very light. This week's speaker at my university was Mindy Gledhill and her visit has set me on a whole other kick. Her songs make me feel hopeful, silly and a little giddy so, as you can imagine with the combination of dark geeking and happy singing, I've become a very odd person to be around.
This post has been in the works for an entire month. I was full of excuses then and, as you can imagine, I'm still full of it. I intended to post of November 30th as a nice gesture to round off a rather rough NaNo, but I ran out of time. Besides, I had labeled my defeat far too well: the demise of this year's NaNo ambitions was nothing if not ignominious.
Shortly after November ended I had the harrowing experience of having some of my work reviewed anonymously by my fellow literary magazine staff members. Ouch. I will never own up to some of those entries. The discouragement put me off of fiction writing for probably a solid day and then I got over it.
It did, however, give me the impression that I should only spend time on writing projects that would produce impressive, sophisticated, earth-shattering results. While I remained under than impression, I turned out absolutely nothing. Then I realized I probably won't ever write anything earth-shattering and I decided to stop worrying about it.
Now I'm headed back to school tomorrow for a semester crammed full, but I've decided not to analyze my work before it's finished otherwise I'll never get anything anywhere near finished. I think I'm going to abandon my six novels/year plan in favor of returning to some of my most frustrating projects. Namely, the projects that I was obsessed with while I was working on them and have since given up and now detest. I don't know how long I'll last, and I may have to kill off a couple characters just to keep myself sane, but I have three days on the road and I've nothing else to do so I'm done being a boarding house for excuses.
New Projects:
Iron Shoes, last year's abandoned NaNo.
Clocker, this year's less than successful brainchild.
And, last but not least hated, the untitled story of Avonelle and Byron which I've been working on since 2008.
So, hedgehog people, clockwork people, and wolf people--oh my! I'd best get rocking and rolling.
Yes, it's true. I have written exactly no words in Clocker since my last post. I'm not sure what gives exactly, but I just realized that it's 11:30 on the 29th of November and there's no way I'm going to make it anywhere of import in my novel. It's kind of a bummer, not going to lie.
I'm not sure why, but I have had trouble feeling any sort of urgency about anything lately. This has causes problems because I'm a crisis manager--no crisis means I don't feel like I have to do anything. Trust me, I'm investigating the issue and intend to resolve it ASAP. I'm not a fan of being unproductive.
Not that I have been. Looking back (at the last couple days mostly) I have been surprisingly productive--I completed all but one of my Thanksgiving break homework assignments and I'm currently helping to found a club, not to mention functioning as Senate secretary and keeping up with all the homework that's been assigned since break--I just don't feel it. Wow, I'm such a whiner sometimes. I apologize. Life has actually been brilliant lately, I'm just disoriented with nothing concrete to worry about. It's wigging me out.
The good news is that I'm not stressed out about finals yet, Christmas is on its merry way and I can't wait to go home (though I don't feel anxious about that yet either). Tomorrow I'm going to make one last effort to get my word count over 15,000 (because anything less would be ignominious), but until then I'm just going to play Christmas music and not think about it.
I tried to put my foot in my mouth, I really did, but I'm not that flexible.
Guess I should have knocked on wood harder. Or removed myself to a nunnery until NaNo was over. Or resigned myself to F's so long as my manuscript got done. As you can see over on the right hand side of the page I added a word count to make myself more accountable . . . Let me tell you right now, there is no way I'm finishing 38,728 words in two days. What a shock, huh?
The new goal, which may be just as out of reach, is 25,000 words. Except that's 4,000+ words every day this month so we'll see. Luckily for all involved, I have only a few weeks left of this semester and I left December project free. I'm going to attempt to finish last year's NaNo, Iron Shoes, put some serious effort into finishing Clocker and reevaluating my 6 novels/year plan and revamping or reorganizing it. Super excited.
Until then, I have finals coming up and no more wiggle room. I'm going to be cutting things close, but hopefully I'll finish the semester with my grades and health looking no worse for wear.
Two days in a row actually fulfilling my word count, what? And I am becoming more attached to this tale every day. I keep forecasting that someone will get kidnapped, but I'm having too much fun developing my main character's home life for that to happen yet.
No excerpt today as nothing thrilling happened, but tomorrow our heroine will venture into an open animal market and may (though I won't confirm anything) try to purchase a harpy. Yeah, this story has half-women, half-vulture creatures too. But, honestly, what did you expect when I said circus animals? Surely you didn't think I'd stick to lions, tigers and bears?
Yesterday I was on sick leave, but I actually got 1,701 words typed out today (and it's not even 11PM!). Unfortunately, my handy NaNo stats inform me that at this rate I will finish on December 21 . . . Guess I should pick up the pace slightly.
I'm proud of myself (today at least), though I'm not so sure how I feel about my tale. I guess I don't do as well with friendly characters as I do with enemies, but today we were introduced to three different people who actually carry some importance in our heroine's life.
Oh, and there was finally some foreshadowing. Hallelujah. Unplanned foreshadowing, but it's better than none.
And while those are probably legitimate concerns the thought recently crossed my mind that the vast majority of the people who subscribe to my blog do so to sample my writing and/or give me feedback. And, also, that I'm probably not interesting or witty enough to carry a blog in which I talk about my writing but never share any of it. And I haven't gathered any trolls so far (at least not any as ugly as the one pictured above) so I guess I don't have any excuses not to share.
