Welp, I Ordered Me a Chromebook

A surprisingly hard act to follow!

Some personal history: although I've traditionally written a goodly portion of first drafts by hand (speaking primarily of fiction here), once I get the ball rolling it's nice to have the speed of a keyboard--not to mention it's nice not to have to do quite as much double work, reentering all the text.

On the other hand, I have the attention span of a gnat, and a fully capable large screened computer offers many distractions. Also, having my text all spread out on a big screen a) makes it feel like I'm filling a water tower one drop at a time and b) makes me inclined to endless editing, since I can scan back through bunches of text at once and find fault with it. I compose most of my blog posts in a small Notepad window on my big screen, but that's not really practical for longer work.

Several years back, I discovered and fell in love with Renaissance Learning's Alphasmart word processors, specifically the Neo. They were rugged, their battery life could be measured in months or even years, they displayed just a few lines of text at a time, and they had a great keyboard. Basically, they were a miniature portable typewriter that saved to memory instead of paper. They only did one thing, but they did it well. I've loved mine. However, there are a few caveats: first of all, getting text from the device to the computer can be fairly time consuming and requires cables. I loathe cables. I lose cables. Secondly, the thing looks like a business class Speak and Spell. I never got truly comfortable with using it out in the public eye.

For some time, I've been longing for an Alphasmart successor: a simple, highly portable, unpretentious device which would allow me to create documents and sync them wirelessly.

I briefly owned a lipstick pink Samsung netbook and still remember it with fondness--I wrote a ridiculous number of short stories on that thing--but it was so slow, especially when booting up, and backing up my documents or syncing the between computers took a bit of thought. It was close, but no cigar.

A few years ago, Chromebooks began to pop up. I was mildly intrigued. Google has been a friend of mine since the days of invite-only G-mail and I already had quite a few documents in the Google eco-system. However, at the time, Chromebooks didn't really have any off-line capability (though I'm usually connected, I'd like that now and again), and were almost a public beta. I liked the concept, but didn't feel like they were ready for prime time.

The current crop feels a lot more polished to me, and I've decided to take the leap. I ordered an Asus Flip C100. This device is part tablet as well as part mini-laptop. The keyboard is small, but actually a bit bigger than the netbook of old, so I'm not too worried. It only has a 10.1 inch screen (tablet sized), but it's a nice bright IPS panel, and although 1200x800 is low for a tablet, it's better than the old netbook. I think it'll be very comfortable.

On top of all that, it has a touch screen, and if you flip the keyboard back, you can use it as a tablet. Granted, Chrome OS isn't really optimized for touch right now, and the screen is no iPad Retina thing, but my primary use case would be browsing or looking at PDFs, and I think it will be just fine for that.

You can also stand it up tent style, or flip the keyboard back far enough to use as a stand for watching movies (Netflix and Amazon Prime should both work) or displaying recipes. That covers just about everything I'd like to be able to do with a small portable device. Document editing comes above all, but I've never owned a tablet and, while I'm not expecting anything like iPad performance, I'm intrigued by the possibilities.

It should be here sometime in the next week. More thoughts once I've had a chance to incorporate it into my workflow. It could be the perfect first draft machine--if I can avoid the siren call of other Chrome tabs. The little guy only weighs about two pounds and will fit easily in my writing bag for coffee shop trips and lunch breaks. Best of all, whatever I type will instantly be available from my other computers.

A bonus: this is childish, but I've always kind of wanted to put stickers all over a computer, but have never had one I felt I could decorate like that. I am *so* gonna sticker this little thing once the brand new wears off.

Anyway, I'm tentatively excited.

Arrogant, Elegant, Smart?

I've been trying to get a Throwback Thursday post up most weeks, but this week, I'm too preoccupied about the future to successfully contemplate the past.

This coming Saturday, I'm signed up for a real, honest-to-goodness writer's conference. It's a fairly small one in a fairly small town, and is more lecture than critique. Still, I'm nervous. I feel like an impostor. I feel like if I'm not careful, someone will ask me a question a Real Writer would know the answer to, and I'll be exposed as a fraud. A shocked silence will fall, and I'll be cast into the outer darkness to wail and gnash my teeth.

Something like that.

Or at the very least, I'm not sure how to introduce myself if--God forbid--anyone asks me to do so.

