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Glimpses into the mind of an insane writer...
March 1999
Stories in training:The Sandman(SS), Fantasy Realty(N)
Stories in re-hab: Erin Glen I (N)
Stories awaiting re-hab: Jeriath's Quest (SS)
Stories seeking assignment: Devil of a Night (SS), Untitled SF (SS), The Guardians (SS)
Progress:
Story Dare: 5 weeks, 2 stories: JQ, TG
EGI Edit: 0/205 (edited/total pages)
TS (SS): 1050 words
FR (N): 0 words
March 26, 1999
If you check here everyday, I'm sorry for the long spell of nothing. My parents came on Monday and with so much going on I can't concentrate on writing or much of anything. Today James took our other
company to Mobile to the airport. Mom & Dad went on a road trip somewhere. So, I'm left here all by my lonesome. I was planning on catching up on some writing and doing some web work that my sister
asked me to do. But I stayed up very late (3:30am) because I was coughing so bad when I went to lay down. I also had a sinus headache. I finally broke down and took a benadryl type pill. Today my
head feels funny, I think it dried out my sinus' or something. I don't feel much like writing today. If I can, I'll try to catch up on reading. I'm in the middle of at least 4 books (one I started the other day)
and haven't opened most of them in weeks.
Oh, I went shopping at a salvage store with my mom on Wednesday. I found a _bunch_ of books about folklore and myths. I found a really neat book called 'Irish Folktales'. It's an anthology that a man
put together. He traveled around Ireland and listened to the older people tell tales, and he wrote them down. I really like it and I'm already about 5 or 6 stories into it.
Congrats to those who made it into Clarion! Also, congrats to those who have sold, I only know of Erin's, but I'm sure there are others, our group really does sale! Also, if you haven't seen it, you should
go by Erin's web page and see a picture of Smaug. He is soooo cute!
March 20, 1999
Well, I did say I would post something today, so I am. I didn't get any writing done today. I am wore out too. I got up and finished washing the dishes (I did say I hadn't done them in a while,
it took me three days to get them done LOL(actually in little bits at a time)), and finished cleaning house a bit. Then I went to work from 11-6 after which I did some shopping, came home and cooked,
then washed dishes and made some muffins for breakfast, then washed those dishes (I know I did that backwards). I'm tired and not thinking clearly, can ya tell.
Hopefully I will have time tomorrow afternoon to write (I'm not cooking then and no dishes either! Yeah!) Now it's off to bed with me. ::yawn::
March 18, 1999
When I was a child, we had a superstition: If you drop a table knife, it meant that you were to have company. Well, I dropped one yesterday. :) Well, we did know that the company was coming
for a while know though. He will arrive on Saturday. So I've been busy with housework again. I really must like doing the dishes because I let them go for so long I have to spend an hour or
two doing them. :) The good news is that I'll be able to get more writing done next week because James will be out with the company leaving me here all by my lonesome. :) ::jumps for joy!::
While we were out of town Monday and Tuesday, visiting friends, we found a great store near where they live. It's called OnCue. They buy and sell used CDs and sell new 'puter games and books. I got
2 new CD's, Celtic Myths and Celtic Dreams. I love them. I've really been getting into Celtic stuff lately, really ever since I started research on my novel, Erin Glen I. I've also begun to like any music
with 'another worldly style' (that's what I call it anyway), like Lorenna McKennit. I had her single CD, 'the mummer's dance' and wished I'd gotten the whole thing. Our friend that we visited had the whole
thing so I bought a cassette and asked her to dub it for me. I like it. :) If I ever get my Amazon site going, that's going to be one of the first CD's I put on it(at least I think they do music CDs too). :)
I really have a broad range in taste of music. I have few CDs and that's about all I listen to. The CDs I have are: Savage Garden, Brandy's Never Say Never, Back to Titanic (I love 'An Irish party in 3rd Class'!), Will Smiths single,
'Just the Two of Us'(sweet song), Lorenna McKennit's 'the mummer's dance', some Christian CDs including In Him (Not the really famous group, this one an old aquaintance of mine sang in), and my new Celtic ones. If I had the money
(which I obviously don't), I'd buy more Celtic ones and more of Brandy's CDs.
