Wednesday Writing
Celebration time! I just got past the 50,000 word count mark on my current novel. Woooo! I am about to reward myself with a bath, but first a little update on my writing since it’s Wednesday.
Over the weekend I tried out the extreme portability of my new lappy and took it on the train up the coast. I managed to write about a thousand words each way, which was a very profitable use of my time. I felt very bourgeois when I did it too, which I think is another plus.
Story wise I am heading into the big battle, the beginning of the end of the book. I’ve had screaming matches between characters, spell casting, spell casting going wrong, a reconciliation and sexual harassment. Soon it will all be on. And by on I mean, pronounced like Awn. Should be pretty darn good. Feeling psyched about it.
I am feeling a lot less psyched about finding an American agent. I am actually feeling overwhelmed by the wealth of information online. I may subscribe to a writer’s market kind of website in the end. It looks like a promising way to go. In the mean time I have been spending all my money on books so I might wait a bit.
(I also got Goth goggles to steampunk up my Kapcon LARP costume, they came today and look wicked awesome. I am chuffed.)
I feel like I should also be writing short stories, and reworking the first three chapters of Kiki and shopping WtWTCH? around more, but Rain is giving me no headspace for other stuff. Bolshy girl that she is she is demanding all my time and making thinking about other stuff hard. I’m both dreading and looking forward to finishing her story off.
The upside to my agent search of frustration is there is lots of good writing linky this week:
Cory Doctorow writes about sex in teen novels. Someone recently expressed surprise that I had a sex scene in my teen novel, I wanted to say something like this, but I didn’t manage it.
11 productivity tips that creative types already know.
Good solid advice from someone who knows.
This article about picking agents is full of sensible advice.
Funny: Instructions on how to write a bad novel. (Long but good.) You should really check out the whole poewar site actually, it’s full of awesome.
Roller derby, Julie + Julia, spoonflower
On the weekend I went to my first bout of the roller derby. It was insanely cool, the crowd was packed with geeks, the costumes were adorable, the game exciting and exhilarating. Plus there was beer! I went with a bunch of friends from work, since Goldie Scorn of Brutal Pageant is the sister of one of them, and I brought Steve too. We ran into a few more people we knew and it was awesome.
I can’t really describe it accurately, except to say that along with Pro-wrestling, this is my favourite spectator sport now. Except of course, that the girls in roller derby aren’t pulling their punches, they’re really bashing each other. Why don’tyou go and check out these awesome Videos care of Simeon?
(am slightly tempted to get fit, rolling and try out for the roller derby.)
Last night I saw Julie and Julia which is the movie of the book of the blog. As you might expect, the storytelling got rather meta. That aside it was a very good movie, the leads did wonderfully and the food was enticing. Flashing between Julia Child in France learning to cook and Julie Powell in 2002 cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s book the movie didn’t pull any punches with the emotional lives of either character. It was refreshing, somehow, to see a movie in which a modern woman doesn’t have everything sorted out and sits down and cries for no good reason.
Yesterday was also a birthday present day. I received the threadless tees I bought with cash from Will and Paula, and the custom printed spoonflower fabric courtesy of Svend and Star. The fabric is so pretty, really vibrant colours and I’m really happy with the designs I chose. Check it:

I’m not sure if you can see it, but the fabric on the right is little cameo portraits of the characters from Little Red Riding Hood. Cutes!
Can’t wait to get sewing and make some pretties with the fabrics.
But first, having spent over an hour trawling the internets for American literary agent informations, I must go and write some of Rain’s story. Turning the internet off in 3, 2, 1…
Things I Love Thursday
Strawberry plants, in fact, my whole indoor garden. Let’s see a picture of it!