• Do I admit to writing all my life, to many years of short stories and essays and even completed novel-length works, and say I'm there to learn more about editing and marketing? Or is that arrogant?

• Do I act aloof and blase: say I've always been kind of curious about having a go at writing and that I'm just there out of curiosity?

• Or do I resort to my common role in music circles: playing the total beginner, so I have excuses for any shortcomings, but limiting myself because I'm basically saying "Don't take me seriously"?

As I once again pondered these questions this morning, this song (performed by Danny Kaye in The Inspector General) popped into my head. Doesn't really address my conundrum, but it makes me smile.

Just Go To Bed Already

It has come to my attention that my approach to writing often shares similarities with a bratty child's attitude toward bed time.

"I can't go to bed--I need a drink of water first!"
"I can't go to bed--I forgot to brush my teeth!"
"I can't go to bed--I need to go potty!"
"I can't go to bed--I need the nightlight on!"
"I can't go to bed--I don't have my bear!"
"I can't go to bed--I want my *other* bear!

Etc. It's almost the same with writing.

"I'm going to write LOTS, but I can't write in the morning/evening."
"I'm going to write LOTS, but I need x pen/pencil/notebook, and I can't find it."
"I'm going to write LOTS, but I need to be in the mood."
"I'm going to write LOTS, but I don't like what I wrote yesterday, so I should take a break."
"I'm going to write LOTS, but I need x gadget, which I don't already own, so first I'll waste days researching it."
"I'm going to write LOTS, just as soon as I have a day off."

There's always some reason to stall. It's childish and silly and it needs to stop.

Maybe I can try bribing myself with star stickers on a calendar. As I recall, that used to be all that was needed to induce good behavior, once upon a time.

Another Benefit to Hand Writing

I've spent some time this weekend getting caught up on transcription. I'm sort of hoping once I get everything on the computer, I can take a stab at moving forward that way. As much as I like writing by hand, I don't want it to become a magic bullet or a crutch.

That said, in transcribing, I'm remembering some of the reasons I love hand writing, slow though it is. I do a lot of crossing out text, but leaving it for reference--something I'm not likely to do on the computer screen, with a delete function right there. Sometimes the crossed out ends up being better than what I'd planned to keep. And I go back and write notes and directions in the margins, so my final writing ends up being slightly ahead of first draft status.

And other times...well, where is the computer equivalent for this forgotten moment of catharsis I came across in an upper margin?

Starting the Day Off Write

Have you heard of morning pages? I can't recall where I first saw them mentioned, though in researching (to give credit where credit is due) I find it's an idea which was popularized via Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way," a book which I admit I have not read and on which I cannot offer an opinion.

In any case, the concept is simple: first thing in the morning, as soon as you roll out of bed, before your brain has had the chance to fully wake and get its house in order, you sit down and write three full pages. Longhand. That's right: just you and a notepad and a pen or pencil.

What do you write about? Whatever pops into your head. Write about the crazy dream you just escaped. Write about your plans or worries for the day. Write about what you're going to eat for breakfast. Write about how weird the word "morning" looks to you right now, for some reason. Write about the sound of the rain and how it reminds you of sleeping in the back bedroom at your grandmother's house that July between sixth and seventh grade, when birds created a nest under the eaves and one memorable afternoon, a fledgling flew in though the window and about gave Grandma's fat old tabby cat a heart attack.

There are no rules. Just fill those three pages.

As you'd kind of expect, much of what I write is dreadfully dull or complete nonsense. However, in giving myself the freedom to explore whatever comes to mind, I've also found the seeds of short stories or poems or blog posts, wrestled with life decisions, and sorted out tangled scenes in larger works-in-progress. It's also a good way to work on writing discipline: simply sitting down at a given time each day, knowing you have to write something, no matter how sleepy and uninspired you may feel.

In a perfect world, I think I would always start my days with morning pages, and end them with writing down my "Three Good Things." In practice, I manage stints of three or four days at a time, but have never really gotten consistent about it. And I should.

Have you ever tried morning pages? If so, how have they worked for you?

Horses for Courses

I've tended to cycle back and forth on writing instrument preferences. For a while I'll swing more or less totally pencil or completely fountain pen, and then back again. Lately I've been using fountain pen for work notes again--enjoying the brighter colors, greater contrast, and lack of smearing once dry.

