zoe_w

Okay, I went through chapter 3 and fixed all of the problems that were nagging me. I know the word count is going to be a tough sell if I keep this up, but my last edit reduced this book to a lot of talking head monologues where nobody moves, or reacts much. They emote a bit, but that was it.

And then, chapter 4. Wow. I was already happy with this before, but I got ideas here and there to help flesh out the scenes more, and I think I struck a happy balance between being descriptive, and being purple. I'm going back through 4 again tomorrow to look for any typos I might have added in during the revision, but I'm really liking how everyone's motivations are clearly explained without anyone getting emo on people. I think once events play out, people should understand why the main characters do such crazy, awful things. They have their reasons, and they aren't quite good. But they are logical, and should make sense.

We went out for dinner tonight to Fang Jong. I ate way too much, and I regretted it even during the walk back home. I might have been able to do more work in chapter 5 tonight if I hadn't needed time to lay on the couch groaning "Oooooh, so good, but soooo painful!" Chicken still remains my one weak point. I can practice restraint and keep myself from having stomach problems with most any other food. But set any kind of chicken dish in front of me, and it's like the cavewoman in my had bashes common sense with a club. Then I'm completely lost to Nom lust...NOM NOM NOM! =^P

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Oh wait. I should mention that I'm reading "Every Dead Thing." So far, it's been good with the exception of the portrayals of the cops. I don't care if Charlie Parker's dad was some kind of killer or not. When a cop calls up the station sobbing and wailing because his wife and 3 year old daughter have been brutally mutilated, no one, not even a cop with fucking ice water for blood is going to stroll into the house and demand, "Yo bird, you wanna tell me what happened here?" I know this is just back story and has little to do with the plot of the novel, but I was half tempted to stop reading right there at the prologue for the sheer stupidity (and callousness) of the cops who would look in the kitchen on this gruesome scene and think, "Yeah, a cop would do that." Yeah, fucking right.

Oh, and we've already had one random act of police brutality as well, so apparently, I'm being set up to think of the cops in the book as either 1)idiots, or 2) assholes. Either way, I'm having trouble buying it.

The rest of the writing hasn't been bad, and I'm hopeful that some of the other cops in the story will help balance out these sticking points. But if it turns out every cop is a walking penis looking to hold a pissing contest, I'm making this a one star wonder, and the rest of Charlie's books are going to be cheerfully ignored.

Okay, now I'm going to bed.

Later...

I whipped through a second edit of chapter 2, and then I read through chapter three without doing much in the way of edits. I wanted to see first what should be changed, and I have a better idea of what I need to do. This is a really dialogue heavy chapter, and I need to break it up a bit to help prevent reader fatigue. Most of the dialogue is not fluff, so it can't be cut much. But I need to work more on describing the scenes and the character's emotional states.

Aside from that I spent a few hours partying in SL with friends, so I didn't get quite as much done as I would have liked. But eh, I need a break sometimes, and I haven't been taking weekends off lately. Anywho, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow I expect to fix chapter 3 and do a quick pass through chapter 4. I like working this way, since it gives me a chance to abosrb all the little details and decide what's relevant.

Okay, bed time.

Later...

Okay, today I had to record a new podcast, and a new promotion to pass out for other podcasters. I got the podcast done, which brings me to a close on Part 1 of the book. But the promo podcast wasn't quite right, something I didn't discover until I got back and email from the podcaster I was swapping with. I'd forgotten to give the address for my site. Whoops. I can add that tomorrow, so it's no problem.

Hubby called me ad we went to the store to pick me up a new cell phone, a Nokia 5200, which I've been drolling over for a few weeks. I now have a complete nerdy collection of devices. I have an MP3 player, a digital camera, and e-book reader, and a cell phone which combines all three functions. ^_^

Tonight was of course another live reading, but my microphone tossed a slight kink in my plans near the end of my reading, and it cut out. I'm not sure when it did, so I have no clue where to take the reading from next week. Sigh.

BUT, right after I finished that reading, I was sent an invite to attend a writing meet and greet, where I could read a story and get some feedback. And it went REALLY well. I read "Walking Home With Strangers, and then I got interviewed for almost two hours about all kinds of things. I left with a raw throat and sore cheeks from smiling so much.

Then I finished editing chapter two of my current project. I'm not done with it, though. After I finished, I thought about two of the conversations and realized I could cut them down a lot without sacrificing anything from the story. So that will be my goal for tomorrow, along with fixing up my promo with the web site address. So productivity wise, this has been a very, very good day. I have absolutely no complaints...and don't know what to do with myself. ^_^

All right, to bed with me. I hope tomorrow will be just as productive.

LAter...

Twice today, I got hit by waves of fatigue. The first came right after I finished uploading the new story to the web site, and after I got up from resting, it completely slipped my mind to post a link here.

