Synopsisizing

Yup. That's what I've been doing today. I have a very rough draft of a 1300 word synopsis written. I referred to my scene outline a few times to make sure I had the sequence of events correct, but mostly I just wrote it. It took a solid couple of hours, but now that something is actually saved in a file, I can start revising it tomorrow. I also need to do a mega condensed version of about 500 words. Staring at the longer one, I'm not sure what can be left out and still give a reasonable feel of the novel. Be that as it may, that is one of my goals for the week.

Over a year ago, PaperBack Writer, known at FM as StarDoc, began a thread at FM about writing a hot premise to use as a quickie pitch for a novel. The idea was to get the kernel of the story in fifteen words or less. (And I had trouble today with 1300!!) I wrote one for False Perceptions at that time, as I was doing the prep work for the novel. I was hoping to just dust it off today, but it is a flawed little hot premise. Why is it so very difficult to boil down what a story is really ABOUT? Enquiring minds want to know.

I updated the link for my novels in progress on the side bar, in case anyone cares!

What else? Yesterday I read The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks. I wanted to see what kind of romance a guy would write, and I found out! The male main character is trying to re-ignite the flame of his marriage of thirty years. (See, that's almost a hot premise; why can't I do it with my own?) I hesitate to tell you that there is a twist at the end of the story, because if someone had told me that, I might've figured it out ahead of time. But as it was, I went my merry reading way and got a pleasant surprise. It's well done, and a quick read. Recommended.

Bedroom, rearranged. Jim's been home for two days, got our hay baled but it's still in the field till his next days off. He heads back out this evening. I'll need another project now. The yard could use some work (like a LOT of work...) but the mosquitoes are out in full force these evenings, so the weeds can just keep growing. More power to them.

Outline is Done :)

I now have a complete outline of what exactly is IN False Perceptions's 84059 words. They encompass 32 chapters that are comprised of 96 scenes. As much as I would like to say that my novels average 1500 words per scene, Real Life would indicate otherwise. My next task, and one I may start on over the weekend, is to take that outline and start trying to morph it into a synopsis. I want to have a really good handle on what the book is about before I start revisions, in the hopes that it will help to make the decisions easier. You'd think I know what the book is about; after all, I wrote it. And not that long ago, either. Still, I think distilling it down to its essence will be very practical, even though I'm not quite ready to start sending out queries on it.

On the home front, Jim was asked to work two more night shifts so he won't be home until Sunday noonish. Yes we have hay down that needs to be baled. But it rained on and off all day today, so it's not like we could get it off just now anyway. Other than the obvious downer with the hay, it feels wonderful to have things a little cooler. The forecast says this should be the only rainy day, and then we are due for a week or more of hot again. So...*shrug.

Being as I have half the weekend home to myself, I've decided to re-arrange the master bedroom. It's not that there's really another good way to put the furniture, so I'm settling for an okay way. I just need a change. This will give me the chance to go through everything (except the closets) and organize things better. (Or so I would like to think!) So far I've sorted out Jim's magazines. He has varied interests AND likes magazines, so they get into taking-over-the-world mode. Or at least taking-over-the-bedroom-and-living room mode. I know there are some he will be willing to ditch, now that they are sorted into like with like piles, but I'll leave that final decision up to him. Honest :)

Anyway, it gives me the start of a plan for the weekend, and that is a Good Thing.

Cats

Cats and farms go together like cookies and milk. Except for the predators. Owls, skunks, and coyotes take some cats, and of course the occasional car. About two years ago we had half a dozen adult cats and more kittens than we knew what to do with. If I remember right, we had about 18 cats in total, not counting our pseudo-Himalayan inside cat, George.

We gave some kittens away. That's hard to do when they're all so wild you can't catch them. Two of the mamas were pretty tame, and by the end of last summer, they were the only two we had left. Both of them died, one of old age and one of unknown causes; she just disappeared. Unfortunately that happens on farms. Between them they left us with twelve kittens, some of which we gave away, and a few of which were to weak to live when we found them. We raised six kittens through the winter; you may remember a post or two about *vultures*. The babies were always hanging around the door begging for food, and yes we gave it to them. They had no mamas to bring them delish mice.

Of the six yearling cats, only one was tame. She was a very affectionate calico. I haven't seen Patches now in about two weeks. Yesterday the guy who farms next door came by and apologized for running over three cats in his hay field. THREE CATS??? They must have been mousing in the tall grass, and if they heard the tractor coming, thought they were out of its way. The swather rides quite aways away from the tractor itself, and makes far less noise. It mowed down three of our young cats. Patches wasn't one of them. It wasn't the farmer's fault, or anybody else's. It's just one of those things. It's one of the reasons I try not to get too attached to the farm cats. I don't always succeed. I can't believe that we are going to have to find someone with kittens to give away again, after going through so many in the past couple years, but the mice are having a strong year, and need something to keep them back. In the hay field nearly every bale I tipped over had a mouse or ten underneath. We need more cats. I sure wish I could offer them some safety, though. It makes me sad.

First read-through DONE

Last night I finished reading through the first draft copy of False Perceptions and discovered that the timeline problem that I thought existed had been mostly fixed by the end of the first draft. I don't remember paying attention to that back in March, but apparently I did. So that's a relief. It doesn't, of course, mean that it's all smooth sailing from here, but it helps.

In the enclosed culture I created for FP, every family is allowed two kids to keep the population stable. If a child dies, the parents are allowed another child. If they can't have kids, someone else's allottment goes up. My main character, Cae, thus, has to have a sibling. Also in this culture, kids are trained to do their parent's job. Thus Cae's sibling cannot be off elsewhere on a mission of his own. He needs to be present, and part of the story. And he isn't. So at the same time that I am looking at my characters with an eye to tightening them up, and see a couple of places where two can become one, I need to add an all new one. Worse yet, he doesn't have a vital part in the story, just in the culture. This was an annoying oversight from my planning days on this story, and I think it's going to take a bit of mulling over to solve. Mull. Mull.

Today's big job involved beginning to make an outline of the novel based on what has already been written. I'm not one of those who morphs the outline to match what I've written as I go along. In *Marks*, I'd run with the outline until I slipped off, then go outline-less until I got stuck, then re-outline from there, deviate from it until stuck, etc. FP didn't have the same tangent qualities of Marks; it stayed fairly true to the original outline. But scenes combined differently, and in different orders, so it seems to make sense to have an outline that lists what actually was written and in what order. I'm half done that job, and expect to finish it tomorrow.

Next weekend we are running a synopsis marathon at Forward Motion. I have never written a synopsis before, so I am looking forward to the opportunity of doing it in a conference style situation, where we can read each other's for clarity and critique, then revise and try again. Anyone have an opinion on the most practical length for a synopsis? My understanding is that it varies. If you've ever submitted one, what did your target agent or publisher request?

I'm tempted to also do a synopsis for Marks of Repentance next weekend, but I need to push the story to the back of my brain and not mull it over some more to get the kernels out. It IS a temptation, but I can stifle it. Honest. I know that as long as I have this longing to go back to work on that novel, I should try to stay away from it. The pull has to lessen. Must.

Besides, I already have a project. I must keep it in the forefront. Oh, yeah, I have TWO projects. The crit on Mar's novel is going nicely. I have it a quarter finished.

Forgiving Solomon Long

Forgiveness makes an interesting theme for a book. Chris Well used this as a jumping off place for his recently published novel, Forgiving Solomon Long, in which an assassin, hired by the mob to clean up an area of downtown Kansas City, is startled to hear the words "I forgive you" from his target just before he dies. What these three words do to Solomon Long carve out the remainder of the novel. The spiel I hear over at Faith in Fiction is that Chris's book is 'available wherever crime fiction is sold'.

It took me a bit to get into the story, which I finished last night. I found the extremely short chapters annoying, as well as the head-hopping. I'm not sure if the general guidelines are different for crime fiction (which I don't write and rarely read), so I gave the book the benefit of the doubt and tried to ignore the style. And it was worth it; I found the story engaging after that.

Titles are hard to come up with

Titles are hard to come up with for NOVELS for crying out loud. Who can name a blog post more days than not? (Eyeing my recent history, okay, I'm a bit less often than that...)

Does it mean I don't have anything important to say? Most likely. But lest everyone keep worrying about me after my last post, I should say that life is resting in some sort of perspective again, as far as Jim's absences go. He left again last night. We off-loaded the camper this weekend as he has found a place to live up there. A guy from here that he kind of knows (friend of a friend of a friend kind of relationship) got hired at the same time Jim did. The main problem is that they work the same shift, and both were hoping to find roommates on opposing shifts, so that while one guy is at the apartment, the other guy is at home (or at work). It's not uncommon for four guys on different shifts to share a two bedroom apartment in that way. There is a third guy of currently undetermined shift who is thinking of joining them. In one way, Jim's costs go up with the apartment, but fuel will be less without the camper on, and he'll be more comfortable. He'll also have access to a bit more fridge and freezer space, making meal planning easier to do from here. Not to mention that the camper isn't feasible for over the winter months. They get a serious winter over there.

