When a Chemist writes Fantasy

So I just saw on the Writers of the Future blog -- I am not a finalist for my quarter's submission.... which does mean one less thing to plan the wedding around but I would have liked that annoyance...

So now it's off to the market for my Landshaker's Tale, I think.  I know i should probably write (or at least outline) the other short stories in the collection I'd really like to make out of them, but I need to finish a few other projects first.

Writing is going.... though it feels more like stutter steps than a graceful dance of words... but I am getting words out -- 2k+ in the last week. I just need to keep up the work and trust other people will be happy to tell me where i'm slow or wandering or makign useless points.

Wedding plan (if you couldn't guess by earlier comment) is still in the scheduling phase with lots of emphasis on nebulous time.... and provoking lots of emotions and frustration.  I am channeling that some.

My job is doing well... I keep staying a little too on top of things right now, though, and keep butting up against things like "i'd send you the details on this project you could do, but your email isn't set up yet" or "That's a good point.  we'll have to make a decision about that before we can let you start that project"...  see -- not my fault... so I'm getting lots of BIC atm.

I am currently reading: Planning your Wedding SUCKS and it is keeping me amused -- which is a first for a non-fiction book....

What are you up to?

Quick notes:

I have started my job.  i have been working hard at learning SOP's at my job.  Today i also took breaks so my brain did not go mush at my job and wrote.... I haven't really written since that whole 'engagment' life changing moment happed..... so when i checked my count today i was EXSTATIC that i'm up 1k+ now.... go me go me go me! 

I did get to make my character deathly ill and this one character that came from no where at the beginning of the story has neatly inserted herself again.  Sometimes it feels like this is really Isis's story told through Juliette's experiences and life... and Isis is becoming the queen of subtle hint dropping... i swear.  some of them i don't realize she did it until about 4 paragraphs later....

I'm not sure it adds a lot to the story but it's something and its there and there's always deleted scenes later, right?

Also, we are honing in on a wedding date that is looking much much sooner than previously anticiapted... and it looks like we (crossed fingers knocking on wood) we be able to get hte venue we ABSOLUTELY fell in love with....

soooooo excited!

Alright... i should calm down and work on gettin' sleep.... but wanted to share


WEEEEEEE

Sooooo -- In the past 7 days, I have gotten engaged to my Lovable Distraction as well as getting another contract position day job!

Now i just want to be a finalist for the Writers of the Future contest for an awesome trifecta.

So between now and when I start my job, I have to get more work done on read more of intothenyght 's story (which i'm enjoying, i'm just afraid of getting sucked in with all the stuff that's going on... atm -- I do plan on getting some feedback back to her soon, even if i'm not significantly in) as well as tinachristopher's Clockwork Christmas.  AND NO CHICKIES you are not asking too much, so don't even think about making such a statement about withdrawing your requests.

I also have to work on wedding planning .... which i'm learning to use Microsoft Access through.

alright -- the LD is here so off i go

laters!   

So here's a challenge for the next time you watch some tv drama -- put on the closed captions (not the subtitles on dvds but the captioning , you might have to go into a dvd or your tv setup).  It is interesting to visually see what sounds are important. If I recall correctly, Dr. Who is really good at this and so was Dexter.  Also, The Closer is excellent at using a lot of non-verbals in the background.

Don't just watch your TV shows, Study them!  Catalog how you would describe what you see as if you were writing it for your book.

Having passed on that challenge and exercise.... I have a request for positive thoughts tomorrow.  if it all works out well, I'll be happy to explain but right now , I don't want to get anyone's hopes up too high -- especially mine.

Keep writing -- I have been.

WOOOOOOOOT!

So it's the end of June and I did what I set out to do -- despite some of the best efforts from my family.  I found the time to edit a story I wrote a couple years ago (really Tina -- I've known you that long?!?!?!) for my grandmother when I found out she was dying.

It's a story about how important those old folks are to us, even when we don't get lots of time with them and how their death can inspire us to keep going.  I bet most people didn't pick up on that all being intentional, huh?  hehehe  There's also death, magic, a dumb ass king, slaves, the beginnings of cultural revolutions, oh--and the end of the world!

So today I clicked Writers of the Future's button (it may or may not have looked like this -- I was so focused on clicking I didn't get the gif info or even memorize what it looked like.)  I clicked -- and then it rejected my file, I had a moment of panic, changed the file name to something short, reuploaded it and clicked again.... and then i got a nice little thank you for submitting banner and felt very.... underwhelemd. It was quite anticlimatic.

