Oracne's Brain Radio

1. I was in the office three of five days last week, and I worked all five days, and it was exhausting, ya'll, even though the hypervigilance has gone down some. On two of the three days, I was able to use the office of someone who was working from home, which also helped; I ate my lunch indoors, and got to work with my mask off while I was in there.

2. A plus of being in the office was that I was able to print out the zero draft of my second novella, and have been editing on paper this weekend. I find it much, much easier to edit on paper, not just for spotting typos but also for cleaning up awkward sentence structure. I printed on Wednesday and was actually excited to get started, like it was a real treat awaiting me, though I didn't have the brain for it until this morning (Saturday). Spoiler: it is a treat. I confess it, I love editing, and also finding out what I wrote on days when I was just letting my fingers go at it.

3. All the plants I brought into the office are doing well except for one of the tiny aloes that I think was overwatered and might be past reviving, and one of the Dracaenas I don't think should have looked like it did even if it hadn't been watered at all since arrival. The rest are all happy. Currently at my own desk are a Dracaena marginata; a small pot of ivy (as a change from the pothos everywhere else); and two kinds of sansevieria, just rooted leaves rather than full-sized plants. If we have to bug out for another lockdown, I'll prioritize taking the Dracaena.

4. I read Twitter a little bit this week, and skimmed Instagram, but I am behind on Dreamwidth and too tired to catch up tonight. It was great to get off the computer for most of today.

5. Tomorrow, I need to complete my mail-in ballot and drop it in the mailbox; the election is November 2, and there are some judges I need to support.

I had the day off on Friday, which I used for a virtual doctor's appointment, laundry, mailing a letter, a postcard, and my ballot for the upcoming municipal election, a trip to the drug store, and watching the final episode of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Sam's super power is talking to people and having them listen.

( Read more... )

This has felt like an unusually busy weekend! And I used to have weekends like this all the time!

I wrote a little bit over the weekend, mostly removing stuff I'd decided I didn't need. Today and tomorrow I have vacation days, so this morning I started adding in words! I frontloaded some information I will need to revisit later, and did a necessary action scene. I was trying to avoid getting into too much detail on the action, because it's not the point of the story, it's just a step along the way. But I still had to use some significant detail because otherwise boring. I think that part of the draft is okay to be left alone for now. I can edit later. This morning's work was a net gain of about 850 words so far.

Now it's time to integrate the remnants of draft from the old part two, and move forward in the story. Eep.

ETA: 1205 for the day, total gains! That was, like, a normal writing day from the Before Times!

Sooooooooooooo last night's writing was less about 80 words, net, but mainly I was coming up with names for three characters and filing off some more serial numbers and easing in new ones, with thinking in between, and that process felt familiar. Also, I was tired from a long day online already, so I am not upset with myself.

I have figured out that this story is about what happens after the story is over, so it isn't a regular story, though it will need at least some aspects of a regular story so people will want to keep reading past the first sentence. I need to decide if the original story should stand on its own, followed by the sequel, or if I should moosh them together into one. The former seems more like what it should be, which dang it, means more words I have to write. But it makes more sense so far as traditional story shapes go.

First, we have the story following some massive failure, where the people are reunited and are handed a deus ex machina, followed by them spaceshipping off into the distance towards a new life. It needs more work on the ex machina part.

Second, we have the Domestic Porn story where they make a new life on a terraformed planet, and at least a couple of the characters get together romantically, and maybe some of their old comrades show up so I have fodder for additional episodes.

I'll look back at this post if I make further progress, and see if I stayed on this track.

All my writing friends should read this essay by Daniel José Older. Including me.

Here's what stops more people from writing than anything else: shame. That creeping, nagging sense of 'should be,' 'should have been,' and 'if only I had...' Shame lives in the body, it clenches our muscles when we sit at the keyboard, takes up valuable mental space with useless, repetitive conversations. Shame, and the resulting paralysis, are what happen when the whole world drills into you that you should be writing every day and you’re not.

This weekend I need to write a book review that's due Monday, and I'm also hoping to at least draft a complete short story. I have four calls for submissions that all have a June 1 deadline. This could be tricky, since there's an entire week of May in which I will not be spending any time writing due to local events and to WisCon. But surely I can write at least one submission. Maybe two. The minimum word counts are 1500 for two of the anthologies, and 2000 for the other two.

I missed the May 1st deadline I attempted - my story draft was only half as long as needed, and I wasn't satisfied with the idea. It's not terrible, but it needs more time to gel, and perhaps a market that will take shorter stories (heh). But the goal is to push myself to write more, so I will keep pushing. I have a couple of July 1 deadlines for submission, as well. And one for September - if I can't make that one, I should just throw away my pen.

