July is editing month

Our 50ks in 30 days challenge ended on Monday, and it feels strange no longer to be writing under pressure. A staggering 1,749,046 were written during the challenge and I'm proud to be on of the motivators of the challenge (along with my partners in whip-cracking and mirth, Sandie Hudson and Rhian Cahill). It is great to see others achieve and push their writing boundaries.

I have emailed our gorgeous winners certificates out (so now everyone who made 50ks is officially certified) and ordered the badges so we can wear them at the RWAus conference in Melbourne in August, and display our tenancity, our creativity and our insanity.

My head is now all over the place as July is editing month for me. I'm working with two different critique partners so I'm switching between working on Diary of the Future and I'm with the Band. My first 3 chapters of I'm with the Band have insertions and deletions scribbled all over them, and I'm about to add these to the computer, to keep myself on Writer Island for another week. And in between thinking about the characters of each of these stories, the guys from Hold the Anchovies keep making guest appearances in my head insisting that I finish that story. Because although I'm at 80k, I haven't reached the end yet. As the story starts with a pizza-fortune telling, I would also like to end it that way to bring it full circle and to show Lisa's emotional growth, but I'm not quite sure that Lisa has grown as much as she needs to as yet. And in hope, I have updated the status bar in the right hand colum with a projected word count of 85,000 but they may expand according to the character's moods.

Except for the cold weather and getting home in the dark after work, I really like July. It's the month I cash in my enforced savings plan by getting my tax refund and then make the annual pilgrimage to the Byron Bay Writers Festival with my writing buddies. Just a couple more weeks of the day job and editing and writing...and then I'll be lapping up the festival atmosphere. Can't wait....

What's in a name?

Yesterday was the first day that I didn't write at least 100 words. I wrote 91 words and these were words added while I transcribed my longhand onto the computer. But as 'I'm with the Band' is nearly finished (at over 100k), I need to work out where the missing pieces are. So I started a spreadsheet to record the details of each scene. Still working on the writing just in a different way.

This morning I woke up with the characters of Kirsty and Luke in my head from the film festival novel, Making the Cut. So already I've written two scenes with them, the first of which will insert somehow into the existing first chapter so that antagonist and hero are introduced early on. The only thing that concerns me is that the majority of the story is told from the point of view of the heroine, except for the scenes with Elizabeth, Bilby Creek's matriarch, and these new scenes are from Luke's point of view. Which means that I will probably have to rewrite some later scenes from Luke's POV. (I need to CUT words not ADD words). Anyway, my renewed and sudden passion for this story means that the first three chapters should be rewritten very soon and submitted.

So far, it's been a really good Easter weekend. It's just me and the cat. And Thursday night I watched a Clark Gable movie Comrade X, which I hadn't seen before. It was a movie made in 1940 so he's in prime and he's hot! I followed that up Friday morning with Homecoming. In this one he was a little older (made in 1948) but still it was nice to watch two of his movies that I hadn't seen before. Of course, I saw Gone with the Wind when I was 13 and have liked him ever since. It doesn't matter to me that he is always Clark Gable no matter what role he plays.

I've also reached the point where I need to change the names in 'I'm with the Band'. I cannot possibly have a couple named Kat and Matt, and another couple Maddie and Freddie. It wasn't purposeful, it just happened that way. Plus the band name needs to change as well. So I've been playing around on some generators on the web: Rate my Band, Band Name Maker plus others. At the moment, Eloquent Beast is sounding good to me for the name of the band. Names may change to Nelson (for Freddie, because he's a bit pretentious and probably renamed himself), and Jake instead of Matt. And perhaps the singer will change to Ben. I find naming male characters very difficult. Common names are too common and I will come up with a name and then think of someone I know with that name and dismiss it. Uncommon names or unusual names often seem too pretentious or 'soap-opera-style' and often position the character in the wrong age group. Mind you, I have no problems using these names for minor characters: I have one sleazy guy in I'm with the Band called 'Hunter' and he is definitely on the hunt. Still, progress is being made and that's all that matters.

Replenishing the well of creativity

I'm in Nanowrimo recovery mode now. I haven't written for a week although I'm likely to return to it within the next day or so.

So to replenish my well of creativity, I have been reading. First up, The Mag Hags, a young adult novel by Lollie Barr.

This transported me back to my days of school, feeling on the outer of the in crowd, but never actually wanting to be one of them, and finding my way through adolescence. I used to do a lot of writing then, but when I reached uni I stopped creative and journal writing and became an essay factory instead.

Over the last few days, I have read Alice in La La Land by Sophie Lee.