Meanwhile he got part of our north field cut while he was home. The weather appears to be holding. Sort of. The truck repair is not the final one. Although it is running better, and starting a higher percentage of times, it is not actually fixed. We're starting to get concerned about the magnitude of the problem and may wind up taking it into the GM dealership for diagnostics. We can't afford to replace the vehicle just now. I mean, *I'm* driving our old truck, a 1975 Chevy with a 454 in it. The 1993 model that Jim is driving is like brand new for us. When we can we'll pick up a car that is both economical AND cheap for Jim to commute with, and I'll get the good truck again. The good truck that isn't the good truck. You get the picture. Anyway, I'm a farm girl, I have to drive a truck. Too many bulky things are needed, even when our water situation is under control, which, most thankfully, it is right now.

My reading binge continues. I'm part way through two more books at the moment. One is Riddle Master Trilogy by Patricia McKillip, that my daughter was sure I would like. So far it's been kind of amusing, but it doesn't have me by the throat either. The second current read is If Angels Burn by Lynn Viehl (otherwise known as Sheila Viehl, or SL Viehl). This book pulls me out of my comfort zone by a considerable distance (paranormal, or vampire romance is not my big thing, go figure). It's also NOT the book I'm reading just before bedtime, for some odd reason. I'll post links to these books in the sidebar when I get the chance.

Meanwhile, I'm doing better with Mar's crit than with my read-through. I just need to make myself do it, I guess. Anyone got some enthusiasm for sale, cheap? Maybe I can get a bulk supply...

Coalescent

Coalesce, according to Webster, means 'to grow or come together, fuse'. This definition describes Coalescent by Stephen Baxter on several levels. It is a science fiction novel, based on fourth century history (the decline and fall of the Roman empire in Britain). Baxter weaves a contemporary timeline with a fourth century one, which *coalesce* towards the end. It is an intriguing idea, writing a (partially) historical novel as a science fiction, but I found myself enjoying it. You may enjoy the read, yourself.

You may rightly ask if I've been reading the past few days instead of writing (to say nothing of blogging...) In fact, I have. I tend not to read a lot while I'm first drafting. It seems that at that stage, all my spare thoughts, of which I have but few, revolve around my own emerging story. Therefore I am now eyeing my To-Be-Read list with interest once again.

I *have* been working as well, though. I've read through about forty percent of False Perceptions so far, making notes in the margins of things I'll need to consider as I tackle the revisions head on. One thing I've noticed is a need for a calendar. I see some inconsistencies emerging there. Nothing critical to the plot, but I do need to decide just where in the over all scheme of things Cae's graduation lands, as it seems to change on whim.

And I've been critting Mar's novel. So far I've worked through the first three chapters of 29, so I'm on track to have the crit complete by the end of August.

On the home front, Jim's home for a few days. Yesterday he finished getting the bales picked up off of the neighbor's field. Today he plans to cut our own (smaller) field, and fix the truck, now that he's figured out why it's been tempermental starting. I get to mow the lawn! I've pawned the job off on a nephew the last couple of times, but I can't really afford to do that all the time. It takes a good two hours to mow, even on the rider.

The transition to Jim being gone four days out of eight is proving to be difficult for me. I'm not sure what the answer is, to be honest. There are still a lot of *pros* to the new job. If you, my dear reader, have a relationship with God, I would be thankful if you would pray for us sometimes, as you think of us. Thanks.

Take THAT

You may remember (if you have no life of your own, at least) that back in early May my very wonderful bosses got me cable modem at work, and that I had to upgrade my computer to Win98 to make the modem work. Because this old beater computer has no USB ports and no CD write drive on it, I needed a different way to backup all my files before reformatting the hard drive. I chose to upload all my files to gmail. This morning that I discovered that I hadn't gotten very far into downloading them back to the computer. Hey, I was busy writing a book. The old novels and the brand spankin' new ideas just didn't seem to matter much.

Hence, when I went to print out False Perceptions today, it wasn't there. So I spent the morning downloading the rest of the files, and then collated all the FP chapters into one grand file, saved it, sent myself a copy to gmail AND to home, and proceeded to print it out. At 93K, the novel took 519 pages to print out in double space, and my ink cartridge gave out at about page 350. Why does paper come in 500 sheet reams? Enquiring minds want to know. Maybe I should just learn to write 500 page novels.

But, AHA!! I'd emailed a copy home, so I've just finished printing out the rest of it at home and can take it to work with me tomorrow. Take THAT, you weasely printer. I'll buy new ink when I jolly well WANT to, and you can't make me do it today!

I'M DONE!!!

I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, I'M DONE!!!

Okay, let me strive for some decorum here. (Happy dance!!) Okay, trying again.

First draft of *Marks of Repentance* (aka Shann's story, which really turned into Taafa's story, but I digress...) was completed today at 95199 words.

Last night while my brain was relaxing and I was trying to fall asleep, I began playing with the ending scenes. And it hit me, that if Taafa happened along just a few minutes later than I thought...BINGO!!! It all came together. Then I had to flip the light back on so I could jot some notes down. After the *dream* the night before, I didn't trust myself to remember anything at all come morning!

And notes in hand and 3576 words into the keyboard, and we have a completed first draft in fifteen weeks. It's funny, it seems way longer than that!

The summer now belongs to revisions of *False Perceptions* and a crit of Mar's novel, Kyrnie. I hope my brain can shift gears now! :)

Mosquitoes!!

The past couple of summers have been much drier than this one, which has its ups and its downs. On the plus side, when its dry we don't get a lot of mosquitoes. I must have killed over fifty last night before I could get to sleep. I'm going to have to check the screens this morning; apparently something somewhere is not tight enough to keep them out.

It rained Friday night, and most of Saturday, which means that we still have nearly a thousand bales in the field (of over 3000). It's raining right now. I wish it would drown the mosquito larvae!! Jim'll be back in a few days, so hopefully it will clear up and dry out enough to get them off then.

Know what's annoying? I vaguely remember dreaming about my novel last night, and am convinced I dreamed the ending of the story. Do you think I can remember any of it? Of course not.

An odd week

Things have been strange this week. Jim left at Monday noon for his two night shifts (he'd booked the preceding day shifts off for the wedding and parties.) Our friends were still stranded here, vehicle-less, so I spent the evening with them at the bed and breakfast. Tuesday we did lunch, and then she took the bus home (fifteen hours...), leaving him to wait for the transmission to be fixed. He got the call the next day, yesterday, and left for home this afternoon. By then Jim was back home for his four days off, so they had a chance to visit a bit more.

Yesterday afternoon it POURED cats and dogs. It only rained for twenty minutes, but it held back the haying for 24 hours. And now, as my father-in-law drives around the field in circle baling, my husband is out in the yard trying to fix the bale wagon. We're due for a few dry days, but he has to leave Saturday night again for four days of work, so it really needs to be off the field before he leaves. This is a case where, literally, God only knows what's going to happen. We BADly need the hay off.

And what have I been doing? Besides playing hostess and running errands for diesel for the tractor and more baling twine for the baler, I've been going to work tired. But so far this week I have written nearly 4K, and the ending of first draft of *Marks of Repentance* looms ever closer. Today, though, I figured out that I'd dropped a major sub-thread in the last rererereoutline, and I need to figure out how to weave it back in before I can go much farther.

When too tired or stressed to work on *Marks* this week, I've started reading Mar's novel that I am critting over the summer. So far I am about half done the initial read-through. My other summer project will be revising *False Perceptions*, otherwise known as Cae's story, (or the 2yn--2 year novel). I'd really like to get on with that phase. Sigh. Tomorrow it's back to trying to re-thread *Marks*. Why do I try to juggle so many characters? How can I bring this book to a resounding climax? I wish I knew.

Whew!

That was a busy weekend! On Friday I helped setup and decorate for Jim's sis's wedding, which was held Saturday afternoon. Also daughter and son-in-law arrived, but the other half of the kids weren't able to make it home. Saturday it rained on and off, and when wedding time arrived at 4, clouds were rolling in again. The outdoor wedding was kept fairly short, and even so the final pronouncement was followed by a clap of thunder that had everybody running for shelter in the nick of time. They had rented some large tents, and everyone huddled underneath them for an hour or so, then it cleared up and the weather was great for the evening.

Sunday Jim's mom hosted breakfast for all the relatives and friends that were around for the wedding and our anniversary party. In between the two events, our truck broke down again. It has Jim somewhat puzzled, as it works most of the time, and then refuses to start. If he keeps having trouble with it, he'll take it into the GM dealership on his next days off.

The anniversary party was nice. Hanna had a lot of fun organizing it and setting it up. We didn't invite a whole lot of people, but we did have a good time with those who were able to make it. Aside from family and local friends, two couples came from quite a distance to spend the time with us. Them we invited to the farm for a barbeque supper and spent the evening together. Our friends from the coast also had a vehicle breakdown as they came into town on Saturday. They had to be towed down off the mountain, and today their vehicle was towed to the nearest larger town (in the opposite direction of their home, I might add...) So they're still in town, and we'll be spending the evening together again today. Hopefully their vehicle will be ready to roll tomorrow, and they won't be back home *too* late. They already had to cancel Tuesday work.