On the fun side, Saturday night is roller derby! So after a hard day's concentration I can watch women skating in a circle, and occasionally falling down. Or knocking each other down. It's very soothing, particularly if your brain is tired.

Once again, time management is going to be an issue I need to think about, if I want to write more. I now have Tuesday nights off, for the rest of the summer, but I still have gym, playing with the Adorable Tots, and seeing friends now and again. The friends part is important. Over three years of writing a novel a year, I fell out of touch with three or four people and have never really added them back in to my local social circle. (My online circles have widened, but that's not the same.) It's just so hard to do everything I want to do.

Okay, gym tonight, and I will lift weights.

I haven't worked on my current novel since August, 2012. In fact, I haven't written anything but [paid] nonfiction during that period, and one 500-piece of fiction that took work, obviously, but was not a long-term project. This is for a combination of reasons, some of which I understand and some of which I probably don't even realize. But the end result is: I haven't been writing fiction, and if I don't write, I won't have a finished manuscipt, and then where will I be? In a very whiny place.

I felt a little bit more inclined to write a couple of times when I was at Arisia. Little sparks of interest flared. Of course, the outside factors - choir, and jury reading is a big one - still exist. But I will be done with the extra reading after the preliminary Nebula ballot comes out, so that excuse will be gone. And it did feel good to read the one erotic story I wrote last year and have people laugh in the right places. (The next day, I began to wonder if the person who couldn't stop laughing might have been in fact laughing in sheer horror at the badness, but someone else told me she enjoyed the story, so I decided to assume the couldn't-stop person just thought it was funny, too.) (Yes, authors are effing neurotic. Yes, we are.)

A couple of months ago, I got some calls for submissions from an erotica editor. I collected a few more calls that looked interesting. I haven't started writing any stories to submit yet, but the first deadline is in February. *gives self significant look*

I am sort of assuming, here, that if I write some things, they will sell. This is by no means a guarantee, but I am basing my assumption on the fact that I sell short stories almost all of the time, and if not the first time I submit them, then eventually. Once they are actually written.

So this post is a reminder to myself that, as you know Bob, if I do not write things, I cannot submit them, and if I do not submit them, no one will buy them.

So, if you are reading this, feel free to badger frequently encourage me to write some fiction this instant year.

On the way home from rehearsal last night, sleep-deprived and thirsty and exhausted, I realized what kind of story I could write as a sequel to "Crimean Fairy Tale." And how it would open. Like, with opening sentence and everything. It's too bad it would be science fiction because the potential October 1 deadline story wants paranormal, i.e., fantasy.

In my copious free time....

Next week, I have two dress rehearsals (Wednesday and Friday) and a concert (Saturday). There are chunks scattered throughout the All-Night Vespers where I really need to drill the text some more, so I can reel it off while only half-looking. That is going to take some time, but it has to be done, or DOOM. Luckily, it can be done - is better done - in small chunks here and there.

I have been thinking about my resistance to writing lately, and I think it's the "use all of your weekend mornings to write for hours" thing that was wearing on me most. So I am considering going back to writing just a little each day, like 250 words little (my pre-novel-selling pace was about 500 words a night). This will be even easier once I'm done with Rachmaninov and have a few weeks with no rehearsal. I hope.

Being busy and having deadlines is supposed to make one more productive, right?

I am sad this is my last day of vacation. But I plan to get some writing done!

Yesterday, I got horribly stuck after 94 words, in that way it's hard for me to describe. It's sort of like my brain makes a fist and nothing will come out. I did some other business-y (writing) email and found a couple of sources that will be useful for the novel, stuff I had noted down already: crime! in! Manchester! This morning I got up and remembered that I am just drafting, and I can skim over the scene that was giving me spasms yesterday. Cheating? There is no cheating in writing, not really. There's a lot of psyching yourself into continuing, though.

I also read a mystery yesterday, River of Darkness by Rennie Airth - it's a thriller set in, I think, the early 1920s, with a lot of World War One neepery. I had read part of it before, but it was more fun reading it all in one go. The most interesting thing about it was the historical setting combined with the thriller structure/serial killer plot that's much more commonly used for contemporary settings.

At last! Done for the day. 2014 words. I got a bit stuck at one point and had to dig up some historical photos and vintage postcards of a location online. Now I know where the next scene will be taking place, a good thing to have figured out for tomorrow's writing session.