Agent Turn Around Times

I wasn't upset. That tree on fire?

Took out our transformer. >.<

It took a while, but we're back up and running now.

And mooseythehut? The more I thought about your suggestion, the more I liked it. I'm going to give it a try.

Just wanted to let y'all know that we're fine. Tree is not burning anymore, transformer has been repaired, and best of all, the little old lady across the street (she's 101 and lives alone) didn't have any issues. I was worried when I saw the fire trucks first come in, because they slowed down at her house.

Tomorrow is hottubbing at Mom and Dad's but I'll probably be on in the morning (maybe, considering it's nearly 4 am) before we go.

Deluge
New words: 1187
Total wordcount: 9474

Typo: zomething, coldfish crackers (okay, that was in chat, but it's still a typo)
Mean things: Tense shift. Oh, wait, that's me. For Angela: gashes, head trauma, nearly captured again, near drowning, other stuff.

Flute practice: Well, um. I've got the first six lines where I can mostly play them without feeling like too much of a failure. (Although the first line is just half a line, so maybe that only counts as half a line.) The last two lines on the first page are filled with surprise accidentals (redundant redundancy) and notes they would have written as their real notes if they loved me. (For example, E sharp would just be F so I didn't have to think about sharps. And G sharp would be A flat if they loved me. But they hate me.)

And I can get through the last two lines of the first page (the second page looks even harder if you don't mind it just sounding like random notes as I struggle with the accidentals and trying to figure out what the notes really are. (I know there are rules about why they'd do something so mean. I'm not a serious enough player to care. *sporks them*)

Prayer: Father, please be with J and his family, J and her family, S and her family, and B.

Ferret adventures: If the other ferrets (and the cat) being critical of my flute playing wasn't bad enough, Diego has joined the club. For those of you who are new, Diego is deaf. He, too, attacked my sock (just my sock, not actually the foot inside it, except my foot was inside it...) when I started on the last two lines of the first page. Everyone's a critic!

Kippy Adventures: About 6AM, she started banging on the office door...wanting to get out. Oops. (Fortunately she wasn't in there long. We didn't go to bed until 3AM or so, and I bet she was just sleeping until she realized she was trapped. She's good about letting us know when she wants to get out of places.)

--

'Cause books are mean, I struggled with the tense again today. First it was past, and then it kept slipping into present, so I gave that a chance. Then present blew up and turned back into third. HELLO BOOK WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO SPORK YOU TO DEATH NOW? Because if you don't choose one, we can't go on. *brandishes spork*

So I did what any near book-cidal girl does. I asked the pfriends, providing them with the first few paragraphs in both tenses. They chose past. And that's what we're sticking with whether the book likes it or not.

I went back and changed about 1500 words to past tense. Fun. :S

Whedon
Oh, how I love thee. Oh, the social commentary! Oh the tragic irony! The conclusion of Dr. Horrible was brilliant. Whedon *is* Dr. Horrible, and the corporate Hollywood machine is Captain Hammer. I totally get why it turns him into a super villain. It's like real life. (How do I know, you may ask? I live and work in America, too, ya know. :p)

Writing
I wrote a thousand words today, but they prolly won't go into the novel. Tooootally unproductive. I think I'm tired. Maybe the muse will visit tomorrow.

Books
David Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest was frakking brilliant. Literature. Full of substance and universal themes. It's about a fourteen-year-old druggy girl who sees the virgin Mary deep in the forests of Oregon. Guterson explores many aspects of religious belief, from the perspective of... well, I don't want to spoil it if anyone wants to read it.

I highly, highly recommend it. It's literary because it's deep and rich, but it's also fast-paced and easy to read. Although, beware, there are some graphic and very disturbing scenes.

Anyone else read it? His other books (Guterson wrote Snow Falling on Cedars)?

Stats!

Queries read and replied to today: 4
Queries during this fit of madness: 172

Queries passed back to Jenny: 0


(Total)
Vampires: 9
Werewolves: 8
Elves: 5
Demons: 13
Fairies: 4
Starcrossed lovers: 4
Retellings of some sort: 5
Conspiracy theories: 2
Shapeshifters: 5
Witches: 6
Crazy people: 4
Superheroes: 3
Ghosts: 3
Animal main characters: 2


Genres people identify their stories as
Science fiction: 1
YA: 3


Slow day. What's the deal, people? Are you all off having fun without me?

In my google weekly report on "Tales of a Texas Boy" I discovered my epubber posted an excerpt at this site that has a nice on-line viewer. I believe the drill is that you can upload your own samples, then get the embedded code to put on websites or blogs. Okay, it embedded above, but you get the idea.

Just when I thought I could relax and kick out some wordage the weekend arrived. Not so much a relaxing time over here. My podlings run wild from sunrise to sunset. Tummies need filling, diapers need tossing, spills and messes need cleaning: Oh the horrors!

