Month: April 2004

Am I like behind again or what??

I got the first 50 pages of SS done and re-keyed. I worked some on the plot and have several more scenes to put in. They will really help the story along.

I need to get back into the groove of UHaTO (the two year novel) since the actual writing/plotting will begin soon. I believe it will be one of my best; SS being the best of course.

I am also considering looking at MoW again. I don’t know yet. I think I will after SS is done but probably not sooner. I am crazy but I’m not stupid!

We went to the Silver Armadillo yesterday (a gemstone/stone/lapidary type of store) and after walking far too much, we bought a book: Love is in the Earth – A Kaleidoscope of Crystals by Melody. Its a book of the metaphysical properties of stones and crystals. Sarah mentions these often and I wanted to know a little more than what I could find on the net. Plus Lorna wanted it just to read.

In Real Life, Lorna leaves tomorrow night for a long weekend up Nawth to visit her family. She will leave Thursday and return Monday. Me and the dawgs are going to be on our own again. I leave in late May to go up Nawth too, but I will be gone for at least a month. There about. I have a neice who doesn’t know me and I need to stay long enough for us to exchange memories. And I have a nephew who is growing up without me there. Oh, and of course there is my parents and my brother and his wife. Mom got in a stair lift so now I don’t have to rent a hotel room. My brother’s house is not accessible so I won’t get to stay there as long as I usually do. At least not without a lot of drugs.

Went to see the sleep doc yesterday. We discussed my progress so far with the CPAP and decided I might need to get another mask. This one is leaking too much around the upper nose and therefore onto my eyes. Plus I went and broke mine last night so it is necessary now even more.

(by the way, SS = Simple Sarah; UHaTO = UHauls and Toaster Ovens; MoW = Mutts of Wayback)

Remember I said I had too many irons in the fire? Did I take any heed of my own words? No. What did I do instead? I started another one. Yes, it’s official – I am nuts.

The problem with the other WIPs is that my heart just isn’t in them. I find that I see it as almost a job, not exactly a drudge, but a job that has to be done. Is that a good or a bad thing? I don’t know either.

So today I started ‘Long Lea’ as a Prequel to Simple Sarah. Since I already know what happens in the future, its fun to write. I got over 2K today and I feel good, energized again. ‘Airport’ is another one that is fun to do. I am getting into it more each day I work on it. Scholarly Ways is coming along nicely and in some ways I am chomping at the bit to write instead of plot. I am trying to stay a minimum of one plotted chapter ahead of a written chapter. It’s odd thinking in terms of chapters since this time that is what they really are. In all my others thus far, I seperate scenes by a centered ‘#’.

Tomorrow I MUST finish editing SS. I have done over a third of the 50 printed pages with only a few hundred more to go. WooHoo. I may even take my pencil and chair and paper and go sit outside. Yeah. Sounds good don’t it?

In Real Life, my niece (Kelli, almost 5) has decided to do karate after all. Her brother (Ryan, almost 9) is a year from his black belt so I guess watching him has got her more interested than she thought. She wanted to do ballet but Colleen wasn’t comfortable with the situation (you can’t be in with nor see your kid while they are at practice) and talked her into karate instead. IF Kelli has EDS, she shouldn’t do ballet anyhow. I got pics of them, of course, Ryan in his uniform and Kelli in her brand new one. And there is another page of Ryan climbing the walls, well, the doorway actually.

Not much else going on, thank goodness. I kinda like the peace and quiet. I had PT Mon. and Wed. of this week and Wed. and Fri. of next week so I have all these days in between. Ah. But I have a doc appt. on Tuesday afternoon so it all ends then I guess.

I am beginning to feel I have too many irons in the not so proverbial fire. I have a lot of projects – the ones I write something in with at least once a week (UHauls and Toaster Ovens, ‘Airport’, ‘Idea2’ and ‘Scholarly Ways’); ones I am editing (Wayback and Simple Sarah); and then there are the ones that I play around with sometimes (Predictable World and Look Left…).

But I am loving it. I like having so much to do, so much for my brain to wrap itself around and digest. This editing process of Simple Sarah, which I am doing with more seriousness and enthusiasm than Wayback, is teaching me a lot about not only my writing style, but about the process of preparing a manuscript for submission. Simple Sarah has a good chance of making it. The ending needs some major work, but I am getting there.

I went to the library yesterday, the main one downtown, and got some interesting books for me to study: Fiction, The Art and Craft of Writing and Getting Published by Micheal Seidman; Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass; and The Joy of Writing Sex by Elizabeth Benedict. And the other day I picked up two books by Stephen Hawking: The Nature of Space and Time (which is way way over my head) and The Universe in a Nutshell. I am taking my day and dividing it into usuable blocks such as in the morning I do other things such as the paper edit of Simple Sarah, read the books, and do some research. In the evenings I do my writing. This seems to be keeping me on a schedule I can handle yet still feel like I am being pushed.

Updated the Count page. I also added a page where I will put my little ‘freewriting’ exercises I do to get me started. Mostly they are very short essays I suppose.

