Random Writings

As you can see, I’ve been playing around with the font colours again. When I got to the point where I couldn’t decide if I was improving things or just making them worse, I decided to stop. :-)

You’ll also notice the comments link is still at the top, rather than the bottom of my posts. My only consolation is that I’m not alone – this is happening to other bloggers as well. No one seems to know why this is happening, and unfortunately, no one knows how to correct the problem. Blogger says “they’re working on it”. I’ve checked the editing page, and I’ve gone through the HTML coding with a fine toothed comb; :I’ve changed the comments from a popup and back again; I even deleted my template and started from scratch. According to everything I’ve checked, my comments link should be showing at the bottom not the top. I give up! Grr!

/rant

RECAP:

Last week’s goals were a fortune telling post for Tuesday; more humour for Wednesday; the poetry form of Terzanelle; and Chapter 25 in the continuing Space Opera.

Not only did I attain last week’s goals, I also read three more books, which is why I didn’t get much else done. :-)

Goals for This Week:

Random Tuesday: Fortune Telling, Part Two. The second part of my series about fortune telling will explore Divination by Dice.

Whimsical Wednesday: I’m starting to run out of humourous stories so I might have to resort to a couple of cartoons or videos instead.

Thursday: the Passion for Poetry form this week with be the Luc Bat.

Friday: Chapter 26 of the Space Opera. And hopefully I won’t be up until 2 a.m. writing it like I was last week. :-)

I think I’d also better make note here that I also want to get some editing done, and maybe even some fresh words in one (or both) of my two WIPs.

It’s easy to pat myself on the back with my weekly goals when that’s all the writing I do in the week. This week’s motto will be: Less reading and more writing.

Random Writing

I got my post up last week for the Fight Scene Blogfest and many wonderful people commented on it. If you missed the blogfest, you can still access the list of participants HERE

A couple of days ago I did an update of how I’m doing on the goals I set myself at the beginning of the year. Not doing too bad at all, if I do say so myself. Hopefully I can keep up the good work.

Tuesday, look for my post about the Northumberland Scribes. We have a meeting tonight, which means I’ll be posting a prompt for you guys to have some fun with. I’ll be posting my own flash piece to inspire you.

I think it's about time I added a couple of progress bars in one of the side columns to show what I'm working on. The added advantage of this is people can shame me getting to work if those bars don't move. :-)

So, how about you? What have you got planned for the week?

I'm sure somewhere, in a previous post, I mentioned something vague about doing a monthly update for the goals I posted for the Year of 2010. This is the problem with long term goals, I post them in January and then I have the whole year to work on them. And since I have mastered the art of procrastination, and a year is a very long time to a procrastinator, I tend not to feel any urgency towards working on those goals.

However, that being said, I do have an update.

Just as a reminder, my big goals were: 1. design a book database, 2. organize my poetry, 3. lose 30 pounds by August, 4. read 52 books, and 5. find a job. And, to keep myself honest, my little goals were: figure out Twitter, figure out my iPod, and journal on a regular basis.

So, how am I doing so far?

1. Design a book database. Have not designed the book database, but I did begin an Excel spread sheet to catalogue the husband's vinyl record collection. One shelf done (450 entries), two more to go. I want to do the book records in Access so I don't forget how to use it. That's the problem with a lot of these programs. If you don't use it on a regular basis then you forget how.

2. Organize my poetry. I have rather a lot of it and it was the only way I could keep track of it all. I typed out about 20 or so poems that I didn't have on the computer, and then printed out the whole works to neatly store in a binder. New poems get printed out as I finish them and added to the collection. Now I have both a hard copy and a computer copy of all my poems and I can pencil notes on the hard copies (things like where I've sent them and whether or not I've read them to the CPW).

3. Lose 30 pounds. Not doing so great in this department. I've only lost a couple of pounds so far, not that I've been working real hard on it. It might help if I'd get off my lazy butt and get some exercise, but . . . Sorry, dozed off for a minute there. :-) Actually, I have several workout VHS/DVDs that I've been considering, I just have to settle on one and start doing it without thinking about it so much. Or maybe I can just pick a different one to do each day for the variety. Hmm. That actually might work . . .

