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Creatively Antsy

I’m running a little late tonight. I was working on an assignment for my Western Civ class (which I was doing last minute because DRAMA and also CARP but I won’t go into that.) To be honest, the assignment was a little difficult. Not the part about “you’re a vassal for two different lords, who are about to go to war and both have called you up to fight. What do you do?” No, that part was pretty easy. The hard part was doing only the assignment, and not going beyond. By my oath, I owe fealty to Count Moliere. By my oath, by tradition and right, I owe fealty to Count Lumiere. When this bleak winter ends, the two shall meet on the field of battle and I am called to take my place–on both sides of the argument. Five years ago at Christmas, I did homage to Count Moliere and spoke my oath, took my place as his vassal. He gave to me the lands and rights to this castle through which the wind blows. This castle he reclaimed when my predecessor broke his oath of fealty, and bore arms against him. This castle stands, cold and drafty, amid a manor my lord Moliere had nearly emptied of useful persons. He gave me a fief of the old, of the infirm, of women and children. When we meet he boasts of his generosity as a true knight and pokes at my lack thereof, when I have sunk…

Why I Didn’t Post Yesterday

Normally, I’m pretty good at keeping myself organized. Because we’re on a schedule, it’s pretty easy to remember. I’m the third Tuesday. But, apparently, I got distracted. Why did I get distracted? Well, you see, I was copyediting this awesome, kick-ass novel. The one we are releasing in May. I’d just gotten the second part, and I was DYING to keep reading because the place they ended part 1 was a bit of a cliffhanger and…gah. I kept thinking about it. And then I started copyediting, and time just went away. It’s kinda been like this all month. Kit and Siri, bless their souls, were running a bit behind on edits, so I was working on Ever Touched and Covenant, my two main projects. Then, over the weekend, I got a kick-ass idea for a horror novel (or screenplay). So that’s been on my mind. I’ve had a few personal things happening in the midst of this, plus daylight saving time (don’t tell me it doesn’t effect you because I will smack you. Some of us are sensitive to such things, mmkay?) and work stress. So, yeah, I spaced on yesterday’s post. I apologize for my error. I know you were all waiting with bated breath for my monthly thought-dump. But seriously? This book is out of this world (see what I did there? No? Okay, now I feel cheesy) and it’s very different from what’s out there which is the point. Awesome characters, awesome world, kind of dystopic, too.…

3 Things I’ve Learned from the Sekrit Project

Siri’s and my co-written novel continues to be in the front of our minds as we finish up our edit (the book’ll be out in May!), so bear with us for just a little longer. Next month we might actually talk about something else! Though I make no guarantees. The sekrit project (as we’ve dubbed the novel) has proven to be eye-opening in many ways. I’ve had to plot, write, and edit differently than usual. It’s been a long time since I wrote with someone else, and rarely with the level of coordination that this has entailed. So, before I jump back in (I’m ~66% of the way through my parts), here’s 3 things I’ve learned from working on this project.

In the Throes of Editing

Just a quick post today, lovelies, because Kit and I are still wrestling bears editing our novel for your future reading delight. I’ll be honest: it’s been a really tough slog. Not because I can’t take critique — I’ve been in critique groups for years, and have gotten past the initial defensive reaction. When someone like our awesome editor KD points out a problem, I listen. (And then decide whether the passage in question should be fixed in a different way, or should actually stay as is while I go fix something elsewhere that led to the perceived problem…) Not because I can’t stand the thought of changing a word. I’ve long since gotten over the fear of messing up my first drafts. (I mean, first drafts are rough by nature, but there’s something raw and pure about them — that’s the way the story came out of your head, and it can be hard to contemplate making it different. But first drafts aren’t canon. Or maybe they are, and second drafts are the fanfiction that seeks to improve upon them? Good grief, I think it’s too late in the day for analogies.)

7 Weeks

So about seven weeks ago, coincidentally enough, I blogged about an app called 7 Weeks. It’s supposed to help build habits. So how’s that going? I think I should have invested in the Cattle Prod app. Don’t get me wrong! The 7 Weeks app itself is great. Easy to use, appealing, intuitive…the problem, as always, is me. The free version tracks your habit for the titular 7 Weeks. I paid $1.99 for the pro version, knowing I was going to need more than seven weeks. And after those seven weeks, I can unequivocally say I was right–I needed it. Probably I’m trying for too much at once. I didn’t just stick with the two habits I talked about last time, oh no. Not ME. That would be too easy! I stuck with writing every day. I altered “watch the money” to “update budget spreadsheet.” I added “clean kitchen.” And “at or under calorie goal.” Most days I get one of them (clean the kitchen, generally. It’s the least mentally-challenging). Some days I get two! I’ve even gotten all four once or twice, but definitely not more than that. As I see it, there are a couple reasons for my less-than-stellar performance here: I take on too much. Always. Instead of one habit at a time, I went for four. I’m also doing these while I take a three college classes (two of them only one credit each, but still!) work full-time, and continue my adventure-seeking in the great outdoors. (For…

