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An Un-Gloomy Sunday

05 Sep

Finally finished my read-through of 10-9 last night. While I came to the conclusion all too soon my final draft is actually my next to final draft I still feel like such a giddy dork for my own book. There’s issues that need a little tweaking but overall I’m pretty proud of myself for not giving up on it.

My current goal is have my first submission packet out by the 18th. Five minutes after I click send on my submission email I am immediately going to quell my nerves with Starbucks.  The day I receive word of my submission receipt I think it will be ice cream. When the first rejection arrives, I think I’ll throw my own Renegade Baker whoopie pie party, where I’ll likely be baking my own flavors. When I get my first acceptance, I think I may need to go all out and invade Oh Snap! Cupcakes.

Do we sense a trend that it all revolves around sugar? I’m better at it than I was in the past but damn I am one Grade A emotional eater. *laughs*

I’m pretty psyched about the whole process but I’m also an equal measure of freakin’ out maaaaan~ Game over! Game over! I think the first one is always the hardest, because it’s your baby, and 10-9 is a deeply personal story for me. It’s always tough to send it off in the world for other people to see. Perhaps it gets easier? I’m not so sure. Possibly not at all.

While I have been fantastically terrible about broadcasting my Weight Watchers progress (because for a while there wasn’t any.) I am happy to report a miracle has somehow occurred. For weeks I was bouncing back and forth between 250 and 248. I would get to 248, celebrate, and then sabotage myself back into 250. To my knowledge I haven’t exactly done anything terribly different, but college did start up two weeks ago. Somehow my body decided to get with the program and as of this morning I am officially 244! AHMAHGAH. I’ve lost 11 pounds since starting the program! YAY! I have two pounds to go until I am at my 5% weight loss goal and it’s all so terribly exciting for the chance to set a new goal.

Things are looking bright on this end of things. I’ve also discovered the Nook App a couple days ago (I’m late to the game okay?) I can’t imagine how I lived without it for so long. It’s totally a gateway drug into buying an actual Nook. Soon… Soon my beloved… Soooooon…

 
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Posted in 10-9, Babbling, News, Real Life, Weight Watchers

 

Oh You Pretty Thing~

31 Aug

I swear Create Space is like ka-CHOW with printing and shipping. I even ordered economy shipping and wasn’t expecting the 10-9 proof till September 13th. Still it shipped Friday and arrived in the 11AM mail Monday. Hot damn!

Hay Purdy~


The spine I couldn't measure D:


Draft Comparisons

While quite lovely, this is only my own personal copy for review and to experience ‘as a reader’ before I make the submission rounds. I’m already to Chapter Four and in Chapter One which is only two pages I spotted copy editing flubs. D: Like where I had combined sentences and kind of neglected to actually redraft the sentence. Or I did and I just totally had blinders on. I have no idea what my excuse is but there is no reason for and to appear four times in a sentence. D:

Other than that… It’s a little dandy of a book. I’m already having people ask me if the cover is the final version. XD I had to explain to them that depending on the company that picks it up there will likely be half-naked embracing dudes on the cover. *laughs* Out of the companies I’m looking at, if I get in with one of my top choices I’m really looking forward to their staff cover artists. My top picks have some amazing ones in their employ that I know could do John and Ahimsa justice. :3

Now back to reading. And lamenting the use of however in the final draft. :( (Pro Tip: Never ever use ‘however’ in a story. It’s a sign of laziness. It just means ‘nonetheless’ and is a fairly useless word.)

 
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Posted in 10-9, Art, News, Writing Tips

 

Time To Dip In The Pool!

29 Aug

I’ve spent the weekend going back through the Writer’s Guide and confirming which publishers were legit and which ones were not a good idea. All in all, I’ve narrowed the list to six, potentially seven publishers of ePubs and Print.

Between Friday and Saturday with the help of a small village, I pounded out my very first query letter. All in all it was revised five times and is pretty damned nice. :3 While that took pretty much all day in the evening I started on the extended synopsis.

Tips for the synopsis in the Writer’s Guide include:

  • Stick to your main characters.
  • Stick to your main arc. Subplots take up valuable real estate.

Writing a synopsis is like basically writing an extended version of the back of the book. Only with the actual spoilers and ending. Think of it as writing a book report but a really exciting book report.  My book report synopsis draft has a good start, and I started over twice on it, the middle kinda meanders because I couldn’t think of punchy words. I resolved to write the whole thing in one go and at least get the events of the book down so I could go back and tighten it up after I’ve let it rest.

