Or possibly a keeper.

No, really, a routine would be great. I seem to get more done when I deliberately set aside non-internet time with the laptop to do writing. For instance, this morning (it was morning for me,) I wrote a bit under 1,000 words on my story. I woke up, farted around, drank some caffeine, called friends to see about a movie, read a bit. Then, I sat in the livingroom with my laptop on my lap, and wrote.

You see, I had thought I knew what was coming next in the story. I had it all set up that my character would walk out of her room, and smack into this other character. Then, my brain being the tricksy evil thing that it is, presented me with a thought. What thought, you ask? Why, this thought: how about a love triangle?

So. I wake up, with my brain going fizz fizz fizz on the subject. No, no, she doesn’t walk into love interest number one that will mess up her life and screw up everything… Nah. She walks into nice guy number one who will mess up her life and screw up everything. Later, she’ll meet love interest number one. But, first, she has to enchant nice guy, so she can break his heart and ruin her life.

I didn’t know that part of the fun of writing was to make characters and then fuck with them! This is great! I get to torture people! Yay!

I’m around 2,000 words in, and just getting started on this. So far, still fun! Whee!

But, seriously. I think a stable routine will help alot. I like this write in the morning thing, seems like I can routinely get 1,000ish words out doing that. I just need to do it everyday. I guess this means getting up a bit earlier on the days I work, so I can write before going off to do fascinating things for money. And being kinda stern with myself on the days I don’t work. Write before work, before fun, before networking, before breathing! Ok, well, not before breathing. But you get the picture.

madness, I say!

I wrote a short story.  I know, amazing.  I haven’t written actual fiction in, uh, years.  Yeah, we’ll just leave it at a nice unspecific ‘years’.  Anyway, I was at the Dream Cafe, hanging with writerly friends, when I noticed that they have a theme calendar on their wall.  And on this theme calendar was an entry for a Parsec contest, with the theme ‘Metalic Feathers.’

Being of a curious nature, I went looking for more information, and found the Parsec homepage, with mention upon it of this contest.  And then I went home.  Laying in bed, about to trip happily off to dreamland, I suddenly knew what story I could tell.  I had the characters, their foibles, the plot, the great huge explosion, everything.  So, I wrote it.

And then I hid from it for a while.  A few weeks.  Somehow, when you write something, and then set it aside for a day or two, when next you read what you spent hours of brain juice creating it suddenly stinks like a polecat in heat.  Phew.  Eventually, Reesa and Kit badgered me into doing something with it.  I hammered out some kinks in it, made the extra stinky bits a touch more fragrant, and then made it manuscript format.

Print, envelope, address, trip to the post office, stick it in the slot.  That narrow, dark little slot from which there is no return.  No, not even if you stick your fingers in trying to get the envelope back.

I sent a 3,400 word short story to Parsec for their writing contest.  I can’t decide if it’s hubris to send my very first short story in ‘years’ out to a contest or if it’s just cause I’m that good.  I guess I decide that after the contest is over.

If I don’t win, I suppose I’ll edit it again, making it smell even better, and then send it out to pester various editors.

Oh, and just to make everyone crazy:  it’s a steampunk retelling of a rather famous Greek myth.  The title?

Daedalus.

I started a short story last week.  The basic idea germ came from Parsec’s writing contest theme:  Metallic Feathers.  I started off by laying in bed just before todlin’ off to sleep, thinking about it.  And then I woke up thinking about it.  I had the whole story in my head, all the plot twists, the characters, the whole thing.

I put in about an hour on it last week, and got something like 850 words on it.  I had a small personal emergency which ate up all of my time, energy and attention.  Yesterday I went back to it, gave it another hour, and doubled my word count.  This morning, I got up early and ran an errand, and when I got back home I went back to sleep.  I am so  not a morning person.  When I woke again from the unbearable heat and opened the windows, I went back to my story.

And then I finished it.  About two and a half hours, another 1,500 words or so, and Voila!  Short story!!!

It wound up at 3,125 or so on the word count.  The title is Daedalus and I’ll be editing it this coming week, and trying to come up with something else to write.  Then I’ll send it to Parsec and hopefully win first place.

I know you want to know what it’s about, because if I were reading this blog, I’d want to know.  So I’ll tell you.  It’s a steampunk retelling of a rather famous myth.  The theme is Metallic Feathers, you know  the title, I’m sure you can figure out the myth.

It’s already been read and critiqued by Steve Brust, and he liked it!  I’m waiting on my writing group to critique it, and I’m letting it rest in the back of my brain for a bit.  I want to give it time to rise, like a good yeast bread before I knead it some more.

Finishing a story and realizing that it’s good, that it’s something I’m willing to let others read and critique and then sending it out, and knowing that it’s good enough to win…  What a rush.  I could so get addicted to this.  In fact, I think I shall cultivate this addiction.  Now, what to write next?

For some reason, perhaps it is the smart ass in me, I want to write a talking cat story.  Perhaps a mystery, with a talking cat as the villain…  Now that would be different.

Coming soon to a bookstore near you: ME!  Mwah ha ha ha!!!  In all my evil writerly glory!  Bow before my manifest magnificence.

Where’d I put my pencil?

Very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet; but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

Sometimes, my brain decides to set me up for major life change when I’m not looking.   It sneaks around when I’m busy dealing with other things, and then…  Whamo!  I get really large amounts of change handed to me.