Jim cut hay Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. We now have about forty acres of hay down, and hope that it stays dry (the current forecast is in our favor). Jim starts two night shifts today, and his dad expects to start baling tomorrow. When Jim gets home he'll hook the other tractor up to the bale wagon and start the stacking procedure. If nothing breaks down, it should be off by next weekend; he starts day shift next Sunday. Then he'll have another smaller field to cut as well. He'll be glad when this field is done.

Today has been busy at work, and I've been rather tired. But tomorrow I intend to get back in the swing of my novel, and see if I can't finish the first draft this week yet. I'll give it a good go, anyway...

Long weekend coming up...

I didn't sleep all that well last night, so I feel I did pretty well to get all the way to 595 words today. And then, because I was falling asleep at the desk, I hauled out the vacuum and cleaned the store.

Tomorrow is Canada Day, and it will be a busy weekend, what with Jim's niece's grad tonight, his sis's wedding on Saturday, and our anniversary party on Sunday. So I probably won't see you all again until Monday or Tuesday.

Ups and Downs

On the UPside, I got over 2K today on the novel, and it is picking up steam. It's looking good. In dire need of revisions, but good bones for all of that.

On the DOWNside, hubby got asked to work two more night shifts. He accepted. So he's away from home with no camper, no extra food, and its pouring rain. And our bank account isn't extending to nights in motels and big meals in restaurants. He's scrounging by, but it could be nicer!

Here on the home front, it means I'm back to throwing bales for the cows, which takes me the better part of an hour when I get home from work. I still don't have wheels, but my mother-in-law is taking pity on me. So far!

He's missing his day shifts this coming weekend due to his sister's wedding and our kids throwing a 25th party for us, so I guess these two nights make up for it. And it's not like he can cut hay yet, with all the rain.

On the OTHER upside, I don't have to haul water when there's this much rain, either!

Question for fellow writers

I'm approaching the finish line on my fifth novel, as I'm sure you've heard me whine about, I mean, mention, a lot lately. You've also heard me whine about the slogging that I am going through to get the story told. (Today came in just under 2k, which makes me very happy!)

When I look back at my previous novels, I see a similar pattern. I start off well, and manage fine through the middle (except for the first novel, which didn't have a plan and didn't fare very well through ANY of the stages), but get bogged down with endings. I've been trying to figure out why that is, now that I've seen a trend. It is, after all, a trend I'd prefer to skip in the future.

So why is it? I have an outline of sorts, so I have a reasonably good idea what needs to happen. The outline is not so detailed that all the fun is gone. Is it that I am reluctant to part with these characters? Or sad to put them through the rest of the nasty stuff I have planned for them? Maybe. But I think it's that I'm afraid I'm losing some of the balls I've been juggling, that the ending can't tie everything up and give the reader that satisfied *ah* on the last page. I'm afraid I'll miss something. Or that two parts of the ending that need to be, will turn out to be mutually exclusive. Or something. I know that can be fixed in revision, but wouldn't it be better to not have to fix fundamental flaws in revision?

Your turn, if you've completed one or more first drafts. What area of the writing bogs YOU down? And have you figured out what to do about it?

"Wolfskin"

I have just finished reading Wolfskin, by Juliet Marillier. I had one serious problem with the book, which I otherwise enjoyed. The problem? The story doesn't actually begin until page 130, and it was well past that, at around page 200 of a total of 516, before I got immersed in it. You might wonder why I stayed with it that long. To be honest, it sat on my nightstand for months after I started reading it. Many months. My daughter told me it was worth the read, and being as I expect her to read the books I recommend to her (grin), I decided to give it another try. It took several more tries. (I also had had previous experience with Juliet Marillier, in reading her Sevenwaters Trilogy, which I would recommend with many less caveats.)

I suppose you could call Wolfskin a historical fantasy, as it is loosely based on the invasion of the Norse on the Orkney Islands in approximately the first century. It is a complex tale of loyalty and vows. Both of the main characters have fiercely conflicting loyalties within themselves, and Marillier does set up the main conflict and its solution well ahead of time, but not in an obvious way. I'd recommend it (and her other books) to anyone who enjoys that genre. Only, do yourself a favor and start on page 130. I don't think you will lose much that you won't figure out on your own.

Silver Linings?

There is a silver lining in every cloud. I really want to believe that. Although there were good reasons for Jim to take this out of town job, right at the moment I'm struggling to remember what they are. He was home briefly for shift turnaround, and has just left. For the second time. I imagine he'll be late for work tonight.

He got home about 9:30 last night (after a twelve hour shift and a four hour drive) and stopped off at the church where the rest of the worship team and I were waiting for him for practice. The practice went fairly well, and when we went out to come home, the truck wouldn't start. The good truck, not Thunder. I'd driven Thunder in, so thankfully it was there for us to bring home, grab a few tools and a flashlight, and go back. It didn't take him long to get it running (something about bleeding a fuel line or something...?), but still it was nearly midnight when we got home.

Of course he couldn't sleep in this morning, due to our team being up for worship, and church is now on summer hours and starts at ten. So we come home, have lunch, and finish loading a few days' supply of food and clean clothes into the camper. And he heads out, right on schedule, about one o'clock.

At two o'clock I hear a vehicle that sounds suspiciously familiar, and when I look out the window, yes, it's Jim. About twenty minutes down the highway he blew something in the motor; he thinks it's likely the head gasket, and spent the remainder of the time limping back home. In thirty minutes flat he was on his way again, this time in Thunder, loaded with everything he needs, if less comfort than the camper. I'm pretty impressed we found the tent, thermarest, sleeping bag, campstove, propane canister etc in record time, shifted the contents of the camper fridge into a cooler, clothes into a gym bag and off he goes. To a four hour drive and a twelve hour night shift.

And yes, that leaves me without wheels for two days. I wonder if cycling to work would kill me? I'm a bit out of shape.

And now? Nice relaxing Sunday afternoon? NOT. Now I see the cows have broken down a small section of fence. We'd planted a couple of shade trees last year in the corner of the pasture, and fenced them off so they could grow strong enough to withstand cow rubbing. So if I don't go fix the fence, they'll break the little trees. I could do with about 40 less cows around here. We have eighteen cows, eighteen calves, three of last years calves, and a bull. You do the math. (And yes I am well aware that a bull is not technically a cow, so you don't need to go there...)

the gears are starting to mesh

Today Jim has headed off for his second set of shifts for his new job. He found the adjustments from day shift to night shift and back again to the land of the living to be a bit strange, but he hasn't done any night shifts for nearly twenty years, so I can bet it will rock his boat the first few times. And maybe more than a few! This time he was able to get some fencing done while he was home, so the cows are moved to a different pasture. The theory is that I won't have to throw bales for them at all this shift. I can't say that I'll mind a lot :) He also got our old truck running (last week he figured out that the brakes were shot, hours before he had to leave.) You all would be amused, seeing me roar around in a 1975 3/4 ton pickup truck named Thunder.

Between bosses in and out, and quite a few customers doing the same, it took awhile to get (and stay) really focused on the writing. I did come out with just under 1K, and I'm happy with the words. At least I managed to stay awake today. Yesterday I was so over tired, it was hard!

Slow Going

It's going to take awhile to get to the end of this draft at the rate I am currently traveling. In the past two days I've written just over 1K total. Yesterday I had excuses--nay, REASONS, even--but today I'm just dog tired from not sleeping well last night and the word *focus* has little meaning. I've been trying to do a few non-writing things to stay awake while waiting for the end of the day, but with marginal success. It's even been fairly quiet at work today, likely due to our area having its first spate of hot summer weather since August. I'm sure folks are thinking of other things to do with their time. Not to worry, we have enough flooring contracts to see us through until the weather turns cool again.

Mind Games

Outlines and I have been having some difficulties the past month or so. I get the idea that my sub-conscious is just LOOKing for the word outline so it can sabotage my efforts. But still, I'm a writer who needs a road map. I'm approaching the end of the first draft of the most complicated novel I've done yet (out of five), and there are a number of things that need to be tied together. I *need* an outline. The outlines are evading me.

Today I wrote six chapter descriptions. Please note. This is NOT an outline. But these lovely little descriptions have the power within them to see me through to the end of this draft. I discovered a new, quite minor character that needs to be mentioned earlier in the story, and I know where, but other than him, everything needed is pretty much in place now. It will be a lot of fun to run my cast of characters through the hoops set out for them. Mwahaha.

Jim's home from his first set of night shifts, and doesn't work again until Friday day shift. Tomorrow we have a funeral to go to.

*RL* resumes next week

Real Life, that is. I've been sort of back for a couple of days, but it's taken me that long to get caught up at work and in the online world. Also, these were Jim's first two days at his new job. Tomorrow he starts his first twelve hour night shift. I don't think that will be a huge problem for him as he is rather a night owl anyway. He's more flexible than I am in that department. So far it has all been orientation. He wound up sleeping in the cab of the truck the first night (extended cab, so it could have been worse) because he had to take all his tools to the jobsite and they took up the entire back of the truck. Last night he could stretch out in the back on some foamies (under the canopy). But tomorrow he will take the camper back with him, and be living in high style. He'll haul some bales for me before he goes to simplify my feeding time at the zoo.

