Thursday, September 24, 2015

I move tomorrow! and writing! (and bad grammar!)

Well, technically my furniture moves since I'm house-sitting until October 2.

But still exciting!

I've moved so many times before that I've kinda got this whole thing down. I've got everything ready and the truck isn't even showing up until tomorrow afternoon, so I've had time this morning to get a little more writing done.

Writing... uhm, y'know how in my last post I was excited because I felt I had a clear view of the next, largish portion of the book?

Well, yeah. Then I wrote myself into a corner yesterday when a reveal that wasn't supposed to happen until the climax suddenly grabbed a scene by the throat and jerked it in the opposite direction...

...and when an apology might have directed the story back on track, Sikka says, "I'm not sorry for lying to you."

...which then made the already-misdirected scene turn yet again... in yet another wrong direction.

BUT, this morning I skimmed back to earlier scenes and reread over the dialogue/actions/body language/etc and... and... and...

...yeah, this 'corner' I have written myself into completely makes sense and there are little hints all along the bunny-trail that build up to this exact thing/confrontation happening.

So, it wasn't a momentary skew in this direction, the story has been heading this way for a long time and my conscious brain knew nothing about it while my unconscious brain has been sniggering and pointing mockingly at the idiocy of my conscious brain behind its back for being such a fool.

Ahem. And yes, I think they have medication for that.

Also of note: like the apology that might have directed the story back on track, there was also a really good possibility that this scene would have drawn Sikka & Komil closer together and been a major step towards an actual 'normal' romantic relationship arc... and uhm, yeah. Not happening. Or should I say, it didn't happen.

(I don't want to assume it won't happen...)

If I could write stories like normal people it absolutely would have happened because it's the right 'time' in the story arc for it to happen.

/tears out a handful of hair/

Yup, my brain is trying to kill me. Especially with this story. It's the reason I stopped writing it in the first place and moved on to other stories, yet here I am, coming back for more punishment because my damn brain is on a suicide mission and is trying to take me with it.

...and because I'm a masochistic freak who loves a challenge, I can't get enough of it...

SOOOOOO, uhm, yeah. Apologies for the probably worse-than-usual grammar in this post as 95% of my brain is currently dedicated to unpuzzling this corner-that-is-not-a-corner that I have written myself into, and the other 5% is mired in a heady-state of self-shaming.

Okay, not really :) But it's still fun/funny to think about!

Monday, September 7, 2015

Mostly non writerly things

/waves hand/

Yup, still alive.

Life has been a little crazy, but things have been going well. Since I last posted, I was in Chilliwack readying stuff to ship to Montreal for the next PAC Convention. There was a bunch of drama around taking possession of my new place (the sellers lawyer "lost" some paperwork, only discovered the day everything was supposed to get legalized, so there was a mad scramble and some delays). I also house-sat for that family friend who just lost his wife to cancer.

...and survived a crazy windstorm that had power out for 3 full days and internet out for 5.

I've been packing/organizing to move (planning for endish of September), and painting the new place. Some interesting discoveries & slightly unpleasant surprises as I've been removing hardware and fixing some things. Nothing huge, but it annoys me how often something is not installed correctly in the first place, and fixing it generally means breaking other things before you can fix the one, stupid thing that was done wrong in the first place. Seriously people... drywall anchors are not rocket science... and patching drywall is an enormous pain.

But I do enjoy the fun of renovating (taking things apart and putting them back together in a better, more efficient way always gives me great satisfaction -> which is why I enjoy editing so much) and it's been fun to turn this townhouse into a space that feels more like "me".

And I haven't even touched the garden yet.

The rest of September is pretty busy as well... more housesitting starting in about 10 days (which is also going to involve dropping off/picking up my nephew from school & babysitting), plus my plans to actually move (so the whole townhouse needs to be ready), but also within the next 10 days I've promised to spend a couple days with my cousin down in Birch Bay (WA state, about a 20 min drive after crossing the USA/Canadian border), a few more days in Chilliwack making ikebana vases (yes, from porcelain clay/slip + glazing + maybe painting, depending how my arm is holding up), my birthday is this coming weekend, and I might be helping someone pack/move (small stuff) on the 15th. I've also made several other plans with friends and family to the point where I'm not entirely sure what moments I will have free...

And there's an unopened MS file sitting on my desktop that I've been asked to read/comment on, and I just finished another one which is certainly going to involve follow-up (always fun).


Through the summer, I have managed to schedule in a weekly writing session with a local writing buddy of mine and other sporadic writing dates with another buddy. Surprisingly, with all the recent insanity, I've gotten some writing in too :) Nothing crazy, but a respectable amount, and (as a pantser) amazingly I have a clearer view of what the next portion of the story might look like, which is awesome because a few weeks ago I didn't even have a vague direction of where to go next. Essentially, I'm at the mid-point (ish) of the Northern Fairytale MS and recently surprised myself at the unexpected turn a scene took... like taking a single step and finding yourself at a vantage point, I feel like now I can sprint downhill, and am salivating to get more writing done.

Well, I hope everyone's summer has been good, and I hope to squeeze in a few extra hours to catch-up on all the people's blogs I haven't had the time to read and find out what amazing things have been going on for you all.

Which, I hope, involves writing ;)

It's now 1pm, and I'm heading over to do more painting... extra exciting because it's my office/studio.