There are many wonderful reasons to keep a journal. Today I looked up the last time that I quit coffee, how long it was before I felt I could function without a persistent state of fugue. Ten days. I'm currently in the salivating daydream place about it where I'm fighting the desire to take my last dollar (seriously) and go downstairs and get a latte of some sort. I looked at pictures of cappuccinos yesterday and they made me swoon. That frothy goodness? Yes please, do want.

And it doesn't help that I know exactly how good it'd be after a few days without.

/glares at stomach lining and wants to know when it'll be better.

I'm not rationalizing here, but I do think the self inflicted injury will be repaired tomorrow, and give it another day after that and I should be able to start with the responsible indulgences of chemicals. Starch first before anything harsh. Buy yogurt. Stay away from the sugars and fats for another few weeks, well, the bad fats. PRobably no meat for another week.

Just typing that made me really want a steak. At least I don't have to feel guilty about being expensive to feed right now, potatoes, rice, pasta, and water.

And now thanks to Wave, I've finally gotten Jake to brainstorm about Christmas, so going to post this and switch computers.

Rough draft is el completo. I shall work hard to not read it immediately so I don't hate myself and all my terrible writing, I must needs write other things now! I'm so behind schedule!

In other news: I'm currently not drinking caffeine and its killing me. So, fine, maybe my irresponsible caffeine habits are what was killing me, but my stomach did that bleeding thing it does again and yeah. Its only been two days, but now that I'm over my chemical poisoning (by way of stomach bleeding letting chemicals of bad go directly into the bloodstream) I'm really feeling the lack of coffee in my life. I want it so badly. Badly!

Next on my "to write" list, is a short story inspired by my faction change of my paladin. I've actually started it, but it hasn't exactly developed, mostly because I'm not sure what the story part is.

I averaged 1339 words a day in the month of November. If I'd just written 800 words on all the days I didn't write a thing I would have been far over quota. And I averaged 2k words on the days that I did write. I totally found out that that's about all the creativity I have in me in bursts, almost each day once I hit that point I started getting the tapped out feeling. Sometimes I perservered, like when at the gym, but mostly I gave in.

God I want some coffee. Or tea, or even a soda, no, not a soda, I'm not that desperate.

Right, so I'm behind with my other writing chores. Must submit finished short story, must write Foi's story, must come up with another story to write! (Ima be a short story creating fool you see!) and must start work on finishing Novel I started this summer. I'll give that a few days though before diving back into it.

Here's a question: What are good fantasy books that don't involve a journey?

Oh, and Pixies? Good. Waaay better than a couple years ago, and really everything I'd have wanted from their sound. Unfortunately the opening band tried to deafen us. Jay Reatard, and gawd, some of their songs I might have liked if it hadn't of been for so much unnecessary noise, but as it was that's all they were, way too loud and unnecessary and only an excuse of music. The Pixies though, I was a bit worried that Black and Joey were angry to be on tour, I was happy to see them finally smile at the end, maybe they were just glad that it was finally over? Kim and David seemed to be having a blast. She does have a good grin. Yeah, good show.

Maybe a little bit of coffee won't hurt me? I did eat some rice a few hours ago. Also, hey, I finished a book draft! That's like worth celebrating!

it's not going to be pretty, and its not going to be 50k words, but!

I did have 40166 yesterday, which is pretty darn good! I was hoping to write another 2k but a bunch of issues got in the way, (like, I forgot I had a Pixies concert to go to)

I'm thinking draft #2 will be closer to 60k, and maybe draft #3 around 75, which is actually bordering a bit too long for the market I see enjoying it.

Conflicting emotions are funny. I'm disappointed in myself at not meeting the NaNoWriMo goal, but I'm also excited at how much I did do.

For now though, the book must go on!

The first spiral notebook was created in 1934.




Fun Dwarven name random Generator (hey, if in doubt of what to name your dwarf, do some research! Also I never liked Gimli for boys, maybe that's because half my warcraft characters end in an I)

http://grey-starr.ca/Tools/random-male-dwarf-name.htm


lessee, what else have I looked up. eBay prices for vintage electronics.

