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February 1999
I have taken my stats and put them here.
More links at the bottom.
Stories in training: (Debating which one to start)
Stories seeking assignment: Devil of a Night (SS), Untitled SF (SS)
Stories awaiting rehabilitation: Erin Glen I (N)
Stories in rehab: Jeriath's Quest (SS)
Stories in recycle bin: Fantasy Realty (N), The Sandman (SS)
February 26, 1999
1300 more on JQ today, finishing it at 3300 words! I'm so glad it's finally finished. :) I really
think it's a much better story than JM was. :)
Maybe I'm just weird, but do you ever catch yourself writing in your head about silly stuff. I've
started doing it all the time. Like this piece:
She stood in the warm shower stall, imagining. As she rinsed the lather from her long, brown hair
she envisioned a stranger in the stall with her. Much like a scene from the Psyco movies. She imagined that
when she would open her eyes her attacker would be there, in front of her, blocking her only escape. Picturing her self
screaming at first, she then altered that. "No, I should be the hero," she thought. Revising her day dream, she envisioned herself
grabbing the shampoo bottle and crashing it over the man-man? no-ogre's head, knocking him to the floor of the shower. Then, stepping
on the hulk, she exited the shower to continue on her daily duties.
Ok, ok, is it time to have me committed now? :)
February 25, 1999
Hugs to Erin on the loss of her Grandfather. :(
2000 written on JQ today. I feel really good about this re-write. I like the plot
and conflict of this one much better. :)
Yesterday I wrote 400 words to a collaborating story that a friend and I are writing.
It's really fun, I really enjoy it and can't wait for her to write the next part. :) Hurry up,
Catheron. :)
February 23, 1999
Grr, these 'puters are so frustrating! My laptop locked up on me after adding 300
new words on JM re-write. Uh-well, it was only about 15 minutes worth of work, at least
it wasn't as much as Linda lost. :(
I keep calling it JM, but the re-write has changed it's title to Jeriath's Quest. I
like the new plot, much better story.
I'm going to work more on it tomorrow, right now I'm browsing web journals. Mary Soon Lee
has a story published on the Galaxy Story Shelf called,
The God on the Glass Cross. I found it an excellent story. Go read it for yourself. :)
February 22, 1999
Another trip to Barnes and Nobles today. I got two books, one on writing novels
and the other on writing SF novels. I don't write SF very often, but the book was
on their markdown table for $4 and after glancing at the table of contents, I thought
I could apply the things it talked about to fantasy writing.
I also found, at a used bookstore, an audio book written and read by MZB. It's called, Witchlight. I'm
looking forward to listening to it. :)
I've decided I'm going to unofficially do this story dare that Jenn talked about on
her web page. I believe it's a private sff.net newsgroup that's doing it, but I'll just
do it on my own. The goal: finish a short each week for 6 weeks. For my purposes, I'm
interpreting that as one rough draft each week. I'm starting with the re-write of JM (a totally
new plot line) even though I know I'm cheating with already 200 words. :) Then I have Molly's Cry
that's been crying to be written, and a few others. I counted up the ideas in waiting and I only have
about 5, so that will be a challenge on the last one. Also, some of them aren't developed much more than
a one paragraph summary. This will be fun. I've been aching to dive back into a dare since I dared myself
to write the novel last year, which I finished in 44 days. (I think I bought bragging rights with my efforts
on that one :) )
Thanks for e-mails on my question on the SFWA bulletin, I now have one vote for and one vote against, any more
votes??? TTFN
February 20, 1999
This is Drazil's baby picture. (Drazil is my pet iguana. BTW-Zette, how do you do those backgrounds?!?)
{Early Morning}
Well, our party is over, it was fun. :)
I really enjoyed reading my first copy of Speculations, I really enjoyed many of the articles. I'm glad
I spent the money on it. :)
Welcome to new NAW member, Douglas Shumaker!
I'm glad our little group is growing, even if it means more pages to glance at every week. Just like
Zette, I have a few that I read everyday (Yours included Zette, if only to see the cute kitties :) )
and try to scan all of them once a week.
I am so eager to jump into re-writing Jeriath's Myth. I have it mostly planned out, just not sure how
to end it. As soon as I find the time, this puppy will be finished. Maybe I can write it before the
end of next week? We'll see. :) I'd like to start this week editing EG I too. TTFN
{late night}I'm at the whim of my FTP again. It's almost midnight now and I'm just getting this file transferred.
