Updated Grades (aka 'Editing down a storm'?)

Le sigh. Sometimes I feel like because I'm in my late twenties, I should be a better writer/editor/whatever than I am. Then, I have to remind myself that I have never writing a story before in my entire life (unless you count the glorious ten-page saga, The Magic Ring, which I don't).

In a late night fit of something that is not editing, which is what I should be doing, I am forcing myself to revisit my report card. As you may recall, I got an A in Editing in a previous post, Editing up a storm.

I can only assume I had some sort of inappropriate relationship with the person assigning those grades, because I am not sure it was very well deserved. I've got a mean grader evaluating this time (a less caffeinated me), and here are my new grades:

School of Life
Student: Elizabeth

Thinking about editing while doing something else: A+
Turning on the computer and opening Power Trio: A
Actually editing: C-
Working an a WIP or blog post, so that at least my fingers don't forget how to use a keyboard: B
Editing up a storm: C-
Editing down a storm: What does that even mean?
Going to bed instead of editing: A+

So, maybe I like to tease myself a little bit. But I'll do anything that helps prod me into getting some actual work done. It's happening this week- no more excuses. I made a schedule and I'm going to stick to it. I will finish editing by July 31. Wish me luck.

Night everyone!

Back and better than ever!

Or, okay, maybe I'm back and about the same. But it feels good to get back into in the swing of things. I've picked up a couple new books (at the closing of my favorite Borders- nooooooooo). I'm still editing Power Trio and haven't been quite as successful as I would have liked, but I am finally letting someone else read it. However, that person is my significant other (I know, I know, not a viable critic). But in his defense, he is a writer and a librarian, and I think he secretly likes to hurt my feelings (He told me one of my favorite paragraphs distracts form the scene! How dare he!).

I have definitely been missing reading all of the amazing posts from you all. I'm excited to get caught up. And that direct correlation between writing on the blog frequently and working on my story frequently holds true. It's hard some days to sit down and write, even lately when I've not been so busy, but just typing this makes me want to open my WIP (I miss amnesia girl!). Maybe I'll try to get in a little writing tonight.

I'll also have to give you all an update on my latest animal adventure- I'm fostering a semi-feral cat from the shelter I volunteer at. He's been quite the treat, although I'm not convinced that he's semi-feral. He's definitely a little awkward, but even after 10+ years of minimal human interaction (before coming to our shelter), he seems to crave it. I think he'd really like to meet my other cat, but she's not so into it yet. We'll be introducing them gradual. Good things come to those who take their time.

Haitus

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful weekend and spending some time doing the things you love with those you love. I'm taking a little break from the blog (and my computer, in general), to sort out some personal items and spend some time with those I love. Thank you all for reading, and I'm excited to come back (hopefully very soon) wtih a fresh and new perspective.

Teleworking

Today was my first day ever teleworking. I am lucky enough to have a job that is "telework-friendly" at a place that encourages teleworking (for both office space and environmental reasons) and I've always wanted to try, but I was worried that I would be too distracted at home to accomplish anything.  I log into my work account on the occasional weekend or evening to finish up a big project or shoot off an important e-mail, but I have never sat down at home for a solid 8 hours and worked. How could I get any work down with a TV, two cats, and a story to edit right at my fingertips? So instead of going through all of the paperwork, I decided to give it a trial run first and figure out if teleworking works for me.

I was a bit slow to start this morning- I tried to work for about 45 minutes in comfy clothes. I did change out of my pajamas, but I tossed on an old t-shirt and some shorts. Even with the help of my morning caffeine, my brain refused fully engage. Around 9:15, I broke down and put on some work clothes. Don't get me wrong- I didn't brush my hair or put on deodorant or anything drastic like that, but  I did have my business casual slacks on (oh, yeah).

