Saturday, December 30, 2006

The Tally Stands

One book complete.
One book completly through the third edit and needing to be lengthened.
New chapter for the above book is in the first writing.
Two chapters thought about with nothing on a computer or paper.
One book complete and one third through the fourth and final revision.
One outline, timeline and character bios finished,begun and in the works, repectively.
One book half finished and already into editing what is complete. Seriously considering abandonment of project.
One more day to write finished on all the above to complete my goal. Not even will I make it, but it is good enough for me.
"Load of Rocks" will be complete by the 15th of January 2007.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Who designs this product?

I purchased a product that seemed fine. I purchased it a month ago. I paid an enormous amount of money for me to get something well constructed and would last. Approximately immediately the keyboard will not work. The actual keyboard works well, therefore the fault must be the wire or the connection into the tower. Faulty design one, the connection is in the back of the tower, and unless I really want the tower set front to wall and have to reach behind it to push the start button, basic troubleshooting is screwed. I am beginning to believe there is a conspiracy between computer tower designers and computer station designers. What blooming bloody numb brain decided that the shelf holding the tower should be knee high to a four year old? Is the four year old going to do the troubleshooting? Not even, Mr. Designer, she is going to cry for her Mommy to fix the keyboard. How tall is Mommy? I'll wager Mum is tall enough that bending in half to look into the rear end of a tower is not a pleasant consumer experience. Should I ever meet Mr. or Ms. Designer I will suggest that they stick their head behind the tower while a four year old is screaming and perhaps they will consider what the ##### they were designing. How hard is it to design a tower self that is waist high to an adult female. You notice that I said female.? Do you have one of those kitchens designed by a 6'4" male where the cabinets are so high that a reasonably tall adult female can reach nothing?! Yeah, maybe he is related to the person who designed this piece of junque.
Okay, gripping about a problem without providing a reasonable solution is not something I encourage in myself. Here is the design in words. Workstations with enough room on both sides of what would be the logical place(middle) for the monitor that either right or left handed persons can work. Tower shelves (to reinterate) at waist height. The shelf to contain a lockdown device for holding the tower securely. The shelf will tilt forward on a spring to provide a secure way to view the rear of the tower, faciltating the repair of a poorly designed connection for the keyboard. How ding dong hard is that? The next time the furniture designer in the family does work stations, oh boy, Mom will give him such a good idea. The piece d' resistance, a work light on the back of the tower, with enough wattage that one can actually see something. The connections should be on the top of the tower, no other place that a reasonable person would put them, period.
Is that too much to ask?

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Scratch the Love Scene

I remembered a true incident about gold mining that I was going to put into Ms. Got Rocks, but it never got there. It will get to Load of Rocks and it will fit in nicely .
I was reading a Nevada Barr novel last night, and noticed that I had lost track of the story. I was thinking of something for Rocky, that had nothing to do with the Barr story. I "read" two pages and didn't get a thing. I think that bit in my head can be expanded into something really intriquing for Rocky. Has nothing to do with skin diving in the Dry Tortugas as the pages in the book were explaining. How close is it to what I was reading? Rocky will be cleaning out the attic of the cabin in Whiskey Gap California. See, really close to skin diving in the Gulf of Mexico, eh.

Hunkin' Guy Alert

If I were young and single again, I would live in Whole Foods store in Las Vegas. I have never seen so many absolutely gloriously yummy handsome young men grocery shopping as there yesterday. And the goodies they were buying? Raspberries,spiral cut hams, grapes and veggies I didn't even know what they were.
Yes, Ma'm I would live at that store.Ladies,listen up. Friday morning 10 to 11 AM, Charleston Blvd Store Las Vegas Nevada..worth the trip...oh my!
Get a piece of the artichoke pizza for your disguise.

Friday, December 22, 2006

What Do I Do Now?

The first edit is complete on "Load of Rocks." Remember me saying I added around 15 new pages. The little rascal is still too short. I planned for at least 75000 words. It stands at 62462. Agreed that is a lot of words. But it is too long for a short story, too short for a novel and novella production would mean that I would have to shorten Mrs. Got Rocks to make these a set of two. Mrs. Got Rocks is weighing in at a weensy over 75000.
I have to do the math...I need, rounded down, 12500 words. That equated to 51.65 pages at my word rate of 242 words per page. At 13 to 15 pages per chapter, shhhheeeessssh that is about 4 more chapters! I hate math and love words. Okay, I have to think up four more chapters and I have until the end of the year to do that, get them written, edited, and ready to go. No Prob...may I go be sick somewhere.
Write on...think on...invent a new adventure on..guess I'm going to force myself to write a really truly love scene, and I do mean a love scene, not a sex scene, tho' that can be an adventure also. I can probably make the part where Rocky had the realization in the room in Fairbanks, I could probably make that much more layered, I did want it to just be her sitting and discovering that what she has in her life, is sitting in a room talking to her dogs and how desperate that makes her feel, the deperation reflected in the sparsely worded and length of the scene. That may work to define that better. Some of this may be resolved when the guinea pig readers have finished and I have their input. Nevertheless, the little pony is too small to go to the big pony show.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Where was I?

