Technical Difficulties

Don’t you just hate it when technology fails you? I admit it. I, who often advocate “back to nature” and “use a pen & paper”, was utterly bereft yesterday without my laptops.

Yeah, that was plural. Once again, I had not one, but two laptops going wonky on me this past week, hence the lack of posting. I also started my job this past week (yes, I am officially employed now), so I was coming home, too exhausted to do anything, and too burnt out on phones and computers to touch them for anything but play.

We’ll start at the beginning, shall we? A week ago Tuesday, we got home from helping and keeping company with my dad for my mom’s services. Finances, already strung tight, were wrapping around our necks like a boa constrictor going for the kill. I was depressed (and admittedly, relieved to some extent, but mostly depressed) over Mom’s passing. Every day, I would get up late, play on the laptop, take my walk, get a shower, then watch TV for most of the day. I was ignoring my business and wasting my time, and worrying myself over money.

I was also slightly depressed over making it to the phone interview with one job, only to be informed later that I had not passed the assessment test (I HATE those foolish, impersonal, “what if” crappy tests). I didn’t know if my son was going to be able to make his car payment, and it worried me that we didn’t even have enough to help him out if he needed it for just the next two months, until his military paycheck starts coming in. And while I am enjoying the scenery here, the fact is that Maryland is a killer for state taxes, so my husband’s paycheck has had a generous chunk removed by the hungry sharks of Maryland’s political ocean.

And so, typical me—worry, worry, worry. I decided to act upon this concern, though, and began looking for work. I applied to Random House and looked for work on various employment websites. I even looked on a Facebook page for local employment. I was already becoming frustrated, after sending out numerous resumes and filling out many job applications. Then, I got a call back from one of the resumes I had sent out, one in which I had forgotten to attach the resume in the initial email. I spoke with the woman and made an appointment to go in the following Monday to interview.

On Tuesday, I started. It’s not a great job, but I get okay pay and the hours are easy. I can only get up to thirty-five hours per week, though, thus limiting my income. However, the job is booking companies to attend events, and the owner, as a perk for me working there, allowed me to have a booth for my Avon for free.

All well and good. Until I tried, now that I was emboldened by a bit of success, to print up labels to place on my Avon brochures. That’s when the first laptop started giving me the blue screen of death and the other one became slower than cold molasses running uphill in the winter-time.

I spent all day yesterday watching television and trying to fix the laptops. As of today, hubby has taken over the big one, trying to get it sorted, and the little one decided to behave. However, neither one is talking to the printers yet, so I am still unable to print my labels (and I have far too many brochures to hand out to hand-write my information on them). Tomorrow, if they are not working yet, I will have to go to the library after work and print them there, or get hubby to print them at work. Oh, and I’ve got about six thousand words to go to complete Camp Nano. Wish me luck!

Research, and Other Four Letter Words

Research. To some, it’s the bane of their writerly life. I love to research, but recently had a problem where a lack on my part would have made a very serious faux-pas in my work. The novel is historical fiction, about a mythical set of people who may or may not have existed, as well as some of my own made-up characters, but all of them are interacting in very real events, with very real people. I was about to send my champion into a war that was not going on at the time. Whoops!

And so, I went back to my handy-dandy Google and searched. I found one skirmish that might have worked, but the time frame of when my hero would be there would have to be changed. I continued to search, and found a possible invasion that could work. Nice thing is (not for the people who lived through it, but for an author looking for such things), this era was fraught with wars, skirmishes, battles, and invasions.

When I research, I tend to head to the Google-foo, and I often begin with Wikipedia. Yeah, I know--*shudder*. But, it is a good place to start, to find basic information that can later be validated on other websites. Whatever the research, I try to find at least three sources that say the same thing, often using books or experts when and where possible.

I also try to write a little about what I’ve discovered. Reading more than one source, and writing a short paper on the subject, help me to learn more about it. Immersing myself in the subject is also quite helpful. Sometimes, I even make up flash cards, and I’m thinking of making up little quizzes for myself. Yeah, I know—GEEK!

Sometimes, research can be extremely fun, though. Researching what my male characters look like can turn into an afternoon of having to wear a bib so as to avoid drooling on the keyboard, thus shorting out the laptop. Exploring the many adjectives and turns of phrase used in romantic scenes can require Depends Adult Diapers from the laugh factor.

