So... I have a science manuscript with my former boss. It has been rejected twice now. He gave me a copy of the third attempt on Monday, and wants to send it in again on Friday.
The first time around, the only copy I saw was the very first draft, which was so bleeping incoherent that I immediately volunteered to write large portions of it for him. And I did. I wrote the methods section, wrote in outline format what else needed to go into it and vague references to how the results section ought to look, handed it to him, and didn't hear about it again until he was giving me a copy of the submission. (!) I looked at it, and he hadn't even used my version of the methods section. But it was too late for me to make any comments because it was already submitted. I figured, this guy has been doing this for 30 years, surely he knows what the hell he's doing because I sure don't.
It came back. Soundly rejected and with scathing reviews. I was not very surprised. :p I agreed with everything the reviewers said about it, because that was exactly what I would've said had he given me an opportunity to say anything.
The part that irritated me most about it was where one of the reviewers said, "This can't possibly be [boss's name]'s work. I bet he never even saw a draft. It must be the fault of one of the co-authors."
Guess which of the three co-authors does not have an established reputation in the field. Yep. The reviewer had to have meant me. :p Now I realize that in the grand scheme of thing my name means squat, but by golly it's the only name I got and it means something to ME. Grrrrr. Arrrghhh.
Apparently my boss expects people to know him so well they can read his mind. You'd think he would've figured out that the world doesn't work that way a long time ago... either that or he's lost track of that little fact. Sorry, dude. It doesn't matter what your reputation is, or what you think people should be able to figure out what you're trying to say, it only matters what the words are on the paper. If *I* can't even understand what we did, then how will anyone else?
Anyway. So then he calmed down and stopped being all mad and insulted, and went to work on submission attempt #2. Again, I said to him, "show me the darn thing just before you submit it and let me look it over." Because I know how he writes. I've seen the first drafts, and I knew it was going to take several more iterations than he actually wanted to do, to get it into presentable form.
I saw one of the earlier drafts of #2, and made a comment that it did look a lot better than submission attempt #1. Frankly, though, that really isn't saying much. Just about anything would've been better than #1. :p But he apparently took it to heart - and submitted it (to a different journal) again without showing it to me before it was sent out.
*sigh*
Well, the reviews were less scathing. I saw it and told him a bit more insistently that he really ought to let me go over it before he sent it out. No, really. I mean it. Show me the damn thing and let me edit.
Thankfully, he did. He handed it to me for "editting the English." Yeah right. Well, whatever excuse will actually work to get him to hand it over is fine by me. I just want to go over it.
So that was yesterday. He thinks it's ready to go and wants to send it out on Friday. I suspect that if I *don't* give him something by Friday, he's going to send it out *anyway*. This means I get to work on it night and day until it's done, and there is a LOT to do.
I started in on it when I got home from work last night, marking it up with a pencil. The intro looked okay for the most part. The methods were worse but not terrible. I got to the results section ... *head, desk*
OMFG does he NOT know how to put things in the right places! Half the results section belongs in the methods section. Some of it belongs in discussion. I happened to glance over some of the discussion too, and saw a sentence that belongs in the intro. *bangs head on desk* And half of the results are missing entirely (general rule of thumb for a science paper: every method must have a result, and every result must have a method).
Yeah, umm. Oh yes, and then there's his lengthy letter to the editor that's going to go with this manuscript. Basically it explains why and wherefore he put stuff in, took stuff out, changed other stuff. I'm thinking, why don't we put all of those explanations INTO THE MANUSCRIPT?
So what do I have on the list of things to do to this paper?
1. Rearrange the methods section to include all the stuff I pulled out of the results section.
2. Edit the results section as much as possible, and then include a list of things that still need to go into it.
3. Do the discussion section (and hope that it isn't all going to be moved to the intro or elsewhere). (Not to mention hope it actually makes sense - my first pass through was to check for the science content, not go over the grammar and organization. I still need to do that to the discussion.)
4. Make the tables make sense.
5. Go over the submission letter to figure out what out of that needs to go into the actual manuscript.
6. Edit the abstract. I'm saving it for last because I want to make sure I actually know what it's supposed to be talking about before I do it.
It's now late Tuesday. I have maybe two more days at most, and he's already going to kill me when I tell him how not ready this thing is.
Anyhow. So that's what I've been doing these past couple days.
2005/06/28
2005/06/27
SFR Day 27
SFFMuse Summer Fun Run: [ 14,105/60,000 | 26 days down | 34 days left ]
Uneditted roleplay: 5314
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 4555
Taint: 2442
A whopping 765 words since the last time I wrote anything whatsoever. *le sigh* 96 new words for Taint (two small paragraphs that starts Scene 3), and 669 for a new scene of Temple. Now I'm 12k words behind.
Roleplay has been dead for the past week. Completely. Utterly. Not a stir anywhere, at least not anywhere that my characters are able to respond. I was so desperate that I started looking for new games to join. :p I need to find people to play with that are unrelated to the people I play with now, and then hope that they don't all develop offline lives on me.
I spent much of today thinking over what to do with Temple. In particular, there is one character who, from a plot perspective, really doesn't need to be in the story at all. She doesn't contribute anything that the other characters aren't already contributing. She doesn't advance any plots. She does nothing to reveal the characters of anyone important, and there's no point in revealing hers if she's not that important. (I could tell her story instead but that would be a whole different book.) She doesn't address the theme. I had an idea for how she *could* address the theme. Unfortunately, she refuses to go along with that one. :p So why is she there?
I can't take her out, because she's an important part of the setting. She's the king's sheriff. She was leading the army at the battle where the temple got flattened. She lost 2/3rds of her troops - and she doesn't care. If she cared, I could make something of it, but she doesn't, because it's not even her army, it's Mutt's. So why don't I just put Mutt in the story instead? Because Mutt is even less important than she is, and if I wanted to tell the story of the army (which I really kind of don't), I would be going off on a tangent that has nothing to do with the main plot at all.
So what do I do with her? I have to leave her in because who else is going to be the obvious choice for the king to call for the battle report after the battle is over? The problem is that she has a megalomaniac personality that insists on center stage, and every scene she's in where she's supposed to be quiet, she tries to take it over. :p
So now I'm trying to figure out a way to adapt her scenes to other people. The main battle report is the sticking point, because nobody else can tell it. It has to be from her POV. Even though she says nothing useful, and after that report is over (it would be right at the beginning), she can pretty much just disappear from the rest of the book. That would be just plain strange, from a reader's perspective.
Hmmmmm.
While I was trying to figure that one out, though, I inadvertently figured out one of the other problems. Namely, that since the theme of the thing is "Loss" - well ... 3 of the central characters would do great on that front if one of those 3 died. Except... I don't want her to die. :p She has to be around for one of the other stories in the series. So I thought ... well, she doesn't have to be completely dead, she just has to be sufficiently incapacitated that she can't fill the roles in the lives of the other 2 the way she had been before. They lose her anyway. Everyone (that is, no one) wins. And then a decade after the whole trauma is over with, she can slowly recover back to full health - long after it no longer matters. By the time of the next story where she has an important part, it's twenty years later, so there's plenty of time for that.
That got me my 669 words. I just need to write a scene where the other 2 of them have a very sad conversation, and then adapt a previously-written scene where the poor girl talks to one of these guys, so that it reflects the new knowledge of her certain doom. I'm halfway through the new scene now, a bit stumped at the moment with some dialogue, but glad to be doing something writinglike again. :)
I also think I have a better idea for how exactly I'm going to do the second draft. The plan is that, once I have all of my actual story straight, and all of the scenes written and/or appropriately revised, I have to put them in order so I can rewrite it from front to back. In the order that it's going to be read. Well, I had some thoughts on what order to put it in... but the last time I tried to write it up that way, it felt forced and artificial. I gave up almost immediately.
So, new idea. The king is the one that's going to be taking the reader through the story, by running an investigation in the meadow, where each of the other characters come over one at a time and tell him the answers. There would presumably be a logical progression to this, starting with "what happened?" to "why this? why that?" So... why don't I just let the king decide what order the scenes should be? *big bright lightbulb* When I get around to writing all of the king's scenes, which are going to be the connections in between all of the other ones, I'll just let the characters themselves decide the course of their conversations. No need for me to figure it out in advance.