So last night when I jumped back in to working on my NaNoWriMo story, I thought I'd switch to pen there, too. I sat down with my notebook and wrote about three words before panic set in.

Aw, heck no.

I guess I need a certain amount of impermanence to feel comfortable when fiction writing. For now, at least, with this particular story. So I dropped the fountain pen like a hot potato (not literally--you fountain pen lovers can get off my back) and went back to pencil. Whew. Much better.

How about you? Do you use different tools for different purposes? Switch from one to another over time based on mood? Or is it all or nothing?

Inadequate

Hey, it's been awhile since I did a woe-is-me post! How about we break that trend?

I've been feeling pretty down lately, cheery Facebook and Twitter posts notwithstanding. You could call it post-NaNoWriMo slump, and I suppose that's part of it, but not merely because of the change of pace. The truth is, my story was much smaller and less meaningful than I hoped it would be. Less mystery. Less complexity. Not much more than ordinary people in a slightly less than ordinary setting. Simple, fairly predictable. All right, I guess, in its own way, but nothing like my original vision and certainly no Great American Novel.

Which is pretty much always how these things turn out. And I end up feeling rather like someone who sets out to create a symphony, only to find themselves unable to compose anything more than a predictable little single line melody. Depressing, especially when you know enough to appreciate and admire the complexity and texture and richness of something deeper, but can't summon any of that into your own head.

Sometimes I feel like a poseur in the writing and blogging world in general. For one thing, it seems like writing, at least in today's world, primarily belongs to people who come from appalling-but-colorful circumstances, or to people you might call the elite: well educated, well traveled, highly experienced. People who have had the time and money to volunteer in remote locations, or to travel to historic sites all over the world, to brush elbows with the best and brightest in a variety of fields--or who are, in fact, among the best in brightest in their fields.

On the other hand, people from lower middle class but stable backgrounds, shabby but never quite destitute; people without college degrees or exotic experiences; people who settled into dull jobs at a rather young age and who have never had time or money for anything more exciting than splurging on a CD or a new pair of shoes or a trip to the beach now and again: these are not writer material, at least not unless they are geniuses or "edgy" or are extroverts with incredible drive and originality. Or so it seems sometimes.

So I haven't felt much like blogging or working on finishing my story, because it feels rather pointless. And yet, writing may be what I'm best at (which is not at all the same as saying I'm good at it), and I feel a bit lost when it isn't part of my days.

I suppose the secret is to accept one's limitations and work within them. Paint with the palette you have at your disposal instead of packing it all away for want of better materials. If you can only write simple little slightly-formulaic stories about more or less ordinary folk, make them the very best simple little slightly-formulaic stories about more or less ordinary folk you are capable of writing.

But it's hard sometimes not to get so bound up in frustration and envy that you tie your own hands until you are incapable of creating anything at all.

Brains are Weird

Last night I had a really horrible dream.

I was driving down the road, minding my own business, when there was a loud sound from the car in front of me: part explosion, partly tearing metal, and a rod or chunk of metal shot up into the air. The driver swerved and pulled over to the side. I stopped to see if they were OK, and found that he--a Hispanic man in his early twenties--was trapped, pinned in his seat with a piece of metal sticking out of his abdomen. I couldn't see to get a good look, because the frame of the car was broken and I couldn't get the door open, plus he was bleeding heavily.

There was no way I could pull him out without making things worse, so there wasn't anything I could do for him but hold his hand and talk to him. Another driver pulled over and I asked her to call 911, but instead I overheard her talking to the switchboard operator at the local hospital, going through step after step. In the end I was left having to fumble out my own phone to call 911, and then I couldn't get the dispatcher to grasp the seriousness of the man's condition. And while trying to stress how bad things were, I was simultaneously trying to tell the guy it wasn't so bad, he would be OK, he just needed to hang in there. He was cold and frightened and obviously bleeding out.

He died just before the EMTs arrived. THe EMTs seemed surprised to find an actual serious injury--I could only guess what the dispatcher told them. I was sobbing, covered in blood, overwrought by the whole situation and angry people hadn't helped, angry I hadn't been able to do anything.

It was horrific. I hate dreams like that.

But it's frustrating that I obviously have the imagination for that kind of drama (realistic or no), yet a lot of time can't seem to find my inner dramatist when it comes to writing. Garrrr.

NaNoNoNoNoNoNo Not Ready!

