I JUST FINISHED MY NOVEL

TOO EXCITED TO TYPE MUCH.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Intolerance

So, my mother was irritating me and I decided to go out in my peaceful car for some quality peace time. I took my knitting (a cardigan from a book I borrowed from the library). This, to me, is akin to taking a book, or taking my notepad. Something to occupy me while I play Pirates music and chill out.

To my mother this is some kind of weird, freaky practise that deserves a dirty, condescending look and a sarcastic ‘oh that’s normal’.

And yes, mother, if you’re reading this (I know someone nearby is reading, and if it’s you, shame on you for spying on me), it is incredibly annoying.

I can’t stand it when people are intolerant of perfectly normal, uninvasive hobbies. I can understand people thinking train spotting is weird and nerdy, but it doesn’t harm anyone and if you get joy from it, then fine. I can understand people following football results, or dog races, or stamp collecting, even though I do none of them. So why do people have such a hard time accepting my hobbies? If I say I write, I get weird looks. If I say I knit, I get weird looks. If I say I enjoy making costumes, I evitably get ‘why?’ thrown at me, ‘Where are you going to wear them?’ Well y’know, maybe I just like sewing and designing. Maybe I’ll admire them for a bit then sell them.

This kind of reaction, to me, is terribly rude. I don’t look down on people for golfing even though I think it’s totally pointless. I don’t ask them what’s the point in hitting things occasionally and walking across a manicured lawn for ages?

It’s not like I’m stuffing roadkill and hanging it on my wall, or peeping through half-shut curtains at semi-naked people. I do textile arts, and write stories. People have been doing it for centuries. Many people do them for a living. So get out of my face and understand that just because you don’t do it doesn’t make it some weird esoteric activity deserving of contempt.

In other news, I’m doing ok on NaNo, which is very awesome. Another thing that makes people give me dirty looks and think I’m a freak, but awesome nonetheless. I’m also less than 5000 words away from finishing the novel. AWESOMER.

Whoop!

I’m having an excitable joy moment and felt like sharing it here since I mostly whine …

This is the current status of my current novel. Comparing it to what I last showed, it’s even close to being done. I have two chapters to write, two to revise, and probably a few thousand stray words to inject between chapters 23 and 24 on a scene I couldn’t write until I wrote everything before it.

I’m stoked, as folks on an Australian soap might say.

NaNoWriMo: Day 14

Well it’s two weeks into Nano, and I have 18,394 words. This is something like double what I’ve managed for the last three years over the entire month, and I haven’t given up yet, so I’m pleased even if it goes downhill from here. By the end of today, according to the Nano schedule, I should have 23,333 words (which is a cool number, btw). My revised schedule after so recklessly taking five days off to go to Rome, says I should have 15,730 words by the end of today. Since I’m already at the aforementioned 18k, and plan on doing at least 2k today, that puts me pretty close to catching up to all the folks who’ve been writing solidly for two weeks. I’m rather happy about it.

My story is both suffering and flying with the pressures of Nano. My prose is absolutely appalling, and I’m forcing myself to ignore that. If I’m wrinkling my nose up at a word choice and can’t instantly think of a replacement, I’m writing it anyway. I can edit it later. The plot has derailed itself a couple of times, I’ve revealed my traitor an entire book earlier than expected, but I’ve also got some good surprises out of it. I think I’ll end up rewriting a lot of it, but the momentum is giving me some insights, and barring disaster it should carry me through into the third book. It seems fitting for book two to end, and book three to start, in the same frantic way the whole thing was born. Poor prose it may be, but I have a good feeling that my instincts will lead me in the right direction for the story as a whole.

Nano aside, I will be posting about Rome when I get the photos back (not before December :p).

Dragons?

Well I finished chapter 15 last night (by finished, I mean stopped at the end of a piece of dialogue that can vaguely be classed as an ending). It’s 6,564 words and I don’t think I’m proud of any of them. I’m proud of an idea I had, which will make something possible that has to happen later, but it doesn’t feel right. It seems like the character takes a step back, when they’re supposed to be moving forward. I guess that’s pretty life-like, but it’ll cause me problems and right now I just want to write and have fun with it.

Chapter 16 should be pretty fun (it has dragons!) but I just don’t feel like writing it, which is weird because I’ve been looking forward to this chapter for ages. I’d skip it, but I pretty much can’t write anything without knowing what knowledge is imparted in this scene. *sigh*

To top it all off, NaNo starts in a scant few days, and while I’m really looking forward to it I, a) don’t feel like writing this scene, b) don’t even have enough left of this book to make 50,000 words so I’ll have to move onto book 3, of which only the end is plotted (and that’ll probably change), and c) I’m going to Rome for 5 days with my Paris friend. None of these spell good things for me winning.

I *am* looking forward to Rome, though. Very much so. The last few months have been really, really hard on my mentally, and they’re not getting easier, so I’ll be great to get away and absorb some fun and old stuff with someone who always cheers me up. Plus I love Italian food, and it has to be even better in Italy, so hurray! Maybe it’ll even ignite masses of inspiration in me so I’ll come back and dash off a load of writing and make up for my slacking during NaNo! Well, maybe not, but at the very least I should have some cool pictures to put up.