As for Taint, the 96 new words is for two measly opening paragraphs to the third scene. It takes the timeline back about 80 years, which means it's almost like starting a whole new story. Blank Page Syndrome hit with a vengeance. :p I stared at that opener for most of yesterday and only came up with 96 words. It shouldn't be this hard. I know what I'm trying to do... but it just wasn't happening.
Hopefully this week will go better than last week. I have a long weekend coming up too, with the weekend of the 4th. Originally I was scheduled for a work cruise, but that got cancelled, so now I'm plan-less. Lots and lots of writing time. :)
And finally, a bit of non-writing related news. I have a lava lamp. :) It's mesmerizing... I'm hoping that I'll stare at that when I'm sitting here procrastinating my writing, instead of constantly going off into a game and therefore getting distracted for extended periods of time.
Uneditted roleplay: 5314
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 4555
Taint: 2442
A whopping 765 words since the last time I wrote anything whatsoever. *le sigh* 96 new words for Taint (two small paragraphs that starts Scene 3), and 669 for a new scene of Temple. Now I'm 12k words behind.
Roleplay has been dead for the past week. Completely. Utterly. Not a stir anywhere, at least not anywhere that my characters are able to respond. I was so desperate that I started looking for new games to join. :p I need to find people to play with that are unrelated to the people I play with now, and then hope that they don't all develop offline lives on me.
I spent much of today thinking over what to do with Temple. In particular, there is one character who, from a plot perspective, really doesn't need to be in the story at all. She doesn't contribute anything that the other characters aren't already contributing. She doesn't advance any plots. She does nothing to reveal the characters of anyone important, and there's no point in revealing hers if she's not that important. (I could tell her story instead but that would be a whole different book.) She doesn't address the theme. I had an idea for how she *could* address the theme. Unfortunately, she refuses to go along with that one. :p So why is she there?
I can't take her out, because she's an important part of the setting. She's the king's sheriff. She was leading the army at the battle where the temple got flattened. She lost 2/3rds of her troops - and she doesn't care. If she cared, I could make something of it, but she doesn't, because it's not even her army, it's Mutt's. So why don't I just put Mutt in the story instead? Because Mutt is even less important than she is, and if I wanted to tell the story of the army (which I really kind of don't), I would be going off on a tangent that has nothing to do with the main plot at all.
So what do I do with her? I have to leave her in because who else is going to be the obvious choice for the king to call for the battle report after the battle is over? The problem is that she has a megalomaniac personality that insists on center stage, and every scene she's in where she's supposed to be quiet, she tries to take it over. :p
So now I'm trying to figure out a way to adapt her scenes to other people. The main battle report is the sticking point, because nobody else can tell it. It has to be from her POV. Even though she says nothing useful, and after that report is over (it would be right at the beginning), she can pretty much just disappear from the rest of the book. That would be just plain strange, from a reader's perspective.
Hmmmmm.
While I was trying to figure that one out, though, I inadvertently figured out one of the other problems. Namely, that since the theme of the thing is "Loss" - well ... 3 of the central characters would do great on that front if one of those 3 died. Except... I don't want her to die. :p She has to be around for one of the other stories in the series. So I thought ... well, she doesn't have to be completely dead, she just has to be sufficiently incapacitated that she can't fill the roles in the lives of the other 2 the way she had been before. They lose her anyway. Everyone (that is, no one) wins. And then a decade after the whole trauma is over with, she can slowly recover back to full health - long after it no longer matters. By the time of the next story where she has an important part, it's twenty years later, so there's plenty of time for that.
That got me my 669 words. I just need to write a scene where the other 2 of them have a very sad conversation, and then adapt a previously-written scene where the poor girl talks to one of these guys, so that it reflects the new knowledge of her certain doom. I'm halfway through the new scene now, a bit stumped at the moment with some dialogue, but glad to be doing something writinglike again. :)
I also think I have a better idea for how exactly I'm going to do the second draft. The plan is that, once I have all of my actual story straight, and all of the scenes written and/or appropriately revised, I have to put them in order so I can rewrite it from front to back. In the order that it's going to be read. Well, I had some thoughts on what order to put it in... but the last time I tried to write it up that way, it felt forced and artificial. I gave up almost immediately.
So, new idea. The king is the one that's going to be taking the reader through the story, by running an investigation in the meadow, where each of the other characters come over one at a time and tell him the answers. There would presumably be a logical progression to this, starting with "what happened?" to "why this? why that?" So... why don't I just let the king decide what order the scenes should be? *big bright lightbulb* When I get around to writing all of the king's scenes, which are going to be the connections in between all of the other ones, I'll just let the characters themselves decide the course of their conversations. No need for me to figure it out in advance.
As for Taint, the 96 new words is for two measly opening paragraphs to the third scene. It takes the timeline back about 80 years, which means it's almost like starting a whole new story. Blank Page Syndrome hit with a vengeance. :p I stared at that opener for most of yesterday and only came up with 96 words. It shouldn't be this hard. I know what I'm trying to do... but it just wasn't happening.
Hopefully this week will go better than last week. I have a long weekend coming up too, with the weekend of the 4th. Originally I was scheduled for a work cruise, but that got cancelled, so now I'm plan-less. Lots and lots of writing time. :)
And finally, a bit of non-writing related news. I have a lava lamp. :) It's mesmerizing... I'm hoping that I'll stare at that when I'm sitting here procrastinating my writing, instead of constantly going off into a game and therefore getting distracted for extended periods of time.
2005/06/23
Meanwhile, now I'm stalled out...
No words of any kind since my last SFR update. :(
Even roleplay has been totally dead. I'm in three games with the same missing guy. I'm in another game that's missing the GM. Then my fifth game is not only missing the GM, it's also missing everyone else I'm in any scene with (including Robert). The top game on my waiting list of things to join? It's run by one of the missing people of the aforementioned fifth game. The next game on that list? Was a game in the works by the missing GM of the fifth game. :p So what am I doing? Twiddling my thumbs.
Also attempting to join what looks like might be a good Hunter: the Reckoning game, which will have a whole bunch of completely different people in it, none of which are any of the people mentioned above. I need my fix, dangit!
As for all other writing... heh, umm... *twitch* I'm going with the "deep rumination!" excuse and sticking to it. :D
Actually I sort of didn't really know where to go with Taint. After the scene I'm working on (they're getting acquainted in a carriage on the way to MC2's house), some time skipping needs to start occurring.
I'm thinking to do an alternating scheme with the timeline. There's a whole bunch of stuff that happened 80 years ago to MC1, when he was practically a whole different person. I can tell that story every other chapter, while telling the present-day story the other half of the time. I'm hoping this will give me enough variety in what I'm writing that it doesn't feel like I'm getting bogged down doing the *same* thing all the time.
At this point I'm not even sure if this is really going to be a single coherent novel. But I'll figure that out later. ;) If nothing else, I can turn it into a series of shorts/novellas in a single volume, that works as a companion to my other novels in the series. (Obviously this would mean it will not be the first one I attempt to sell...).
On the bright side, the 80-years-ago story is outlined in great detail. 6 single-spaced pages worth, in expository form. And it's even already written up from the point of view of MC1. (Because I originally wrote it up as MC1's backstory as a roleplay character.) All I have to do is alter the details to fit my updated setting, and I should be good to go with plenty of material for a good long time to come. (This same plot is going to be Amulet I as well. Except Amulet I is not from the point of view of MC1. MC1 was little more than a pawn in the grand scheme of things...).
As for Temple, that's sort of been rotated out of the way a bit. There's a very emotionally-heavy scene I still need to write, and unfortunately I haven't quite gotten around to summoning up the energy for it. Plus, when I do write it, it will probably have to come out in nearly-finished form. This could pose a problem if details get changed around afterwards, so maybe I should wait on that until after I start doing the heavy-duty second-draft rearranging.
I spent all yesterday reading a very long thread with Jim D. Macdonald talking about what he does to write. I got to about page 17 or so. One of the things they referenced was: http://www.critters.org/turkeycity.html (of which a slightly different version seems to be at http://www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html ). I read through that list and noticed that in Temple, I make roughly half of the mistakes they list. *head, desk* (but it'll still work! honest! ...) So that kind of deflated all the wind out of my sails all yesterday. Heh. I played Diablo 2 for five hours instead. :p
The main question I left with was: if you're not allowed to do infodumps of any kind, then how DO you tell the reader anything?