Then, there are other times when the research is downright boring. Timelines. Who did what when. And while herbs interest me, studying all of their uses in their various forms can be tedious.

But whether the research is boring or fun, it is necessary. At least, it is if you plan on writing an accurate story. My plan is always to write a story that is as accurate as possible. And so, I am off to Google again.

Wednesday Check-In, July 3rd

Weight:

Weight is up to an embarrassing 201.6 once again. Those trips to visit my dad really do me in. He buys donuts, which are my kryptonite, and every time I would offer to cook something healthy, he would say, “let’s go out to dinner.” Invariably, we would wind up at some Italian restaurant.

I don’t know what is keeping me from logging my food into MyFitnessPal again, but I am just going to have to start. Partially, I think that it’s been due to being away, and partially probably to all the activity of late. Not only is my younger son spending the summer with his grampa 1200 miles away, but my older son is going away for a total of nearly a month to two different, very intensive trainings. Add my trip to Chicago, with the return happening the first day of school, then top it off with the (exciting, but sad) news of my hubby’s promotion and transfer. The boys and I will stay in Florida for the teen’s final year of school while hubby will be living about halfway up the coast. Hubby’s promotion means that we also have to sell the house that we just bought last year, although we have to time that with me and the younger boy moving north to be with hubby. The house needs major cleaning and clearing out, ‘cause we are some serious pack-rats; but a cluttered house doesn’t show well. So, yeah, busy and stressed, and stress eating.

At any rate, I am back on the exercises. Gotta tell you, forty sit ups after two weeks of none was not easy. But I did them, and that’s what’s important. I also completed most of my usual calisthenics routine. The treadmill is back to one hour every other day. The fight to get back to what one friends calls “one-derland” is on.

Writing:

It’s nice that, sometimes when I screw up in one area, I shine in another. This is one of those times. So far this month, I have written 2592 words; since last week, I have written a total of 3905 words. All of those words have been in Quantum Kiss. One thing that’s helping is that I decided to join Camp NaNoWriMo, in which we are attempting to write a total of 50K words by July 31^st, beginning on July 1^st.

For this week, with the holiday, and the teen heading off to one training on Saturday, and hubby leaving out for a week on Monday, the writing is slow-going—I know, I know, not so slow if I’m churning out in one week what I have been doing in two weeks or a month. Our daily goal in Camp is 1613. The nice thing, and one I didn’t think I’d like, is that they assign you to a “cabin”, where you can check in with others and motivate each other. Our cabin is having a slow start, but that happens.

My goal is to finish Quantum Kiss this month and begin to really focus on Druid, my Western. A friend of mine even made me a sig and avi set, as well as a book “cover” to display on my Camp profile once I’ve finished Q.K.

Prompt: It’s 1776. You are a loyalist married to a rebel. Or vice versa. How do you feel about your mate? Are you worried for them? Hopeful that they’ll be killed?

Vocab: Loyalist: One who remained loyal to the British government during the American Revolution.

Wednesday Check In: A Day Late and 1200 Miles Away...

Weight:

I’ve tried to keep the food intake down this week, but I’ve been very naughty on the carb front. Between that and going out to dinner with hubby to Olive Garden, I wound up with a gain over last week. I’m back to 200.8. Not thrilled. Not that I did anything about it yesterday. Got up and had no time to exercise, as I had to catch a plane to Connecticut with my youngest son. He’s spending the summer with his grampa. We ate a very, very quick McSandwich for breakfast. Lunch/supper was at a very nice restaurant. I was hungry, so I had an appetizer of New England Clam Chowder. Ate a relatively healthy lunch of braised herb salmon and asparagus, with a small bit of smashed potatoes. Dessert was an issue. Lava cake and ice cream, split with my son. Oy vay! Connecticut’s gonna be hard.

On the plus side, despite the rain and chill keeping me from walking around the hilly neighborhood and the lack of exercise equipment at the house, I should be able to get over to the local YMCA. My dad said that they have a two week free trial that I can participate in. Failing that, the local gym has a 10 day free trial. I’m hoping the Y has a pool; although there is a town pool, it’s so far been cold and rainy and the town pool is outside.

