Meeting — a WIPpet/ROW80 post

THE WIPpet

What? Another WIPpet Wednesday?

Cool!

So here we are–the 12th of June.  What do post, what to post….

How about 12 (fairly small) lines where ‘Ssellii finally gets to meet her brother?

‘Ssellii tried to remain calm. “That’s not what I meant, Uunsa. What magick is ‘Vesmai luu itau’? What does it—?” She stopped, realizing the words had once again worked their power, and this time her brother’s attention was for her, not the maid.

She realized in that moment that ‘Listii’s intense gaze was far more unnerving than she’d thought. Unlike Val, ‘Listii’s focus was direct, demanding answers…almost predatory in its determination. She felt her voice catch in her throat and swallowed.

And whatever ill thoughts she may have had toward the maid were banished as Uunsa broke the impasse and drew her brother’s attention from her to the state he was in.

‘Ssellii watched as the man looked at himself, where he was kneeling on the floor, and the disarray he was in. His eyes widened. Though he stayed silent, his gaze passed between both she and Uunsa accusingly. Then he made a rough, hurried attempt to rise and clean off his clothes and face with the cloth Uunsa held out for him.

If ‘Ssellii hadn’t known better, she would have said he looked exactly like a boy at the dinner table, one who had just been told he was still covered in stableyard debris and was now embarrassed and sullen.

Once standing, he didn’t leave the mess he’d made untouched, but slapped dashed the crumbs into a pile and scooped them on the plate. His cheeks were bright pink under the tan and grime. ‘Ssellii understood that this time ‘Listii  recognized the state he had allowed himself to come to in his flight from the world. This time he wasn’t going to simply feel like this visit was an inconvenience solely for him.

‘Ssellii smiled. This time her brother got to see what he really was, not the suave gentleman he might play for Uunsa. And he couldn’t simply hide in some daydream from the truth.

Taking her direction from the way Uunsa had diverted his accusing gaze from her to his own predicament, she rose. “Thank you, ‘Listii. That is so much better.” She motioned to the seat next to her. “Would you please sit down now and talk with me? We really do have a lot to discuss before we start back on the road, don’t you think?”

Later, she figured, she would have to ask the servant what those words meant again. For now she did not intend to lose the attention ‘Listii was giving her as she’d lost it the last time.

So, while it grated that she could not simply tear into him for playing this game he was dragging her into, she considered Uunsa’s tone earlier. It had been questioning, curious more than anything, as if the woman had asked her brother where he’d been, what he’d been doing there…how the weather was perhaps!

She decided to start simple. “Do you know who I am?”

Those raven eyes flicked in her direction. Though he answered softly, she could feel his disdain in his very posture. “Vissellii Marea, my sister.”

So there you go…  Hope you enjoyed it.

Inspired by K.L. Schwengel at My Random Muse #WIPpet writers post pieces of a draft (Work In Progress) that somehow relate with the date for commentary and consideration.  Feel free to comment and visit other #WIPpeters.   We love the company.  (Update: regarding the origin of the WIPpet, KL Schwengel says she did not create them–she just resuscitated them.   She credits Krista Walsh over at The Raven’s Quill for her introduction to the style…  Hmm, internet mysteries.)

ROW80 Check-in

It’s been a pretty awesome couple of days.  For those of you who saw my Sunday check-in, you know what I mean when I say that.

And for the record, the Boodle is pretty much back to where he was.  Overnight is a bit hard at the moment (the age-old parenting dilemma of “do I let the child sleep knowing that they are going to wake up miserable because they should have been given something to reduce their pain, or do I wake the child, disturb their sleep and know they will wake up refreshed?”  Oh.. and yeah–can I wake up at 3:30 in the morning without disturbing everyone else in the house?), but each day seems better and better.

I’m really glad we caught this in time.  The doctors did end up diagnosing Lyme.

That news, has of course, been at the center of my mind these past few days.  I did take a day of pretty much non-internet, non-writing related time for most of  Sunday and Monday.  For a bit of catharsis, I did manage to keep up to date on my 750words.com monthly challenge.  And yesterday, I jumped right back into the swing of things with my JuNoWriMo writing sprints.  My internet situation wasn’t great, but at the end of the day, I’d pulled in another 4118 words.

On the topic of word counts…  Since the first of the month I have added over 30K to the Swan Song series, most of it on Courting.  And they’ve been good words too.  For example: I always had planned on including shapshifters in the story, and making one of my three main characters be one.  Alanii, specifically…  Thing was, I couldn’t think of a good spot to integrate that without making the story into something it wasn’t supposed to be.

Well, I found that spot, and Alanii now has discovered another part of who and what he is.

