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Burning down the house. Again.
If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, you may notice that I occasionally redecorate. Well, I did it again. The last template was okay, but I wanted something cleaner that had a similar look without the clutter. I’m happy where it is, now! It’s not finished completely, as I’m working on a nice custom header graphic and whatnot. But the layout works, the fonts make me happy (which is a big deal) and… I even changed the blog’s tagline. It’d been a long time coming, and I wanted something that represented the multitude of things I write and post about. So, voila! Writing has been slower,…
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The Middle Eight Manifesto or; Behold! The Secret to Writing!
Well, I’ve reached the middle eight. Almost. At least, I’m cruising just about to the 30K mark, a little more than a third of the way through Rock Revival. Musically speaking that might be where I put a bridge. Or a pre-chorus. Or something interesting. Certainly we’ve established the verse and chorus, and now we’re shaking things up. And hoo-boy are we. It’s been so long since I’ve been this deep in a novel (I did the math; it’s been over two years, between day jobbery, health issues, and pregnancy…) that I’ve absolutely forgotten how characters can throw you for a loop. I had this planned, damnit. WTF?! Maybe part of…
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You built it up brick by brick…
Well, Rock Revival is officially at the 1/3 mark. 25K isn’t a novel, true, but it’s more than I’ve written in quite some time. In spite of crazy busy baby stuff, job hunting, and a visit to the beach with the husband’s entire clan, I’ve been crawling along. Some days have been painfully busy and writing hasn’t been an option, but I usually make up for it. If I could actually type for long periods on the laptop, it might be a way to bolster the word count; but alas, that’s likely never going to be unless Apple actually starts designing products with ergonomics in mind rather than the “ooh, shiny!’…
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ConTemporal Bound!
So, ConTemporal starts tomorrow! Before you go thinking how crazy-pants I am to go to a convention after having a baby so recently, keep in mind that I can actually walk to this one. No joke. It’s less than a mile from my house! ConTemporal is a celebration of steampunk and other speculative fun times, and I’m really excited to be a panelist. More than anything, though, I’m looking forward to acting like a writer again for a while (at least the kind who isn’t practically attached to her little newborn). Not to mention, quite a few friends are going to be there, both from near and far. The delightful…
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As Graceless as a Three-Legged Baby Elephant
The title of the post comes from the last scene I worked on last night. Kate’s first night with Tom, as she falls out of bed with no memory of finally snagging the guy she’s been pining over for years. Ah, rock and roll. So yes: writing continues apace! And with seven hours of sleep last night, not to mention a most fantastic wine discovery (the tannat grape is one of my new favorites, and ideal for sipping in the summer for those of us who really can’t deal well with white wines–I drank the unoaked Pueblo del Sol, 2009, and it runs only ten bucks… I want to buy a…
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Look, Ma! I’m Writing!
I had a post written up a few days ago that I never managed to get published. Which kinda sucks, except that I’ve increased my word count in a major happy way. I hit the 10K mark which, as I mentioned on Twitter, is really not reason to celebrate for some folks but, for me, considering the pregnant brain block and the fact that I have a four week old, is pretty damned awesome. I feel like my brain has been restored, and once again, I’m walking around with a book writing itself. It’s been a long time since that happened, and it’s reminding me just why I love writing…
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Rock-a-Bye and Rock ‘n’ Roll
So! I had that baby I was talking about.
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Reading the tea leaves for 2012
Well, hello there, readers. It’s been a while! Rather than sit here and give excuses, I’ll just apologize briefly for being not the best blogger lately. It happens. I’ve been blogging for a long time, when you look at the big picture, and well, sometimes there just isn’t a whole lot of time for sitting down and pondering the writing craft these days between family and the full time job and other things. But it’s not like nothing is happening. So here’s a bit of what’s been happening about these parts. First and foremost, I’m currently heading into week 25 of my second pregnancy. And I’ll tell you: being pregnant does…
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Five Ways Social Media Can Destroy Your Writing (and, Potentially, Your Career)
Ah, social media. You can’t cross the street any more without having it cross your consciousness (I wonder if there’s a check-in here!). And as useful as social media can be for us writerly types, I guarantee you for every pro there is a serious and potentially hazardous con. Having written before on some of the reasons I love Twitter for writing, I thought I’d share five ways that social media can, you know, go all Cthulhu on your writing rather than foster it. 1) You drive yourself to distraction. This is perhaps the most obvious pitfall of social media. It’s damn distracting. There’s plenty of time to talk about…
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Home Again, Home Again
Home from Dragon*Con as of this Monday, but life has been, as usual, too hectic for a moment’s rest. That, and the entire house is sick one way or another here. So I’m only now just getting down to reflect on the last weekend. General consensus is that I don’t know if I’m cut out for Dragon*Con in the long run. There are just too many people, events are too disorganized, and just getting from one hotel to another is a tour de force. The most wonderful moments I had were spending time with friends and other writers (including a very memorable nightcap atop a rotating bar with Ann and…
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arthuriana, blog, editing, fantasy, glassmere, peter of windbourne, pilgrim of the sky, queen of none, steampunk, the gnome and the necromancer, ward of the rose, WIP, writing
Prosaic Analysis Paralysis
In which I think aloud for a few paragraphs… pardon the navel gazing. The burden of words. It’s quite something, I tell you. And at the moment I’m finding it to be on the verge of utterly overwhelming. I have all these stories, all these books and novels and ideas, and instead of a calm, steady stream (the way I’ve written for the better part of the last five years) it’s a frozen lake. A frozen lake filled with strange faces and whispers under the icy surface, all jumbled together, staring at me, challenging me. And I’ve got analysis paralysis. I have too much to work on, so much so…
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Looking for Lucy Pevensie
I don’t think I can ever express just how how hard I tried to get to Narnia. Sure, some people read books and are inspired by them; they’re influenced by them; they are changed by them. It’s normal. It’s part of the wonder of, especially I think, fantasy literature. That world just beyond the mirror, that glen just over the bend that blinks in and out of existence. It reflects the worlds we want to exist, lingering just there on the edge of what we see. Except, for most of the fifth grade, I didn’t just like the Narnia books: I believed them. I hoped in them. I wrote strange…
