Blog Readability Test

TV Reviews

Mwahaha.

More later.

Stats

Necromancer

New words: 1,076

Total words: 5,381

Favorite phrase: She was working herself back up into a rage, and she stopped just inside the library door to take a few deep breaths—at this rate, she’d be well-oxygenated, as her Life Sciences teacher would put it—feeling her heart rate gradually slow to a more normal beat.

Mean things: fight with best friend. People wanting her help.

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Okay, so the "favorite phrase" this time isn't as spiffy as some others I've come up with, but I guess I wasn't feeling overly creative tonight (too much pie, perhaps). Maybe when I revise this scene, I'll come up with something more eloquent. The next scene should be better--it's another one from the Undead Fire Thing's POV. Eloquence is practically a requirement when being inside the head of an Undead Fire Thing. Or so I'm told.

More later.

Reading? More Like Inhaling

Due to all the extra time I have to read, I've been flying through books so far during break--and it's only been 3 days. Therefore, for this week, I'm keeping a running list in the sidebar instead of a picture of the cover of what I'm currently reading . . . because it's just too much hassle to run over here every time I finish a book (every 3/4 days, on average) and change the sidebar.

Reading isn't ALL I'm doing, though. I've managed to watch the first 4 episodes of True Blood again and enjoy them just as much as the first time around (they've confirmed a second season, by the way. Yay!). Can't wait until it comes out on DVD. I hope it's packed with extras. I've also gotten most of the apartment cleaned (except the bedroom--that's tomorrow's project), done some work on my German, did a little bit of writing (I'm a bit hung up on the second scene of chapter 2), and am looking forward to playing some video games and watching season 3 of Supernatural . . . and, yes, planning the last few things for the semester. Bleh.

More later.

Stats

Necromancer

New words: 1,092

Total words: 4,281

Favorite phrase: The gang consisted of three of the biggest boys in the school and a few of the smaller ones, who ran their errands and did most of the dirty work—except for actual beatings, which the boys preferred to do themselves. Akasha was fairly safe from beatings; the boys mostly didn’t hit girls. Mostly.
(You'll probably have to have seen Aliens to get why I love that one, but oh, well. I found it amusing.)

Mean things: bullies. A friend who doesn't understand her.

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What with the break, I've got lots more time to write. This segment took me a couple of hours, mostly because I have no attention span and keep checking stuff online. And reading segments of Dead to the World (damn you, Charlaine Harris!). I'm glad I took the time to outline when I didn't have time to actually write; it saves me time now so I don't have to think about what comes next, just look at my notes and write it.

More later.

Light at End of Tunnel

I'm done actually TEACHING until after Thanksgiving Break--tomorrow my kids are all taking quizzes--and I did my last actual lecture of this semester today. Sniffle, sniffle. Somehow it doesn't seem quite so cool when I'm staring down a pile of final drafts that need to be graded--TODAY, because I don't want to take them home.

But next week, I get to rest, watch Supernatural, Smallville, and True Blood (I'm HOOKED on True Blood--books AND series), clean the house (grumble) and generally recuperate before the final push to the end of the semester. And THEN I get to lesson plan for my British Lit (woohoo!) class and Research classes.

And, hopefully, THEN I get to rush off to some glamorous place that's going to let me work for a few more years and give me a PhD at the end of it. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

One more day until break!

More later.

Sympathies

My thoughts are with Jodi Meadows, whose ferret, Leanne, died yesterday. For writers, she has an amazing description of what happened and what it felt like (since it's so hard to ask about things like this and harder to write about them if you've never experienced them). I teared up when reading it.

Hers is the first blog I read every day, and it's colored all of my thoughts while reading the rest of them. I actually kind of felt guilty for finding things (not Jodi-related things) funny when Jodi's going through such a horrible time. I realize that's a dumb way to feel, but feelings are often dumb things.

Maybe it's because of my mom's kitten-rescuing hobby and the high mortality rate of abandoned baby kitties, but I don't remember ever being that upset about losing a pet. Even ones who were with us for awhile. I was sad, but I wasn't catatonic. Of course, it's been several years and there's a lot of time between me and those memories. I hope that's all it is and I'm not an unfeeling monster or something.

More later.

Stats

Necromancer

New words: 294

Total words: 3,189

Mean things: undead fire thing trapped in a bottle in a body of water (maybe not so mean if you don't sympathize with undead fire things)

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I wrote the last scene in Chapter 1. It's not very long (obviously), but all it was supposed to do was introduce the undead fire thing (I haven't named it yet). I also did a bit of work with the prologue to make it as horrifying as I possibly could (for now).