4. Read 52 books. Okay, so when I set that goal I seriously underestimated my reading addiction. The side bar shows I've read 11, but it's more like 14 so far, I just haven't got around to changing it. There's only so many hours in a day for self-indulgence so I've substituted reading for computer games. So far I have to admit I'm not missing the games so much.

5. Find a job. Working on it. Seriously working on it. I've decided that although working takes a big chunk out of the day, I'm happier working than not working. For me, having too much free time is a bad thing.

As for the little goals: still clueless about Twitter; have official charged up my iPod using the connecting cable to my lap top; and have made a couple of entries in my journal, but not on what you might call a regular basis.

Considering this is only the second month of the year, I'd say I haven't done too badly.

This scene is from a fantasy novel I toyed around with writing years ago. In this scene, the warrior Brand (who wields the Hellsword of blood and amber) has rescued a girl named Laurel from a temple where she was about to be sacrificed. They’re in the midst of escaping when things get interesting.

* * * * * * * * * *

At last they reached the pass. Moonlight lit the landscape with startling clarity. There was a bitter edge to the air that had not been present before. Brand looked back at the temple.

A fringe of torches shone along the top of the outer wall. Five figures were outlined in the flickering light, arms raised in supplication. The wizard priests.

Laurel was paralyzed with fear. Brand dragged her forcibly into the pass, ignoring the wind and swirling snow that built up around them. He fought to keep his footing. The deeper into the pass they travelled the stronger the winds that rose against them. Unseen fingers plucked at their clothing. Voices shrieked in discordance to the howling wind. Sinuous, wraith-like tendrils sought to hold them back. The ice spirits rose to their masters’ commands.

Brand finally drew his sword and tried to hack his way through. The shrieking rose in pitch. The swirling snakes of white became even more frenzied, tearing Laurel from his one-handed grip.

Using his teeth, he tore the glove off his free hand and then gripped the blade of the Hellsword with it.

“May the twin gods accept my blood,” he beseeched, slicing downwards with the amber blade.

An icy chill ran down Brand’s spine as nothing happened. The ice spirits left off their attack and blocked the throat of the pass in a writhing, screaming mass. A flicker from the red core of the amber blade travelled outward. Power flowed from the hilt into Brand, suffusing him with warm energy. The sword shimmered and burst into a brilliant yellow flame.

Snow hissed as it met the flames. The swirling mass before him coalesced, separating into three wavering forms, swelling in size. The snow demons, guardians of the pass, took on solidity.

Brand swept his sword down in a flaming arc. He slashed the foremost demon, severing its arm. The thing drew back with a deafening screech while the other two closed in. They were cumbersome, unused to corporeal form, but what they lacked in agility they made up for in size and sheer strength.

He ducked as one enormous paw swiped at his head and from a crouched position stabbed upwards. The point of the flaming blade entered the creature’s eye, sending it into a frenzy. Claws formed on the flailing paw that caught Brand on the shoulder, sending him careening into the side of the pass.

Brand recovered his footing, and tried to ignore the pain in his shoulder. The snow demons circled him. He slashed with the flaming sword but the creatures, growing used to their solid form, were always just out of his reach.

One struck from behind, slashing Brand’s sword arm. He staggered, nearly dropped the sword, and quickly changed hands. He thrust the flaming sword deep into the nearest creature’s chest. There was an explosion of wind and snow as the power of the sword cancelled out the magic of the wizard-priests.

Pressing his advantage, he closed in on the remaining creatures. His breath was ragged and the pain from his injuries was numbing. The wind picked up, bringing more ice spirits. They launched their own assault on Brand, blocking his vision, pulling at the arm holding the sword. Despite them, he managed to deflect a blow to his head and destroyed another snow demon.

With an ear-splitting shriek the ice spirits drew back, creating a fountain of snow and wind. The fountain grew and joined with the remaining guardian. The creature swelled in size, absorbing the essence of the ice spirits.