Anyhow, that's what I've been up to lately.
Even roleplay has been totally dead. I'm in three games with the same missing guy. I'm in another game that's missing the GM. Then my fifth game is not only missing the GM, it's also missing everyone else I'm in any scene with (including Robert). The top game on my waiting list of things to join? It's run by one of the missing people of the aforementioned fifth game. The next game on that list? Was a game in the works by the missing GM of the fifth game. :p So what am I doing? Twiddling my thumbs.
Also attempting to join what looks like might be a good Hunter: the Reckoning game, which will have a whole bunch of completely different people in it, none of which are any of the people mentioned above. I need my fix, dangit!
As for all other writing... heh, umm... *twitch* I'm going with the "deep rumination!" excuse and sticking to it. :D
Actually I sort of didn't really know where to go with Taint. After the scene I'm working on (they're getting acquainted in a carriage on the way to MC2's house), some time skipping needs to start occurring.
I'm thinking to do an alternating scheme with the timeline. There's a whole bunch of stuff that happened 80 years ago to MC1, when he was practically a whole different person. I can tell that story every other chapter, while telling the present-day story the other half of the time. I'm hoping this will give me enough variety in what I'm writing that it doesn't feel like I'm getting bogged down doing the *same* thing all the time.
At this point I'm not even sure if this is really going to be a single coherent novel. But I'll figure that out later. ;) If nothing else, I can turn it into a series of shorts/novellas in a single volume, that works as a companion to my other novels in the series. (Obviously this would mean it will not be the first one I attempt to sell...).
On the bright side, the 80-years-ago story is outlined in great detail. 6 single-spaced pages worth, in expository form. And it's even already written up from the point of view of MC1. (Because I originally wrote it up as MC1's backstory as a roleplay character.) All I have to do is alter the details to fit my updated setting, and I should be good to go with plenty of material for a good long time to come. (This same plot is going to be Amulet I as well. Except Amulet I is not from the point of view of MC1. MC1 was little more than a pawn in the grand scheme of things...).
As for Temple, that's sort of been rotated out of the way a bit. There's a very emotionally-heavy scene I still need to write, and unfortunately I haven't quite gotten around to summoning up the energy for it. Plus, when I do write it, it will probably have to come out in nearly-finished form. This could pose a problem if details get changed around afterwards, so maybe I should wait on that until after I start doing the heavy-duty second-draft rearranging.
I spent all yesterday reading a very long thread with Jim D. Macdonald talking about what he does to write. I got to about page 17 or so. One of the things they referenced was: http://www.critters.org/turkeycity.html (of which a slightly different version seems to be at http://www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html ). I read through that list and noticed that in Temple, I make roughly half of the mistakes they list. *head, desk* (but it'll still work! honest! ...) So that kind of deflated all the wind out of my sails all yesterday. Heh. I played Diablo 2 for five hours instead. :p
The main question I left with was: if you're not allowed to do infodumps of any kind, then how DO you tell the reader anything?
Anyhow, that's what I've been up to lately.
2005/06/21
SFR start of Day 20
SFFMuse Summer Fun Run: [ 13,340/60,000 | 20 days down | 40 days left ]
Uneditted roleplay: 5314
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 3886
Taint: 2346
Approximately 800 words since my last entry. I had plenty of time to write more today, but I didn't, and I have no good excuse.
Basically the network went down at work fairly early on into my workday. But my workday is bizarre. Since I pretty much get to set my own hours, I typically show up at 2pm and go home at 10pm. Well, by the time the network went down, I'd only been there less than 4 hours, but of course the IT department had gone home for the day. So I had a day off.
I was bad. I played Diablo 2 all evening. *head, desk*
Anyhow. 405 new words to Taint that I did last night (after midnight), plus another 400ish words to a couple larger-than-average roleplay posts. That's the entire extent of my fiction writing for Day 20. I'm supposed to have 20k words by now. Instead I'm nearly 7k words behind. :(
I wrote a lot more nonfiction though. Spent much of the day thinking about gender issues, both with writing about MRIs here and writing a lengthy intro of myself on that other site. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't be writing philosophy instead of fiction.
Two weekends from now is going to be my monthly freewrite. I hadn't originally planned to count that, but maybe I should. *shifty eyes*
Uneditted roleplay: 5314
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 3886
Taint: 2346
Approximately 800 words since my last entry. I had plenty of time to write more today, but I didn't, and I have no good excuse.
Basically the network went down at work fairly early on into my workday. But my workday is bizarre. Since I pretty much get to set my own hours, I typically show up at 2pm and go home at 10pm. Well, by the time the network went down, I'd only been there less than 4 hours, but of course the IT department had gone home for the day. So I had a day off.
I was bad. I played Diablo 2 all evening. *head, desk*
Anyhow. 405 new words to Taint that I did last night (after midnight), plus another 400ish words to a couple larger-than-average roleplay posts. That's the entire extent of my fiction writing for Day 20. I'm supposed to have 20k words by now. Instead I'm nearly 7k words behind. :(
I wrote a lot more nonfiction though. Spent much of the day thinking about gender issues, both with writing about MRIs here and writing a lengthy intro of myself on that other site. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't be writing philosophy instead of fiction.
Two weekends from now is going to be my monthly freewrite. I hadn't originally planned to count that, but maybe I should. *shifty eyes*
2005/06/20
Random non-writing musings on the rest of my life
A while back I got my brain scanned by MRI, looking for anything weird that would cause me to have daily non-headache migraines. All that turned up was some sinusitis, for which I got prescribed some decongestants and nasal spray. This didn't really alleviate the migraines any, and frankly I can't even tell whether I'm having sinusitis or not, as I don't feel anything either way (unless I just always have sinusitis I suppose...).
For those who haven't been following along, six months ago I figured out that I'm gender dysphoric. This means that the brain is hardwired (during development in the womb, most likely) to be of the opposite gender than the genes and rest of the body. In my case, I have a female body and male brain.
Apparently, male and female brains do not look the same on an MRI, and you can tell which gender it is by looking at the scan.
Y'all can probably guess where this thought is going... heh. What can I say, I'm a scientist. Step one is to get the basic facts established.
Today I finally got around to looking into all this. I tried to get ahold of some copies of my MRI so I could see if the gender thing was true or not, and what gender my brain actually is according to an MRI. Unfortunately, it turns out that if I want personal copies, I would have to pay $20 per page, and for my particular scan it's usually somewhere between 12-20 pages. (!)
The cheaper way to do it would be to get a doctor to "borrow" the originals to look at. This means I would have to talk to an actual real person (!!) and ask them to help me figure out how to answer the gender question. I'm trying to figure out just how exactly that conversation is going to go with my primary care physician... :p. ("Hi, I might actually be a boy." ??) Maybe I'll figure out how to phrase the question tomorrow.
In other news, along the same train of thought, I met an MTF trans last Friday. (male-to-female transsexual - someone who has a male body and female brain.)(also, by "met" - what I mean is online.) She's working on forming a support group for herself, before she starts the transition. Right now she's trying to get her emotional issues straightened out before she starts on the hormone treatments. She's just started a brand new website and has invited me to watch and learn from her trials and tribulations. :) I'm trying to talk her into letting some of the rest of us have blogs. If that works out, I'll finally have an appropriate place to blather on about my own thoughts on the whole thing. Heh. I have a LOT to say on the subject. :p I would do it here, but this is supposed to be for writing, so that's what I try to stick to. Anyway, http://www.evilfemme.net for anyone else who might be interested. ;)
(edit: apparently the website is down. Never mind. :p)
For those who haven't been following along, six months ago I figured out that I'm gender dysphoric. This means that the brain is hardwired (during development in the womb, most likely) to be of the opposite gender than the genes and rest of the body. In my case, I have a female body and male brain.
Apparently, male and female brains do not look the same on an MRI, and you can tell which gender it is by looking at the scan.
Y'all can probably guess where this thought is going... heh. What can I say, I'm a scientist. Step one is to get the basic facts established.
Today I finally got around to looking into all this. I tried to get ahold of some copies of my MRI so I could see if the gender thing was true or not, and what gender my brain actually is according to an MRI. Unfortunately, it turns out that if I want personal copies, I would have to pay $20 per page, and for my particular scan it's usually somewhere between 12-20 pages. (!)
