Improving Your Craft

I really suck at those "word count goal" challenges. I should probably try harder at them, but sometimes word count isn't totally where it's at.

For the last few weeks, I have found myself doing various things that aren't really writing, and yet:

• I got the RWA Conference CD's and have been listening to a marathon of craft workshops
• I got a critique partner (Hi, M!)
• I've entered my writing in four contests in the past month and am prepping for my fifth
• I've been reading books on craft
• I've been reading some of the latest debut books on the market and rereading Austen
  

Most of all, I've been plotting and outlining. This is new to me - I "pantzed" my last two manuscripts, but this one was just calling for some pre-work. I saved myself a lot of time, actually, when I decided my hero wasn't going to be a spy (too overdone) and my heroine wasn't going to be a bitch (she was in danger of going that way). I carry my notebook with me everywhere I go and make cryptic notations as soon as the thought hits me ("mother sick??? poss later. must check ref.") Last week I came up with a scene that had me laughing to myself on the bus. Those are good days.

I'm ready to jump in now, and ramp up the word count.

Still, these beautiful spring days are the times when I'm glad I'm not a full-time writer. I do a little fussing in my notebook, then I go out for a bikeride or I watch the rabbits in my yard. 'Cos who cares?

Spinning Stories

My mother found this awesome photograph in a bin at an antiques shop yesterday:




Written on the back is, "May 20, 1937."

We've been trying to figure these two out. Where are they? Neither wears a wedding ring, but look at that pose - especially her hand on his shoulder. They're a handsome couple, comfortable in each other's space, but they're not married - at least not yet.

Maybe it's City Hall, and they're about to get married. That would explain why the occasion warranted a camera. But, as my mother pointed out, why no flowers? Even in his lapel?

Maybe they're about to get on a train, or a boat somewhere.

I like that rakish hat, and the look in her eyes. I hope she completely shocked his parents.

For Real?

I was in the middle of composing this really meaningful, thoughtful post when I took a break to surf the internet and I found this:




WHAT is this?? They are making another X-Files movie. Why doesn't anyone tell me ANYTHING?

I spent many years watching the X-Files. I watched it when it was just starting to catch on and they were doing cool stuff like finding viruses in the Antarctic. I watched it when it was really popular and they started doing those ridiculously silly alien plots. (Believe it or not, up to a certain point the alien abduction was actually rather compelling drama.) I watched all the boring shows and all the soapy shows and all the really, really, brilliant shows that made me wish, with everything I had, that I could someday be that good, that inventive a writer. There are episodes of this show that are better than 90% of the novels I've read. You can watch them over and over and the writing stays sublime.

That's all well and good, and Mulder was all well and good, but the really cool thing about this show was always Scully. She was brainy, and beautiful, and redheaded, but she was also short, pedantic, lonely, always working, usually humorless, and dressed in off-the-rack suits. In short, she was something like an actual woman.

I wanted to be Scully. The same way lots of young women a few years later wanted to be Buffy, I suppose. But Scully showed all of us brainy girls that being brainy didn't have to be the handicap we thought it was. You could be brainy, and be cool with it, and be you, and if most of the world wasn't up to that... well, maybe you'd be a little lonely. But at least you'd be you. And maybe you'd get to meet aliens and David Duchovny, maybe in that order.

It'll be good to see Scully again. I'll be watching.

Suggestive much?

Ah, this cover makes me laugh:





"Gosh, why can't our genre get some respect? I can't figure it out. We have some all-out geniuses writing for us. Why, oh why, does everyone persist in thinking we're silly? The rocket-ship wang just CAN'T be the reason."

In other puzzling news, one of the local stations here advertised to "watch their live coverage of Earth Hour." Um, aren't you using electricity if you're watching TV? I mean, they said to turn the lights off, but maybe you were supposed to turn other stuff off too.

Here is my sexxxxy new bookshelf:




OK, the stack of books on the floor doesn't count, because that's all the books I discarded when I went through everything. They're waiting to go to the library. Oh, and the stack of books on TOP of the shelf doesn't count, 'cos those ARE library books, also going back to the library (in the library book-bag, also messily pictured, yes I have a library book-bag, so what? I'm a nerd.)

So really, it's much neater than it appears.

The "litter of puppies" shelf pictured below did not go to the curb after all, but was demoted to secondary shelf featuring stuff like The Guy's old comics and some stuff I didn't have room for.

Oh, and I painted the wall behind it - in fact, the whole room. That's what took me so long.

The Sixteenth Century for the Twenty-First Century

The other day I came across an ad for The Tudors:




Looking past all the nice eye-candy (male and female) and the un-Elizabethan attire of both, I noticed something way cool:




"Jonathan Rhys Meyers is Henry 8". Showtime got rid of the Roman numerals!

I checked the Canadian marketing (it's airing on CBC up here) and, 'cos we're royalty nerds and also 'cos we're technically still attached to the Queen, we've kept the Roman numerals. It's all "Henry VIII" this, "Henry VIII" that.

But not in the USA. Just as they got rid of the British royal family themselves, they've also dumped their stodgy old-fashioned Roman numerals. The Revolution is still going on.

I like it.

What I like most, I think, is the visual aspect of it. Henry 8 just looks cool. Let's see -

Elizabeth 1 - eh, that looks like it did before.

Elizabeth 2 - not bad, but bets are she won't go for it.

Louis 14

Mad King George 3

Shakespeare's Henry 5

Richard 3

I like most of them, especially the 5 and the aforesaid 8. Lots of history-buff types are disgusted with The Tudors, for its shameless borrowing and bending of history to make a good soap opera. I'm no Tudor professor myself, but even I know Henry was in his 40's when he met Anne Boleyn - more like fat, crazy Henry than young, hot Henry. (And he was young and hot at one point - his suit of armor from his early twenties has been conserved.)

But they shouldn't be surprised, really, or even all that outraged. This is not actually the story of Henry VIII, but the story of Henry 8, who could be an entirely different man altogether. If you read the marketing, it gives you a clue: This is not your history teacher's Henry VIII.

Might as well see what Henry 8 got up to.

Bookshelf of Shame

Hey guys - do you think my bookshelf is too small?




No really - what's your opinion?

Good God. Despite the fact that it's hideoso (a gift from the mother in law), it looks like it just had a litter of puppies. This is my one and only bookshelf, people.

I also have a few boxes of books in the basement, which somehow manage to spew books back upstairs every time I look at them.

It's time. TIME. My birthday is later this month (I'm zzhrhhg years old, and no I won't speak up) and I think I'll ask for a new shelf. Or at least some Ikea money for a new shelf. Someone who has reached the age of zzrhrrrg has reached the age of owning a proper bookshelf.

Made of wood. Like normal people own. (Or, in the case of Ikea - at least made of particle board.)

As for this wrought-iron thing, who knows where it will go? Oh, the exciting journey to the Goodwill or the basement or maybe craigslist! Exciting adventures await!

Just because

Because every once in a while - I just gotta.