Yummy...or POISON!?
Jul. 8th, 2008 | 09:49 am
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Thank you, fellow SPL patron!
Jun. 25th, 2008 | 01:02 pm
mood:
content
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Bookish Annoyance
Jun. 24th, 2008 | 04:18 pm
mood:
frustrated
From: Me
I know, because the library's database tells me so, that the book was due 6/23/08. YESTERDAY.
So turn it in. MY TURN MY TURN MY TURN!!!1!!1!!
::coughs:: Sorry. Sometimes my impatience gets the best of me.
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400!
Jun. 18th, 2008 | 05:23 pm
So, my next goal is to finish my first draft by August 15. A little while back, when I hit p. 300, I hoped to have the manuscript submission-ready by Labor Day, but I've since realized that's unrealistic. This book needs SERIOUS editing to be the best I'm capable of making it. I've got research to do, I've got to make some decisions about the backstory of my alternate world set-up and how much of it to reveal, I need to make sure my protagonist actually has a character arc (right now I'm afraid he's every bit as resolute and heroic when we meet him on p. 3 as he is on p. 400, and that won't do), I need to fix the story logic of my main subplot, etc. I'm thinking that's more like 3 months' work than 3 weeks', so my new tentative goal for being really and truly DONE is 12/31. But I may revise that up or back by a month or two as I go along.
Still. 400 pages. I'm most of the way there. And I got my feedback forms today for the Pacific NW Writers Association Literary Contest (I'm one of the finalists in science fiction/fantasy). It's almost 100% positive. One of my judges wants me to concentrate on adding more description and sensory detail, which is a fair point. That's one of my weaknesses. But s/he also praised my story hook, admired my pacing and imagery, and said s/he looked forward to reading the entire book. The second judge seemed to love everything, and I'm gloating over comments like "A real cause. A real protagonist, super antagonists, wonderful game of 'what if?'"
They liked me, they really liked me! ::bounce bounce bounce::
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Quiz time....
Jun. 15th, 2008 | 11:15 pm
You Are a Dragon |
![]() You are very charismatic and incredibly popular. People are drawn to your energy, but you are a very difficult person to get to know. You are very active - you are usually hard at work or play. You enjoy drama, and you enjoy anything unusual or eccentric. |
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Sigh
Jun. 14th, 2008 | 11:37 am
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300!
May. 10th, 2008 | 10:57 pm
Guess who just reached 300 pages on her WIP? ME, that's who!
That's 300 pages in Courier New, because I like the old-school typewriter look of the font. Makes me feel part of the great continuum of storytellers extending back in time, somehow. Actually, I'm at 302 pages, 66,875 words by MS Word's counter, to be exact.
I'm shooting for a 500 page draft, give or take, something between 100K and 125K for a word count. (One of the reasons I'm happy to be writing historical fantasy instead of romance is that writing short doesn't come naturally to me, and AFAICT you're actually allowed to go over 100K!) And...you know, the end is in sight. Finally. I've got some thorny plot hurdles to overcome still, but I do know where I'm going. I just have to figure out how to get there. I can do that. The hope is to have the rough draft finished by August 15, which should be doable. Then maybe a week off, and a month or so of hardcore editing to try to whip this thing into marketable shape.
And then, unless my agent asks for major revisions...I may actually have a book on editors' desks seeking its fortune by the end of 2008! Woo! I'm so ready to get my work back in the market!
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Going Dark
May. 3rd, 2008 | 10:14 am
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Name meme
Mar. 29th, 2008 | 02:21 pm
1. Your rock star name (first pet, current car): ELSA MAZDA
2. Your gangsta name (fave ice cream flavour, favourite type of shoe): AMERICONE DREAM LOAFER
3. Your Native American name (favourite colour, favourite animal): RED HORSE
4. Your soap opera name (middle name, city where you were born): EUNICE ALABASTER
5. Your Star Wars name (the first 3 letters of your last name, the first two letters of your first name) WIL-SU
6. Superhero name (2nd favourite colour, favourite drink): GREEN SANGRIA
7. NASCAR name (the first names of your grandfathers): EDGAR IRVIN
8. Stripper name (the name of your favourite perfume/cologne/scent, favourite candy): VANILLA FERRERO ROCHER
10. TV weather anchor name (your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter): BYERS BALTIMORE
11. Spy name (your favourite season/holiday, flower): SUMMER ROSE
12. Cartoon name: (favourite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now): WATERMELON JEANS
13. Hippie name (What you ate for breakfast, your favourite tree): BISCUIT WILLOW
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Annabel's Fifth Easter
Mar. 23rd, 2008 | 11:19 pm
Here she is in her dress.