Brand retreated. The newly formed snow demon towered over him, clawed hands clenching and unclenching. The scream that issued from the thing’s mouth shook the sides of the pass. A mighty swipe of its arm sent Brand reeling to one side.

Even as he hit the ground Brand rolled to avoid the tread of the enormous feet above him. Despite the unearthly cold he was slick with sweat, unnaturally warm. He swung the flaming sword, gouging the demon’s leg. It did no more than enrage the creature further.

Brand staggered to his feet again. The demon picked up a block of ice and hurled it at him. Another followed, catching him on his injured shoulder. With a cry he went down once more. Before he could catch his breath the creature was above him, a triumphant scream sending loose snow down the walls of the pass.

The angle was bad, but it was the only chance Brand had. Levering himself up on his bad arm he hurled the sword at the creature. The massive explosion of wind and snow knocked him flat again. He was for the first time grateful for the mask protecting his face. When he could see again, the pass was clear and Laurel was helping him to his feet.

The Official Fight Scene Blogfest

You’ve seen the Kissing Blogfest; you seen the No-Kissing Blogfest; now get ready, on February 1 Mireyah Wolfe is sponsoring the Fight Scene Blogfest.

Here’s what to do to join in the fun:

In the next 1 week, write a blog post about the Fight Scene Blogfest to spread the word.

Post a link to your blog in the McLinky at the bottom of the post HERE so we can all jump to your blog and devour your Fight Scene!

Tweet about it if you have a twitter. The hashtag should be #FSBlogfest

Not a story writer? Find your favorite movie/tv/book fight scene. The one that had you on the edge of your seat and wincing when a blow landed.

Now, to inspire you, here’s the best sword fight EVER!

Yes, I know “scribish” isn’t a real word, but this is my blog and given the nature of this post I thought it fit nicely in the title.

Last night I attended my second meeting of the Northumberland Scribes, which is the local writing group I mentioned over on the Random Thoughts blog. There were a few familiar faces and it was nice to also see a bunch of new faces. The more the merrier!

If you happen to be in the Northumberland County area (that’s in Ontario, in case you were wondering) come join the fun. I’m putting a permanent link to the website over in the right hand side bar.

The website is a bit of an ongoing thing – it was one of the things we discussed last night. As in, how we could improve it. There’s a few short pieces posted over there and a couple of bios, hopefully more will be added in the coming days so check it out from time to time.

Our writing prompt for the night was LBD. When we first got this prompt, two weeks ago, no one could figure out what it was. Some of the suggestions were a little out there and we had fun discussing the possibilities.

Once I got home from the meeting, a Google search came up with several ideas: Little Bitch Disorder; Library Book Discussion; Lewy Body Dementia; Lesbian Bed Death . . . In the end I went with the most common definition of LBD – Little Black Dress.

The idea was to keep it around 150 words. Here’s what I came up with:

* * * * * * * * * *

Little Black Dress

I knew, the minute I saw this little black dress in the store window, that I had to have it. It’s perfect - not too flashy, not too understated.

Of course I also knew what you’d have to say about it, which is why I hid it in the back of my closet. Looking back, I suppose I should have known you went through my closet on a regular basis; after all you made sure you checked out everything else, didn’t you?

I have to tell you, I didn’t appreciate the way you threw around accusations and innuendo. I did not pay for it by whoring around and I did not buy it to go catting around town in. I bought it for this very special occasion.

So goodbye, dearly departed husband. The marriage counselor always told you that one day you’d push me too far. Turns out he was right.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now, here’s my challenge to you. I want you to come up with your own 150 story about LBD and post it in the comments. C’mon, you know you want to! I won’t even make you stick with the Little Black Dress. Your LBD can be whatever you want it to be.

Some men see things as they are and ask, “Why?” I dream things that never were and ask, “Why not?” George Bernard Shaw

A long time ago (and we’re talking a very long time ago), someone I was very close to told me I was nothing but a dreamer. At the time, the comment hurt. It was a careless comment made to a child, and yet it stuck with me for years.

But is being “just a dreamer” really such a bad thing?

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was inspired by a dream.