Also, Happy Halloween for tomorrow!

Slowly Progressing

So, I lied when I said everything was fine after my crisis. I keep having panics that I’m rubbish, and it’s rather disheartening. I do keep beating it back, however, and so I’m forging onwards. No looking back yet. I shall save the crushing pain until I have two complete books. Possibly three.

I’m currently at 89,578 words on book two of the trilogy. A couple of months ago I was at 83k, so I’ve written just over a chapter in two months. That’s better than I’ve been managing for the last two years, so I’ve decided to be happy about that. I mean, I’m closer to finishing it, so it can only be a good thing.

I’m looking at my outline of chapters, and now I only have three that are at 0 words. Of the rest, most of them have the bulk of the material written, there are only two chapters plus the one I’m working on that needs more than shuffling around and checking for inconsistencies. It’s pretty exciting. Of course now I’m starting to ponder the plot of the next book. I only have a vague outline of it, even vaguer than the outline for this book, actually. In fact, I pretty much know my MC has to learn some stuff and then there’s the ending (which might change anyway). Soooo I’m getting sort of scared about starting that. It’s going to be interesting.

Crisis!

I was having a writing emergency until a few moments ago. I looked over the notes for my trilogy and realised that for most of book two I’ve completely lost sight of two out of my four plot elements. I’ve done this because they are lame. So I felt bad for a couple of hours.

I checked my emails just now, and saw that Christopher Paolini is releasing a companion world guide to the Eragon series. Then I checked my shelves and found Tim Bowler’s Carnegie Medal-winning Apocalypse. I suddenly feel much better.

You might wonder why other people’s successes make me feel better. Well, firstly, if you’re not familiar with Paolini, then lucky you. His series is a bloated, poorly-written piece of fan fiction, combining the plot of Star Wars and the world of Tolkien. If he can be disgustingly successful while also committing blatant theft, then I have nothing to worry about.

Apocalypse is, quite simply, the worst book I have ever read. That includes Eragon, and the entire Twilight series. Even Breaking Dawn was better than Apocalypse. Why? Well, if you think you want to read it then I’m about to spoil it. I don’t particularly care either. Bowler ends his novel in classic ‘it was all a dream’ style. I’m pretty sure no one over the age of eight will finish reading and feel satisfied, but it won a pretty famous award (this is why I don’t trust awards).

So, I’m not feeling fairly upbeat. True, I have to add in plot elements to book two, but that’s much easier than removing substantial portions of book one, and reworking it almost entirely. I should probably add, in case it looks like I’m being lazy and don’t care that my book is bad, that while I do think parts of my plot are over-done, I still have faith in the story as a whole, and it hasn’t overly bothered readers so far. So, crisis averted. Hurray!

Electricians

I am sitting in my bedroom right now. It’s almost dark outside, and it’s darker in my room. Why is this? It’s because I can’t use my ceiling light: it gives off a fishy burning smell when left on for more than five minutes. The electricians say it’s fine, though. I have a small desk lamp as my only source of light, because my big 100 watt lamps kept blowing up, as did the duller halogen lamp I bought to replace them (it lasted maybe three months). I’d really like to be sewing trim to my tricorne, but it’s too dark. It’s almost too dark to be using my computer, but luckily I have a great laptop with a small spotlight built in that allows me to see the keyboard while I’m in the cave that is my room.

I need light for all my favourite hobbies, so electricians are depriving me of leisure activities. Today they also caused me more work.

Rewiring was being done in my workplace. They not only forgot to rewire a vitally important plug socket for a ceiling projector, but moved said ceiling projector’s mount, so it no longer projects the right size for the Smartboard it works with. The entire setup is now useless until they come back and fix it.

In another room, however, they topped that bodge job! For some reason they felt the need to remove all the computer wires. My job today was to go around plugging everything back in. I don’t know why they did this in the first place, since they didn’t bother covering the brand new computers with sheets or anything, so while the wires are pristine, the computers are clogged up with dust and chunks of plastering. Hooray! Anyway, in this other room, they gathered up the wires, and one just wouldn’t come away. The solution to a caught wire, obviously, is to yank on it as hard as possible. This wire was the computer connection for the Smartboard. It unscrews. On yanking, the connector rips off the motherboard and renders the entire thing useless. I believe Smartboards are about £3000. The electricians are in big trouble.

There are many other reasons I don’t like electricians, but I’ll leave it at that.

Paris: Day 3

Day three was my last day in Paris, and I only had until 2pm because my flight left at 5.30pm. I really, really wanted to make the most of it, so I was pretty annoyed when we set off even later than the first morning. We wanted to see the Louvre, and Notre Dame, and eat. I think I spent most of the walk to the Louvre telling them to hurry up, and getting annoyed when they were taking pictures rather than crossing the road.

In One Month …

I’ll be 24. I feel old. It’s not fair.

I’ve also lost all urges to write. It’s not fair.

I think I’ll go sulk.