I mostly goofed off after that, but I tried to record a promo clip for my podcast, and I tried to work on chapter 2 of "In the Grasp of the Devil." Alas, neither project worked out, and now the second wave of fatigue has struck.

Tomorrow, I will have to record a new podcast and do my live reading, so there isn't likely to be much editing or writing getting done. I'd complain, but honestly, I'm just too tied to bother. So I'm off to bed early tonight. -_-

Later...

I recorded a new podcast today, but once I had it done, the podcasting host was down. I decied to go into Second Life early to camp, and it was close to three hours before I could upload the file. But it's up now, so that's okay.

I didn't have many people at the reading this time, but a couple of people had already told me they had real life concerns to deal with this week. Which is a shame, because I think this was my best reading ever. I read almost every line without screwing up, and I was switching between four voices at the same time without screwing up.

Of course, the two times I screwed up bad, it was because I read a grammatical error in the text, and had to back up to correct it for the sake of clarity. Meh, I know there will be another revision out some day, so it's not biggie.

I went back to editing and whacked another 1,000 words. There is no downside...let's move on. ^_^

I had to blow my nose, and when I opened my mouth to breathe in, a cat hair on the paper towel got inhaled. So I coughed so hard I had to throw up. Oh yeah, that was fun. -_-

Anyway, I got back to work, and I'm just about done with chapter 13 now. I want to do more, but I slouching over in the chair as I write this, so it might be time for bed again.

Later...

I worked for only a few hours on edits, since I thought the computer was going in today. But hubby wasn't feeling quite up to the trip, so I decided to do some work on editing one novel. I'm working on condensing it further, and I'm up to chapter 3 now. So tomorrow I'll keep working on that and see what I come up with.

After that, I went into SL and worked with Nikita on setting up my house. She set up the bedroom and den, and I set up a living room with a Japanese motif. The beds upstairs are futons and there's some really nice lamps lighting two of the rooms now. Theres still a lot of space in the house, but I'm not quite sure what to do with it just yet. Maybe save it for the digital kids, whenever they come along.

I also attended a birthday part for a friend, so it was a good night, though not quite as productive. Well technically, running around to mention my story sold counts as marketing. =^P So looking at it that way, I was really productive until after 11, when I vegged out in SL. ^_^

Okay, off to bed with me.

Later...

It's been a really productive week for me, and I've shifted back and forth on a few new projects. I'm making progress on another science fiction story for the web site, but it's still missing a scene to link the middle to the end. I've got a strong introduction for a fantasy book waiting for me to devote more time to it, and I've been putting more scenes into the science fiction story I was working on in May and wandered away from.

I'm not sure I'll be able to finish the longer stories soon. Once I've got some other personal details taken care of in July, I'll have to devote most of my time in August to working on corrections from the editor and doing page layouts.

However, I apparently do not have a cover artist now, and at this point, I'm almost ready to concede defeat and admit the book won't be able to come out during the holiday season. I'm waiting to see if another artist will write back taking the job, but even if I can come to an agreement with them, I have no confidence that I can get the cover in time for a November release.

I'm also feeling uneasy about "going pro" again. This is normal for me, though. I'm in the middle of waiting for a lot of proposals to come back, and the longer the delay is on the replies, the less confidence I have.

On Thursday, hubby and I went out to the Feltrinelli book store to pick up an e-book reader for me, the CyBook Gen3. I've loaded it up with some classic literature from the Gutenburg Project as well as some e-books I've had lying around on my hard drive. Already my list of books I'm currently reading and the TBR pile have expanded a lot. (Which reminds me, I should update Goodreads)

First, the good parts. The screen is fantastic to read from, and truly feels like reading a page out of a paperback novel. Even under dim lamp light, it's easy to read from, and the device is so light I can lay on my back and hold the reader above my head for extended periods. To put this in perspective, I have trouble holding up moderately sized paperbacks in a similar position for more than ten minutes or so.

I've been having a blast going over some very old stories which I haven't read since childhood. I'm also picking up other stories which I've always wanted to read, but couldn't see buying a paper copy with so much new stuff out. Now I can download the classics and read them free, which by itself could make up for the cost of this little reader pretty quickly.

But there's also another nice feature. I can save my doc files as HTML and load them for proofreading. I found spotting errors on the e-reader was much easier than reading from the monitor, and since I don't have to waste paper on drafts for editing, again, I'm saving some money by going paperless. Yay! (Of course, I must remember not to underline errors with marker. =^P )

However, there is a downside. My PDF e-books look awful for being shrunken down. The format of a PDF page means it displays more as an image fit to the screen, and the text is tiny for the 6"X9" e-book. I tried the 4"X7" copy, and it wasn't much better.

This led to an experiment to see what needs to be done, and the answer is the aspect ratio of the PDF being too tall. The e-book needs to be around 4"X5.75" in order to display properly on the screen. But anyone with a smaller reader screen or a different aspect ratio might still have problems.