The cheaper way to do it would be to get a doctor to "borrow" the originals to look at. This means I would have to talk to an actual real person (!!) and ask them to help me figure out how to answer the gender question. I'm trying to figure out just how exactly that conversation is going to go with my primary care physician... :p. ("Hi, I might actually be a boy." ??) Maybe I'll figure out how to phrase the question tomorrow.
In other news, along the same train of thought, I met an MTF trans last Friday. (male-to-female transsexual - someone who has a male body and female brain.)(also, by "met" - what I mean is online.) She's working on forming a support group for herself, before she starts the transition. Right now she's trying to get her emotional issues straightened out before she starts on the hormone treatments. She's just started a brand new website and has invited me to watch and learn from her trials and tribulations. :) I'm trying to talk her into letting some of the rest of us have blogs. If that works out, I'll finally have an appropriate place to blather on about my own thoughts on the whole thing. Heh. I have a LOT to say on the subject. :p I would do it here, but this is supposed to be for writing, so that's what I try to stick to. Anyway, http://www.evilfemme.net for anyone else who might be interested. ;)
(edit: apparently the website is down. Never mind. :p)
2005/06/19
SFR end of Day 19
SFFMuse Summer Fun Run: [ 12,553/60,000 | 18 days down | 42 days left ]
Uneditted roleplay: 4932
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 3886
Taint: 1941
Today was productive too. I finally finished that first Taint scene. :) The total came out to be 2724, including the part I had before June started. There's stuff I can still nitpick about, but I'm pretty pleased with it overall.
Then I got in a few quick roleplay posts, too, and there's two more of them that are going to take longer to do. They might even end up in the "writing-heavy" category if I can convince my brain to reboot for doing those characters. It might not happen until tomorrow, though. At the moment I'm definitely more in the zone for my novels, and so I can play pretty well the characters that are also in my novels, but not the ones that belong to whole separate storylines.
So, all in all, two days in a row where I did over 1k words. :)
Granted this was a weekend... during which I did pretty much nothing else. :p If only I can figure out how to keep that up during the week.
In the meantime, I better go figure out some food. Eating is kind of important too.
Uneditted roleplay: 4932
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 3886
Taint: 1941
Today was productive too. I finally finished that first Taint scene. :) The total came out to be 2724, including the part I had before June started. There's stuff I can still nitpick about, but I'm pretty pleased with it overall.
Then I got in a few quick roleplay posts, too, and there's two more of them that are going to take longer to do. They might even end up in the "writing-heavy" category if I can convince my brain to reboot for doing those characters. It might not happen until tomorrow, though. At the moment I'm definitely more in the zone for my novels, and so I can play pretty well the characters that are also in my novels, but not the ones that belong to whole separate storylines.
So, all in all, two days in a row where I did over 1k words. :)
Granted this was a weekend... during which I did pretty much nothing else. :p If only I can figure out how to keep that up during the week.
In the meantime, I better go figure out some food. Eating is kind of important too.
SFR Beginning of Day 19
left ]
Uneditted roleplay: 4707
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 3886
Taint: 998
Did about 1500 words on Temple over the last 24 hours or so. They were very slow in coming :p ... but I got them down. Two more scenes finished with two more to go. Then I can start putting together the second draft.
I sort of have the beginning glimmerings of an idea for how exactly to fit all the Janis scenes in with the rest of them. The general structure of the novel is three parts. The largest section is where the king walks around in a big circle around the flattened temple while he asks everyone he can think of for how exactly that happened. Then I have a section where this midget guy walks the same circle, only he does it in the dead of night and he talks to himself. This fills in a lot of blanks about what happened that the king doesn't get to know. Then there's a third section, which follows the trials and tribulations of the only mortal in the story - Janis. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no reason for her to be walking around in that circle, and in fact she spends much of the novel bedridden.
The basic problem is that the Janis scenes need to be interspersed somehow with the king's circle. (The midget guy gets his circle after the king's circle ends). Well. Now I'm thinking spirit owls. All I have to do is have one somewhere in every scene that has Janis involved, which doesn't have her talking to any of the Tainted that get POV in the book. There are also several scenes with the spirits talking amongst themselves which don't really work so well as told through the view of a Tainted, so, I can add those to the owl scenes too. Then there would have to be maybe an opening and/or closing scene that explains all the owls. That would give me the common thread tying all of them together.
As for the challenge, well, I'm around 6500 words behind. Still falling farther and farther behind, unfortunately. I was hoping to fix that this weekend, but apparently not... This is making me rethink the whole concept of trying to write a Labor Day novel. I'm beginning to doubt I can do that.
So tomorrow... the plan is to try and do another Temple scene, and then try to finish up that last Taint scene that I've been dickering with for almost a week. Roleplay has died way down these past couple of days. I have one quick post on my list, but that's it at the moment. More time to focus on novels, I guess.
Uneditted roleplay: 4707
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 3886
Taint: 998
Did about 1500 words on Temple over the last 24 hours or so. They were very slow in coming :p ... but I got them down. Two more scenes finished with two more to go. Then I can start putting together the second draft.
I sort of have the beginning glimmerings of an idea for how exactly to fit all the Janis scenes in with the rest of them. The general structure of the novel is three parts. The largest section is where the king walks around in a big circle around the flattened temple while he asks everyone he can think of for how exactly that happened. Then I have a section where this midget guy walks the same circle, only he does it in the dead of night and he talks to himself. This fills in a lot of blanks about what happened that the king doesn't get to know. Then there's a third section, which follows the trials and tribulations of the only mortal in the story - Janis. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no reason for her to be walking around in that circle, and in fact she spends much of the novel bedridden.
The basic problem is that the Janis scenes need to be interspersed somehow with the king's circle. (The midget guy gets his circle after the king's circle ends). Well. Now I'm thinking spirit owls. All I have to do is have one somewhere in every scene that has Janis involved, which doesn't have her talking to any of the Tainted that get POV in the book. There are also several scenes with the spirits talking amongst themselves which don't really work so well as told through the view of a Tainted, so, I can add those to the owl scenes too. Then there would have to be maybe an opening and/or closing scene that explains all the owls. That would give me the common thread tying all of them together.
As for the challenge, well, I'm around 6500 words behind. Still falling farther and farther behind, unfortunately. I was hoping to fix that this weekend, but apparently not... This is making me rethink the whole concept of trying to write a Labor Day novel. I'm beginning to doubt I can do that.
So tomorrow... the plan is to try and do another Temple scene, and then try to finish up that last Taint scene that I've been dickering with for almost a week. Roleplay has died way down these past couple of days. I have one quick post on my list, but that's it at the moment. More time to focus on novels, I guess.
2005/06/16
SFR end of day 16
SFFMuse Summer Fun Run: [ 9538/60,000 | 16 days down | 44 days left ]
Uneditted roleplay: 4429
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 2317
Taint: 998
Apparently I'm quite prolific when it comes to roleplay. :p Started off a new character today, and the intro post came to around 250 words. A couple of other games are moving quite fast lately. I've definitely been kept hopping this past week.
Last night I wrote a 450ish word post to the game where I'm really kind of annoyed with the pointless tome writer. So I wrote back a tome that was so pointless that it makes me laugh just looking at it.
Basically my character is still doing the same thing he did in the last post (the prose poem one). Sitting there watching other people. :p
The first half of my post was a response to something in another player's post that she blew past so fast that there was really no way to write in a sensible IC response from my character. So I didn't write it from my character's point of view. I just responded to it as myself, in a lengthy rant about the meaning of life. :p It's borderline making me feel kind of guilty for counting it as a work of fiction, since it really wasn't. More of the type of philosophical rambling that you might find in my monthly freewrites.
Then I started off the second half of it with "Aaron, of course, thought none of these things." :p The rest of the post was from my character's perspective, badly written (it was what a typical first draft looks like for that game), and I couldn't make myself care enough to polish it. Needless to say, it got counted under "uneditted roleplay."