That’s chilli plants in the front, sweetpea in the middle (flourishing) and strawberry plants furthest from the camera. I’m not sure if you can see but the strawberries are just starting to get a blush on.
this Hallowe’en costume, call centre Spiderman masks, Bernard’s old Irish songs from Black Books, sugar daddy Ken, photobombing.
Surrogates, my friends, candy, anticipation of a professionally cleaned house….mee goreng, hugs, warm, fuzzy socks, Weezer, sunshine, fireworks, laughing and tiger hat.
So, how about you? What are you thankful for this fireworks Thursday?
Writing
Learned another thing this week. That is that I cannot rely on the wireless access switch on my laptop for my ‘turning off the internet’ trick. It’s way too easy to just switch it back on again. Nope, I have to actually get up and unplug my router, because I’m lazy enough that the whole getting up from the couch, walking across the lounge and replugging in the router routine is a total deterrent.
That said, even with the laptop switch yesterday I got 2 and half thousand words written, including a sex scene (ooh er). Today I pushed it hard with the internet off and my word count is now sitting on 43,234. I managed a thousand words each day on the weekend, one session was even written while half watching Superman Returns. (Great movie that, but I’m never in the mood to watch it.) I suspect it will end up about 60,000 in total but I don’t really know, since I don’t actually know what scenes I still have to write. It’s all organically forming as I write. For example, today I followed up the sex scene with a ghost hunt in a theatre. As you do.
What can I say about the book? It won’t leave me alone. It is demanding to be written. I am exploring themes of sex, self esteem, death, life after death, cruelty and candy floss. Steve’s reliable voice in my head is bringing the drama and just as it was at the start, the dialogue is easy for me to write. I am loving it.
I worry that my teenagers aren’t quite pretentious enough, and I worry that I have internal inconsistencies in the plot because I’m writing so much in the ‘now’ that I forget what’s happened before. Not the big stuff, but the smaller details. I can’t wait to give this to someone to read, because I am very proud of it!
Some linky:
io9 had this great article about the importance of sadness in horror stories. (Lots of spoilers in that one, by the way.)
Check out The Event, CG just put up his part five and Matt’s last instalment went up over the weekend. Now it’s up to Steph to finish it all off…no pressure!
Neil Gaiman is coming to New Zealand for next year’s festival of the arts readers and writer’s week. Awesome sauce. Also Rufus Wainwright is coming, I’m probably going to go to see him with my Mum and Dad, but he’s not writing related so let’s move on…
Wondermark helpfully put up a list of collective nouns for supernatural creatures. I particularly like ‘a vexation of zombies’.
Tiger Hat

Blankets Owl wears the tiger hat
Man, I love my tiger hat. Blankets Owl looks rather dashing in it I think.

Tiger wearing tiger hat
Ultimate mind fuck confusion. A tiger? In a tiger hat? I don’t understand!

Yeah, I look really tired. Work was insanely busy. But the tiger hat! Appreciate the tiger hat!
Things I Love Thursday
Random scattered TiLT this week, because that’s what my brain’s like.
Today I am happy that I finished my character’s part of The Event. You should go and read it and comment with what you thought, because I love feedback of any description.
Tiger Hat. Blankets Owl. Craft 2.0. Ordering stuff online, especially with gift certificates. Getting stuff delivered at work. Watching my strawberry plants grow.
I really need to add photos to this, but my camera battery is charging. I think there will be a follow up photo post later on, maybe tomorrow.
Playtesting my Kapcon game and it being awesome. Finding out my Kapcon game in the second round of Kapcon is *already full*…turns out there’s a market for OTT emo supernatural teen romance ;p
New songs on Rock Band. Working out harmonies on Beatles Rock Band. Hiring a cleaner (so bourgeois, but it will make me and Lee happier…). Rewatching season one Buffy (so cute). New TV that rocks such as Californication. Thinking of new stuff that I could do, like selling stuff on felt. Browsing felt.co.nz. The smell of dinner cooking.
My lovely, awesome, impressive friends.
My wonderful family.
My tiger hat.
Wednesday Writing
So, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but my flow has been a little….lacking in the last week or two. I guess it got stuck? I dunno. Maybe it’s the Katamari. Maybe it’s the being insanely busy doing awesome stuff with awesome people. Maybe I just got a teensy bit of writer’s block. Whatever it was it’s gone now.
Today I took a drastic step that has been recommended to me all over the place by other writers. I turned off the internet. That’s right, I got home from work today and unplugged the router, which is also the phone line, thus ensuring no distractions. Then I got my head together, had a nap and then wrote around 2 and a half thousand words of a scene so dramatic and moving I actually got upset.
I’m hoping that’s a good sign, that my characters are real enough that I can get upset for them. I think it bodes well for the eventual readers. I also managed to write most of my part 5 for the event. I should be able to get that sorted and posted pretty soon.
So all that means that I still had the flow, I was just allowing myself to be distracted from it. I guess I got a little bored and that was all the excuse I needed to spend my time checking twitter, facebook, my blog stats, cute overload….anything at all that the internet had to offer. Removing that tempation had a magical effect. My Rain novel is now past 36k and I’m heading into the danger territory. Not for me, for my characters. I’m chasing her right up that tree and then I’m going to throw stuff at her for a while. Should be good.
(also I’ve added a wee tag for this new novel. I shall go back and link the previous entries into it…)
Some good writing linky this week.
I freaking love Gail Carson Levine’s writing, and I can’t believe I didn’t know she had a blog. A writing tips blog at that! I really, really enjoyed this article on ways to introduce suspense into your stories.
This storyfix article presents a great way to take another look at your work. Storytelling exercised that can get you published.
I also enjoyed this article about writer’s block and how to use it.