Here you'll find the rantings of a blogging fool and sometimes writer. My more personal posts, including progress reports on my various writing projects, are Friends Only. General posts on writing are Public. Please see my user profile for my other LJs and my friending policy, and browse through the sidebar for nifty goodies and useful info.

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Writing only leads to more writing. (Colette)

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Visitors from 1/30/05:

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Really. I am. Just not posting. I got a bit obsessed with a silly little game on Facebook called Pet Society. I got obsessed about moving up to the next level so I could get a 6th room in my pet's house. It's like a virtual dollhouse. Now that I've gotten the room -- and possibly, though I'm trying to not get my hopes up too much, getting a bit better, health-wise -- I really do plan to get back to working on the WIR.

I just have too many interests. And I've already given up crafting, only to replace it with more toy collecting and Pet Society. *sigh*

I think I need an icon/userpic depicting my joy in all things broadband internet. Two f'in days without it and me, off from work for those two days! Argh. Still feeling sickish, couldn't concentrate to work on the WIR, so I rediscovered my addiction for FreeCell. Let me tell you, I was never so eager to return to work with its T3 line (although, sometimes, internet is down there, too).

I've skimmed through my FL, didn't comment much. Two days of posts, even with a major holiday, do add up.

Oh, I made some icons, too. And now I've uploaded them, plus some old ones I'd taken off because I was running out of room. I'm at 172/195 now. When can I have 200, please? :)

Got back this afternoon from visiting jersey_lion. We had fun, going to Philadelphia Miniaturia, though there wasn't as much that I wanted as usual. We also had dinner with another friend and got our latest spy *book* printed. As soon as I catch up with stuff, I'll get back to the WIR. But this week, hubby is also off work, so we are actually going to do some fun stuff together.

Thought I'd make a new icon, so I'm showing it off herre.

I've been neglecting my poor LJ. Sorry. I've been busy, spending time on my other blogs, reading other people's blogs and LJs, proofreading the next self-published spy series I write with jersey_lion and another friend, and rereading all the books in that series, because after a while, I forget the details of what we've written and need to refresh my memory to help with future stories. And I fall in love again with, well, our writing, but mainly with those characters who, after all these years (a dozen and counting for some of them), are so very real to me. I guess it's a good thing that I haven't gotten bored with them yet. The book will be printed when I visit jersey_lion the first weekend in November, and after that, I'll get back to the WIR and the sequel. I do have to wait for the beta readers to report back, so I'll just fiddle with the science stuff til then.

Meanwhile, the Yankees were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs (insert big smiley grin here) and the Islanders beat the Rangers to start the hockey season 3 and 1, so all is good til pitchers and catchers report in February and once again, I'll have my Mets to follow. And it sure would be nice if the Isles can keep up the winning ways. It's about time they won their 5th Stanley Cup.

I made a few icons for myself and even one for a post about icons, used here now. I now have room left for 4 more, unless I remove some of the older ones. Ack. It's an addiction. Well, I can always make more to share. Anyone want any? ;) And I guess I need to post more often so I can use all the ones I have.

Writing has resumed on the spy stories and revision resumes tomorrow or the weekend on the WIR. I still need to clean the mess of papers around my desk and computer.

Haven't worked on the book for a week or so, but I did work with jersey_lion on our current spy story while watching the Mets beat up on the Cards. Sweet revenge. Did the laundry during the day and went out for groceries -- it occurred to me I'd want some matzoh and Passover chocolate snacks for work -- during the afternoon, if anyone cares. But I did take the next couple of days off, so I might get some work done on the book.

Using my guesstimate formula, I think I have at least 12,000 words of revision, and maybe as much as 14,000. Not shabby at all, for 6 weeks, three spent on trying to settle on an opening scene.

Still in New Jersey. Bought lots of miniatures at the show and spent lots of money. Smashed right index finger in sliding van door on Thursday is getting better. The swelling is way down, almost gone, and the bruising isn't as bad, though still quite visible. The cut across the knuckle is healing and I can manage to use the finger to type and such now.

jersey_lion and I saw The Prestige last night and loved it and today, we had lunch with a friend and there was much merriment. I go home tomorrow, and normal blogging will resume sometime after.