The query letter surprisingly was actually the easy part despite it being really hard. The query is only a page and includes a ‘back copy’ style summary of your book in as few words as possible. It’s kind of like the ‘elevator pitch’ where you’re on an elevator, a producer gets in with you, and you have sixty seconds or less to pitch your idea. I’m kind of amazed what I condensed 10-9 down to was an insane feat. But I did it and with the help of my BFFs Rose and Khet we tweaked it into something awesome. Khet had a rather brilliant suggestion on one part and while she said say this but in one word I just couldn’t because the phrase she came up with was pure gold.

The line in question was ‘tattoos keeping a cynic’s account of past lovers’ and that’s all the context I’m willing to divulge. Mwaahahaha.

It’s crazy, and I’m positive 10-9′s not going to be accepted at the first door I knock on, but you can’t help but be a little hopeful. It’s weird how this story that’s been rattling about in my noggin for years has gone from ‘Oh there’s this story I’m working on that I hope to one day publish somehow… I just do it in my spare time blah blah blah…’ To actually finishing it. To no really actually trying to seek a publisher and get paid for the story. It’s like… Reaching a new stage in your life.

I actually remembered how I originally intended the ending to play out last night in my sleep addled exhaustion. While the end result is the same… The setting and circumstances are totally different. I kind of think the ending I came up with suits it better. Even the Epilogue details were a later addition to the story years down the road and is sort of a back door to a sequel or further stories in the world of 10-9. I’d like to explore other aspects of the lives touched by Composer and the Ministry of Defense. Maybe actually tell a story of a MOD soldier being a good guy. I know just whose story I can tell with that premise.

Ironically I feel kind of awkward that this blog never once had a ‘professional authoritative tone’ because I’m just me and I prefer to be approachable, casual, and down to earth. I wonder how that would bode for publishers eventually Googling me. I’ve read of places that when they read your blog, they actually check your grammar. Obviously I’m doomed with typing like I talk. Emoticons and all. XD

 
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Posted in 10-9, Babbling, News, Real Life, Writing Tips

 

Just Do It!

25 Jun

In all my flailing and nervous ninnying about last night in about 15 minutes after last night’s post I was totally struck with an Ah-Hah! Moment that pretty much fixed everything without a gross suspension of disbelief. Man I can be such a doofus sometimes. XD

In the span of two hours tonight I sat my happy ass down in a quiet space (read: my bedroom) and plowed through editing the first 50 pages of the draft. Of course right now I’m only editing the things I made notes to myself about in the proof copy. Things like certain sentences that really don’t make a lick of sense, details that need a little fleshing out (environments! hi! people! hello!), and other little easy fix tweaks. I haven’t really tackled the bigger issues yet since I haven’t totally gotten there but I’m keeping them in the back of my head.  It’s mostly stuff to do with the ending/final showdown which is understandable since I wrote the damned thing in a day and was liable to miss a few crucial bits. There’s a few things I’m already considering in the beginning because it has to do with the ending but I’m thinking letting it ride and just adding clarifying bits with the discrepancies.

Anyway~ Life is unicorns and rainbows again~ *sparkles shimmers shines~*

In follow up to the Great German Chocolate Cake Debacle, Mom was brave and threw the thing out this morning. However the stench of Death Cake managed to linger in the house and no amount of Lysol was really doing the trick. It kinda faded to tolerable levels but apparently the cake plate it was on kinda sucked up the residual smell. Just ew. When I told Dad dood! Could you not TELL the cake was bad!? His response was ‘……….I thought the cake tasted kinda off. *headscritch*’

What. The. Hell.

It’s a miracle he’s not sick as a dog.

Speaking of animals, Dali’s blood tests came back and she is the picture of health and her seizures are indeed from a very mild case of epilepsy. The cat has a heart murmur, allergies, and now epilepsy. Only my four legged child wins the malady lottery.

 
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Posted in 10-9, Babbling, News

 

Keepin’ Em Honest

18 Jun

Point Totals For 6/17/10

(Way to go me for jacking the slim format of this blog.)

Anyway. There you have it. The totals for today.