This evening my sister-in-law's father-in-law died of cancer. The last few weeks have been pretty stressful for that side of the family, and I guess it will remain that way a bit longer. He was ready to go. He was a Christian and prepared to meet his Maker. But in a way, one is NEVER really ready to go, I don't think. Jim's grandmother is also in hospital (not locally) and suffering a variety of things; they're not sure how long she will last. She's 94.

Okay, enough of that for now. Our trip went well. It is a very long trip to Victoria, and we definitely required our stretch breaks. When we got to the ferry landing in Vancouver, we saw a pod of killer whales in the harbor. That was very cool and from what I gathered from the folks around us, not that common. Or not common that close in. I have lousy eyes and could see them clearly, so I was Very Impressed. The first day we were there, both kids had to work. Our daughter Hanna had caught the bus from where she lives to ride down with us (she was on the road 24 hours total), so she and her parents had a good time roaming downtown Victoria along the harbor. She is an artist, and was really inspired by all the artists, musicians, and street performers along the inner harbor. And it WAS very cool. That evening we went to Beacon Hill Park along the ocean for a walk.


Hanna admiring art along the harborfront. 


along the Victoria harbor 

The second day Joel had off, so he and his dad and one of Joel's friends and HIS dad went for a hike. So Hanna and I spent the day at the harbor again :) and she took me to a tapas bar for lunch. In the evening we rented a movie.

Monday Jen begged off work, even though they were short-staffed. Her boss could hardly believe she actually WANTED to spend time with her in-laws! Such a phenomena needed rewarding with a day off. The five of us did Chinatown in the morning (as you see in the other entry) then drove west of the city to French Creek Park along Juan de Fuca Strait and played in the tidal pools.


Hanna, Jim, Jen, and Joel admiring the tide pool. 


south towards Washington state 

It was awesome, and our city kids (whose car is uninsured as they bus everywhere) were very glad to get out in some God-made surroundings again after months of man-made city life. That evening Jim and I visited friends we hadn't seen in like 14 years while our kids did their own thing.

Bright and early Tuesday we headed home, arriving about 9:30 pm. Another very long day, followed by the mad scramble to get Jim out the door for his first day at his new job. That brings the blog full circle back to the top! It's going to take us a few rounds to know what he really needs to take with him, what he'll have the energy to cook after a twelve hour shift, etc. That is going to definitely take up some of my time for awhile.

I'm looking forward to getting back into my novel on Monday. WooHoo :)

We're ba-ack :)

We had a great trip to Victoria. Our daughter Hanna was able to join us to visit her brother and sister-in-law. About all I really wanted to post tonight was the photos we took of each other drinking bubble tea in Chinatown. I'll try and catch more highlights in the next couple days.


Hanna, Joel, and Jen 


Jim and I 

Farewell!

Well, for a week anyway. We're heading out at the crack of dawn Friday and will be back middle of next week (ish). You all be good now, you hear...

Progress...

I managed over 1200 words today before giving up. I'm not necessarily expecting to get any words tomorrow either, as I'll be setting up a new fax/answering machine and making sure everything is ready for me to take a week off of work. And yesterday was a washout on account of online meetings regarding the Young Writer's Scene forums at Forward Motion. We did get the next few month's planned out for activities, challenges, and classes, so I guess I shouldn't call it a washout. But as far as my own work on the novel, it was a goner. Still, the chapter I completed today does have some decent stuff in it. The first part, as I mentioned the other day, is a bit too didactic, but today's part went better.

The options for a new water system for the farm are dwindling rapidly. Drilling a deep well is risky, but people in our area have been managing reasonably well lately. Until the neighbor who went down 450 feet and came up dry. And we've been officially been turned down by the local irrigation board because there are two households on our property (Jim's folks have a mobile here.) No matter that they live here legally, the irrigation board has their own rules. I guess I'll be hauling water with the truck for awhile yet. I could be more excited about that than I am! On the flip side the well or irrigation hookup would have cost over ten grand, so...we're richer...sort of... The last six weeks it has done little but rain, so at the moment water isn't an issue. Drier days, however, are coming.

The slide to *the end*

I've decided that this is the hardest part of a novel for me to write. It seems that it was just a few short months ago that I had TWO novels waiting for me to figure out how to control and write that *slide*. That was March. This is now. My outline is pretty much passe. Most of the rest of the story is sort of in my head, defying outlining. The characters have passed through the point of no return, and things are going to keep going from bad to worse, only faster now. The thing that is NOT faster is the writing. Just about 1300 words today, and they're not very good. I will certainly have some work to do in THIS section when I get back to revisions. But...the plot has advanced, the characters are moving towards the big confrontation, and I just can't deal with trying to interject the right balance of dialogue and active verbs and all the good stuff. Maybe these were scene outlines on a bit grander scale. I have no idea. It's just another one of those molasses patches to wade through. So, I guess I just need to dig out the hip waders and get on with it. I hope there's a pressure washer at the other end to clean the molasses off of the hip waders.

Learning to drive a standard

Do you drive stick shift? Do you remember learning how? For me (many years ago), it was pretty traumatic. We lived at the bottom of a hill, and the vehicle was a 3/4 ton Jeep pickup truck. The kind with the gear shift that took up two square feet of shifting space. I remember trying to get up that hill, the truck roaring and lurching and almost stalling; the neighbors plugging their ears and looking askance out their windows.

That's about how I feel about writing the last few weeks. It has been an unending saga of lurching starts and stalling stops when least expected. Except that by now, they should be expected! The past couple of days I've done well to get about a thousand words a day. I feel like I'm wading through molasses, and then all of a sudden there is an *AHA* moment, and something quite unexpected gels totally. Everything is glorious and golden for a few hundred words while that perfect moment is captured, and then...it's back to the slog. Quite a lot of slog, actually. Not that it's *sludge* you understand. I think there's some decent writing in there, and the story certainly has my heart, but that hasn't made it easy to write.

I'm sure it hasn't helped that I'm fighting a cold this week. I think I'm winning. I'm sure trying, anyway!

A thousand words a day...

Day in, and day out. It takes awhile to get into a groove like that. Or so I would imagine, being as I've never done it. What I HAVE done for the past two months, though, is *averaged* 1k a day. With all the times I fought with outlines and characters and churned out practically nothing but spit for several days in a row, I'm really excited about that. In fact, if I actually had my numbers here in front of me, I'd figure out what that averaged to over the days I wrote. Today it took about 2500 to bag that k-a-day prize!

I even got done early enough to finish the new pricing guide at the store. I still have inventory to do this week as well, but...I'll get to it.

Today was Jim's last day at his job. He now has two weeks off before he starts his new job. It's gonna be odd. For starters, we'll be fighting over our one and only truck for two weeks! (He had a company truck.) We went out for ribs to celebrate. If we're celebrating, why do I have a stress headache? Bleh. I hope it goes away soon.

You'll be glad to know...

that the guard now has a name. Hereinafter he shall be known as Chiioke. I gave in this morning and re-did the outline (again). It's something like its fourth incarnation, and there are some serious holes coming in the climatic scenes. I know who all has to play the game for those scenes, and what the result must be, but I'm not sure at the moment how we'll maneuver through them. For now, though, I have enough to get me through about the next 20K or so, so I'm running with that. Between the revised outline and today's words, I'm up over 2K for the day, and that will be Good Enough. Without the revised outline, I'd still be staring at the opening lines, though. I need to know what the purpose of the scene is before I have an idea of how to play it through, and with no viable outline, I wasn't sure.

The best part was making a several paragraph summary of the second Shann & Taafa book, which will have the working title of *Children of Sacrifice*. It has places for the x, Juumat, to get his come-uppance, for the border guard, Chiioke, to prove which side of the fence he now resides on, for Shann's former in-laws to come hunting his child. Oh, yes (I rub my hands together with glee), so many many things to look forward to.

a GREAT weekend

We had a wonderful weekend away. A couple on our worship team had been in touch with the church they used to attend before they moved here two years ago, and their church invited our team to come over this weekend (four hour drive one way). We got away late morning on Saturday, traveling with Jim's sister, whose husband wasn't able to make it (he's not on the team exactly, but he had hoped to come along). The pastor there had arranged billets for the various team members, and the three of us stayed with an older couple who *retired* off the farm 25 years ago. Lest you (correctly) think that must make them fairly old, the gentleman did tell us that his mother is still alive in a local nursing home, at the age of 99! Anyway the Johnsons made us a fabulous dinner, and then we met the rest of our team at the church to set up sound equipment and run through the set. It took more than just me to figure out how to turn their sound system ON, but once the appropriate switches had been located, things went a little smoother! Because of the time zone change, our bodies thought church started at 9:30 this morning, which was a bit challenging, especially as Mrs. Johnson thought that an appropriate breakfast would be pancakes, bacon AND eggs (at 7). Jim almost never eats breakfast at all, but he plowed gallantly through some of it anyway (being as there was coffee...)

We had set up 23 songs on powerpoint including a wide range of music from country style gospel to older hymns to a lot of more contemporary worship songs. It was absolutely fabulous; the people there really enjoyed it and sang along when they knew them (most of the time). It was very refreshing.

