The stupid car wouldn't start when I tried to leave here yesterday and now I owe Extension 17 two favors.
But, in spite of the massive lack of sympathy demonstrated by so-called "friends" in the comments section*, today, my car is running reliably again. As long as I needed to take it in, I went ahead and had my pre-winter tune-up and some other bits and pieces done. Total bill right around $200.
(*It's all very well to say, "take it to Sears" and I suppose that in theory there are Sears stores in Denver, but I don't know where any of them are. Those of you who are homeowners overestimate the interest of those of us who are not in "home stores," okay? I can't imagine any reason on earth I'd have gone into a Sears store in the last fifteen years.)
I have to take the fool car back some day soon. One of the little lights behind the dashboard seems to have burned out. I can only see about half the little dial that tells you how fast you're going and yes, I know there's a name for it but the word escapes me at the moment, so just don't start with me, okay?
Anyhow. Turns out yesterday was a good afternoon to be out of the office. Buehler continued to be appallingly needy yesterday and really I had enough of my own work piled up in front of me to take care of the few hours I could spare for the office without him twitching around about whether or not anyone had checked to see if the mail was in yet or if someone else had called in to report progress on a meeting they'd had that morning.
The SEN: I'm here today to report a complete and entire lack of progress. I haven't touched it all week and I don't, at the moment, have any desire to touch it.
I may not write again until I take myself back off the stupid diet. Being calorie-starved and obsessing over the various times I've sneaked a bite of chocolate or eaten an extra cracker doesn't seem to be compatible with writing.
I'm very fragile, as a writer, aren't I? Things have to be just so or I can't produce at all any more.
It's a little silly when I remember how I used to write endless, smutty stories with half my brain while dealing with several million dollars worth of accounts with the other half. Nowadays, if someone looks at me funny while I'm driving home in the evening, it throws me off my game for two days.
Brooding. Oh. I just remembered...what with one thing and another, I've forgotten to get the refill for my thyroid medication, so I've pretty much been off it for the past week.
Now I recognize this shaky, twitchy, scatterbrained easily panicked feeling. This is what I felt like all the time before I got on the med and got my whateveritisthyroiddoes stabilized.
Maybe this evening would be a good time to pop by the old pharmacy and get that refill. (Ed. You think?)
Posted by AnneZook at 08:50 AMThe problem with writing scenes out of order (I mean, aside from the fact that you write the interesting scenes first and then have to slog through all the tedious ones) is that they don't all turn out exactly the way you envisioned them at first. I can see that I'm going to be busy with my little hammer and a pocketful of rivets, assembling all of these bits into a story some day soon. I may have to jump up and down on some of them to make them fit.
I'm a bit concerned. I mean, this isn't a laugh-fest I'm writing, I'm reconciled to that, but short of trying to be funny, I'm a bit vague on how you keep a story interesting, you know? The Reader can appreciate something longer, something that takes a while to get where it's going, but it has to go somewhere that's worth the time she's going to have to invest.
Also...this is fanfiction. More specifically, in case anyone was under any misapprehensions, it's slash which, in my case, usually means a fair amount of hot (one hopes) man-on-man action. Arriving at the point where Tab A is headed for Slot B, or some facsimile thereof, is the emotional plot of the story. You don't want that plot to peak (heh) too soon, but if you move too slowly, no one is going to care by the time they get there. Juggling that alongside an actual case investigation without moving it along too fast or forgetting about it at certain points, that's complicated.
I mean, I'm kind of lazy.
Okay, I'm way lazy.
Instead of struggling to create something with the complexity of a Real Novel, it would be a whole lot simpler to dash off a typical fanfic story. You know the kind of thing.
The Reader might well prefer that. After all, she's no illiterate. She has a library full of books she can read whenever she wants Real Fiction. One comes to fanfiction for something a bit different, doesn't one? It may well be that I'm sabotaging myself by trying to force this monster into a form that doesn't really suit it.
And suddenly...the decision is made. It's fanfiction. It needs to fit the genre.
Remember the PWP?
"Hi. You want to watch the game?"
"Sure. Have a beer."
"Thanks."
"Have a six-pack."
"Sounds good."
"Get drunk. Lay down. Relax."
"It's very warm in here."
"Yes, it is. Let's take some of your clothes off."
"I think I'm in love with you."
"Drop your pants and assume the position."
"Okay. But only because it's halftime."
Quick. Easy. Uncomplicated.
What's not to like?
Posted by AnneZook at 10:26 AMAfter weeks of abusing Extension 17 (if you're paying someone, they should show up for work. And actually do some work) (I'm an exception, okay?) I'm now in his debt. Yesterday I left my headlights on when I got to work. That's the third time in the last six months. I think I'm getting senile.
Anyhow, Extension 17 kindly offered me a jumpstart and now I feel morally obligated not to abuse him again for at least a week. Grrrr.
This morning the beast wouldn't start again. Fortunately for my peace of mind (and my 9:00 appointment), Lynn hadn't left for work yet. I managed to push the beast back out of my parking space (just call me Muscles) far enough to use her car to jump it, but I damaged myself in the process. (Okay, I cut my finger. Battle injuries are battle injuries, okay?)
I need a new battery. Let's hope it's nothing more complicated than that. I haven't the faintest idea where to buy a battery for a car. When my toys break, I usually throw them away and buy new toys.
Fortunately for the apartment dumpster, Lynn suggested I call the dealership where I bought the car, so I'll be doing that in a few minutes. With luck, I can get an appointment to take the beast over there today and get all the little bits and pieces done. (Might as well have it tuned up while they have it.)
I have netmeetings at 9:00 and 11:00 today, but I'm free in the afternoon.
As I drove to work, trying desperately to get the battery charged while driving in stop-and-go traffic, I found myself wondering if the fool thing was going to start when I leave here today. I mean, I can hardly go down and drive it around the block a few times once an hour to keep the engine warmed up, now can I? And yet, I'm uncomfortably aware that I'm likely to find myself kicking a dead engine again when I walk about of here in a few hours. Which means I'll wind up owing Extension 17 another favor. I don't think I can take that.
As I drove to work, I also had fantasies of just leaving the beast at the dealership and walking out with a new car, but I'm thinking calm thoughts while I disinfect the wound I got jumpstarting myself this morning. I'm really not in the mood to take over $500/month car payments at the moment and there's nothing wrong with the beast that regular maintenance wouldn't cure. The occasional oil change, some new plugs, maybe wiping off the top fifty layers of crud under the hood, that sort of thing.
Anyhow. I'm in a bad, bad, bad mood.
Posted by AnneZook at 08:13 AMYesterday, upon being informed that I'm working on an OaT story, someone I know actually expressed enthusiasm, excitement, and anticipation. That was flattering.
I know y'all who stop by here love me and you're glad I'm working again, and I value your support and encouragement.
At the same time, there's nothing quite like a squeal of gjrlish enthusiasm from someone who isn't nervously aware that I have her home address to boost the old ego.
I mean, there's something to be said for someone who actually reads in the fandom, right?
Having A Reader already lined up is a nice feeling. I may discuss The Reader in the future, who knows? I may think about her tastes, ponder her preferences, or even reflect on her reactions.
With a little work, I'm sure I could become very annoying on the subject.
In other news...well, nothing. It's 7:36. I'm already at work for some inexplicable reason. I could read my personal e-mail...except that I already did and it doesn't seem like anyone I know was talking last night. I could read the news headlines but, as I say, I'm off that.
In the bad old days, I'd have shrugged and spent the next hour or so writing. These days, as a means of keeping myself on the straight and narrow, work-wise, I've stopped keeping a copy of my story file on my hard drive at work.
I guess I might as well dial for dollars. Maybe I can catch some of our prospective users before they get too busy for the day.