The other thing going for me is that my dad is a diabetic. I know that sounds wrong, but what I mean is that there’s not a whole lot of sugary crap food around his house. Now if I can just get him to stop feeding my son and I like we’re starved and having a low-sugar attack, we’ll be fine.

Words:

At least I’ve gotten some words written this week. I got up a couple of mornings and knocked out some writing while waiting for the teen to get ready to leave for school. I also wrote one day in a notebook while I was at an amusement park with my son and his friend. With all of that, and despite getting ready for my trip to Connecticut, I still managed to pop out 1823 words. I was super-proud that all of the words were in my sci-fi romance instead of all over the place. Now, not all of it was in a direct timeline from point A to point B, but still…

These next couple of weeks will be a challenge to find writing time, as I am at my dad’s to help him clean out some of my mom’s stuff. Mom is in a nursing home and neither knows about nor wants (when she does know about) a good percentage of her things. She has resigned herself to being in the home and knows that she has no room for many of her things, most of which she has not even seen, let alone used, for several years.

There are also the numerous dusty items that are found when one has been living in the same home for dozens and dozens of years. I need to help Dad sort through a lot of that stuff while I'm here, and since he'll be working during the day for the next couple of weeks, it's pretty much on me. 

Vocab: Conflagrate: to be on fire.

Story idea: A dragon walks into a pub…

Wednesday Check-in: Long time no blog

Sorry about my absence, folks. I’ve been going through a bit of depression lately. I did not feel up to blogging, as all of my writing was being colored by negativity, and you all deserve better than Neggy Nelly. I won’t go into all the details, but my plate has been very, very full. I’m coming out of the other end of the tunnel now, and it feels so much lighter.

Shall we get right to it?

Weight:

I tend to be a stress eater. For the past weeks, I have barely, if at all, logged in to My Fitness Pal. Because of that, I did not keep track of how much and what I was eating, so my weight increased. Yesterday, I was back up to 200.0 pounds—that was when I decided that it was high time to get off the gravy boat and back on the treadmill, as it were. Luckily, I was forcing myself to continue some exercise during those dark weeks, otherwise, I’d likely have gained all of the weight back.

As of today, I am back down (or up, depending on your viewpoint) to 197.6. With less than three months to go until Chicon, I am beginning to feel the pinch. There is no healthy way that I can possibly get down to the 150s or 160s that I wanted to be at by then. However, there are still 11 weeks to go, so there is no reason why I can’t be in the low 180s, or perhaps the high 170s if I really push.

More water, more exercise, more veggies, more fruits and proteins, along with less carbs, should do the trick. No more night-time snacking, unless it’s on something like lettuce or watermelon—something that takes more calories to eat than you ingest during the process.

Writing:

I can’t really write when I’m depressed, either—or rather, I don’t like what I write at those points in my life, so I try not to. I was suffering a lot of migraines during my depression, which I wouldn’t think would be unusual, and writing with a migraine is no fun. Unable to think of what to write, I watched television at night instead, until late at night—not good, as I tend to snack when I watch TV.

I was so depressed that I was considering quitting RWA and even quitting writing altogether for a time. Luckily, I have good friends who, directly and indirectly, convinced me not to. I also received a couple of comments on my fan writing in various places, which helped a lot.

I’ve only just gotten back to actually writing in the past couple of days, but in that time, I’ve averaged just over 600 words each day, for a total of 1377 words. Not a lot, but a lot more than the previous weeks combined. There is a very slight possibility that I will make the Little Bites Challenge, but that will require averaging just over 2000 words per day for the next three days. Either way, I am happy to be back to writing.

~*~

Vocab word: Umbrage: to be upset, angry, or offended.

Story idea: Write 500 words minimum, extra credit for using the vocab word.

• Hilary is a grown woman, with a business of her own. Too bad her mother-in-law is coming to visit.

Wednesday Check In

Well, do you want the good news or the bad news first? I’m gonna start with the not-so-good and finish on a positive note.

Weight:

Well, I gained a bit back this week and I forgot to take the picture. I am at 194.2. Huge cravings hit me for some reason and I was also sick for a couple of days so I didn’t feel up to exercising. I actually only exercised the last three days of the last seven, except for a small bit on the treadmill on Saturday. I know I can weather this happening once in a while and I don’t feel too bad since I was at my lowest last week. That being said, I am now further away from my next weight goal of getting into the 180s.