In other news, I got the British Lit class I wanted to teach next semester, and I'm very excited. I had to tear myself away from planning it yesterday to come HOME and REST because it's the WEEKEND. I've got tons of time to plan this class; I don't need to do it all now (even though I want to). I'm going to focus on the Fantastic, and we're reading stuff like Beowulf, "The Faerie Queene," "Kubla Khan," The Hobbit, some Dunsany, and, at the very end of the class, Stardust. It should be awesome.

More later.

Submission

I don't think I ever mentioned here that "The Truthsayer" received a rejection letter from Pedestal Magazine. That was during a very very busy time, and I only just now found the time to record it in my submissions file and plan my next attack submission.

Having run out of markets that are good matches for "The Truthsayer" and also count toward SFWA membership, I've started tackling other paying markets that are a good match for "The Truthsayer." I'll try to build up a less-professional (or something) publishing base, then start working at the SFWA markets again.

So I just sent "The Truthsayer" out to A Fly in Amber. We'll see how this goes.

The second "Truthsayer" story (still unfortunately untitled, but referred to as "The Truthsayer 2," which sounds just as kitschy as "The Unforgiven Too") has been getting beautifully enthusiastic reviews from Critters readers. They've given me a lot of good stuff to work with and wonderful suggestions, yet at the same time every last one of them mentioned that they LOVED the story. I haven't gotten a single mean response to this one, which either means that the mean people have stopped reading my stuff or it's really just that good. Either way, I'm happy.

A week and a half until Thanksgiving Break.

More later.

I Has a Computer!

I got my computer back from Geek Squad today. Apparently it's about what I figured--the fan has malfunctioned and the unit's overheating and the computer shuts down defensively. My cooling pad, keeping it from sitting flat on a carpet or blanket, and judicious application of compressed air should keep it okay for awhile, but eventually I'll have to replace the fan.

On the plus side, I got a new AC adapter out of the deal, because they were very very busy and the Geek Squad guy couldn't find mine, so he just brought me a brand new one. I'm not complaining; this adapter is worth $69.99 . . . which is how much I paid them to look at my computer and tell me what was wrong with it. Ha.

I STILL won't be buying a Dell again anytime . . . ever.

More later.

Stats

I've decided to borrow Jodi Meadows' method of reporting her stats (though she calls them metrics). So here goes.

Necromancer

New words: 1,191
Total words: 2,895

Favorite phrase: Her father kept glaring at Danya, as if by staring a hole through her head he could inject some good sense.

Deaths: none in this installment, but grandmother in the prologue

Mean things: bullies. Overprotective mother. Nightmares.

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I'm currently 2/3 of the way through the first chapter and doing pretty well so far, though I'm beginning to wonder what's going to keep the protagonist busy long enough for the demon to wreak unholy havoc. I mean, besides hiding in the library, cause THAT would just be the most scintillating reading EVER. I'm thinking maybe a trip to another city for advice from a mage or something.

The next scene to write is from the POV of the demon. Should be fun.

More later.

Buy Books!

Along with almost everything else in this country, the publishing industry is struggling. However, unlike mortgage companies, banks, or Circuit City, for the most part, publishing's issues aren't due to bad management, but the fallout from the bad management of everyone else.

Some in the industry (Nathan Bransford, for example) are telling us that the best way to help is to buy new books.

I've done my part this week! I ordered a copy of Volumes 2 & 3 of The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy. I also got J.R.R. Tolkien's essay collection The Monsters and the Critics, but that one is out of print, so I had to get it used.

Do you like to read? On PAPER and not just on a computer screen? Then go buy a book. A new one. Try Mercedes Lackey; she's awesome.

More later.

Close Call

Wow, I've had a lot to write about this week. It's been a BAD week.

Just a few minutes ago, W.E.'s computer died. The hard drive light was flashing, the power light was on, but it wouldn't actually boot. And we could hear the CD ROM drive working. The stupid thing was trying to boot from the CD drive--for no good reason.

So I went to the HP website and followed some troubleshooting instructions. After we tried the F10 key at startup and a couple of other things, we popped open the bottom of it and reseated the RAM.

It was a miracle.

The computer is now fine.

PHEW.

He really does need a new computer--the outside of the CD drawer is falling off, one corner of the chassis is held on with duct tape, the hinges are so broken that the lid is held in place with a piece of string--we just can't afford it.

AND he just informed me that it locked up.

Dammit.

More later.

Stats

Thanks to not having any grading this weekend, I've managed to finish reading Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald-Mage trilogy (for the fourth time) and start on Brightly Burning. I've also gotten through the first major scene of Necromancer and am now up to 1,700 words.