That’s all the good news.  The rest of the news is…  well, my social media presence has suffered.  I maintained some minimal contact on both Facebook and Google Plus.  I think I managed to visit everyone on the Sunday linky I was due to for my sponsor posts.  I did hit (hope it wasn’t too hard) eight ROWers’ blogs, but I didn’t even touch all the people I wanted to see.  I’m sorry I missed you guys.  Hopefully soon!

And that’s about all I have for you…

The ROW80 Writing Challenge is the brainchild of author Kait Nolan who felt that, in a world of WriMos and FastDrafts, people who want become authors  need something that promoted the daily habit of the writing life.  Feel free to visit some of our other members here.

Some Words Sunday — WriMo Sprints

Welcome June!

Cafe Office

For some of you, June is the beginning of summer vacations and the end of school days (or for those in the southern hemisphere, the exact reverse).

For me, it’s June Novel Writing Month (JuNoWriMo for short).

Last year I got involved with JuNoWriMo because I needed to get more work done on some old NaNoWriMo manuscripts.  The people at NaNoWriMo were running camps for two summer months but acceptance of NaNoRebels hadn’t fully sunk in to the NaNo community then.

Well, those of you who know me know I tend to jump in with both feet when I find something I like.  Although it was my first year, I went right in and help host sprints (although I wasn’t that active in the site forums).  I had a blast!  I even ran the CampNaNoWriMo simultaneously, clocking over 122K words for the month in two manuscripts.

I also learned some things (and with my ROW80 experiences, I have even more tools to use for this passion of mine).

One of these is how to best handle a sprint, not just for the day or the moment.  But how to do writing sprints in general…

See, there are a lot of writing sprints out there, especially on Twitter.  I like #wordmongering and the #teamsprinty sprints probably best of all because the communities are so close (the iWriteNetwork on Ning is wonderful too, but it involves adding another layer of process that slows down getting to the actual writing more than I like).  Thing is, as much as I love these groups, I think they handle the health of the sprinter badly.

This may be a shock to you, but it’s not healthy to sit in one place and just fill pages with words for hours and hours a day.  But it’s not just the days of writing.  It’s the hours too.  In fact…  it’s a half hour and less.

Moment of Heaven

So, may I modestly suggest some rules (call them guidelines) that I wish to see more often used during writing sprints, not just for WriMos but in general.  (These do not all involve health issues, obviously.)

Rules?  I thought We Just Had to Write

1. Be prepared!  Have playlists ready, have the caffeinated (or alcoholic) drink of choice poured and seasoned to taste, have a small snack available (nuts or something with a bit of protein and fiber and fat in it would be ideal–brain power demands fuel too)–this is not an excuse to just nibble.  If all is going well, you’ll be writing too much to get that cup to your lips more than once during the sprint.  The snack might end up waiting until your break.
2. Be prepared mentally!  It’s not enough to say have all your shit together.  You need to have your head in the game too.  Have an idea of where your story will  head.  Know what characters you are going to write about.  Have a visual image of the setting and the situation ready to write.  Have notes and pictures that you can look at if you need them.  Be ready to dive in at the start of the prompt.
3. When your sprint-host says to write–Write.  Don’t check email; don’t stare at your keyboard–write–even if it’s “I don’t know what Sally is doing now”.
4. If you don’t know what to write (next time–see rule 2), then ask your sprint-host for a prompt.  We have them–lots of them.  I like to use visual prompts of pictures and videos, but I also use text prompts.  When you get your prompt, follow rule 3.
5. Stop writing when your sprint-host says the sprint is done.  Don’t write through to the next sprint.  Sprints are usually spaced with a 5 to 10 min break.  This break is for your health and comfort.  Get up, move, stretch a little…. go to the bathroom, whatever.  Do not just sit and type.  The ideas will hold that long.*
6. Talk to your sprint-host; yes, we are doing our own stories too, but we like to know what we can do to help make things better.  We like feedback, encouragement, even banter.  Twitter is supposed to be a social network not just another office.

“LIFE” features prominently

And of course, I don’t have to make this a rule… Have FUN!  Writers write because we love words and stories.  If we didn’t, there are enough people who do who could do this work for us.  We could just read while sitting on the beach drinking Mai Tais (okay, well, maybe not that).  Thing is, writing doesn’t pay that much, not even when you start adding in the best sellers (if one adds in all the writing time before the big break and/or the money and time spent in promotion–well, more than a few are just starting to break even now).

Yeah? Well, My Muse Hates you now

OK, I hear you grumbling.  My muse needs nurturing.  I can’t get anything done without spending time in the flow.  Yadda yadda… Being “in the moment” or “maintaining  the flow” sound great…  all of those streams of consciousness saying sound good wonderful, but the flow is actually pretty forgiving–especially if you nurture it well.

Make a Sunshine Date with your muse (or a cold cellar walk for the emo-types).  Share a (skinny) latte with him/her…  Invite your muse for a few minutes of dancing to a favorite song.