And so, I shall have to buckle down once more, just a bit; not punishment, just no seconds. Today. And no eating more than one serving of molasses cookies. Today. And I won’t just focus on the negatives, on the “nots”. I will have a nice, fresh salad today. I will cut up the strawberries and have them with some low-fat whipped cream today. I will have a nice big piece of salmon for dinner, along with some rice and a veg. Don’t care that hubby won’t be home for dinner. I can eat healthy without him, too. This morning, for breakfast, I had an English muffin with peanut butter to ramp up my energy. I’ll buy a cantaloupe at the store later or a watermelon and slice it up.

Since I am bored senseless with my current exercise routine, I am going to clean up my front room (where the treadmill is) and have my son teach me some of his karate moves to spice things up. I’ll ask my other son to show me some of the Marine hand-to-hand fighting that he learned, as well as some of their exercises (that’s where I got the idea for the flutter kicks). I may have the boys teach me to ride a bicycle; it’s embarrassing, but I never did learn. When finances allow, I’ll join the Y to take advantage of their pool. The Y isn’t close, but it’s probably cheaper, and less intimidating, than the hoochie-momma gym around the corner. Still can’t afford yoga in my area, but one day I will.

Writing:

Well, here’s where I shone this week. I had a story idea that’s been tugging at me for some time, a Western. Yeah, yeah, I know. But it’s not your typical Western; it’s a paranormal Western, in keeping with my blog's theme. No, not Cowboys & Aliens. Just paranormal, involving spirits and mysticism and impossible love made possible. It is currently titled, “The Western”. Real creative for a writer, eh? The problem is, it’s still in its infancy and so it hasn’t given me its title yet. I’ve titled books too soon before and wind up with names that make no sense to the story—I give you “In the Blood”, which has nothing to do with blood. It was going to, but then didn’t go that way. Problem was, I’d already started posting it on the fan fic sites, so I was stuck with the name. The closest that story came (and it’s a stretch) to having anything to do with blood was that the main characters share a rare genetic trait. A single strand of DNA. That’s it.

So, getting back to the writing that I accomplished this week. In the new fic, I managed to get 3117 new words written, 2025 of them in the new fic. This sparked a renewed interest in QK, in which I wrote 1092 words this week. I plan to write up a “plan book” or a “play book” for QK this coming week, in which I put all the info—the players, the tech, the magic, all of it, as well as a very rough outline. I am, by nature, a pantser, but I am finding that a part of me yearns for order. Maybe this is a response to all that’s going on with Mom & Dad, but suddenly, my inner Control Freak is freaking out. She wants to take over. And so, I’ve been having more interest in some sort of plotting of my stories.

This week's prompt:

Vocab: Utopia--a perfect world

Prompt: What’s your idea of the perfect world?   

Wednesday Check-in

So this week’s check in has some positive news. First, in writing:

This week, I was able to get two of my six contest entries judged. If I can keep on that schedule, I’ll get them all done in time. Despite adding the judging to my already hectic RL, I was somehow able to knock out 2451 new words, including 148 words in a new erotic short. I was also able to keep up on my blog entries, as well as editing and adding some things to my WordPress blog. Last Wednesday evening, I participated in my first chat on Savvy Authors in months, and last Saturday was my RWA meeting. So lots of writing related stuff going on this week. Bear in mind that my word count does not reflect any of the blog writing. The blog writing adds another 2022, nearly doubling the word count; if you include this one, that count goes to 3095, making the total word count for the week (writing related, not including blog responses, ‘cause, let’s not get stupid, here) a whopping 5546.

Most of my writing was actually done in Word at the computer, but just the other day, my newly-employed teen, Mr. Big Bucks, went out and got the smart phone that we said he could get when he had a job. Since they were BOGO, I got mine finally, too, at long last entering the modern age. My phone is a Nokia, a Windows phone, and once I figure it out, I should be able to use Office right from the phone. That will come in handy for those days when I forget my notebook and wind up waiting for one of the kids. The cool thing is, worst case scenario, I can always text myself with a scene—the texting has voice recognition and I may see if there’s a way the Office app can have it, as well. Perhaps I can even find one of those roll-up wireless keyboards that might sync with it—that would be awesome!

