So it’s been a little while since I gave a proper update! It’s been a busy week. ^_^ Starting with Labor Day weekend down at my folks’ place was great, but the apartment was a wreck, per usual. So when Tuesday rolled around, I at least managed to creep out of the house long enough during my lunch break to go grocery shopping and at least make it so we weren’t starving like the *last* two weeks when we didn’t make time for a grocery run. All I can say is that while we didn’t succumb to “Ketchup Soup” (recipe: ketchup, hot tap water, salt + saltine crackers), we were definitely scraping the bottom of the pantry. But! We got the kitchen restocked as of Tuesday, thank goodness, and the pile of dishes is slowly coming down, which is also good. Still have a lot of boxes to unpack, but since we haven’t needed the stuff for about a month, it’s hard to get motivated to see what’s in there. ^_^
I’ve been reading a lot too, in my spare time. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany mostly (*amaaaazing*), but I’ve been plowing through A Tale of Two Clocks (Legacy) by James H. Schmitz also (hilarious!). Having a lot of fun with both for totally different reasons. Delany always reminds me that there’s so much more to writing than just laying down sentences. He has such a finesse to his writing that pulls out the potently real amidst very unreal happenings. And I love his dialogue. Schmitz is just fun. I love Trigger. She’s hilarious–and just such a fun heroine in a field that often (myself included) seems to portray “tough” girls as stiff, cold, and mean to compensate for having a…well…you know… It’s such a riot, and I’m so glad I’m getting a chance to read it. :)
I’ve actually been writing all week, but haven’t had a chance to post anything about it. Probably good, because most of the last few days would have probably just consisted of whining.
Today’s Session – 8AM-9AM – Finished TFGoOS! At LAST! Holy crap, my brain hurts. I’ve been so ready for this story to end for so long! It probably gets ridiculously thin toward the end, but I’m okay with that for now. Rough draft, finished. PHEW.
I need to work on something else. Anything else. Finished re-reading Hope City and it’s not so bad, actually. I’m going to try to summary-draft it out moving forward, so we’ll just see if that can’t pull itself together. Need to consider rewrites, too, of Learning to Laugh and a few others. GOSH. I just want to write something short and new! Like this one untitled vengeance story. I’ve been obsessed with that one in mind, but gosh–it’s gotta be short. Tight and short. Maybe 3.5k tops. I want it tiiiiiight. Which means I’ve got to plan ahead, got to really reel it in and get it started at the meat. Need to spend some thinking time on that.
Have also been–sneakily–working on a summary draft for Shadow Engines. It’s my illicit little project on the side that I don’t fully admit I’m working on. Chances are, it’ll all fall to pieces in a few sections, but I gotta say, I LOVE summary drafting it. It’s going places I didn’t anticipate, but that I think will actually maybe make it richer in the long run. We’ll see, we’ll see.
For now, I’m going to listen to a genetics lecture and then maybe watch a bit of Dead Like Me, which I rather like! :)
I’m not doing so well on this 2hr thing–I can really only stay focused on one project (if not summary drafting with music playing) for about a half-hour to 45 minutes. I trained myself so well on that 500 words/day thing–it’s cemented into my brain. I think to overcome that, I’m just going to have to get better at running two projects at a time: one new words, one revision. I think that’ll work in the long run. And I NEED to do that with Learning to Laugh. There’s a deadline for an antho I think it could work for, so if I want that one done up and polished for that, I darn well better get started on it. It’s the having lost my notes thing that’s driving me half mad about it. I *know* I wrote down what I wanted to do there, and not being able to remember it is making me batty. OMG I just FOUND THEM. Like… JUST NOW. I was like “hey, I wonder if they’re in XXX notebook,” and BAM. Here they ARE! Ok, no excuses now. I gotta polish up that story. :)
Maggie Slater 