(Buehler keeps calling...I can see it on the phone display. Every time he calls, I'm on the phone already. It's very annoying to have someone who's coming in the office anyhow calling up to ask what's going on before they get here.
I'm aggravated at him anyhow. Most of yesterday was frittered away in a variety of pointless grunt work instead of real work. Things like him writing someone a check five minutes after the postman came through and then agitating me to carry it down to the box on the corner so that it would go out that day. Or having me make a label for a file folder for him. He's not usually this needy, thank goodness.)
(Oh. He finally just left a voicemail. He was trying to tell me he'll be in late.)
(Still. What a lot of fuss.)
Posted by AnneZook at 08:52 AMTo work. I've done so all morning so far. I'm going better at the "not writing at the office" thing this week. (Okay, it's 9:15 on Monday morning, and I'm blogging about writing, but I haven't written, so I count that as an improvement.)
For anyone interested, we're now at 60 pages and the SEN is becoming a behemoth. I mean, I figured it would be longish. I thought, you know, 50-60 pages.
Hah. My elaborately conceived outline is 33 index cards. So far, the 60 pages of output I've produced covers 11 of those. I may not live long enough to finish this one.
Remind me again...what was it I thought was wrong with PWPs? I gave up on them...why?
(I mean, what's wrong with the PWP? You can write it in an afternoon and be done with it. They yak , they have sex, they fall asleep, you go off and get your laundry done or maybe clean the bathroom.) (I have an idea for a PWP right now, in fact.) (Well, not so much an idea as a concept.) (Okay, a title. But that's as much as I used to start with.) (I mean, I finally convinced the guys that they are, in fact, interested in doing the horizontal tango with each other and now, big surprise, they've lost interest in the case. I'm considering the theory that if I let them have at it in a PWP, they'll settle down and investigate the case in the SEN.)
Yesterday was a gorgeous, sunny, warm, late summer day here in Colorado. Naturally I spent 99% of the day writing and editing.
I told a friend I'd probably someday regret wasting my (comparative) youth this way. She doesn't think so but I know that I have few memories of the years I spent writing obsessively. The years from about 1996 to 2000 are just a blur to me. I have nothing but vague memories of sitting at the keyboard, typing furiously and hoping like heck not to be interrupted before the fragile and fleeting thoughts disappeared. And of cursing silently at every interruption that inevitably occurred.
These are not kinds of memories a person needs to recall themselves from the brink of senility when they're 87 years old, sitting in a squeaky porch swing, and throwing empty beer bottles at passing schoolchildren, are they?
No...the 1% of yesterday I didn't spend writing, that's what I'll remember. Walking the quarter mile over to my current favorite Mexican restaurant, eating a deliciously spiced and gloriously legal (on the diet) piece of grilled chicken topped with some luscious concoction called an "avocado relish" and then strolling home again through the late-afternoon sun. That’s the sort of thing you remember years later, not the agonizing hours you spend pondering the plot potential of pigeons.
It's been a month since I since put myself on hiatus from political blogging and I have to say I don't miss it that much. I mean, first I started using those hours to write fiction again, which may turn out to be a good thing. Second, I hadn't realized until I checked my credit card bills just how much money I've been spending on political-history books. It's a bit scary. Writing fiction is a much cheaper hobby.
I have dear friends living in the southeast for whom I'd like to offer a moment of sympathy and support. Four hurricanes...one after the other. No one should have to endure that. (I feel even more sympathy for the island people whose already poor lives have been devastated by these storms.)
Also, to the Moving Mole, I offer warm wishes and a highway full of Safe Driving Karma.
And, in closing, why didn't I realize the lottery was up to $128,000,000? I should really buy a ticket.
You never know. It could happen.
Posted by AnneZook at 10:42 AMSometimes you just have to ask yourself, "Is this the warm glow of rampant creativity, or am I just up to my neck in fresh sewage and too dumb to know it?"
This is what makes writing An Adventure!
Posted by AnneZook at 04:38 PMOkay, so I show up at ten till seven this morning.
That's 6:50 a.m., the time of day I usually spend leaning against a wall in the kitchen, sucking down my first cup of coffee.
I was out of bed, dressed, face nicely scrubbed, and at my desk, ready for this morning's 7:00 a.m. conference-training call in plenty of time.
It's sad to be all alone in the world. Especially in the office at 7:00 in the morning. My trainee, who shall remain nameless, failed to materialize.
I called her office, she wasn't working today.
I dialed into the 800 conferencing number and the internet software (both of which, by the way, cost by the minute) and sat there for fifteen minutes, hoping she'd appear. No dice.
Spending the next hour not working was just...well, it was okay. Because, technically, it was "my" time. The two hours after that...not so forgivable.
That's why I'm not calling Nameless Woman any names, though.
I mean...I was here. I had time on my hands. Writing ensued.
Nameless Woman? Thank you.
When I stopped writing last night, I had the guys in a closet. (I argued with Mac for a week, okay? He was adamant about the closet. There are few things I hate more than losing an argument with an imaginary person, so I gave in and pretended it was my idea in the first place.)
Now I'm sort of brooding over how much UST is too much, you know? This is mostly a case story, with romantic-possibly-leading-to-sexual interludes. So I'm thinking that maybe eight pages of "plot development" that actually contains six pages of UST might be a bit much.
On the other hand, you never go wrong in fandom by assuming the reader mostly wants to read about how amazingly turned on the guys get for each other, right?
If one of the guy's pulse gets a little rapid, if his heart starts racing, if he starts feeling overheated and more than a little overdressed...well, that's what we all live for. If he's standing there, screaming in his mind for his partner to just reach out and grab him already, please, well, that's what we come to slash to read, right?
Besides, it serves Victor right. He hasn't been very cooperative over this story. If he doesn't behave himself, he could wind up standing there, sweating in the dark, for a looong time. I'm just saying. I know I always say, "no character abuse" but there's a certain level of abuse I'm more than happy to inflict on a stubborn, opinionated, uncooperative character, so he'd better watch out.
Anyhow. Where was I?
I could go do some work. It's not inconceivable.
Later note....
My 1:00 conference call dissed me just the way the 7:00 one did. But I've been working, for minutes at a stretch, today.
Also, I wrote two more pages of UST before I got the guys to the smooching stage and then...I forgot how to write about kissing.
The rest of the day will be spent on non-erotic, paid endeavors.
Posted by AnneZook at 02:11 PMIf you loved me, you'd write me a story. I'd really like to read something good in this fandom. If I had good stories to read, I wouldn't be feeling the urge to write something myself.
(Probably someone has written good stuff and I either just didn't hear about it, or someone told me about it when I was in my "non-fandom" stage and I forgot.)
I mean, there was an illicit organ bank located in a spa, killer klowns, rogue assassins, alien abductions (complete with Mulder-Scully clones, a mob family run by an 18 year-old college girl, a remake of The Maltese Falcon, a sex club, and a 007 knock-off. Those were all situations from episodes. I can't imagine how you could get too far out in fanfiction. There's almost *nothing* you couldn't write.
Doesn't that entice anyone who writes well?
Surely someone out there can get past how painful the episodes can be to watch, study up on the characters, and write me some M/V slash to make me happy? All I ask is that you have the characters in character, okay?
Oh, and don't write something that's going to annoy me, then send me a link to it, okay? No pregnancy, no death stories, no het, no threesomes, no crossovers, no abuse.
My wants are simple. Write something good for me. Something kind of longish where there's a lot of UST and a little action, then a lot more UST.
To talk about something besides my self for the moment, let me mention that the Tweenybopper is driving me nuts today. I think if she wants to fight with her mother about her healthcare, she really should do that on her own time. She sits at the other end of the suite from me and her voice, which carries, bounces off the glass besides her and almost echoes back into my office. I can't hear myself think. I know my own voice carries, I wouldn't care to share an office with me, but since I don't listen to myself talk, it doesn't really bother me. Her voice, on the other hand, is very distracting.