At any rate, it’s good to be writing again, even if it’s not every day and even if some might consider those numbers minute. I know some people who are doing a 750 a day challenge, others who write thousands of words a day, either in a setting like Camp NaNo or just as a general rule. For me, with my current life craziness, I prefer the 250; if I go over, I can feel accomplished instead of constantly feeling depressed about not making the higher numbers.

Life may be settling down for a bit now (knock wood), as Mom was brought to her new home yesterday, and my father is nearly done spending down to meet the requirements of his Title 19. We’ll know more when he returns from visiting his dying BIL, an uncle who is dear to me despite my never having had the chance to meet him.

Prompt: You are torn from your own time into another (future or past). When and where are you? Tell us what happens.

Vocab: Temporal: Having to do with time.

Weight:

This has been a really bad week as far as keeping track has gone. I have gone for days at a time without logging in to MyFitnessPal or logging my exercise, but not my food. Hubby came home from his vacay Sunday night. With fudge. Luckily, most of it was nutty fudge and I prefer either plain or flavored (peanut butter, maple) fudge. Also, my Monthly Monster, who was absent for the past few months, returned first thing Monday morning (welcome home, honey!), bringing with her all the chocolate, sweets, pasta and bread cravings en masse. Rotten little bitch.

At any rate, I have kept up on the exercise, despite the exhaustion of too many late nights followed by too many early mornings; the only day I did not exercise that I should have was Saturday, when I decided to sleep in before my RWA meeting. I wanted to be awake for the meeting, plus I had to leave early to pick up one of my other “sons” at the train station and bring my own kid to work as well as picking him up after midnight. So I knew I was in for a long day—an extra hour of sleep didn’t seem like much to ask at that point.

So there is what greeted me on the scale this morning—not the lowest my weight has been; it’s been a super-struggle since I returned from Connecticut and all the stress of that situation. However, it is a two pound loss from last week. I think what I need to do is just hunker down for the next couple of weeks to break this high-190s barrier. So I will get my butt back to logging every morsel of food that passes into my mouth. I will begin adding to my calisthenics and upping the treadmill time. 

This morning, I spent a full hour on the treadmill, as well as logging extra calisthenics. I did all 40 of my sit-ups at once, without stopping. I got the butterfly kicks done in two sets of 20 instead of four sets of 10. I added five regular push-ups and fifteen easy push-ups. I added a set of butterfly leg stretches and bent knee forward bends to my single set of ten. I added an additional set of ten each of my weight lifting (two pound weights, no bench required). I added twenty jumping jacks that hubby would be most upset to have missed if he knew (he’s such a perve).

The cali routine as of today:

One set of 5 knee bent back stretches.

One set of 5 straight leg back stretches.

One set of 40 sit ups.

Two sets of 20 butterfly kicks.

Two sets of 10 side leg lifts.

Three sets each of 5 normal push-ups followed by 15 easy push-ups (so 5/15, 5/15, 5/15).

(Three diamond push-ups, just for shits and giggles & to see if I could.)

Two sets of 10 butterfly leg stretches.

Two sets of 10 bent leg forward stretches.

Three sets of 10 each: front curls, side raises, side to front curls (arm exercises, done with two pound weights).

One set of 20 windmills.

Two sets of 10 jumping jacks.

Five single sets of alternating child pose and cobra pose to stretch my back and cool down.

Wednesday Check In

Well, hello all!

I know I’ve been gone a while. A little over a week ago, I received some bad news from my parents in Connecticut. My dad finally reached the breaking point with taking care of my mother, who has Alzheimer’s. It was bad. My dad wound up in a hospital, and my mother wound up in an assisted living facility. I’ve spent the last two weeks up north trying to help with final steps toward Title 19 and beginnings of nursing home visits and applications.

While there, I did not stay on my diet, as I was too busy trying to help balance my father again, and then visiting my mother when she was stable in the home. I also did not get any writing done at that time. So today’s check-in is more general in nature, to let you all know that I am alive and well, and will be back in writing mode soon. It may take some time, as all of this Medicaid and nursing home stuff takes lots of time and energy. I will at least be checking in on Wednesdays with my weight and I will try to give you vocab and writing prompts.

