49 pages and nearly 19,000 words of a novel.
I’ve hit what a runner might call a wall. My inner editor is lighting into me and I’m suddenly taken with serious doubts.
What do you do when you feel unsure?
NaBloPoMo #23/#20 Oh Dear… Monday, Nov 23 2009
NaBloPoMo and writing NaBloPoMo, odds and ends, writing 1:38 pm
I’ve quite let the BloPosting ball drop eh? Well, it’s my first year, I’ll learn.
As I type, a herd of men in dirty jeans and neon yellow jackets are applying asphalt to the parking lots of our condo. Condo-owners rejoice! Not only that, but we’re getting designated parking spots with special tags so nobody can park in our spots. Take that, Sorority Girl’s Boyfriend and BFF!
It’s the little things.
I don’t have much of a topic for today. The weekend was a nice mix of fun and relaxing – great dinner party on Friday night, complete with a True Crime story, working on Christmas gifties Saturday, and shopping yesterday with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for Christmas during which I was purchased a glorious pair of boots and a sweater-coat that I will be dreaming of until the 25th.
I finished my current book last night, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, one of his YA offerings. The end is a little bittersweet, but it’s a really lovely book. Besides adoring Gaiman’s writing and ideas, I love how Tori Amos shows up in the notes – he wrote part of this book at her house in Ireland and there’s a line from one of her songs in there, too. Srsly. Can I please be BFFs with Neil and Tori?
That’s all for now.
NaBloPoMo #18 – New Moon, Old Moon, It’s Still Trite Drivel Thursday, Nov 19 2009
Books and NaBloPoMo and writing bad writing, Dear God make Twilight go away, NaBloPoMo, sparkle, stupid books, Twilight, vampires, writing 1:54 am
Seriously, Dear Readers.
I am so very over Twilight, the Twi-hards, Teams Edward and Whatshisface, the cloyingly ironically named Bella, and Robert Pattinson’s grunge hang-up.
Is this what is was like for Harry Potter non-fans? Dude. Sorry. But I am pretty sure I didn’t try to cram the Potterverse DOWN YOUR EVER-LOVING THROAT.
I just have one request. Let me hate Sparkly McVampypants and Lovely McGirl in peace. Please. I didn’t try to convince you that Harry Potter was THE MOST PERFECT LOVE STORY EVERY CREATED. Frankly I’m tired of people questioning why I can’t commit to this brain-dead underwritten overplayed craptastically uncreative and derivative series of writing that can only be described as meritoriously vomitous.
Twilight makes my eyes bleedy.
I like books with the following:
Lots of showing, not telling.
Building of tension in the scenes organically, not repeatedly using the words “tense,” “tension,” and “inhumanly tense.”
Vampires that do not glow, sparkle, glitter, gleam, or otherwise luminesce in any way.
Characters deeper than 2 mm.
Pet words and phrases not repeated until they lose their meaning. (SEE: INHUMAN/LY, TENSE, IMPATIENT)
No overblown Biblical references. (SEE ALSO: SUBTLETY. Meyers has all the subtlety of a T-Rex.)
Clever, witty, and smart characters.
Actual plot.
To sum up, Meyers’ books don’t really fit my bill. Which is fine.
I’ll try not to roll my eyes when you talk about Twilight if you will stop telling me hoooowwww gooooooooood it is.
Thank you and good night.
NaBloPoMoFoSchmo #16-17 Hello, Captain Random Wednesday, Nov 18 2009
NaBloPoMo and freelance writing and writing Captain Random, freelance writing, NaBloPoMo, networking, random people, writing 2:14 am
I joined a local freelance writers meetup group. It’s through Yahoo Groups and there are lots of different meetups. The point for this group is to meet other freelancers, network, share ideas, etc. So far, we’ve met three times. The first time involved me, the organizer and her boyfriend, and a massage therapist. Apparently, the massage therapist just likes to go to ALL the meetups, whether or not he participated in the given meetup activity. I can only imagine when he goes to the Diannic Wiccan Meetup…
Last month it was just me and the organizer who, incidentally, invited me to join a fiction writers group which has met twice and is really fun.
This month, the organizer called in sickly and asked me to take over. So I was the substitute meeting coordinator. That meant I had a to make a little sign MEETUP LOUISVILLE FREELANCE WRITERS. There were four people who RSVP’d yes and I was the only one who showed. That doesn’t mean I was alone.
We meet in a coffee shop/bar/cafe which is really lovely except that it is generally overrun with law students armed with lattes and laptops. Tonight, I had to sit at the bar. I dutifully propped up my signage and before I settled in to read next week’s critique piece for my fiction group, headed to the loo, leaving the sign and my jacket in case anyone should happen upon it.
