Mirrors? — a WIPpet/ROW80 post

WIPpet

Reflections On Ingenuity (Photo credit: mjp*)

Oh, it’s been one of those Wednesdays.

I had more fun figuring out my WIPPet maths than figuring out a piece of story to post.  Despite making some more progress (finally) on the Swan Song Series, I still spent more time working on my fanfiction the Was Long Variation.  So here are eight sentences from that (2 to the power of 9 equals 512; 5 plus 1 plus 2 equals 8):

He knew he took longer getting ready than the queen wanted. Though he admired the view in the mirror as she started her shower, he re-braided his hair in silence. And he didn’t try to look too close. The woman’s expression could have made his old friend Chaz flinch, and near nothing had affected that man.

While she filled the bath with steam (his own shower had been much cooler), he took another peek into her room to verify something he thought he’d seen before. He asked as he headed to his own room, “Mirrors, your highness? Nice bed you’ve got.”

Behind the shower curtain something clattered to the floor, but the woman said nothing.

Warm hugs ( especially in this weather)  to K.L.Schwengel for maintaining the WIPpet.  Head over to our linky to visit all the WIPpeeters!

ROW80 Check-in

Work In Progress (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Progress!  Real, definable progress!  Yay me!

• write every day; at the minimum, do 5 sentences  hit this one everyday so far; l I even started work on the Swan Song Series again
• finish a complete (rough) draft of Courting the Swan Song  no progress on Courting, but I added a scene to Chorus (working name); at least I’m back in the series again
• make twice weekly blog posts (WIPpet Wednesdays and Some Thing 4 Sundays) on a consistent schedule check
• maintain active sponsor participation I still need to write my sponsor post; I’m caught up on other sponsor duties; I’m dedicating this Saturday to the sponsor post; the rest of this week is too crazy to focus on more than gathering pieces together for it
• energize myself with more physical activity some Tai Chi and extended posture work; made a point to add extra stair walking to each day
• reclaim my writing space tossed some papers, sorted through some others
• go through some piece of my electronic home (desktop, laptop, server space, Dropbox, etc.) emptied inboxes and spam folders on all three email accounts
• laugh more, hug my family more, share myself with friends more…  LOTS of hugs and minor progress on catching up with people

Looking over this list, I want to add one more goal, mostly because it will help support several of the other goals.

• attend two #row80 sprints on Twitter a week and one other Twitter sprint or chat

There’s something powerful about success.  Now, time to work on momentum….

Sorry, I Don’t “Like”… — a ST4S post

Your Book’s Page

Like books (Photo credit: Mark J P)

Been thinking about this for some time now…  Yes, I love books.  Yes, I love authors, and supporting authors I know gives me the Happy Giddies.

But…

I can’t bring myself to Like pages on a book by book basis.  I won’t do it.

In my opinion, I’d be doing the author a disservice if I did.  I almost never keep up with updates or promotions so I can’t share and pass the word along.  My “Like” is a meaningless number in the corner of a place that is meant for social interaction.

Some might say that number means something in rankings, and maybe it does.  But a book is a thing.  And author is a person, and I want to know what the author is doing.

• Is s/he writing a new book?
• Doing a book tour for that novel I enjoyed?
• Did s/he make a new blog post?
• Post a cute kitteh pic on their page?
• Has celebrity become too much an s/he now intends to retire to a Tibetan monastery in obscurity?

A segment of a social network (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If I “Like” a book’s page, then what happens when the author writes a new book?  Will the author keep posting updates of interest on the page for the old book and the new book?  Would fans of both pages get duplicate posts?

Sorry, but with all the amazing authors out there and all the great books written by each one…  that’s just too much to keep track of.  I have to make more choices, and some of those choices may seem harsh.

So, no, I don’t Like your book’s page.

ROW80 Check-in

Steady progress, though not a lot of progress.  Here are my goals, with update notes:

• write every day; at the minimum, do 5 sentences  not much writing except notes–I spent a few days doing a beta read
• finish a complete (rough) draft of Courting the Swan Song  I‘m working on my fanfic at the moment; I need to renew my passion for writing
• make twice weekly blog posts (WIPpet Wednesdays and Some Thing 4 Sundays) on a consistent schedule check
• maintain active sponsor participation I still need to write my sponsor post; I’m caught up on other sponsor duties
• energize myself with more physical activity not as much as I should have, but at least I got more than I had expected
• reclaim my writing space no progress in the office, but four bags of donated clothes left the house
• go through some piece of my electronic home (desktop, laptop, server space, Dropbox, etc.) weekly progress involved cleaning out my email and some extra fan pages on Facebook I don’t keep up with enough to follow
• laugh more, hug my family more, share myself with friends more…  a world of more not as much progress here; I think I needed a bit of space these past few days

That’s it for today.  See you on Wednesday for a new WIPpet and ROW80 check-in.  Until the, enjoy this kitteh!

