Random late-night musings

* Snuck in a bonus productivity day on Saturday. A friend and I deposited our writerly selves down with some tasty tea beverages that afternoon, during which time I got all of chapter 3 revised (yay for short chapters largely unaffected by major plot changes!), and even got the zombie story revision underway as well.

* After downloading the free trial to my Macbook over the weekend, I think I may be a little bit in love with Scrivener.

* My PC desktop isn't on its last leg yet, but it's slow and pisses me off a lot. So the decision has been made--I'm getting me an iMac.

* I need to stop rambling and go to bed. Because that whole thing last night where I went to bed at 2, didn't fall asleep until after 3, and then woke up again sometime after 4 when a car accident a couple blocks away resulted in the smashy boom sound and the power outage and the eerie green light show when the transformer went kaplooey? Yeah, that didn't make for a good night's sleep. And tomorrow morning, I'm going to regret having been so punchy right now.

The Early Productivity Report Catches the Slug

Since I have no idea what I'm going to be able to get done tomorrow--chorus concert at a school in the early afternoon, theater tickets in the evening--I'm gonna go ahead and post my weekly productivity report now.

Reading: Two more chapters in Bitterwood, up to chapter 23 in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and a story at Tor.com that I highly recommend for fans of the play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead: "We Haven't Got There Yet" by Harry Turtledove. (Thanks to Daniel Ausema for pointing me toward the story!) I'm a little bit in love with this brief bit from the story: "Hamlet goes missing--as he must, for his place in the remaining action lies in Elsinore. Is he any freer than Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, or only better written?"

Exercise: We recently got Wii Fit, so I've been spending a good 20-30 minutes a day getting acquainted with that. No substitute for the more substantial yoga and pilates sessions I've done in the past, but definitely more of a workout than I would have thought.

Music: The usual--chorus rehearsals, piano lesson, practicing.

Writing: As I posted on Wednesday, the first draft of the zombie story is done! So that's about 1,200 new words written on that this week, and tonight I started revisions on chapter 3 of My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel. Chapter 3's pretty short and doesn't need any major revisions, so I decided to tackle that before de-crapifying the zombie story.

Writing Business: Queries out on a couple of stragglers, one of which came back with a reply that the story got far but "looks like it's going to be rejected" and they'll be sending along comments soon. So I guess I'll wait until I get the actual commenty rejection before doing anything else with that story. On a happier note, at least, today I got notice that my quarter 1 Writers of the Future submission got an honorable mention. Considering I almost didn't send that one there, that's better than expected.

The end of the zombie story slog

Crappy first draft of the zombie story? Done! And when I say crappy first draft, we're talking Crappy McCrapperson from Crappsville. But revision is usually the easier part of the process for me, so hopefully I'll have less trouble turning this mess into a not-so-crappy second draft. And hopefully it'll end up being much shorter than its current 9,100 words, because that's way too much zombie angst. Just because my protagonist sings Wagner doesn't mean the story has to be as long as one of his operas.

Man, that is the longest it's ever taken me to write a damn story, in part because life got in the way for a bit there, and then because the weeks following life getting in the way have been full of someongoing writerly self doubt. Blah.

Now I have to decide if I dive right into revisions, or if I switch back to the novel for a bit first.

Well, personally, I kind of wanna slay the slug

The slug put up a hell of a fight this week--which I now realize is sort of funny since that means the slug is working very hard at trying to get me to do nothing. But except for the exercise department, I actually achieved a fair amount of productivity this week:

Reading: I finished Prime Codex on Monday. The last story was "Radical Acceptance" by David W. Goldman, which made me smile. Space otters make me happy. So while there were a few stories in Prime Codex that didn't work for me, on the whole, it's a good collection that I'd recommend.