So another possible answer is Mopipocket books. The file creator is free, and I can make encrypted PRC books to offer an an alternative to the PDF files. This leads me then to think about what to do with the PDF files, because frankly, I now find their layout to be annoying for its inflexibility. Using ANY other file format on the e-reader, I can change the font and font size, and the page count of the document increases. But, I still get a story which is easy on the eyes, and doesn't require paging down in the middle of a page, reading the bottom half, and then paging right to get to the next page. The PDF allows for NO changes, and even the zoom feature of the reader doesn't help much. Then there are lots of extra button presses to turn the pages, and then scroll down them. Finally, the reader in zoom mode has "helpful" arrows to indicate there is more page above or below, but these arrows hover over the text, blocking up to three letter in the middle of a sentence. Boo! =^(

So, I think what I will be doing in the future is making one PDF file, and one Mobipocket book. The PDF file should be more readable on e-readers than my current versions out, or folks can print the books two pages at a time on paper with a landscape orientation. And if neither idea appeals to them, there's the PRC file or a print copy.

I'm still playing with this idea, since there are some minor problems with Mobipocket books not being able to recognize page breaks or extra spaces. I'm going to experiment with the next web story by offering both PDF and Mobipocket versions, and I'll put out a request to readers to check out both versions and tell me which they would prefer to use. The PDF e-books have not sold as well as I'd thought they would, and so I'm thinking a move to Mobipocket could help. Anyway, we'll see what happens after further experiments.

For now, I'm off to write some more shtuff. ^_^

Later...

After I wrote about my Pirates game, we went out with Alice and Marissa, this time with plans to go to the other local Chinese restaurant, the Castello D'Oro. And we pigged out. I ordered two different chicken dishes, and both Alice and Marissa ordered more shrimp dishes for a second course. It was all so darned good that we just didn't know when to quit. Of course, my stomach paid for it later, but common sense and past experience rarely make up components of my dietary decision making process. Which was why we finished with ice cream from a nearby gelateria.

It was a really good night filled with lots of conversations and laughing. I can't remember the last time I had a day so active and filled with talking, and while were were sharing stories, Alice snapped some pictures. She e-mailed them this morning, and two things stand out. One, I am almost white enough to pass as a vamp. =^P But the second is, it's obvious in the picture how happy and at ease I was. It's obvious that Alice and Marissa also enjoyed themselves, because we were already talking about when and where we might go out again while we walked them back to their bus stops.

After I got home, I spent some time listening to my stomach gurgle, and then I wrote for an hour before bed. I'm starting to understand more about what the muse is planning for this story, but I'm still taking the writing in short bursts. I have so many projects going right now that I really can't devote myself over to any one project. I have to work to sell my writing and myself just as much as I work to write the stories. And as I got ready for bed last night, I thought about how I have been gaining some measure of self confidence in myself.

So yesterday was a really good day, and it sucks that today brings bad news. Well, not for me. Luche's sister Milli was supposed to come over for lunch, and her wallet was stolen along with all of her important documents. She was going to leave right after she arrived, but I noticed how close she was to crying, and I pulled her into a hug and let her vent for a little while. I had her sit down and rant a little bit about how angry she is, because she needed it. I had all of my documents stolen in a similar way on Christmas night four years ago, and I still remember how mad I was, and how much I needed to cry and yell about how unfair it was. So I let her vent, and hubby and I both hugged her again before she wandered off to report the theft.

I couldn't eat lunch today. Obviously, my stomach is still mad at me about last night. I tried saying I was sorry, but that didn't work. So hubby ate, and we watched Bridge to Terabitha. Wow, what a colossal mistake.

I've been in farm community schools, and I've gone to inner city schools. The way those other kids are behaving in the movie was totally inner city behavior. I can say many bad things about my two years at Devine middle school, but those kids were the NICEST group I'd ever had to deal with. Country kids just aren't that mean, and the side stories around the bullies felt wrong to me throughout the movie. I kept thinking "I'd buy this if it were anywhere but the country."

The other problem for me was, almost everything that happened in the real world didn't interest me. It was like I was watching two movies spliced with each other. One movie was dull and not worth watching, and the other was fascinating. So between each visit to Terabitha, my attention wandered. And then toward the end, the whole thing just fell apart. Just...bleh. I dunno, maybe I'm just asking for too much from a kid's movie.

I suppose it's okay that I didn't like the movie. The last few films I've seen were enjoyable, and every once in a while, it's inevitable that I run across something I don't like. But the combination of watching a sucky film plus hearing about my sister in law's misfortunes has me feeling a little down right now.

Well that, and I'm really, REALLY sore from all the walking and standing I did yesterday. All I did was stand at a table to play a two hour game, and then I walked around for an hour at a time before resting two hours. Another half hour walk was followed by another two hours of sitting, and finally, we walked home slowly before I did an hour of typing. And yet, I feel like I've been dancing and drinking all night long. And I mean working a mosh pit and drinking heavily. But all I had was a half a glass of beer, and I certainly wasn't partying hardcore. Fooey, getting old sucks.