For those of you that don’t really grok what you’re looking at allow me to elaborate. In the Weight Watchers plan everything is assigned a ‘Points Value’ and due to your personal statistics — Height, Weight, Activity Level — you are assigned a ‘Points Allowance’ you can eat in a day. However you have 35 extra points a week for special occasions, like say a birthday, wedding, holiday or whatever though you can use them whenever really. And they totally don’t roll over week to week. XD As you can see I consumed half a point of my weekly bonus allowance today.

The cool thing about Weight Watchers is you can really, truly, and seriously eat whatever the hell you want. The object is just being smart about it with portion control or choosing a healthier option with more filling foods or yeah… you can even eat that triple decker overstuffed burrito if you want, just be prepared that’s likely all you’re going to HAVE that day because it might take away a huge chunk of your points.

For me personally this week I signed up for singer and Weight Watchers spokesperson Jennifer Hudson’s Weekly Challenge where you sign up to do one thing good for yourself and then come back in week and report if you made it or not. Totally one of those honor system things but at least I react well to seeing things in front of my face all the time. My challenge is very simple. To drink more plain water as I drink a ton of water already, it’s just flavored with Crystal Light. While yeah I guzzle water when Crystal Light’s in it, it’s also a hidden minefield of sodium that makes you retain the poundage.

My next mission is to set the goddamned Wii back up and get back into Wii Fit. The sequel’s been out for a million years, it’s dirt cheap, and yet I can’t justify buying it until I get back into it and do some serious work on it. I also have the EA Active game and I am such a chump because that thing kicks my ass even on the easiest setting. I think I’ve gotten through a round once. D: It’s really fun though! Just… ass kicking. T_T

Finally, on the Gettin’ Sum Gnawlidge Front I’m halfway through Bullies, Bastards, and Bitches now and I have safely determined in the context of 10-9 we have an Unlikeable Protagonist of the Tarnished Knight archetype (Ahimsa), A Bad Boy (John, really was there any doubt?), and Seik is arguably at current not a villain at all but a Dark Hero. Which I suppose makes somewhat sense since the whole story is built on there’s no real clear good or evil, just two forces with differing views and similar motivations to act. Because that’s how I roll, yo. XD

I still need to make Seik clearly freakier and scarier. *sticks up Post-It reminder*

Anyway. This stupid book is eating my brain since there’s a lot to learn and it’s kinda a surprisingly dense read. A lot of it is built on the concept of You Think You Know This Stuff Let Me Tell You Otherwise so a lot of it has been learning stuff I mostly knew but also details I had in the wrong categories. I haven’t even been thinking in context of The Promise and maybe I should. And maybe I should just take a jackhammer and a chainsaw to it instead. D: Not a day goes by I don’t get my daily quota in of mentioning my lament over the thing. D: *checks it off the to do list*

 
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Posted in 10-9, Babbling, News, Weight Watchers

 

Of Slams And Mangoes!

26 May

Looking for a little something to do this summer? How about June? How about until August? Are you artistically inclined? LOOK NO FURTHER~

NaNoMangO is the bi-annual artists answer to NaNoWriMo. I co-mod the happy little thing with one of my BFFs the comm founder Rose Meloche of Digital Midnight. At it’s core the concept is terribly simple, 30 comic pages in 30 days. You wouldn’t believe for the non-professionals in the crowd how difficult this is. As a former comic creator, I’ve only completed the challenge three times in the ten rounds I’ve participated in. It’s good fun and the crowd is a very delightful little bunch. I love them all like they were my kids. Only my kids are four-legged and meow. We kick off on midnight May 30th and it’s never too late to join in! We also run in November. Which is a hideous logistical nightmare every time for people doing WriMo. :x I did WriMo (and won!) last year as WELL as doing MangO (and won!) :D

Art Slam is run by my dear darlings of the Great White North TL Massey, Kat, and a gaggle of their buddies. Art Slam runs from start of June to the end of August and has three different levels of participation. And they have trophies! TROPHIES! NaNoMangO doesn’t have trophies! I need to get on that! :O I actually seriously flunked out of Art Slam when it first ran last year as I had a lot of stuff going on in the headspace y’see. But I’m looking forward to see what pretty things turn up in the comm and maybe featuring a couple here on NomChron. :3

 
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Posted in Art, News

 

Six Years Later And I Can Finally Say It…

16 May



Work on 10-9

84620 / 95500 88.61% Done!


10-9 is done.