Meanwhile, the Google Docs thing is working great. We are, at this very minute, writing a story together using it, in real time, me on my laptop and she on her PC. There's a slight time delay for lines to pop in on the other's computer, but it's as close to an IM as you can get and we don't have to do much scrolling. And since it's a working doc for the draft, we can type in our descriptions, etc, along with the dialogue. Very, very cool.

Or, a fancy way of saying "update." I made icons last night as I posted last night. And I've been listing stuff on eBay, if anyone's interested. I have some fannish children's storybooks up, for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Tales of the Gold Monkey, among other stuff that includes comics related material and dollhouse miniatures.

Also did some writing this weekend, which was nice. Not on the Mars books, but on the spy series jersey_lion and I write with a couple of other folks. It felt good, given it's the first fiction writing I've done in 2 months.

I couldn't work on the WIR before my vacation and I knew when I got home, there would be a lot of catching up, so I knew it would take a week or two to get back into the writing thing. But as often happens with me, other things grab my attention, in this case, selling on eBay, and then there's the other thing that often happens with me, the "out of sight, out of mind" phenomenon. So now too much time has gone by, I still don't have the comments from Beta Reader 3 (tho I sent him my comments on his draft ms), and all the enthusiasm I had when I got the first 2 beta reader comments in has dissipated. This sort of thing happens to me a lot, the losing interest thing.

Often, interest gets rekindled, but I suspect I'll need to be more active about it this time. That means sitting down and rereading the most recent draft and reading the comments through. And that takes time. A lot of time, which is hard to come by. We're so short-staffed at work these days, with losing 3 positions, having 2 people out on medical leave, and now vacations for folks, that they actually okay'ed overtime. That's almost unheard of for our library system. I've scheduled 10 hours of OT for myself in July. It's 3 weeks since I got back from my vacation and I already feel the need for another.

My dungeon is still unavailable (I tried and after redoing 3 steps, I hit limbo again). Definitely a metaphor for my life right now.

So I think I'm getting the hang of this "ebay" thing. Sold a couple of lots of Barbie clothes, furniture, and accessories from the '60s and now have a few Man from UNCLE zines up (my eBay name is shellys555 -- the 5s are for the fictional area code; yes, I'm usually in writerly mode -- if any of you are interested).

And now that I've got eBay worked into my daily routine (I've become addicted to Italian bracelet charms even if I can't manage to get the charms on my bracelet by myself, and of course, there's my relatively new love for action figures, all of which are readily available on eBay), the writing projects loom. I've been hoping to get back comments from the third and last beta reader for BP, but he hasn't sent me anything yet though I did send him my comments on his draft before I left on vacation, so I'm going to just jump into the rewrite, probably by the weekend. Think good thoughts. I can't believe it's been uh, a long time since I worked on that thing.

I'm actually bidding on a charm that says "Yeah Right" (no punctuation! shame).

Well, maybe more a responsibility than an obligation.

Anyway, I'm nearing the end of the ms I've been beta reading (yay!) and have crafted like a beaver the past couple of weekends, so I'll have stuff for the Art Show at MediaWest*Con next month (I can still say "next month" because there's still 6 minutes til May as I type this).

I won't be able to get back to my writing til after vacation/the con, because I'll be gone for about 2 weeks, but once I get home, unpack, sort through mail and newspapers, yadda yadda yadda, my projects for the summer include the WIR and selling stuff on eBay (mine and some from my father). I'm very project oriented.

So, that's what I've been up to these days (well, and learning eBay and buying stuff there).

I know I haven't done a real writing post in here in ages. Aside from my obsession with flickr and doing yet another style for this LJ, I've been beta reading the ms of someone who's beta reading mine. He's an old message board buddy from AOL, though neither of us do the boards, anymore. I've been going slowly, because, well, I'm a slow reader and I wanted to take my time, anyway, but even so, I hit a wall, namely a blank page where chapter 10 was supposed to be. So he had to send me the file again. Fortunately, I'm just a beta reader, not an agent or editor he was sending the thing to. So, a lesson here: Make sure the edition you send, either via email or snail mail, is the final one and make sure all the pages are there.

I figured I wouldn't get back to the Mars books til I got all 3 beta readings back, so I'm almost relieved that two of three are still outstanding. It gives me some time to try to catch up on other things, including M's ms.

Not much the last week or so, but they're uh, odd ones.

