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Tag Archives: writing
Little Big Snow
My super big news, is that pen name received a *Recommended Read* review from Dear Author (prominent romance review site).
I knew there was a reason I still hadn’t worked on my best of list for this year and this book is it. Yep, it’s going on it for a number of reasons but I’ll cut to the chase and say it’s one of the best overall books I’ve read this year.
–Jayne at Dear Author.
This is a review site that I am a big fan of, however I’ve backed off romance reviews lately because I was buying 3 books for every 1 I read and I resolved (unsuccessfully, so far!) to catch up on reading what I have before I bought anything new.
I am now more motivated than ever to work on Book 2.
I’m trying to learn to use textures in my endless quest to be better at Photoshop. I don’t think these are excellent examples, but you gotta learn somehow.
We had just enough snow with a lovely coating of ice to make life interesting around here for a few days. It’s supposed to warm up tomorrow and stay above freezing so fingers crossed we’re in good shape for the holidays.
One last thing, the salsa update: I had this weird accumulating liquid issue in the fridge that I kept wiping up without realizing there was a problem. I vaguely remember dropping the salsa container. Must have been enough to crack the container. All that’s left in there now is salsa paste (still tastes good!).
Updated RED TAPE Stories from Indian Country
This quick little project that was going to be done in August is finally finished. Well, except for the paperback. I’m working on it.
The selected stories have some connection to the people and lands of the Karuk Tribe.
The updated collection has three additional stories:
Lottie v. The Moon Hopper (originally appeared in Future Lovecraft).
The Last Willow Stick on the River and Reservation Jobs (originally appeared in Yellow Medicine Review).
Willow Stick and Jobs have no speculative elements and I gnashed my teeth about including them but in the end decided: it’s my collection, I can do what I want.
Here’s the background on the original nine stories:
The Battle of Little Big Science
(previously appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction) This was my Clarion West week #3 story.
Estelle Makes the Casino Run
(previously appeared in Innsmouth Free Press) I wrote this for a contest with my Clarion West classmates.
Social Security
(previously appeared in The Wordstock Ten) This was my submission story for Clarion West.
Field Work
This was my Clarion West week #2 story. Are you seeing a theme here?
The Medicine Woman of Talking Rock
Yup, Clarion West Week #5.
Repercussions
Clarion West Week #6. This was me trying to do something different since you’re supposed to stretch yourself at the workshop.
Trusted Leader
This was my Week #7 story — the first thing I wrote after I left the workshop. The process was gruesome but I like the way it came out after about 5000 drafts.
Fish Killer
This story has nothing to do with Clarion West. I was upset about the dredge mining situation on the Klamath and needed to work it out.
The Casino Gargoyle
This was another submission story I wrote when I misunderstood the application instructions.
Purchase links:
Kindle | Apple | Kobo | Nook | Paperback
If you already bought it but want the updated version, drop me a note. We can work something out.
I have a couple of new short stories floating around out there. Hopefully I’ll have some news to share on that soon.
Posted in doing it wrong
Tagged I made this, writing
Comments Off on Updated RED TAPE Stories from Indian Country
The Look That Never Grows Old
In 1999 I was in the Meier & Frank downtown when I spotted these Star Wars men’s boxers on clearance. I was mad for Star Wars and thought they would be perfect shorts for me. I think I actually wore them as regular clothes a few times.
They eventually made their way in my pajama drawer for the summer. And I have been wearing them ever since. (Only in summer. In winter I’m all fleece or flannel.)
If you have a rudimentary understanding of how elastic ages then you won’t be surprised to learn that for the last several years, they wouldn’t stay up. I tried sewing the waistbands smaller. I tried safety pins. I tried rubberbanding a clump. Basically I have been walking around with my summer pajamas half off because I did not want to give up my Darth Maul pajama shorts.
Yesterday I walked into Fred Meyer and look what was on sale:
They didn’t have a very good selection and I still hate the idea of throwing Darth Maul away, but I have wearable summer pjs for next year.
PUBLISHING NEWS:
The ebook should be available tomorrow. Large online bookseller controls everything and there are steps where they just make you wait and you can’t do anything else until they say okay. I’m in the last phase of waiting. Hopefully I can click “GO” soon. I still need to look at a proof for paperback before I click go on that one.
Beg-A-Thon Week #3 Progress Report
This week I did just over 11,000 words. I remain on target for my goals.
From here on out it makes no sense to measure by word count. I need to tidy up about 24K per week to get the draft to the beta readers by July 28th.
Now that I look at it like that, it seems impossible. Oh well. I’ll do my best.
So I wrote a complete (not pretty) draft since starting on May 20th. That’s pretty incredible. I’ve always considered myself to be a slow writer.
I had a fairly substantial outline to work from but I need to remember not to let myself get too gummed up at the beginning because I figure out a lot of stuff as I go along.
One of the things that makes this possible, like I said before, is letting everything else slide. This is agonizing for me but when you want one thing you have to sacrifice something else. Bob is out of school so he picks up more of the chores. I also (oh so painful) gave up about 90% of my reading time. I had time to power skim the New Yorker and that was it. I used my time on the bus to work out the next bits I wanted to write.