For my next book, I started James Maxey's Bitterwood (got through the prologue and chapter 1 this past week). And in the audio book department, I'm up to chapter 18 in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I also thought I'd mention that I also read short stories in various places online, but I'm so scattershot about those that I decided I won't keep track of them on here unless one blows away me so much that I must share its awesomeness with all the world.

Exercise: I haven't done yoga or pilates in what feels like forever, and I only got on the elliptical strider two days this week. Beyond that, it was just pseudo-exercise in the form of Wii Sports and the 15-minute walk to and from the concert I was at for work last night.

Music: I had to miss chorus rehearsal Monday night to attend a grant award reception for work, but otherwise I was good about keeping up with practicing this week. I didn't get any in yesterday beccause of the concert I was working, but I'm making up for it today.

Writing Business: Two more stories came home, disappointed that their brilliance had not been recognized. One was a simultaneous sub, so he'll just continue waiting at the place that hasn't rejected him yet. The other one is waiting for the next market it wants to visit to re-open in April. And I think I may have to shoot out some queries on one or two stories to see if they're coming for dinner or staying over at their friend's house for a bit longer.

Writing: A little over 1,600 words on the zombie story this week, and I'm still not frickin' done. Close, though--I'm about halfway through the penultimate scene. Hopefully I'll be able to trim this one significantly during revisions, because right now it's at 8,200 words and counting.

I've got some more practicing to get in today since I'm doing a solo at church tomorrow morning. And I have to figure out what I feel like doing tomorrow afternoon to determine what I do after practicing today. I could go to my writer's group tomorrow, which means I have a 9,400 word story to critique. Or I could go the Mozart Requiem Sing-In the chorus I'm in is holding tomorrow, which means I don't have to crit that story and can get some more writing done instead. Decisions, decisions...

First sale of 2009

On a positive note, I got notice today that my short story "Jarra," which appeared in the July-Sept. 2008 issue of The Lorelei Signal, was selected to be in the e-zine's year-end anthology, A Time To ... Volume 3 - The Best of The Lorelei Signal 2008.

On a less positive note, that would be my first sale of 2009. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely happy about it, but I've been plauged by this inescapable and frustrating feeling that I should be doing better than this, damn it.

OK, enough of pessimistic-me. Optimistic-me says, "Yay!"

Slogging forward

It's been tough getting back to something resembling my normal routine this week. Monday was almost nothing but work and rehearsal, neither of which put me in a happy place. And I had been hoping to get a lot done today, but no such luck. I got a later start than I wanted today (I've been having a tough time getting my butt moving in the mornings this week), and my afternoon was mostly eaten away by sitting at the DMV to renew my driver license. And then it was off to Philly for dinner and an opera--Wozzeck, which is one of my favorites. (The production wasn't perfect, but good overall. And bloody.) So the only thing I managed to get done today was a bit of work stuff, a few little errands, and some reading.

On that note, I present to you the weekly productivity report:

Reading: I read two more stories in Prime Codex, leaving only one more to go.

The first was "As the Stars of the Sky" by Mike Shultz. There were some things that I liked in this story, but as a whole, it unfortunately didn't do anything for me. The writing was decent but never drew me in, and I didn't care much about the protagonist; the story's sentient ship had far more personality. Speaking of the sentient ship, a plea to modern science fiction writers: when writing a story in which your characters interact with a ship-based intelligence or any similar type of AI, please don't name any of those characters Dave. Perhaps the effect would have been different had I been more engaged by the story, but the second the ship said, "Dave, stop," I was jarred out of the tale by echoes of "I'm sorry, Dave, but I'm afraid I can't do that."

The second Prime Codex story I read today was "Rainmakers" by Ruth Nestvold, which I did enjoy--a good thing since reading a so-so story while waiting in an uncomfortable chair at the DMV would have been painful. "Rainmakers" had both engaging writing and engaging characters, and it felt very real to me how we got enough closure to give the story a satisfactory ending, but without everything being tied up with a neat bow.

