Calla writes...

Every so often I take a vacation day so that I can concentrate on writing. With the thrum of day to day life I often feel that I don't have the brain power or time to actually take on writing the way I want to. I have plenty of vacation time, and we aren't going anywhere special this year so why not use it for something I enjoy. whee!

Yesterday was one of these days. I'm not sure I accomplished as much as I really wanted to, but I did get some stuff done. Here's a run down of my day.

7:30 am: drop kids off at daycare and go to diner for breakfast. while eating and drinking coffee i begin editing some of my nanowrimo manuscript that I brought along. around 8:30 head home.

8:30 am: run around house frantically grabbing things I need for the day before I drop my car off at the mechanic. clean litter box. run out the door close to 9.

9:20 am: drop car off at mechanic. stomp down the road .8 miles to the library.

9:45 am: arrive at library to discover it doesn't open until 10am. sit on the curb with a lot of impatient looking elderly people.

10:05 am: Library opens! whee!! maneuver myself away from the crush of people rushing to the computers and dvd's. ask where the quiet room is. hide an a corner carrel. ponder what it is I feel like working on. decide it's editing the story.

10:30 am: so irritated with the red lead in my mechanical pencil because it keeps breaking. bum red pen from librarian with a promise to return it.

11 am: my phone rings. It's the mechanic. despite the many signs saying don't use your cell phone in the library i answer because i'm alone in the quiet room and who will know? AT THAT VERY MOMENT someone walks in. stuff phone in pocket and run outside. discuss car repairs, return to editing.

11:45 am: I'm sick and tired of editing now. decide I'll make some of the changes i made on paper to the files on my computer. open computer. husband calls. we decide to get lunch together at 12:30. now all i can think about is food despite my big breakfast.

Noon: The way i set the story up in Scrivener makes no sense to me. i get frustrated. trying to make the changes I find myself ignoring what I wrote in the book. wonder how long before my kids can read and i can coerce them into doing this part of the job.

12:20 pm: pack up my stuff. give back pen. find the book i'm currently reading on my kindle (didn't have kindle with me) and sit in a chair reading while waiting for husband. we go have lunch. get home around 1:30.

1:40 pm: I go to the market to get some stuff for dinner.

2:10 pm: color my hair. while it's doing its thing I rush around looking for a red pen. can't believe i can't find one. wish I had just stolen the one from the library.

2:50 pm: lay on the bed feeling sleepy and clean. husband and i realize we are home alone with no kids. ;)

3:30 pm: he goes to get kids, I sit down with the book again. edit a little but realize I need to start preparing dinner.

4pm-6pm: cooking/eating/leaving to pick up my car. on way home buy a pack of red pens

7pm: i get back home with the youngest kid while daddy and older kid go to the mall. clean the living room, vacuum. Watch Seinfeld.

8pm: clean up kitchen mess from dinner. force children to bed. pour beer for husband and i.

9pm: sit down with book again. hate the new red pen. decide i'm too freaking tired to deal with it anymore. watch anime. fall asleep on couch after 1 beer because there's something about Miller Lite that immediately knocks me out.

10:20pm: decide to go to bed since i can't keep my eyes open to read subtitles. get sucked into a stupid movie on tbs because of a handsome guy.

11:15pm: go to bed.

SO. what was my results for the day? I edited 7pages of my manuscript, which doesn't sound like a lot, but I really had a lot to fix. I added whole paragraphs of things that needed to be described, practically re-wrote sections. but at the same time, look at how much of my day was actually spent going at it? not a whole lot.

I'm so finicky with the things I do with my day. I can only concentrate on the things I WANT to do. I have a hard time making myself do something I'm not feeling. like my b&b story? haven't touched it since I dropped out of the big bang. I spent so much time forcing myself to work on it that now I can't make myself work on it anymore.

Today I have had a lot of house work to do and now we are going to get ready for a party. We'll be gone the rest of the day. I'm going to come home probably tipsy and exhausted. I did do some plotting on the epic story (on my foam board) so at least that's something. It's no wonder I can hardly get any writing done after I come home from a hard day at work. no brains left!

speaking of party. I have to go get ready..

So, quitting the big bang seems to have been a good move. I feel more relaxed becuase i'm not constantly thinking about how I need to work on that story. The downside is that I haven't really touched it either. Maybe I just needed a little distance. I'll get back to it soon enough.

I have been enjoying doing other things though, like some garden work that desperately needed to be done. I started reading this other book (the latest one in a series that's taken me like a year to read). I grabbed a slab of foamboard we had lying around and started plotting out details for each book of my Penny series. I also picked up the first draft of last year's nanowrimo story, looked at it and then set it back down. haha.