Here she's dancing
It was COLD here today, so Dylan put a cardigan over the dress and bundled her into her winter coat before leaving for church. (I was already there before either of them woke up. We have three services on Easter, 7:15, 9:00, and 10:45, and the choir does all three.)
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Annabel in a dress!
Mar. 16th, 2008 | 08:14 pm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dylanw/233
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dylanw/233
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Politics!
Mar. 7th, 2008 | 11:30 pm
Consider yourself warned....
Look away if you don't want to see this stuff...
The first child featured in Clinton's "3:00 a.m." ad is actually grown up now (it was stock footage) and was an Obama precinct captain in the WA caucus
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Manuscript blues...
Mar. 6th, 2008 | 10:32 pm
Because I'm not doing a great job of pushing through the WIP just now, and it's not because I don't know where the story is going. I pretty much do, and there are some scenes coming up I'm really looking forward to writing if I can just push through the set-up. This part just sucks to write because I'm introducing new characters, one of whom is a fairly obscure real person whose entirely personality I'm building around A) her facial expression and posture in a portrait and B) extrapolation from the personalities of her sons. Which just feels presumptuous, because maybe she was a sweet, gentle, mild old lady who just LOOKED kinda terrifying and happened to ACCIDENTALLY bear at least two sons whom, let me tell you, you would TREMBLE before when they're angry. And maybe six months after my book sells (please God, let it sell!) someone comes out with a major biography of her and her sweet gentle ways, and everyone who reads my book will point and mock because how could I miss all the sources the biographer found for her sweetness and mildness?
OK, I've convinced myself I should stop worrying about her, but, still, this is an awkward scene to write. Someone remind me that I can fix it, or even cut it altogether, later on, but that moving forward is a better way to finish a manuscript than spinning my wheels.
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This is me, all right...(at least since I've gotten better about the worrying thing)
Mar. 6th, 2008 | 10:05 am
Your Score: Rabbit
You scored 19 Ego, 15 Anxiety, and 18 Agency!

IT was going to be one of Rabbit's busy days. As soon as he
woke up he felt important, as if everything depended upon him.
It was just the day for Organizing Something, or for Writing a
Notice Signed Rabbit, or for Seeing What Everybody Else Thought
About It. It was a perfect morning for hurrying round to Pooh,
and saying, "Very well, then, I'll tell Piglet," and then going
to Piglet, and saying, "Pooh thinks--but perhaps I'd better see
Owl first." It was a Captainish sort of day, when everybody
said, "Yes, Rabbit " and "No, Rabbit," and waited until he had
told them.
You scored as Rabbit!
ABOUT RABBIT: Rabbit is generally considered Clever by his many friends and relations. He is actually a much better reader and writer than Owl, but he doesn't consider it worth mentioning. Instead, Rabbit's real talent lies in Organizing Plans. He organizes rescue parties, makes schemes to reduce Tigger's bounciness, and goes on missions to find out what Christopher Robin does when he's not at the Hundred Acre Woods. Sometimes, however, his Plans do not always go as Planned.
WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT YOU: You are smart, practical and you plan ahead. People sometimes think that you don't stress or worry, but this is not the case. You are the kind of person who worries in a practical way. You think a) What are my anxieties about and b)what can be done about them? No useless fretting for you. You don't see the point in sitting around and waiting for things to work out, when you could actually work them out today and save yourself a lot of time and worry. Your friends tend to rely on you, because they know that they can trust you help them work things out.
You sometimes tend to be impatient with people who are less practical in their ways. You don't have much patience for idiots who moan about things but never actually DO anything about them. You have high expectations of everyone, including yourself. When you don't succeed at something, or when something goes wrong despite your best efforts to prevent it, you can get quite hard on yourself. You need to cut yourself some slack and accept that everyone has their faults, even you, and THAT IS OKAY. Let yourself be faulty, every now and then, for the sake of your own sanity.
| Link: The Deep and Meaningful Winnie-The-Pooh Character Test written by wolfcaroling on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test View My Profile(wolfcaroling) |
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WHAT did you say, Bill?!
