teamzerbert

Write-A-Thon

2006-08-04T17:55:58Z

Finished the Write-A-Thon successfully (barely)! Yay!

I will try to post-mortem the results sometime in the next day or two.

Silly quizzes

2006-08-04T17:54:38Z

Ah, naturally:

Your results:
You are An Expendable Character (Redshirt)

An Expendable Character (Redshirt)		75%
Beverly Crusher		70%
James T. Kirk (Captain)		60%
Spock		52%
Data		46%
Deanna Troi		45%
Jean-Luc Picard		40%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)		35%
Will Riker		35%
Geordi LaForge		25%
Mr. Sulu		20%
Chekov		15%
Uhura		15%
Worf		15%
Mr. Scott		0%

Since your accomplishments are seldom noticed,
and you are rarely thought of, you are expendable.
That doesn't mean your job isn't important but if you
were in Star Trek you would be killed off in the first
episode you appeared in.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

Finished a new one . . .

2006-07-16T16:03:29Z

Finished a new story late on Friday night, all Selkie-like and only 1600 words. I was planning on writing a big chunck of Saturday, but mostly got crits done instead, so I'm whittling away at all those extra words I got in the first couple of weeks.

I'll have to lay down a lot more this week, though. I've got 4 stories started (more than 1500 words each already), and I need to actually finish 2 of those in the next two weeks.

Will it be: The Stigmata Virus (5000 more words-ish, I'd guess); the cyberpunk story (eesh, maybe 7000 words to go - it's definitely novella-sized); the minotaur story (maybe 5000, maybe less), or the witness story (God knows)?

Let's skip the Witness story - that's one where I have a feeling for the character, and I have some words, and I have a "mood" of the piece, but I still don't know where the plot is going at all.

That used to not bother me - I'd just write about a character's adventures until I felt like I'd gotten to the end of the story. Later I'd worry more about structure. And that's more or less what Stephen King suggests in On Writing. (A fabulous book on writing, BTW).

Lately, I've really been wanting to know where a story is going before I invest too much time in it. Since I haven't been writing as much since the baby, I don't know if that's a byproduct of the Write-A-Thon mentality (Must. Finish. Story. This. Week.), or if it's a byproduct of never feeling like I have enough time (baby again), so I don't want to waste time meandering around in a story. Or it could be that my writer-ly approach has somehow been altered.

When the Write-A-Thon is over, I really need to sit down with Witness and see if I can get somewhere on it by just continuing to work with the character and whatever comes up. I'd hate to lose that method of writing, even if it is less efficient.

Now I'm gonna head down to a cafe (leaving my sweet bear with his grandma for the morning. Go, grandmas!)

Sigh

2006-07-15T21:10:06Z

Took the Bear to the doctor again today. She's teething AGAIN. It wasn't enough for her bottom two teeth to come in three weeks ago, no. Now her top two teeth are coming in, too.

Poor thing, no wonder she's been feverish and cranky (and making me crazy) most of the week. I wonder what it would feel like to have your first four teeth come in, all in one month.

Update on WAT

2006-07-12T21:11:47Z

Sooo, I managed to complete last week's goal, but only just. Eric's small surprise party was last Sunday, and preparation for it took much longer than expected, given the tiny amount of people invited. It also ran nearly all day. Whew.

I finished the short story "Fear of Flying" (desperately needs a new title) on Friday night. It was a quickie - only about 1800 words. This was the first week I finished a story before I had finished my wordcount. Then on Saturday, I stayed up super-late until I had another 1700 words down on the cyberpunk story (no title yet).

But then I didn't write at all for the last several days (blah, blah, baby sick, cleaning house from party, doing overdue crits for other members of CW '05, blah, blah), so I'm grossly behind this week. Rush, rush, rush.

Got two and a half hours before the babysitter leaves. I gotta burn up the computer keys. :-)

All done!

2006-07-02T07:43:13Z

Well, Shiloh is finished. Week Two is complete a day early, and here are the totals:

Week 2 wordcount: 4586 (goal: 3500)
Week 2 stories completed: 1 (goal: 1)

Write-A-Thon wordcount: 12270
Write-A-Thon stories completed: 2

Woo Hoo!

Almost there. Wait, when did this story get boring?

2006-07-01T22:57:09Z

Number of Words written this week: 3341

Almost to the 3500 word goal, and it's still Saturday. I'd like to get this story (Shiloh) finished tonight, after Eric and the baby are in bed, and then I can be on a Sunday-to-Saturday schedule, instead of the Monday-to-Sunday schedule that I started with.

Sadly, all that research I did has really bogged the story down. Instead of being a fast-reading horror bit, it's a slogging mess (not unlike the Civil War itself). After it's really done, it's going to have to be pared way down, and I'm going to have to lose a lot of authenticity (about boring stuff like troop movements, et cetera), or it'll be unreadable.