I never thought I’d get there. I never thought I’d be there. I never thought I’d be standing on that mountain saying “Behold what I have made…”

I woke up this morning at 7 AM and said today is the day. This ends now. At 6 PM I crossed that long awaited finish line. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my parents. I called Mom at work around 11 letting her know my master plan and asking her not to bother me when she got home. Dad had come home from an errand and I had informed him what was going on. Both of them were all “OH YOU GO DO YOUR THING~”

Dad was quiet as a mouse all day watching TV via the wireless headphones we recently bought. Best. Investment. Ever. Let me tell you.

Mom peeked in on me at about 4-ish? I don’t know… And asked if I wanted a fried egg sandwich. She later said I appeared almost half-crazed when I told her I was okay. She peeked in again about 5:40-something and said they were going to dinner and wanted to know if they could pick me up something. Do we sense a trend with my Mother constantly trying to make sure I eat and not die at my keyboard? Let’s just get something straight, I have a figure that clearly indicates I ain’t missin’ any meals. I could stand to stress shed a pound or…. twenty… C_C;;;

However I beamed brightly at her and chirped “OMGZ! I’m on the LAST SENTENCE! 8D” Her jaw hit the floor as she barked “NO WAY!” Well… the last sentence turned into the last pargraph. But I felt a weight fall off my shoulders to type THE END on it.

Now I am full on rather tasty BBQ from Famous Dave’s and only managed a less than third of a pecan praline sundae that appeared to contain half a gallon of ice cream and maybe a can of Reddi-Whip.

And tomorrow I am going to see Iron Man 2. Oh yeah~

Did I mention 10-9 started when Lost began airing six years ago? I love it how the universe works out for me that they can both end together.

And for the record… I cried buckets while writing Chapter 47. BUCKETS. T_T I’d write a line, sob for five minutes, write another line, sob for another five minutes, and so on down the line.

For those of you that heard me natter on incessantly about this story for six stupid years and know the ending. YOU KNOW what Chapter 47 is. Uh-huh. Oh lemme tell you I think I scarred my own soul with it… *sniff* *cry*

 
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Posted in 10-9, News

 

Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’…

15 May



Work on 10-9

78606 / 95500 82.31% Done!


Oh Em Gee I’ve got six chapters to go on this bad boy. Six! Possibly five because I think I see a spot where I can merge two of them together. But hot damn! I do say I see the light at the end of the tunnel! Let’s just see if I can stay focused and productive about it.

Oddly enough in my notes I made the other night of how the final sequence gets initiated an alternate idea popped into my head on the way home from Proto-Ikea (AKA: Target) and I thought what the hell! If it doesn’t work and I break something I can fix it. My chapters are getting disturbingly shorter but in my head it’s like there’s stuff happening in different locations simultaneously and it makes no sense to jam it all into one chapter. Sorry. Not writing the novel version of 24, okay? Okay.

I was kinda looking forward to going to see Iron Man 2 this weekend but I think I might have to put it off for another week, or at least a few days due to I wanna get this damned book done.

In Stranger Things Have Happened News: The Writer’s Group I belong to has started an internal Critique Group. I volunteered to step up to the plate to handle it. Our first meeting will be June 1st, the first day of NaNoMangO which I co-moderate and have to make sure nothing self destructs on Day 1. It never does but you never know. For the Crit Group meeting I’ve been informed that I apparently will be flying solo in leading the discussion. I’m essentially treating it like a college course which I think folks can respond to that kind of structure well. I know definitely I do. I’ve got a few eager beavers in the group that already want to hand out samples when I’ve already explained for them not to just yet. I realize I have to be gentle, kind, and patient. I will obviously need coffee to maintain my humanity.

In Silly News: I finally caved in and bought one of those hard plastic, permanent Starbucks iced drink cups. I’ve been wanting one since forever and went with it. It has been my friend all day. I’ve been filling it with Crystal Light and pretending to be all frou frou expensive fruit drink~

 
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Posted in 10-9, Babbling, News, Real Life

 

A Delightful Distraction…

14 May

My Brother conscripted my assistance in creating a “Dear Playstation” style spot for a chance to win a trip to the 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo E3. We filmed it today with a Nikon Coolpix that happened to take video, I edited it together with Windows Movie Maker because I am totally not a video editing person, and what you see is a little 43 second result. I’m pretty proud of it. It was all my Brother’s idea and I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing until I showed up at his place, once he explained, I made it happen.