I got back from the loo, eager to dive into the story and the guy next to me, a dead ringer for Matt Frewer of Max Headroom fame (SEE: 1980s Pepsi ad).
“Are you guys writers?”
Well, I can only speak for myself as I am only one person….
“Because I’m a writer. I mean, I write comedy. I write blogs. I’m an accountant but I write a lot too.”
And it was this awkward exchange and the sheer lack of seating that held me a rather unwilling captive for the next hour.
He asked me what I write. He asked me what I read then insulted me for not being well-read enough to read Anne Rice. He complimented my youthful looks and asked where I work out. We had a terribly stilted conversation about writing and he spent many minutes being TOTALLY STUNNED that I have been writing since about the fourth grade. He tried to give me tips on getting more business for myself. He asked lots of questions about my Day Job for a Large Insurance Company because he has LOTS of OPINIONS about INSURANCE.
I don’t mean to be unkind, Reader. And I don’t think he meant to be strange. People like that seldom do.
This sort of thing used to happen to me all the time – random folks would bend my ear for a tick or two, divulging embarrassing details of their lives or just blathering on about nothing. I think it used to be a result of my availability. I’m married now – I put out a different vibe.
The funniest thing was the guy sitting on the other side of my New Best Friend. I think he was a teacher grading papers and munching what looked like a delicious cheese plate. I caught him glancing our way to confirm or deny for himself such details as my youthful looks. He stifled a snicker at my SERIOUS aversion to the Twilight series of drivel books.
After an hour, I excused myself, sighing that nobody was able to make the Meetup and I’ve had a long day. Then I came home and wrote this post.
NaBloPoMo #15 – Concerts with my sister Monday, Nov 16 2009
Music and NaBloPoMo and writing concerts, drunk people, engagement stories, Harper Simon, Lillith Fair, NaBloPoMo, Simon & Garfunkel, sisters, writing 12:32 pm
My sister adores concerts. The woman would watch a punk accordian band from Guatemala play Bach fugues in the dark if she was invited to do so. She loves a concert. She’s sort of turned into a Dave Matthews Band version of a Deadhead – without all the living in vans and smoking pot. This is why Boot is the go-to girl for all concert activity. (We call her Boot for reasons I will surely divulge in a future blog post.) We went a show over the weekend that reminded me of other concert experiences with her.
Saturday night we headed out to a local bar to see a trio of bands – Wussy, Harper Simon, and Company of Thieves. Boot and I are huge Paul Simon fans and were delighted to hear his son Harper (by Paul’s first wife Peggy Harper) has a new CD out and is touring in support of it. Neither of us knew much about the other bands but we found Company of Thieves an amazing show and will definitely keep an eye out for them in the future. We arrived early – there were hardly any people there who weren’t employed by the business. The space is a huge open area in front of a stage and a balcony with some tables and such. We snagged prime seating on the balcony and spent the rest of the night thanking ourselves for getting there early because there was no seating down on the main floor. Standing for a three hour concert is for teenagers and people who get there late.
On one side of us was a couple watching the show. The girl was pretty drunk and she kept stabbing Boot with her flailing elbow. “I am going to punch her if she doesn’t quit bumping into me,” Boot said, rolling her eyes in exasperation. During a particularly high energy section of the show, the girl was hopping up and down at the railing of the balcony and I feared she would topple into the crowd. A guy watching the concert below had already tried that – he’d run onstage and stage-dived right into the floor where people had parted like the Red Sea.
Later, the lead singer asked “Garrett” to come onstage. Turns out this was the boyfriend of our drunk friend. Turns out he was proposing to the Drunken Bunny who spent more time hopping around onstage than she did accepting her engagement ring. Then she leapt into him, wrapping arms and legs about his person and nearly knocking him over (she was not an insubstantial person). “Boy I’m glad I didn’t hit her,” Boot joked.
I did not speak to Harper Simon as he roamed past us even though I wanted to say hi, thank him for coming to Louisville, tell him we’re fans. I’m not good with stuff like that, I go all fangirl.
I was thinking about another concert experience with Boot. Several years ago, we went to Lillith Fair, the huge all-women musical extravaganza similar to Lollapalooza but less testosterone and angry manfolk. Boot, I, my Boyfriend at the Time (BATT), and a friend of Boot’s (I can’t remember who it was! Boot, who went to Lillith Fair with us??) pitched a blanket on the outdoor amphitheater ground and chilled out.
The chilling was interrupted by a group of six or eight women in front of us. They got progressively drunker and spent a lot of time making out with each other. Not unusual, but they did so in a way that suggested not attraction-induced PDA but a display of something they equated with rebellion. Like they were Lesbian for the Night. One of them had a laser pointer and continually red-dotted people around the field and even performers. I have to hand it to the venue’s security detail who walked right up to the perpetrator and took it away from her.