I also started Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell this week, which I would so far describe as the love child of Charles Dickens and Harry Potter. Getting an audio book to listen to in the car was a good idea. It makes my drive to work far more tolerable. And I think Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was a good choice as it's interesting, but also the sort of book I would have had a harder time getting through if I was reading instead of listening as it's rather long, and the narrative moves very slowly--not a good combination if a slow reader like me wants to finish something in a reasonable amount of time.

Exercise: Getting back into the exercise routine has been tough. I managed 20 minutes on the elliptical strider two days this week. And when I couldn't get in real exercise, I played lots of Wii sports--especially boxing, which has got to be burning some calories because I'm totally wiped afterwards.

Music: Except for today, music is about the one thing with which I've managed to maintain normality this week with the usual chorus rehearsals, piano lesson, and practicing schedule.

Writing: About 200 words on Sunday, and about 500 on Wednesday. I'm rubbish.

Slouching toward normality

I've actually managed to ease back into productivity mode these last few days better than I would have thought.

Reading: Read two more stories in Prime Codex. "Tides" by Tobias Buckell was sad but lovely, with some truly wonderful world-building. "Urban Renewal" by Tom Pendergrass was a fun little tale in which the little old lady who lived in a shoe meets modern bureaucracy. Only three more stories in the book to go.

And so that I can feel productive while driving to and from work on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I've decided to give audio books a try. I browsed through the selection at the library today and picked up Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

Exercise: Wii Sports counts, right? My right arm and shoulder sure tell me it should after all the tennis and baseball. And the boxing certainly feels like good cardio, though it took until today to finally get an opponent who put up a fight. I knocked out the five before him in the first round. This one at least lasted until the second.

Music: Lots of piano and singing.

Writing Business: Another nice but frustratingly close one from Cemetery Dance: "Nicely written throughout, and good emotion. This one came very close for me--please try us again with something new when we reopen to submissions in 2010." I will crack this market, damn it. Also a nice one from Shimmer for a different story: "I think it's very well written and I love the evocative details of the piece, but..." Ah, the ever popular "but" of death.

Writing: I haven't been able to do any writing since last Wednesday, so it was tough getting back into the groove today. But I managed a little bit more on the zombie story, so here's hoping I can pick up steam and find that awesomely productive zone I was in before real life reared its head last week.

A much-belated productivity report

I was going to post my next writerly productivity report last weekend, but due to my father-in-law's death Friday morning, that and many other things didn't happen. After a sad and hectic few days, now is when life slowly slouches back toward normality, so here goes:

Reading: I only got through two more stories in Prime Codex. "Button by Button" by E. Catherine Tobler was the first one in the book to underwhelm me. For me, the characters came across as very flat, the story's events took a predictable direction, and overall the story was slow and uneventful, without a strong conflict. While the writing was good, there was nothing spectacular about it to make up for the shortfalls. The second story I read was "Black Boxes" by fellow Odfellow Matt Rotundo, which I did enjoy. I particularly liked the touches of Poe and Orwell that snuck in there, though the ending felt a touch too quick to me--the protagonist came to his decision regarding his black box without me really getting to be as fully in on the reasoning and significance of that decision as I wanted to be. But still a good tale overall.

Exercise: Got in some pilates and some time on the elliptical strider.

Music: Another week of rehearsals and practicing, plus a concert Sunday afternoon amid all of the funeral-planning hecticness.

Writing Business: Two more rejections, two more stories back out the door. Dear 2009: I'd really like a sale now, please.

Writing: 1,600 more words on the zombie story last week, putting the total words so far just past the 5,000 mark. The end is in sight, though, so I think the first draft will come in under 10K. Man, it's been a while since a short story has taken me this darn long to write. On a positive note, last Wednesday was the best writing day I've had in some time. I plopped myself down in a coffee shop after my piano lesson--just me, my AlphaSmart, and my lunch, with no internet for distraction--and cranked out 1,000 of those 1,600 words .