English: A lolcat of my cat Kylie, meowing. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ever Winter — a WIPpet/ROW80 post

WIPpet

It’s been a rough week at the Chez Mabee, with almost no writing of any kind… and less involving my characters.  To renew a more intimate relationship with them all, I drifted back into my fanfic the Was Long Variation* for some fun and casual company before getting back to Courting the Swan Song.

Frozen Scream (cred skaty)

Here are two (too àpropos for the present weather) paragraphs.  My WIPpet maths are “take one (1) 2 from 22 to get 2”:

Before he allowed Koru to set the thawing sequence on the cryo unit, Alanii donned a suit and walked into the lab to see their unknown guest.

He ran a glove over the glass to clear the new frost. Inside a young man lay stopped in time, his red and white features proving a rushed freezing job. Tossled sable strands of hair were stuck to his face in places, iced to his eyelids, his lips. The youth might have been beautiful once, but at the moment, encased in non-death, non-life, his narrow features brought sharply into focus by the shards of his own blood, the boy seemed to only add to the warning Alanii had just received. He hurriedly scuffed the icy shavings back over the revealed visage.

Warmest hugs  to K.L.Schwengel the WIPpet goddess.  If you want to read other ‘pets, head over to our linky to visit the whole crew

* If anyone wishes to read more pieces of the Was Long Variation, several other excerpts can be found on this blog, most notably: Fiction, Fiction, Friction; Passwords; Carriage Ride; and Cutting Words

ROW80 Check-in

Normally by this point in a round, I would reassess my goals to see if I should change anything.  Not this time.  Maybe by next week, but for now, things need to progress the way they are a bit longer before I change anything.  Last week was spent being exhausted and sick… mostly exhausted with a  sick child.

So here again is a review of my goals, with notes:

• write every day; at the minimum, do 5 sentences  I wrote two days only since last Wednesday
• finish a complete (rough) draft of Courting the Swan Song  see above
• make twice weekly blog posts (WIPpet Wednesdays and Some Thing 4 Sundays) on a consistent schedule  completely forgot Sunday’s post until Monday evening and decided against posting my lack of progress
  
• maintain active sponsor participation I still need to write my sponsor post; I’m behind on sponsor visits from Sunday
• energize myself with more physical activity does getting out of bed every hour or so to help my son count?
• reclaim my writing space sort of some progress here, at least in my upstairs, curl in the comfy chair with my laptop space
• go through some piece of my electronic home (desktop, laptop, server space, Dropbox, etc.) weekly nada
• laugh more, hug my family more, share myself with friends more…  a world of more, because I’m tired of Living in the Depression*  the three of us went out to dinner last night with Elizabeth Anne Mitchell and her husband last night

Beware of …
(cred swissbanana)

As you can see, not much going on here.  I did an interesting “writer’ moment” last night at Colonie Center on the way to pick up my husband from work for the above mentioned dinner.

In my (sadly) typical fashion, my feet tangled in each other as the Boodle and I were running across the service road in the parking lot, and I made a near face plant in front of an on-coming car.  No biggie…  I wasn’t hit.

I was a bit winded and shaken.  Mostly I was mad.  Not a single person walking to their cars or any of the cars that went by stopped to ask if I was okay or make sure the Boodle was safe.  I would never just drive by.

What does this have to do with writing?  Well, first it was the awareness of how the fall happened…  Since I write “Swords & Sorcery” style fantasy, I write a lot of battle scenes.  And I realized a lot of “falls” in stories are written very carelessly.  Yes, some are quick, “shake it off” things, but there are also those “pull yourself up and still tremble” things, and that the later makes for a more interesting fight scene.

No one likes a character to have everything too easy.

The second  writer’s moment came when went to the bathroom later and found that my dress pants (which looked as good as new) had done nothing to protect my knee cap from getting a quarter-sided gouge out of it that had caked to my long johns.  And I couldn’t help thinking about all those aftermath scenes where my characters sat and cleaned their weapons, felt a bit stiff, maybe bruised but otherwise okay…

Being clumsy can be good for the writer’s soul, I guess.