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30 November 2011

Castle

As a writer, I really like shows/movies that feature writers. Stranger Than Fiction was fantastic, and I really ought to own it. There was another movie whose title I can't remember (it involved two people's names, and I just can't remember their names) that was pretty good.
But Castle, now. I love Castle. It's a show about a genre-savvy murder mystery writer who solves crimes with his knowledge of genre and story. It's amazing.
I love it.

Anyway, I'm still watching the first season--though I'm nearly done--and I'm a little pissed that I didn't start watching earlier, so that I could be caught up before the current season started. Alas ... I should be caught up by next season ...

Short Story Challenge!

Sort of like a New Years' resolution. Dean Wesley Smith inspired me to challenge myself in 2012. Paraphrasing his example (100 stories in one year), I will challenge myself to write 50 stories in one year. I will also take his example of writing them from titles, but instead of looking at books and short stories for my titles, I've got a huge list of adoptable titles from the NaNo forums.
I'm not sure yet how I'll choose--I might print out a list of titles and find some way (darts?) to choose at random; I might print out a list, cut it into bits, put them into a large bowl or something, and choose a new title out of the bowl; I might just pick a handful and make a poll on the blog for my readers to choose from. I may do a mix of all three ...
Regardless, I will strive to write, publish, and make a cover for 50 stories (that's about a story a week, which terrifies me), in addition to my regular writing (novels and novellas), NaNoWriMo, and attempting to do a blog post at least once per week.
So, there's that.

In other news, I finished NaNoWriMo, getting to 50,171 words before I went to bed last night--and I'm not planning on writing any fiction today--I'll do a little work, including this blog, and maybe working on some kind of system for my Challenge--lists of names, titles, etc., just so I don't have to think about names, etc., for too long and can hopefully have the next title stewing my brain before I have to jump into it.
Then it will be food and decompression time: an episode of Castle or Doctor Who, something warm to eat, (dark) chocolate (almond) milk ... yum.

19 November 2011

NaNo is Saving My Life

I've been wanting to be a writer, an author for a very long time. In the last couple years, I've been very serious about that, trying to improve my writing through critique groups and reading about writing. The last few months, I've been getting serious about being published and being read, reading blogs about publishing, looking into self-publishing and e-readers--my writing group started a publishing company.
But through all that, I wondered. I wondered if the freelancing life was for me. Especially when I started reading about it. I wondered if I had the temperament, the drive, the love required to be a full-time writer, a full-time freelancer.
Then, for those not up on my personal life: I got married, which involved a fair amount of stress, and a lot of not doing anything but work, wedding planning, and trying to eat and sleep enough. The wedding was fabulous, and once I'd recovered (mostly, slept), and my husband (!) had gone back to work, I still had a few days of not-working. And NaNo was upon us! (We got weddinged on 11/5.)
So I started writing.
I started writing a lot, because I was about 6 days behind (and I've only gained one day on that). I did start work again recently, but my days off have become freelancing days, full-time writing days.
And you know what?
I love it. I absolutely love waking up, eating breakfast and then writing. I've been giving myself 1,000-word marathons: after 1,000 words, I am allowed to get up, refill my water bottle and/or tea mug, go to the bathroom, eat some food, stretch, etc. Sometimes I take walks or clean a small part of the house in between, just to do something physical.
Can I tell you how crazy that is for me? I hate doing physical stuff--but then, I'm usually exhausted from the whole work-day thing, and all I want when I'm home is to hole up and read or watch Dr. Who/Community/Castle/House/Bones/Dead Like Me/etc.
But now that I'm holed up in my office all day, writing, anything is possible. I finally cleaned the living room--not entirely, but a lot better than it had been--which I'd been avoiding all month. And I cleaned rather than go for a walk because the weather turned nasty yesterday, and I'm not sure my boots have dried from it yet.

So, anyway--every day that I devote to writing is another day that confirms my desire to write full-time, to be a freelance writer. This last week or two (with occasional interruptions from the working world and other things) have been amazing.

And then, because I've been meaning to do this, I present pictures of my office:
Posters, left to right: Emilie Autumn's against animal cruelty "Rats aren't creepy. Experimenting on the IS."; Alice in Wonderland I won at the CONduit Art Auction; EA's painting that I got with VIP tickets to see her at her last show.
The black-and-white orbs adorned the reception, and they also fit the Feng Shui of the office (black is good for Career, White for Creativity--plus the good energy they got from being part of the wedding? Perfect!), so I added them.
The notes under the rat painting: my goal to make a living with my writing, and three quotes that give me good feelings.

The place where the magic happens: my padded chair, my desk lamp, my little paper-stand, great for typing in hand-written stories/scenes/notes, and, of course, my netbook (Elizabeth Bathory). Also a candle and my water bottle, and my mp3 player (Hathor), which has been a little under the weather lately.

Behind my chair, my printer, my Heterodyne Coffee "Spark Roast" poster (It's Perfection in every cup!), and below all that is the round black cushion (very good Feng Shui) where my cats sometimes sleep ... when they don't want to climb up on my lap, which, by the way, is where Elizabeth Bathory usually goes. Of course.
Anyway, this space is wonderful--though I'm thinking of expanding it enough for a bookshelf--to store my writing books. My journals, and a few low-circulation magazines that I've been published in (like my high school's art & literature magazines) are kept above the desk--you can see them at the top of the first picture. But I'd still like to keep my writing books nearby.

Anyway, I'm very close to being halfway through the challenge (though I'll probably save that for tomorrow, since it's getting a little late), and every day that I "sit down at the keyboard and give it everything I have" is a Really Good Day. (That's one of my quotes on my wall.)
Love you all! Time to eat, and watch Castle, or maybe House or Bones ...

11 November 2011

11/11/11

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11/11/11, a set on Flickr.

I waited all day to post this. Maybe I should have started sooner. The second 11:11 has just passed, alas. Well, here we go:
Today, on 11/11/11, at 11:11(am), we (me, Holly, Beverly) had elevensies at 11th S and 11th E while wearing eleven article of clothing. There were eleven people on the corner, and our meal consisted of eleven pieces of food. (Yes, there were eleven elevens in those two sentences.)
 The Flickr set (above) consists of eleven of the photos I took today. They don't all contain elevens (that I know of--I need to check a couple of the crazy-people photos), but they celebrate the day's festivities.
We visited all four 11-11 locations: 1100 South/1100 East (at 11:11, there was a party there); 1100 South/1100 West (the only location with a house numbered 1100 on 1100); 1100 West/1100 North (the doghouse was approximately at 1100), and 11th Ave/1100 East (the cemetery--there isn't an 1100 North that far east).

That's what I did today. Oh, and I wrote a little.