The weather was hot, and sis's car does not have air conditioning, so we were a little wilted by the time we got home tonight! But...we'd do it again in a heartbeat. :)

Last night when I was having trouble sleeping in a strange bed, I thought of some great plot twists for Book 2 in Shann and Taafa's universe. Some things that will probably happen will not be very nice. I have to figure out a realistic timeline and see if I can get book 2 pretty much done while Taafa is still pregnant. There's a lot of distance involved on donkey-back, so I'm not sure it's all feasible. I was eventually able to turn the tap off in my brain and get a bit of sleep, though, so I'll just keep these thoughts stewing on a back burner. They mesh nicely with my earlier glimpses (yes the border-guard-without-a-name and Juumat-the-nasty-x will show up again), so I may have something worth pursuing. But not yet. I have a lot of things to do before I'm ready for another first draft. I'll see if it has gelled into anything before Nano, and maybe I'll start it then.

One of those weeks

I've been a bad blogger again. It has been one of those weeks. The day off for the long weekend on Monday, two days of great word count, and then--SPLAT!! Someone near to me is going through some tough times, and *being there* has taken a lot of time. It's way more important than writing, though.

Today, when I theoretically could have gotten back into my story, I found myself shanghaied once again by the border guard who showed up in my novel last week, uninvited. With the help of my writing buddies, I figured out that he has already played his major role in this novel, no matter how insistent he seems to be. Finally I sent him packing and told him he could audition later for book two. I got some smoldering looks from him, but he trudged off eventually. (Hey, I know I have a good imagination, it's part of what makes me a writer!) Now I'm trying to sort out what of the other plot issues that have ambushed me in the past couple of weeks actually relate to THIS story. The good news is that I'm building a multi-story universe here, the hard part is figuring out what goes with what.

I cleared up a lot of the issues but by the time mid-afternoon on a Friday comes along, my writing voice has already left for the weekend. Well, so be it. There's pricing that needs doing in the store anyway. I might as well earn my keep occasionally. The story can keep stewing for a few more days.

For the record...

This is what a lawn looks like in 23 days of wet weather!

Our hayfield! 
You can see that it's almost more than the mower can handle!

Had a good canning day yesterday. In the evening it stopped raining long enough for me to get an hour or so of dead-heading the lilac bush in. Still more to go on that, too, but it will have to wait. Now that we can finally deal with the lawn, it takes priority. It's not finished, either. We ran out of daylight. But the main yards are done; just the extended yard needs doing yet. Tomorrow, with luck...

I had a good writing day today, just over 2K. I discovered that if you feed a pregnant girl mutton curry first thing in the morning, she's likely to upchuck. In the bathtub, in this case. I discovered other things, too, but that might already be more than you wanted to know!

New Christian Celebration IV

If you've been following the previous celebrations, you might want to check out this month's rendition of it. It's hosted by Chris Mikesell, so hang onto your hat. And maybe your lunch.

Happy Birthday to me...

As expected, we've had a very wet weekend here, and so my lawn continues to grow unchecked. I'm sincerely hoping it'll NOT rain for a couple more hours so hubby can borrow the lawn mower from work and get our minor hay field under control. I hope the thing has a bagger.

Being as this is most definitely NOT being a yard work kind of weekend, I've been canning soup again. Saturday was all about split pea soup and chicken veg barley. Today I've got about five gallons of beef broth ready to go for various kinds of beef based soup. There will be some borscht for sure. Yes, I realize that traditional borscht is vegetarian, but we like ours with beef. What can I say?

One of the reasons for a big push on canning soups now (besides the weather) is that my hubby has a new job starting in mid-June, and he's going to be away from home quite a lot more. Over the summer, anyway, he plans to stay in our camper on the days he'll be away from home. He'll be working as a mechanic in an open pit coal mine, four twelve hour shifts, then four days home. We're thinking he'll have quite a lot more time at home than he's been getting at his local job (with the tons of overtime) plus a reasonable increase in pay. The downside of course is the four days away, but we think we have plans that will work for it. When the rubber meets the road, we'll no doubt have to do some further juggling.

Ah, yes. I had a birthday (number 46) yesterday. My in-laws had us over for supper, and Jim baked my birthday cake(s) - chocolate chip cake with a butterscotch filling and chocolate chip glaze. One of my family favorites. (Yes, from scratch. What else?) We were 16 people for cake in the evening, and it was fun to have family and friends gathered around.

Being as today is Victoria Day, a holiday in Canada, we're off today as well, then it's back to the salt mines tomorrow. Jim still has a couple of weeks at his old job before taking a couple weeks off. We hope to get to Vancouver Island to see our kids for a few days before he starts the new job. Many changes upcoming.

It's Friday again...

Amazing how that happens. I fear that the re-re-outline is going to need to be dealt with rather soon on this novel, though. I wound up freewriting for a bit this morning to even see far enough in advance to start the next chapter. Although it is still somewhat dim, at least I think I have found the direction. All in all, I did get enough words to claim myself a 5K marathon winner for these two days. With a margin of an extra 31 words! lol

It's pouring rain again, the wrong part for the lawnmower came, and I have the next three days off work. An interesting combination. I'm thinking we should just put the cows out on the lawn, and that would take care of all of our problems. Hey, we've done it before, other years, and they don't wreck...much. The bull likes to scratch his back on the lilac bush, though. Pruned it pretty good that time. Naw, I think I'll pass. Jim thinks he can borrow the one from the shop over the weekend, so I'll get to try out a new set of wheels. WooHoo. It'll stop raining sometime, don't you think?

And about writing...

Wednesday was one of those frustrating non-writing days. I SO hate when that happens. I'm a moderator over at Forward Motion and one of the boards I help to oversee is the Young Writers' Scene. This section is private, and can only be accessed by kids under 18 (and their trusty moderators) upon approval. It was my day to learn how to grant access. Yikes. I came so close to crashing my work computer it wasn't funny. One of the areas I had to go is the FM database, which includes all 7000 plus members. My computer is OLD. It did not like it there at all. I tried to back out, and it took a half hour for the window to close. Yes, thirty minutes. I'm not making that up. By then I had the kind of headache that comes complete with a twitchy eyelid. (And I did manage to grant the kid access to the boards later on, on my home computer. Yes, faster computer, slower connection (dial-up) IS faster than slower computer, faster connection (cable). In case you wondered.)

The afternoon got taken up with crit group stuff that needed doing, and with trying to get the headache to subside to a dull roar. When it began behaving, I got a crit done.

Wednesday evening's is our worship team night, and last night was an extra amount of fun. A couple in our group moved here two years ago from a community about four hours away, and their former church has asked our team to come and lead their worship service on May 29. They have pretty much given us free run of the service, and so last night was song picking time. We know a lot of songs. We LIKE a lot of songs. There were six of us with opinions! We got it narrowed down to 21, but it was a lot of work. But it was also a lot of fun. No recurrence of that nasty headache, just a wonderful evening with like-minded friends.

So today the goal was words. And words I got, just not as many as I'd hoped. There was just enough traffic through the store to get rather distracting. The story has moved forward by another 2K, and pushed through an awkward transition in time and space. (Can you say *revision*?. Tomorrow it will be back to the fun stuff. I've got great things in store for my characters for the next few chapters, and they're even going to like some of the things that happen. It's time for them to regroup for the last leg of the adventure. Happy days are here again.

Except for the Canadian government. Do you want to hear about that? So many of you were amused by BC politics the other day that I'll just say we're apparently keeping our federal minority government for a little bit longer, criminal charges pending and all. The house speaker had to break the tie in the vote to NOT bring the parliament down today. Very close. Whether its a good thing or a bad thing depends on one's viewpoint. Governments with criminal investigations on them are a bad thing, though. I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that. But the repercussions of it crashing right now were also not good, from a Quebec separatism point of view. But the opposition also couldn't morally let things slide. Maybe, in the end, this was the best result. But I'm not quite convinced.

Way too funny

I nipped this off of Tambo's blog and just thought it was way too funny to NOT share with all of you:

Oh, wait. First we must have a commercial. Tambo is Tamara Siler Jones, whose forensic fantasy Ghosts in the Snow came out last November I think. It's doing very well.

Okay, then, here's what I nipped from her blog:
Rules of Writing

From Scribes - link from Death by Absurdity

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don't use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Kill all exclamation points!!!
24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
32. Who needs rhetorical questions?Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
33. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Provincial Politics

I find politics mildly amusing. We had an election here in BC yesterday, and although we still have the same government we had before, it has changed drastically. A little education for the non-Canadians in our midst. If you want to start a political party in BC, you can. You can call it anything. You can run candidates in as many of the ridings as you can finagle. You can call it The Marijuana Party, or you can call it the Sex Party. (Yes, those both exist. One's main platform is the legalization of pot, and the other one--I don't want to know.) Needless to say, only two or three parties get any amount of significant votes. Three parties (to my knowledge, don't correct me if I'm wrong) ran a candidate in every riding.

Four years ago we British Columbians decided to oust our scandal ridden government, and we did it with a vengeance. Out of the 79 available seats, the *other party* took 77. Even those of us who voted for them (and remember, there were a lot of us!) were a little dismayed. The Liberal government headed by Gordon Campbell had no one to counsel against them. The former governing party, the NDP (New Democratic Party), didn't even come out of the 2001 election with official party status. So GC began to balance budgets. He broke promises to unions. He cut massively in health care and education and absolutely everywhere else he thought he could get away with it. And get away with it he did, because as loud as those two NDP gals were, they were only two voices in a flood of Liberal. A lot of people have been pretty choked about the way he ran roughshod over the people of his province. But you know what? BC is on a better financial footing. The economy is more stable. That also says something.