In the summer of 1816, nineteen-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her lover, the poet Percy Shelley (whom she married later that year), visited the poet Lord Byron at his villa beside Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Stormy weather frequently forced them indoors, where they and Byron's other guests sometimes read from a volume of ghost stories. One evening, Byron challenged his guests to each write one themselves.

Mary's story, inspired by a dream, became Frankenstein.

"When I placed my head upon my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think... I saw -- with shut eyes, but acute mental vision -- I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous Creator of the world.
...I opened mine in terror. The idea so possessed my mind, that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. ...I could not so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still it haunted me. I must try to think of something else. I recurred to my ghost story -- my tiresome, unlucky ghost story! O! if I could only contrive one which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night!"

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, from her introduction to Frankenstein

* * * * * * * * * *

The novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) described dreams as occurring in "that small theater of the brain which we keep brightly lighted all night long."

Stevenson said of his now classic novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it was "conceived, written, re-written, re-re-written, and printed inside ten weeks" in 1886. And was conceived in a dream as he describes:

"For two days I went about racking my brains for a plot of any sort; and on the second night I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterward split in two, in which Hyde, pursued for some crime, took the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his pursuers."

His wife related picturesquely how one night Louis cried out horror-stricken, how she woke him up and he protested, "Why did you waken me? I was dreaming a fine bogy-tale!" She also related how he appeared the next morning excitedly exclaiming, "I have got my schilling-shocker -- I have got my schilling-shocker!"

Stevenson wrote extensively about how his passion for writing interacted with his remarkable dreams and said that, from an early age, his dreams were so vivid and moving that they were more entertaining to him personally than any literature. He learned early in his life that he could dream complete stories and that he could even go back to the same dreams on succeeding nights to give them a different ending. Later he trained himself to remember his dreams and to dream plots for his books.

* * * * * * * * * *

Novelist Stephen King describes how dreams affect his writings in an interview with UK reporter Stan Nicholls:

Nicholls: "If the inspiration for Misery didn't come from a real-life incident, where did it come from?"

King: "Like the ideas for some of my other novels, that came to me in a dream. In fact, it happened when I was on Concord, flying over here, to Brown's. I fell asleep on the plane, and dreamt about a woman who held a writer prisoner and killed him, skinned him, fed the remains to her pig and bound his novel in human skin. His skin, the writer's skin. I said to myself, 'I have to write this story.' Of course, the plot changed quite a bit in the telling. But I wrote the first forty or fifty pages right on the landing here, between the ground floor and the first floor of the hotel."

"Another time, when I got road-blocked in my novel It, I had a dream about leeches inside discarded refrigerators. I immediately woke up and thought, 'That is where this is supposed to go.' Dreams are just another part of life. To me, it's like seeing something on the street you can use in your fiction. You take it and plug it right in. Writers are scavengers by nature."

* * * * * * * * * *

So there you have it. Yes, I confess. I am a dreamer. And proud of it!

This post is appearing both on Random Thoughts and Random Writings. I'll tell you why further down.

Seeing as I was able to do my serial chapter without the use of my lap top, I guess there's no excuse for not doing my promised post about this year's goals, is there?

I'm going to remind myself that the temporary loss of my lap top isn't all bad. It gave me time to get the Christmas stuff put away and the house back in order, I got some more reading done, and I got a lot of editing done. Well, maybe not a lot of editing, but more than I would have otherwise.

I've improved, over the last year, in setting goals for myself. Starting out Mondays with a set of goals for the week certainly helps to keep me focused, and accountable because the following Monday I fess up as to whether or not I've met my goals.

Herein lies my problem setting goals for the whole year. December 31 is a long way away, at least it seems that way right now. So how can I make sure I'm staying on track when I've got a whole year to work on this list?

Hence, the reason this is getting posted on both my writing blogs. I'm going to add a monthly feature to my Random Writings to show how I'm doing when it comes to achieving my goals for the year. At the first of every month I'll do a post about my Long Term Goals and how they're coming.