Feb. 14th, 2008 | 12:36 pm
Of his wife's recent travails, he said, "the caucuses aren't good for her. They disproportionately favor upper-income voters who, who, don't really need a president but feel like they need a change." (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunc
There's just so many layers of wrong here I don't know how to unpack them all.
I mean, technically I'm the kind of person he's talking about here. I'm not a latte-sipper because I don't like coffee, but I am the stereotypical well-educated white urban under-40 Obama voter. I'm even technically upper-income, barely-sorta, though the living in a high cost of living area and still being in debt from the two times in the past decade we've been a one-income household make me FEEL struggling middle class. I work regular hours, so spending several hours at a caucus on a weekend or evening isn't a hardship for me (though I acknowledge that as a serious problem with the caucus system). And...I don't need a president why exactly? I'm so rich that I could never possibly ever need government assistance for anything? My civil liberties are utterly secure? I don't have a nephew in the army who's getting ready to go to Afghanistan? I can't imagine any circumstances under which my daughter might follow the long military tradition of my family and therefore don't care how many ill-considered and unjust wars we wage? I don't, for that matter, live in a city which is well-known enough to potentially be a terrorist target and doesn't have obvious vulnerabilities like a major seaport downtown? Um, yeah right to all of those.
And does he really want the Washingtonians who could carry this state for Hillary if she's the nominee, the people who lined up to make their voices heard, to feel like we don't matter, we don't count, our voices don't deserve to be heard, just because we as a group didn't say what he wanted to hear last Saturday?
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Book Meme
Feb. 6th, 2008 | 08:40 pm
Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?
Hm. I've had a lot of friends and family try to sell me on reading Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers. But I'm so down on inspirational fiction as a genre, as a reaction to the few years where I read it exclusively, because I thought I was protecting my mind from sinful influences or something, that I haven't been able to bring myself to attempt it yet.
If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?
Lord Peter Wimsey, Richard Sharpe, and Joscelin from the Kushiel series. For dinner. But they probably wouldn't get along at all, what with Lord Peter being so suave and sophisticated and Sharpe so NOT and Joscelin would be stuck as the peacemaker which isn't really his strength, so maybe I'd have them each over separately. For dinner. Just dinner. Nothing beyond that. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it...
(Y'all don't believe me, do you?)
(Borrowing shamelessly from the "Thursday Next" series by Jasper Fforde): You are told you can't die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realize it's past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
The Red Badge of Courage. Only I've already had to read it TWICE, in 7th grade and 11th grade, so I should already be in my early grave...
Come on, we've all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you've read, when in fact you've been nowhere near it?
I don't think I've done that. Really.
You're interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who's not a big reader). What's the first book you'd recommend and why? (If you feel like you'd have to know the person, go ahead and personalize the VIP).
If this VIP isn't much of a reader, I probably shouldn't start them on Shakespeare or even Austen because the language itself would be too daunting for them. OK, I'm going to assume this is a political VIP, and one who's reasonably intelligent despite not being a big reader. I'll give him John Keegan's The Mask of Command because it's all about the use and abuse of military power, and the mini-biographies of the four leaders (Alexander the Great, Wellington, Grant, and Hitler) give it a strong narrative thread.
A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?
French. I need it for my research, and I think it would help me write better English dialogue for my French characters, but I don't know when I'm going to find the time to teach myself.
A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?
Pride and Prejudice. I already read it almost every year anyway.
I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What's one bookish thing you 'discovered' from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?
How good the current generation of YA is.
That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she's granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leather bound? Is it full of first edition hard covers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favorite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.
It's a big, lofty room on the top floor of my dream home, wall-to-wall books, nothing special in terms of leather-bound or first editions, just books I love, with favorite authors given prominent placement. I have a comfortable couch to lounge on and a great big desk where I sit at a window looking out over mountains, ocean, or both. Above my desk hangs this sword. It's a plain blade, but it's the one the Big Damn Hero of my WIP is given by his general at the end of the book, that he carries throughout the series, and in this particular fantasy the good fairy has also made it so my WIP sells and the series makes my name as an author.
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Help me brainstorm!
