pve

What does everyone have against vegetables???? I'm going to a cook-out on Sunday and I've been discouraged from bringing a veggie dish. Everyone claims they won't eat it. I don't understand--veggies are low-cal, crunchy, have lots of fiber and vitamins, and you don't have to kill 'em to eat 'em. I should make a group called PVE--people for vegetable equality. Though, by the sounds of things, I'd be the only member so it'd be the person for vegetable equality.

I'm going over my manuscript and I've come to this conclusion: it sucks. I think the basic story is good, but it needs a lot more discription and a lot more heft to it. Basically, a lot more work. And to make matters worse, the book I'm reading now totally kicks ass and so I feel inadequate. Aarrgh. I'll feel a lot more confident once I've put about ten hour's worth of rewriting into it. For starters.

movies

Last night Ken and I saw Flightplan with Jodie Foster. It was pretty good. Jodie Foster's character had me crying in places. It's being billed as a psycological thriller but I don't think I'd call it that--maybe a twisted whodunit. Anyway, go see it. I'd even pay full price for it.

Ah, fall. I love fall for three reasons: the weather, the food, and the movies. The best movies always come out in the last three and a half months of the year. It's gotta be sixty-five degrees soon, right?

so sue me

It turns out maybe I don't know the difference between a wizard and a warlock. In my mind, wizards use magic from their beings and warlocks use things such as potions and objects to do their magic. Here are the definitions, however: Wizard--one who is skilled in magic. Warlock: one who practices the dark arts. So that makes Harry Dresden a wizard who fights warlocks. Harry is disgrunted, wears a duster, and engages in premarital sex, so I think you could get on him, Innuendo. He's a definate dark-and-disturbed type.

Oh, and a big shout out goes to merriam-webster for the defs.

Today I cleaned house, which qualifies as exercise in my book. For those of you naysayers who claim cleaning can in no way be cardiovascular activity, you haven't cleaned my house. My husband and I have a high muck tolerance, and cleaning house involves heavy lifting, scrubbing, five miles of walking, and finding twelve innovative ways of getting cat hair off of furniture. I breathed heavy. I sweated. Therefore, I worked out. And for those of you wondering: yes, I consider sex a workout, too.

This evening I'm off so we're going to see a movie and have dinner. Then I'll probably start working on my edit of the first draft.

A friend of mine read about my plight and gave me a list of ideas for villians. When I read each one I'm like, "Of course! A government agency tries to regulate magic! Or the mob wants to control magic for themselves! Or a crazy religious sect thinks magic is a tool of evil! Brilliant!" Why can't I do that?
Heh. "Brilliant" reminds me of those Guiness commercials with the old-fashioned english-accented animated men who shout "Brilliant!" at each other's ideas. I get such a kick out of those.
Right now I'm reading a book by Jim Butcher called "Storm Front". It's about a work-for-hire wizard in modern-day Chicago. There's six books in the series, but this is the first one. It's a whodunit with the magic twist. Actually, I think I would consider the protagonist (Harry Dresden) to be more of a warlock, but that may be splitting hairs. I'm into the book so far, and if it doesn't end lame, I'll read the next few in the series. The same author also has a high fantasy series which might be worthwhile to check out.

villians

I've been struggling with the new story over the past several hours and I've come to this conclusion: I suck at villians. I'm at the job that is currently paying the bills and we've been busy, so I've only been able to jot a few notes on paper. While I'm rushing all around, however, I've been thinking of the plot, and I can't for the life of me think of why the bad guy wants the good guys to go down. So far it's the "you're magical, which makes you a genetic freak of nature, and you must therefore die" routine, but that just doesn't seem to cut it. It really pisses me off, because I'm beginning to get a solid glimmer of the main characters in my head--Sasha wears clothes like this, Balthazar's attitude is that, Max's morning routine goes something like this--and I think I could have a lot of fun writing about their adventures. But, dammit, they have to have a nemesis! A good one! One that has a kick-ass motive to be bad, and justifications for that motive so he's plausible! Is that too much to fucking ask????

Rushin' around

If I get any writing done today, it's going to be after I get home from work. Believe it or not, midnight is not my most creative time of day, so I'll probably procrastinate until tomorrow. It's easy to put off writing when you're not getting paid for it. On the procrastination scale, right now I'd rather write than exercise, which could explain my expanding waistline. I've gained five pounds this year (!!!!!) and I'm not too happy about it. I can't say I don't deserve the extra weight, because I've been exercising less and eating more, but still ... I feel flobby and yucky. I think Orson Scott Card said in his book "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" you gotta take care of your body if you expect your mind to work at its peak. Stephen King said something to that effect in his book "On Writing", as well. Perhaps its time I take their words to heart. Maybe I'll try a new rule--no writing until I've exercised--for a few weeks and see how it goes. I'll either have my abs back or I'll not have written a word.