Okay, now on with the list (in no particular order):

Design a book database
Yeah, I know there's a lot of pre-designed databases out there, but I like Microsoft Access and if you don't use a program, you lose it. And I don't want to lose it. Once the database is done I want to spend part of every Saturday catalgouing my books. There's a lot of them and it would be nice to be able to keep track of them.

Organize my poetry
At first I was thinking of a database for this as well, but a lot of my shorter poems aren't named, so I'm not sure how that would work. I just realized the other day that by doing a new form of poetry every week, that gives me 52 new poems each year. I've also been doing at least one poem a month for my poetry group. Add to that the poems I've written over the years before this and it adds up to a lot of poetry. I need to get these poems organized and maybe even submit some of them. I'm thinking they need to be printed off and put in a binder and then I can make notations on them as to where (and when) they've been sent.

Lose 30 pounds by August
Okay, truthfully, I'd like to lose a lot more than 30 pounds, but thirty seems like a nice, round number. Why by August? 'Cause I will be reading my poetry, in public, on August 18. Being thirty pounds lighter will be a nice boost to my confidence.

Actually finish one of my novels
I have three full drafts finished. Time to fish or cut bait. I'm starting with my first NaNo novel, Driving Into Forever. I've been pretty unfocused when it comes to my fiction writing in the past, letting myself get distracted too easily, working on multiple projects and getting nothing done on any of them. I'd like to say that I'll have my edits done on DIF by the summer so I can start submitting by the fall, but it's a real mess, so I won't know for sure until I get further into it. But yeah, the goal is to get this sucker finished and out there this year.

Read 52 Books
Lost Wanderer did a post HERE challenging all comers to keep a record of what they're reading for the year. The idea is to set a goal of the number of books you'll read for the year and then keep track of them. My ongoing list is in the sidebar, with links to my book blog where I'll tell you a little bit more about them.

Find a job
This might seem counter-productive in the realm of writing, but I need a job. I need to be able to eat and pay my bills. VISA and Mastercard would really like me to get my cards back under their limits. The town would really like us to be able to start paying off our back taxes so they don't have to take our house (we'd really like this too!). And the truth of the matter is, I'm more productive when I don't have a lot of time on my hands. Does that make sense? I was off work for a year before I started back to school and looking back I find it down right embarrassing, the amount of time I wasted. I started back to school in May and by April I was doing the PAD challenge with my poetry, joined a poetry group, started taking my writing more seriously. I won the NaNo challenge in November, despite my heavy course-load. The draft I ended up with was the cleanest one yet. I can only hope that a job will allow me to relax (financially) and enjoy my writing even more.

Little Goals
Figure out Twitter - yes, I'm a bona fide Twit now. My screen name is MysteMaker - I tried many variations of my real name but they were all taken. So were all the cool writing related names. I settled on MysteMaker because the Myste is an important part of my first, finished, draft novel and, well, I made it up so I'm the Maker. :-) I've been on Twitter a couple of times since I joined and I'm still very confused. This is one of the things I need to work on.

Figure out my iPod - my wonderful husband gave me an iPod for Christmas two years ago and I have yet to use it. Right now it's still got all the music on it from the daughter's wedding (we used it instead of a DJ). What I'd like to do is get her music off of it, and load music from my CD collection onto it. The reason I'd asked for an iPod in the first place was to use it on the midnight shift where I was working. Only just after I got it, they got rid of the midnight shift. D'oh! When I'm in the living room with my lap top, I have the T.V. on; when I'm in my office I have a CD player. Hence, the reason I've never really sat down to figure my iPod out. I'm hoping that having something to listen to might inspire me to get out walking more.

Journal on a regular basis - it's really feast or famine when it comes to my journaling. I recently tried amalgamately my writing journal into my daily journal to inspire me, but the experiment has not gone as well as I'd hope. This is something I'd like to work on in the new year. Maybe not daily entries, but try to update it at least once a week.

So there you have it. My plan for 2010.

I might mention here that I've been crying moaning whining mentioning the streak of bad luck I've had lately. I declare the streak ended and that today officially starts the new year. What better day to start than the anniversary of my birth? :-)