The most memorable part of the evening came at the end. Natalie Merchant*performed most of her set on an enormous swing. BATT teased me a little about what a flake she was. At the end of the show as people were packing up, he turned to me and said, “Natalie Merchant is a total flake.” And we all laughed. Until one of the drunk chicks spun around** and roared, “NATALIE MERCHANT IS NOT A FLAKE, ASSHOLE! GODDAMN FAGGOT.” One of her friends hadn’t heard BATT’s statement and asked what the problem was. To which the offended party replied, “HE SAID NATALIE MERCHANT IS A FLAKE. SHE IS NOT A FLAKE. DAMN HOMO FAGGOT.”
She said some other stuff too but then Boot delivered her golden line, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I THOUGHT THIS WAS A PEACEFUL LOVIN’ CONCERT!” And everyone within a ten-foot radius bust out laughing and the gaggle of drunk semi-lesbians wobbled away, chastened.
Stay tuned for more stories of Boot and me at concerts. Some day I’ll tell you about the time we went to see Simon & Garfunkel.
*Of whom I was a voracious fan for a very long time but found myself extremely disappointed with her solo work and still long for the days of 10,000 Maniacs. Our Time In Eden and In My Tribe are still two of my favorite albums ever.
** There was less of a haughty spin and more of a drunken wobble. It took her a minute to focus her eyes on us, too.
NaBloPoMo #14 – Autobiography of a Writer Saturday, Nov 14 2009
NaBloPoMo and writing being a writer, NaBloPoMo, writer autobiography, writing 12:09 pm
It started with a yellow legal pad and a tiny writing desk in the basement. By the light of my father’s grey gooseneck lamp, I carefully wrote the tale. It was a play about two women, sisters, beautiful, and united in a common mission: marry a prince.
I was ten years old. It was the last time I’d try playwrighting. Or a period piece.
From there, an endless stream of journals.Which I still have. Which I hope someone will find and publish when I die because, well, that’d be kind of cool.
In fifth grade, there were twelve pages of onionskin typing paper written on my dad’s old manual typewriter. The story began with a dreadful plane crash and children stranded on an island. The most important things are recorded in the twelve pages – exactly what everybody is wearing and their rank in the social hierarchy. (Any resemblance to famous novels by William Golding are mere coincidence – I would not read Lord of the Flies until eighth grade.)
A steady stream of encouraging and inspiring teachers, most amazing writers in their own right: Mrs. Miller in the eighth grade, Dr. Moorehead in high school, Professor Lucas in college, Paul Griner in grad school.
And writing groups. There have been many and I look at them like former boyfriends. There are ones I miss because they were fun. There were a few that included true powerhouses of talent, such that my own writing was humbled. I got kicked out of one after telling the dictator of the group he could not do as he pleased with my work. (Then after four years of no contact, he tried to friend me on Facebook. Srsly? WTF?) I love writing groups, not just for the structure and the insistence to produce, but the community of like-minded writerly folk. It’s like a creative writing class without the school part.
I wrote volumes of poetry for many years. Stuff so purple your eyes turn lavender after reading it. Then short fiction for a long time. My master’s thesis is a collection of short stories. Currently, I’m working on a novel and honing my essay-writing skills. I am interested in creative nonfiction and humor.
All my life there has been no choice. I don’t write because I’m good at it. I didn’t keep going because other people told me to. It’s just the way I am. It’s the only thing that makes sense sometimes.
NaBloPoMo #13 – No Spiders This Year Friday, Nov 13 2009
NaBloPoMo and writing grass, house, NaBloPoMo, writing, writing spider, yard 11:39 am
The early posts of thewritingspider.com involved the appearance of the argiope aurantia, or ‘writing spider,’ several of which have made their homes near my homes of the last few years. This year I kept checking and, sadly, it seems we have none. It’s too late in the year to have any writing spiders. By now, they have grown up, made webs, laid eggs, and moved on to that giant spiderweb in the sky. I don’t know what’s become of the Charlottes’ children. Last year we had a couple. I haven’t done any research on WHY, but my immediate response was, “Maybe my garden wasn’t good enough!” Last year I suspected the people who cut the grass of disturbing a web or too. The man who cuts our grass often does so while chomping an enormous cigar and he takes a lot of breaks. I don’t know if he understands garden fauna. Well, let’s hope for the return of the writing spiders next year.
NaBloPoMo # 11-12 – Renewing my driver’s license Thursday, Nov 12 2009
NaBloPoMo bad pictures, driver's license, photos, pictures 10:49 pm
Please don’t tell the po-po but I was soooo illegal until 4 pm today. Ok, let me ’splain.
There is too much. Let me sum up.