Makes it very hard to work on the software walk-though I'm trying to construct.
Makes it even harder to hear Victor and Mac talking and they're having a very tricky conversation about where it is, and is not, appropriate for Mac to put his hands.
(I've given up on using a sensible approach to writing the story and now I'm just writing whatever bits of dialogue or scenes that occur to me. I'll figure out a way to link them all up into an actual story some other time.)
Three hours later....
Well, the old work ethic returned. I have a walk-through.
I don't have any more story.
Sad, but virtuous, that's me.
Posted by AnneZook at 04:32 PMAs I was driving to work this morning, and the sunrise was painting pink mountains floating in a sea of misty gray clouds, I thought, "whyinthehell am I going to work before dawn when I don't even have an early meeting?"
I'm a mystery to me sometimes.
Words written last night - 0. After dinner out and a trip to the grocery store, my head never really settled down to it.
Other items of interest from my personal life - 0.
A Kind Friend sent me some suggestions for the opening scene of the SEN and all morning my brain has been distracted with brooding over Scene Structure.
I never know how much 'business' to shove in, you know?
1. How much about what the characters are doing does the reader care about? How many details does a scene need to anchor it in the (story) physical world?
2. If the two main characters aren't on screen together, do you skip those story bits? Are you, the reader, only interested in their interaction and are you bored with the development of the actual case in "case stories"?
I've also been thinking about a PSES (Previous Stupid Effing Story) that I wrote. I've always regretted that that one was such an exercise in How Not To Write. I mean, I had the whole story written (in the 'what physically happens with the assignment' sense) before I was forced to admit it was a truckload of garbage.
The reason I'm thinking about it is because it occurred to me today that what the story really needs is for me to go out and find a really cool and kicky new pen, maybe with a dark green ink, that I can use to edit it. Mind you, I haven't looked at that file for three or four years and I'm not sure if there's really anything there to salvage, but I'm inclined to indulge any impulse that leads to the buying of New Writing Implements. And I don't have a dark green pen at the moment. I have red, black, blue, purple, and teal. I have light green and light orange and hot pink, in case I want to circle something on a page. But I don't have a rich, dark green. I don't have a burgundy pen, either, but I know where I can get both of them.
That Shopping Urge will have to wait, though. It's only 8:56 a.m., which is a bit early to be leaving the office for the day.
A client just called and asked me to write her a walk-though for how to enter new data into the software. I like the way they do that, don't you? Just ask you casually to write a walk-though, as though it's a matter of ten minutes' work.
I'm never sure whether to be flattered that I make it sound so easy to use that they assume I can, in fact, produce a detailed walk-through in under 30 minutes or to roll my eyes and think unflattering thoughts about people who assume what I do is easy. Never underestimate the complexity of other people's jobs. It's insulting.
I've been brooding over that for ten minutes, in a vain attempt to forget the memory of my voice promising the client that I'd sketch out a walkthrough and fax it off to her this morning.
In her time zone, it's already 11:00, which means that in her little world, I have an hour.
Spike...you know...all naked and stuff. Totally worth thinking about.
Posted by AnneZook at 09:05 AM"You're cheating on me, Victor."
I was desperate for some decent text, okay? When that line wafted into my head an hour or two ago, I wrote it down, in spite of my vow not to spend company time writing.
Then I wrote two pages of stuff to go with the line.
Brace yourselves. These are not completely sucky pages. Not entirely. This is...dare I say it? Yes! This is actually reasonably good material!
The bad news, of course, is that the second Buehler left the office for a three-day business trip, I started writing while I should have been working*. At the moment, I'm torn between shame** and triumph***. And also between hunger and duty. I'm cramming down my lunch so as to be ready for my 1:30 meeting because I spent my lunch hour writing. I'm not crazy about cold chicken but I have to eat.
(*Okay, I didn't actually write until my lunch break, but I was Thinking About Writing instead of working.)
(**Very little.)
(***Quite a lot, actually.)
So, cheating. I cheated the company. Not for the first time, either.
I'm certainly glad I'm not the person struggling to find the money to cover the salary I'm overpaid.
Shortly thereafter....
Well, my 1:30 meeting was simple enough. The client needs to reschedule the training, she had something come up.
I am not now gifted with a "free hour" for writing. I am going to spend this interval working and that's that!
Heck...I already made three phone calls. I'm on a roll!
Shortly thereafter....
Five calls!
I think that's enough productive work for one day, don't you? I wouldn't want to raise the bar too high or anything.
Besides, it's very exciting. I had no idea this scene was going to happen in this story. I wonder what's going to happen next?
Posted by AnneZook at 02:10 PMI am in such a foul mood.
After an early a.m. doctor's appointment that ran 40 minutes longer than I expected (tell me, how can they possibly be running late already at 7:30 in the morning?), I had to swing back by my apartment on the way to work to change clothes because I remembered that I had a Business Lunch today. And it's raining. I keep meaning to buy a raincoat.
Then, instead of puttering to work through near-empty streets (I usually go in before rush hour), I had to fight my way in through a flood of morons who saw water falling from the skies and assumed it was the End Times and that traffic laws no longer applied.
I should never make early morning medical appointments. I do it under the theory they won't be running late (hah!) and that I'll be in and out faster, but the truth is that I loathe and abominate going to the doctor...any kind of doctor, and it puts me in a filthy mood for the entire day to have an appointment first thing in the day.
Also, Buehler (who gets a bad rap on this page, he's really one of the most considerate bosses I've ever had*) is on my short-list today because the bookkeeper is coming in again tomorrow, a fact Buehler casually informed me of just a few minutes ago. This means I'll be kicked off my computer for the day. I should point out, it's even less convenient than it was before because I have tele/internet conferences scheduled and the only two unoccupied computers in the building are too old and feeble to use for the purpose.
That means that after smacking Bossyboots down for the past month, I now have to go to him and beg for the use of the (company-owned) laptop that will run the necessary software. I'm sure he'll enjoy it. (One wrong word out of him and I'll just go home and do the meetings. I have a very good computer at home and it already has all the necessary software on it.)
(*That probably says more about my previous bosses than it does about Buehler.)
I can't believe torch not only writes Wodehouse slash, but now she's thinking of crossing over Bertie Wooster with Peter Wimsey.
I can't decide whether to die of apoplexy or envy.
Last night I tried my own new theory of writing for the SEN, just put words on the page and worry about the rest of it later, and it wasn't a howling success.
Possibly I shouldn't have spent two hours reading Wodehouse first. I had to throw away the first page or two.
Then, however, I buckled down and managed to scrape out three or four pages. It's not great material, but the key is that I'm getting words on the page, right? Boring words, dull scenes, and lackluster characters, but words on a page.
This never works for me...if I don't love the story enough to do it right the first time, it ain't going to happen. The odds of me having a complete personality switch and becoming the sort of person who edits with care and consideration, happily taking the time to do rewrites and polish her prose, are slim to none.
I'm going to do some work. In the back of my mind, I'll be contemplating the memory of my favorite BSOs. I can't think of anything else likely to improve my day besides a huge slab of chocolate and I'm not allowed chocolate on the diet.
Skinner in his underwear...and in that green sweater...Methos in almost anything...Spike in nothing....
I wonder why I never wrote anything for Spike? He certainly tripped my fannish switches harder than anything I've seen since XF. I hadn't thought about him in a while, but I had lunch with a friend on Saturday who mentioned him and now he keeps floating through my mind.
later....
I remembered that two of the protein supplements I brought with me today are hot chocolate-flavored. The day is already improving. Now all I have to do is figure out how to eat Mexican for lunch without destroying my diet.
Also, I have to stop thinking about Doing Things to Skinner. It's 11:00...time to get some work done.
Posted by AnneZook at 10:54 AMMen are such a pain.
