Stats

Necromancer

New words: 322

Total words: 9,121

Deaths: lots (about 50)

Mean things: UFT (no I STILL don't have a name for it), wipes out band of nomads

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In case you couldn't already tell, this scene was an Undead Fire Thing scene--they tend to be shorter than the others, mainly because of the shift in language. The UFT scenes are more concise because the UFT just doesn't have the energy to waste. Everything's shorter, there's no space for wasted words, ideas, or emotions. I'm hoping that comes through in the scenes and the diction.

Now I get to go work on Beowulf and maybe play some Fable 2. Woohoo!

More later.

New Year's Resolutions

Normally, I scoff at New Year's Resolutions. Why bother? It's just another day to declare that I'm going to do things that I'll never actually get around to doing. Well, since I've got so much going on, I've decided that a few resolutions--actually, goal-setting, since a lot of this contains elements that are out of my control--are in order. So here we go.

1. Finish Necromancer
2. Revise Stars Without Name and begin submission
3. Get at least one short story published in a paying market
4. Begin PhD work
5. Lose 50 more pounds

I think that's enough. Don't want to strain myself. These are all pretty big goals, but nothing that I can't do--if given the chance, like with the PhD work (will not hyperventilate, will not hyperventilate, will not hyper . . .)--if I set my mind to it.

More later.

Lesson Planning

I've spent this morning completely revamping my literature class. I originally had it arranged by time periods, but realized that that's kind of silly. I'm not teaching British Literary History, I'm teaching Readings in British Lit. Specifically, Fantasy in British Lit. So it made much more sense to arrange it by subgenres in Fantasy--myth & legend, faerie tale, gothic fantasy, science fiction, high fantasy, and modern fantasy. It also meant dropping a couple of short stories, but they were ones I hadn't read yet, anyway, so I'm not too worried about it. I managed to keep all of the poems and novels, so I'm happy.

SO, in case anyone is curious, here's the new reading list (in its new order):
Myth & Legend
(Anglo-Saxon)
"The Dream of the Rood"
Beowulf
(Arthurian)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Tolkien
"The Lady of Shalott" - Tennyson
"The Wife of Bath's Tale" - Chaucer
(Random)
"Jabberwocky" - Carroll
(Classical)
"Ode to Psyche" - Keats
"The Lotos-Eaters" - Tennyson

Faerie Tale
"The Faerie Queene" - Spenser
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
Stardust - Gaiman

Gothic Fantasy
"Dracula's Guest" - Stoker
"Christabel" - Coleridge

Science Fiction
Frankenstein - Shelley
The Time Machine - Wells

High Fantasy
The Hobbit - Tolkien
The Magician's Nephew - Lewis

Low/Modern Fantasy
Good Omens - Gaiman & Pratchett

Phew! I really wish I had more than 14 weeks to do this, but at least I managed to make it all fit. And lightened the load on my students in the process. Now I just have to work some How to Read Literature Like a Professor magic on these books in order to prepare for the semester.

More later.

GIMP

As if I needed another hobby, I downloaded GIMP and have begun playing with it. The reason is that I can't afford Photoshop, and Paint stinks. Also, this sort of artwork is quite popular on the Buffy Boards, and I started feeling left out when we'd have banner competitions and such.

So. Here's the very first thing I did with GIMP. It involved cutting Faith out of the original picture, selecting a shade of blue from her jacket and filling the space behind her with it, blurring the edges a bit so she doesn't look quite so hacked-out-with-an-Xacto-knife, and adding text. It's not pretty, but it's my VERY FIRST try.



I'm not sure what happened to her left hand, there, and the edges didn't turn out quite as nice as I'd like, but I've been told by Buffy-Boarders that this is pretty impressive for a first try. So I'm going to keep working with it and see what I can do.

In the meantime, I'm finishing How to Read Literature Like a Professor (I started it because I thought my lit professors hadn't taught me how to analyze like they do, only to learn, as I'm reading the book, that yes, they did. Or, at least, I figured it out) and preparing to begin rereading all of the stuff I'm teaching in my lit class so I can start applying these principles to it and teaching it to my kids.

I've gotten a bit (a teeny tiny bit) more done on "Hades' Dog Boy," and no more done on Necromancer, though I plan to work on it more this week. After I finish playing Fable 2 again. Heehee.

Also, 3 more PhD applications are due in the next few weeks, and every time I think about it I start to freak out. Last year's series of rejections shook my confidence, and I'm really REALLY worried that I'm NEVER going to get my doctorate and I'm going to be stuck as an adjunct for the rest of my life. I'm trying to remember that last year I only applied to 3 programs (like an idiot), and this year I'm applying to 8, so my chances of getting in to one are much, MUCH better. But it's not helping much.

Excuse me while I go find a paper bag.