My original plan had been to retire from having to work retail in ten years.  Yeah, that was taking too long.  So, my brain high-jacked my mouth, and now here I am with no employment but what I make for myself.  Exciting times.

I’m looking at a part time job, with a full time self employed career doing freelance writing.  A certain New York Times bestselling author thinks I could do well at that.  And, I’ve been giving this some thought, with more apparently going on in the back of the consciousness than I’d been aware of.

I spent today trying to get foodstamps out of my gubment.  (Thirty days.  I guess I’ll be on a diet for a while.)  I also put in an application at a non-clothing retail place.  Mayby I can work in the garden center.  I’d like that, for a while at least.

And then I hung out with some friends, all writers, of course, who gave me great advice, and pointed out some very obvious things.  There’s a certain personality around here, locally well known (or at least infamous), who I’ll call ‘Folksinger’.  Don’t worry, he doesn’t sing.  Anyway, it was pointed out to me that I could be Folksinger, or I could be someone cool and neat, and actually do something with my life, and follow my dreams, and…  yeah.

So.  It’s start a cult of personality and sit back in a haze of could-have-beens, or actually do it.

This is so incredibly scary, I don’t have words for it.  So, naturally, I have to talk about it for several paragraphs.  I know what all the negatives are.  Or, I think I know where all the negatives are.  I’m sure there are some I haven’t forseen, waiting like a rake in tall grass to rise up under the unwary tread of the novice writer.  I’m not looking forward to the lumps, or the embarrassing stories about how I got that spectacular bruise.   But, hey, I’m always telling people cautionary tales drawn from my own experience.

So, new plan!  Get part time job to pay bills until full time self-employment takes off.  Then, quit part time job.  Write as freelancer to make money.  Write fiction for fun (and money).  Write poetry to win Pulitzer.  Become famous, attend various cons and acquire gaggle of fan boys and girls to fan me with palm fronds.

I think it’s doable.  I will, naturally, be spending a couple of days plumbing my unconscious to see if there are any other fun surprises lurking in there, and making sure this is not another fun and educational attempt at self sabotage.  It doesn’t feel like it, it feels like I’m ready.  Gods, that’s scary to think, and even scarier to type out.

Look out world, here I come.

As I have yet to sell any of my poetry or longer writings, I have a day job.  And like most jobs, mine is a hotbed of disease.  All it takes is one disease carrier to come into the store and infect someone who works there.

From there, it’s on, as we play pass the germ around.  There’s some incredibly nasty bug going around now, and I’ve got it.  I’m getting better now, but for awhile there it was touch and go.  I feel like I’ve been drowning in mucus.

Now, since I’m feeling a bit better, I need to get out my pen and notebook and let the words flow again.  I’ve been starting to ramp up with some critiquing and light brainstorming, but I can feel the need to let the words, words, words out to play.

So, yeah.  Itchy eyes and all I’ve gotta get these words down.

I was visiting with Reesa, with Kit lying on the couch looking on and basking in the general writerliness, when we decided to do some in depth editing on some of my poetry. What ensued from there was sheer creative gooey goodness.

In an open word document, we looked at the poems. One at a time, naturally. First, there was the reading. Followed by contemplation. And then, with brains open wide, minds at their most perceptive and verbose, each stanza, each line, each word was given it’s due contemplation.

Across just a couple of hours, we worked over two poems, looking at meaning, tone, flow, word choice, meta stuff… and more. It was the equivalent of a week’s worth of workshopping. Now, I’ve had Bone Monkeys out and about gathering rejections. And I’ve gotten two very encouraging personalized rejections on it. I had figured it was about done. But then, Reesa’s and my brains got ahold of it. It was good before. It’s friggin’ awesome now!

We also worked over Bodhisattva. Now, I just want a bit more feedback on it, give it a good once over in the harsh light of day to make damn sure I’ve got it just right, and then I need to find a market for it. I’m thinking I’ll aim it at a Buddhist magazine, or something literary. If I hadn’t sent Virginia Quarterly six poems already, I’d send it to them. *evil grin*

So, I’m feeling really good about those two, and I’ve got a few more that are looking good, too. Now. Find markets, send shit out!!! Yeah. I can do that.

So, today I did all sorts of writerly things. I cleaned up the apartment, I made salad, I stared at the walls for a bit. Then, I went over to some fellow Voluptuaries home, to spend time doing yet more writerly things.

We sat and demystified writing, a bit, especially the bits about why it’s so big and scary and ugh. At least, as far a novels go. Did some group brainstorming on characters, got to dig deep into some potential conflict areas in the story. Y’know, I thought I was just writing this entertaining little thing to keep my brain happy. But no! Evidently it’s some big novel thing with layers of conflict and interpersonal drama and growth and happy shit.

And then, we brainstormed on scary outline stuff for Reesa’s novel. Nailed down some thematic stuff, some underpinnings, and then got into some actual skeletal structure for the story. Elucidated all the stuff already done, the role it all plays, and what comes next.

I can easily see that at some point, this whole writing thing will need a budget, the same that money does. Time and energy are both finite resources that I will need to have some (even if illusory) control over. Eventually.

So, yeah, trying out a new blog over at Wordpress.  Todfox totally set this thing up, and I’m playing with all the widgets.  It’s supposed to crosspost to LJ, so, here’s hopin’!

First post, yay!