I was sitting here, working hard...okay, I was e-mailing with a friend about how the guys had been sulking in the corner for a week and that I didn't really care. I've run into this problem with characters before. If they want to get laid, they're going to have to stop being coy and tell me what the problem is eventually.
And, as I hit the send button, suddenly I hear Mac whispering in my ear.
He's been off sulking in the corner for over a week because he thought I wasn't letting him be romantic enough? He wants dinner first?
Sometimes I think life was simpler before men got all sensitive and in touch with their feelings, okay?
I can't believe he wants romance. Like I don't have enough problems trying to create a case story that will actually stand up to inspection, now I have to convince Victor to send him flowers or something?
What's he going to want next? Chocolates and a black nightie?
I am so annoyed.
Posted by AnneZook at 04:43 PMHeh. That should make blogging more fun. I found a sexy picture of Mac and Vic and stuck it in the template document I use for blogging. Now every time I open the document, they're there, looking at me. (I've opened and closed this document fifteen times today. Sixteen.)
It strikes me as odd that when I first saw the show, I was more-or-less indifferent to Mac but now I find him really adorable. Actors and characters can grow on you, I guess.
Sigh. 2 oz roasted chicken, 1/2 tomato, and 1 small apple do not a thrilling lunch make. I keep telling myself that if I hadn’t gorged on bags of potato chips and chocolates this summer, I wouldn't be in this position now, but I keep answering that I don't give a hoot and I want some chip-and-dip or the lizard gets it.
(I don't know what lizard, okay? That's just what came out when my fingers typed that sentence and it's the first I’m aware of the existence of a lizard in my life. I sometimes wonder who's living in my brain besides me and if they're having more fun than I am. The lizard thing could go either way.)
I've been asked to explain myself. It seems that when y'all putter on over here to read this blog, you're having a teensy bit of trouble distinguishing between "this s*cks" when I mean I can't remember the adjective that starts with 'a' and has a 'd' in it that precisely covers what I wanted to say in that line; and "this s*cks" when I mean some scene is proving to be really hard to write because I'm not exactly sure what should happen in it; and "this s*cks" when I mean, "this s*cks, bl*ws, and refuses to sw*ll*w."
Actually, I'm a bit embarrassed by that last one, but if you're going to talk (and write) slash, I guess it's a bit prissy to be squeamish about such expressions. (But I went back and removed the vowels after it occurred to me that fifteen repetitions of the word "s*cks" would probably draw a lot of the wrong kind of traffic, so now it looks all squeamish and stuff and this entire paragraph is ridiculous.)
(For the record, a generic, "my writing s*cks" means, in all cases, that I've been unable to achieve the precise balance between Jane Austen and P. G. Wodehouse that is my imaginary ideal. When you consider how little the writing of those two has in common, you might suspect that I've set an impossible standard for anyone, much less myself, but I'd remind you that it does no good to set goals any chimpanzee with a keyboard can reach.)
I was working on a glossary for you. A sort of Scale O'S*ckage the concerned reader could use to interpret my various complaints about my writing, but I've given that up. For one thing, who cares, you know? For another, it was too hard.
I mean, "this s*cks" pretty much covers me emotionally for all of the above problems. I feel the same way about a story that refuses to deliver erotically as I do about a story that lacks that ineffable but, to me, perfect adjective. I might put slightly more heat behind "it s*cks" when it's situation (a) as opposed to (b), but there's little other difference.
In my mind, something is either right, or it s*cks. There's just not a lot of room in between the two options.
(If you type it often enough, "s*cks" starts to look like the right way to spell that word.)
Also it's starting to look as though actually writing the story is going to be easier than thinking about it any more. I may try the experiment tonight. I'll just write and not care about what I'm writing. Verbiage, sheer word count, is the easiest thing to create. You are, after all, limited only by the number of hours in a day and the extent to which you're prepared to tolerate writer's cramp. I'll just jam down whatever debris my brain spits up and try to fix it later.
(This didn't work the only other time I tried it, but I'm basically an optimist.)
You know, a lizard could totally work in a story. An iguana worked in that NCIS episode. It's tricky...it's a very visual joke and I'm not a visual writer, but it could work. Or I could save the iguana. I have another story idea (not OaT) that needs another weird gimmick like it needs another vowel.
Okay...now I'm just babbling.
Posted by AnneZook at 03:30 PMBelay that, keelhaul them, and make those blighters walk the bloody plank.
I've been spending Talk Like A Pirate day working on the SEN.
Not so much with the writing but the diagramming and plotting and a fair bit of cursing, piratical and otherwise.
On the one hand, no activity that requires three colors of pens, two colors of highlighers, and four colors of index cards upon which I can color-code the different scenes by action, romance, exposition, or plot point can be all bad, right? I've transferred all the notes from the five different pads of paper to index cards and thrown the other notes away under the theory that anything I didn't care enough about to transfer can't be important enough for the story.
On the other hand, it's a lot of work and in the end, you don't really have anything written, you know? Ten minutes after I started this morning, I found myself turning back to the story itself and scribbling bitter notes to myself about the ways I'd done it wrong on the first draft.
(Okay...so it did some good to diagram, but I was hoping to write more, not to get stuck in an endless loop of rewriting what I already have.)
By dint of an effort comparable to wading through hip-deep granite, I managed to get a linear idea of what scenes need to be included to develop the case and how the romance subplot, should the guys decide to cooperate on that point, should develop alongside the case. It's...feeble. At best. But at least I have an outline. I'm hoping that the act of turning it from an outline to an actual story will create a certain amount of magic.
I don't think diagramming stories is good for me. By the time I finish fighting out the details, I'm sick of the entire idea.
For instance, whatever it was I originally thought was fun about this particular story idea entirely escapes me now. I know there was something about it that enticed me to start writing again after a four or five year absence. but I no longer know what that was.
I'm pretty sure that a giant bowl of potato chips would solve the problem but I'm back on the diet today, so I don't have any potato chips in the house.
At the moment, I'm pretending that an apple can provide the same level of carbohydrate-fueled inspiration that half a bag of Fritos used to provide.
Argh.
Sigh.
Posted by AnneZook at 02:57 PMA kind friend asked: How's the writing going?
I replied:
Bah. Humbug. Argh. Hack. Spit. Phooey. Blech.And then, two seconds after I sent the e-mail, it hit me.I think it's nice to have friends who are supportive and stuff but it really would have been kinder in the long run to introduce me to the concept, years ago, that I was a talentless hack who was allowed to post to the internet only through the grace of democracy and because so few people knew where I live.
I mean, I knew I wasn't a genius. The complete lack of feedback convinced me of that, but I didn't know I was this bad.
Oh. My. God.
I'm ONE OF THEM!
I mean, I always wonder, don't "they" know they suck? Can't they tell no one likes their stuff since no one sends feedback? How can "they" not know?
I just figured out how "they" can not know...I mean, I didn't know. Your brain just refuses to let the bad news sink in.
I am so embarrassed.
Posted by AnneZook at 08:47 AMOkay, well, Alvin and The Other Brother Darryl moved out, as I've said, a few weeks ago.
Then Keyless Joe left us for the hedonistic pleasures of Pittsburgh.
Now I hear that Brother Darryl has had enough of Bernie's abuse and he's going to be leaving us. (Bernie is, in fact, very abusive. I wouldn't work for him. Having spent years working for abusive bosses, my gift to myself is that I will never again force myself to do that.) Once he got over not speaking to me because I was new and he didn't really know me (a stage that lasted about a year), Brother Darryl turned out to be a very nice guy.
Also, one of the Stooges will be exiting. Having discovered that his wife is pregnant and his current benefits won't cover the medical expenses, Larry is getting a real job. Working for a seat-of-your-pants software start-up is not a job for a family man.
Moe's departure, on the other hand, is temporary. He's taking a month off to backpack around Thailand or Tibet or something*.
