My well has run dry. That's not entirely accurate. There's plenty in the well. Just...not what I need.
My sister in law can eat and eat and eat, and then finally declare herself full. Only to turn around and have a piece of cake five minutes late. "I have two stomachs," she says. "One for savory and one for sweet. Just because savory is full doesn't mean I can't eat something sweet."
Which is pretty much what is happening to me right now. I've been reading a lot more lately. I've finished Anna and the French Kiss, Hex Hall, and Demonglass. They all refilled my well immensely. I feel like the part of my well that I need to start drafting my next WIP is overflowing. They were perfect examples of things I want to do, works to aspire to.
But I have work to finish on Feral before I move on to that project. And that well feels bone dry. Something is missing and I can't figure out what. The fuel I need to figure it out, the well I need for that work...there's nothing there. And I just can't tell what I need to fill that well. So I keep trying to push forward with that work, and feel my wheels spinning in the muck at the bottom of my empty well. Do not ask me what I'm doing trying to drive in my empty well. The metaphor well is also empty, apparently. ;)
But I'm trying to push forward and get that work done. Trying to do things like read and create other things and hike until I shake loose the thing that is missing. On another note, I need a new journal. My last one only has a couple pages left and they are reserved for a short I've been working on in it.
I love buying new journals. *Happy squee*
I'm Currently Reading:
Most Recent Books I've Read:
Yesterday I turned 27. Not a particularly significant event in our society. But it had me thinking about my life, what I've done, what I still want to do. I only have three years left before 30. Which made my brain to its twitchy little thing where it starts forming lists. And 30 Goals for 30 was born.
It started as just a list of things to work towards, and then very quickly got edited and turned into a list of things to push myself. Push myself to try new things, get over fears, push the boundaries of what I can do.
- write 6 novels
- write 36 short stories
- run a marathon by my 30th birthday
- read 300 books
- learn another language
- learn to knit (make a pair of socks, a pair of fingerless gloves, and a Doctor Who scarf as proof)
- start rock climbing
- take krav maga classes
- join a roller derby team
- cook 156 new recipes
- write 156 handwritten letters to my grandparents
- write 1095 diary entries
- take 1095 pictures
- take a stained glass or glass blowing class
- take a belly dance class
- learn to play an instrument
- do 288 hours of community service
- go to a ren faire in a costume I made myself
- go to a combination of 12 plays/symphonies/art exhibits
- vote in every election after spending adequate time familiarizing myself with the options
- start doing either yoga or pilates, or a combination of the two
- take a class at my local community college for something I do not want to go back to school for
- read the dictionary
- watch 156 classic movies
- pass the FBI physical exam
- take a firearms class
- take a fencing class
- take a kendo class
- eat at 18 new-to-me non-chain restaurants
- take a trip to someplace I've never been
So, aside from my interests in writing and cooking and rambling on the internet, this has just become a place where I will also track my progress towards these 30 goals and pushing myself as a person. Expect sporadic updates as I work towards them.
Though, I have decided that since I came up with this list last week, I will count the two books I've read since then, Anna and the French Kiss and Hex Hall (somebody got a Nook for her birthday and fell in love with reading all over again). But all three of these things deserve their own posts, because ZOMG!
So 2 books down, 298 to go. This is one goal I'm definitely feeling good about. Also, the marathon goal is daunting, but I've re-started my one mile walks and my mother is getting me new walking/jogging shoes for my birthday. It might take all three years, but I can do eet! Go me! :)
I finished writing my rough draft of Feral eight days ago. You'd think it would have been a bigger deal. I mean, I wrote a book. But finishing the book came and went in my life with little remark.
I think there were two main reasons for this. 1.) I was busy. O and I are at work 50 hours per week, we had scheduled our mandatory summer overtime, we had a baptism class, and we became Godparents. 2.) Even more likely why I didn't get super worked up about it, I knew in my gut I wasn't done.
I thought I knew myself as a writer. I write long and make lots of cuts during revisions. This was the case with the last novel I wrote, this has been the case with most short stories I've written. I thought it was just a given.
I was wrong.
When I finished the zero draft of Feral, it clocked in at 65,000 words. Don't get me wrong, I realize this is long enough to be a full YA for some writers, and not every story is the same. I was just a bit flabbergasted that I'd written something so short. So when I didn't jump and dance and celebrate at my zero draft being done, I thought it was just because I'd done this before, and I knew I had lots of revising and editing to do before it was ready to go out into the world.
Well, I've just finished doing my first read through and taking notes on what needs to be fixed. And I have a new theory. I didn't get super excited because in my gut, I knew a had more to write. After my first read-through, I now have a list of 29 scenes that need to be written or re-written. Which sounds very big and scary, but I'm more excited than anything.
29 scenes sounds like a lot. But looking over the list, it varies from an entirely new scene that needs to be written beginning to end from scratch, to a three paragraphs of a scene that have to be slightly re-written because something changed in the plot.
O asked me for an estimate of how long I think it will take to get through the list. Honestly, I'm not really sure. I don't think it will be very long, given how excited I am to get it done. But you never know what kink will pop up. But I do know one thing. It will get done faster if I get to work on it. So, hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go.