Yesterday Gordon Campbell walked off with 46 seats. Quite a drop from 77, but still enough to form a majority government. The NDP rebounded with 33. (A lot of folks thought they had dropped completely off the radar, and gone the way of former BC parties such as Social Credit and Conservative, who have both formed governments in BC in the past two decades and now no longer exist. At all.) This is probably a very good thing for BC. A one-sided government with that much power is just a scary thing.

Locally, we have returned to the NDP fold, to no one's huge surprise. Our new MLA (member of the legislative assembly) is also our old one; he has represented our area well in years gone by (just not the last four!). In fact, Jim regularly works on the guy's farm equipment. ** asked Jim if he was getting his vote, and Jim said, "No, I'm sorry to say. I'm voting for the other guy because of your party's stand on particular issues. It's a matter of conscience. But still, I hope you win."

That about sums it up. It's a little sad, but it's true. Don't even get me started on the fiasco that is currently the status of Canada's federal government. It's just too embarrassing.

Better today, thanks

Nearly 2K today, and that crazy chapter is completed. The one with the scandal in it that I knew nothing about until I'd typed half of it. The one with the guard who has no name but has more stinkin' backstory than the main characters do. THAT chapter. Yes, the chapter that changes the course of the remainder of the book once again. I'll put off re-re-outlining for as long as I can, but I see that Taafa is going to have to resolve things with Juumat in a more thorough way than I imagined earlier. I just didn't think the dude was that important before. But he and the unnamed guard were in trouble together back then, and it has to come back to haunt him. It has to. I just don't know how yet. Drat.

In happier news, it was quieter at work today and I had my words in by mid afternoon and so I got a lot of my files downloaded from my gmail account. Yay. Lots to go yet, but I feel better with it well started.

It's still raining and is supposed to until the weekend, but the part for the lawnmower came in. Is that good news or not? Let me ask the farm cats.

Forward Motion

and by that I simply mean that I had some today! Not as much as I'd hoped (I'm greedy) but still, 1287 words put me over 60K so far on first draft. I think it's been 7 weeks since I started, so I shouldn't be whining. I think the main thing is that I'd actually hoped to accomplish something besides the words, you know? It was crazy busy at work, so I kept being distracted by that. I know that's hard to imagine, but hey, go ahead and try. I still have tons of files sitting in gmail waiting to come back to earth and my hard drive. I'm just pulling the ones I need at the time, but need to set aside time to download the rest. AFTER I get my words for the day, is what I told myself today. But I didn't even get THAT until quarter to five...

And there's always crits to do. Everybody in my 2yn (2 year novel writing course) has been working so hard on their books since January '04, that now that we're posting first five pages for crit I want to crit ALL of them. Not to criticize but to critique...and hopefully encourage. There's some fine projects coming out of this class. I doubt there's any publishers reading my blog, but if you are--beware. There's going to be a lot of great submissions in late fall of this year. You might need to start thinking of a new imprint. And 2yners--get that book finished as fast as you can do a good job of it and get ahead of the pack.

I should take a pic of my lawn to show you. Nah. Just go to any abandoned lot near where you live and take a look. My lawn mower's broke down, and my lawn hasn't been mowed for over two weeks. It is extremely shaggy. Even the cats are looking disgusted as they try to pretty paw their way across. And on that cheery note I'll leave you for tonight.

What every hopeful writer needs to know:

I was blog surfing this morning and ended up at Touch of Ink's blog" and from there discovered this article on facing every writer's second nightmare. The first nightmare has to be never selling any book at all, no matter how hard you've labored over it. The second nightmare is selling a few books and then sinking without a ripple. This little article is an honest look at the problem and how to prepare yourself for it, from one writer's personal experience.

At the moment, though, personally I have to deal with the first area: even sending material out so that it CAN be rejected. My goal is to have one novel making the rounds before the end of 2005. Maybe two. But apparently it's a good idea to start thinking of pseudonyms early on!

Photos of Flowers

This just seems to be the time of year that if you're taking pictures, you should take them of flowers. This first one I took last weekend in my sister's rock garden. She loves to dig and garden (we call her a mole!) and gets beautiful results.


My sister's rock garden 

My flower garden doesn't get a fraction the energy my sister's does, but the lilac bush is beautiful at this time of year!


Our lilac bush 

Other than flowers, I did get a fair amount of words Wednesday (1640) and found the story sliding even further off of its new outline. Oh well. What can I say? I'll get the winch out after awhile and pull it back inline.

Wednesday evenings are our worship team's regular practice night. We meet at the most logical home: centrally located, have a piano (and all their dozen or more instruments at ready disposal), have younger kids that can do their own thing because they're at home, etc. It is always a great evening of singing and having a great time together as friends in the Lord. An added (or subtracted) note this week is that Jim's sister's father-in-law is dying of cancer right now, making her rather quiet at practice. It's a tough week for the family, and may stretch out for awhile yet. Though by all accounts, it doesn't sound like it will be a lot longer.

Life in a Nutshell, which wouldn't post last night...

Anyone read anything by Kage Baker? I'd read a couple of her *Company* books, and just finished her fantasy *Anvil of the World*. She scored cover blurbs by Anne McCaffrey and Ursula Le Guin, so I gave it a try. Much of it is mildly amusing, but I'm not in any rush for the next one (if there is one). It includes too many messages that she hopes we get, too much on stupid humans and their bad ecological practices, etc. Do I think humans have messed up? Oh yeah. But slightly veiled references to that are not what I read other-world fantasy for. I also didn't think that much that happened in the story really mattered to the ending, you know? Didn't seem like an inevitable progression, even though it was mostly interesting. Anyway. I've certainly read worse, so read it if you have time and like her work. I'd be curious to hear other impressions.

In other news, I finally finished writing the scene I started yesterday. I tweaked the old outline yet again. It's funny how smooth things seem to flow when you're outlining and when you get there, you just slide a slightly different angle, as though the road was muddy. Not far enough to get off the road, you understand, just enough to shed a new light on it. Or at least up the wattage of the same light just a little. How's that for mixing the metaphors?

That's my life in a nutshell, mixed metaphors and all.

There are some things I need to deal with in the next while. I need to get my courage together and tackle Hewlett Packard yet again over my printer. It is NOT working right and it is NOT my fault. I've shut up for too long, and need to start hammering them again. And now I also have to deal with our cell phone, which seems to have some loose wires in it, and also has six months of contract left on it but no more warranty, so they think we should pay full price for a new one. And me? I'm thinking not. But we'll see who wins on these. But first I have to get up the energy to start the fight. Because if I don't fight, they win for sure, and that's just sad.

I'm Ba-ack!

I know you've missed me. Friday afternoon I hopped the bus to my sister's for the weekend so we could continue to work on our family scrapbook. We started just before New Year's with our oldest artifacts (a card made by our grandmother as a child in 1897) and have proceeded all the way to 1953 by the end of this, our third weekend on the hit parade.

My mom was able to spend a few hours at my sister's both days I was there. She's 82 now and aging rapidly, so we're trying to catch the stories while she's still telling them. It was wonderful to be able to spend mother's day with her and my sis, being as my kids are too far away to come home. My daughter did track me down at her auntie's house, though, and made me check my email from there on webmail, as she had painted me a lovely mother's day painting of daffodils on her computer. She is a very talented girl, and I'm loving my gift! My son, who doesn't have a long distance plan on his telephone because he's a student and can't afford it, did also call home and catch the answering machine. "Hello, you have a collect call from: Happy Mother's Day"!!!! Gotta love his originality! I laughed myself silly. Jim drove over to pick me up and enjoyed a bit of time with my family as well. My sister's 3 year old granddaughter did her best to monopolize Uncle Jim. "Uncle Jim, will you play with me?" They read stories and played ball and did a puzzle.

We got home after ten thirty to a very lonely kitty cat who needed lots of attention too!

For the record, last week I wrote about 9500 words On *Marks of Repentance*, Shann's story. And so far today, nothing! Except...that my new cable modem has been installed on my work computer, and I now have everything pretty much set up. Time to flag down some words for the day...

A farm photo to cheer your day!

Lest you think all aspects of farming are glamorous! 

No, really, there ARE other things to think about. I finally got all the files for Shann's story together on my work computer today. That seemed like a good idea, for the number of times this week I've wanted to check something that I'd already written, or a bit of worldbuilding. So, then...I decided to get serious with the words today and kicked out over 3k. The story is coming together very well and I'm enjoying this part of the process a great deal.

And now I'm very tired and headed for bed after a busy day and busy evening...

on the road again

The *new* old computer is pretty much up and running, though I discovered that I hadn't thought about all my bookmarked sites! Oh, well. I can find them all again. A lot of them I have on the home computer so it's mainly a matter of emailing myself a bunch of links.