Moe is a fascinating person. He's lived all over world and had the most amazing adventures, from hitching truck rides with guerilla troops in Mexico to spending a few years living in Japan. (Yes, he speaks Japanese.)
This guy is Blair Sandburg with computers instead of anthropology. He's tall, dark, and reasonably handsome, frighteningly intelligent, and very personable. Those of you who know me know how unusual it is for me to let anyone else get a word in edgewise, but I could sit and listen to this guy talk for hours. He's also Ralph Nader's wet dream since he lives in a totally eco-friendly house and drives a car fueled entirely by corn oil or something. He's the most eco-aware person I ever met in my life.
He just returned from taking his mother and her best friend skydiving for her 60th birthday. I've never met his mother, of course, but I'd like to. She must be amazing.
I like to think if I'd been born a guy, I wouldn't be such a coward about trying new things, but the truth is, I probably would be. I had a conservative upbringing by parents who were struggling to raise themselves firmly into the middle-class and, not being adventurous by nature, I've always remained timid.
The biggest adventure of my life was one time when I took a job I didn't think I was really qualified for.
Life is wasted on some of us, isn't it?
(*Okay, so as it turns out, he's taking two weeks off to do some mountain climbing and surfing, but with him, it could just as easily been the Himalayas.)
I did some stuff on the story last night but I'm not telling you about it.
Posted by AnneZook at 08:06 AMWhat is it with the mockery in the comments section? I know I demanded some attention, but I was thinking more of adulation.
I wasn't expecting adulation, mind you, but I was thinking of it. Sort of wistfully. I should mention that there are 15,000 (or maybe 32,000*, I never really did learn to read that stats program) people waiting impatiently for me to return to political blogging. Some of them regularly said nice things to me.
(*That's not actually true. There were only 8,000 different people. Or maybe 15,000. I read the FAQ for the stats program, but it didn't really help much.)
(And some of them were mean to me.)
But seriously. I'm feeling marginally better, but I think it had better be a while, a long while, before I repeat Tuesday's fried-food and carbohydrate binge. I seriously over-estimated my body's ability to absorb that kind of food any more. I've been eating "healthy" for a year now and I think my stomach forgot how to process the grease from a deep fryer.
Stupid stomach.
As my indisposition eases, my disposition improves. (I hope I never get anything seriously wrong with me. I can't imagine the plunge into bitter depression I'd probably have to endure if I had any actual problems.)
(Although, if the mockery continues, I'm going to eat some French fries and an entire pie and then come here and blog at you.)
So, what have we learned since yesterday?
The show "Cooking Lessons" was a "one-hour romantic dramedy about the exploits of a female food critic based on the book "Cooking For Mr. Latte: a food lover's courtship." For those of you not in the know, this was the show Peter Wingfield was in. Sadly, "the completed pilot was not given a series order by CBS at its upfront presentation."
So much for seeing him this year. Not that I was fascinated by the pilot. While I can see that a cooking show might be entertaining to watch, I'd rather see him in a role that actually uses some of his abilities.
Also, I have a finicky distaste for any show advertised as a "dramedy."
Anyhow, we won't be seeing it.
I tried Hawaii last night. I still like Ivan Sergei but what is it with everyone in the show forgetting to shave? Are we supposed to think of them as gritty tough guys because of the stubble on their cheeks?
Whoever told IS to cut his hair made a mistake. I'm no more a fan of stubble-headed guys than I am stubble-faced ones.
I watched the show for 20 minutes, then turned it off. It was, in the end, just another CSI rip-off. (I might have kept watching it just for IS and MB if I hadn't been trying to write OaT. I'm having enough trouble with the characters' voices without confusing myself by the same faces in different roles.)
In other, lesser news, I figured out one of the problems with the story. My "plot" involved the guys, especially Victor, being pretty unhappy for a week or so. I've never yet written a successful scene with a character who's unhappy, much less 70 or 80 pages. What was I thinking?
So much for that.
Last night I reviewed my plot outlines and all my notes with an eye to removing any abortive attempts at drama and replacing them with my usual brand of idiocy and discovered, not at all to my surprise, that 98% of what I've planned so far is sheer, unadulterated crap.
I imagine that that's what comes of trying to write beyond your own abilities although part of me suspects that the depression that went along with yesterday's physicial malady could be partly to blame for the verdict.
I'm afraid to open the file and look at the actual story, though. I mean, part of me also knows that you can't make trash into diamonds by just pretending you've changed your mind about what you want to write.
Posted by AnneZook at 07:48 AMIt's Wednesday and my first meeting doesn't start for ten minutes. I might as well blog.
I took the day off yesterday. It was Lynn's birthday, so we went out to try and frolic and make a day of it. The attempts at frolicking didn't go well, but at the moment, I'm brooding over something else.
Yes, it's the stupid story again. For the sake of brevity, we will be referring to this piece of idiocy in the future as the SEN or Stupid-Effing-Novel.
When I finally sat down to dabble with it last night, I spent two hours re-writing the plot and making notes, trying to figure out why it's stalled out.
It's a reasonably good case idea, I think. I have secondary characters, all reasonably functional for the parts they need to play. I have the crime that's being planned and it's something possible in the universe of the show but not exactly something they did on-screen, so it fits that way. There's a slight weakness around the story's climax, but I'm pretty sure I know how to fix that.
So why doesn’t the SEN work?
After much heartbreak, I realized I need to ditch my opening and write a different one, losing five-sixths of the original material. The opening is half the germ of the idea I started with for the story, but fine, I'll ditch it.
My one and only slash-related scene is at least three times too long. It loses its impact by the time I milk it to death. Cutting it down to the three paragraphs it should be means I have to lose another two pages of supporting scene for What Happened Next, which wasn't slashy, but was, I thought, kind of funny, but fine, I'll cut the stupid thing. (You want a quart of hearts' blood with that?)
much later....
What I thought of as a Major Plot Point turned out to be, when I diagrammed the SEN, just an action scene, There was nothing actually in it that advanced the plot. I took a look at the other three Major Plot Points and they had the same problem, so I spent an hour figuring out why they were important to what was happening and how they could be used to move the SEN forward.
The How-To Books are all adamant on that point, by the way. You can't have action scenes just for the sake of action, the action has to directly relate to moving the story forward. Preferably on two levels, although if I were capable of that level of subtlety, I'd be writing for a living and not for the aggravation of it.
Anyhow, now I'm trying to think of how listening to someone bad-mouth an appliance repairman can be morphed into Major Story Event that reveals Important Clues about where the story is going.
Ideally these Major P)lot Points should also re-emphasize the thematic subtext of the story but they can forget that shit. I gave up on having a "theme" three days ago. About the fifteenth time I went back to the book to refresh my memory of exactly what constitutes a "theme" I decided I'm not cut out to write that way. (I mean, if you can't even retain the concept, the odds of being able to execute it successfully seem small, you know?)
As much as I love the few books on writing technique that I have, it also occurs to me that most of them are really geared more toward script-writing than anything else*, so now I'm second-guessing their approach to digressions, diversions, and scenes included just for fun. These books insist all scenes should advance a tightly knit plot at a measured but increasing pace, but I'm thinking that's maybe not the right structure for fanfic. Especially the kind I write.
("It's too hard," she whined.)
And then, of course, there are the issues around the massive suckitudiousness of the source material.
Like, on the show, they did stuff because they were told to. On paper, the reader expects to get some sense of how the primary character feels and thinks about the stuff and about how his feelings and thoughts about the stuff change through the course of the case.
Especially when some of the stuff revolves around dropping his drawers and inviting his partner to come on over and party.
Which leads me to my main area of frustration.
The truth is, the guys just don't want each other in this story, and I'm not sure why not.
Last week, Mac was definitely showing some interest but for the past few days he's been staring out the window instead of paying attention. Victor never was on board with the idea and he's gotten more and more distant every time the subject has come up.