I've kind of got a breakdown: I figure if I want 20 chapters and about 100,000 words, then I need 5,000 words per chapter. I'm planning three scenes for this chapter, so I need about 1,660 words per scene. So far, so good. *thumbs up* Obviously, there will be cases where a scene will run longer and other cases where a scene will absolutely not get up to 1,600 words. BUT for now, it gives me some mini-goals to work on.

More later.

Dell/Best Buy Update

So, I e-mailed both Geek Squad and Dell to see WTF is going on and if I have any other recourse to get this computer fixed UNDER WARRANTY. According to Dell, THEY don't do any of that; it's all up to Geek Squad. They pretty much apologized (in broken English, of course *grumble*) and told me that there was nothing they could do.

I'm still waiting for Geek Squad to get back to me.

I have decided that I'm NOT buying a Dell EVER AGAIN. At least with my HP, I could send it to them and they fixed it and sent it back within 4 days (it was pretty much amazing). That HP lasted me 3 years. I've had the Dell since January and it's already having issues. Granted, they're not MAJOR issues, but the only reason I bothered to try to get it fixed was because it was still under warranty!

If I can't find my receipt, I probably won't bother to have it fixed. At least, not with Best Buy. There are other computer places around here, and while having a non-Geek Squad person fix it would probably void the warranty, DOES IT REALLY MATTER?

Grumble grumble.

More later.

Annoyance, Redux

So I got my personal computer up to Geek Squad today. According to the Dell website, I'm still under warranty until March. However, the Best Buy people couldn't find proof that I'd bought the computer there, therefore they're not honoring the warranty.

WTF?!

Unless I can hunt down my receipt--from JANUARY--to prove that I bought my computer from them, they're going to charge me for fixing a computer that is STILL WARRANTIED. I don't know why they can't just go to the Dell website--which I did--and plug in my serial number and see that it's still got a warranty. And what would have happened if I'd bought it somewhere else? Would they not honor the warranty AT ALL?

This is, if you will pardon my French, Gentle Readers, a bunch of bullshit. And I'm VERY unhappy about it.

More later.

Stats

So begins the stats-posting for Necromancer. So far, I've written the Prologue, which totals 611 words. That was the strongest image I got, so I had to get it written down, but now I have to actually do some serious outlining before I go any further with it. I don't want to have to try to cram subplots into this one to make it long enough for a novel--which is what I've had to do with the other two novels.

W.E. is helping; he found a demon that matches the vague, half-formed idea I had for the one in the book. Since he found it in the D&D Book of the Undead, I'll obviously have to do some tweaking (to make it not so obviously a D&D monster), but the biggest part of it was my idea in the first place; he just helped me actualize that idea. (For those of you who play D&D and are curious as to what demon [or technically, undead monster] it is: it's a Cinderspawn.)

Luckily, I have no grading to do today, so I can work on this and my syllabi for next semester and read . . . after I take this computer up to Geek Squad so they can tell me why the heck it insists on randomly shutting itself off. Thank God for a school-supplied computer; otherwise I'd be panicking about being computerless for however long it takes them to fix it.

I also get to go shoe shopping; the ones I have now are literally falling apart (there are holes in them and everything). And I get to buy new pants; while my weight loss has plateaued since school started (evil EVIL Wendy's!), I haven't gained any back, so it's definitely time to go buy some smaller dress pants.

Two more weeks until Thanksgiving Break.

More later.

More on My Plate

As if I needed any MORE to be working on, I've started a new novel, as yet untitled, but which we'll call Necromancer until I find a better title. I couldn't help it! I had this idea for a reluctant Necromancer who doesn't want to be a Necromancer because she can't see that there's anything but evil to it, eventually deciding to use her power to be a historian, calling up spirits to get their side of the story instead of reanimating the dead. Then I was watching Supernatural and really REALLY wanted to do something with a fire demon . . . and POOF. The first (rather disturbing) scene of a story popped into my head . . . and I realized, as I began jotting notes, that this was a novel. Not a short story or even a novella, but a novel.

So I've outlined and begun writing. I have the first few paragraphs so far. I don't know how fast this is going to go, but at least I'm working on something. I've been feeling antsy lately, like I needed to be writing something, but I couldn't come up with any ideas. Now I have one, and I'm gonna run with it.

And maybe somebody will want to publish THIS one. Grumble, grumble.

More later.

Two Words

GO VOTE.

Okay, here's a few more words:

Please please please use your BRAIN when you vote. You know, that thing that resides in the space between your ears, behind your eyes, and above your nasal cavity? The thing that allows you to use logic? Well, it allows MOST of us to use logic. . . . *eye roll*

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go hide in a hole for the next four years.

More later.