Oh, right

2006-06-28T19:55:00Z

And yesterday, my lovely husband Eric pointed out this gem from Poul Anderson's "Seven Conquests." This occurs during the middle of a fight with a Tyrannosaurus Rex:

"The monster standing there, swaying a little, roaring and bleeding, was not entirely real. This had happened a hundred million years ago. Rain struck the hot gun barrel and sizzled off."

*Sigh*

Flag Amendment

2006-06-28T19:42:01Z

Flag amendment? Flag amendment?! Does this come up EVERY election cycle, or what?! I'm serious, I think this has come up every two years for, like, the LAST FRIGGING DECADE!!!

Actually, I just checked the good old Intar-web, and it says the House has passed the amendment EVERY year for the past six years. It's only been defeated in the Senate. This year, it was defeated by only one vote.

James Madison, one of the people who designed our Constitution, said that it should be amended only on "great and extraordinary occasions." Yeah, and SUGGESTIONS for amending it should be made EVERY FRIGGING YEAR. Especially the same suggestion, over and over again. Right in between Flag Day and the Fourth of July.

Ech. Our tax dollars at work.

Baby sleeping. Must take advantage of writing time. Must remember: Blogging does not affect word count.

Quiet Day

2006-06-28T03:25:17Z

Quiet day on the writing front. Re-wrote the 270 words that I'd lost and added another 225 to "Shiloh."

In other news, sold a bunch of books at a used bookstore in the U-District and blew $20 in credit on a signed Ray Bradbury book. I never had any sense. But it's RAY BRADBURY!

Words for the day: 495
Words for the week: 495
Words for the Write-A-Thon: 8179 (sheesh!)
Stories completed: 1

And: A truly Clarion night.

2006-06-27T00:54:45Z

[Okay, so I just wrote these two ridiculously long entries, and they were really boring, so these are now pared down].

Long story short: The computer had eaten a big chunk of the Shiloh story, and not even Eric could get it back, so I decided to do something else. Instead I wrote a BRAND NEW STORY, all 3600 words of it, on Sunday night. Whoopee! It has a good-sized "Clarion Middle," but still.

I feel so proud. AND I feel like I'm back at Clarion West. So the next time someone asks what it's like to go to Clarion/Clarion West, I'm going to tell them to go get a cranky, teething baby...

Now, I need to get a REALLY good night's sleep tonight so I can finish that damn Shiloh story.

Teething, continued

2006-06-26T18:17:52Z

Ahhhh, to not be greasy . . . This is VERY fine.

So, you know where this is going, because you read the title, right? I head home from the walk to the cafe down the street - muffin and soda in hand (I managed to give up sodas last month, but days like this are the exception). I speed up when I hear the baby screaming from, oh, THREE HOUSES AWAY. Our windows were open because of the heat, but still.

I find Eric holding the baby under one arm while wrestling with a Tylenol bottle. "Hey, guess what? She's TEETHING."

I slap my forehead. Okay, I didn't, I just take the baby from him and run my finger around her mouth, eliciting more screams. Sure enough, there's a sharp pokey bit coming through her lower middle gums.

[Oh, this is all incredibly boring to anyone who isn't me, so I'm deleting it. See next entry]

Teething = The Suck

2006-06-26T17:45:58Z

The world conspires against me, but I MADE IT!! *The crowd roars* And in the most masochistic way possible! *The crowd makes cricket sounds*

*Sigh*

As you know, Bob, on Friday I made the wordcount, with space to spare. All I had to do was finish one of the two short stories I'd made a good dent in before the sun came up on Monday. Friday night, Zoe was CRANKY - oh, look, she has a 100 degree temperature. Must be coming down with something.

Saturday morning, Eric had an idea. He knew I'd been feeling a little low and isolated lately (no, not because of the Write-a-Thon, it's been a gradual thing for the last month and a half or so), so he suggested going to a couple of social events instead of moping around the house. I figured, well, I'm ahead on words, and I think I can finish the Shiloh story with about another three hours' of work, which I can do on Sunday. And hey, maybe I'll get even a little writing done during the baby's late afternoon nap.

Check the baby's temperature - 98.9 degrees. Not really a temperature, given that it's INCREDIBLY hot this morning. And she seems totally calm and happy - normal Zoe.

So I went to a barbeque at Heden (don't get too excited - it's just the name of a friend's house), and (after checking the baby's temp again), I stopped by a birthday party for a friend's two-year-old and met some very nice mothers. Zoe started getting cranky, so I left early.