I also got sucked back into ancestry because I found an obituary for my g-g-grandfather's sister which listed their parent's names. YAY! they had parents! parents who's names I can read! other than that I know nothing about them, nor can I seem to find any info on them. oh the frustration. I hope to find something eventually, but it may involve going home and heading to the library where I will need to sift through stacks of microfilm, going crosseyed in the process. I can't say I'm looking forward to that. why can't everything be catalogued and searchable online RIGHT NOW?? :(

My final writing class is next tuesday. It's been fun, and worthwhile. It's been nice hearing how everyone has improved since the beginning of the class. I look forward to utilizing the information I learned.

Well, I should eat something. Have a nice weekend.

Yesterday was the rough draft deadline for my fantasy big bang, and i submitted what I had. The draft should have been 80% done. Mine was more like 70% done. I had 10 out of 21 scenes left to complete which is kind of bad. Most of those had SOMETHING down but just weren't totally done. I'm hoping I can have this done by the end of the week. I told my beta reader I'd have it to them before the end of June. Yip!

I have been struggling with my writing lately. We talked last week in my writing class about how using "was" all the time is not good and blah blah blah. It makes sense and I see how it is better to use other words. Then I sit down to write and it's all "Bea was walking. the sky was blue." or whatever. oh dear god. I can't get my brain to think of a different way to word everything! What makes it even more frustrating was one of my previous scenes that I wrote a few months ago. While transcribing it from my notebook last night I noticed that it was written REALLY well. Like i won't even need to edit that because it's pretty much gold. There wasn't all this "was" crap. I could probably cut out a few adverbs. Otherwise it was just the way a story should sound. What the hell did I do that day that is so different than what's going on now? How did I manage to make that sound so wonderful, and the rest is pretty sad. oh god. the contrast would be noticable to anyone reading.

One of the reasons has got to be that I wasn't under the crunch at the time. With time to develop my thoughts and think about what was coming from the end of the pen I was able to create a better product. Oh fucking procrastinator me. See what you do to yourself when you wait until the last minute! *facepalm*

So anyway.. I'll be writing more today and hoping I can replicate that earlier moment of genius.

Tonight in class we'll be discussing setting and scenery, something I need LOADS of help with since my characters can't seem to see anything beyond the end of their noses.

Howdy. I'm still behind with my writing. I cancelled my ancestry.com membership the other day because a) i didn't want to get charged for it just yet. b) It was taking up all my time. I would literally sit down to investigate something and it would suddenly be an hour later. I didn't even notice the passing of time. It's something I will return to when I have a little more time to work on it. It would be nice to have a special present for the family this Christmas.

Rough drafts for the big bang were due yesterday but they made a post delaying that until next Monday. Thank goodness. I still don't have all the scenes written, or copied over from my notebook. In fact I should be doing that now while I'm on lunch, but I thought you guys were more important. ;)

Writing class is going good. The last 2 classes have been informative. They touched on issues I know I need help with, and I think I can easily apply the priciples we were taught. It's just a matter of getting myself back to the writing. I've been distracting myself by working on the computer. I'm always better when I have the computer off and I'm writing on my alphasmart. I should know better, really.

Now that I'm thinking of transcribing those scenes from my notebook it's all I can think about. Let me get to that. Hopefully the next time I write you, it is to inform you that I sent the rough draft to the mods and I'm now vomiting because someone is reading my crappy rough draft! whee!!

I already give up on posting those 21 days of DW. haha. it's not even that I don't want to post daily. I just don't really care about some of the questions.

today is going to be a productive day. I am determined. I have a lot of laundry to do. It's nice outside, so I want to hang it out in the sun. When the kids nap I'm going to the library to write for 90 minutes or so. that is going to be nice. peace and quiet, etc.

I'll update about how things went later. So much crap to do. But for now.. more coffee!!

3. Do you use other blogging sites? Why or why not?
I have an LJ, but that's completely friends locked.  If you consider Twitter a blogging site (as it has often been called "micro blogging") I'm there.  I have one personal account that's private, and one that's public (@callawrites just like here).

I feel really weird about the word "blog".  If I said I had a blog, I feel like that would imply that I have opinions on things to share, or that I had some sort of obligation to post something of significance.  Really I'm a babbler about whatever thoughts I'm having or whatever it was I did that day/week.  I kind of hate the word blog.


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oooo.. neat.. I saw this on someone's DW and thought this was a neat way to share a bit more about me and also to get myself posting here a bit more often since it seems I come here once every 2 weeks and then have a crapload of stuff to read about...

1. Why did you sign up for Dreamwidth?
I was looking for a new place to have a writing blog. I had one on blogspot, but I didn't like it. I found posting there to just be a pain in the butt. Plus I didn't have much of an audience. Ok... I had NO audience at all, and there really wasn't a way for me to create one without putting forth more effort than I was willing to do. While I could have started a new LJ, I didn't really want to. I liked the idea of a fresh start in a new place. I liked that DW focuses on those who create things (though you can really have it for whatever you want). I liked the format since I was used to LJ. I liked the idea of meeting totally different people, less spam, less judgment. So I closed my blogspot account and came here.