My weight this week is just one pound over my last check in:

 

Not bad, considering I was eating Mexican food and goulash and all sorts of naughty comfort foods at Dad's house.

As for last month's writing, I did make the Little Bites Challenge, but just barely. I have not written in the month of March, except for a scathing rant against the System for making it so hard for ill seniors and their caretakers to get help.

Now for the vocab and writing prompt. 

Omniscient: all knowing.

You are given the power of omniscience for a day. How do you react?

Triple W Check In: Not a good start to the year

This entry is going to be short and sweet. Well, short anyway. It’s been a long, exhausting week; with the holidays over, work is demanding more and more of my attention until we all get back on track and back into the groove.

Words:

Zip, zero, zilch, nada, and however many other ways you can say, “none”. No editing even, nor fan fiction. Nothing outside of the blogs, but then I’ve been fighting a cold and allergies combined, which has left me exhausted, with sore eyes, to the point where having my eyes open has been a trial some days. This Saturday, I will be at my RWA meeting, and we usually keep the room for a few hours after the meeting, so, barring extreme migraine or eye soreness, I should be staying to write. The girl who made me an avi, sig, wall-paper, and book cover for “Quantum Kiss” has inspired me to pick that story up again, and it’s really calling to me. With the Nephalim story on a (possibly temporary) block, QK is needing my love.

Weight:

No huge loss this week, but at least there was a loss. I went down to 207.8. I seem to have reached a small plateau, but then, I also haven’t been keeping track of my calories in the past couple of weeks. I started back yesterday with tracking the calories, and got “yelled at” by my program for only taking in 1115 calories. I also upped my exercise a hair, now doing 15 of all of the weight lifting exercises, as well as 15 windmills and 15 leg lifts. Treadmill time is 40 minutes on a 2.0 incline, varying speeds from 2.6 to 3.6. The kids go back to school next week and I only hope I can keep up the exercise in the morning.

Weather:

Rain: (noun). Water that falls from the sky, but only during outdoor graduations, weddings, and other celebrations, or when you’re leaving the grocery store with a cartload and you’re parked at the far end of the parking lot. Rarely falls when you’re asleep, unless accompanied by loud booms of thunder and bright cracks of lightning.

No rain, no bad heat in the past week. Nights have been down in the 50s or so, days up in the 70s. Tomorrow, my oldest son graduates from POLA (Petty Officer Leadership Academy); the graduation is outside. We are planning to do fireworks with him later in the evening, since he missed out on New Year’s Eve celebrations by being at the training. Naturally, they are forecasting rain tomorrow. Hence the definition.

I should have pictures this Friday of the graduation and my handsome young Seaman. Sorry there were no pictures last week—see the part about fighting a cold/allergies at once. I’m going now to put eyedrops in my eyes and hope that eases the pain. 

Music and Muses

So yesterday, at my CFRWA meeting, we had a guest speaker whose topic was “Getting your Muse on Speed Dial”. Basically, the talk was about kick-starting your creativity. One of the ideas she put forth was using music or photos to get your imagination rolling.

First, she played a selection of 30 second bursts of different instrumental songs and told us to write whatever came to mind—a scene, a dialogue, a character description, whatever. Five selections of music later, I had five scenes written down.

Next, she put a picture up on the projector screen and had us write something about it. I didn’t get one word down. First of all, it took me most of our five minutes allotted time to figure out that the couple in the picture was holding wine glasses, not microphones. Then, I could not for the life of me figure out why the blonde guy in the background, who appeared to be injured, was making his way down the hill toward them. Turns out he was a zombie. It was, of course, a staged picture that has apparently been making its way around Twitter. It didn’t help that my eyes were killing me yesterday.

That exercise brought me to the stunning conclusion—well, stunning for me, because I forget things that I hear almost immediately, most notably and lamentably, names—that I am more auditory than visual. I may be incorrect in that evaluation. It may be that I am simply bored by things contemporary and/or zombie (sorry, but these two things are true, with the notable exception of soldiers). Perhaps a picture of a Navy SEAL coming out of the water... 

Where was I? Oh, yes, pictures. Maybe a picture of an archer lining up a shot in the forest or a spaceship hurtling toward a super-nova would have sparked me more. 