So, as a very bad writer I didn't do anything this weekend on the story. Very bad. Saturday I sorta wasn't feeling well, long story I actually blame the tea. Tea had been my crutch in my huge burst of writing, it worked great! It was a very pleasant herbal that I'd thought might esscape all my other problems with tea. So sure, until my kidneys started feeling like they wanted to shut down. Very unpleasant. And yes, not having tea was then an excuse. For lack of a muse or any real desire I like creating fake muses to drive me onward. Tea worked! Now I just have to rely upon myself. Fine.

Unfortunately, this means I'm so far behind quota that its looking chancier that I'll make it, especially with Thanksgiving coming up. Everything that I have to do plus write three thousand words tomorrow sorta makes me panic. Panic solves nothing though, so I just do stuff. Don't think, just do, and it can get done.

33151 / 50000 words. 66% done!

Issues issues, lots of issues. But at least they were words right? I took yesterday off, I didn't mean to, but it was Jake's birthday and the only thing I could really do was clean the house for him, so that's what I spent the afternoon doing. The apartment is awfully nice when its clean. We had quite a pleasant evening, unfortunately when the time for sleep came it wound up being a two hour fight of sad. Which makes me feel pretty darn terrible. I had to work hard at forcing myself to even get out of bed, much less to any productivity. But I managed, and on the surface today is no different.

30245 / 50000 words. 60% done!

That's what happens when you start blazing into new territory I guess.

I can't decide if I'm looking forward to the revision process or dreading it. Oh I know, I'm mostly skeptical that it'll happen. Which means I'm being too optimistic I'll finish a rough draft at this point. I mean, optimism is all good and well, but I have too long of a history of never finishing anything to believe in it. Except I do.

Its kinda funny, what is you ask? I'll be delighted to tell you! When I'm in a good mood, its okay that I don't do all the things that make me feel worthwhile. But when I'm in a sad mood, all those little things are proof that I'm worthless.

For now I have a word count to make me feel better. Oh, and a phone interview scheduled for tomorrow, that helps too.

28019 / 50000 words. 56% done!

I'm half done!

25969 / 50000 words. 52% done!

half done!

Other landmarks: Seven days in a row of writing. huzzah! Seven! That's like a lot! It's just one more from my previous record, but still!

This is the most I've written on one story. Making me more excited at the idea that I might actually finish a long work one day.

Lessee, I'm only 2400 words behind my quota, which is awfully close I think. I've averaged 1528 a day this month.

no really

Make Chevy Chase QUIT LOOKING LIKE MY FATHER.

Its freaking me out the older Chase gets.

Seriously.

22393 / 50000 words. 45% done!


its not great, but its something.

Fall is here, and its delicious. Time for soups, and roasts, pots of tea, and simmering mulled wine upon the stove.

Also, the writing continues. Yay for me!

20500 / 50000 words. 41% done!


I haven't actually decided what to make for dinner yet. Probably seared pork chops with cilantro lime butter and roasted red potatoes. Or maybe a salad. Nah, I should do the salad tomorrow with soup and sirloin tips. So many decisions!

I met my personal quota for the day. I wanted to have written more but those words were hard wrung, there's no magic in them right now. Its funny because I recognize this period as what I can now call the post 15k blahs. And now I just gotta keep writing until I get out of it and hope the second draft will fix it all. Or third.

But! good things!

First of all, as long as I'm meeting goals like minimum quota I feel better about myself and I can say I'm not really as depressed or as much of a failure as I think that I am. Because I am. And a little crazy. Okay, maybe more than a little. Thing is, there's just a few things and if I dealt with them life would be fine inside my head. Yes so I'm repeating patterns of avoidance I know I can recognize going back as far as first grade. So what. I'm writing yay!

Word count for the month is 18221. Which is almost twice as much as from last November. so go me! But its just a little above what my word count was by the 13th of last month. But, I've had more creative original output in the # of days actually trying than ever before. Overall I'm feeling good. So I must be in the happy optimistic place of bi polar. If only either side of my pendulum actually dealth with problems. I gotta work on that.

Maybe its because I grew up in a bubble, or maybe I'm just contrary and stubborn but I'm really really bad at the giving and receiving of apologies.

I'm in the middle of a little tiff online. Unfortunately we've been unable to discuss it rationally so far, mostly because I'm not interested in bending, and her buttons are so easy to press.

That makes it sound like I'm being antagonistic, I'm not. Mostly.