Despite having to be to work today, O and I decided to head off to a midnight showing of Captain America. I'm not a Marvel fangirl. My love of Marvel basically boils down to the X-Men and whoever gave me Chris Hemsworth's abs as Thor. I have no deep love of Cap. He's too much like Cyclops, IMO, a goody-two-shoes. I always preferred Wolverine, Gambit, etc.
Suffice it to say, I wasn't excited for the movie. But I was willingly to go along to see it. I'd gone to see Green Lantern and even enjoyed parts of it, for Pete's sake.
Overall thoughts: I enjoyed myself thoroughly. There are a few nitpicks I have that really bothered me, but there were things I really liked as well. It was funny. There was no lack of laughter in my packed theater.
I liked what they did with Peggy Carter. She was one of the better written women in a comic movie lately. Especially after watching the dishrag of a Carol Ferris in Green Lantern. Peggy was strong, motivated, and managed to be both of those things without being hard or losing her femininity. You can be a badass and girly. I like characters that manage to have both.
But I must say, I have one big nitpick with this movie. Maybe I'm the only person that it bothered, but it was hard to accept and pulled me somewhat out of the story. I can accept the lame science behind making a super soldier. Whatever. It's comic book cheese, I expect some of it. BUT! If you tell me a shield is going to protect someone from bullets and disintegrating rays because it's made of vibranium and absorbs all vibrations/shocks that hit it, how exactly are you going to expect me to believe it will hit something and bounce back to Cap? You do understand how things ricochet, right, Captain America writers?
Yes, comic book, I know. But for some reason, despite all the other things I could be nitpicking, that's the thing that left me grinding my teeth throughout the movie. Still, despite that, I had fun. Plus, it's almost worth the ticket price just for the bit after the credits. I can't wait.
Overall, I'd give Captain America a B+.
I had several false starts on my WIP. My current draft now stands at:
I've basically torn this thing apart so many times as I've gone, that I've removed nearly as many words from the file as I still have left in it. You'd think, that if I were a normal person, that would make me frustrated or sad. Lately it's been making me a little giddy. Yes, I know, well adjusted I am not.
But here's the thing. I recently had hit that part of the book where I hated it, couldn't stand it, was absolutely sure it was all crap. So far, for just about everything I've completed, that kicks in about a third of the way through and last until I hit the last third. I spend a third of the the thing I'm writing convinced I've spent countless hours typing useless drivel.
And I would have done so with this one too. Except! Except, I have all those wrong words to look back at. Which I did this weekend. And then I gave my current draft a once over. They may not all be the right words, but they're mostly in the right place. Which supplied me with a little pick me up that kept me from hating this book or thinking it's awful.
It may have taken me awhile, but this book is nearly halfway, and well on track to be done in late July or early August, in pretty decent shape. Don't get me wrong, I'll have my work cut out for me when I start revisions. Who doesn't? But I'm more confident about this book, than I have been anything else I've written, so far.
So here's crossing my fingers, plugging away--current goal is at least 1k/day--and hoping when I hand it over to some crit partners, they don't think it's a steaming pile.
<tirade>
No, not you. The inconsiderate $*^%#*$ sitting behind me during the 4:35 showing of Green Lantern today.
I paid to watch this movie, not listen to some white-trash, mullet having jackass explain Green Lantern lore to your son/friend/whatever he was.
Don't get me wrong, I understand if he had some questions and you were trying to fill him in on the back story so he could enjoy the movie. I'll even give you leniency and give you a pass on it, even though it was the first movie and was ENTIRELY ORIGIN STORY! If you had just had the courtesy to whisper.
But no, not you classy guy in the nearly sold out showing. You had to speak loudly enough for everyone in a three row radius to hear everything you said. And you continued to talk through at least 10-20% of the entire movie.
When the movie got particularly loud during an action scene, you raised your voice to a near shout to make sure you could be heard.
Really? REALLY?!
You, Sir, are the antithesis of everything great about comics/superheroes/good movies (not that I'm sure Green Lantern necessarily falls into this category, I'm just sayin')/the world! This little tirade cannot begin to cover how much everyone around you hates you for this greatest of sins: talking through a movie.
But what's actually worse? At least half of the "lore" that you spouted is wrong. And not even slightly factually inaccurate wrong. Wrong like you had lumped a dozen super heroes' back stories together and still didn't manage to get a single fact about any of them correct. Seriously? W? T? F?!
</tirade>
Google gave me all their wonderfully Google-y apps like blogger and reader for my domain account. I had been using my domain account for gmail, calendar, and documents. However, when I first set my domain email up through gmail, they didn't offer services such as reader and blogger.
I could not be separated from my Google Reader, so I kept using my original gmail account. And then when I switched my website over to being hosted on Blogger, I had a separate account for that.
Thank you Google for letting me combine everything I use into this one account.
So I have now copied over my reader feed and starred items, moved the website over, and gotten everything from my now extraneous old accounts. This doesn't make any real difference on my page--except now all my posts have lost their original dates and are now listed as being posted this week. But it is sure a hell of a lot more convenient for me. One log in! No switching accounts/commenting from the wrong one.
I am easily stoked. And you probably don't care, but I had to share my excitement.