Leocadia Mayes
Semen J. Undemocratic
Sitara Fuentes
Drogo Mclaughlan

Meanwhile, after 4 days, I might have a functioning computer at work. We got new PCs and our profiles didn't all move over, not to mention there's been all sorts of other problems. The scary thing is we'll go through the pain again in another month or 2 when we have to upgrade from Win2000 to WinXP which we need for the upgrade we're getting for our circulation system. And don't bother suggesting we should just have gotten XP loaded on the new PCs now. That's simply not how our library system and IT folks operate.

My home PC is valliantly working despite some obvious troubles. New mother board is in-house; now I need to find a time for the tech guy to come install it.

I'm still scanning in photos. I'll be doing that for the rest of the year, maybe next year, too. Some were too faded to scan properly or to be fixable in Photoshop, so I've reluctantly tossed them. Bought 2 new photo albums and need a few more to replace the old ones that disintegrated fell apart.

I've got stacks of stuff to read, including a ms I'm beta reading, and all sorts of other projects, including craftwork. I don't want to get back to the WIR until I get the other 2 beta reader commentaries in. So I haven't written really this year, hence the lack of writing updates.

Okay, I couldn't think of a good subject line.

So I made a new icon and wanted to show it off. Actually, it's a replacement icon. The original had a background I got from a wallpaper site, and I wanted to use my own background. I made the background from a sunset photo I was playing with tonight in Photoshop. I'm actually considering entering an icon contest one of these days. I know I won't win, but the challenge of something like that sounds like fun.

Meanwhile, I'm beta reading a ms for someone who's beta reading mine. It's the first time I've done beta reading and it's an interesting process in that I'm not only evaluating his writing, but comparing it to my ms, seeing what he does better, what I do better, that sort of thing. I hadn't expected that to happen. It's something to ponder.

I've also been reading a lot about what to work on while your first ms is in submission. I'm not up to that yet, but most of the advice says to work on something differnt to give you something that might have a shot if the first one doesn't, because if a sequel is dependent on selling the first ms, and it doesn't sell, selling book 2 will be damned near impossible. In my case, it gives away part of the ending of the first books, so an editor would have to want both. I could work on Access Denied, but that needs so much more development than Blood Plain's sequel, Incident at Semuru (I think that's what I decided on, thanks to the poll). So I have a bit of a dilemma. I could try to work on both ater BP is revised and out in the world, but I don't know if that's practical for me. Just something else to decide.

So far, Incident at Semuru is in the lead, with Beyond Blood Plain close behind. Since I like both, that gives me a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling. Thanks to the 14 of you who voted. As for the rest of my FL, what are you waiting for? Go scroll down and vote. Better yet, here's the entry: Title Poll. Thanks in advance. I really do appreciate the input.

Meanwhile, for fun titles, Harry You Know Who and the Goblet of Mars has a slim lead.

And finally, three brave souls volunteered to beta read, 2 from my FL (one has already finished and gotten his comments to me) and someone I knew from AOL's writers' boards. My thanks to my beta readers. If anyone else would like to give it a go, just let me know. I don't need anyone else right now, but would certainly let one or two others have a crack at it.

Spoke to Deb tonight. Was a good call. She's been alternating good days with bad and though she might be able to work on the WIR in a few months, she told me I had the right idea to go ahead and get beta readers. So, it's been decided.

I will start working on BP's sequel and put aside Access Denied for now. I also will get beta readers for BP and then work on the revision. Deb hopes to function as a beta reader and maybe later, be able to help revise. I need 3-4 foolish brave helpful folks who are willing to take on this task. The story is approx. 110,000 words right now. The story focuses on the first presidential election on Mars and a disaster at the site of a city being built could be sabotage and could therefore affect the election. Grisha, whose parents died in the disaster, is the protag. (If it helps or matters, he looks like Michael Shanks in my mind.)

I know the science is iffy in many places. I know the descriptions are a bit lacking in those and other places. I know the thing needs work and that the action scenes probably suck. What I did was get down the story. What I need/want right now is feedback re: the story and characters. Does the story work? Do the characters work/appeal/repulse? Is this something that can sustain a reader's interest once it's revised/polished? I'm not looking for an edit or even a detailed commentary (tho I won't turn away the latter). No rush to get it read, but don't offer if you can't do it during the first half of this year.