What's this about an sff.net story dare? can anyone sign up?
February 16, 1999
I am holding my first actual copy of Speculations. :) Glancing at the topics it looks great and
I can't wait to read it. :)
February 15, 1999
Hope everyone had a Happy Valentines Day! :)
Welcome to new NAW member, Neile Graham!
Well, A.L. Sirois' story turned out to be very good, it kept my attention to the very end.
Go and read 'March 11 1936, 5:30 AM' for yourself. :)
I did get a new outline of JM mostly done on Friday. It's been a busy weekend, with V-day and all. This week isn't going to be any better,
we have a party on Friday which means much needed housecleaning. UGH!
I have a question for everyone, should I subscribe to SFWA Bulletin? Money is very tight for me, so any subscriptions I get better be good
ones. I just recently subscribed to Speculations and I'm considering subscribing to MZBFM. E-mail me and tell me if you think I should
subscribe to The Bulletin. :)
February 12, 1999
I'm going to outline a new version of JM this afternoon. I keep saying I'm going to do it today, and I really was planning to. But a package came to my door, so I've spent the last two hours setting up and playing with our new scanner! It's awesome, but the files are so huge! I scanned in one picture and it was 20,000 KB! I'm glad the program condensed it down to 400+KB when it saved it. With a file that big, it makes my poor 166mhz computer seem soooo sloooww trying to do any changes to it. Maybe when James gets here this evening he can figure out a way to make the files smaller.
Oh, I got off topic, I was talking about JM. I'm learning alot from reading the Writer's Digest to Short Story Writing. Also, the interview with eluki (I forget her name at the moment) also had much the same advice. The advice was to outline the story as a series of scenes. Each scene should begin with a + or a - and end in the opposite. For example, if the opening of the story, the hero(ine) is running away from Mr. Evil, (bad beginning -) then the ending of that scene should be a +, i.e. the hero(ine) gets away. So, I'm plotting a new story, a series of scenes. I don't foresee the ending yet, but so far I have about 8 scenes. I'm guessing that's over half-way, it might be closer to the ending than I think. Anyway, I like this new approach to thinking about plotting. I used to only think of it in terms of MAJOR plot twisting scenes, instead of ALL of the scenes. This works out much better, I think.
I'm also learning about characterization from this book. One of the chapters is entitiled, "The Value of a Wart." I found it very interesting. It brought out something that I've already started doing, examining people to find what, exactly, makes them an individual. That something could be a personality quirk, a physical deformity/abnormality, or action. In the past I've made my main characters perfect. The hero is handsome and strong (yet may have a sensitive side), the damsel is a perfect beauty, etc. I'm realizing that I have a long way to go to being a good writer.
Which reminds me of a question I wanted to ask: Are we writers just because we write, or do we become writers when we are published? I'm sure it's an old debated question, but I'm curious.
Now, back to A.L. Sirois' story I was reading before I realized I could connect with my ftp. This story is really interesting, I don't want to put it down for much of anything. :) I'm surprised, I thought I would hate a Nazi story. :)
Diana, congrats on your sale, and don't be too hard on the poor fellow, he's been reading manuscripts until his eyes bugged out! (I would have shot him, if he were a friend though. :) ) TTFN
February 11, 1999
500 words on a new short yesterday. It just suddenly came to me, out of the blue. I was satisfied with it yesterday, but I'm not going to send it out for a while. I'm going to think about it and see if I can add to it.
I seem to be getting a TON of ideas lately. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but I just wish I could finish what I'm working on instead of having new ideas. I went to take a look at Jackhammer's questions and even got an idea for an article. I'm not good at articles though, but I'll take a stab at it. :)
James told me about a cul dream/nightmare he had last night. I think I'll write on it today and if I get time, start on the re-write of JM.
February 10, 1999
I seem to be at the whim of my FTP. I've tried many times in the last 2-3 days to upload this file and have been unable to connect to xoom. ::sigh::
Mondays news:
I went to Barnes and Nobles(No more Books A Millon, they said MZBFM didn't exist!) and found some great stuff. I bought $40 and plan to go back soon to get more. Here's what great stuff I got:
- Writer's Digest Handbook of Writing Short Stories, Vol. I
- The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance England, from 1485-1649, by Kathy Lynn Emerson
- MZB's current FM!