I lead Saturday night raids and we've been having an issue with the last encounter. Several people were being very down on several others, ridiculously so. Saying that we couldn't do it because of a few failboats.

First I need to point out that few in the raid were being perfect, including the loudest people claiming we should give up. Well, it's my raid, I started getting mad at people saying we should give up, they were stating it in an authoratative tone, like they got to call it. Jake included. No, they don't get to make decisions for the group like that.  The massive amount of negativity wafting from a few individuals was making everyone feel bad about the raid and I needed it to stop. And I said so pretty much, I called all three out telling them they don't get to say that.

Jake apologized and said I was right. A second person shut up. (this is all vocal interface by the way)

A third took it to tells (keep in mind a ton of other stuff is going on as we're setting up for another attempt)

<girl> You know me, I'm willing to wipe all night, I just don't think we can do it and its starting to not be fun
<me> I just don't appreciate your negativity right now
<girl> I'm trying to have a rational conversation with you and this is what I get!
<me> if you don't want to stay, then don't stay, I just need to know what you're doing
<girl> fuck you

She then tells everyone that she's leaving and goes.

I replace her. Very quickly in fact. To be fair, she mostly says it nicely out loud to the group. But she tells her friends that I kicked her from the raid, to which I am then dealing with tells about that. I find out she wants to call me out publicly for being a bitch, oh and then later when she calms down attributes the entire thing to "girl egos". 

I don't even know what girl egos means, and yet that statement is what actually infuriates me about all of it. By her thinking that she's completely invalidating any point I might have. I don't even understand it quite frankly.  Is she writing me off because that way she doesn't have to deal with the idea that maybe she did something wrong? She wasn't having fun, she left, that isn't a big deal and it doesn't have to be big drama. Of course it always is. Last time I told someone to go if they needed to go (they were complaining that the raid took too long) they quit raiding all together over it.

By the way, I know it looks like I'm skipping things in the conversation with her, but I'm not. I swear that's the extent of it. I admit, I know by telling someone that they should go is tantamount to kicking them. I knew it at the time. And even though it created a host of new problems it did solve the problems of the moment.

Nothing happens Sunday and Monday, honestly, our paths don't cross that often in game.

Last night I'm healing a group in a VERY intensive (for a healer) encounter and she sends me a tell:

<girl> I don't want something like this to be in the way of our friendship, so I want to apologize. 
silence as I don't have time to type back to her
<girl> so we can just move on, are we good?
<me> I'm not really ready to talk yet, but we want to pretend that nothing ever happened, I can do that.
<girl> No! that's not what I'm saying. It happened.
<me> But I don't think you understand what I think you did wrong to apologize for
<girl> I try to be big about this and apologize and you throw it in my face! Fuck you!
<me> As long as you think that's a logical response


/sigh.

I'm not in the right here, and I know it.

Mostly though, you can see why I don't have superficial friendships. This is a person I chat to now and then online, that's not like, real.  I don't care about her. But because I don't care I should have accepted the blanket apology for what it was and just moved on until the next time. But, I don't think I can say that I'm sorry. The only thing that I'm sorry for is letting people think they could make decisions like that for my raid. I know I haven't been very dictorial, but that'll change. I gave up control so I shouldn't have gotten frustrated when I didn't have it. That's what I'm sorry for. The rest? I don't even care. Except to puzzle out human interactions, because they're a mystery.

NaNoWriMo is going well so far. It helps that I have a story to tell in which just rushing through I'm sure will be more than 50,000 words. I confess, I didn't write Sunday or Monday, but I didn't let getting off on the wrong foot stop me. That's something I'm continually getting better at over the years, not letting procrastination and embarrassment win. Most of the time anyway. There's still a few things that I need to work on.

But so yeah, its at over eight thousand words right now, this revision might be the hardest to imagine when the time comes, because ofhow many places I'm doing "telling". I suppose that's my personal gimmick. There are a lot of tips out there on how to pummel through and get a first draft written and I think mine is, "don't worry if you're telling."  Sometimes when I notice it I think I should make a note of it so I know to go back and fix it later, but when I start getting into the analysis that begins to paralyze the writing.