So, let's see...locally, we have about 36 hours to go until the NaNoWriMo madness begins. Where do I stand?

• I did a lot of *claiming* to plan back in September.

• I did some actual *attempted* planning in October.

• I got as far as boldly labeling a pocket notebook "NaNoWriMo 2013" in anticipation of using it for ideas and notes.

• My current plot goes something like this: What if? Then something. And bam, SOMETHING!

In other words, I got nothin'. I am tempted to scrap my vague idea and rewrite an old idea instead.

But hey, NaNoWriMo is all about embracing your inner pantser, right? Right??

NaNoNotebook, plus the rest of my current pocket notebooks: the Field Notes is for NaNo, the Scout Book below it is a logbook of sorts with brief notes on each day, the Moleskine cahier below that is for to-dos, and my brain-dump notebook is on the bottom.

The More I Write the More I Write

1. I tweeted the subject line above the other day: "The more I write, the more I write." On the surface, it sounds foolishly obvious. I mean, yeah, duh, if you write more, you've written more. But there's another side to the coin: the more I write, the more ideas strike me. The more I write, the more I notice details I want to write down. The more I write, the more I remember how much I am drawn to the act of writing. The more I write, the more I sit down and write some more. Sometimes if I've gotten out of the habit, the first sitting my rear in a chair and putting pencil to paper or fingers to keys takes a major act of willpower (and acceptance of mediocre grist), but from there, it gets easier.

I'm really hoping the extra bits of writing this month will prime the pump and help me coast through however much of NaNoWriMo I'm able to complete this year.

2. Because I don't have enough things to distract me from NaNoWriMo this year, I started a second blog.

A brief back story and explanation: when I originally started this blog, I figured on writing a bit about what I was up to in life in general, but also sharing my thoughts and reflections on life as a Catholic. Hence the name of the blog, actually, and the selection of St. Therese of Lisieux as a patron. But I also started this blog just as I met various typewriter folk and then fountain pen and pencil folk, and got into doing more fiction writing and etc., etc., etc., and also went through some times of struggle that took me away from my original purpose. And so this blog became somewhat schizophrenic, and as time went on, it seemed like pouring my reflections into the mix would only make it more so.

To that end, I felt prompted to launch a sort of sister blog to this one. I imagine music and pens and pencils and writing of various sorts will be mentioned there--they are a big part of my life and my thought processes, after all. But its primary focus will just be a place to record moments of enlightenment, insights--and some spiritual struggles. The journey of faith is not all roses; hence the name: Thorns and Blossoms. (I actually wanted to name it the opposite: Blossoms and Thorns. That name was already taken. Consider that the thorn that tipped the balance!)

It's mostly all for meeeee (sorry, folks). However, do feel free (not obligated) to check it out!

Places to See, 1st Week of September 2013 Edition

Because nothing says "I don't much care" like a bad photo of the Halvah cat shredding paper towels on the unvacuumed carpet...

Lately I have been deep in the grip of end-of-summer apathy, and writing much of anything longer than a grocery list has been a struggle. And so, I will resort to the "hey, look at that!" approach, so you (hopefully) fail to observe the fact that my portion of this blog post isn't really much longer than a grocery list.

1. Obsolete words which should never have gone out of style. Check it out, all ye beef-witted spermologers.

(Personally, I think my favorite is tyromancy. Or maybe groak. There are a number of groakers at my house, primarily of feline and canine persuasions.

2. Somewhat related, only different. Ever wondered what some of those odd sounding diseases in old novels would be in modern language? There seems to be a certain amount of guesswork involved, but I found this site interesting.

3. While we're looking into the past, if you haven't seen this blog before, plan on wasting a good bit of time there the first time you check it out: Ask the Past. All sorts of advice from old books. Want to lose weight? Grow a beard? Impress the ladies/guys? Ask the Past can help!

(Or you may wish you'd never asked...)

4. On a more serious note, this is excellent advice for any aspiring writers out there. Elmore Leonard on writing.

My favorite line is probably the most difficult to put into practice: "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

Rewriting is *hard*.

5. Speaking of writing, how about some writing objects? Here's a short video showing how pencils are made--fascinating to watch!.

6. And finally, just because (thanks to Mike Clemens)... Screaming Jelly Babies Experiment

Are You Good Enough?

A rose I drew awhile back, and almost immediately hid from public

 view, because it's...shoddy. But you know? Shoddy is OK.