I'm not sure what I expected to feel.  Relief?  Exhilaration?  Startled as a large brass brand when stomping through the house and deafening me and scaring my cat so bad I'd have scars from life as she took off from my lap to the basement at the speed of light?

The word limit for the contest was 17,000 -- I finished the Landshaker's Tale at 16,995

So i expect it to be a few months before I hear back so no one cross their fingers or they will probably have some pretty horrendous cramps -- but I wanted to let you know

I DID IT!

So I've been using "Edit Minion" to help me weed out the passive sentences in my story as I'm prepping it for submission....

Well, re-reading one section that I sent out to friends I found I had

The dead bodies moved somewhere else.

(which works alright with the sentence before it: "When we got back to the clearing, others loaded the injured onto stretchers" but when isolated, it's TOTALLY about zombies shambling off the page)

Now it reads "The dead bodies had been moved somewhere else ."

Final days before the dreaded "submit" button.  Making progress.  Really encouraged and thanks for those who have been helping.

I keep finding myself getting lost in parts of the story (and having to constantly reread it and focus)

Or wanting to put in all these details I see in small scenes... though the word count doesn't allow for that one.

Or taking a break from editing to read something else and find I'm editing the back of book blurbs or articles or....

So that's the update.  I think I'll keep tweaking it until the night before the deadline :)

Stay tuned!

So it's halfway through june now...

I think I'm at the "Line Edits" phase of my Major goal for the month:

Submit to WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST!

It's been a hell of a busy month and I've realized how much my family doesn't take my writing as a serious use of my time.  I'm really hoping I place in this contest and get some valuable feedback.  That would be SOOO nice to childishly wave under their noses as well as have that validation from the industry.

Fingers crossed.

I'm using Edit Minion to help me find my adverbs and prep phrases and such.  It's a great tool for cleaning up my writing and I love seeing large blocks of text without color on it.  I still scan through those, though, and see if I can put any more sensory details in.

For example, the king shattered a glass pitcher against a wall.... but it made no noise.

Now:

The King smashed it against the wall.  A thousand tiny bells rang shrilly as the glass shattered and fell to the floor again. 

Little things like that make me smile... I've also added bits of sticky, sweat covered skin, tight chests, ringing sensations, ect... just slipping them here and there to make it more intimate and engaging, as I've with small side projects over the last few months.  I want this to be as strong as I can make it :)

How's your writing goals going?

So it's june.

I'm putting this out here for accountability....

Major goal for the month:

Submit to WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST!

Alright.  I'll keep you posted on how that goes and let you know when I click the button.

The result of my interview was not positive, but at least I did get feedback on skills to improve for interviewing in the future. Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts of support. Here's hoping I'll have another opportunity soon.

So, I got a phone interview.  They gave him my cell number... and 10 min after the interview was supposed to start i got 2 VM/s from him... and at least he left a number for me to call him back at when I got the voice-mails.

The interview seemed to go well.  I utterly botched one question about how my Education has lead to my knowledge of Science and Computers, or something along those lines.  I just rambled.  He brought me back on task with another question and I nailed the rest of them.  I even got a "that's a good explanation of such-and-such testing (only he used real words for "such-and-such").  he also appreciated the details on my FBI project as an example of taking massive amounts of data and using it to prove things.

So I got off the phone, started working on a couple things.  A big storm hit that bent the trees outside.... and then about 12:30 or so, the power went out....

Several things happened... i picked up branches from the yard after the storm.  blahblahblah... want to write but have not much battery and story didn't want to come out on paper.  got things cleaned up... and then THE LANDLINE RINGS!  I have a request for a follow up in person interview -- FOR WEDNESDAY!  I have a practice interview tomorrow.  WOOT!

So i just got power back about an hour ago -- It was out for 9 or so hours, I guess?

Anyway -- I vaguely dread the fact that something big and/or expensive happens before each great turn in this story of getting through this job process.  I really hope everyone sends good wishes and watches out for themselves as I continue in this occupational journey.

--Axi

PS -- No, I didn't get anything written while the power was out.  my laptop was nearly dead and, sadly, the two stories I'm working on really really fight me when working on them on paper. :(  I'll be pushing tomorrow around cleaning and whatnot and I'll let you know wednesday how the interview goes