Archive for the Writing category
October 27th, 2006
Here we go again.
- There was no way in hell she was going to the opera.
- Three hundred years had passed since the banishment of the War God and now the cracks in the world were truly starting to show.
- Shaina had made up her mind; she was definitely, probably going with decaf this morning.
- Bill was going to kill his brother.
- Taylor watched in horror as the crack slowly crawled across her windshield, forking in the middle and branching out like two great arms in some desperate plea.
Now it’s your turn…
Tags: Friday Five 1rst sentences, writing, fiction, meme, bloghopping
October 20th, 2006
It’s that time again.
- She had waited so long her fingers fingers were numb.
- The drip-drip-dripping in the otherwise peaceful afternoon was slowly driving Dale mad.
- It had been terribly long since Shelly had been tired of rain, but now after 30 days, 13 hours and 22 minutes, she was tired of rain again.
- The secret was out and Tess loved a good secret.
- Spider had picked up knitting in prison, or so he had said.
Now it’s your turn.
Tags: Friday Five 1rst Sentences, writing, fiction
October 13th, 2006
So, I used to try to do “this thing” every Friday way back when (before I knew what memes were) as a writing exercise.
What’s “this thing“, you ask?
Is it some weird cult thing? (That’s a fair question from the few people who know I grew up in New Orleans and went to a few Voodoo rituals.)
Naw, it’s fairly safe, though mentally challenging. It’s good for the writer’s soul.
A long time ago, in a city far far away, I had a writing circle where I encouraged the group to write five sentences that could be the first sentences of a story or novel. The intent is to draw readers in, to make them want to know more. The first sentence of short stories and novels and articles should grab the reader and make him or her unable to close the book and toss it away.
So, the object of this exercise or meme is to write five sentences that could be the first sentences of different stories each Friday and share them by posting them either here in the comments or on your own blog and post a link in the comments that you did so.
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Tags: Friday Five 1rst Sentences, meme, bloghopping, writing, fiction, NaNoWriMo
April 21st, 2006
It’s that time again.
- “Do you actually read Shakespeare or is he just sitting on your shelf because you think he makes you look intelligent?” the snooty man asked.
- If all hell was going to break loos at the office, couldn’t it have had the decency to wait until Monday rather than ruin a perfectly good Friday?
- Somedays it just wasn’t worth it to log on.
- It was really rather a long, boring story and this one is much more fun.
- Suri stretched one dew-covered wing as she wiped the sleep from one half-opened eye.
Tags: Friday Five 1rst Sentences, writing
March 31st, 2006
O.K. We haven’t done this in a while either and since Tamara so kindly nudged me, I guess I’ll get on with it too.
- Sometimes The Con itself was so convaluted that it became unclear even to Izzy and Bastian exactly who was conning who or who had even started it this time which made it difficult to figure out exactly when to call it quits and how to tell who won.
- Somedays Matilda just wanted to drape herself in dark withering colors and on other days, like today, she felt like trying to fit every color in the rainbow in
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Tags: writing, Friday Five 1rst Sentences
March 10th, 2006
I haven’t done these in a while. As reminder, here’s what this is about. Anyway, I decided to get off my lazy writer’s azz and do some. Hopefully this’ll kickstart some creative juices.
- Some days she envied the blissfully ignorant as they went about their daily routines of struggling to find a decent parking spot at the local Wal-mart or a sale on on iPod nanos.
- Delaney was always the last to know.
- Grandmother used to say that life was only good when the beer was cold, which is why, I suppose, she kept the keg in that fridge
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Tags: writing, Friday Five 1rst Sentences
November 27th, 2005
Whoot! I made it slightly before 7pm tonight. I still have a little bit to write story-wise, but I did it! I can now breathe a sigh of relief and claim that I did it! Whoo-hoo!