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I have been MIA for nearly 2 weeks. But I have been busy. i have actually been doing a fair amount of writing, believe it or not. No editing, but writing so that's at least something. yay!

The fantasy big bang on LJ is due June 15th. That's when first drafts are due. The WIP for that is the B&B story. I really need to get cracking on that. I have scenes written here and there, but I'm missing a fair amount of in between. Still not sure exactly how this will end. I mean, it's based on a classic fairy tale, so yes, I know how it will ultimately end, but the end game... not sure. I'm real excited about the potential though, and pleased with how cool this story could potentially be.

WIP Penny has been kind of taking over all my day dreamy moments. Then again I've been listening to 30 seconds to Mars for 2 weeks. The concert is Saturday night. I have gone from having amused interest in this band to really liking them. Mercy me.

Before I can even finish the first book of WIP Penny I started writing some scenes from the second story. They came to me pretty vividly and I wanted to capture them while they were so clear.

Also, my parents were visiting yesterday, and while they were here I let my mom read some of the unedited first draft of WIP SM. (last year's Nanowrimo book). My mom reads a LOT, and is pretty transparent in her opinions. She read the first few scenes, but didn't want to get too into it because she couldn't keep the draft. She said she reads some stuff that's really trash and this isn't trash. That means she doesn't think it's particuarly awesome, but it's better than some things she's read. I will take that as a compliment. I know where the story needs work.

With this recent burst of creativity I'm thinking of taking a day off sometime soon where I can just sit and write. Send the kids to daycare, and slink off to the library or something. Find a quiet and distraction free place to focus. Then just spend that time slamming these stories. I can take them all with me so when I get tired of one I can move on to the other. I need a day off anyway.

Yesterday the non-credit course guide for our local community college came in the mail. I always look at it because they offer some interesting courses. Like Boating. When the school is no where near a body of water, and they don't actually do any boating during the course. You just learn about boating in a class room. *shrug*
They are offering a creative writing class starting at the end of May, and going for 8 weeks. It's on Tuesday nights. My husband never works his second job on Tuesdays, so that actually works out. I mentioned it to him and to my surprise he encouraged me to do it. I figured he would roll his eyes or something when I mentioned it. I don't really know why. He has always been pretty supportive of my writing efforts even though he doesn't read anything I write, and he knows I'm not doing it to become rich and famous. I think he's happy if I have a hobby that makes me happy as long as it doesn't leave him stuck with all the housework. :)

It's not that expensive either, just over $100. I've been working some overtime recently, and also got a bonus for unused sick time from last year. I have plenty of money for it. So I've decided to do it, despite my general dislike of school. I like learning things, but I like learning just what I want to learn. I also don't like forced creativity. For example "write an x# of word piece" when I have no idea or am in no mood to write about something. I am trying to look at it like, this is just something I'm doing for fun. And if I epically fail at any potential assignments I'm not doing this for any grades or credit so who cares. The point is learning some things that will benefit my writing.

So that will be interesting.

I should probably remove those question marks in the subject of this entry. A Period would be more definitive. I'm hoping it's a good week, but if I get rid of those question marks and make it a period I will have decisively made it a good week.
On the other hand if I remove them and then you read this paragraph you will be sitting there saying "What question marks?" I suppose I'll leave them there. :)

After my somewhat rambly post from Friday night I went to sleep and got up early because I had to go to work. (doing some overtime) After work I went to Staples and had my first draft printed out. I could have done it at home but my printer has not been the greatest lately. I didn't want anything to be illegible. I also got a nice big binder for it, some post it red flags and some red pencils. I've since ordered some red lead for mechanical pencils, because I simply can't stand writing with a normal pencil. As soon as the tip gets the slightest bit dull I can't stand it. I'm obsessively sharpening it. That should come tomorrow from Amazon. I suppose the demand for such things is not that high and the product isn't sold in stores.

I didn't do the other things on my list yet, but I'm feeling good about what I've done so far. To my surprise printing the book out has really motivated me to start editing. I've started going through crossing out and adding and fixing and blah blah blah. I'm 12 pages into the 211 page draft. It feels good.

I also love carrying the thing around. There's something about picking up this binder containing my story that I love. The weight of it feels satisfying in my arms, like cradling a child and knowing that you have so much wonderful work to do. It will be hard and you will have to take care, but done well the end result should be something you can be proud of.

So for now, until I feel stuck, I will just work on doing these edits. When I feel frustrated I will move on to one of the other tasks I can do to at least keep things moving along. I am for once feeling excited about editing.