Anyway, so that's what I've been up to writing-wise. I'm kind of surprised that I'm only 6k words behind for the challenge. I guess those roleplay words really add up to quite a lot. Each individual post tends to run 50-100 words, unless something emotionally significant is happening (more words) or it's combat (less words). At the moment, I'm in 5 active games with 8 characters. Plus a couple dead ones, neither of which are likely to come back to life anytime soon. One is the Wraith game where I was co-GMing, playing all the shadow characters; the main GM sort of fell in love... (but I'm very happy for her. ;) )
Uneditted roleplay: 4429
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 2317
Taint: 998
Apparently I'm quite prolific when it comes to roleplay. :p Started off a new character today, and the intro post came to around 250 words. A couple of other games are moving quite fast lately. I've definitely been kept hopping this past week.
Last night I wrote a 450ish word post to the game where I'm really kind of annoyed with the pointless tome writer. So I wrote back a tome that was so pointless that it makes me laugh just looking at it.
Basically my character is still doing the same thing he did in the last post (the prose poem one). Sitting there watching other people. :p
The first half of my post was a response to something in another player's post that she blew past so fast that there was really no way to write in a sensible IC response from my character. So I didn't write it from my character's point of view. I just responded to it as myself, in a lengthy rant about the meaning of life. :p It's borderline making me feel kind of guilty for counting it as a work of fiction, since it really wasn't. More of the type of philosophical rambling that you might find in my monthly freewrites.
Then I started off the second half of it with "Aaron, of course, thought none of these things." :p The rest of the post was from my character's perspective, badly written (it was what a typical first draft looks like for that game), and I couldn't make myself care enough to polish it. Needless to say, it got counted under "uneditted roleplay."
Anyway, so that's what I've been up to writing-wise. I'm kind of surprised that I'm only 6k words behind for the challenge. I guess those roleplay words really add up to quite a lot. Each individual post tends to run 50-100 words, unless something emotionally significant is happening (more words) or it's combat (less words). At the moment, I'm in 5 active games with 8 characters. Plus a couple dead ones, neither of which are likely to come back to life anytime soon. One is the Wraith game where I was co-GMing, playing all the shadow characters; the main GM sort of fell in love... (but I'm very happy for her. ;) )
2005/06/15
SFR starting Day 15
SFFMuse Summer Fun Run: [ 8072/60,000 | 14 days down | 46 days left ]
Uneditted roleplay: 2963
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 2317
Taint: 998
Sadly, the fastest wordcount growth is in my "uneditted roleplay" category. I'm falling farther and farther behind on overall wordcount. I don't know how I managed to be so prolific last November, but it sure isn't happening now. :p
Well. Partly it's because I'm editting Taint as I write it. This means endless dickering over phrasing, and whether a given character would actually say or do what I'm claiming that they're saying or doing. And in one case, whether a character even knows the info that he's sharing to the rest of the room (I eventually decided on 'yes' just because I didn't want to figure out how to change it).
Maybe I should stop that and go back to looking at Temple for a while. It does seem to help if I rotate between projects on a 2-3 day time scale. As long as I'm not rotating so fast between them that I start getting scattered.
Apparently my current project is roleplay. :p My favorite roleplay buddy has been around a lot these past few days, and I'm taking advantage of his presence as much as possible, before he disappears unannounced on yet another business trip to somewhere without Internet access.
The biggest project that I'm doing at the moment, actually, is the archiving of dead past games. I spent all today saving stuff out of my long-defunct Stargate freeform, which ended at 3828 posts. There were four major groupings of plot types, plus a couple minor ones. The biggest plot is the one I have left at this point, and it's been a pain trying to figure out how best to save everything into a single long file so that it makes sense upon rereading. Today was spent cutting together two very long threads with hundreds of posts apiece. Tomorrow it'll be much worse, as the number of simultaneous threads exploded after the point where I stopped today. :p
This is kind of what I mean about layering in stories (blog entry back in like January :p). When you're putting it all together into a book, it has to be collapsed into a single long strand. One dimension. Not several strands of a tapestry moving together, like a roleplaying game typically is.
Then, when I'm done doing the Stargate game, I get to archive a Vampire game that ended at 6702 posts... but at least I was only playing that one, not running it, so I'm mostly just interested in my own characters and not everything in the entire game.
Oh well. I've got a couple roleplay posts that I need to work on (both for the "heavy writing" category so this is going to take some effort...). I should probably at least start on them before I go to bed.
Uneditted roleplay: 2963
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1794
Temple: 2317
Taint: 998
Sadly, the fastest wordcount growth is in my "uneditted roleplay" category. I'm falling farther and farther behind on overall wordcount. I don't know how I managed to be so prolific last November, but it sure isn't happening now. :p
Well. Partly it's because I'm editting Taint as I write it. This means endless dickering over phrasing, and whether a given character would actually say or do what I'm claiming that they're saying or doing. And in one case, whether a character even knows the info that he's sharing to the rest of the room (I eventually decided on 'yes' just because I didn't want to figure out how to change it).
Maybe I should stop that and go back to looking at Temple for a while. It does seem to help if I rotate between projects on a 2-3 day time scale. As long as I'm not rotating so fast between them that I start getting scattered.
Apparently my current project is roleplay. :p My favorite roleplay buddy has been around a lot these past few days, and I'm taking advantage of his presence as much as possible, before he disappears unannounced on yet another business trip to somewhere without Internet access.
The biggest project that I'm doing at the moment, actually, is the archiving of dead past games. I spent all today saving stuff out of my long-defunct Stargate freeform, which ended at 3828 posts. There were four major groupings of plot types, plus a couple minor ones. The biggest plot is the one I have left at this point, and it's been a pain trying to figure out how best to save everything into a single long file so that it makes sense upon rereading. Today was spent cutting together two very long threads with hundreds of posts apiece. Tomorrow it'll be much worse, as the number of simultaneous threads exploded after the point where I stopped today. :p
This is kind of what I mean about layering in stories (blog entry back in like January :p). When you're putting it all together into a book, it has to be collapsed into a single long strand. One dimension. Not several strands of a tapestry moving together, like a roleplaying game typically is.
Then, when I'm done doing the Stargate game, I get to archive a Vampire game that ended at 6702 posts... but at least I was only playing that one, not running it, so I'm mostly just interested in my own characters and not everything in the entire game.
Oh well. I've got a couple roleplay posts that I need to work on (both for the "heavy writing" category so this is going to take some effort...). I should probably at least start on them before I go to bed.
2005/06/12
Day 12 so far
SFFMuse Summer Fun Run: [ 6590/60,000 | 11 days down | 49 days left ]
Uneditted roleplay: 1884
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1520
Temple: 2317
Taint: 869
Yesterday I think my grand total came to around 980 words. However, only 120 of those were for a novel (Taint), while the other 860 was all uneditted roleplay (10 total posts).
But I had a blast. :) Nearly 12 straight hours of pingpong, mostly with one person though a couple others wandered in briefly. My favorite roleplay buddy was apparently sitting around at home all day long watching his newborn sleep, and had nothing else to do. ;)
I did slip off for an hour-long nap, and in the lull immediately afterward when I'd posted and nobody had replied and I figured they had left, I wrote my 120 novel words. Then the roleplay started up again and I gave up trying to write at the same time. By the end of the 12 hours I had written 10 total posts in 3 games, and a whole lot of OOC messages (scene setup queries, combat, stats questions, etc.) (of course they don't count as words, but I thought I'd explain (to myself) why it took 12 hours to write only 10 posts...).
Roleplay writing is definitely good practice for writing good material fast. You have to both write it and simultaneously edit it on-the-fly, within 20 minutes or less.
Now I wish I'd stayed up to finish writing part 2 of the Taint scene. When I went to bed a couple nights ago, it was all crystal-clear in my mind exactly what the rest of it was going to look like. Unfortunately, I didn't write it down. :( Not even any notes to myself in outline format or anything. Now it's all gone. Lesson learned, I guess. :P Sleep isn't as important when I'm on a roll!
Today my roleplay buddy seems to be off again. Heheh... I need to do all the stuff I didn't do yesterday, such as shopping and random household chores. I suspect today is going to be a very writing-light day all around, while I recharge from yesterday.
Anyway, just thought I'd share some lingering thoughts to update past yesterday's blog entry. If nothing else, I'm creating content for other people to read, since nobody else seems to be talking. :p *pokes everyone with a stick*
Uneditted roleplay: 1884
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1520
Temple: 2317
Taint: 869
Yesterday I think my grand total came to around 980 words. However, only 120 of those were for a novel (Taint), while the other 860 was all uneditted roleplay (10 total posts).