I’m at the part of the story where Nora is packing up her apartment to move to Alabama and will soon have the offer recinded. Then she’ll go through a whole soul-searching thing where she tries even more desperately to figure out what she’s going to do with her life before finding the right fit with the the company in
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Tags: writing, NaNoWriMo
November 25th, 2005
Chapter Thirteen:
And a Merry Christmas to all!Christmas was Nora’s favorite time of year – the lights, the music, the good cheer, the shopping, the sales, the shiny decorations. She looked forward to it all year. As much as she loved it, she dreaded putting the lights on the Christmas tree. Growing up, that had always been her father’s job and it had always been a big production – he would spend an hour or so, untangling ten or so strands of multicolored light strands and laying each one carefully out in its own space on the carpet. Then he would ritually plug each strand into the wall socket. Another hour would be spent replacing missing or burnt out bulbs. Then another thirty minutes would be spent methodically wrapping each strand around the six foot tall store-bought Christmas tree; they had to be accurately places so there were no “empty pockets” and no overcrowding.Then Nora and her mother would place all of the ornaments on the tree – there were more ornaments than branches but her mother would always try to get everything on the same tree every year; sometimes she would miraculously succeed. Her father would sit in his chair, watching CNN or some financial news show, and occasionally offering insistent advice as to where something should go.Afterward, her father would wrap the tree in tinsel garland with the same meticulous care as the lights. Nora always thought there was too much tinsel on the tree and they seemed to buy more every year. She thought it detracted from the lights and the ornaments, which her favorite parts. Still somehow overcrowded and covered, the Christmas tree was always beautiful and Nora loved sitting in the dark with just the Christmas tree lights on. There was something peaceful and relaxing about watching sparkly multicolored lights.So, while Nora had a store-bought tree as well (she had tried a live tree once but after vacuuming pine needles in March, she quickly lost interest), she did not use tinsel garland; instead she used wide Christmas ribbon. However, she still had a lot of anxiety regarding the lights of which she only actually used three or four strands. She was always afraid she would get it wrong so she almost always asked Jake or Kayla to help her with that part – the offer of free food always brought results and volunteers, particularly since Nora had discovered she was just as talented with cooking as she was with eating. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing
November 25th, 2005
This is from the end of Chapter Ten. I’m not entirely sure it will make sense to anyone but me because of the technical stuff. I tried to “dumb” it down for folks like my computer-phobic mother, but I’m not entirely sure the whole thing makes sense…though the technical jargon isn’t supposed to be the point of the scene anyone.
Any comments, suggestions, questions would be well-received.
There were days when Nora did not just want to beat her own aching head on her desk but she wanted to beat her co-workers into unconsciousness. They seemed to thrive on
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Tags: writing, NaNoWriMo
November 21st, 2005
Well, I’m pleased as punch to announce that at the end of the third week, I am at 35,071 words and 70% of the way to the 50K goal. I have quite literally written up to the day I got fired and I’m a little uneasy about writing the actual firing, reliving it and all. I know this is something that I need to do. I know that this whole experience has been very theraputic and extremely enlightening. I’ve learned things about myself from then that I don’t like. I’ve remembered tidbits about the events
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Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing
November 15th, 2005
Well, here were are in the middle of the month and I’ve only got 19,775 words which is slightly less than 40% of what needs to be written by midnight November 30th.
I’m O.K. with it, I think. I’ve got to write about 2K a day the rest of the month to get caught up and I can probably do 3K-4K each of the last two Sundays so I should be fine even if I slip behind again.
I added a “disclaimer” at the beginning of my NaNo novel which I thought would be fun to share:
Disclaimer: This story is
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Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing
November 14th, 2005
Well, I had a little breakthrough in group therapy tonight. I talked about how concerned I was about admitting my own personal mistakes that led to my firing and how I worried about disappointing my parents, particularly my mother. I admitted outloud what it was that I felt I had done that contributed to my firing. Mind you, none of those people are my parents, but just admitting it officially outloud was a relief.
One of the group leaders asked me how it felt to take ownership of my part in the events. While I’ve always said
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Tags: NaNoWriMo, therapy, writing
November 14th, 2005
I’ve often joked about how I was a Computer Diva toward the end of my last job. Heck, I’d accepted that maybe my head was a little big there but I also felt I was somewhat justified.