Well, I guess I'm off for more housework. For those of you who check back here everyday, I probably won't post again 'till Saturday. :)
March 16, 1999
It's 3am and I'm not used to being up at this time, so forgive me if this seems a bit incoherent. We are leaving town in two hours and I'm the one that gets to stay up all night to
make sure we leave on time. :) That's ok, I get to sleep 5 1/2 hours in the car.
It stormed all day Saturday, which means the 'puter was off. At first I was fretting over not getting to work like I wanted, but after a bit I was actually glad to be able to play around
and not feel guilty about it because I had no control over it. I did think I could work on TS (SS), but I didn't have a print out of the end, so I didn't know where to pick up from. I ended
up enjoying a good ol' wrastlin' with James. We used to roughhouse like a couple of kids before and just after we got married (a long five years ago). Then I gained a lot of weight and got really
out of shape so anytime we wrestled I'd start a coughing fit. I used to blame it on the dust (my number one allergy) but since I've been riding the stationary bike for 30 min nearly everyday, I
can really see a big improvement. We must have tousled for an hour or more and I had very little noise coming from my chest. It's very annoying to have raspy wheasy noises from your chest. James
calls me Wheezy sometimes. When I was camping one year with the girl scouts (I was about 10 or 11) I was really sick, turned out I had walking pnemonia. I was really noisy all the time when I got sick
as a child. This particular time, one night during the week-long camp, the girls all went running from the cabin saying there was a wild animal nearby. I was sure that they'd heard me wheezing. Ever
since then I was obsessed with doing anything that would stop the raspy breathing, even if it meant taking shallower breaths or nearly coughing up a lung to get it to stop. Coughing usually doesn't do anything but make
it worse.
But anyway, I digres. The benefits of exercize. I also noticed today, picking up the kids at church to give them a bear hug, how well the stationary bike (with the arm workout combined) is strengthening my arms.
I picked up a 40 lbs. girl and hefted her up two feet above my head! I gloryied in the fact that I could feel muscles in my arms and that my back didn't hurt in the process. I'm so glad that I've stuck with it
this long (2 weeks). I was about to quit after one because my back and neck muscles were so sore, but they are fine now. Thanks to Kurt's entry, plus encouragement from my chiropractor and James, I hung in there
like a trooper. I hope to keep going too. I haven't really looked at the scales much, but I did notice that I did lose about 10 lbs. already. But that was weight that I put on recently, it always comes
off quickly when I had put it on quickly. I'm not looking at the scales on purpose, the muscle vs. fat thing always gets me during the first few weeks. You actually will gain weight and this can be discouraging
to the dieter/exercizer.
Anyway, sorry for this rambling, I do this when I'm tired. :)
I will be out of town tomorrow(Er, rather today). Planning on finishing TS this week and then starting on the next on the list. Hmm, really ought to start thinking about that next one...not sure which one it will be. I keep saying I will get
to Molly's Cry. Maybe now is the time.
Ohh, almost forgot, Hello to all our new NAW members. :)
TTFN, and happy writing!
March 12, 1999
Boy these 'puters are picky. You miss one little " in a link and it fouls up your entire page! The link in yesterday's entry was missing a " and I noticed today that half my entry's
were missing! Everything from that link to the next! Agrevating!
Well, I'm just about to get to work writing TS and editing EGI. I'll add more to this later, so be sure to check it out again. :)
1050 words on TS today. I'd like to finish it tomorrow. I hope to get my editing done before the end of the day too. We'll see. I have about two hours before I have to go to work...ah, so much
to be done...so little time. :)
March 11, 1999
I forgot to mention yesterday that I got another interesting book. This one is 'Mythical Monsters' by Charles Gould. This man gives evidence of 'monsters'
such as the dragon, sea-serpents, unicorns and others. Of course in some instances the animal didn't acutally live, I'm sure, but something that started the myths did.
I sent DoaN to Vampire Dan's today and got a quick return - his address on aol is no longer valid. After doing some checking, I discovered that his web page is not up either.
Before I snail mail the submission, I'm trying to find out whether or not he is taking any subs. So I e-mailed around and now I wait.
In the meantime, I sent the story elsewhere.
Also today, I wrote and polished a 1500 word short that I've been working on in my head for about two weeks. My hubby says it's wonderful. I went ahead and sent it to
Outside. I hope it does well, I think it is a good story. :)
March 10, 1999
Back from my out-of-town jaunt (as a friend called it). :)
I got a GREAT book from some friends of ours that own a Christian bookstore. It's called Pharoahs and Kings: A Biblical Quest by David M. Rohl.