But I had a blast. :) Nearly 12 straight hours of pingpong, mostly with one person though a couple others wandered in briefly. My favorite roleplay buddy was apparently sitting around at home all day long watching his newborn sleep, and had nothing else to do. ;)
I did slip off for an hour-long nap, and in the lull immediately afterward when I'd posted and nobody had replied and I figured they had left, I wrote my 120 novel words. Then the roleplay started up again and I gave up trying to write at the same time. By the end of the 12 hours I had written 10 total posts in 3 games, and a whole lot of OOC messages (scene setup queries, combat, stats questions, etc.) (of course they don't count as words, but I thought I'd explain (to myself) why it took 12 hours to write only 10 posts...).
Roleplay writing is definitely good practice for writing good material fast. You have to both write it and simultaneously edit it on-the-fly, within 20 minutes or less.
Now I wish I'd stayed up to finish writing part 2 of the Taint scene. When I went to bed a couple nights ago, it was all crystal-clear in my mind exactly what the rest of it was going to look like. Unfortunately, I didn't write it down. :( Not even any notes to myself in outline format or anything. Now it's all gone. Lesson learned, I guess. :P Sleep isn't as important when I'm on a roll!
Today my roleplay buddy seems to be off again. Heheh... I need to do all the stuff I didn't do yesterday, such as shopping and random household chores. I suspect today is going to be a very writing-light day all around, while I recharge from yesterday.
Anyway, just thought I'd share some lingering thoughts to update past yesterday's blog entry. If nothing else, I'm creating content for other people to read, since nobody else seems to be talking. :p *pokes everyone with a stick*
2005/06/11
SFR Mid-Day 11
SFFMuse Summer Fun Run: [ 5921/60,000 | 10 days down | 50 days left ]
Uneditted roleplay: 1335
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1520
Temple: 2317
Taint: 749
I seem to be at almost exactly half the wordcount that I'm supposed to be at. Not so good. :p
Last night I wrote another 700ish words toward Taint. (It's listed as 749 because I included the portion that I was tinkering with at the time I stopped, even though it's not technically in the actual scene yet.) This first scene is looking like it's going to be in three parts - I. The king sitting there exchanging witty reparte'e with the two people already in the room, II. arrival of MC #1 with two others, and III. arrival of MC #2. So far I'm in the middle of II. Should be fairly straightforward overall - I know what I want to cover, plotwise, so it's just a matter of sitting down and doing it.
The main problem is that I seem to get started really late in my day, and then have to cut myself off by going to bed. Which is already at dawn. :p
The other pattern I've noticed is that my productivity occurs every other day. I'll have a day of lots of words, followed by a day of very little, followed by a day of lots of words... I noticed this during Nano, too.
So far today I've basically been doing a lot of roleplaying. I'm really glad that I get to count roleplay words. It means I can go ahead and enjoy it, not to mention fulfill commitments to playing with other people, without feeling like I ought to be writing "real" words instead. I feel pretty strongly about roleplaying games. If I've signed up for it, I've made a commitment to participate and be a reliable player. Not ditch the game on a whim. Roleplaying is a group activity and you have to be considerate of the enjoyment of the whole group, not just yourself. So it's good that I don't have to feel guilty for doing it while not working on novels.
The mass pingpong session seems to have faded out, though, so now I'm thinking to go get in a nap and then try to finish the rest of the Taint scene from last night. There's one writing-heavy roleplay post that I also need to get started on. (Two of them really. The other one, I'm procrastinating again in the hopes that another player will go first. ;) )
Uneditted roleplay: 1335
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1520
Temple: 2317
Taint: 749
I seem to be at almost exactly half the wordcount that I'm supposed to be at. Not so good. :p
Last night I wrote another 700ish words toward Taint. (It's listed as 749 because I included the portion that I was tinkering with at the time I stopped, even though it's not technically in the actual scene yet.) This first scene is looking like it's going to be in three parts - I. The king sitting there exchanging witty reparte'e with the two people already in the room, II. arrival of MC #1 with two others, and III. arrival of MC #2. So far I'm in the middle of II. Should be fairly straightforward overall - I know what I want to cover, plotwise, so it's just a matter of sitting down and doing it.
The main problem is that I seem to get started really late in my day, and then have to cut myself off by going to bed. Which is already at dawn. :p
The other pattern I've noticed is that my productivity occurs every other day. I'll have a day of lots of words, followed by a day of very little, followed by a day of lots of words... I noticed this during Nano, too.
So far today I've basically been doing a lot of roleplaying. I'm really glad that I get to count roleplay words. It means I can go ahead and enjoy it, not to mention fulfill commitments to playing with other people, without feeling like I ought to be writing "real" words instead. I feel pretty strongly about roleplaying games. If I've signed up for it, I've made a commitment to participate and be a reliable player. Not ditch the game on a whim. Roleplaying is a group activity and you have to be considerate of the enjoyment of the whole group, not just yourself. So it's good that I don't have to feel guilty for doing it while not working on novels.
The mass pingpong session seems to have faded out, though, so now I'm thinking to go get in a nap and then try to finish the rest of the Taint scene from last night. There's one writing-heavy roleplay post that I also need to get started on. (Two of them really. The other one, I'm procrastinating again in the hopes that another player will go first. ;) )
2005/06/09
SFR - Start of Day 9 :)
I'm starting to get into the swing of things now. :)
955 more words toward Flattening of a Temple. 680 of those expanded one of the scenes I had before, and the other 274 words were the start of one of the remaining scenes still to do. I'm chugging along pretty good now, I think. ;)
At the moment, I guess you could technically call it "editting" - in that I am going through and adding stuff to scenes that I've already written. But I'm not editting for wordcrafting yet, for the most part. Mostly it's to get the plot finished up and consistent. Ironically, I'm actually introducing plot holes into the thing, now that I've had a lot of time to think about it since last November. :p I know what needs to get added in, and roughly what will need to get taken out, so as I do that the plot is going to start looking kind of wonky for a while. Hehe... my poor beta readers.
Somewhere I read that Stephen King writes first drafts of his stories just to find out what happens, and then he discards it to write the "real" version. I suspect I'm going to be doing something similar. There's a lot of well-written parts in Temple, but also a lot of crummy stuff where the characters just didn't get pegged as well as I wanted. So I'll probably use the first draft as material fodder for the "real" version of the novel. No clue when I'll actually write the presentable version. So far I'm thinking maybe I should write at least the first 4 novels in the series, and then polish them all up together. They all sort of tie in with each other...
Then there were 201 more words in two miscellaneous roleplay posts. I've definitely passed the 1k-per-day quota for once. :D
[ 4505/60,000 | 8 days down | 52 days left ]
Uneditted roleplay: 668
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1520
Temple: 2317
955 more words toward Flattening of a Temple. 680 of those expanded one of the scenes I had before, and the other 274 words were the start of one of the remaining scenes still to do. I'm chugging along pretty good now, I think. ;)
At the moment, I guess you could technically call it "editting" - in that I am going through and adding stuff to scenes that I've already written. But I'm not editting for wordcrafting yet, for the most part. Mostly it's to get the plot finished up and consistent. Ironically, I'm actually introducing plot holes into the thing, now that I've had a lot of time to think about it since last November. :p I know what needs to get added in, and roughly what will need to get taken out, so as I do that the plot is going to start looking kind of wonky for a while. Hehe... my poor beta readers.
Somewhere I read that Stephen King writes first drafts of his stories just to find out what happens, and then he discards it to write the "real" version. I suspect I'm going to be doing something similar. There's a lot of well-written parts in Temple, but also a lot of crummy stuff where the characters just didn't get pegged as well as I wanted. So I'll probably use the first draft as material fodder for the "real" version of the novel. No clue when I'll actually write the presentable version. So far I'm thinking maybe I should write at least the first 4 novels in the series, and then polish them all up together. They all sort of tie in with each other...