This post by Stephanie of Rhodia Drive really struck a chord with me:
Art Making is Accessible to Everyone

I am afraid to mess up. More than that: I am afraid of being found inadequate. In many ways, I've always felt like this. While my brothers happily doodled away as kids, I would set the bar impossibly high, and give up in frustration when I couldn't reach it.

To some extent, I've gotten past this in writing and music--especially music. Yes, I do have moments of frustration. I wish I'd started younger. I wish I was more consistent. I wish certain aspects came to me more intuitively. But I enjoy music within my own limitations, with full knowledge that I'm never going to reach stratospheric greatness.

Writing can be a little more challenging. There are times when I wonder why I work at it at all, because I will never be able to write in the ways some of my favorite authors write. I don't have Vernor Vinge's scientific mind, therefore "I can't write." I don't have Ralph McInerny's grasp of theology and knowledge of academia, therefore "I can't write." I've never suffered extreme poverty or pain, I've not traveled to exotic places, I've not done x, therefore "I can't write."

Getting beyond that, to find my own voice, to accept my own style...this is difficult. But, at least on an intellectual level, I know "all God's creatures got a place in the choir." I'm not, for example, Gene Wolfe. But neither is David McCullough. Neither is Elizabeth Berg or Terry Pratchett, or Jasper Fforde, or Elizabeth Moon, or a multitude of other authors (or casual bloggers) I've enjoyed. Some writers create extravagant and scientifically perfect worlds. Some expose, through meticulous research, a particular period in history. Some simply make you laugh. Some help you to see plain old folks just a little more clearly. Somewhere in that spectrum, there may just be room for me. It may not always be the room I'd prefer at given moments, but...there's room.

Art--as in visual art--has been more challenging still. And I think it may well be key to overcoming what is really a false sort of pride: this fear not even of complete failure, but merely inadequacy. Because it's OK to create art for fun. It's OK to create art imperfectly. It's OK to create art with no larger purpose than simply creating art: for the joy and childlike wonder of exploring artistic expression.

I like this quote from the post on Rhodia Drive. "...they learn to be OK with the quality of their expressions and do it anyway. This was my path. I wanted to make art and so I did."

Bleargh

I'm not doing NaNo this year, for a variety of reasons.  But this is the first time in a very, very long time I've not taken part, and I miss it.  I feel...itchy, somehow. It's like...some beautifully apt simile I would come up with if I wasn't completely lacking in words of any kind.  I want to write *something*.  I'd write at least a short story if I could.  But my words are all gone.

I miss most the physical act: scribbling away with a pen or pencil or banging on the typewriter and seeing and feeling the pages fill up.  But I got nothing.  I can't even seem to manage poems lately.  I have one single line rattling around in the hollow void of my noggin, but it doesn't tie to anything at all, AND it's about a sunset, which is terribly hackneyed as poetic subjects go.

I've tried free-writing, just writing anything and everything that pops into my head or writing about writing, and even that petered out.

And now I'm writing about writing about writing.  I make me cry.

At least there's turkey in my near future!  And I don't seem to be having the same issues with music.  So there's that.

Imagining a Perfect Space

A quick blueprint style sketch of my imaginary writing room, sketched on the back of an envelope, 'cause that's how I roll.

Strikethru recently started a discussion regarding what one might want in an ideal writing space. I'm a little late to the party, but I had to respond. I love this subject. I've spent many, many hours when I could be writing or otherwise gainfully employed browsing through flickr photos of writing desks and articles on how and where "real" writers like to write.

As for me, I think I'd like something a bit bigger than a shack or trailer. This may stem from either the fact that I've pretty much never had anything *but* cramped and cluttered quarters, or my general tendency toward claustrophobia. In any case, I'll take a slightly different stance. Here's what I'd like in my (fairly airy and spacious) writing room:

- Big windows or French doors, set away enough from the rest of the room that I can avoid glare and weird shadows, and with good blinds for those times when I want to close out the outside world. There would be a view--not necessarily a vista (though vistas are nice), but at least an ever-changing panorama of some sort. Not close to a street: people-watching is all well and good, but if I feel like they're watching me back, I can't concentrate. I'd rather have rolling fields or cow pastures or distant woods, or maybe a nice water view. Having something like bird feeders on a patio just outside would be good,too: something to watch more or less mindlessly. I do love a bird feeder. (I need to set up my hummingbird feeder again one of these days, come to think of it.)