I had a little bit of a scare this morning when the computer refused to copy my files from the diskette in A drive to the hard drive. Then I found that I could open it okay, and THEN save it. A little more hassle to do them that way, one at a time, but the only thing that really mattered in that category was the writing I'd done on the laptop. Everything else I had uploaded to my gmail account and will get transferred back down as soon as I have the new modem at work. But I had everything I needed to keep rolling in the meanwhile on that disk.

Of course I got side-tracked doing other things! :P But mid-afternoon I reminded myself that I had goals and a blank screen, so I got to work and pumped out about 1400 words before closing. Trying to keep on track is like herding ten cats through a stream. Just go ahead and try THAT.

Things are looking up!

I got better at typing with my eyes shut today. It was either that or lose TWO days of word count, and I wasn't willing for that. Besides it was almost dead quiet at the store. What would I have done for six of those seven hours without my story to keep me company? So...1695 words. I'm quite content with that. And then I read for a bit.

I tried your suggestion, Mar. Perhaps that refresh button doesn't exist in Win98? At any rate, I poked through all the settings but couldn't find anything to deal with the lag on the laptop screen. And like I say, I solved it my own way--by not looking at the screen unless my fingers were at rest! Hey, whatever works.

At the end of the workday I picked up my old but improved tower from the computer shop across the back alley. And while I type this on the *home * computer, I'm installing programs back onto the *work* computer on the table beside me. So the deal is that it will be ready to go back to work with me in the morning, and it will *only* take a couple of hours for me to train Word out of its autoformats. I can't even wait until I'm done my writing for the day to do that. Aargh. Maybe I can it done tonight while it's still at home....

You don't want to know...

and neither do I. Aargh. Trying to do the upgrade on my work computer crashed it, so now I have to take it into the computer shop anyway. Let's hope he's feeling gracious in the morning... I took our old laptop to work to write today. That was almost more annoying than not writing. It's a beater; the thing belongs in a dumpster. One of the hinges is broken, so it can't support the screen/lid. Propped that up with a pile of books. There's a dark fade spot in the middle of the screen. Annoying. And it has a little *visual echo* thingie going that nearly made my eyes go buggy. Most of the time that I typed today, I did so with my eyes closed. I just couldn't stand looking at the screen.

Yes, I got some words. Not as many as I needed, but under the circumstances, I found 900 words to be totally acceptable.

A very busy weekend, as all weekends tend to be down home on the farm. Flowerbed weeding and lawn mowing took my the lion's share of my time. I have inherited too many flowerbeds, and they are too large. I've been trying to cut them back the past couple years, but that's a big job, too. I like looking at pretty flowers as much as the next gal, but I'm not so into the work of keeping them pretty. We let the bull out with *his ladies* on Saturday to begin working on next year's crop of calves. We need to be ultra-cautious out there now when feeding, as he is rather...exuberant.

the ants go marching two by two, hurrah! hurrah!

2129 words today, for a story-to-date total of 43620. You'll be glad to know that Shann and Taafa are talking to each other again. Mostly yelling, for the record, but at least its communication, right? It beats depressions all to bits.

I've been thinking that I wanted this first draft completed by the end of June, but how badly do I want it? That's nine weeks away, and I'm guessing there's roughly 66K left to go. Anyone want to take bets on how consistently I can produce 1500 words per day, Monday through Thursday for nine weeks? Yeah, me neither. I'd've been a little cockier a couple of weeks ago, but I certainly lost a lot of time in the meanwhile. If that happens again, I'm a goner. (For the record, I *did* know this was the weakest spot in the outline, though...)

Why does it matter? Well, it doesn't, really. No hopeful agent or editor or publisher is waiting with bated breath (baited with what, you might wonder...) for me to submit my masterpiece. At least that I know of! ;) I'm really trying to keep a real schedule, though. If--no, WHEN--I have contracts to fulfill, I'll need to know what is a reasonable time frame for me. I need to know my pacing. And pacing requires consistency. So, there you go.

You may remember in March that I wrote more-or-less straight through Easter weekend at home, and used online word wars to help keep me motivated and on track. The *new* deal is that my bosses (have I mentioned lately how awesome my guys are?) are going to pay for cable internet for me at the store, so hooking up with friends to write online will be a viable opportunity for me during my prime writing time. Will it get too distracting? Not if I limit the people to ones who also are actively looking for words, and limit the random chitchat to specified blocks of time. I'll be taking my computer home for the weekend in order to prepare it for the new modem.

You can laugh here because, although this computer is a Pentium II (which I bought for fifty bucks two years ago), it's been running on Windows 95. The cable company says I need Windows 98 as a minimum, so that's what we're putting on. Why not upgrade higher? I don't want to have to replace my HP810 printer, which got relegated to the shop when our new home computer (XP) refused to play with it last fall, forcing us to buy a new printer. And 98 will run the program fine, AND Yahoo! Messenger. What more could I want? Of course there's more I could want, but I'll save it until this computer dies altogether. It may not be that long, as one counts computer lives.

July is the technical start of the revisions section of the 2 year novel course at Forward Motion. I can start the section a little late if I need to, but I'd rather not. So we'll see how things go, right?

Have you noticed?

Have you noticed that when I'm writing well and things are moving along smoothly in my little world, that I also blog well? But as soon as I hit some glitches, I don't want to talk about it. I guess I just want to report the good stuff.

So it's a good thing that there is good stuff to report! Yesterday got kind of balled up with crit group stuff. It was good, it needed doing, but it didn't advance my story any. Well, maybe it did. Not in word count, but in shoring up the support structure that I will desperately need again later!

The other thing that sidetracked me was finishing the novel *The Burning Land* by Victoria Strauss. If you enjoy fantasy, give this book a read. I thoroughly enjoyed it on several levels. First off, it's a great read. Second, I liked seeing how Victoria wrote a fantasy based firmly on her world's true religion, and the doubts and growths of the various characters, some of whom are condemned as heretic or apostate. And finally, I liked that every time things got so bad that they couldn't possibly get worse, I was wrong. They COULD get worse, and did so. Have I mentioned I liked the book?

So, this morning. Finally. After wishy-washying all over the place for the past week, I finally got some new words on the screen, just barely over 1K, but still... And now I discover that both of my main characters are depressed. Jeepers. Somebody should take a stick to them. Hmm. Tomorrow.

Some kind of update

I took Monday off work to accompany Jim on an out-of-town trip. It was really good for us to spend the day together. There is plenty to talk about as we have some major decisions to make in the next few days. It seems that for every direction we could go, the cons outweigh the pros. Are we missing something here?!

Knowing I would have an hour or two on my own while he was in meetings, I took along a notebook (but not my outline, silly me). I wrote quite a few pages of notes in long hand, trying to push the edge of what I know about my story, and think I got some good direction. My morning today has been trying to blend the new parts with the former outline, tweaking and poking it where needed. I think I now have (again) a completed outline, ready to go. This *empty space* before Taafa realizes she is pregnant is now full of other developments and tension, and the whole re-melding created an additional nine scenes for the outline. I'm at 40K right now; the projected book total is back at 110K.

To those of you who can write without an outline and not get stuck or overwhelmed, my hat goes off to you. (Not that I'm wearing one, you understand...) It threatens to drown me. I feel like I've been thrashing around in the water, not getting anywhere and barely keeping my head out. I guess I still need my water wings.

But first I need a good night's sleep. Amazing what stress can do to you. In other news, calf #16 was born on Saturday.

well, THAT was optimistic

Okay, so I'm not really rolling again yet. I tried to convince myself that adding the Pidaal character and beefing the subplot here would not change the story intrinsically, but it's not working. Really I was trying to avoid re-outlining. I write much better with a road map, and I haven't been able to convince myself that this little detour is still in sight of the main road. Pidaal needs to be more important than that. So today he got a character sketch and a background while I tried to see which direction the story is taking from here. I know where it's going, just not how it's getting there. Though by the end of the writing day, I at least have more clues than at the beginning. Apparently this stage can't be rushed. I'm ahead of my projected wordcount pace, and I'm not under contract, so I can afford the time to do this right. Honestly? I'd rather be writing. But being as I prefer writing to REwriting, I'm taking the necessary time. I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to work on things over the weekend because we FINALLY have a warm sunny weekend forecasted, and there's a zillion outside things that need doing on the farm. So, we'll see. It can percolate around at the back of the brain, at least.

moving forward at last

The past couple of days have been a struggle, fighting my way out of these plotting doldrums. Because I couldn't quite figure out the best approach, I went back to pricing work in the store on the new order guide that just arrived this week, allowing the sub-conscious time to mull over the worldbuilding and its repercussions.

The upshot was that I needed more detail on the religion of Taafa's country, Nuumour, than I had originally written up a couple of months ago when I was worldbuilding. Now things are starting to fall into place again. I've found the character and the subplot that will jump start this part of the story, and push forward the main plot at the same time. Not only that, but this addition sets the stage for a possible second book in Shann's world. I got a little over 2K forward motion on the story today, so I'm happy with what I got and especially happy to be moving again at all.

new machines

Our lovely combination fax and answering machine died at work. All of you people who live in cities may laugh now. THIS town doesn't have such a thing in stock. Now, we may not be a large business, but we do get some faxes every day, so it seemed important to deal with our lack post haste. As in, not wait for the perfect model to be ordered and come in next week some time.