I wasn't expecting much of this novel as Sophie is foremost known as an actor, and this is her debut novel. I picked it up more out of curiosity than anything else as I had met Sophie a long time ago in a former life as a box office manager and she was supposed to be at the last Byron Bay Writers Festival but pulled out when one of her children fell ill. . But Sophie can write, and she hooked me into Alice's life and attempts at an acting career in Los Angeles. She expressed a lot about acting and the continuous cycle of rejection and its effect on self esteem which I recognised when I tried to move from amateur acting into auditions for several drama schools at the end of my high school life. I'm so glad that I came to my senses and did not pursue that particular dream.

Also watching movies and television. Firstly, Death at a Funeral at the cinema. A very rare and funny treat, but what else can I expect from Frank Oz? I watched the first episode of Dexter - I think I will be enjoying this one, caught a repeat of the pilot episode of Six Feet Under - that was such a good show! And today I watched 4 episodes of American Gothic - not sure how I missed that one on TV.

In between, I've almost completed my christmas shopping ready for a trip to Newcastle for an extended family Christmas party next weekend. I haven't made it to one of these for many years because I live hundreds of miles away, so it should be fun to catch up with all the various aunts, uncles, niece, nephews, cousins etc.

So the creative well is filling again, and I'm making a list of writing tasks I need to fill in the next twelve months or so.

1. Finish Beyond Happily Ever After first draft (poor Cinderella is still on her honeymoon, and it certainly doesn't feel like one)

2. Finish editing/rewriting Diary of the Future and submit!

3. Finish first draft of I'm with the Band.

4. Finish editing/rewriting Making the Cut. And this will mean making the cut myself of around 8,000 words.

5. Keep creating new collage poems for anthology next year.

6. Short story for writers group competition.

7. Create chickollage website - I have the domain but I haven't created the site yet.

8. Add more products to Chickollage Cafepress shop.

9. Add more products to zazzle shop - this one has only just started.

10. Establish critique partnership (must send in RWA application form)

As usual the plate is full, but I wouldn't want it any other way.

Relapsing & the Cinderella summary

I have a confession. I have relapsed.

Just one, I thought it'd be alright. Well, that turned into one a day. Then two a day. And now I've bought a bottle home.

Shame!

Does anyone know of a Cokeaholic meeting I can attend because that brown liquid is enticing me again?

So today, my father tells me to have an energy drink instead, it'd pick me up. I thought he was talking about Gatorade. But no, he was talking about Guarana. So I bought a bottle, and then looked at the contents. More sugar than Coke, and a high caffeine rating - not sure how that compares because Coke doesn't reveal it's caffeine levels. So tonight I'm drinking water.

I'm a bit miffed that my next Quickflix DVD's didn't arrive in time for the weekend. Why can't Australia Post be quicker? I was looking forward to having a guilty Melrose Place marathon tomorrow night, and watching Click with my partner when he arrives home on Sunday. But now they won't arrive until Monday, and I probably won't have time during the week to watch them. So in absence of trash TV, I will watch quality Australian drama instead - LOVE MY WAY. Let me think, twenty to thirty somethings who drink a lot and sleep with each other and have extremely mixed up relationships - not much difference really! Just the accent.

Last weekend I watched Confetti, the weirdest wedding competition movie - that was fun - and Transamerica - powerful stuff, I can see why Felicity Huffman won the Golden Globe for her portrayal of Bree.

I started reading my lulu copy of Diary of the Future. It is amazing how having it in book format changes my perspective and makes editing so much easier. So it will undergo another edit, some formatting of the collage poetry inside, and hopefully some more poems added, reformatting of the layout, so it doesn't take up so many pages, and resizing the backcover so it appears more symmetrical. Even my father's impressed with what I've achieved so far and with this concrete form of visualisation, I know that I'm on the way to achieving my goals.

I'm bored with cooking for one. It's 8.30 and I'm not really hungry because I ate some dips and biscuits earlier, but I suppose I'll have to eat something tonight. Maybe some more snacky foods - give in to my ongoing olive craving.

Last night, I was browsing the Nanowrimo forums and came across the Auto summarize feature in Microsoft Word (in the Tools menu). So here's the 10 sentence summary of my Cinderella short story (as determined by Microsoft):

Snow White giggled.
‘Snow White and Henry are expecting,’ Cindy told her husband.
Damn the prince and his royal traditions!
Can one prince be enough for our Snow White?
Cinderella placed her hand on Snow White’s stomach.
‘Henry, it’s Cinderella.
‘Cindy, come in.
‘Oh, Cindy.’

‘Cheeky!’ smiled Snow White.
‘Still two princes!

Can anyone guess the plot from these ten random sentences?

Diary of the Future - the novel

Finally, Saturday comes around at the end of a very busy week. But I did achieve a lot this week.

I added another 1200 words to the Cinderella story and sent it off to the short story competition. I'm very happy with the way it turned out. Perhaps I may fracture some more fairy tales in the future.