More later.

Phew

Now that finals are over and grades are in, it's time to kick back and . . . plan for next semester.

*smacks head repeatedly against desk*

I keep reminding myself that I'm still a first time teacher for the two types of classes I'm teaching next semester - literature and researching - and once I have these planned, it'll just be a matter of tweaking them to fit to whatever criteria or schedule gets thrown at me anywhere else I happen to be teaching. I spent most of my summer doing exactly this, and still managed to get a lot of rest.

I've also started writing the Killer Rabbit story - which is not, incidentally, about a killer rabbit. It's about a boy who's learning to take care of Hades' hellhounds (and Cerberus). It's in a style I haven't tried before, so we'll see how it works out. It's (tentatively) titled "Hades' Dog Boy" (because I suck at titles). So far, I like it, but then, I liked "AIDA" when I first started on it, too. And then it got shot down. A lot.

So a couple of weeks of resting, planning, writing, and playing Fable 2, then back to the grind. And back to the PhD-application-submission-panicking, because all but one has to be in before classes start again.

I wonder where I put the paper bags for hyperventilating after last year. . . .

More later.

Weekend?

Wanna see what I did this weekend?



Also, I got a rather rude (and mean) review at ratemyprofessors.com that kind of (okay, really) hurt my feelings, but I'm shaking it off. Can't please all the students all the time. Now I'm off to administer a final exam. Fun fun.

More later.

Where's the 12-Gauge?

Last night the plot bunny grew, evolved, and morphed. Now it's a . . . KILLER RABBIT!



That rabbit's dynamite!

I planned to at least get started on it this morning so this thing would STOP NIBBLING AT MY ANKLES (*stomp*), but I had a billion e-mails from panicking students (their final papers are due today) so so much for THAT. Later, I get to GRADE said papers, so I won't have time to write until next week sometime. Luckily, W.E. has agreed to help me grade in exchange for me helping him type stuff for work, so it should go faster than usual.

More later.

Damn Plot Bunnies!

Why do these things nibble at my ankles when I have NO TIME to write them?! At least right now all I have is a concept, not really a story and definitely not a plot, but it's a freaking cool concept and I'm afraid I'll LOSE IT before all of this grading is over. AND at least it's just a short story. If another novel attacked my brain right now, I think I would die of synapse overload.

Grumble grumble.

More later.

Rejected Again

Just got a rejection letter from Strange Horizons for "AIDA to Eridani." They said they liked the AI, but not the rest of the story (okay, they said it didn't click for them, which isn't quite the same as not liking it, but still).

I've kind of lost my faith in that story, honestly. I think I'll sit on it for awhile and keep trying to pump out Fantasy. I'll leave sci-fi to the science-inclined people.

More later.

Stats

Necromancer

New words: 2,861

Total words: 8,796

Favorite: There wasn’t much scenery, really; this area of the Continent was mostly farmland with a few scattered trees. The land stretched away in all directions until the gold or green of the crops met the blinding blue of the sky. Akasha found the whole thing incredibly relaxing, and enjoyed the peace and quiet while it lasted. This was another sort of quiet that she’d never experienced before, completely unlike the creepy silence of the graveyard or the musty, muted silence of the library. There was sound, of course—the horses’ tack creaking, caravan guards talking to one another, wheels working their way through the crumbly, dried mud that made up the road—but it all seemed to float away into the huge sky, making no real dent on the vast silence that surrounded them.

Mean things: Not much, actually. Pretty calm chapter.

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I thought I was going to be INCREDIBLY busy today; my schedule is certainly packed full. However, a good number of the students who were supposed to come see me today haven't, leaving me lots of time to write. As evidenced by the ginormous word count. A lot of this chapter is description, which I usually forget to put in altogether, so I'm quite proud of it.

Now I think I'm going to take a short break and work on my German.

More later.

Stats

Necromancer

New words: 542

Total words: 5,933

Favorite: It rushed out, pouring over the boy who held its prison, sucking the life, the warmth, from the boy. The warmth filled it momentarily, then sank into the black abyss that was its death. With a guttural moan of loss and frustration, it lashed out, burning the body with an ice blue flame. A few seconds later, it stood over the body, black and cracking, feeling the same coldness in the body that it had in itself, a coldness that could never be filled.

Mean things: As you can see, the Undead Fire Thing has taken its first victim.

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It's always fun to realize that I don't have anything else to do right at the moment and take the time to pull out my outline and write another scene, at least. Now I plan to watch the episode of Fringe I missed, then dive into revising "The Truthsayer 2." With money issues the way they are, I'm hoping that maybe somebody will want to publish my stories and start paying me for them. A little bit of windfall would be wonderful. I wonder how some of my co-workers, who are single and have been adjuncts for years, manage to survive. I mean, really.

More later.