Later...

I put together the next scene for the science fiction story, and then I wandered over to Second Life to socialize and recharge my metal batteries. I held conversations with two people at the same time, which was kind of interesting because the topics were very similar and revolved around the nature of online relationships versus "real" relationships.

For me, there isn't much difference. I know there are people who think of online interactions as not quite being real, but I don't feel the same way. So I can't role play a friendship or some other kind of relationship, even in an environment where role play is the goal. To me, the emotions and the relationships are just as real as they would be in the real world.

This is not to say I don't have acquaintances, or even passing acquaintances with some people. In their cases, sure, we get along, and we have a few common interests. But there's not really a deeper exchange of ideas, and neither side develops any emotional investment in the other. But even with these people I see them as real, and as being worthy of basic levels of respect and sincerity.

Sometimes I wonder if the people I know online think of me as a real person, or if they just see me as words on a screen. I know there are some people who I really have connected with, and I feel as much for them as I would for a relative. I never really ask if they feel the same, because it seems like a self centered thing to ask: "are we really friends?"

But sometimes, I do wonder.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow, I'm going to try and play a new Pirates fleet. This will depend on what kind of game is being played, though. Suggestions were made this week for a slight rule change, and I'm not sure if I like the new rules. The alternative seems to be playing a 40 point game,and I don't care for those. Strategically, the shift in points to a less complex game without crews is like the difference between checkers and chess. Sure there's still some strategy involved, but the games play far too quickly, and there isn't much satisfaction in the wins. Or at least, not for me anyway. Okay, to bed with me.

Later...

Yesterday was a good day and today was even better. First, I got more writing done in the science fiction novel, and I think I know how the next two scenes should play out. I still want to let those scenes mull around a little bit more before I try to write them down.

I spent a lot of time hanging out and chatting with people in forums, and then I went into Second Life, where I found a private message waiting for me. The organizer of the UK Writers' Guild wants me to do a live reading for "The Lesser of Two Evils," and so we've scheduled that for next Wednesday at 1PM SL time. I'm not expecting many people to attend, but it should be interesting, since this will be my first live reading event.

So obviously, I was in a really good mood when I went to bed. When I got up, the good news continued, because I had a e-mail message from a woman in Brazil who said she's a big fan of my writing, and "Touched" is her favorite story. Yeah, that was a great way to start my day. The only downside is, now my cheeks ache from smiling so much. ^_^

We headed to the bank today, and I'm now signed on as a delegate of the account. Which means I can do just about everything but close the account myself. We probably should have done this sooner, but I didn't feel a pressing need to have access to the bank account. I still don't, but I should be able to deposit funds into our account on my own. Also, it will make receiving payments for my side jobs here easier.

Oh, I failed to mention that I'd taken one side editing job last month for the glass magazine. I turned down the job actually editing the magazine because the owner didn't feel training should be a priority. But I was willing to take on a shorter assignment editing an advertisement letter for the next Milan convention. It doesn't pay much, but there are a lot of little jobs like this which might eventually start to trickle my way once the owner gets over being miffed at me for not taking their first offer. But the editing job was just too much responsibility, and I don't believe my editing skills are strong enough for me to handle that kind of workload without more time to train.

Getting back to the bank though, our teller asked what kind of work I did, and my husband said I was self employed as a writer. She got interested in that, and asked for the address of my website before we left. Yay, another potential convert! *^.^*

The only thing that could possibly make this week better would be an acceptance letter for one of my submissions. That's a long shot, but it would be nice. ^_^

Anyway, I'm off to search through publishers for a place to send another short story. Anything I send in now, I should hear back in September or October, possibly even later. But I want to get a few more items out before the close of the month, and then maybe I can devote more time to writing this new story.

Later...

Normally, I would be writing this post before going to bed. But yesterday was frigidly cold, and I got hit by fatigue around 10PM. I tried to fight with it until midnight, at which point I gave up and dropped on the couch. I got up an hour ago, and it's still cold. I'm hoping this will at least stay consistent today, but I'm expecting another weather shift around midday, which is likely to fatigue me again.

Mentally, this draining effect makes writing all but impossible because I can't think clearly enough to imagine the scenes as they play out, let alone attach words to those events. The muse is instead working on a scene which won't happen for two chapters, and I haven't been able to get her to focus on the chapter I'm supposed to be working on. I'll try again today, but if all I get for my troubles is a blank page, I'll try to remind myself that this weather shifting all the time is not conducive to being creative.

In Second Life related news, I'm tending to play a lot more with my alt than with my main avatar. Cora is just easier to play because she's younger, and people don't try to hit on her. Cora goes to parties and dances. She goes to fishing events, or she goes to hang out with friends at various locations.