One thing she was very clear about—the music, for her, anyway, had to be without words. I cannot write when I’m hearing words with music, either, as I tend to sing along. Which got me to thinking; I’ve been using a lot of pagan metal to get me into the mood for a new story that’s come to my mind. Some of the music has words, but they are in languages that I don’t understand. At all. Languages like Irish, Russian, Swedish, Finnish. So, I’m going to try a little experiment. One day (this week, I hope), I am going to sit down for a writing sprint with my music. I will do this twice: once with instrumental only and once with the singers I don’t understand. I’m going to see if one or the other is easier or more difficult to write with.

What about you? Does your writing have a soundtrack? If so, do you prefer instrumental music only or do you prefer words?

Word Wednesday--Ixes

Almost like the Do-re-me song, when you know the basics, you can create fabulous music with your words. 

[vid of Do re me song from the Sound of Music]

We discussed a bit about words last week--how they have a history and a basic element, sort of like in chemistry. When you add more elements to the basic one, new compounds are created. Root words have "-ixes" added to them to change their meanings--affixes, which can be divided into prefixes and suffixes. At least that's what I learned in school. Apparently, there are a whole slew more of them nowadays (no, I did not go to school in a one-room schoolhouse, although my dad did).

Prefix: An affix added to the beginning of a word to change its meaning. Ex: wanted becomes unwanted with the prefix un-.

Suffix: An affix added to the end of a word. Ex: -ly added to quick to make the adverb quickly.

Affix: An element of a word that is combined with other elements to change the meaning of the word. An affix can be either a prefix or a suffix in the English language.

Now, according to Wikipedia (I know, great reference source, Lynne), there are quite a few others that I use, but didn't think of as affixes.

There are: 

Infix: Cuts into the middle of a word. Massa-freakin'-chusetts.

Duplifix: Rhymes with the root or stem. Like the "itsy bitsy spider".

Interfix; Links two root words. Wikipedia gave the example of "speed-o-meter". I'm too tired to think of one of my own right now. 

Circumfix: Two parts of the affix sandwich the root. Dis-figure-ment.

Simulfix: The root word changes when it becomes plural. Sing to sang.

Suprafix: Where the stress is placed on different syllables of the word, thus changing the meaning. Again, lazy/tired. Gonna use Wikipedia's example of pro-duce (vegetables) vs pro-duce (to make).

Please note that these are all examples from English. There may be others. If you know of them, please let me know. I always like to learn. Most of the time. 

The Importance of Being Betaed

First of all, what is a beta? A beta or beta reader, is someone who checks over your fan fiction for spelling, grammatical and characterization errors. They also check for consistency in your story. For example, do you spell the hero’s name two different ways? Were they in the mess hall in one part of the scene and in the hangar bay in another part of the same scene?

The importance of being beta-ed:

peeple like to reed storys that are well ritten it makes it easier on them when u use the write punctuation too.

All right, it’s a little extreme, but I’ve seen stuff that’s nearly this bad posted on various fan sites and personal blogs. I have a BA in English. My plans, before becoming a wife and mother, were to become an editor for a big New York or Boston house. What I’m saying is that I may be a bit more particular than your average reader.

That does not mean, however, that the average reader won’t catch grammar gaffs or the misuse of homonyms—to them, these mistakes will just “look” or “sound” off and your story will make them uncomfortable. Uncomfortable readers stop reading. I once read a similar thing about manners—good manners are nearly invisible but make the guest feel welcome.

As I mentioned in my last blog, my first attempts at writing went largely un-beta-ed. That was because I didn’t really know any better, nor did I know anyone who could provide this service for me. Luckily, with my background, the grammar and spelling issues were few and far between, at least to the untrained eye. When I began writing a longer piece, I looked for and found two wonderful betas—one who was great at catching story inconsistencies and characterization issues and one who was my grammar goddess. Those two eventually disappeared, reclaimed by “real life”, but I soon found another.

I am proud to say that my current beta is her chapter’s president of the Romance Writers of America. She has written articles on writing fan fiction, as well as on general writing issues and has had a short story published in a romance anthology. Jen has taught me a lot over the past two years of our internet acquaintance. She has taught me about POV, dialogue tags and keeping the story tight. It’s Jen I have to thank for urging me to join RWA, as well as my local chapter. Soon, I will be taking Jen’s advice when it comes to getting myself a local crit partner; when I do, you will hear all about what I learn from that experience.