In Real Life I saw my GP yesterday and we discussed the sleep study results and my headaches and other stuff like that. The good news is that the Periodic Leg Movement Disorder (PLM) was ‘cured’ by the use of the CPAP machine, the bad news is that I have it. Another good news is that when I see her in three months, if my BP is still so wonderfully low, we will begin tapering off on my meds in hopes that the CPAP is helping with that as well. I will never be off those meds, but even just a little less each day will make a difference. On the flip side (I wonder how many young folks even know what the phrase means??) I start a new med for the headaches. Keeps the world balanced I guess.

Still working on Simple Sarah. Printed out the first 50 pages and now am randomly editing them. Sentence structure, word usage, and typos are easier to find this way since you don’t get lost in the story and bleep over things. If you try this, be sure to number your pages in the header or footer! Else it would be a bugger to transfer the edits into the document.

I have started two new projects. One I had dubbed ‘Scholarly Ways’ and is about a population that was once on another planet but had to abandon it due to pollution. Skip ahead X years – Their battery banks are finally starting to drain and….well, if I told you more then it would ruin the book, now wouldn’t it? I have asked my kid brother to help me come up with a power source that fits within the sustainable philosophy. Kevin sees life differently than I do (thank God!) so I look forward to seeing what he comes up with. I am going to do an outline ahead of time as well as define the plot, do character studies and a timeline. I am going to let my OCD (the anal retentive in all of us) free for a bit.

The other one I have dubbed ‘Airport’. This one will be my freewriting book: no formal plot, no outline, just writing. It is amazing what my brain (any brain, really) can come up with while freewriting. This style of writing is how I do most of my stuff, which is why editing is such a bugger.

In Real Life, Sammy got a home. Well, he got his old home back. He is now the Stud Rooster at David Plemmon’s farm. Sammy has his own nine or two hens to, well, you know. We have decided to keep Bobby and will hopefully expand his area and get a few hens. We figure it can’t hurt to have some around since we both love to hear them talk.

Simple Sarah is done! I said the end (on the 9th) and have done the search for the ‘thens’ and ‘thats’. I hope to get more edited later today. I need to do the second half in terms of making sure the sentences are in some sort of sense. I also need to make sure the names are right all throughout and to go through the whole thing to do a timeline.

But who cares! Its done! Whoohoo! For information about Simple Sarah, I put up a little blurb about it.

In Real Life, it is Easter. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

I did an experiement. I took Simple Sarah from third person point-of-view and turned it to first person. It went well for a while, but then it got more difficult as more than just Sarah’s thoughts and actions needed to be considered. The good thing about doing it though was that if a scene did not have her in it, I had to decide to either cut it or to keep it but shorten it. I tossed several scenes that while good in themselves, they didn’t fit the story. I did this for about the first 100 pages or so, then went back and changed it to third person again. At one point, Simple Sarah was down to 108993. Now, after the edit and writing the end, it is up to 115340. Once I edit through it again, I am sure it will lose more again.

I don’t know how to end the dang thing. I had the big battle and all that, now what? Sigh. Perhaps tomorrow I will be able to say THE END and put it aside for a few days. Meanwhile I have GOT to get a printer working so I can print this out and do some editing away from the computer screen. The idea I recently heard of was to take the print out and mix the pages all up, have nothing in order. That way you can edit without falling into the story. I need to check for sentence tense, mispellings, and to do other such stuff as that.

In Real Life, nothing different really. Our friend Sheryl is finally home from her wanderings to Maine and back. Silly time of year, don’t you think?

I really dislike April 1st. Such a wonderful time of year, yet I am afraid to believe a word I hear all day. And that is sad. You would think since I am such a jokester that I would adore today. Nope. It’s the type of jokes that are done today that I dislike the most – getting someone to believe an untruth at their expense. I will admit to liking ‘pulling the wool over someone’s eyes’ but usually it’s not painful.

Okay, lecture over. Getting on with the program now.

Counts are doing good. I participated in the ‘March Madness’ marathon and achieved Level 4 (4000 words a day for 7 days) although I had hoped for Level 5. Simple Sarah is going along nicely, despite the high level of crap I have written lately. I need to do some big-time editing now but I am almost looking forward to it. I made some mistakes recently and need to back up and verify the facts that I had written earlier. Like, I said Lea had done something ten years ago but she couldn’t have, if I had said earlier that she was doing this at that time instead. I know, confusing isn’t it?

I need to get at least one printer working so I can print some of this stuff out. I think I can edit better that way, especially the little things like ‘goo’ instead of ‘good’ or ‘wether’ instead of ‘whether’.

I’m wondering if it is time to take another look at Wayback, see how I like it now.

Word Counts:

• Simple Sarah – 118,379
• March Total: 143,358
• Year-to-Date: 271,103

We need to keep these numbers in perspective: I have no life. I have nothing to do but sit here all day. I either think about my writing as I play games or I am writing. I have no job. The only places I am going to lately are doc appts and PT.

Speaking of Real Life, I am sad to report that my parent’s African Grey Parrot, Johnny, died the other day. His death was sudden and they don’t know why, other than it was not contagious. Mikey, the Macaw, was depressed for several days and they were afraid he was ill. He is okay now, just lonesome. Johnny was a beautiful bird, and like most African Greys, he was tempermental.

I have gotten used to the CPAP, although I don’t feel any miraculous amounts of energy.