Oh, hey, Zoe seems to be getting REALLY cranky now. Oh, and that afternoon nap - forget it. What is up with her? Maybe we should call Children's Hospital and just ask the on-call nurse. Let's check her temp again - okay that's only 99 degrees. Whatever it is, it can't be a very big deal. Boy, she sure wants to nurse a lot. And she's doing it really hard, so I'm getting pretty sore. But then, I'ver been pretty sore for the last week or so . . . .

She keeps crying every time I put her down or hand her to anyone else, and I'm getting pretty fatigued. Eric eventually takes the baby and tells me to go for a walk by myself - I need a break, and he can tell.

[To be continued after I take my first shower in three days . . . ]

Finished for day

2006-06-24T01:09:26Z

On and off, had nearly four hours of writing today. Now I can hear in the monitor the baby waking up again.

Total for day: 1656 words
Total for week: 4064 words (3500 word goal met and exceeded!)
Stories completed: 0 (uh, oh)

Continued. Are all these entries going to be this boring?

2006-06-23T22:17:03Z

Up to about 850 words today after about 2 hours - lots of holes in my story which had to be plugged with research. For example: what do you call those caps they wore in the Civil War? (Answer: Forage caps or slouch caps).

Sadly, when I finish "Werewolves," I will have to cut great chunks of it to make it make sense. Wonder what that does to my wordcount? Must find someone to arbitrate that.

Must. Also. Find. Source. of. Caffeine.

Looks like I'm going to make wordcount tomorrow, which is great and gets me on track, but I still haven't finished either "Werewolves" or "Virus," which means I may need to break and write a short-short to finish a story this week. Hmmm. Maybe I can push on Werewolves tomorrow . . .

Maybe I should find a picture, too. *insert whiny voice "Everyone ELSE has a picture"*

Mood: Slogging.

Words so far this week: 3261

teamzerbert @ 2006-06-22T12:09:00

2006-06-22T19:11:50Z

Writing got interrupted to take my ma-in-law (one of the coolest mothers-in-law around) to the airport.

Still got 663 words done on "Werewolves of Shiloh" in about 45 minutes, despite breaks for research. Think I can finish this one with a big push today and tomorrow (maybe after the baby goes to sleep tonight), but it'll naturally be pretty rough. If the baby sleeps this afternoon, I might get some more done.

But then, I discovered by reading Velourmane's LJ that the Write-a-Thon actually started on Sunday, so I'm a hair behind. Just a hair, so it shouldn't take too much to catch up. And I want to finish the story anyway.

Make that mood "somewhat accomplished."

Sigh. Baby is waking up now.

2006-06-21T23:17:42Z

Just got done with about an hour and a half's work. Slow, with breaks for research, since it's the Civil War story.

Words so far today: 567

Success!

2006-06-21T04:27:43Z

Word Count this week: 1178
Word Count for Write-a-Thon: 1178

Began "The Stigmata Virus" today. All right!

Aaargh!

2006-06-21T04:26:02Z

Word Count for Week: 0
Word Count for Write-a-Thon: 0

We are having our house painted, because in some places the paint is the only thing holding up the house, and it's very old. Yesterday the painters spread primer all over one side of the house, smelling it up intensely. I decided to walk to the park with the Little Bear, and on the way called Eric and mentioned the primer.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Primer is extremely toxic."

So, in the interests of keeping the bear healthy and happy, I hiked over to Uphill, the house belonging to good friends Ethan and Sev, and Eric and I made plans to stay the night in their basement guest bedroom.

The Little Bear was SO excited to be camping out in a new place that she neither took her afternoon nap (when I was planning on writing), nor did she go to sleep until past 11 (when I thought I might be able to catch up after her bedtime). And then, until 4 am, she kept waking up. This is a normal phenomena, but it's not so normal when the baby wakes up screaming. Nor is it normal when the waking occurs, oh, 15-20 minutes after putting the child back in the bassinet.

Damn, I'm tired. But today is a new day, and I have someone coming over to watch the baby for a couple of hours this afternoon...

T-Minus One Day, and the Locus Awards/Hall of Fame Inductions

2006-06-21T04:16:14Z

Went to the Locus brunch and awards ceremony today, as well as the Hall of Fame induction at the SF Museum. The best part was the brunch, primarily because it was so small, but also because Toastmaster Connie Willis engineered a Jeopardy challenge, which somehow morphed into a hula competition between fellow Clarion West-er Cat Rambo and editor David Hartwell. Hawaiian shirts were involved, David wore an admirably clashing plaid jacket, and Neil Gaiman adjudged Cat the winner.

Nothing you can't love about that.

All the other events were great, although I managed to humiliate myself at the Hall of Fame induction by having a conversation so awkward with Neil Gaiman that I considered crawling under a table and remaining there for the rest of the night.