Eight-Minute Writing

So I recently discovered Monica Leonelle. She writes fiction and non-fiction. I’ve read several of her non-fiction books, and one of them caught my eye: The 8-Minute Writing Habit: Create a Consistent Writing Habit that Works with Your Busy Lifestyle. This book was life-changing for me. First of all, if you’ve been reading my posts for awhile, you know that I’ve written every day of my life (with a few exceptions) for at least ten years. Eight Minute Writing (the book) focuses on integrating writing into your lifestyle by writing just eight minutes a day. Brilliant, right? Anyone can grab eight minutes a day to pound out some words. Monica suggests doing this several times a day, and eventually upping it to maybe ten minutes, or fifteen. Back when I was struggling with Survivor, my psychological horror novel, in 2007, I wrote 50,000 words of it by writing just fifteen minutes a day. I was having ~issues, and fifteen minutes was a no-pressure, easy solution to the problem. I highly suggest this for anyone who is struggling to find time or struggling period. It removes the expectations and wibbling (something which I engage in frequently) by giving you a clear deadline. Eight minutes and you are done. Note that there are no wordcount goals. This is strictly a time goal, and what you get — whether it’s 50 words or 300 — is fine. But, since I’m already writing every day, I thought about how this might work for my…

Hey Hey, We Won the Super Bowl

In a break from our normal subject matter here, I’m going to talk about football. You can’t escape it around here these days. You see, we (meaning me, Kit, and the rest of Colorado) won the Super Bowl on Sunday. Well, the Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl. I did very little to help. Super Bowl 50! I don’t want to tell you how old I was when we last won in 1999.

Co-Writing for Fun and Profit

Didja miss me? Well, too bad…I’m back! Today I’d like to share a bit about Turtleduck Press’s next novel (title and cover art forthcoming in due time). Kit and I have both talked in this space about the fact that we’re co-writing, but we haven’t gone into any detail about the experience…until now. It’s not Kit’s first time co-writing a novel; I’ve done it before too, but not for many many years. And I’ve blogged before about having a major crisis of faith as a writer last year. So I was a little apprehensive about how it would go. In fact, it’s been quite a smooth process — at least as smooth as novel writing ever is! It’s helped immensely to have somebody to bounce ideas off, to trade chapters with (we each wrote one point of view, in alternating chapters), to keep each other motivated. Having two minds to work on the worldbuilding and plotting has not meant that we’ve each done half as much work as on a solo novel, but it’s certainly helped — I think we’ve done a better job on this story than either of us could have on our own. Luckily, we’re on a similar — though not identical — wavelength when it comes to planning. We did a pile of worldbuilding first (it’s a fantasy novel, more or less), then identified our respective characters and wrote some sample chapters. Those went out the window and we started over, with a clearer idea this…

The Obligatory Winter Blues Post

Every year I find myself writing about the winter blues — what I’m doing to cope, how well it’s working (or not). And why should this year be any exception? 😉 This year hasn’t been too bad so far. For starters, we’re having a really mild winter with almost no snow. Amazing what that does for one’s state of mind. Don’t get me wrong, I like snow, especially the proper crunchy snow that I grew up with and Toronto so rarely gets, but months of it will drag one down. And the cold, and the dark, and the post-Christmas, post-New Year’s letdown…okay, winter is still tough even without snow. I’m doing all the usual things — taking extra Vitamin D, using a full-spectrum lamp, exercising (dance and yoga, with some walking here and there), focusing on coziness (blankets, slippers, tea, soup, comfort reads). This year I’ve also added a couple of new things. First up, my latest creative outlet — Instagram. I finally joined Instagram last summer so I could post pictures of my garden, but when the harvest was over, my account sat idle. Then in early December I noticed a friend doing a daily photo challenge, #decemberreflections. I jumped in and enjoyed it so much that I joined a second challenge this month, #savouringjanuary. I haven’t been quite as diligent in this second round, but it’s been a lot of fun looking for subjects to match the daily prompts, and seeing the wide variety of ways in which…

Trigeminal Neuralgia: 5-Month Progress Report

Thought I’d give you an update on how I’m doing. For the most part, I’m pain free, which is wonderful. Some days I still have severe pain though, usually if it’s raining, if I’m stressed out, or, surprisingly, if I laugh too hard (that really threw me for a loop, but I suppose it makes sense — the motions of the face while I’m laughing must irritate the trigeminal nerve). I still have a bit of breakthrough pain near my next dose, and lately, I’ve had breakthrough pain as early as five o’clock (my second dose is at nine o’clock in the evening). Sometimes it will hit me out of nowhere with no discernible cause, and those times have me scratching my head. TN is definitely still a mystery, and I think it will take some time to peel all the layers off this condition. BUT when I think of where I was around this time last year, in excruciating pain and hopeless, I am ecstatic. Most of the time, I’m okay, and I’ve been able to handle the breakthrough pain well enough. It’s not constant anymore. And, I have a diagnosis. I finally have a reason why my eye and face hurt so much. That’s invaluable to me. And to think that if I hadn’t done the research, had given up hope…I’d still be in pain and depressed and probably suicidal (did you know that TN was once called the “suicide disease”? Because people, like me, were in such horrific…

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Category: Bloggish Things