I received my free lulu.com copy of Diary of the Future, and it looks great. I did have a few uploading issues and formatting issues as I mentioned in my previous post, but all this has resulted in is an extra blank page between some of the chapters. As this is my motivational copy and editorial copy, it really doesn't matter. So it's on to reading the novel with fresh eyes - hopefully, as a critical and discerning reader. Sorry, I can't post a pic of the actual book at this stage because my partner has borrowed my digital camera for the week and he is many miles away.

I passed the book around at work, and at drinks after work yesterday. A physical book makes more sense to many of my co-workers than 200 A4 pages. A book looks like a finished product (believe me it's not) - 200 pages looks like it will never end. So now it's on to revising, summarising, querying and submitting. A whole new adventure.

Oh, and I also got new tyres on my car this morning. What a difference brand new tyres make!

Diary of the Future cover

The editing is happening, although not as fast as I would like. By 3pm yesterday afternoon, I was exhausted (post Nano, post holiday exhaustion perhaps), I laid down and woke up three hours later. Then this morning I slept in again. Guess I needed the extra sleep.

I have designed the cover for the lulu copy. I'm not going to be releasing the book for sale. At this point, the lulu copy is just for my bookshelf to inspire me. A real novel with my name on it. Goal: a real novel with my name on it and a major publisher's insignia on the spine.

I had been looking at diaries on ebay, but a lot of the more unusual diaries looked a bit on the evil side and I didn't want Nicky's diary to be that obvious. So I ditched the sculpted diaries with monsters, dragons and pentagrams and pulled out a trusted journal from my collection, added the 'bag of words' that Nicky refers to in the story, scissors, pen and a glue stick, and matched the title font to the gold on the 'diary'. I love digital cameras, and photoshop - so cool.

I added a back cover blurb and there you have it: a cover for my 'novel'.

Now to finish editing the stuff that will go in between the covers.

Finally, the weekend arrives

Why is it that the four days at work following a public holiday seem to go longer than any five day week? Yes, I've been hanging out for the weekend. And finally it is here.

The work week had its ups and downs. The up was a request for me to take on a new role, something I have been working towards for a while, so that was very welcome news. The downs - well, the usual downs that occur in working in a bureaucracy with fixed ways of working. Enough said. It's the weekend and I enter a fantasy world for the duration.

I wish I'd had my camera on the way to work this morning. The fog was incredible, low lying in the valley, a thick blanket covering all the trees. Beautiful! But what the -? We're supposed to be in the middle of summer!
If I wake up tomorrow and it's the same, I'll go out and take pictures. But judging by the weather this afternoon, I doubt we'll have another fog in the morning.

So I've been in a bit of dilemma the last few days. My original plan was to edit Making the Cut and polish up for submission. But as I'm working on Diary of the Future in preparation for the Nanowrimo winner offer from lulu.com, I'm thinking that perhaps I should concentrate my energy on that. So that's now the plan. And I'll be spending my weekend immersed in the landscape of Diary, editing, rewriting, preparing a cover. I need to make the most of the weekend as my partner is away so I won't have any interruptions. Plus he's bringing his 16 year old sister back for the remainder of the school holidays - she can be my beta reader as she is the same age as the main character.

So my draft copy is printing now. 196 pages. I don't know how many scenes that will be but I'm ready to immerse myself into Nicky's world.

Dorkus helps with the editing - NOT!

Dorkus decided he wanted to help me edit. Which is all well and good, but it makes my task a little harder, trying to read around him.

Well, it seems that everyone's a critic. I left the pages out for him and he slept on them. Next morning, he'd given his considered opinion by throwing up all over the manuscript.

Beautiful! Thank you very much. Lucky I wasn't the one to discover it, and my partner cleaned up the mess. Hehe!

But this version of the manuscript was chucked out after being chucked up on. Thankfully, I had finished transferring all the corrections to date to the computer file, and printed a new and clean edit copy which is safely encased in plastic.

Yesterday I finished my Cinderella short story and mailed it today for the short story competition. Because I was working so close to the deadline, there was no time for an edit after my beta reader checked it out today, but she thought it was very funny and politically uncorrect. So the premise is...what happens when the Prince and Cinderella are having trouble conceiving the heir to the throne? And I take potshots at tabloids and paparazzi, and modern royalty and celebrity.It was challenging to write a story with a beginning, middle and end in under 2000 words after writing 50k, 80k, 100k - you get the idea! In 2000 words, I'm just getting warmed up.

I also reserved a place in the blogosphere for Nambucca Valley Writers' Group, who are my favourite bunch of people. I have been posting the 2006 Year in Review for the group. You can check it out here.

Because it was relatively quiet at work today, I started working on the One-Pass Manuscript Revision on Making the Cut. And yes, I have worked through all the steps of Part One, including condensing the novel into 25 words. I'm still working on the 250 words - that will need a few more revisions.

Another work day (hopefully reasonably quiet again) and then another three day weekend. I just wish every weekend would last three days!