There must be a corollary to Murphy's Law, something along the lines of: The more you admire someone, the more you read everything they write, the more likely you are to stand there and stammer moronic platitudes, and not even be able to get THEM right. We'll call it either the Neil Fucking Gaiman! Principle or the Kira Consequence. I think I ended with, "Yes! Blog [Gaiman's blog, NOT mine]...Good...Inspire writing...Yeah...Neat...Must go feed cat now."

Actually, those last five words are far more put together than anything I said, and I can only wish I'd said them.

I used to get paralyzing hero worship all the time, and this is the first time I've been hit by it for years. I thought I'd become immune, because I've been meeting TONS of people I admire lately, and I've mostly just been feeling shy around them, not acting like a lunatic.

My only hope is that because he IS Neil Gaiman, he has plenty of otherwise intelligent folks forgetting anything intelligible they meant to say and acting like dorks in front of him because they are hoping they can get up the nerve to ask him to Prom. Or whatever.

I am such a dork. Neil Gaiman is, BTW, an extremely nice person who tries very hard to cover for dorks, and his blog is, in fact, marvelous. I recommend it to almost all the writers I know, and some of the non-writers.

Now must go think of more writing ideas, so I have as many to work on tomorrow as possible.

T-Minus Two Days

2006-06-19T02:39:15Z

The Clarion West Write-a-Thon starts on Monday, and I have promised to give regular updates. Here's the email that started it all:

Last year, I was privileged to attend Clarion West, a six-week intensive
writing workshop here in Seattle This year I'm trying to give back to the organization by participating in their annual Write-a-Thon. And I will REWARD you (see below) for helping a great organization out.

General Info: The Write-a-Thon runs concurrently with the year's workshop, so it'll run for six weeks of late June to the end of July. People who work on the Write-a-Thon set a writing goal for each week, then collect pledges for every week they meet their goal.

Pre-baby, I could snap out about 1500 words per day on fiction. Now, I'm down to an average of maybe a hundred words of fiction per day. But I'm going to pull out all the stops (well, and have a babysitter one day a week), and aim for 3,500 words of fiction per week during the Write-a-Thon. That means a total of 21,000 words over the full six weeks. I've personally pledged $100, plus the following penalty pledges: $25 per week I DON'T write 3,500 words; and $25 for every week I DON'T complete at least one short story over 1000 words. [God help me if I really screw up - I've only budgeted $100 for this].

For people who want more info about (the fabulous) Clarion/Clarion West, see the last paragraph. For those who want the quick and dirty, CW is a 501(c)(3) organization, so any donations are very, very tax deductable. If you sponsor me for $5 per week, it comes to $30 at the end; $10 per week, it comes to $60, and so on (assuming I make the goal for each week). Any amount, large or small, is appreciated, and it'll help some future author of SciFi, fantasy, or magical realism get better and/or get published.

REWARDS: Big pledges - If you want to go big and sponsor me for more than $50, I will do your choice of two things. Either: 1) let you read all the fiction that I write over the Write-a-Thon (with a little time for me to make it legible); or 2) Tuckerize you. Tuckerization means that I will name a character after you and include as many or as few identifying details as you would like. I will then make my best effort to sell that short story, thereby rendering you IMMORTAL. Want to be a Confederate soldier considering lycanthropy? A futuristic prostitute newly employed as a dream spinner? This option is for you!

Small pledges - But small pledges are extremely valued, too. Anyone who
pledges $10 or more can read at least one story written during this time
(the donor can specify the week they want to read, or can choose their
selection based on descriptions of the stories). If you don't want to
read any of it, you can name any reasonable favor you would like, if not illegal, immoral, or fattening.

Here's some additional stuff about Clarion/Clarion West.

Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm founded the Clarion writing program in 1968. It is a six-week intensive, residential writing program, currently housed at MSU, and focused on writers of speculative fiction - fantasy, SciFi, and magical realism.

In 1984, the first offshoot, Clarion West, was formed by Clarion Grad
Vonda McIntyre. Clarion West follows the same format at Clarion, but
resides here in our own fair city, Seattle.

Clarion has launched the careers of SF standbys like Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kelly Link, Cory Doctorow, Nalo Hopkinson, and Bruce Sterling. Clarion West, although it's sixteen years younger, has grads that include Kathleen Alcala, Monte Cook (gamers!), Andy Duncan, Andrea Hairston, Louise Marley, Kelley Eskridge, and Justina Robson 9and doubtless lots of other people I have lamely left off).

Further information can be found on the website for Clarion West, at
www.clarionwest.org.

Thanks for your consideration!

-K.

[Ed. Note: Blogging does NOT apply to word count!] :-)