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| It's a new day, white and cold outside with the pogonip making everything look dusted in sugar. I got the Husband breakfast and sent to work at Nonsense O'Clock this morning. In the hours since I have edited one chapter of the novel that I'm hoping to have ready to hand my agent before....let's be ambitious, and say before school lets out in May, shall we? One chapter per day is pretty good for me; it may slow down, especially if I'm still composing the WIP novel and the occasional short story at the same time. (Alternately, I could decide to just revise hard for like two weeks and let my WIPs just kinda hang out in the meantime? But I like my WIPs and I don't want to quit talking to them.) For the rest of the day I will supervise the teens, do housework, figure out a piano piece, and think about the shape of various WIPs. What are you working on today? |
| Today I have my normal jobs, and a meeting, and then, hopefully, an open afternoon to work on another unfinished snip of a story that I found while I was digging around. Past Me really needs to learn to save things in some kind of actual system, instead of leaving cryptically named files scattered around various computers like confetti. Learn from my mistakes, kids! Get an external hard drive and back things up! And name them things that tell you what they are! The story I found is just the opener, which is a sullen cook arguing with an even-more-sullen household god, and while I'm sure at some point I had an idea about what she is asking him to steal for her, right now I have none and will have to invent it fresh. |
Raven  - My problem is backups. I keep multiple backups. Then I edit one of the backups, but which of the backups should I save the new edit over? Then, the next time I add to a work or edit it, how do I know that I'm about to add to the most complete and recent backup? I'm like a five-taled puppy trying to choose which of my tales to edit!  |
| Raven - I don't mean to be rude or interlope, but "Raven Is Professional" kinda gives me shivers. R.I.P? sorry. I just tend to notice things like that. I know. I'm weird.  |
| I have submitted two short stories to paying venues today. Now I must text my sister to clap for me about it, because here I am on my wobbly baby legs after years of not submitting MUCH. One wobbly baby step at a time, friends. |
Thanks to everyone who helped me out with the story of Dareth and the castle he falls in love with. I've set all the versions of this story to private, now, as I polish it to shop it for publication. But anybody who'd like to read any of them is still welcome; just drop me a note and I'll get you the passkey.
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Yesterday I asked for, and got, a great deal of excellent help regarding the ending of "The Stonetalker's Tale"  , an old story that I couldn't remember how I was initially going to end it. So much excellent help that I wound up writing all three endings, last night and this morning.
I know which one *I* like the best, but in the spirit of Clue, I'm giving you all of them. Hope one of them is entertaining. Note: Of all of these, I altered the beginning and middle of the story the most--not much, but a little-- for the first and third endings. For the second ending, I didn't have to touch the beginning and middle. |
| The most irritating thing in the world has happened to me. I've been sniffing around in my hard drive, unearthing old short stories. I found one I had utterly forgotten about--forgotten EVERYTHING about--and I was reading along, on the edge of my seat, all impressed with myself, and-- --I apparently didn't finish this story. I have no idea how I was GOING to finish this story. I am so very annoyed with Past Raven. Anyway. I need you to help me.
If you feel inclined, please give this a read, and then vote: [Linked Poll's access is restricted.] |
| Also, this is just an extremely creative idea for a story. I would never think of something like this. Bravo. I should be writing this all in a review. But I’m in bed on my phone. |
Allan Charles 🐾  - Aw, thanks! And no worries. Review the version that will (hopefully) have an ending, if you like! I'm just glad other people are as annoyed by/interested in these frustrating dorks as I am. |
And here's another older story in my Justice For Background Characters phase:
I had forgotten about the giant crickets, and I had also forgotten about some of my own jokes. I admit, I crack myself up... |
| Finally posted a chapter that's been arguing with me forever. (I gave in and let it have its way. Brat.) I also decided I'm going to start posting some of my older short stories, because hey, what I mostly want with these is for them to fulfill their purpose of actually entertaining people. Here's one:
This is a long-short that I wrote during my "justice for background characters!" phase. This one is for all the tavernkeepers in fantasy stories that don't ever get to do anything but serve endless stew. (Knights are a pain in the backside anyway...) |
| Everything is canceled today because of snowfall shenanigans. I've got a bit of a scratchy throat, so I am glad that I don't have to get out and wallow my way through the drifts. Guess I'll just have to sit by the fire and write and review... |
| I AM at work, but I can almost see my house from where I am. For me, the weather isn't supposed to arrive until tomorrow, but I will probably sit on the bed with the wife and the dogs, we'll be watching on my wife's favorite shows, and I will probably be here on WDC or doing some research for my writing.  |