Meanwhile my hunter is desperately trying to find herself an Onyxia 25 group, I believe I've become unhealthfully obsessed in this regard, except that it doesn't require a lot of conscious effort on my part, mostly I'm just keeping an eye out and hoping magic happens.

I saw something Sunday that made me wish I had my camera. I actually did have my camera, it was just in my purse which was in my duffle bag in the back seat, and I was the one driving so it seemed inconvenient to try and dig it out, even though the car wasn't moving at the time.

A pink dump truck.

We'd been forced off the interstate, apparently all lanes were closed and we were traveling up route 1, stopped at a light and there it was off tot eh right, a totally pink dump truck.

Its things like that for which you're supposed to carry your camera around. Stuff like that I want to capture and remember. I'll have to be satisfied with my words I suppose.

I'm doing well at writing.

Not as well as I'd like, and unfortunately not everything is a gleaming jewel on the page. Also I still haven't written every day nor have I met my hopeful goal, much less I haven't done all my other projects and tasks that I set for myself. But I try. Which feels good.

Jake took my laptop with him today, and I'm struggling to write without my gimmick. It works you know, training yourself to be in a writing mindset with certain environments. Like why I could do homework at my desk, and yeah.

Anyways, I'm trying to make myself work on the new novel idea without the files and set up. And 1000 words so far. (I set that as my break point, and look at what I'm doing! Posting here!)

I both dread and look forward to the revision process. Assuming I get this finished its more than one novel.  But I'm still figuring so much out as I go that its going to be fun going back and fixing it for consistency. Oh right, idea is, I think the other books if I ever write them will be easier.

I wonder if its harder to sell multiple books as a novice author? But that kind of speculation is whatcha call counting chicks afore they hatch.


And now I'm procrastinating writing this post, which means I best go back to procrastinating this story instead.

It officially passed the word count of last years novel attempt by the way. So yay me!
It's at over 100 paperback pages now.

Gah, mentioning the last novel attempt. I STILL have no idea what on earth it was about. IS about I mean. IS. I mean, I sorta know, but I can't for the life of me figure out how the protagonist escapes nor what happens next. I wrote her in too good of a trap. But considering it took me over ten years to figure out what this particular idea was about I guess I shouldn't hurry it too much.

What I'd like to know, is what happens with Axsister and Wolfbrother. I can still so totally see that world, and the magic and lore is really easy to tap into but I have no idea. I guess I should just write my way into it.

But after this story.

And

After I write the one about a person traveling around the country meeting her online friends.  That's my NaNoWriMo idea this year. I need to plot it out soon, that's in two weeks.

Oh my god.

Watching the sixth episode of Season 3 of Mad Men, and oh my god. That might be the most horrifying scene I've seen on a television show.
( hidden in case you watch but haven't yet )

Of course, Joan is still pretty awesome.

Does anyone who reads this recall me posting anything about a book called Mockingbird? By Sean Stewart? I remember WRITING it, and I wanted to revise it and put it in my book review collection, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Yes, yes, I know that's what tags are for. But either I didn't tag it or I didn't post it, or I'm just blind. I definitely remember writing it though. I'm going to be quite grouchy with myself if I never posted it and lost it instead.

 

11120 / 75000 words. 15% done!

This is a story I actually first started back in 1996 and have been thinking about ever since. Its already obvious to me that its epic. In the last week I not only leaped, but flew above all the blocks that had been stumping me. That's actually quite encouraging! It means I WILL figure out all the stories eventually!


hmm, maybe I like this meter better.





I'm still sticking with 75000 as my target, for two reasons. One, I know when I revise I'll go back and add a LOT of stuff, and two, my spreadsheet is already all formula'd out for that. Sure in retrospect I shoulda written it where I coulda just plugged in one variable (goal) and the rest would work itself out from there, but I didn't.

I do hope I stick with it. I'm sure I can get at least 25000 words out of what's in my head right now. And I've already figured out the end, and some more of the middle. It really does help when you know the end already. In fact, I've already written what I currently imagine as the last scene. Gives me something to be writing towards, and it makes filling in the pieces seem more like revision than creativity.  Ideally I'd like to be done with this draft by the end of the month. And then let it sit for a month before revising it. So, my optimistic goal is to start sharing it come the new year. After some feedback and another revision I can say I finally have my first unpublished novel. But I think that's like counting chickens out of scrambled eggs, so ima try to refrain from doing that. And instead go and apply for some more jobs or something.