Make the breaks fun, and your muse will hang around and be happier about helping you when you get back to work.

* If you are that afraid you will forget, take a little piece of paper and scribble down a note or two while standing.  The act of moving increases blood flow (which fires up the brain), and the act of writing helps build cellular connections that make remembering something easier.

ROW80 Check-In

Dungeon Office

Fellow ROWers probably will recognize the theme of this post as similar to that of my sponsor post this ROWnd.  I am adamant about the need for us to take care of ourselves.

For the next month, since I’m involved in the JuNoWriMo, I will be spending a lot more time writing than I need for my Five Sentences (I still am–I do sprints on the computer and then add Five Sentences in a notebook before bed).  The Five Sentences framework works though.  I use at them end of my daily total (min 1667 words) for that extra boost.

Thing about this JuNoWriMo….  I’m actually editing as much as writing.  Last fall, I made a very sketchy draft of Courting the Swan Song, more of a very detailed outline really.  Now I’m filling in that outline, adding (and subtracting) words as they fit the Swan Song series.

This ability, btw, is why I love JuNoWriMo (and the redesigned CampWriMos) so much.  It’s total word count on whatever project you need to work on, not word count on a new story.

In addition, my social media time is sky-rocketing because of the WriMo, but also becoming more focused.  I’m still doing my rounds of Facebook and Google+, and I hope to indulge a touch more time on Flickr and Reddit, but will probably save those for once a week.  Most of my online time will be Twitter-based.  Most of my writing will start in 750words and then move to Scrivener (that pattern worked well for me last year, giving me an online rough copy and then a home copy for tweaking).

And lastly, I fully intend to retain time for family and friends, as well as my passions of reading, photos, piano, and guitar.  Yeah…  I can do it all. 

Moving On — #WIPpet Wednesday/#ROW80

I had a hard time figuring out what to use for my #WIPpet today.  Since today is the 22nd, it felt a bit rude to give you 22 paragraphs.  I’m never sure when I count sentences if those one word exclamations such as “Mother!” or “F*ck!” should count as sentences or not (I usually count in favor of them being sentences).  And tossing you all in with completely new characters seems a bit rude too…

I’m giving you four paragraphs…2 plus 2 from 22.   I’m sticking with Alanii’s story in Swan Song a bit longer, but moving on to what is starting to look like it will be Chapter 5…  which works for the month of May.

Alanii felt himself start from the dream—no, that was no dream, that had been a horror—and one he’d have sooner forgotten. Instead, a sudden awareness that something was wrong took him. Not something as vivid as the terror he’d just imagined. This was vaguer, less tangible, but so much more omnipresent. Something was going to happen, soon. He didn’t know what, but he knew.

Not worrying much about propriety, he grabbed up his breeches and stumbled out of the bedroom that he’d been given. A flash of something like warning, a sense that he dare not attract too much attention to himself made him stop short of making more noise however, and he ducked himself back into his room and pulled on enough clothing that he would not risk being caught naked if he were seen prowling the halls.

Seen? he realized with some unease that he hadn’t been seen already. Where was the guardsman who normally would have been posted outside his doorway? When he’d gone to bed, it had been one of Lanilis Kailiis’s normal escort, and though he knew the soldiers traded off and on during the night, he should have at least seen that man, if not another semi-familiar face.

Empty Halls

Instead, the hallway had been empty.

Creation of K.L. Schwengel at My Random Muse #WIPpet writers post pieces of a draft (Work In Progress) that somehow relate with the date for commentary and consideration.  Feel free to comment and visit other #WIPpeters.   We love the company.

ROW80 Check-in

Since Sunday I managed to keep pace most days with my writing.  I missed my five sentences yesterday due to being sick.  I hate migraines, but they are somewhat treatable with a prescription.  Food poisoning…it took me out from Monday afternoon to last night.

Dandelion Love

No day is a complete waste.  I’m starting to learn that.  Even though I didn’t feel much energy to write, I got a little reading done, I did some editing, and I watched a few of my favorite shows again with a critical eye.  While screenwriters have to move things faster (and can because they don’t need to offer descriptions of place and character as much), they still need to foreshadow events; they need to develop characters so we feel attracted to them, stuff like that.

So I watched some Grimm and Doctor Who to see why I liked certain characters more than others.  I tried to see where different producers used the same situation to a different effect…

I did nothing major for my ROW80 Fitness goals, just some running and skipping with my son on Monday before his fencing lesson.  I’m up for some jaunting today though. 

The ROW80 Writing Challenge is the brainchild of author Kait Nolan who felt that in a world of WriMos and FastDrafts, people who want become authors  need something that promoted the daily habit of the writing life.  Feel free to visit some of our other members here.