Jan. 16th, 2008 | 06:38 pm
Anyway, I've never written a jailbreak scene. I've never had any desire to write one, but the plot demands it. This part of the plot was light on peril until I decided A's enemies were going to catch him...but I have to get him out somehow, as he's set to be alive and triumphant at the end of the series. Which would be difficult to accomplish if he's missing his head or has his neck snapped at the end of a rope, this not being a paranormal sort of alternate history allowing for zombies or ghosts.
So. I barely know where to begin. I know what I want from the scene. I want it to be a nail-biting roller-coaster of an action scene, and I want it to cement the bond between J and A, which is in many ways at the core of the series--but not in too comfortable or happy a way. Basically, what this scene should show is that J would walk into hell for A, but A wouldn't necessarily reciprocate. (Not that A doesn't value J, A is just older, cooler-headed, and higher in rank. He'd walk into hell for his country or his principles, but not for any one other human being.) Incidentally, A and J are straight, but I'm prone to lobbing softballs at my hypothetical future slashfic writers where the two of them are concerned, because they're just such gorgeous intense men who are more alike than either wants to admit.
So, anyone have any thoughts on how I go about accomplishing all this? I know this is vague as can be...but what would you like to see in a vaguely slashy early 19th century jailbreak scene? I haven't even decided if A is in a standard urban jail with lots of colorful squalor or, given that he's sort of an illegally detained political prisoner (gee, look at me, I all unintentionally made a real-world parallel!), if he's under house arrest at some secret location, which would probably make more of a challenge for J but not be as humiliating for A. J has some allies--a few trusted friends, and A's brother who he doesn't trust at all because he took him in instant dislike and suspects of turning A in (which he didn't).
Help unstick my brain?
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Nevermore...
Dec. 14th, 2007 | 09:26 am
Your Score: The Raven
You scored 46% domestic, 30% gregarious, 25% trickster, and 73% intellect!

Wild, Solitary, Serious and Intellectual: you are the Raven!
Raven is a strong symbol of both creation and destruction. Wisdom through intelligence, observation, and challenge. Raven is strongly tied to the spiritual world, living in a constant state of otherworldly awareness. Raven people tend to be very introspective and savor time spent ‘alone’.
This test categorized you based on four different axes of personality, which were then associated with a different animal. The four axes, as well as all possible results are explained below.
Wild/Domestic: This first axis categorizes you based on how much you are drawn to the outdoors, versus how much you are drawn to civilized situations. Domesticity has many shapes and forms, and varies from the joy of dolphins leaping next to a ship to the steadfast loyalty of a family dog.
Gregarious/Solitary: This axis measures how solitary you are. If you scored high, it means that you enjoy the company of other people, while a low score indicates that you prefer a more solitary lifestyle.
Trickster/Serious: This axis measures how well you line up with conventional trickster archetypes. People who fall into this archetype have a sense of humor and an excitable, highly chaotic streak. Scoring low doesn't mean that you don't have a sense of humor; it just means that you probably don't think dynamite is very funny.
Intellectual/Emotional: This last axis determines whether you are more emotional -- acting based on feelings and instinct, or rational and intelectual -- acting more on thought than on your gut feelings.
| Wild | Gregarious | Trickster | Intellectual | The Hyena |
| Wild | Gregarious | Trickster | Emotional | The Otter |
| Wild | Gregarious | Serious | Intellectual | The Antelope |
| Wild | Gregarious | Serious | Emotional | The Wolf |
| Wild | Solitary | Trickster | Intellectual | The Weasel |
| Wild | Solitary | Trickster | Emotional | The Coyote |
| Wild | Solitary | Serious | Intellectual | The Raven |
| Wild | Solitary | Serious | Emotional | The Frog |
| Domestic | Gregarious | Trickster | Intellectual | The Fox |
| Domestic | Gregarious | Trickster | Emotional | The Dolphin |
| Domestic | Gregarious | Serious | Intellectual | The Horse |
| Domestic | Gregarious | Serious | Emotional | The Dog |
| Domestic | Solitary | Trickster | Intellectual | The Rat |
| Domestic | Solitary | Trickster | Emotional | The Ferret |
| Domestic | Solitary | Serious | Intellectual | The Cat |
| Domestic | Solitary | Serious | Emotional | The Squirrel |
| Link: The Animal Archetype Test written by crumpetsfortea on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test |