Once that was taken care of, things really got rolling. I resisted the temptation to work on Power Trio. I didn't even open it! One cat was too busy snoring in her cat tree to notice me sitting five feet away; the other didn't even emerge from the bedroom until 2:30! And I had enough to keep me busy, so even the siren song of the TV didn't affect me. Really, the only problem I had was knowing when to turn off. I managed to pry myself away from the scrren about an hour later than usual. I like to think it evens out this time, considering my first 45 minutes weren't the most productive, but I think if I keep this up in the future, I'll have to be better about working "normal hours." It's easy to lose track of time when you're already home.

Maybe it's my science brain, but I don't feel like I can really judge teleworking based on one experience (it's not a viable sample size to determine statistical significance!), so I want to give it a whirl next week too. Here's hoping it goes as well as today. Anybody out there got any tips or tricks for staying focused (be it on work, schoool, or whatever), while you're on your computer but not working on your writing?

Also, I searched for an image to include with this post using the keywords "telework" and "Snuggie" and there was nothing to be found. Someone who owns a Snuggie needs to remedy that immediately!

Done, Done, and Done!

Done 1: The French Memo Board door project

Close-up of the fabric, blue

ribbons, and white brads.



The final product turned out infinitely better than I could have imagined. Three of the four panels are perfect, and one is way off, but I stuck that on the bottom and I'll cover it with a big photo or something. Yay!

  

Done 2: Scientific publication accepted

A first author publication in a well-known, peer-reviewed journal- nerd dream come true! All I've got to do is respond to the reviewers' edits (and I've got a few weeks to get it all done).

annnnnnd



Done 3: Power Trio first draft!!!

3 years and 8 days, 99,953 words, and 36 chapters later, the first draft of Power Trio is done. Time to start editing. But first, a read through. There are chapters I haven't touched in months!

Tonight is a good night.

I will note that even all of these accomplishments don't get me out of having to scoop the cat litter boxes tonight. These cats have it good.

The Magic Ring, Part Two

I was hoping to have series of fantastic announcements for you all today, but I'm 2 for 3 right now and I really want to make this a trifecta (or a hat-trick for those of you who are more athletically inclined). So, in lieu of awesomeness, I am giving you part two of The Magic Ring.

As you may recall, when last we saw princess Sandra, she has a super mean brother (current king), a missing dad (former king), and a desire to hit you over the head with her emotions (Oh, when will I learn to show and not tell!). I still make the same mistakes now. I love to really spell out exactly what a character is doing. Not how she feels about anything, mind you, but exactly where her feet are and what her hands are doing at any particular time.

Because of how I cut the sections, you miss out on the full gloriousness of the word "snuck" appearing 4 times in 5 sentences. Apparently, I had not yet learned that most word processors come equipped with a built-in thesaurus. If you haven't already checked out the first part, I highly recommend that you do: The Magic Ring, Part One.

If you've already read Part One, and want to jump in, let me give you something to get you into the right frame of mind:

Sneak, snuck, snuck, snuck.

Okay, you're ready. Enjoy!


********************

Later that night she put the robe on over some tattered, old rags she had found in her maid's closet and snuck into the kitchen. Without turning on any lights she got a loaf of bread, some ham, and a bottle of water [Bottled water?! What year is this?]. She hid them in her bag. She went back up to her room and tied the rope onto a foot of her bed. Then she draped it out of the window. She put one leg out of the window and suddenly jerked it back in. [You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around.]

"Almost forgot," she whispered as she walked over to her dresser and picked up a ring. It was the only thing she had of her father's. He had given it to her before he left to fight. All he told her about it was that it was very, very special [Hey! Did you guys get that it's special! Cause it is!] and that she should never let it out of her sight. The ring was gold with three little engravings. One was of the sun, one was of the moon, and the third was a picture of the wind [Huh?]. Her father told her always to wear it with the engravings on the inside of her hand.

"That way," he had said, "You can hold the sun and the moon and the wind in your hand."