I just don't spend much money on her. She has a really basic wardrobe, and I haven't bought many items for her because most of my money went toward stuff for Beccas. But last night, I plunked down the cash for a chimera, a dancing utility which allows me to make up a list of Cora's favorite dances. See, part of the problem is that the dances in most people's chimeras or dance balls are...decidedly lewd. It looks okay when other women are dancing with them, but it looks wrong for Cora. And so I put together a dance routine which I really like, and which features zero dance moves where my avie is writhing seductively on the ground.

My goals for Second Life have been scaled back from grand visions to more mundane long terms ideas. For Cora, I'm going to be aging her slowly. If I'm still playing the game regularly next year, Cora will celebrate her 14th birthday, and then she'll be experiencing a growth spurt. It should still be obvious she's young, but I'm going to try and develop her appearance from the kid shape I started off with to something more mature.

For Beccas, the plan is still the same: I want to try an SL pregnancy. Only problem is, it seems like Beccas is sterile. Even though I'm wearing a fertility HUD, my efforts to get pregnant have always ended with negative results.

This is always a trip for me, to compare my goals in Second life to my goals in other MMO's. Like in Anarchy Online, my goal is to research enough perks using the LE expansion pack to overcome my breed limitations. I've already reached a point where the version of Beccas in AO can cast most of her good nanos without having to go through a long casting frenzy. Instead, I cast three nano buffs, cast my three pets, and I'm good to go. All told, it takes less than a minute to get ready. Compare that to the three minute casting times I was having last year, and yeah, I'd say my plan is paying off.

But, my roundabout point is that my goals in AO are focused on achieving some new level so I can access the high skill level content of the game. In SL, there is no search for higher content. I simply wander through the world and look for places to meet new people and talk.

In the beginning, I might have thought about that as a marketing opportunity, but these days, I don't really try to sell stuff. I'm just there to hang out and unwind. Which brings me back to the reason for my shifting roles from playing Beccas to playing Cora more often. Beccas has admirers who are mostly nice guys. But most of these guys just want to cyber, because the game for them is the fulfillment of their fantasies. So what they want is for me to be "free spirited" without worrying about making any kinds of commitments to me. And yet, they can't understand why I might not like the idea of dozens of one night stands.

I'll be honest. I'm big on monogamy, and even though I'm able to separate SL from RL, there are times when I feel guilty looking for a partner in SL when I've already got a great husband in RL. (Yes, I'm sure this as thrilling as watching paint dry, but sometimes that's what you get for reading my journal.)

I still go in to play as Beccas because of Kylee, who is one my best friends. What works between us is that we don't have any expectations from each other. Sometimes we hang out and go shopping together, and other times, we talk in IMs while we both do our own things. So I find I enjoy all of the time I spend with her. If she were a man, I'd ask her to be my partner...well heck, I'd ask if she was a lesbian too, but alas, she is straight. -_-

Well in any case, my original goals with Beccas were to own a mega mall, and to create lots of content within the game. I dropped those goals because Linden Labs have crafted the shittiest 3D design tools ever. No, EVER. (No YOU!) I've dropped the goals of trying to earn a paycheck in SL, since camping takes away from my social time. I do own a shop where my books are displayed, but I don't believe that's really done anything beside looking cool.

Oh, it does look cool. With tons of help from my super genius editor friend, I've set up a living room in a gritty urban theme, and there's a TV with static and a blood stain on the front of the screen. Over on the wall are lots of streaked handprints, and finally, there is a huge puddle of blood on the floor. The room tells a story in itself, and you can ignore the books on the other side completely while you trace the path of the victim from where they were first stabbed to where they fell. It's awesome. ^.^

But it doesn't sell books, and it doesn't get people to visit my web site. Mostly, it gets people to say "Oooh, that's so cool!" (And it got me an invite to do a reading at some point in the future in front of a "Guild of UK Writers." Which might be cool)

But really, looking cool is about all the shop should do. I suppose I'm wandering with this entry, but the thing is, SL for me is a way to relax. It's my off hours, and my location for taking vacations from writing. With very few exceptions, I prefer not to work in SL, unless it's doing something mindless like camping...or perhaps not so mindless, like playing word scrambles and trivia. But selling books or hawking my web site is work. So unless someone else mentions it first, I usually don't.

I dunno why this is. I just don't like talking about my stories that much. It isn't that I don't like them, but I don't want to come across as one of "those kinds" of writers. All I have so far is my self-published stuff, and I don't like pushing that on people too much. If they say no once, I let it go.

I can't really say if I'll get more aggressive once I'm selling work to publishers, but for now, I feel like it's more important that I'm tolerated as a person than it is for me to sell some books.

Anyway, I'll end this here and wander off to contemplate an escape from a secure laboratory.

Later...

I went to bed really early last night for me, which was around 3:50 AM. I slept fitfully, and I had some really bizarre dreams in which all the old people I knew kept showing up in one impossible situation after another. I was never sure of who I was supposed to be around them either, because everyone kept switching pronouns frequently.