It was kind of a nice distraction from 10-9 today. I haven’t actually written any prose since Tuesday and I was getting twitchy. I was also getting psyched out in my head because I was obsessed with having the conclusion just perfect. Last night in jotting down a few ideas I basically mapped out the entire final showdown and all that remains is tacking on the epilogue. I’m telling myself I’m going to bang it out no sweat. We’ll see how it goes. The Deadline LOOOOOOOMS! D:

Tomorrow, I am not leaving the house for any reason. My ass will be in the chair and I will be writing. If a fire or flood occurs? Fuck it I am going down with my house. :|

Now I’ve been awake far too long. And my mission is to sleep in and ignore my internal clock for as long as possible. Sleeping to noon might be rather nice. I doubt I’ll make it there. D: I’ll likely be up at 8 AM. :/ Hate you body. Hate yoooou.

 
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Keep Moving Forward…

24 Apr



Work on 10-9

57215 / 95500 59.91% Done!

Had a 3k day. Not bad and I kinda feel awkward about picking on myself about it. I didn’t say I was going to write 6k today, just that it would be nice that it happened. Chapter 29 ran longer than expected and it was a somewhat nicer change of pace. We’ve now learned parts of Ahimsa that no one in his circle ever really gets a chance to see. Part of me wonders at Chapter 29 it’s far too late to find a reason to like him in light of the new information. The answer? Hell yes! I like him now but in those collection of early chapters even upon the Tweak Bonanza he dances the edge of likability to total douchebag. It’s in his moments when he’s being particularly repugnant you want him to lose. But then he also has his moments that you honestly feel sorry for what he’s going through.

Perhaps that’s part of the allure of the story because there aren’t any clear Bad Guys and Good Guys. It’s just two forces with differing points of view and caught up in the spinning wheel of fortune. Each of the characters have their own journeys and their own destinies that they’re already well aware of, it’s just how those destinies collide and shape others around them.

Ahimsa, love him to bits (like I do) or want to string him up by his toenails (like I do) is very isolated in his journey. No one can possibly understand the burden he carries, and he uses this knowledge to separate himself from others as well as push them away. It’s when he finally gets in his thick nigh-bulletproof skull does he realize he isn’t alone and what he has to do can’t be done alone. As much as he thinks he’s a one man show and I think he’s my pretty sparkling unicorn, there are countless people making his one man show possible and making sure the unicorn really does sparkle.

The immense irony and I may as well say it before I happen to get called on it down the road… I’m a fan of the ABC show Flash Forward. The show is built around the concept that everyone knows what’s going to happen to them on a certain day and a certain time due to a global anomaly that goes terribly wrong. There is the premise for those of you that have been ignoring ABC ever since Lost premiered and Ugly Betty ended. I’ve been watching ever since the season started and not really concerning myself with it beyond It’s This Show I Watch With Penny Widmore And The Lesser Fiennes Brother. However… imagine my surprise when the latest few episodes get into the whole aspect of Free Will vs. Determinism and how people can’t change their destinies, they just change how they arrive at it. So cue me glancing at my open doc file that I had to pause on to watch the show and then back to my TV and going “………….heeey. you bastards are cashing in on my ideas. D: !!!!”

Without getting too spoilery about the show or about the book let’s just say they have some very specific details in common that makes me make a big frowny face. On one hand it’s not enough to make me stop the book (because I think pretty much everyone in my circle including my family would kill me) but it is enough for me to make some kind of official statement that hey I’m not yoinking an idea off television we just happened to independently come up with eerily similar ideas. If push came to shove I have the old drafts of the story to confirm it, which you can possibly imagine the Flash Forward producers were likely conceptualizing the show back then too. So… I guess this is a Great Minds Think Alike situation I suppose.

Thanks for paving the way Mr. David S. Goyer. Perhaps a publisher would be interested in a similar concept with a totally different package thanks to the concepts Flash Forward has introduced to a mass audience.

And now I’m off to bed. I was voluntold at 10 PM tonight I’m going to be laying more tile in the morning and should get sleep. I am obviously not in bed when I should be. I am absolutely terrified of moving the HD TV. Not for the weight because it’s actually quite light, but for the idea of dropping it because it’s so cumbersome. :/

 
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Posted in 10-9, News, Real Life

 
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