If interested, leave a comment or email me at Shelly.S (at) gmail.com. Thanks. And if no one's interested, that's okay. I'll just toss you all off my fl. heh. Just kidding. :)

Wow, that subject line sounds like it's Election time. But in a way, it is. On Saturday, I have a scheduled phone call with Deb, my collaborator, and we'll see what she's feeling up to. So, after that call, I'll be either 1) working on revising BP and in need of beta readers or 2) working on BP's unnamed sequel while Deb revises BP. I'll probably also, in either case, slowly put Access Denied together. It needs more worldbuilding. And seeing what I think was a romance/mystery pb with that title in B&N last month hasn't helped my feeling about it. I still love the characters and the idea of it, but it needs more work than the Mars books. A lot more work.

This icon proves that 3 times is the charm. It's my third attempt to make an icon I like using a photo of my glasses (my old pair), and I finally came up with something that works for me. The more I learn about Photoshop (and CS 2 is way cool, with a neat photofilter feature), the less happy I am with my earlier icon efforts. I've already redone a half dozen and will probably continue reworking some of what I already have as well as make new ones. I just won't have as much time as I get back into regular writing. But these are the sacrifices we must make for our writing.

And I'm amazingly wide awake after getting not much sleep last night because I was amazingly wide awake when I went to bed at 1:30 a.m. I wouldn't call it insomnia because I did sleep for about 4 or 5 hours, but this menopausal hormonal shift business is getting to be a pain in the butt.

Along with making icons, I've also been struggling to clean up the crap in the den and read some of the stacks of mags and comics. I got back to the point I was 2 weeks ago. Yay, me. Okay, it's not much, but I can see my desk again. Didn't get to the comics, but I'll be reading the next batch of them starting tomorrow.

And I finally started trying to come up with coherent notes for Access Denied, which means figuring out what out of the pages and pages of typed and writtne notes (often on the same pages) I want to keep, then figuring out what needs to be added so I'm grounded in the universe and can go back to the writing.

Of course, in 3 weeks, I'll be faced with picking up the Mars books (BP and its as-yet-unnamed sequel) again. And there's always ITB, the spy series I write with some friends and self-publish, to deal with. So, come January, I'll be even busier than I am now. Which is why it was important to get my blogs looking pretty much the way I want and not have to worry about that later.

The last month has been hectic, with AOL putting ads on their members' journals and my moving my remaining AOL journal, a photoblog, to Blogger, along with scores of other AOL journalers who have moved to Blogger. I've been helping them adjust to their new blogging home. What's really sad, though, aside from having cancelled my AOL account (I'm now piggybacking on hubby's) is that the once-vital and active writers boards there are pretty much dead. The dying's been going on for a while now, but this weekend was the pits. Except for3 or 4 actual posts about nothing much, the only action was from a spammer (spammers?) hawking Rolex watches. Very sad state of affairs. When I found those boards, back when the Writers Club was running them, 10 years ago, folks like Patricia Wrede and Steve Perry were having deep discussions about the difference between show and tell (they disagreed) and other nuances of writing. Ah well, there's always rasfc.

Talked to Deb last night. She hasn't had a good time of things lately. So come January, I'll go back to Mars and she'll do what she can when she can. She doesn't have to worry about deadlines or holding me back.

It snowed here. Was in the '60s and sunny last week, now it's cold and snowing. feh. I hate schizoid weather.

A reminder that we've got icons posted in impish_writers and not just by me.

I worked on Holiday Cards today. Should have them ready to go in a few days. Just need to seal 'em and stamp my return address on the envelopes.

Spent too much time in the last 2 weeks moving my AOL photo journal to Blogger and helping out what's become known as the J-Land Exiles or J-Land Exodus. Lots of folks are upset over the sudden appearance of ads on their journals. Given that it's a paid service and now the same service is offered free to AIM users, well, there's something not fair there. I cancelled my AOL account, am piggybacking on hubby's. I have an AIM account, but might change that and I might add a Yahoo Messenger name. Not sure yet what I'll do, since so few people ever IM me.

Been setting up my Flickr account and will go pro with it once I pay off my charge card, which should be in another 10 days or so.

So, that's the state of Shelly World right now.

And I finally got a fun spammer name: Hunter J. Imagination. Gotta love it.

I am reading your entries. I just haven't been commenting. Too much to do, especially since I had to work Friday and Saturday and have felt like crap (that's almost done now, thank goodness). And I've been frittering away my time making icons, which is all I had brain power for. I just didn't want anyone to think I was ignoring them.