When I got up, I decided to try and get over my dislike of the sound of my voice in a recording, and I made my first podcast...well no, first, I TRIED to make a podcast, and the program wouldn't recognize my microphone, nor could I adjust anything in the mixer settings. So I got pissed, and I cussed a blue streak.

Only after I'd blown at full rage for a half an hour did I reconnect with my sanity and think about doing something simple like rebooting the computer. Which of course worked, and I was left feeling very foolish.

But I got my project completed to a point where I didn't sound like I was slurring or mumbling any of my words, and I went out to look for a podcast host. Which took all of five minutes on Google to find some one with a nice basic hosting plan and a decent page layout. And while I worked on setting the page layout up, I felt a lot of my feelings of anxiety draining away. I had somewhere to direct my nervous energy, and no matter what the end results would be, I felt better.

Then end result is here at Podbean.com.

After I finished making a few posts about the podcast test, hubby started Cloverfield. I'd been told not to go into this movie expecting too much, and I ended up really enjoying the movie. The whole thing worked for me. I liked the characters, the first person perspective, and for me the sightings of the monster were just icing on the cake. I watched the director's comments, and I don't know if I buy into the baby idea, but that's a minor complaint, I suppose. I think the little critters the monster dropped were akin to giant mites, but I guess I'll have to go check out those scenes with the commentary turned on to be sure.

I'm completing my night by going back to Second Life to fish. I know, it sounds stupid, but it's really quite relaxing and the system is designed with the ability to level up. Currently, I'm working on my fourth level, and my biggest catch still remains the four pound fish. I'm trying to find a good time of day to catch the bigger fish, but so far, no dice.

Something I had to remind myself of today: I published my first books in February of 2007. It's been only one year since I first started trying to get my name out in public, and there is still a lot I have to learn. It isn't just learning how to write better, because I also need to know how to market myself along with my stories. I am making progress on both fronts, but the slow pace makes it hard to appreciate what I've accomplished so far.

Tomorrow, I think I will try to write more of chapter two for this new science fiction story. The muse is explaining her ideas more clearly now, and I think I understand that the underlying theme of the story is fear of the unknown. I can also understand how and why the monster attacks, and now instead thinking about kills, I'm thinking in terms of injuries. Which makes sense given the monster's abilities. But because it so powerful, people fear it and fear how it has the potential to kill thousands. That fear is what causes them to lash out in an attempt to destroy the monster. It's a well tread theme, but I hope to be able to infuse some unique elements into it.

Or that's the plan for tomorrow. For now, I'm looking for a five pound koi.

Later...

The weather shifted again, and it's cold...in May. Set that aside, because my real problem right now is a blah feeling which is making everything harder. I have no logical reason to feel this depressed, but that isn't stopping me from being moody.

It isn't my hormones, and it isn't just me. Hubby is hanging around the fridge, snacking because he wants something. Like me, he just doesn't know what.

I tried to shake the feeling. I watched funny videos on YouTube. I hung out and read jokes on forums, and I watched Bourne Ultimatum. (Which was very good.) Yesterday we went to Fnac so I could get out of the house, and I was pissy for most of the trip.

While I'm feeling like this, I can't do much of anything. Reading submission guidelines makes me pissy. Trying to find reviewers to check out my books makes me pissy. And yes, trying to think about what to write next in my story...you get the idea.

Until I shake this, I'm not sure I'll be able to write much in the new story. I suppose it's for the bast, since at this point the muse can't decide if the monster is truly dangerous or not. Then again, maybe she's feeling blah too, and she can't decide what to do right now. -_-

Bah, I'm going fishing in Second Life.

Later...

Well my current pattern of living right now is to sleep about four hours, and get up for four. I drink some hot chocolate, sip some cold medicine and sit in front of my computer while I wait for everything to kick in and send me back to bed.

Last night, I went into SL for two hours. I was dancing in one of my favorite taverns when a friend walks in...only they're a monkey. The tavern owner changed into a monkey and started yammering about "hot monkey loving." So then the other monkey pulled out a blue bouncy ball and started hopping around with an assault rifle strapped around her neck. Somewhere around the time that the other monkey put on glasses and got on his horse, it occurred to me why I don't try to write more about my adventure in SL. Because frankly, explaining acid trips would be easier.

Despite my past promises not to try working while sick, I'm still playing around with "Eddie's First Circus." My main goal has been to expand out part two, which was a scant three pages in the first draft. And that's what I'm noticing as I read through the story. The first part is highly detailed, but then the next two parts are skimpy.

So that's what I'm doing between naps.

Later...

Around 8 I had the urge for fish...we have fish sticks in the freezer. I think "No, that's bland, and I want something like a grilled filet."

We get dressed and walked outside. It is freezing cold, and the rain in slapping me from around the umbrella. I think "Then again, fish sticks don't involve a long walk."

And this is how I ended up going from a fancy meal to fish and chips in two minutes.