Lost

Just watched tonight's episode of Lost. I got sucked in during the first minute-thirty and didn't budge from the couch until the end. God bless TiVo--fast forwarding the commercials is the best way to watch tv.

I didn't get any writing done today, I had to go to the doctor for the annual kick-the-tires-and-check-under-the-hood routine, as well as mow the jungle we call a yard. My perfectionist neighbor (her name's Tina but I call her Martha Stewart) gave me dirty looks while I was mowing, as in 'yeah, it's about time you did that' and I gave her looks back that said, 'why don't you shove your clippers up your ass', so it was a satisfying afternoon. Tomorrow all I have on the agenda is going for a run and writing, so I'm hoping to log in a few hours at the keyboard. On a good day I can write about five pages an hour, so writing ten pages would make me a happy camper.

My goal is to have a solid first draft done by the end of September so I can dole it out to two of my readers that have read the first two in the series. The idea is to have a nearly-completed manuscript by the time I go to World Fantasy Convention in November so I can say I've completed a trilogy and by the way, here's what I'm working on now. My next book, I think, will be centered around four wizards living in modern-day America. Each of the four are in high school, run with different crowds, and use a different kind of magic than the others. Each of them knows they're a wizard but don't know the others are until their parents bring them together to tell them ... what, precisely, I don't know, but I know that in order to save the world from destruction or keep their secret safe they'll have to work together and combine their four magics into one. Clearly there's a lot of work to be done. Right now I see it as one book, not a series, but who knows where it will end up. You gotta feed these baby ideas and let them become what they want to be.

Television

Last night I caught a new show on CBS called "how I met your mother". I thought it was pretty funny. I like Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan, though, so the show basically had me at hello. I start working dayshift in January so I have to wrap my mind around watching primetime tv without relying on TiVo. That's not to say I'll get rid of TiVo. I'm a TiVo whore. But watching shows during their first run will be a novelty.

On the writing front, I wrote ten pages today. Soon I'll be done with the first draft, which means the real work is just beginning.

I've never uploaded an image before. Let's hope this works.

Here's me and the four cats. From left: Kahlua, Moonshine, Morgan, and Bailey. Notice that Morgan is displaying his alpha male tendencies--Moonshine was on my lap and Morgan decided I was paying too much attention to her and so climbed into my arms. The wall behind me is now painted a deep maroon, which makes for a comfortable lounging experience.

roller coaster

I wonder if I'm the only writer whose opinion of their writing constantly fluctuates. One day I'll read what I've written the day before and think I'm the best thing since pepperoni pizza, and two days later I'll look back and think I'm complete shit and why should I even bother? Maybe it's because writing is just so frickin' solitary--there's very little validation for your work, and what validation you get (at least at this stage of my career) is the result of needling your precious few readers: "what did you think? where were you bored? what about the plot? what about character X? did you like it? do you like me?". It's just so frustrating, because deep down I know I do good work and I know I have the talent, determination, and drive to have a decently successful career, but there's always that voice in the back of my head that whispers to me late at night when it's dark and tells me that I'm a fraud, I should quit, who do I think I am trying to be a writer when there are 100,000 people out there vying to become one of the 10,000 people published this year?
That said, I wrote four pages today. I'll write four (or more!) tomorrow. And the day after. And I'll say 'fuck you' to that voice in my head every night.

back from hell

This weekend I walked my mother down the aisle at her wedding, which was less cheesy and more emotional than I thought it would be. Lots of drinking and eating and dancing to be had, but I cut out early so I could make the three hour drive home. Actually, it should have been longer than that, but my uncle told me about a short cut, and so I shaved about twenty minutes off my drive.

As far as the writing goes, I haven't written anything since Thursday, and I'm getting a bit twitchy. I've been writing almost everyday for the past two years, and so now when I go more than two or three days, I feel off. I also begin to lose confidence in my abilities, so the best way to maintain my ego is to write everyday. Today I'd like to put in a good two or three hours. I need to exercise all the cake from yesterday off, too, so I'm going to persuade my husband (read: threaten my husband) to take a bike ride with me.

Brand spankin' new!

You know, I've alway wanted a blog. I read Wil Wheaton's and a few others, and I have to say it's something that seems to scream "Kelly!" at me. But now that I'm doing it, I have to say that I feel exposed. Perhaps I'm a more private person than I thought.
Today I'm doing laundry and writing. I should go for a run, but I think my toe hurts. Yeah, that's it, my toe hurts ...