She smiled at the memory of her father and put the ring on just like he said. Then she climbed out of the window [Yes! Both feet went out the window this time!]. As she reached the ground she let go of the rope and jumped off. It turned out she was a lot higher than she thought [Damn those bangs! Always ruining her depth perception.].

"Ouch," she groaned as she landed with a thud on her ankle. She turned and saw a guard coming her direction. She quickly got up and limbed [sic] into a niche in the castle wall.

"Who....who's there?!" the guard called out. He looked around, and started to move towards Sandra. She gasped and crouched down, engulfed by the darkness. The guard walked right up in front of her, so close she thought he might be able to feel her breath on his leg. He looked right over her and then walked away.

"Black on black! No one can see me because it's so dark and I blend in!" she thought, glad that she had grabbed a black robe. As long as she was wearing her robe she was invisible. As soon as the guard was out of sight she headed over to a humoungous tree growing near the castle wall. She climbed it quickly up [Double huh?].

********************
Whew! What a close call. Quite the nail biter, right?

I tried to stay out of the story and not interject my current thoughts, so that you could truly experience The Magic Ring as it was meant to be experienced, but couldn't resist. I have to give myself kudos though, because there were about a million other things I wanted to point out. Like how Sandra gets so "fed up" with her brother treating everyone badly but doesn't bat an eye at stealing from her maid. I think I'll refer to her as a multi-dimensional character. And I'm going to assume that the maid had really nice clothes, and these tattered rags were in the back of the closet.

I was going to type more, but I actually laughed so hard that I have a cramp, and I think I'm going to have to go and lay down. First, I will walk into the bedroom. Then, I will pull the covers back. I will sit down on the bed and then I will lay down. Then I will pull the covers up.

I'm reminded of an exercise we did in science class (the same year that I wrote this story...) where we had to write out the steps of making a peanut butter sandwich and then one of our classmates took our instructions and followed them exactly. So, if you didn't explicitly state that you should open the jar of peanut butter before inserting the knife, the student would poke the jar with the knife and then have to stop. My instructions were fantastic, but obviously that lesson bled into other aspects of my life, because I am very explicit here with everyone one of Sandra's moves. Spoiler alert: She's a robot who needs me to tell her every exact action to take (not really).

I hate to admit that I still revert to this same style when I write today, but I like to think of it more as an outline. A way to get the action down before I go back and add the rich descriptions and characters. I think this is also where being in a writing group with more experience writers is so helpful. Hearing how they approach scenes can help me think of unique and interesting ways to tackle mine.

Updates of a writer

When I started this blog, my intent was to chronicle my “journey of a writer.” Or, as more commonly known, the trials and tribulations of those of us trying to put words on a page, and make them interesting enough that someone might want to chip in a few dollars to get to read them (The whole thing seems like a really weird concept when you spell it out, right? That someone would want to pay to hear what I have to say. Most days I can’t pay people to listen to me!)

Anyway, I’ve noticed that lately my posts have gotten away from that original intent. But for good reason: I’m just trucking. That’s it. No major updates. No drastic life changes. No massive announcements. I’m working, slow and steady. But now, as I’m nearing the end of the first draft of Power Trio, I’m starting to get excited.

Even that sounds like a bigger deal than it is, because even though the first draft is almost done, I’m nowhere near the end of the road. I haven’t been writing for long, and the more I go back and read the first part of Power Trio, the more I realize that there is a lot (and I mean a lot) of work to be done. The best part, though, is realizing how much I’ve grown in these 100,000 words.

Because I haven’t been so great about sharing my progress, I wanted to provide an update tonight (even though I hope to provide a major announcement about finishing my first draft soon).

My progress, to date, is as follows:

Power Trio first draft file: 95,390

Messy incomplete word vomit: 2,234

Word counts are kind of meaningless, so it probably provides more insight to say that the messy file only contains two chapters. Two more chapters. That's it. When I clean them up, plump them up, and put a little mascara on them (so they’re ready for the world), I’ll move them over the Power Trio file. Then, it’ll be time to celebrate!