I don't have what I think of as the "trigger." The bit of whatever that makes the guys look at each other and go, Hey! How about it?
They're kind of stuck on, get away from me.
The longer the two of them stay on get away from me, the more I feel the same way about both them and this SEN.
I totally ate something that didn't agree with me yesterday. I have no idea what it was but, as usual, the slightest physical upset and my entire world falls apart. I am such a wuss.
Posted by AnneZook at 02:29 PMTo Keyless Joe.
As if to commemorate his departure, he showed up keyless again Friday and I had to put my phone call on hold to go let him in the office. Then, however, he packed up all his little toys and playthings and removed himself from the premises.
The family business is calling him home and he's moving to Pittsburgh. If my family said I had to move to Pittsburgh, I'd get a new family, but that's me.
If I'd had any sense, I'd have started months ago, when I found out he was leaving, saving all of my phone calls and teleconferences for the hours when Buehler is in the office. If I'd been inconvenient enough, he might have decided to move me to Shoeless's now-empty space.
This is why I'll never be a major success in life. I never plan ahead. Just think...a private office! I could have done like Extension 17 was doing the other day and just napped out halfway through the afternoon!
I could have had potpourri, little scented candles, pictures of nekkid men...oh, wait. This is a business office.
And, speaking of nekkid men, not that we were, precisely, but it's my darned blog and I'll take a sharp u-turn any time the mood strikes me, I'm still brooding over my latest pair.
I mean, I gave up politics because the strain of pretending to be intelligent was getting to be too much for me, okay? And now I'm realizing there's a mental strain around putting together a "case file" story that I was previously unaware of (never having done a proper one before).
I mean...you need plots and subplots and a theme and if you're really committed you use metaphors to emphasize your theme. You need descriptive expositive that sets a mood and you need a series of scenes that are both mini-stories in themselves and that link together cohesively to create an overall storyline that builds to a satisfying climax.
I'm just not sure I care that much, you know? My ambition really stops at writing snazzy dialogue.
Of course, it could be a combination of PMS and being back on the diet, but that combination doesn't necessarily mean it's just my imagination that this story does not sparkle.
I'm not giving up, though. Not yet.
I've outlined the major plot points for the main (case) plot and the secondary (slash) plot. I'm dabbling with whether to use comic relief in the linking scenes, wondering if the story has room for yet another character, and uneasy about whether or not a weirdo homeless guy is just too much of a cliché. I've figured out that my story is too linear and made notes about improving the pacing. I've determined where the weak points in the action were and restructured the plot to take care of them. I know what needs to happen for the characters emotionally and I have an arc drawn that shows where and when the steps will take place.
That was just yesterday. When I realized that large chunks of the existing 35 pages will need to be re-written to make the story work, I gave up and watched Alien movies, then went to bed frightened.
And that's what I did with my sunny Sunday afternoon.
After this, I'm going back to the PWP.
Posted by AnneZook at 09:24 AMFirst, Ivan Sergei's new show, Hawaii started, as research last night showed, two weeks ago. I hate it that new shows don't actually debut during premiere week any more, okay? Now I've missed two episodes. Oh, well. It's not like the reviews have been good. Although someone in the comments section said it was worth watching for the Pretty, I don't have any expectations of finding Quality Entertainment when I turn it on next week.
What else....
Well, I could complain about my brain. I came in to work early today so I could get some writing done before the office opened. I can't figure out when I became a morning writer. I've never been a morning anything, except coffee-drinker, but by the end of the day these days, my brain seems to be too tired to deal with writing. On the other hand, at 7:00 or 7:30 in the morning, I usually manage to churn out a lot of words. I find this peculiar.
I could complain about my own writing. In a fit of curiosity, I stopped last night and read the first dozen or so pages of my previous OaT story. I can't believe how bad it is. Now I'm torn between reading more of the stuff I wrote before, so I can clean the garbage off the page, and the fear that if I actually look, I might discover that it's all total crap.
I could complain about this story. 800 words so far today. They're not as bad as the stuff the story opened with, but this story is still far from acceptable. Also, I suspect by that the 24th page, more should actually be happening in the story, you know? So far most of what I've done is set-up. I was re-reading a bit out of a writing book on "pacing" last night and it says the action should build through the story but it also says not to be boring in the beginning.
Much later....
Ahhh...the joys of PMS. I guess that explains this week's fit of depression over the general craptitude of Everything That Is Me.
Posted by AnneZook at 02:27 PMI don't intend to do any of those things. I might, but I don't actually intend to.
I mean, okay, the story stinks. But I only started writing it 8 days ago and I have over ten thousand words, so at least it's moving. It may not be going any place interesting, but Iit's going, and I can live with that.
I'm doing pretty well keeping my resolution not to write on company time. Like today...a single page hardly counts as "writing" after all. Buehler's leaving early today (wedding anniversary) and while I have every intention of doing productive work after he exits,I haven't done much that's productive up until now, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope. (That proves I can find more ways to waste work time than writing smut.)
I'm sort of bored with the whole, "working for a living" thing today anyhow. Not to the point where there's actually any pain involved in sitting here, but noticeably bored. Extension 17 is being pretty good about clocking in with me when he arrives during the day but not so good about telling me when he leaves. BossyBoots seems to have settled down a bit. At least, he hasn't annoyed me in the last 24 hours. (Well, he wasn't here yesterday, but I'll take what I can get.)
I'm back on the diet. I put five pounds back on this summer and I want to take them off (and, with luck, a few more) before they settle in for the duration.
I always think "new fat" is easier to get rid of than "old fat" don't you? I mean, before all the fat "bonds" and starts throwing bridge parties and exchanging addresses and planning annual reunions.
Speaking of reunions, I'm currently being spammed by the reunion committee for my high school. They seem desperate to get everyone back for the big 3-0. (I can't believe I'm old enough to have graduated HS 30 years ago and at this moment, I feel compelled to mention that I was SIXTEEN when I started my senior year of high school, okay? I'm YOUNG.) Anyhow. They're mailing stuff to me, e-mailing me, calling me, and otherwise getting on my nerves.
I always pretend I'm not home when I answer the phone and it's them (my standard phone technique, developed during the years when I had creditors to avoid) but next time I'm confessing that I'm me and asking them to remove my name from their mailing/calling list.
I'm not giving them a reason, either. If they ask (and I know they will), my response will be, "because I ask you to" and then I'm hanging up on them.
You know what I hate? I hate it when people act like you need some kind of verifiable, acceptable reason not to want to hear from them. Especially when said people are, in fact, complete and total strangers.
I had one close friend in high school and the memory of her makes me queasy today. The suggestion that I should spend money to get on a plane and waste an entire weekend to see her face is laughable. The boy I liked best in high school graduated the year before me, so he won't be there. Anyhow, we met back up in the 80s and I did him then, so that's already checked off my list.
The excited flyers the committee keeps sending me are full of glowing plans to attend some game, football one presumes, of the type I never attended when I was in high school* and might be supposed to, you know, give a shit about such things. (And, for the record, that seems to be all they have planned. Not one, but two functions around this game. Nothing else. Granted, I understand that my hometown isn't New York or LA, but surely there's something else to do there?)
I'm a bit mystified by it all. I mean...do people really care, 30 years later, about attending some high school ball game played by sixteen year-old kids they don't know?
Actually, I rather suspect that most of my graduating class never got far from my Kansas hometown. They're probably looking forward to the game because their kids are playing.
*Okay, that's kind of a lie because I was in the Pep Club and went to some games. I don't remember actually paying attention to the field because I was always busy scoping out the stands for cute boys, but it has to be admitted that I was, in fact, there.