- A ginormous heavy old table--like a farm table or board room table, preferably with plenty of character--for spreading out papers and such as I write by hand or typewriter or on the laptop with nothing else attached. In real life, I know such a table would almost instantly become and remain cluttered, but in my writing room dream, it is a beautifully open and inviting surface, always at the ready and picked up tidily after use. I'd probably also want some equally well-lived chairs to go with it.

- A place for an electric kettle and coffee and tea supplies, and a water supply for making such. Enough said. Also a mini fridge. Good call, Speegle.

- A decent speaker setup. Though to be honest, while I like the *idea* of writing to music, I don't really listen to it all that often when I'm really trying to get things done--I'm too easily distracted, even by wordless classical music. But sometimes, you *need* a little U2 or Holst or Merle Haggard or what-have-you to set the mood. It all depends. Gotta be ready. Having a place to keep a guitar or mandolin on a stand for noodling on while I'm thinking could be good, too.

- A big leather recliner with a blanket draped over the back: a good place to read, and comfortable enough for snoozing whilst contemplating, but not quite bed-like enough to encourage escape-by-napping. I'd also keep a lap desk by the side of it for times I felt like writing or computing there, and a cup o' pencils on the side table.

Actually, on second thought make that *two* pencil cups, one for sharps and one for dulls, with some sort of system for making it obvious which is which (green and red, maybe?), and add additional dual pencil cups around the room.

- An old medicine cabinet type thing with lots of interesting nooks and crannies for storing ink and pens and pencils and other assorted supplies. Actually, what'd be really cool (while I'm in complete fantasy mode here) would be a custom designed cabinet with bookshelves at the very top for reference books and binders and used notebooks, little bitty drawers for things like pen nibs and pencil leads, slightly bigger ones for index cards and pens and pencils, and a space at the bottom for storing unused notebooks and paper. Yeah. That wouldn't cost much to do, would it?

- A fairly barebones computer desk, with space for a nice big monitor and logical places for my scanner and printer and all. I'd also want enough room to set out notebooks or papers I was transcribing, or reference materials, but I'd guess I'd do most of my initial writing at the big ol' table.

- A cat. Cats make for good writing companions: sleeping cats have a nice dreamy aura about 'em to aid in creativity. I'm biased enough to believe this is particularly true of Siamese. And fortunately I have one on hand, with a spare half-Siamese as backup. Some dogs make good muses as well...my current dog is, however, faulty in this regard, being as how he is sitting-still-for-more-than-moments-impaired.

So there you have it. No big surprises to those who've been following along for awhile, I don't think.

It's that big ol' table that most grips my imagination, for some reason. There's just something about a big ol' table. Maybe it's just the idea of having a writing surface that can be approached from all four sides? Or else it's the former homeschooler in me....

Sunday morning scribbling

Got up, went to church, had breakfast, now sipping good strong coffee (love my cheapie Melitta cone!) catching up on my journal, and working on a long-abandoned sci-fi story that got just a wee bit tangled up (read: the original plot got up and fled in protest).

Pencils. Plus coffee. Life is good.

Should work on the garden later, but waiting for warmth.

Typecast: No Parallels

Untitled (and likely to remain so)

Some of us have no trouble coming up with titles, sometimes even before we know what we're going to put in the story to go with the title. At the other end of the spectrum--the very, very, very distant other end--that's where I live.

Most of the poems I've written over the years are untitled. In my head and in my journals, I refer to stories by clumsy monikers like "the time travel story with the dog," and "the Philip and Maggie story," "the old space story," "the new space story," and "that amnesia thing." A very few have working titles, but even those tend to be awkward, hokey, or cutesy (examples: "Dangerous Memories," "Unlikely Angel"), and I pretty much uniformly dislike them all.

I've been trying to come up with some sort of working name for this year's NaNoWriMo, and once again feel like bashing my head against a wall. I have the basic story sort of laid out (in short, it's a rather goofy detective novel set in a future where there's magic, a frog turned into a woman who wants to figure out who did this to her and why, an impulsive and rather bossy fairy, and assorted other characters), but can I come up with a name? Of course not. I'd like something that sort of resembles the titles of old detective novels, being as how this is almost a parody...but the closest I've come up with are "The Color of Jealousy" and "When Worlds Collide," both of which sound disturbingly like bodice-rippers. Oh dear.