Seriously, any day the warm weather would like to show up here in Milano, I certainly won't complain. -_-

Later...

My brain drain this time around has not been as debilitating as it has been for my previous projects, which has allowed me to actually get some stuff done this week. I suspect this has to do with forcing myself not to keep working all the time. I took frequent rest breaks while writing this last novel, and I took many weekends off to do other stuff like watch movies, read books, or play video games.

In spite of the improved mental capacity, I'm still crabby. I think I've done good not to spread my foul mood around to other people, though while talking to my dad this week, I said "I guess you can't tell I'm in a crabby mood." He replied "Yeah, the word bitch did come to mind once or twice today."

I committed myself to finishing the new web site design and uploading it, and once I had it online...half the graphics didn't work. I'm not really sure why, but I spent a couple of hours opening links in Dreamweaver, and then clicking OK without selecting anything. Then I saved the file, and the graphic worked. No, I have no clue why that worked. But the new site is up now, and I shouldn't need to do a major overhaul again until next year.

I got outside a whopping two times this week, which for me is major accomplishment, even if all I did was walk to the grocery store. The exercise was good for me, and during my first walk, I came up with a story with a really nifty and experimental form of first person narrative. I spent the night working on it, and I've posted it to the critique group to see what should be cut to get the story down from 3,150 words to 2,500.

Yes, you read that right. This was the shortest story I've ever written, and while I originally intended it to be a multi-post freebie for the web site, I had to admit the narrative style doesn't lend itself to making a long story. So I'll set this one aside as a possible magazine submission and keep hounding the muse for something else to post on the site.

My second trip out of the house was intended to get some drain cleaner, because the bidet drain has been clogged for most of the week. I ended up having to walk around to three different stores to find what I was looking for, and during that trip, I picked up stuff for dinner, an extra box of crackers, and some canned beef for the cats.

One thing that did start to piss me off is how many people acted like they didn't see me. I was shouldered aside numerous times in all three stores, and a kid ran a shopping cart into me even though I'd backed up against the shelves to avoid him, and even though his mom was telling him repeatedly to look where he was going. None of this would be nearly as infuriating if ANYONE had looked back to apologize for knocking me about. But not one person did. In fact, a couple glared at me for daring to invade their personal space. Oy.

I got home and started surfing sites to see who was open for submissions, and I found out Mundania Press is open this month. So I'm trying to polish up one of the novellas to send it to them. Mundania wouldn't be my first choice for this story, but the places I do want to try are closed to submissions until 2009. And I figure this story has to pick up its first rejection from somebody, right? X^P

And that's what I've been up to. Time to get back to work.

Later...

I'm up REALLY late, so I will make this brief to avoid being too incoherent. I decided to go ahead and just do a long epilogue instead of trying to do another chapter. I finished most of the epilogue, and I was hoping to complete the book tonight. But when I looked up from one typing fit to see:

"Kghe, Xdffeofg...no; I dhbvmòl on his dfhkh with a fjhkfhr," he sid.

Yeah, I'm exaggerating slightly, but it still wasn't pretty. In any case, I have four scenes left to conclude the book, and the book weighs in at...144K right now. So it looks like I will be hitting my projected goal. Yay.

However, I am a bit sad too, because this morning, Luche left for a sale convention in China. So I will be left alone all this week during my brain drain time. I can barely take care of myself during these phases, so yes, I'm a little bit worried. But it can't be helped.

All right, I'm off to bed before I fall asleep on my desk.

Later...

Well, I only half lied, really. When I got up this morning, I had a horrid pain in my arm which pretty much guaranteed I wouldn't be writing, right? Yeah, and that worked until the sun set and the muse woke up. Before I got to that point, I read another story from the zombie anthology, and the punchline more than made up for two of the other stories. I'm still smirking over it because I really didn't see the punchline coming. The book was heading into 3 star territory, but this one story pulls the book back up to a 5. I remain hopeful for the rest of the stories to be that good.

But once the muse was up, she begged for just two pages to get out this next set of twists. Hey, remember what I said about daemons being evil? Well my muse isn't too nice either. This section of the story is being written very slowly because every time I turn around, the muse is proving just how evil the daemons really are. NOW I understand why she was reluctant to get started on this project too, because all those characters we so lovingly built over the years are being tormented badly. Many are dying, and those that survive are likely to be scarred for life.

I wish I could say I'm almost done, but the pain in my arm really slowed me down a lot today. I did bump up the count to 128K, but I've only covered one of the twists, and a fight between two magi and the family slayer. Oh, and I also covered a little more information about Richter, Wendy, and Damien. I'm doling this stuff out so that if you read this series, you understand something big happened to Wendy, but you don't know what. It's the same when Cora makes an appearance in the third Campaign trilogy novel. There's enough information for you to know something really bad happened to her and her family, but Cora isn't in the mood to go into specifics. And in both cases, you don't really need to know one story to appreciate the other...in theory.