Well, things do settle down after 11 pm, some what at least. So I have to learn how to write from the trenches and get back into a consistant word count or I'll be kicking myself all the way into retirement.

Words of note: I did catch the Dark Knight yesterday. A brilliant film that at times looked more like a violent cop drama then a comic book adaptation. For me that was great. I enjoyed watching Gordon and his squad act like cops and not a bunch of buffoons hopelessly in need of Batman at every turn.

I also joined up with Goodreads in an attempt to keep at my reading, which helps with those skills that make a book happen. 

Book readings and signings at the Barnes and Noble in Greensburg (on Route 30, just past Westmoreland Mall). If you want to meet the Alpha students before Confluence, here they'll be!

Tonight (Saturday, July 19) at 8:00 PM [Mike Arnzen, Alpha students and Timothy Zahn].
Wednesday (July 23) at 8:00 PM [David Barr Kirtley, Alpha students, Tamora Pierce].

Also, Tammy will be at Rachel's library on
Tuesday (July 22) at 7:00 PM
Brentwood Public Library, 3501 Brownsville Rd
Brentwood (Pittsburgh), PA
(412-882-5694)

DEMONHEAD has to be in the third person. I just realized that this morning, on my walk. Man I love my walks. Also the first third of the New! Improved! Plot! came to me. I should take paper with me when I go out...seriously.

And I got through all the crits, including the one not printed out; marked them all in this one copy. Although changing it to third person is going to mean huge, huge changes, I still felt like I should consolidate all the feedback, because I have no idea what's going to turn out to be relevant. (Okay, I have some idea, but you know what I mean.) 

Third person should help me get a better angle on the world-building, and maybe even give me a chance to introduce some other POVs (haven't decided if it's going to be 3rd tight, MC only, or skip around a bit.) And it might help with some of the Stupid Character Syndrome I had going in a few parts.

I'm excited.

But a good ouch.

Today, instead of cleaning the living room, I went outside. I hacked and yanked for about 45 minutes, clearing out stranglevine and random weeds from a small plot on the side of the yard. Then, with my lovely Baronessa's help (yes, my Baronessa is my landlady), I planted two zucchini plants from her garden that were threatening her cucumbers, and my two big tomato plants (the cherry tomatoes stayed in their pot). And now I am sore, but I have a real, honest to goodness GARDEN.

I'm so excited. Pictures later maybe, when I can move.

If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

is going offline for the rest of the day (shock, gasp!). If you need me, call my cell. If you don't know my cell you prob don't need me.

I have a small, but busy list today. I want to clean.

Yes. You read that right.

CLEAN.

Today's list:

1. Empty dish rack. Emptied and refilled. Will empty again, because...
2. Empty sink. See above. :p Second load is soaking in hot soapy water.
3. Wash kitchen floor. -postponed until I can get to WalMart and get more stuff for the WetJet, but I did sweep.
4. Clean living room.
5. Vacuum living room.
6. Laundry.
7. Sort shoes for Goodwill.

Updates later.

I'm having a bit of a troubled run at the moment, with malware or possibly worse invading the computers and frazzling my concentration, not to mention making internet access patchy at best.

I think I have the problem stamped out on the laptop at least (fingers crossed), which means I've been able to resume progress on the copyedit, although knowing there's malicious code lurking unhunted and unpunished on the desktop is gnawing at me.

If I'm quiet in the next couple of days, it's because I'm copyediting and stalking down binary bugs. Back soon. (If I'm not, it's because I've fallen before the onslaught. Run. Save yourselves.)

Originally published at scribbling damselfly. Please leave any comments there.

is up much, much too early

I've had multiple "story" dreams lately. My dreams are almost exclusively what I lovingly refer to as "crack" dreams. You know. Lots of nonsensical scene changes, heavy on the absurd, with a nice dose of ludicrous. I think last night's dream was something like... I was traveling on a bus with a bunch of serial killers, and one of them wanted to date my mom, so I had to take something from the house and submit it to some sort of society, and when I got there, there was a giant drag queen, and I had to compete in a dancing drag queen contest. The fact that I'm female seemed of little importance, and I ended up taking second place. A good friend of mine took the grand prize.

Yeah... That's generally the dream. Only, usually there's a lot of bizarre symbolism, like one of those strange German films. However, the past few months, I've had multiple dreams that were structured like a story. One, I've been actively working on for a few days now. Her Mind's Garden. Definitely a working title. I'm not sure it fits the story. It's semi-unusual for me to write with a female main character. This could be partially because of my hatred of all things Mary Sue, but I think it's also just natural for the type of stories I write to be about males. I do feel I owe it to myself to include strong female characters in the things that I write. (It's painfully uncommon in fiction.) Nova is most certainly a strong female character. The story itself is about a futuristic society, and a very complex computer system. I'm excited about it, but we'll see where it goes.