Reading back through my old journal in those months prior to my “involuntary termination”, I have come to the conclusion that the condition was far worse than I imagined. It’s hard to see ourselves when we’re living in the middle of the bruhaha. Sometimes it’s hard to see ourselves clearly even looking back with 20/20 vision. Some of us never
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Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing, therapy
November 13th, 2005
Quite frankly, that’s the sort of thing that one doesn’t get over – an invasion of privacy by haunted bathroom Formica.
Admittedly that’s the funniest thing I wrote today. 
I spent a whole chapter describing a house Nora didn’t buy during those six months before “The Firing”.
So, I’m at 17,726 words. I wrote 4,707 words today at the cafe. I’m 3,945 words behind where I should be. I wasted my day off cleaning on Friday. Then yesterday I went to the glass studio and worked on my pheonix and then wasted the rest of
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Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing
November 8th, 2005
Going back and rereading my old journal so as to refresh my mind about the events that occurred in that last year at the old job has been somewhat enlightening. Writing scenes and and a story around those events has allowed me to explore my feelings regarding those events and the person I was then as opposed to the person I am now.
It’s almost hard to believe that someone a month ago told me I sounded angry about the job loss and the move and I just don’t feel that way now. Maybe my mother was correct in
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Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing
November 7th, 2005
Chapter Four:
The Sound of Silence
Like most normal people, Nora paid monthly fees to a gym but only visited it once or twice every few months, despite it being across the street from her apartment complex. She had to look at it every time she pulled her car out of the parking lot and every time, she would feel a twinge of guilt about how she really should be exercising; sometimes she would make false promises of going the next day. Every now and then, she would get a sudden attack of guilt for not exercising while or when
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Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing
November 4th, 2005
So, I noticed more than one blog talking about word counts for their Nano. Apparently there’s a discrepency in how different software programs count words. I would have thought that counting words would be fairly straightforward, either it’s a word or it isn’t, right? (I guess this explains why machines have trouble counting election votes too…)
Anyway, what most people seem to be saying is that Microsoft Word inflates the word count about 30%. So I ran a little experiment this morning and here are my results:
| Microsoft Word: |
4,143 words |
|
| NaNo’s Counter: |
4,151 words |
| NaNoWriMoProMe’s Counter: |
4,213 words |
So, I’ve decided to stick with NaNo’s counter; not only is it in the middle, I’m sure it’s closer to what they’ll be using for the final count. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing
November 2nd, 2005
O.K. I broke the rules. At least I read on the forums that you shouldn’t revise, etc., but just keep pushing on, but I actually think I not only improved some things, I added words to the revise of yesterday’s work.
I admit to recycling most of a post I originally wrote in real life but I tried altering it here and there to give it Nora’s voice. I think I might relook at Chapter Two again tomorrow after I’ve had a chance to listen to Nora a bit more.
I guess I’m not too worried right at the moment
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Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing
November 2nd, 2005
Here’s an exerpt of the beginning. I’ve cut out the scene that I was working on when I quit last night. I guess I kind of want feedback and kind of don’t. If you do give it, please be honest.
Losing Nora: The Fall and Misadventures of a Computer DivaChapter OneSome days Nora felt that life would be so much better if she could just take a drill to her forehead and release the demons screaming and pushing and shoving to get out. Some days she couldn’t remember what life was like before the pulsating throb that
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Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing
November 2nd, 2005
I spent two hours last night writing. It was a real struggle to get started and to push through. I’m pretty sure it’s all crap, but it’s my crap. Heck, it’s even my old baggage.
One thing that I suddenly realized is that while there are many fellow Nanos out there who’ve planned for this and made outlines and character sketches and I was feeling overwhelmed by the lack of those things, I am a blogger. I took a trip in the way-back machine to my old pre-Maine blog and started skimming. I’ve copied
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Tags: NaNoWriMo, writing