Asking for help is not a bad thing. Like I said, I have a BA in English. I think I know how to write pretty well. That doesn't mean that I know everything or that I can't, on occasion, miss things. After reading our own works over and over and then over again, our mind tends to fill in the mistakes. A good beta is not afraid to let you know that they have no clue what you're writing about, since sometimes we can write things that make sense in our heads (where we have the whole scene laid out), but do not make a lick of sense on the page without more scene setting. 

So, what's the long and short of this whole thing? All right, it's a little too late for the short, but anyway... If you are going to write anything that others may see, have someone knowledgeable run a second pair of eyes over it. You just might get the chance to thank them for saving your from looking a bit stupid.

Attack of the Plot Bunnies

[pic of Captain Kirk with tribbles]

Plot bunny.  Fanglish (fanspeak + English). A rodent of varying size, sometimes travelling alone, sometimes in ravening packs. They show up completely out of the blue, carrying fillers for plot holes, ideas for new adventures and are sometimes amorous (see the part about ravening packs). Now and again, when a fan fiction writer does not write fast enough (ie, skip pesky things like work, family, food, and sleep), the plot bunnies will hide behind the dust bunnies under the fan fiction writer’s bed and sulk.

When I began writing fan fiction, the plot bunnies attacked hard and fast. I wrote a lot of short pieces, usually of the flash fic to ficlet length. Most people agree that flash fics range from around 100-500 words, with ficlets hitting the 501-1000 word mark. If you don’t agree with that, that’s fine—being unique is cool. Kidding! Don’t get your knickers in a bunch! If you ever have a different opinion than I do, I welcome your input. I’m occasionally wrong. Or often. Depends on which of my kids you’re talking to, the teen or my little stooge.

I digress. Often, but this time specifically here. So the plot bunnies were attacking, my fingers were sore from typing and I was putting out a bunch of un-beta-ed work. I was still receiving some pretty positive feedback, which is like plot bunny carrots. They munched the feedback carrots, snuggled with other plot bunnies and produced more little plot bunnies.

As I wrote more and more, and got hits, visitors and reviews on my fan fiction stories, I started thinking. Maybe, just maybe, I could write an original story. I had scads of ideas for those, too, and wrote many of them down. On my computer. Whose hard drive decided to take a virtual nose-dive off the Chrysler building. At any rate, I have since gotten a new computer and some new plot bunnies have come scratching at my door. So, if you see me writing historical or sci-fi or fantasy, if you see my romances ranging from the sweet to the downright erotic, blame it on the plotus rodentia. 

The Road to Indie

My journey begins with the spark of an idea. A character came up to me in my dreams and whispered, “write about me.” Now, this was nothing new to me—characters had been doing this to me off and on for over thirty years. For many years, their voices were drowned out by self-doubt and then by the incessant crying of babies and nagging of the waitressing job that (barely) helped to pay our bills. I watched a lot of TV in those days—days when I came home at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, too exhausted from a long night’s shift to even think.

I watched reruns of Stargate Atlantis and Robin Hood on BBC’s On Demand channel. As I watched them, a strange thing happened. Characters began to speak again.

Major Lorne: “I’m the 2IC of Atlantis. Why wasn’t I on that mission?”

Sir Guy: “I’m not a monster. Tell them about the pain I was feeling.”

I began to write their stories, sometimes jumping out of bed at 3:00 despite having to be up at 7:00 to get the kids ready for school. I had discovered a world steeped in controversy, the world of fan fiction.

Now I don’t give a rat’s pitooty what anyone thinks of fan fiction—they can call the authors of fan fiction talentless hacks or world/character thieves all they want. Fan fiction brought me back to writing, a passion I had put by the wayside for many years in an effort to work and raise two boys.  For that alone, I will always be grateful, even if I never get published.

But not being published has never been a goal of mine. Since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to write stories and share them with others. I was off on a side road for a bit, but now I’m back on the highway and I’m inviting you all to share the road trip with me. I plan to share my triumphs and my failures, my hard work and my goofing off. The road I am on is also steeped in controversy. It is the road to Indie publishing. So come along—sometimes the road will be straight and smooth, other times it will be bumpy or even washed away, but we will make it to our destination.