I have two other short stories to write, based on dreams, but they're both hard to transfer to writing. I also dreamt about an awesome twist on Cinderella, and I'm considering turning it into a play, like it was in the dream. But I don't know much about professional script writing, to be honest. Not how to get it published, or anything. Worth a try, though. I need to write it before my friend steals the idea, as she threatened to do more than once.

Short stories aside, I've needed to work on Painted Doves more. Lots of plotting, not much actual writing. I wanted to go to bed about an hour ago, but I'm still up, so maybe writing will come from that. I tend to write the most at night, when I'm tired and things are quiet. You tap into a different part of your brain then, it seems.

I was stressing a bit, for whatever reason, but I saw this video on youtube of a guy getting his first book deal. Signing it, that is. I was so overwhelmed with emotion, I hardly knew what to do with myself. I was happy for him, because he's just like me, a nobody trying to make it. I was thrilled to see someone getting there, like I always am. And I was terrified, suddenly, that I'd never get there. I started panicking and getting overwhelmed. Very annoying. You know, it wasn't even the fear that I won't get there. It was more like the fact that crap books like Twilight can blow up, but very good books I've read are in the background. It scares me when I think of it, that I may never write "mainstream" enough to be much of a success. But I can't let that scare me now. My confidence is through the roof. I can do this, damn it. Bad writers be damned!

I don't know what it is about the internet (and the SFF community in particular because we're supposed to like this technical wizardry) but with all the power of Google at their disposal (okay not always reliable but worth checking with) people still say wildly misleading things -- and worse, others blindly agree with them*.

So, in an attempt to push the internet's truth/misinformation balance a little back from lies-damned-lies-and-no-statistics** -- I think there is good online evidence that African-americans served as US Marines during WW2, albeit in segregated companies.

http://www.nps.gov/archive/wapa/indepth/extcontent/usmc/pcn-190-003132-00/sec1.htm

http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/aframerwar/index.html

And that African-americans were present in front-line roles on Iwo Jima (not only in the galleys of battleships standing offshore).

http://www.nps.gov/archive/wapa/indepth/extcontent/usmc/pcn-190-003132-00/sec10.htm

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1813981,00.html
-----
I'm not particularly concerned with the Hollywood slapfight on this issue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/20/usa.film

But it does tie back into the oft repeating debates on whether to complicate SFF with characters whose culture, ethnicity, sexual preference, or gender are not essential to the plot.

Me, I'll never get over finding the 'and a Chinaman' inscription on an independence(?) memorial in Brussels. It proved that, where human beings are concerned, one should always leave room for the unexpected.

We don't have to *put* people into situations where they don't belong, just to marvel at how often they can be found where we've forgotten (or sometimes been led to forget) to keep an eye out for them.

I think that's as true in fiction as in history.


* look, if a Yorkshire woman more interested in the European Theatre than the Pacific knows enough about the US Armed Forces to think 'that sounds wrong'...

** I can't reach the same people who may have read and believed what I read and disbelieved, but I can hope that the people who read and believe this post will serve as a counter-weight.

Deluge
New words: 604
Total wordcount: 8287

Typo: Flicker is impossible to spell now. It's Flickr.
Darling: This is not going to be one of those books...
Deaths: nope
Mean things: Skinned knees. Monster after her.

Flute practice: Learning a new song. The beginning is neat, but tricky on the fingers. I was playing it over and over trying to get it so my fingers know what to do, and apparently Miss Suzi wasn't impressed. She's going to nip my ankles until I get it right. Meep.

Prayer: Father, please be with J and his family, S and her family, J and her family, B, and R.

Ferret adventures: It was cute when Suzi stuck her nose in my belly button. Less cute when she decided to try clawing her way inside. Ow.

We took Austin into the living room. This is what happened. (I'm sorry it's such a horrible quality video. He's very fast. It's hard to keep up!) That dong you hear is him whacking his head on the table leg. Note how this does not stop him. Head of rock.

Also note Kippy in the background, glaring at him.



--

Wrote more. Still hard. Tense hard. Book mean.

Now that I've more or less decided on present tense, it tricks me with past tense. *shakes book* Stop teasing me! Choose one! We can't have both.

I was going to say something else, but Austin distracted me with his extreme cuteness. Leanne will bounce when released into the living room, too, but she goes behind the TV and will be impossible to catch. I don't know if I want to take that chance.

I'm continually bemused by the amount of people who friend me and actually stick around. I see comments from people who I don't know, and who haven't commented before or in a long time and it kicks the curiosity up another notch.

So why are you here? Almost everyone has been here a month or more, and I'm kinda curious as to how you got here and what you find among my blitherings interesting enough to keep you waylaying electrons to bring you my mutterings.

Tell!!

Going to see Dark Knight today and then going to sorscha and squasher's for a partii with their shiny new Wii.

I'm gonna be exhausted at the end of it, but it's going to be fun.