So if my outline says “woman discovers she’s really an alien.” Then while I’m on the bus I’ll write notes about how she figures out her craving for raw meat and the strange appendages she has growing out from behind her knees aren’t normal so she goes to the science library to do research but realizes she’s being followed by a purple Cadillac…
And so on like that so when I sit at the computer I’m ready to roll.
I try to preserve my back and neck and wrists by regular breaks.
I do any number of these things:
Shoulder Stretches with a belt.
Wrist and forearm work (This is a class preview. It might sound technical but watch the demo. These are great.)
Foundation training back exercises. I am generally the type to be put off by branded exercise systems but I’ve been doing the basic exercises regularly as part of my recovery from the back debacle of 2015 and I think it’s helped a lot.
Those are my secrets to writing a whole bunch in a short time. Although to be honest I’m not as confident in this manuscript as I was in the last one.
Thanks again to all my terrific sponsors. My report showed over $10K in donations already. Not for me but for the whole thing.
It’s not to late to donate.
This is what the tomatoes are doing. I’m going to put the cages up this afternoon. I did a half-assed job of throwing them out there and have ignored them ever since so probably not going to be a big tomato year. (Again.)
A couple more links.
I’m not a big pork eater but I’ve been anxious to try out a new recipe and this Cuban Roast Pork caught my eye. Right now the house smells amazing.
For a huge portion of my career I worked with the Metlakatla Indian Community in SE Alaska. This is a terrific article and photo essay about basketball in the Community.
That’s this week’s update.
Posted in Clarion West
Tagged eternal overachiever, New Yorker, writing
Comments Off on Beg-A-Thon Week #3 Progress Report
Beg-A-Thon Week #1 Progress Report
Week #6 2008 — This is my Clarion West class with Chuck Palahniuk
I wrote 9,723 words this week. I should sit here and work until I hit 10,000 but I also tidied up my entire manuscript and I have shocked even myself with my capacity to sit here and work all day long on a weekend.
Time for a break. Tomorrow is another day and I want to beat that work count next week.
Here are my rock star classmates participating in the Write-A-Thon:
Maggie Croft
Christopher Reynaga
Carol Ryles
Kira Walsh
Rajan Khanna
Caren Gussoff
Me again
And our workshop administrators
Neile Graham
Les Howle
Here’s the status of the project of August:
I need to pay attention to my poor neglected husband.
Super huge thanks to everyone who has donated so far. I will send you a personal love note soon.
It’s Beg-A-Thon Time!
I found this photo from the Squirrel circus of 2016. Action shot of squirrel number one fleeing the premises. (I typo’d that as “feeling the premises” and almost left it.)
I started writing at 7am this morning and I did take a number of breaks but I’ve been working almost all day.
The Chicago trip was fantastic but I got home Monday night and then Tuesday I had a soccer game (Yes, I know, poor me) so I didn’t get home until 10pm. I woke up Wednesday morning with the crud.
I’m not feeling terrible today but I still have major coughing fits and I had just put a cough drop in my mouth when my husband came in here and set a frosty glass filled with strawberry colored frozen beverage in front of me.
He just finished school yesterday and he is in “OMG, I have the whole summer to play” mode. I am still working and I have a first draft to finish by the end of the month. I’m not quite in the same head space.
So, back to the drink, I looked at and said: I just put a cough drop in my mouth.
But it was pretty and smelled good.
How much booze is in this? I asked.
He said: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, about a shot and a half.
I gave it back to him. If I spend the entire day writing that means I did not do anything else and I have chores to do before I can get fuzzy on a fruity drink.
I last did the Clarion West Write-A-Thon in 2011. I wrote an excellent introductory post about it then.
My stated goal is to write 1000 words a day although it’s not going to work exactly like that. I need to try to have a draft ready for beta readers at the beginning of August so I need to write about 17,500 a week for the next two weeks (That’s about 10 pages a day). Then I’ll have a first draft and for the last 4 weeks of the Write-A-Thon I will need to spin my first draft of poop into a readable draft of gold.
This would be much easier if I didn’t have a husband, a job, a soccer team, a vacation, cooking, cleaning and a never-ending pile of administrivia to contend with. But I’m going to try to make it happen anyway.
If you are rooting me on during this insanity – please consider throwing a few bucks to Clarion West. Small donations are very happily welcome. My donation page is here and there are tons of other writers to support if you don’t like me. There are other ways to donate here.
I hate making blanket dramatic statements like this, but the workshop really and truly changed my life and I am so grateful that I was able to attend.
Here is the progress on the project of August:
Disappearing Mac Salad
This is Roscoe, the other next door cat and current ruler of the stoop. I can’t remember the last time I saw Toes out there. I saw Noah out there getting hissed at. I was out watering and for a second I didn’t want to disturb him until I remembered that he doesn’t live here. I do.
Now that I’m in the middle of a writing project, there is no spare creative energy of any kind.
Almost every meal is tacos or Trader Joes prepared foods or something I can stretch out for 2 or 3 meals. I have no ideas for gifts. I have no energy for house projects except for light organizing. I have no ideas for posts. I have no ideas.