I was astonishingly hormonal in high school and I never did anything but scope out boys. I was also debilitatingly shy, so I never did anything but look at them. A direct look from some boy's eyes could keep me awash on a floodtide of hormones for hours. The idea of actually making contact, like speaking to a boy, rarely occurred to me. (I was 16, okay? Back then, 16 in Kansas was young, not like 16 today.)
Thus do the fates conspire to save us from ourselves, I guess. The thought that I could have married one of those goobers and wound up spending my life in that town can give me nightmares even today.
Anyhow, in case you're in any doubt, I don't plan to attend the reunions.
There. And I didn't whine about the story at all. I'm so proud.
Posted by AnneZook at 01:22 PMThere was a whole blog entry here, but blogger ate it during publication. It kept flashing the "Publishing is in progress" notice at me, but the percentage published remained stubbornly at 0% for five minutes before it gave up and said that java was timing out. (I didn't even know blogger was java-enabled. I wonder if it's just the publishing site, or if you can put javascript into blog posts?) The new interface seems to have a few idiosyncrasies. That's the last time I delete my source material before the publish finishes, I can tell you.
It wasn't all that interesting, though. I mean, you're not missing anything.
I was still whining about this story, explaining how I am not writing ClosetSex, complaining that I can't get either of the guys to pay attention to the case, and speculating (very briefly) on the possibility that I'm not writing the right story. (I always think if the characters are refusing to cooperate, it's because you're not writing the right story.)
Yesterday I deleted 2-1/2 pages from the stupid thing and wrote a couple of paragraphs to bridge the missing scenes.
I also wrote an introduction to the next scene. 119 words and it took an hour to write.
I want a hobby that's not so much work. I'm sure this used to be a lot easier. (It probably still would be if I were writing for a better quality show. I'm not having trouble with the story itself so much as I am getting the characters to be in character.)
(Which, for some reason, reminds me that the advance reviews for Ivan Sergei's new show, Hawaii are pretty bad. If you want to see it, Wednesdays at 7:00, you'd better tune in from Day One. It may not be around for long.)
Also, back to that lost blog entry, I was complaining because our internet and phone service went out at 12:50 yesterday and weren't restored until 5:30. Although I can't do my job without phones and net access, I didn't feel I could slide out of here and go spend the day in a better place. I had to stay around and help convince the phone people to send someone out to fix the problem. He showed up at 5:20 and by 5:25, it was fixed. Drives me bonkers.
On that note, it's 10:00, so I think I'll go get some coffee and start thinking about doing some work.
Hah! Blogger did it again...but I hadn't deleted the Word document yet. Hey, I have a domain name now. Maybe I should just move this over there?)
Posted by AnneZook at 02:11 PMSomeone tell Mac to leave me alone. Any sex in this story, if there winds up being any sex in this story, is four dozen pages and weeks (fictional time) in the future. If he wants to get there, the best thing he can do is to talk about the case, so I can get that stuff written.
I have no interest, no interest, in Mac's opinion of the erotic possibilities of small closets. They're supposed to be eavesdropping on the bad guys, not fondling each other.
Sheesh.
Victor continues to sulk and I still don't know what's wrong with him. He always wants to be coaxed.
No, of course I shouldn't be thinking of this stuff while I'm at work.* And I assure you, if I had either internet or phone service, I'd be working. But I don't. I can't call anyone. No one can call me. I can't send or receive e-mails.
I don't know why I'm still at the office...it's not like I'm decorative to have around.
Early the next day.... Well, we got it all fixed. At 5:30 yesterday afternoon. That was a waste of a day.
* And yet, I can't help wondering if maybe I'm not writing the wrong story, you know?
Posted by AnneZook at 07:24 AMBack to work after a lovely, three-day weekend. I'd like to have a three-day weekend every week. At one point I actually considered offering to take a 20% pay cut if I could work 20% fewer hours. I still think about it sometimes. It's not that I don't actually need that 20% of my salary, but I could lower my standard of living a trifle in return for so much more leisure time. (Of course, there's always the issue that if you're not working at least 35 hours a week, you usually can't get health insurance coverage through your job.)
Anyhoo...the weekend.
Saturday, an excursion to Downtown Denver. We walked the 16th Street Mall and were not accosted by panhandlers, indigents, freelance musicians, or the Jews for Jesus currently passing through town. Sometimes I think the Mall is becoming a very bland sort of place. It may be tidier and cleaner, but it lacks the character it had in the days when people were likely to lurch out at you from any alley mouth or off any park bench and try to separate you from your change.
We shopped in the super-sized Barnes and Noble on the Mall. I didn't find anything I wanted to own badly enough to carry it for two hours. I think that's going to be my new standard for book-buying. If I'm not willing to carry it with me for two or three hours, I probably don't really want to read it. Now that I've given up politics (although I still have 20 unread books in that arena), I'm at a bit of a loss to know where my next infatuation will lie so I need to conserve bookshelf space.
Then we went to Taste of Colorado, where we wandered around looking at things and eating for two hours. I had sausage, roasted corn, crab cakes, ice cream, orange chicken, a donut, home-made potato chips, and a lot of other things I've already forgotten. I love a buffet. I'd like it if I could eat that way every day. Just one or two bites of fifteen different foods.
I didn't make any other purchases, although one booth vendor nearly flattered me into it. I was staring at a photograph and he asked if I was an artist. Something in my fixed stare seemed to indicate I was looking with an informed, critical eye.
(It was a photograph of an abandoned cabin and I was mentally fixing it up and redecorating it, okay? So embarrassing.)
Three hours of walking (on solid concrete) and experience tells me I didn't exercise enough to balance more than a bite or two of everything I ate. Still, I have a few bucks to a fund to preserve a veteran's memorial and enjoyed the gorgeous weather.
On Sunday we hopped onto a bus and took off on what's becoming a regular excursion for us, a trip up to the Blackhawk/Central City area. We spend most of the days at the nickel slots and generally I come home several bucks poorer for the experience, but this time I came home a modest winner.
I mean, $4 isn't a fortune, but it's better than dropping $60, which is how I usually end up the day. I consider that coming away with $4 more than I took (including what I spent on transportation and meals) a triumph.
Should the weather and our health (tired feet) cooperate, our plan for the next trip is to ride the shuttle the mile or so to Central City, then walk back to Blackhawk. As I recall, from my visits to the area before it became a gambling mecca, it's a beautiful walk.
Thanks to the courtesy and consideration of some nutball who had an accident on the tiny, two-lane highway through the canyon, it took us over two hours to get back when we decided we'd had enough and were ready to go home. People insist on driving like idiots, trying to pass on blind corners, tailgating, and all of those other little tricks that make driving in traffic so chancy under the best of circumstances.
This delay, my roommate seemed to believe, was an indication that we should drive ourselves to the mountains instead of taking the bus, but I don't think so. I don't think it's an advantage to be stuck behind the wheel of your car in a traffic jam, instead of sprawled out in an over-sized bus. Nor do I think that ending the day with the prospect of an hour-long drive back through Denver would add to the joy of these trips. People drive like nuts on that road. At least once a year (in the winter) you hear about someone getting killed in an accident.
Besides, taking the bus is more ecological. If more people took the bus, then there wouldn't be the same ghastly traffic jams through the canyon.
One thing that's a continual astonishment to me is the behavior of people taking mass transit to the mountains. I noticed it last year when we took the (summer) ski train to Winter Park and I've been noticing it this year on the bus up to Blackhawk...that a large number of people nap, read the newspaper, or talk on their cell phones instead of, you know, looking out at the truly magnificent scenery beside the road.
What's the point of going to the mountains if you're not going to look at the mountains?
Posted by AnneZook at 09:18 AMThere's a Dancing Man in my life every Friday. A friend sends him to me in e-mail and I keep the message open on my desktop for most of the day. The Dancing Man (a little stick figure) boogies his heart out for me for hours every week.
He makes me very happy.