Spoke to Deb last night. I asked her what happens if in January, she says she can't work on the WIR, but a few months later, wants to. She said she understands that if I'm doing it, then it's mine. So I said she could work on the on-hold trilogy set 150 years later than the WIR. So we discussed that book that became a trilogy that neither of us is happy about and we figured out why we're both unhappy and how to fix it. The middle book is all different now, with a different main character and everything fell into place.

Coolness.

And you can read about that on Cyber Chocolate. What isn't there are some thoughts realizations I had about writing, my writing, and collaborating.

I love collaborating. It can be exhilarating when it's going full throttle, but there are frustrations, too. There's the frustration in dealing with Deb's health problems. And in the spy series I'm writing with 3 other people, including jersey_lion, I have to deal with them understanding what I created. The Mars series is Deb's and I have no problems working within that. But the spy series universe is mine and there are always debates, especially with our new writer.

So, and not to complain, but I realized something in thinking about this issue as we work through some kinks in the spy series, trying to mesh styles and work the new writer into our group dynamic where I have to remain the final say on how things work. Nothing I'm really writing is fully mine. I love the Mars books and I've contributed a lot to the background and created a bunch of characters and settings that are mine, but they exist in a framework Deb designed. The spy series is fully my creation, but it's based on spy TV shows and my fan fic, and it's inhabited by a lot of characters I neither created nor control. And now, for the first time, I realize I want something that is wholly mine.

I do have a on-hold WIP that is all mine, but it's not working and I haven't had the time to figure it out. I created it to have something to work on while waiting for Deb. But now, I think I need to strip it to its core and redesign it, maybe take it off Earth and make something new from it. Fill it with a bunch of characters I really want to write and to forget a lot of the plot or all of it that I now have and just keep the premise of Mike, the main character who might or might not end up the protag. Maybe I can make it fun and something I really do want to write, which I really haven't to this point.

The only problem is time and priorities. What do I work on. The spy series has a schedule. We try to do 2 books a year and I'm currently editing the book due out this fall (amateur press publishing via photocopy). The Mars books are fairly well along, one in revision, the sequel started, the trilogy set 150 years later already plotted. The new thing would be from scratch. But part of me really wants to work on it now, so I've given my brain the go-ahead to ruminate and grow the universe seeds for characters and then setting. I'm not sure how or if it will pan out, but I don't feel so stuck in writing situations beyond my control that have left me feeling a bit helpless lately, and that's a good thing.

For once, I finished what was on my To Do list. This past weekend, I planned to watch the entire DVD collection of Firefly and by golly, that's what I did. Now to read the 3-part comic Serenity once part 3 is in print, and I'll be ready for the movie.

Did finish reading Hot and Sweaty Rex by Eric Garcia, too, and got a review up on my book review blog.

Been editing the stories for the next volume in my amateur press spy series and started the next 3 stories I'm writing for it with jersey_lion.

It was hard going back to work today, but I have tomorrow off and will be working Saturday. Saturday is also a scheduled phone call with Deb, my SF collaborator. Here's hoping she's finally getting some health issues under control.

Saturday night is my next scheduled phone call with Deb, my collaborator. We speak once a month. I've mentioned her health issues and I think I mentioned that we agreed to let things sit til January, at which point either she'll do the revision or I will. I'm still hoping she can do it, but it's not looking favorable. So, a few things came to mind this weekend that I'll need to discuss with her.

The main one is that I've glossed over the science in order to get the story down. I was counting on her rewrite to include fixing any scientific boo-boos or oopsies and to add in flavor re: Mars since she's done more of the research in that area than I have, since she created the universe and I hopped aboard.

If I have to do the science stuff myself, that's going to add a lot of time to the revision process. And might affect my decision in the other area of concern to me: Do I get a beta reader or two first, then revise based on their comments, since I don't have Deb's comments to work with (my other hope), or do I revise as much as I can first, then get beta readers.

I need comments now to make sure the story and characters work for readers. But I don't want the lack of scientific detail and locale specificity to throw beta readers out of the story. I've got 4 months and 3 weeks to come to a decision, if needed — I like to be prepared for any contingency — and I might not have to worry about this if Deb's up for the job, but for now, it's starting to prey on my mind. I'll talk it over with her, get her opinions, but if anyone else would like to jump in, the comments area awaits you. Thanks.