| About 3 inches of snow so far today and a balmy 19F, Kid 3 and I just cleared the front walk and driveway. The snow is rapidly filling in behind us, though, and I'm starting to wonder if they'll close the highway between us and the Husband's work. Which would be about par; he carries tow straps in the truck this time of year for pulling people out of ditches on the way home. (Like I said before, I say we abolish February and have 2 Junes.) |
Ichabod Crane  - I don't know. Doesn't this mean that my ex would never age? She's already 1/4 the birthdays she's supposed to have--2/29-- now you're going to take those too? |
Joto-Kai  - Sorry I forgot about leap year babies. That is exactly why I don't have control to do that. |
| For like four days I've been writing this chapter. It's a perfectly good chapter, but I think it's the wrong chapter for this spot in the book. And yet, I keep dinking with this dang thing instead of putting it to one side and starting on what probably actually needs to happen next. My brain has apparently got The Februarys. (I know Eliot said April is the cruelest month, but he was wrong. The cruelest month is February. It's freezing cold, it's gray, everybody's mad about it, and there's 31 days of work to do in 28 days. I say we abolish February and instead have two Junes.) |
Skip conventional months altogether and go with the French Revolutionary Calendar - 12 months of 30 days each (3 10-day "weeks") + 5/6 other days.  Or even better, the spoof English translations by a wisenheimer of the time. Wheezy Sneezy Freezy Slippy Drippy Nippy Showery Flowery Bowery Hoppy Croppy Poppy |
| I vote for two Julys or two Augusts. I'm totally ready for somewhere (or somewhen) 'sunny and ninety-five'! |
It's a day for discovering old stories: here's another one that I wrote long ago, that I still like:
This one is a bit of alternate history, playing with a branch of the industrial revolution that never really took (outside of player pianos). I think I wrote it when someone challenged me to write something steampunk, but I got very invested in Socrates, the conflicted composer, and his mechanical orchestra. |
Max Griffin 🏳️🌈  - I wrote this before I really knew about pesky stuff like "arc". I like Maggie, too. She's smarter than Socrates... |
| Raven - I see it dates from 2009. I barely understood point of view back then. I thought arcs were something from Euclid. That was before we first met. |
| Max Griffin 🏳️🌈 - In 2009 I had an 18 month old and a newborn, I'm lucky I could see straight to type. |
I went spelunking in my recycling bin and found an old, old short story, one I remembered it as being pretty bad. I read it, on a whim, and liked it much more than I remembered. So I spent a couple of hours today revising it a bit, and here it is, in case you're bored:
I think my style's changed quite a bit since I wrote this, but I still like the ne'er-do-well narrator and I smiled when I got to the sting at the end--I had forgotten about that. |
| Today I woke up with a revision in my brain--a certain part of a chapter that just didn't feel right got replaced with one that did. (Also shortened the chapter by about 500 words.) I also got about 1600 words on the next chapter, and I thought I'd make a recommendation to anyone who's trying to get a writing practice going. Maybe you're writing for the first time, or maybe you're an old hand at writing and have found that it seems like the well is dry. The exercise I'll suggest below comes from The Artist's Way* by Julia Cameron (although see below for reservations I have about that book). The exercise is "Morning Pages". This is where you write three longhand pages of stream-of-consciousness words first thing in the morning, every morning. Do they have to be longhand? Well, it helps a lot--because you can't backspace. Do they have to be stream-of-consciousness? Yes, that's the whole key. (Yes, even if they're stupid or you find yourself writing "this morning pages thing is dumb, Raven is dumb, Julia Cameron is dumb...") Do they have to be in the morning? No. That is just Julia's time to write them. They do have to be at a time when you can relax and be in quiet, though. What morning pages (or evening pages, or three o' clock pages) teach you is to stop editing/freezing up. They are not to be reread or shared, so they can be as bad as possible. They teach you to quit inhibiting yourself, to enter the sort of trance that you need to be in to write fiction. They are also a great way to get rumination-type thoughts out of your head, and they can be a good way to work out problems that your brain has been circling on. (Yes, mine sometimes have stuff like "what am I going to cook for the potluck if I can't make seven-layer dip?") Maybe morning pages will help you on your journey. *reservations about The Artist's Way: Julia wrote it as a relatively rich lady married to a famous movie director, living the kind of life and at the kind of time where she could say both "I deserve to own a horse" and "you are probably crazy if you're not making Maximum Art" and nobody told her "Julia, some people are poor". The "artist maintenance" parts, where you consume art, rest, and do pages, are all great. I'd take most of the philosophical parts with a huge grain of salt, though. |
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