Oona, the Volvo, has been in The Shop since like…well, forever. And we weren’t sure if we were going to fix her or shoot her or send her out to pasture so we removed the insurance and let the tags lapse on her. We HAVE car insurance and Husband reinstated it for me before I started driving Oona again, so I was barely legal there – we still only have the printouts from the internets, not the cards themselves which we eagerly anticipate. Fast forward to Tuesday when Husband is shopping for new cheaper car insurance and he texts me to find out my drivers license ID. I send it to him then notice that my license expired two months ago.
Wooookay. So today I left work early to accomodate the 8:30 to 4 pm schedule of the Circuit Court Clerk’s office. It turns out that in my state, a license is good for four years BUT if you have to get a replacement, it’s only good for 18 months or so because it is considered a duplicate. When we moved, I dutifully went and got a new license with my new address and NOBODY mentioned that HEY, in 18 months, you’ll need a new license. DON’T WAIT FOUR YEARS.
Which means…they get like forty bucks instead of $21 from me since I had to come back within my four-year period.
WhatEVER.
Whilst I waited, I reminisced about former drivers license photos. There was the year that I wore a shirt that was the exact same color as the backdrop so I looked like Jambi from Pee Wee’s playhouse – one floating head and some hair. Another year, the photo lady didn’t tell me when she was going to snap the picture. I smiled. Nothing happened. I smiled. No photo. I relaxed my face and BAM for two years I look like the kind of person who chews on kitten heads instead of bubble gum, and punches babies. I do admit that no bouncer ever gave me a hard time after checking my ID. One year, I made the mistake of wearing a scarf in my hair, 60’s style, and I looked like a homeless woman in the photo.
There’s a lot of pressure with the driver’s license but not nearly as much as your passport photo. My current passport photo looks like I’m actively backing away from the camera because I am, possibly, a suburbanite sociopath AND I had the same floating-head-colored-shirt on again. I hate to loose it though, it’s expensive to replace!
NaBloPoMo #10 – Oh blank…. Tuesday, Nov 10 2009
NaBloPoMo creepy, Fond du Lac, NaBloPoMo, pests, random, writing 12:00 pm
I was going to write a list of the things that completely freak me out. The number one thing is some kind of bug thing that I don’t even know the name of. When I describe it, people say, “Silverfish?” but no, not silverfish. This this is like a two-inch ball of lint that undulates across the floor. There is pretty much nothing that makes my viscera retract uncomfortably into my skeleton like these things. Occasionally this pops up because I really hate seeing them, they are alien to me in a way no other critter is.
Ok, so pretty short list.
Here’s another thing: do you ever get words, names, or phrases stuck in your head? It’s usually something unusual or strange. Yesterday, I kept thinking of Fond du Lac which is a town in Wisconsin. I rolled the name around in my head all day and I can’t remember where I heard it. I expect it will come back around today now that I’ve written this post. I wonder if there’s a name for this phenomenon, thinking of words or phrases over and over.
This post-a-day thing is difficult. I endeavor to provide more substantial and meaningful content in the days coming.
NaBloPoMo #9 – The Writing Spider Answers Tuesday, Nov 10 2009
NaBloPoMo and writing answers, Biggest Loser, NaBloPoMo, random questions, reality TV, road trips, sleep, Travel, writing 2:59 am
I dug up five random questions I will answer here:
1. If you came with a warning label what would it say? This one-of-a-kind human bean is hilarious, sensitive, sexy, loyal, and loving, but is prone to bouts of self-doubt, moodiness, and general panic. Feed sushi, chocolate and red wine, handle with care. Needs regular back-scratching. Do not allow to get overly tired. Is easily distracted with shiny things.
2. What character in a book can you connect with or relate to the most? She’s not a character, but I very much identified with Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love. And Lewis Carroll’s Alice. I identify with characters who don’t quite fit the world they are in.
3. How are you with very little sleep? Um…terrible. I don’t get sleepy, really, I go from Regular Person to Madame Needsanap Crankypants in about ten seconds. I’ve done this my whole life – go to bed when I’m ready. Even as a kid. It made me terribly unpopular at slumber parties… If I turn to you and say, “I need to go to bed now,” you should let me.
5. What reality TV show would you want to be on? Biggest Loser! I don’t have that much weight to lose though, I just want to get verbally beat up by Jillian and possibly vomit on the treadmill.
6. How do you feel about road trips? I like road trips. I grew up spending many days in the backseat of the family car on vacations. We drove everywhere. People cannot believe that we (my sister and my parents and I) drove to Maine from Kentucky in a Ford Escort. (It takes a good three days to get there from here.) I like driving. I like just taking off in the car and looking at stuff – houses, trees, Christmas lights, farms. I don’t need a destination, I can just get in the car and end up at home later. That’s fine.
thewritingspider