I walked home from work swaddled in two hats, two scarves, two coats, two pairs of gloves, and two very toasty, sturdy boots. Foolishly, I only had on only one pair of pants.
I had a phenomenal week off. Check out this sunrise! Sigh. #PortsmouthLOVE!
I ate some great food with friends, enjoyed a lovely Christmas with besties, learned a lot about myself, saw family, and did ALL OF THIS:
It would’ve been an impressive bit of foreshadowing, had I the omniscience to recognize it as such at the time, that I thought to myself as I left my house for the beach, “I might actually take an extra scenic block-circler once I near the beach, so that my phone might fully charge whilst in my vehicle, and in this way be fully prepared to spurt out tunage into mine eardrums whilst I gaze into the horizon over the shoreline at the beach…” Little did I know…
My idyllic hometown, Portsmouth, NH.
Thursdays are my “JUST WRITE: No exceptions” days (I find it helpful to subtitle my personal commitments; it gives more weight to them), and this one has been pretty successful. I completed Chapter-izing my novel, which was a really necessary step in editing since I’m too enamored with my own witty language to be able to cut any single sentences from my novel. Viewed as a chapter list with a few bullet points under each chapter will help me to rearrange elements, spot plot holes, and eliminate superfluous characters (sorry, Robert…).
I also got to start reading an epub version of a fellow NaNoWriMo-er’s novel from November. It’s RILLY good so far.
AWESOME, right? I’m so impressed that he has it all available to iPhones and stuff already! I need this kick in the rear to get my ass in gear…
Whilst you all await my genius novel, I leave you with February’s 10-sentence Story Cube project from this month’s writing group.
First, the cubes:
Direction(from Hasbro)
The pale polished wood grain made the pitch black form of the letters stark and plain, eloquent in their directness. Somehow they’d ended up in order, face down, on their tumble out of the Scrabble sack, and as she racked them she slowed with each reveal, wondering if she was hallucinating as she placed each letter next to its predecessor.She’d been silently and patiently awaiting a sign ever since the wedding day–an indication, a direction, an arrow pointing her to the path of freedom. She’d never wanted to get married, but after 10 happy years together, his persistence had overcome her will. The rings were a bridge to a world she had never wanted to visit.For months, she sought an escape, an out, anything to get her out of the prison she’d been confined to by her own altared words. The truth would hurt him too much, and every time she gathered the nerve, the words stayed choked in her throat. But as the seventh tile hit the rack and she sat staring at the lifeline that Fate had thrown her in this obvious yet unsuspected way, she felt at ease for the first time in a year.Of course, she thought as she played the word onto the sterile plastic board, it’s so simple: A-R-S-E-N-I-C.
Some have called me the female Stephen King, but… most of those people live inside my head, so…
WHEN is Skitch coming to the iPhone? According to their site, it’s “coming soon”… According to their blog, they’re hiring people as of September who are good with iOS, so… safe to say it won’t be, like, tomorrow. Sigh. The ONE thing Android has going for it… the ONE thing. As far as I’m concerned.
I want to do THIS:
on my phone! (I did that on my Mac—thank HEAVENS there’s at least a Mac App for it)
Blarg.
My novel editing is going… very slowly. What was a blast to write and a thrill to finish is becoming a huge task to refine. I’m too close to it. I think it’s brilliant. It cracks me up. It’s hilarious. The problem is, there are huge plot holes! Things just don’t make sense beginning to end! They all make sense on a micro scale, but overall they need to be shifted around. I need to break them off into sections and rearrange them without looking at the individual paragraphs… I’m just too attached to my own perceived hilarity. It’s a real problem.
Here’s some great writing advice from David Oglivy:
“If all else fails, I drink half a bottle of rum and play a Handel oratorio on the gramophone. This generally produces an uncontrollable gush of copy. The next morning I get up early and edit the gush… I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor.”
So wise.
I’ll temporarily shift my writing to the 10-sentence story inspired by my Story Cubes. Here’s what I was cast in the last Creative Writing Group meeting:
Ten sentences…
…and I’m off!