The Black Jewels
a trilogy by Anne Bishop

With a touch of superficiality and a writing style I can only term amateurish, Bishop has managed to write a book that I have never read before. 

Its fantasy, complete with magic and unicorns. But this is not a pretty world. Power is abused, and magic makes the users hungry for everything, sex especially. Now add in a long lived races and you have centuries of abuse and torture to warp minds and ruin societies.

Her world building is very thought out, if undeveloped in complexity. As an example, the "magic" rankings are jewels bestowed upon the users at times of passage, and they are simply ranked by color. In theory its light to dark, but you'll find that doesn't necessary apply. Also the names are mix and match, you have White, Black, Red, Sapphire, Opal, Purple Dusk, Summer Sky, Green .... you see? The darker the Jewel, the more deeper your well of power. The deeper your well, the more powerful you are from someone else, and there are threads of that "color" throughout the world. You can build a gray shield that only gray or darker can go through. Its .... its very similiar to some world building I did in ninth grade.

Society is stratified, not only be power, but race, and most importantly, gender. Women rule, men serve.  And those men that don't want to serve are forced to wear obedience rings. (Guess where these rings are worn, go on, I dare you) It continued to surprise me how Bishop sidestepped irritating me with the oversexed society. Every time I wanted to hate something she did, and her mindset by proxy, she changed it and made it rational for their world and okay with me.

We start centuries after the last Queen has died, and centuries before the next one will be born. Queens are women who wear the darkest, the Black Jewels. With races who live for milenium, (and then much longer as the undead) what's a short wait give or take a decade. The books tell the story of this Queen who is born and her life.  We follow the family who wait for her, then protect and care for her as she goes about fixing the world, or trying to.

I love that dark is power, and power is not inherently evil. Even when wielded by those, such as Saetan the overlord of Hell, (of of the three realms). Being a vampire is not pretty, but it doesn't strip one of their soul, they have the same choices they did when alive, and evil is found in any realm, in the mortal and immortal alike.

I actually really liked these, and I do suggest they be read by anyone that wants to read a lightweight epic dark fantasy.


**

I made the mistake of reading two more books set in the same world after the trilogy. It angered me to the point where I'm likely never going to read any of her books again. All of the bits I was impressed with were pretty much ruined. She even says, "The great battle has been won, but life goes on." The story has been told, she has nothing worthwhile to tell about these people anymore, it devolved into trite stories heavy on gender differences and sexism diguised as chivalry. Yet, I can still see why she wrote them. If anyone doesn't mind romance novels and believes in most of the socialized genderfication in our own culture, then you'll have no problem with these. Well, unless you want an actual plot and stuff, its still missing that.

We've gotten rid of television.

Except, that, we haven't _really_. We disconnected the cable box and its been sitting in Jake's trunk for the lats month. Its been strange, I didn't realize how often I just sit in front of the television to waste time.

At night we watch Buffy and Angel.  We're on six and three respectively.  Last night we finally got to the long anticipated musical.  It's quite interesting how amateurish it is next to Dr. Horrible. I know part of the problem is for Buffy he was stuck with the cast and couldn't find people who could actually sing. But Whedon has learned so much about timing in the intervening years, and blending the music better with the dialogue.  Or just blending music, he's learned a lot about mixing sound since then. It was also good for me to see how Jake reacts to bad singing that's so much better than mine, it made me feel better a little bit. 

I've been watching an episode of something for lunch each day. I know it only takes me a few minutes to eat and then I'm somewhat trapped for the next hour. But one of the great things about watching television on the computer is how easy it is to multitask, such as right now.  I have a difficult time sitting still watching alone, I get bored even when I'm interested.   I think I require more interaction.  But what I really want is interaction that's deeper and more of television. Which is why I don't like reading when tv's on, or playing computers.  I'm not doing a good job of explaining it.


I'm in love with Kings. Absolutely in love with it. Of all the television out there that I like right now, its my favorite. .I could eat it all and still be hungry for more.  Right now I'm totally loving the new episode of Dollhouse.  


Also, I need to visit more airplane hangars, or any really, they're always so squeaky clean white on television, which I'm skeptical of.