Then there were 201 more words in two miscellaneous roleplay posts. I've definitely passed the 1k-per-day quota for once. :D
[ 4505/60,000 | 8 days down | 52 days left ]
Uneditted roleplay: 668
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1520
Temple: 2317
2005/06/08
Fun Run Start of Day 8
[ 3349/60,000 | 7 days down | 53 days left]
Uneditted roleplay: 467
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1520
Temple: 1362
Last night I wrote 982 words of one of the remaining scenes left to do in Temple. Tonight I couldn't decide what exactly I wanted to write, so I ended up doing bits and pieces of editting instead. The scene I wrote yesterday got an additional 39 words tacked in. I did a total of 380 edit words in all, spread over 4 different scenes.
It's now the beginning of Day 8, and I'm woefully behind. Theoretically I should have 8000 words by the end of the day. I doubt that's going to happen, though if I put my mind to it, I should be able to do 2k words a day until I catch up. Theoretically.
There's about 3 scenes in Temple that come to mind that I need to write, if I can figure out how to start and what exactly they were for. I need to reread my own novel. :p There's also the next scene for Taint, if I can figure out how to start that. And I could conceivably write another post to the roleplay scene that I struggled with all last week.
So there's plenty to work on. Just a matter of getting myself into it.
Uneditted roleplay: 467
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1520
Temple: 1362
Last night I wrote 982 words of one of the remaining scenes left to do in Temple. Tonight I couldn't decide what exactly I wanted to write, so I ended up doing bits and pieces of editting instead. The scene I wrote yesterday got an additional 39 words tacked in. I did a total of 380 edit words in all, spread over 4 different scenes.
It's now the beginning of Day 8, and I'm woefully behind. Theoretically I should have 8000 words by the end of the day. I doubt that's going to happen, though if I put my mind to it, I should be able to do 2k words a day until I catch up. Theoretically.
There's about 3 scenes in Temple that come to mind that I need to write, if I can figure out how to start and what exactly they were for. I need to reread my own novel. :p There's also the next scene for Taint, if I can figure out how to start that. And I could conceivably write another post to the roleplay scene that I struggled with all last week.
So there's plenty to work on. Just a matter of getting myself into it.
2005/06/06
Beginning of Day 6
SFFMuse Summer Fun Run: [ 1831/60,000 | 5 days down | 55 days left]
Uneditted roleplay: 311
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1520
While I was posting my progress at SFFMuse, I noticed that the sig doesn't stay static. So if I want to track my progress, I should paste it in here each time I post about it.
The weekend was very unproductive in terms of writing. (But very productive in terms of house-related chores.) Basically that last post killed me. I had to reach deep to get anything at all, and I mined myself out. Even thinking about putting in a minuscule amount of effort to write something else, was enough to make me go into an endless tailspin of housework alternating with Diablo II.
On the bright side, my car has new rear brakes now (for $500 :p), and I bought and assembled a rack for my CDs. As the only piece of blond wood furniture I own, it doesn't match any other furniture, but it didn't come in any other color. Oh well. I did a bunch of dishes, actually cleaned the stovetop, and sharpened a couple knives. I also made a vat of chili, a big pot of rice to go with it, and a vegetable dish that was supposed to be a frittata except I didn't have enough eggs. (Did y'all know that eggs can desiccate? I sure didn't before this evening...). I have enough food to last me all through next week, which is a rarity these past few years. I used to be a lot more into cooking than I am now. Now I habitually have to get emergency takeout. :p
Anyway, back to writing. Where was I?
So it seems that if I expend so much effort into writing something that I essentially sacrifice myself to it, well, apparently there are consequences. :p I couldn't get myself to write much of anything all weekend. Not even think about plots or anything. The whole notion of working up any mental effort toward creative endeavors was exhausting, all by itself.
This left me feeling rather bored for most of today. I didn't want to do anything, and I was tired of not doing anything, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. I haven't felt like that in years, but it seems to be cropping up with increasing frequency these past few weeks.
Luckily, I started working on a different post (same game, different character), and that got me back into the swing of things. I love that character. He's awesome. :)
The inspiration-succubus posted within 12 hours of my crummy poem. I was tired before I even started reading it, and halfway through the first paragraph I already wanted to stop and do something else instead. I think I might need to talk to her about this. Her posts are horrendously long, and as far as I can tell, she writes in every single thought that ever occurs to her as she's thinking about the scene.
It's sort of like wading through a first draft. There's interesting bits in amongst the dreck, but it desperately needs to be trimmed down and polished up to have any sort of impact. Also, this is supposed to be roleplay. The girl does not know when and where to pause to allow the other players to respond and react to things that her character is doing. She just blows right past it as if we're sitting there doing nothing. It kills impact, and it also renders meaningless all subsequent posts that probably would've responded if she HAD paused.
I don't know. I have noticed a pattern in my own reactions to things in roleplay. Namely, that if that Dylan Thomas refrain begins to repeat itself in my head, over and over, it means that something has gone badly awry. Basically, any effort I expend in the endeavor is going to be pointless, so I should probably just not even try. Last gasps just aren't worth it. If I can't come up with a tactful way to get her to stop doing it, I'm going to have to go the way of one-liners. Throw in the towel, give up, and just grit my teeth and hope that the scene ends soon so we can all move on to something else.
Apparently I'm in desperate need of doing some freewrite ranting, too. I guess it's sort of my warmup for trying to figure out what to say to her, and how to say it so that it won't make her mad. Tact has never been one of my strong points, unfortunately.
So to sum up. Two writing-heavy roleplay posts totalling 640 words, that I'm counting for 1520 (240 words 3 times, 400 words twice). Another 311 words for other roleplay (everything counted once). So far no words related to any novels. I'm going to have to fix that this coming week. And also try to catch up, as it's now the beginning of Day 6 and I'm over 4k words behind. :/
Uneditted roleplay: 311
Writing-heavy roleplay: 1520
While I was posting my progress at SFFMuse, I noticed that the sig doesn't stay static. So if I want to track my progress, I should paste it in here each time I post about it.
The weekend was very unproductive in terms of writing. (But very productive in terms of house-related chores.) Basically that last post killed me. I had to reach deep to get anything at all, and I mined myself out. Even thinking about putting in a minuscule amount of effort to write something else, was enough to make me go into an endless tailspin of housework alternating with Diablo II.
On the bright side, my car has new rear brakes now (for $500 :p), and I bought and assembled a rack for my CDs. As the only piece of blond wood furniture I own, it doesn't match any other furniture, but it didn't come in any other color. Oh well. I did a bunch of dishes, actually cleaned the stovetop, and sharpened a couple knives. I also made a vat of chili, a big pot of rice to go with it, and a vegetable dish that was supposed to be a frittata except I didn't have enough eggs. (Did y'all know that eggs can desiccate? I sure didn't before this evening...). I have enough food to last me all through next week, which is a rarity these past few years. I used to be a lot more into cooking than I am now. Now I habitually have to get emergency takeout. :p
Anyway, back to writing. Where was I?
So it seems that if I expend so much effort into writing something that I essentially sacrifice myself to it, well, apparently there are consequences. :p I couldn't get myself to write much of anything all weekend. Not even think about plots or anything. The whole notion of working up any mental effort toward creative endeavors was exhausting, all by itself.
This left me feeling rather bored for most of today. I didn't want to do anything, and I was tired of not doing anything, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. I haven't felt like that in years, but it seems to be cropping up with increasing frequency these past few weeks.
Luckily, I started working on a different post (same game, different character), and that got me back into the swing of things. I love that character. He's awesome. :)
The inspiration-succubus posted within 12 hours of my crummy poem. I was tired before I even started reading it, and halfway through the first paragraph I already wanted to stop and do something else instead. I think I might need to talk to her about this. Her posts are horrendously long, and as far as I can tell, she writes in every single thought that ever occurs to her as she's thinking about the scene.
It's sort of like wading through a first draft. There's interesting bits in amongst the dreck, but it desperately needs to be trimmed down and polished up to have any sort of impact. Also, this is supposed to be roleplay. The girl does not know when and where to pause to allow the other players to respond and react to things that her character is doing. She just blows right past it as if we're sitting there doing nothing. It kills impact, and it also renders meaningless all subsequent posts that probably would've responded if she HAD paused.
I don't know. I have noticed a pattern in my own reactions to things in roleplay. Namely, that if that Dylan Thomas refrain begins to repeat itself in my head, over and over, it means that something has gone badly awry. Basically, any effort I expend in the endeavor is going to be pointless, so I should probably just not even try. Last gasps just aren't worth it. If I can't come up with a tactful way to get her to stop doing it, I'm going to have to go the way of one-liners. Throw in the towel, give up, and just grit my teeth and hope that the scene ends soon so we can all move on to something else.