It's fairly easy, right? You buy a fax machine AND an answering machine. Very simple. Except. The fax machine directions say that the answering machine gets plugged into IT. The answering machine directions say that the fax machine gets plugged into IT. Okay, pick one. Wrong one. Wait, there IS NO right one. Honest. For the answering machine to pick up at all, it has to come in on the second ring. Just TRY to get to a phone on the second ring if you're not hovering over it, waiting for it to ring. I think my solution is to unplug the answering machine when I'm in the store. It's a nuisance, but I think it will work. Then I have four rings to get to the phone before the fax kicks in, and THAT I think I can do.

Any idea how many hours setting up two new machines takes? How about programming in something like forty phone/fax numbers? Yes, there went the day. Somewhere in the back of my head, the plot/outline problem for *Shann* is percolating, but I haven't had the time to devote to it today, to come up with a concrete solution. But, still...working at work? Right. That's what they pay me the big bucks for.

The Celebration is up!

In case you were wondering, this month's Celebration of New Christian Fiction is now up at Jeanne Damoff's blog. Stop by Jeanne's to be introduced to various Christian writers and their take on where Christian writing is going, metaphorically speaking.

Dilemma

Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself. I think I said I found a good stopping place on Friday, and so I did. Finding the next good starting place is the next problem.

I've spent hours today staring at my screen, and for the last while I've been free-writing. I have two problems here. One is a lull in my outline, right where I need to kill a few weeks of virtual time, long enough for Taafa to figure out that she's now pregnant. Oh, I do have stuff happening in the outline, but it's too internal--discussion type stuff that they can deal with in no time flat. In fact, they've already dealt with some of it. The other problem is that the story is looking a bit short in length. I'm at 38K, and if I wrote straight from the outline just now, I'd be at 40K and half done the scenes. I am really trying to get this book in at closer to saleable length first go, and 80K is NOT it.

It's time to ratchet up the action. I've been examining motives and subplots looking for that special something that is going to help carry the story through these few weeks of virtual time.

I can let that little forest fire that got started *somehow* in the last chapter burn out of control, but I'm not sure if it would really forward the story. A good rainstorm would put it out pretty fast at this stage, and that may make more sense. And there was a huge rainstorm only yesterday, so it would be quite believable.

Or I could introduce a character that I've only alluded to early on in the story, and pull that scenario into a much greater subplot. (That would be a good way to go if Book Two continues to take root in my mind, as it would tie the books together.) Only, how to bring these characters together? They don't know each other, and at the moment both sides are suspicious of strangers (don't look at me that way; I'm just trying to get the story down...) Hey, wait a minute. The forest fire could drive them together. Hmm.

Outlines. Can't live with them, can't live without them. Sigh. Back to screen-staring now.

(In other news, calf #15 was born Friday (finally; it's been a full month since #14), we had a great weekend with the kids, and hubby actually took off two days in a row. He's paying for it now, though.)

Excuses

I've not been so good at keeping up the blog this week, have I. Hmm. Do you guys need excuses or is it okay? You know what excuses are, don't you? An excuse is the skin of reason, stuffed with a lie.

It's been a fairly intense week in *Marks of Repentance* land. The story has grown 8K and now sits at over 38. In this 8K, things have gotten pretty intense, both emotionally and physically. I called a halt early this afternoon when I found a good stopping spot, where I can leave the story for a couple of days over the weekend. I really hate being in the middle of a scene when I can't write for a couple of days.

Things continue to HOP at work. I started writing this blog entry over an hour ago. I guess it's good; I know I won't be laid off from lack of work any time soon! But we just keep getting behinder.

The good news is that half our kids are coming home this weekend. We haven't seen our daughter and son-in-law since November, so I'm really looking forward to spending some time together. They expect to be in really late tonight. The other half of our kids (son and daughter-in-law) live twice as far away and we haven't seen them since September. They're in the middle of college finals right now, but we still don't expect to see them until the end of June. We hope it will work out, anyway.

Busy busy busy

Wow. I'm sure paying for not getting much writing done on Monday, I tell you. Everything piled up at once, but I think I'm mostly through the bottleneck.

Something that amuses me is that my local library is starting to rely on Jim and I to let them know what paperbacks to order in from the sff genres. I now have a password to the library's order guide, and while I don't have buying power, it's as good as. I got a call a few days ago to check out the newest listings and to give recommendations, so I popped a list up at FM and let folks talk about the various books as I actually hadn't heard of quite a few of these particular authors. I really like to get some new blood in at the library rather than only the same-olds. While realizing that if folks are following a series, we'd better get the newest ones of those as well! I submitted my recommendations today.

I also finally completed the article that I've been working on and submitted it. Also a critique that I'd promised for mid-week is out the virtual mail box and on its way. And I've even managed about 2600 words on *Marks* this week so far. It's been a bit of a blur.

On the home front, hubby is doing nothing but work over-time. In fact he's worked now for the last 17 days straight, including some evenings. That's about to grind to at least a slow down (I sincerely hope) because he is totally exhausted. It really isn't worth it, except he's had no choice. So...yeah. Tough times.

Blogging and Real Life

Blogs serve some interesting uses, don't you think? Some people use them to rant and carry on about whatever injustices the world has served them with lately. Some use them as a political or religious platform. Some show off their fabulous photography skills. Some blog their personal life in hopes that their friends and family will read it and thus keep up on the news. Others hope no one they actually know will read it. Some use their blogs as learning tools, or as essays on various subjects near and dear to their hearts. I'm sure I've missed a few reasons!

Why do you blog?

Why do I blog?

I've been thinking about that lately (mostly on days, like today, in which I avoid doing any Real Work). In the course of the past few years since I've known about the blogging phenomenon, several bloggers I've known have shut down their blogs, or turned comments off of them. Why? They were becoming dependant on the feedback, feeling overly conscious of the impression they were making on others. The blog had taken on a life of its own, and it was threatening to get away. I can see that.

I started blogging in May of '04, and moved to Blogger in January after comment spam had taken over my site, with no way for a non-techie to turn it off without turning the comments off completely. I like comments (hint, hint...). I do not write here simply to entertain myself, though that is surprisingly easy to do (grin). I *am* aware of my audience, though I don't actually know who all visits here on a regular or semi-regular basis. I do know that the folks who comment are just the tip of the iceberg. Why do you come here? What do I have to say that keeps you coming back?

I'm a Christian. Most of you probably know that. I don't exactly hide it, but I also don't make a big deal out of it in my blog or at FM. That may partially be a result of conditioning from FM's strictures onsite regarding political, religious, and war debates. This blog isn't specifically about my faith, it's about my writing (with a few other things, faith included, thrown in from time to time). Yes, the two are irrevocably intertwined. If I wasn't a believer, I certainly would write differently.

I think what I want (through the blog and online) is to build relationships with people, and let my faith shine through the relationship. It's a very vital part of who I am, but I'm not into pushing it at people constantly. I think that in most cases it only serves to push the folks away. I'm the same way in my Real Life. Most of my acquaintances know I attend church, and I'm certainly willing to share specific experiences and beliefs with anyone who wants to take the conversation a step farther. But I don't want to turn people away by being pushy, either. I'm not all that confrontational.

I grew up with parents who were very vocal about their faith. My mom still doesn't think any conversation is complete if she hasn't been able to *witness* to somebody. Three of my four sisters are missionaries, with some of their kids following along in those footsteps. I think it's great. The last few months my sis and I have been working, on and off, on the family history scrapbook. In the Mennonite culture my parents were raised in during the 20s and 30s, you didn't talk about your faith. At all, really. People should be baptized, people should obey the rules, people should *be right with God* but no one could explain what it meant. When I think about their background, I understand better why, as they left the Mennonite church (when I was 7) to become missionaries to the native people of Canada's north, they became so very vocal. But it's not me. Is that wrong?

I see the same trend in my writing. I am unwilling (possibly unable) to write a *preachy* novel. In the science fiction I've written, I've explored some future Christianity. *False Perceptions* takes the idea of a Christian group fleeing earth, and having no contact with outsiders for generations. What would that do to their faith? Would it remain strong and vital? I doubt it. I would guess that for the most part it would become stale and legalistic. I might be wrong, but that's the possibility I based the story on. Now I am exploring the idea of God desiring obedience of the heart more than outward sacrifice in the fantasy novel, *Marks of Repentance* (aka Shann). I think faith is a strong element of the story, but it won't hit the reader upside the head. I hope. A *look at me* theme is more likely to get the book tossed against the far wall, in my personal opinion. A subtle theme may stick with a reader for longer, and cause a few actual brain cells to bump into each other as thoughts. I think that's a good idea, whether the theme is actually *Christian* or not. Even though we mostly don't read novels in order to think about issues, the issues are there, underlining the stories, and they'd best be integral to the story and not be tacked on.

Was that a tangent to the original question about why to blog? From my mind, it was a logical progression. I share my writing progress, and bits of my life (though why you all are so fascinated with Canadian farm life mystifies me...), and bits of my faith. I believe that if any of my readers had questions about any of those things, they could contact me to discuss them. I'm not on a platform. These are the things that are important to me. This is my life. Welcome in.