So, it's the last day before a long weekend and I imagine that most of the country will be sliding out early today, headed toward various picnics, road trips, and family gatherings to mark the official "end" of summer. I won't.
First, because I'm conscientious (hah!) and second, I don't actually have any plans for tonight. And third, of course, I'm sort of in the middle of a project that I don't want to have to come in and face on Tuesday.
On the other hand, Buehler is leaving around 1:30, so the afternoon will be peaceful. At the moment I have every intention of working straight through until 5:00 or later, but that could change without notice.
A moment ago, I reached for a Post-It note to write, "Less sex, more passion." At the last second, I remembered that I'm at the office, so I made a mental note, instead. Having the larger part of my brain occupied with the Latest Adventures In A Series Of Smutty Stories is tricky sometimes.
Along with that, I should mention that I've decided to give up on the moody tone I'd decided on for the latest Latest Adventure. The guys weren't cooperating.
(I guess if they don’t want to be depressed, then they don't have to be. I think they should be but clearly they don't agree and I'm already tired of fighting with them about it. I mean, some people react to near-death and other life-changing experiences by sitting down and re-evaluating themselves personally but it would seem that these two are determined to pretend nothing happened, so whatever, you know? If they prefer to have the emotional lives of a herd of turnips, so be it.)
(That is, of course, one of the drawbacks of writing m/m. There are few men in the pairings I seem to be attracted to who are willing to sit down and talk about their feelings. I should go back to writing TS. Those guys were always talking about their feelings.)
Mac is already happier about the project, but then he's kind of easy that way. (In fact, his idea is that if I can just figure out a way for him to get his hands on Victor, he, Mac, will take it from there. Since he persisted in trying to explain it to me this morning when I was on a series of phone calls to various potential clients, I wasn't really listening, but I heard enough to know he's on board with the new approach. ) Unfortunately Mac isn't the POV character, Victor is, and Victor hasn't said much about the new plan yet. I'm not sure why he's still sulking. He has Issues or something.
Makes me tired. If he's not willing to deal with his Issues in the story, I think he should just shut up about them.
(It's sort of worrying, mental-health-wise, how alive these characters can become in your head.)
You know, I remember a time when I actually believed that because I was the one with the keyboard and the, you know, corporeal existence, that I was the one in charge of what I wrote.
Hah.
Most when I'm writing, I limit exposition to the POV character's vocabulary. I mean, I describe the scenery and the behavior and actions of other characters in the words that the POV character would use.
If I'm writing from Skinner's POV, I don't use romantic, flowery words to describe the wind through the trees, because he's not likely to wax lyrical about air.
I don't know the word (I never if there's a technical word for something or, if there is, what that word might be), but I always think of this as a really "tight" POV. Everything from the dilapidated, abandoned car by the side of the road to the flavor of a pasta sauce is presented to the reader strictly in terms of how the POV character experiences it.
(Is that actually a kind of POV? I mean, I think of it as "tight" but it may not be a particular "kind" of POV at all.)
Anyhow, the reason I've called you all together today is to, yes, babble on about my latest effort along the lines of writing. Today, we're brooding over just how necessary this kind of "tight" POV might be to a story.
I mean, if you're struggling for a specific "mood" or "tone" for a story, it's very difficult to write to write that mood/tone subtly and yet in language that the POV character would use. How do you describe loss from the POV of a character who has not yet acknowledged that he feels any loss? How do you describe frivolity from the POV of a character who sees, but disapproves of such things?
I know...I know...if writing were easy, everyone would do it.
But I don't have ambitions of becoming a "writer" with a capital R, so maybe I don't need to limit myself quite so firmly. I mean, in my current undertaking, it would be an advantage to me to be able to set a mood and tone independently of my POV character, then plop him down in it and make him react to it all.
Mostly because I need the story to start off all sort of broody and depressed and he categorically declines to be in a bad mood, which is really annoying of him on a variety of levels.
I'm currently contemplating a sort of "mixed" POV. Part limited omniscient (again, my word for it) in that expositionally (yes, I know, that's not a word), things are described in ways that the POV character might not be comfortable with but, but in terms of the actual "action" in the story, sticking to a single-person POV.
I actually know people who could explain this to me. In fact, they've discussed it in my (on-line) presence before. It's just that, at the time they were discussing it, I wasn't actually writing and consequently I only retained a tiny bit of what they said.
If I asked them again, I'm sure they'd be happy to repeat the information in short, simple words for me, but I have a certain innate awe for people who not only know the proper use of a semi-colon but who discuss a sentence's "predicate" or "subordinate clause"* with the ease of casual familiarity.
(* Hint: It has nothing to do with your boss.)
I was pretty excited when I learned what an adverb was, and that was only a couple of years ago. To be honest, I've always viewed my presence in that particular group as some kind of accident. Like when you leave the screen door open after dark...invariably a moth flutters in, worships the nearest light bulb for fifteen or twenty minutes, then commits suicide in acknowledgment of its own inadequacy.*
(* Don't push the example, which is either a simile or a metaphor but I think it's a simile, although it's quite possible that it's neither and is actually just an example, and I do know people who could answer that question, too far. I'm not committing hari-kari for anyone, even people who know Latin.)
So. Whaddya think? Do you pay attention to that sort of thing when you're writing? Do you notice it when you're reading?
Do you care at all?
(Some time later....
Aha! Archives are a thing of beauty. I found a discussion of the point in question. It's quite legitimate to write the way I was considering. Now all I have to do it try it and see if I'm technically capable.)
Posted by AnneZook at 12:15 PMExposition's a killer, isn't it? How much do you toss off in a paragraph of two and how much set-up do you actually write? Just enough to set the mood of the story, I know, but how can you figure out where that line is? And if you've written too much, how do you decide what to cut? Do you close your eyes, stick your finger on the page, and remove everything that doesn't have an inky fingerprint on it? I do, of course, know the answers to these questions.
I was just testing you.
You know how I can tell I'm writing something worth reading? I keep telling myself, "this is the dumbest thing I've ever done." Invariable those efforts turn out to be my best.
This is not one of those efforts.
And while we're talking about me, tell me, who are these people and why are they in my story? Does anyone really believe Mac would express a preference for bottled beer because "it's fizzier" even if he is undercover and behaving like a loon just to annoy Victor?
I don't believe it, and I wrote it. From pedantic to bizarre in 24 hours.
Overhead, Victor could hear the ring of stiletto heels against the metal stairs."Same old subject." The Director sailed down the stairs, way too sure of herself for a woman dressed like Little Red Riding Hood. "Don't you think it's time you both moved on with your lives?"
"I was just saying the same thing to Mac," Victor said quickly.
Hearing his name shook Mac out of his stunned trance.
"Ummm...excuse me?"
"Mr. Ramsey." The Director leaned over the table and smiled at him. "There is one thing you need to be really careful about."
"Only one?" Mac muttered.
"That is," she paused and stopped smiling. "Not asking questions you don't really want to hear the answers to."
Resisting temptation wasn't something Mac was good at, but he tried. He made at least ten seconds before the red cape was too much for him.
"Why do you look like a refugee from a nursery rhyme?"
"None of your business." She straightened up and walked away.
I dunno. That might work on-screen, but I'm not sure it works on paper.
I missed fandom. I really did, but I have to say this. Y'all need to get a bit more chatter going.
I think you should be aware that I'm accustomed to having a rather large audience for my idle ramblings these days.
My standards are higher than they were when I was fandom-blogging before. Back then, all I wanted was for no one I worked with to find my blog.
Today, I demand feedback. I demand that this be an interactive experience. Be thoughtful. Provoking. Intelligent. Insightful
And if you could, from time to time, send me flames via anonymous e-mail, telling me that I'm going to be first up against the wall when the revolution comes, I'd feel right at home.
But, most of all, make Mac stop talking like Charlie Brown. Please.
Posted by AnneZook at 10:28 AM