In web site related news, I paid for a shopping cart from my provider, and I'm starting to work on setting that up to integrate it into the new site design. I'll be going back to having only two books available, since I will be taking down "Waiting for a Miracle." Yes, this is farewell for Duggan, Leona, and Wallace...I'm sorry to see them go, but the concept never took off with enough people to justify having the book out.

After I finish all of the short term projects on my list, it will be time to write some more stand alone stories. Before I made the jump to IJ, I'd been thinking about doing a mystery novel with a non psychic investigator as my protagonist. This new character is not a professional detective, but he'd love to play one on TV. He's an actor who mostly does commercials or plays bit parts in horror movies.

I think I'm going to play up the gore a little bit, and keep the kind of creepy style of narration I used in the Campaign trilogy books. But this time around, I'm going to try and strengthen the mystery elements. And also, since this is a stand alone novel, I have to make sure my characters all develop within the story. With "The Lesser of Two Evils," I knew it was okay to hold off on some of the character development because that was coming in the later books. But I only get one book to make people care about this actor and his sister. Sure, I'll try to leave the book open ended, so if people like the characters and demand a sequel, I'll have somewhere to go with it.

Whew, long post, huh? Before I get to that mystery novel, I still need to come up with a good short story concept to play with for the site. But as of yet, the muse is still shrugging and saying "I dunno" when I question her about what we will write. I guess with all the gold she's been cranking out on this one story, I can't complain...hehe, unless it later turns out all that gold was in a shower. X^o

Later...

I completed 8 sooner than I expected because the muse insisted some of the scenes I'd outlined were fluff. So I worked on three scenes to finish out the chapter with a word count of 124K. Now the next set of events are pretty clear for chapter 9. It's time to pull up the file labeled "killlist.psd" and start checking off names. Whoever is still left at this point with a red X over their name...well it's time for the permanent pink slip.

But I'm not doing any writing tonight, because it's my birthday. And really, the last thing I want for my birthday is to be depressed. I'm probably going to game a lot and try once again to finish the zombie book. Then after I've passed the day of mourning over my getting older, =^P I'll get into the very depressing topic of who else is getting the ax from the series.

Anyway, it's is time for bed again. In conclusion, I'd just like to say two things. One, woot! I only have three chapters left! ^_^ And two, daemons are evil bastards.

Later...

Yesterday, I was making up a post talking about how fast I was working through chapter 8, and how I thought it would be one of the shorter chapters. But the muse started nagging me before I'd finished, and she had the feeling she may have gotten some of the details wrong.

So instead of working forward today, I had to back up and go over each scene to see what the problem was. Most of the scenes were okay, but in several others, the muse tried to "shoot big" again, placing too many people in the chapter just for the sake of having them in the story. This led me to begin fact checking one sentence, and sure enough, that sentence was made a lie by an earlier scene. And since the scene was wrong, I had to fix it.

Next, I had to cut out a section which sounded nice in theory, but the logistics were impossible. Basically, the muse wanted a chunk of debris from an explosion to fly past a character's car. The explosion is well over twenty to thirty MILES away, and so for the explosion to carry that far, there would be no buildings or survivors anywhere near the blast. No, I mean like a mile wide blast area.

Katherine is powerful, but she isn't that powerful. And really, this is the muse wanting to make the answers easy for the characters. In this case, I think it's better to be more subtle. This allows for the characters to make an assumption about the explosion once they learn of it from the news like everyone else. Of course in chapter 9, they'll realize the truth...but by then it will be too late. Muah-hahahahahahaha!

Tomorrow I will be able to start proceeding ahead into the chapter a bit more, though I'm not sure if I can finish it or not. There are nine scenes left to write, and I expect most of them will be difficult and/or depressing. There's only so much of that kind of writing I can do each day before I have to take a break.

In other news, I read a few more stories from "The Dead Walk Again!" And it's been a really mixed bag. The story "Fast Eddie's Night Out" is a copy of the plot of "Weekend at Bernie's II." While I read it, I was telling hubby "Look, see that line? I already know what the end is because he said this." The ending was just what I expected, and even if the writing was okay, it still bothered me that fast Eddie started looking like Bernie in my imagination. Other stories were good, but not good horror stories. They just didn't inspire any feeling in me.

And it isn't that I'm jaded. Last night, I read a flash fiction piece that had me tense and shuddering for a few minutes after I read it. But there's a lot of stories I read that I know are good, and they just aren't scaring me. All of the writing is good, and the descriptions are clear enough to make a mental picture. But the stories read like action adventures with extra gore, and people make their protagonists into super heroes. So I know nothing can touch them, and it drains a lot of the tension away. I'm not asking people to kill their heroes, but at least scratch the guy's cheek or have him trip somewhere to make me worry, yanno?

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Maybe tomorrow I'll try to finish the zombie book and move on to another book in my TBR pile.

Later...