I'm so glad I finally found MZB's magazine. I love the stories in it too, VERY well written stories, no wonder she's so picky. :)
I'm trying to finish the handbook before I re-write Jeriath's Myth. I'm also thinking heavily about new plot ideas. Also, I have two or three books I want to read before I tackle Legacy of the Cameo (novel). I want to read the guide to life in England (mentioned above) plus a book on novel structure and a book called How to write tales of Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror (It has chapter essays by people like Dean Koontz and Stephen King (I'm thinking I remember those names right)).
I know what you're thinking, I'm copping out of writing to waste my time reading right now. That may be true, but, in the end, I think I'll be better for it. I'm not planning on wasting much time, just about 4 books or so.
Sorry, A.L., I didn't get to read your story. On the way I finished The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creative Writing, and on the way back I read either the FM or the Handbook. I still plan on reading your story, but to be honest, I'm not that interested in Nazi stuff. I WILL read it anyway, promise. ;)
Well, that's about all right now, I hope my FTP will connect so I can upload these changes. Oh, and I got an AWESOME new counter on the previous page, did ya see it?? :)
February 7, 1999
I'm having difficulty connecting with my FTP at night, so I'm actually making this entry Monday morning, uh-well.
I'm still working on LotC. I'm hoping to be able to start writing it tomorrow.
As Tippi, I also had a stroke of luck this week. One of my best friend's from high school e-mailed me! I hadn't heard from her since before her wedding last year, so I'm glad to finally hear from her. (cyber wave to Sarah!)
A.L. Sirois sent me a link to a story he published and I discovered not one at that location, but two! I've printed out a copy of one to read in the car today as we go to Montgomery (I have a monthly chiropractor appointment, and boy, do I need one now. :) ). You can check out his stories at: Outside.
February 5, 1999
Sent DoaN to Talebones, finally, today.
I'm going to get to more novel research later today. I wrote 650 words on a new story.
Not sure if it will be a novel or a short. Heh, I'm not even sure what the rest of the story will be about.
I just had inspiration about a great beginning scene and I'm playing with it. I'm going to put the word count totals added
in with Total Words, but not with novel or short until I know what it's going to be. This is really wierd for me, not
knowing what it is. Usually, I know the beginning and the end and nothing in between. Which can turn out to be a difficult
way to write because the middle paths end up not making it to my pre-determined destination sometimes and I distress because
it didn't end the way I wanted it too. Uh-well. :) Maybe this one will be better. I'm just going to play with it, writing on it
when I don't feel like working on anything else. It's a funny fantasy, like Piers Anthony's Xanth sorta, although, I could never
put my writing on that sort of caliber.
February 4, 1999
No writing today, but I did some research on a new novel. YEAH! Soon I'll be working on a novel again!
February 3, 1999
Welcome to Paula Fleming, our newest NAW member! I like the website. :)
Well, no writing done today, but I accomplished alot of housework. There were two weeks worth of dishes piled on the counters.
Now, they are just about finished. The refrigerator is clean too (looks like it did when we bought it 2 years ago, new). Yes, as you can tell,
I'm not a good housekeeper, but who is? :) Oh, I also cooked spagetti for lunch, ain't I the go-getter today. ;)
I'm trying to decide what to do. I'm thinking about JM (a short). The ending needs work, and one of the characters is shallow. I feel, though, that I
need a novel to sink my teeth into. There's the sequal to EGI that I'd like to work on, then there is SDP that my hubby and I are writing together
that niether of us has looked at in about a year. Then there's a new idea that's not fleshed out to an outline yet. What ever I decide, I want to decide soon.
I'm anxious to get writing again! I'm not too happy about my January word total either, less than 15k. :sigh:
February 2, 1999
Well, my pages are officially up over here. Yeah! I know I have some script errors, I'll need to work on that.
Also, don't let 'home' confuse you. The 'home' links will take you back to my geocities home pages. I did try to incorporate a 'back to journal home' as often as possible.
No writing today. I hope to get back into it tomorrow. I think I'll start with re-writing JM.
 
 
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