Apparently I'm in desperate need of doing some freewrite ranting, too. I guess it's sort of my warmup for trying to figure out what to say to her, and how to say it so that it won't make her mad. Tact has never been one of my strong points, unfortunately.
So to sum up. Two writing-heavy roleplay posts totalling 640 words, that I'm counting for 1520 (240 words 3 times, 400 words twice). Another 311 words for other roleplay (everything counted once). So far no words related to any novels. I'm going to have to fix that this coming week. And also try to catch up, as it's now the beginning of Day 6 and I'm over 4k words behind. :/
2005/06/04
Beginning of Day 4
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." --Dylan Thomas
That was the inspirational quote I kept in mind all while I slogged away on that roleplay post. I had to dig very, very deep to find anything to move me at all. In the end, it wasn't so much the other players' posts, it was me trying something extremely backwards and stupid. So much so that I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.
I had absolutely nothing to write about. So I decided to write about nothing. For 6 paragraphs. Of prose poetry. :p Exactly 40 words per paragraph, with the last word of each one rhyming with the last words of the others. The scan is so terrible (intentionally so) that it's actually awe-inspiring. The only useful thing in the whole post is the very last sentence, where my character has a line of dialogue wherein he agrees with another player's character. Yep. When you boil it all down, all it is is an "I agree. Me too." post.
Final wordcount on the thing: 243. I wrote and then deleted at least 3 times that many over the course of the week, though.
*sighs and can finally be at peace* ... *until next time*
Now it's on to the weekend and I'm way behind on my word count. Beginning of Day 4. By the end of today I'm supposed to have 4k words. So far I'm counting my one post for 957 of them (it's allowed by the rules). There were a few other random roleplay posts that I dashed off in a jiffy, which accounts for another 198 words. So I'm about 2900 words behind.
I have two roleplay posts in line for tomorrow, which will hopefully go a lot quicker, and then I can go look at an actual novel.
That was the inspirational quote I kept in mind all while I slogged away on that roleplay post. I had to dig very, very deep to find anything to move me at all. In the end, it wasn't so much the other players' posts, it was me trying something extremely backwards and stupid. So much so that I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.
I had absolutely nothing to write about. So I decided to write about nothing. For 6 paragraphs. Of prose poetry. :p Exactly 40 words per paragraph, with the last word of each one rhyming with the last words of the others. The scan is so terrible (intentionally so) that it's actually awe-inspiring. The only useful thing in the whole post is the very last sentence, where my character has a line of dialogue wherein he agrees with another player's character. Yep. When you boil it all down, all it is is an "I agree. Me too." post.
Final wordcount on the thing: 243. I wrote and then deleted at least 3 times that many over the course of the week, though.
*sighs and can finally be at peace* ... *until next time*
Now it's on to the weekend and I'm way behind on my word count. Beginning of Day 4. By the end of today I'm supposed to have 4k words. So far I'm counting my one post for 957 of them (it's allowed by the rules). There were a few other random roleplay posts that I dashed off in a jiffy, which accounts for another 198 words. So I'm about 2900 words behind.
I have two roleplay posts in line for tomorrow, which will hopefully go a lot quicker, and then I can go look at an actual novel.
2005/06/02
Summer Fun Run Day 2
"The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."
I beg to differ. :p I've been doing that on this one stupid post for two days now, and there's STILL nothing coming. My muse took one look at that thread and fled in terror. No sign that it wants to come back to it, ever. (I can still write just fine for anything else ... just not this one post.)
(I wonder if I can borrow Sheba's new muse... maybe I need mythological beasts to decorate my writing area too.)
The main problem, I think, is that one of the players just sucks the inspirational life out of me. She didn't used to back when the game first started. Our first scene was with each other and it was a great scene. But ever since then it's gone downhill. It makes me reflect on the theory that one has to be seriously disturbed and issue-laden in order to be a true creative genius. Several months after our first scene, she started resolving some of her issues. Now the same type of spiky energy just isn't there anymore, and her posts are downright exhausting to read.
I've been trying to come up with a response more to one of the other players, who has always been good as an external muse before. Unfortunately, his post wasn't terribly inspiring either. She might be having the same effect on him, too, but he's much more creative than I am and managed to find a very clever way of not responding to most of her post. Unfortunately I don't have the same outs as he does.
It really feels like I'm trying to squeeze blood out of turnips here. And I can't NOT write it because that's what the scene is and it can't be changed, either. Not like in a single-person writing effort where I could just switch out characters that aren't working, or delete the whole scene if it's getting bogged down and going nowhere.
Anyway. I guess I better get back to slogging away on it some more. Grrr. Arrrgh.
I beg to differ. :p I've been doing that on this one stupid post for two days now, and there's STILL nothing coming. My muse took one look at that thread and fled in terror. No sign that it wants to come back to it, ever. (I can still write just fine for anything else ... just not this one post.)
(I wonder if I can borrow Sheba's new muse... maybe I need mythological beasts to decorate my writing area too.)
The main problem, I think, is that one of the players just sucks the inspirational life out of me. She didn't used to back when the game first started. Our first scene was with each other and it was a great scene. But ever since then it's gone downhill. It makes me reflect on the theory that one has to be seriously disturbed and issue-laden in order to be a true creative genius. Several months after our first scene, she started resolving some of her issues. Now the same type of spiky energy just isn't there anymore, and her posts are downright exhausting to read.
I've been trying to come up with a response more to one of the other players, who has always been good as an external muse before. Unfortunately, his post wasn't terribly inspiring either. She might be having the same effect on him, too, but he's much more creative than I am and managed to find a very clever way of not responding to most of her post. Unfortunately I don't have the same outs as he does.
It really feels like I'm trying to squeeze blood out of turnips here. And I can't NOT write it because that's what the scene is and it can't be changed, either. Not like in a single-person writing effort where I could just switch out characters that aren't working, or delete the whole scene if it's getting bogged down and going nowhere.
Anyway. I guess I better get back to slogging away on it some more. Grrr. Arrrgh.
2005/06/01
SFFMuse Summer Fun Run Day 1
Well, I ended last night with 358 rough draft roleplay words, none of which are going to make it into the final post. :p Half of it was a list of possible things to write about (all of them bad), the rest reads like a train wreck. I suck! I suck, I suck, I suck... *bangs head against desk*
Basically I spent 3 hours sitting there staring at the thread and being seriously unclued about what to write for it. Seriously unclued. The other three people in the scene wrote extremely lengthy tomes for posts, but I just can't summon up any enthusiasm to respond to anything they wrote. I don't want to respond to any of it. I don't want to write it at all. I was tempted to post a one-liner and be done with it but that'll suck worse than making everyone wait for me.
Writing stuff with actual deadlines, where other people are being held up, where what I write has to actually fit the scene it's going into, is a lot different than just writing whatever I want whenever I want. But I've been procrastinating this way too long and it needs to get done, and I refuse to do anything else until I post something. Anything. Anything at all ... *sighs*.
Tonight it's back to the salt mines on that exact same post again. While I was going to bed last night, I did get some glimmerings of ideas for what I might try next. Maybe instead of trying to write my actual character, I will write scenery and talk about what the wraiths are doing...
Basically I spent 3 hours sitting there staring at the thread and being seriously unclued about what to write for it. Seriously unclued. The other three people in the scene wrote extremely lengthy tomes for posts, but I just can't summon up any enthusiasm to respond to anything they wrote. I don't want to respond to any of it. I don't want to write it at all. I was tempted to post a one-liner and be done with it but that'll suck worse than making everyone wait for me.
Writing stuff with actual deadlines, where other people are being held up, where what I write has to actually fit the scene it's going into, is a lot different than just writing whatever I want whenever I want. But I've been procrastinating this way too long and it needs to get done, and I refuse to do anything else until I post something. Anything. Anything at all ... *sighs*.
Tonight it's back to the salt mines on that exact same post again. While I was going to bed last night, I did get some glimmerings of ideas for what I might try next. Maybe instead of trying to write my actual character, I will write scenery and talk about what the wraiths are doing...
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