It's about an archeologist (Mr. Rohl) who set out to get historical archelogical evidence to match up with the Bible's historical record. It's going to
be an interesting read. It will take me a long time to get through the huge thing, but I will enjoy it. I already have A Novel Idea from it. :)
After distancing myself for awhile from two different works, one a short and one a novel, I finally discovered the problem with them.
On the novel, I began in the wrong place, too much character building. I need to start off with the conflict and bring the past in through dialogue or memory of characters.
After further thinking, I realized that the conflict could arise, without the character's knowing the full reason for it. Thus the adventure begins with them finding the
reason for the conflict and then solving it. Fairly basic stuff, but before I had written 10 k words on character development and would probably have spent 5 or 10 k more before
the conflict arose. One good thing about that 10 k that I wrote: I now know my characters better than the reader probably will. :)
The short story, I discovered, was from the wrong POV. Reading that Handbook of Short Story Writing from Writer's Digest helped diagnose this problem. The character I chose
is not in the conflict. Yes, he has conflict, his little girl was kidnapped, but the action is where the girl is, not where he is in his nicely sheltered house. Now, if I were
writing a novel, where POV could change, this would be fine, but a short story does better with one POV. I plan to re-work it from another character's POV.
Today I started some timed writing practice. I hope this 'nonsense' practice will bring about more writing ideas.
I set some new goals today. I really need to get to work and stick to them too...I keep planning and not doing! At least 3000 a week on FR(above mentioned novel). Now that I
know what the problem with it is and how to tackle it, I can get back to work. Also, to keep up with the story dare, maybe even add more stories in it. I definately have more ideas now
and could go 8 or 9 weeks. I do need to get to editing those shorts too. Speaking of editing, that brings me to my last goal, editing my novel. I'm 'borrowing' Zette's plan of printing out several
pages a day to hand edit. I think I'll begin with 3 pages a day. One of my '99 goals was to have this novel edited and ready to send to an editor/publisher by May or June. I'd better get busy. :)
March 6, 1999
Still playing with the text on this thing, trying to make it more readable.
:::sigh::: I haven't felt like writing much at all this week. Last night I felt really lousy and thought I was coming
down with a cold. I think its just sinuses and I feel much better today, but still not like writing. I did wake up this afternoon (I let
myself sleep as long as I needed, until 1, today) wanting to write. But, the last two days I had neglected exercizing and decided that my time
before work would be better spent by riding the stationary bike and taking a shower. I was hoping I would write after work, but I didn't feel like it. I really
hope that I'm not coming down with a cold. I still feel like my sinuses are draining today and I have a lousy taste in my mouth that just won't go away. It must
be sinuses.
Well, Monday and Tuesday I will be out of town until time to work Tuesday at 4, so I won't be writing until Wednesday. I'm going to take care of myself as best
as possible during this time so I can feel better. Then I will pretend that this week never happened and continue on with my story dare. Maybe I can even finish
two stories during one week and still finish on time. We'll see. :)
March 3, 1999
No writing today, I caught up on housework today instead. It's nice to see the kitchen counter-tops again
and be able to find silverware in the drawer. :)
I'm working on a new story, the way I want to go about it is tricky, so I'm going to pop onto IRC for a bit tonight and
get some opinions.
I finally got a (27 day) rejection from Talebones today, the editor said his computer crashed and it took him a while to get the
e-mails from that time recovered. Nice story, he said, but not what they want. It's beginning to be a sort of trend.
EWW! Just posted my February totals in stats. They really stink, 4850 total words. I hope to work on
that for this month.
Playing with the font a bit, if you haven't noticed. ;) I'm trying to make it more readable, I know the color was difficult to read in the small print. Nearly
every color I tried was, so I gave up and made it bigger. Hope it helps. :)
March 1, 1999
Whew, this is tough work creating web pages, but I'm proud of this page. I made everything you see.
I've always been facinated by the pyramids and Egypt in general and the thought occured to me while
I was trying to figure out what to do for the new design of this page.
My last February entry made me come up with the title of this months journal.
Design of this page, including background and all pictures, was created by Dawn Pasley, © 1999, with the help of Comptons Encyclopedia, L-View Pro, Paint, and AceExpert.
Feel free to borrow these pictures (except personal snapshots) for personal websites. E-mail me though, so I can get a Big Ego Boost. :)
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