We have just reached the point where we pick more berries than we can eat each day. Not complaining!
I found 3 extra brain cells and squandered them to make something other than tacos this weekend.
Since it was so hot I did a ton of food preparation on Friday. I made a mac salad and a couscous salad. I made a jello mold with fruit. Don’t laugh. It’s refreshing on a hot day.
On Friday I made Kenji smash burgers. Recipe here. Video and recipe here. I very very highly recommend. I kind of messed it up and it was still amazing. Plus it’s fast and easy. Use American cheese and make the special sauce. You won’t be sorry.
I have enough beef left for one regular and one mini smash burger tonight. The mac salad is already gone. There is a ton of couscous salad.
Project of August:
I’m actually behind on this. I got stuck. And then I panicked. And then I sat here staring at the screen going: OMG, think of something! Quick! Hurry! You’re falling behind! Think of something!
Turns out: That doesn’t work. I had to back up. Take a couple of days to unravel and regroup. I think I’m back on track now.
ZACHRÃNIT BINGO
I’ve known about this for a long time but I was sitting on it until I had the book in my hands. Then I was going to sit on it until I could surprise my Mom with her copy, but she’s already seen it on Facebook.
Last year I was invited to be in an anthology of science fiction by women authors to be published in the Czech Republic.
This is my first time being translated and look at the other people in the TOC:
Kelly Barnhill. Charlie Jane Anders (who has a book out now called All The Birds in the Sky that sounds fantastic and is on my list). Pat Murphy. And Ursula LeGuin (!).
The finished book is beautiful. It’s hard to tell from the picture but it’s just a little bit bigger than my hand. I so pleased with how it turned out.
There is more information here (in Czech).
Oh, and the story is The Battle of Little Big Science. It’s in the collection Red Tape: Stories from Indian Country which can be yours for $3.
Doot-do-do-doo!
This is Noah as in “No-ah, we aren’t getting another cat.” That’s the next door neighbors. Not us.
Noah is very sweet but did not like the camera. There is another cat that I was getting confused with Noah. But that cat has a collar and is named Franklin. We seem to cycle through cats quickly in this neighborhood. Louie from across the street disappeared and I haven’t seen Babs in awhile.
This is what the garden looks like at present. The tomatoes aren’t doing shiddly-doo. The volunteer is doing okay but the ones I bought at the grocery store are just sitting there. One of them probably got too toasted. There seems to be a volunteer acorn squash. There are a couple of bunches of spinach. Tons of potatoes. Ridiculous amounts of potatoes. I didn’t plant much so I can’t complain.
Here is the big news. The project of August is finished. Well, the first draft. Yes, it is below target but close enough. It has gone out to the first readers. You will probably not hear about it again until the end of next month. Meanwhile, I’m not sure what to do with myself. I read an interview with Francine Prose years and years ago, where she said when she had insomnia, she would get up and write.
Normally, when I have insomnia I can’t comprehend getting up to write but I’ve been doing it the last few weeks. It’s kind of weird when you’re keeling over at 11am to realize you’ve been up for 8 hours.
I’ve ignored everything else in life while I was writing, but now that I have momentum, I hate to stop. We’ll see what I do next.
Turdpress is Stupid
I’m frittering away my last day of winter break fricking around with this stupid website. I need to move on so this is going to be it.
#1 — You might have noticed I didn’t end up doing much Photoshop or even start Illustrator. I prioritized writing instead. More on that in a different item below. So no fancy new tricks for awhile. Probably.
#2 — Insomnia is my friend again. And by my friend, I mean, not my friend. I wake up every night between midnight and 4am and what happens next is anyone’s guess. About every third night I get back to sleep so things aren’t dire at the moment but when I get back to my regular work schedule we’ll see what happens.
#3 — I’m going to skip what I had for #3 and move writing from #4 to #3.
Every January since 2009 I have decided to that I would get serious and do a first draft of my manuscript. Every year real life has intervened. I’ve decided that this year is going to be different only because I can’t seem to quit this stupid idea.
This guy said many of the things I end up thinking. Here’s a quick sample:
Very slowly, I’m figuring out I probably should not waste any more time on writing. It seems increasingly passive and banal, the whole exercise. There’s real stuff that needs doing!
But I’m going to waste more time on writing.
This is the first year I didn’t have “just one other thing” that I wanted to finish before I get started. I’m in it. Last fall I got in the habit of going to work a little bit earlier so I can have an hour to write before work. We’re going to try to keep this momentum going. I also had a piece of the story that I couldn’t figure out and I think I finally figured it out.
I just spent a ridiculous amount of time and patience trying to figure out how to put a progress counter in the right hand column but I give up. And probably for the better because while my intention is to keep me motivated, I suspect it would lead to despair.
Here’s where I’m at now. For my finished product I’m aiming around 90K, the first draft will most likely end up much shorter. If there’s anything more insufferable than people talking about doing yoga it’s talking about their novel. I’m going to try not to be insufferable but I’ll update the word count every once in awhile.