And so, little NaNo novel, you are likely to remain "the magic detective story." It's OK. I'll love you (and hate you) just as much as other folks do all their tidily named tales, I promise--bless your undefined heart.

A NaNoWriMo Related Self Pep Talk

As I was avoiding writing today, I started playing with the various writing implements on my desk. I like how these look together...autumn leaf colors!

It's frustrating. Two weeks ago, I was in writing frenzy mode. I wanted to spend all day every day scribbling everything that popped into my head. And my head was busy. My mind was bubbling over with ideas. I was so excited about the prospect of NaNoWriMo I could hardly see straight. This week? Not so much. There were days I didn't even manage a brief journal entry. Once I start one I usually manage a few words, but...ugh...I'm not feeling it. Doesn't bode well for November.

Or does it? Isn't that, in a nutshell, part of what this whole NaNoWriMo thing is about: to show us that even when we have the writing blahs, we can still do great things? As Jack London so colorfully put it, "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

Watch out, Inspiration. I've got you in my sights.

NaNoWriMo roll-call

I was going to preface this with this year's web badge, but they aren't up yet...

I know we're still a few months out, but since it came up in the type-in and since I've seen a few whispers elsewhere...who's planning to participate in NaNoWriMo this year?

And for those of you wondering 'What's a NaNoWriMo?', go here and be enlightened. Essentially, you spend any free time you can wrangle up during November writing your brains out to get to 50,000 words. (Unless you're Mike Clemens, in which case you spend one week's free time writing your brains out at X-TREME WARP SPEED, and then spend the rest of the month twiddling your thumbs and smiling indulgently at the rest of us still slogging and stumbling and whimpering through the muck.) (Not that I'm bitter.) (OK, maybe I am a little.)

This will be my tenth year (!!), which is sad, in some ways. I am exactly the sort of person who the NaNoWriMo naysayers ridicule: all that writing, and for what? Most of the stories are still utterly unfinished, many of them are not worth finishing. But you know what? I've had fun, and I've made friends along the way. That's good enough for me.

I don't exactly have a set-in-stone plot (do I ever?), but thus far, I'm thinking something off the beaten track: kind of a detective novel set in the future, in a world where magic has become part of the "real" world, which...complicates things a bit. And so far, I'm thinking I may write by hand again. Except, this time around, I'll actually transcribe as I go, more or less. I'm still working on transcribing last years--finishing that is one of my goals for September, actually.

How about you? Any clue yet what you'll be writing about? What typewriters/pens/pencils/paper/computer software you'll use? Any special plans you'd like to share for keeping organized/focused/caffeinated/sane?

Darkness and Light (whole bunch of type-cast poetry)

I have a tendency to take things much too much to heart. Last Saturday afternoon, someone removed a comment I'd made on one of their Facebook posts. I can't come up with any sort of reason why, and I was too shy to ask. I was so mortified by the experience, trying to imagine what they must have *thought* I meant, that I was practically non-functional for the rest of the weekend.

Things like being removed from a friend's blogroll paralyze me, even while intellectually I know I've talked about a lot of different things over the years, and since I haven't broken things out into strictly compartmentalized blogs and I bounce around a lot (an understatement), some people will drift away. I try to figure out what it was I did that offended, and beat myself up for imagined wrong-doings. I've also found myself stat-watching, fretting over how many page-loads I get or don't get.

And all of this is just silly. If I'm taking these things so seriously, I think maybe I need to take a step back from this whole Internet thing--or at least the blogging portion thereof--for awhile, take a deep breath, get some perspective, do some writing that will only be seen by me instead of jumping up and down trying to get attention, and then half the time not knowing how to take it if I do get some. Oh, and maybe catch up on letters for once--what a concept.

I'll be back, probably sooner than I intend to be, but I'm taking a vacation, at least for a few weeks, maybe a month or so.

So...hey, if I'm gonna go out for a bit, I'll go out with a bang... First off, here are a few poems I actually wrote a number of years ago, but refrained from posting because of their darkness. I'll count these as my final two vignettes for Art of the Letter's July challenge.





And something a bit more lighthearted--a little poem I wrote back in the late 90s, when I was in Germany in the Air Force. I like this one. It makes me smile.