My apparent lack of a grasp on English grammar never ceases to amaze me.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Emma Thompson and "Sense and Sensibility"

I ran out of writing juice yesterday and flipped into movie land with the adaption of Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility ". The screenplay was written by the lovely actor Emma Thompson.
I was listening to the commentary in the production notes section and sat up and paid attention when Emma Thompson states that characters written today are one dimensional. I am paraphrasing here please note, she commented that women were either sexy or not, men were mean, not mean or there was a third "type" men could be that I cannot remember this morning. Love was sex with no layers of emotional involvement. Remember, she was talking about books and scripts, not reality.
I have been thinking about what she said in the hours since I listened. Stunning as I feel reality must be reflected in film and books, or is it not?
The characters in a 18th century English novel about money, may not be applicable to life in the 21st century. Not applicable other than we are still chasing money, tho' perhaps in a different way. Present day humans are more open, though not less manipulative than the Lucy character I would venture. I stand in any public place and in a moment can hear at the top decibel of the human vocal range, a woman telling her entire private business on a cellphone, without regard that total strangers can hear her. Our society must consider that no one within 100' has functional hearing. Unfortunately, I have not learned the Japanese art of not listening to the life functions of a stranger two feet from them.
I am still considering how this self applied lack of privacy or of mystery in person can be used in a modern day entertainment way. Perhaps we as viewers really are interested in viewing photos of Music Personalities lack of underpants. Where is the mystery in that? How do I write a female or for that matter a male character with layers and layers of emotions without creating someone that seems archaic, uncool, or not "with it" enough to attract a publisher of mass market appeal. Creating a lovely literary piece would fill my heart. Creating a lovely literary piece which (if sold at all )would not be read by thousands of people and the profit from it would not fill the truck's gas tank for a week. I do not forget that one object of writing books is to sell them. I have the same money goal in life as Eleanor in Sense and Sensibility.
I need to think on this.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

That Was Fast?

Last night I finished the first major edit on "Load of Rocks". It seems to me that I ran through the edit lickety split. I faithfully read other writer's blogs and particuliarly pay attention when they are in the edit rewrite stag. Either I'm not doing this part correctly or I spend more time daily doing it. I'm not going to get myself all anxious about this..not much anyway.
The story still has a notation on what I orginally planned to write in one section. I planned to write that part and then got bored or side tracked with a better idea that I needed to put the metal to the metal and get into the story before I forgot it. I'm thinking since I'm not blazing away writing that part that it could be deleted. If it was not important enough to me for the first writing, well you know.
At this time I still like Rocky the main character, but I'm anxious to move along. The next story is driving me nuts trying to get out of my imagination. Between today and the first of the year, I want to do run through/rewrites on all three of the completed manuscripts. I have earned so many new and better writing skills this past six months that I want to work again on Blackberry Project and Mrs. Got Rocks. I need to finish these and get the spy mystery that I'm co-authoring that is sitting doing nothing, off the blocks and back into the race. Only then can I start writing the new adventure story. I have two single spaced note pages and the time line working. I told the plot line to my sister yesterday and she just went "Wow". Who knows, she sounded more stunned than interested.
Anyway off to edit land I go..
Have a wonderful happy Sunday.

Monday, December 11, 2006

That really adds up.

I picked and fussed all weekend on the expanision of the chapter. I'm done for the day, turning over the computer to the telecommuter. I counted the new pages, hoping for a little pat on the back for myself. There are seventeen new pages. "Surprised and pleased, am I."said the little writer.
The next section involves the Lucky Longhorn Ranch. Numbero Uno option is to delete a whole mucho whopper of these pages as boring, not moving the story and who gives a peanut anyway.
So that's it for the day, back to the regular routine of dishwasher,and bathtub scrubbing.
Have a wonderful week. Write on.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Brick by Brick, My Citzens

and in my case, line by line..Hadrian go build your walls. 7069 lines in the story and each one is being scrutinised. I have added on to the section I talked about previously. I deleted so much of another chapter that I'm even more in the hole than when I started this edit three days ago.
That doesn't really matter, the point is the story is stronger and better.
I've wrung my story telling ability out to nothing today, I've stopped doing lines and re-writes for the day.
Monday I hope to get two more copies into the mail for the guinea pig readers. Now I wish that I had waited a week, and sent out this new improved Hadrian's Wall.

Friday, December 08, 2006

The perfect writer. She is not moi.

This is a bit of all right. I went back into the story and started the first big edit. This is past the spell check, lazy words and dumb writing errors edit. I need this story to be longer. The section is the part about the Lost Dutchman Mine, somewhere around Chapter Three. I have about 2500 new words into it and there is another 500 floating about in my head. It is so much better. My hyper-critical self asks why the flip couldn't I do that the first time around? I will forever demand that I write the story correctly the first time and then never,ever,have to do the editing or rewriting.
DS2 suggests getting famous and hiring a word processing assistant who passed third grade grammar. What a concept, to be trite. Great idea.
His theory: those writers who can produce three books a year, write them all right but they employ people who do the spell checks, the formating, the page numbering, the communication with agents and publishers and all the other stuff that goes into making a manuscript a book. The author writes eight or more hours a day, seven days a week.
My theory: those authors actually learned grammar, they type fast (me too) and they just do the whole process correctly the first time. They also work 8 hours a day, and probably seven days a week, with time out to run to the grocery store.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Heart and Soul, I Fell in Love with You

The music has been running through my head for about 18 hours. I was "listening" to the latest Superman flick. The melody stuck. It lasted through my sleep and I found that I was humming it as I brushed my teeth. I think this is the best Superman movie made, however I only have to see this genre once. Son has viewed it at least three times, so I removed myself (very Victorian) to my room and tried not to listen, but that durn song. It is similar to watching "You've Got Mail." without singing the opening song all day.
The Heart and Soul of the manuscript is not long enough. I figured I'm about 18K words short of a dime. For two days I have been going through the manuscript in my head looking for sections that could be expanded or places where another whole adventure could be inserted without rewriting the entire story. Two logical spots for expansion just fell in place. The first is the one that I did leave short, honestly I truly did that. I sound like the "dog ate it." That is the Chapter on the Lost Dutchman Mine. When I was writing it I thought it would work much better than I think it stands. For the past months writing this I have been debating within my head to just cut that section of the story out. But and it has a big bad but, it explains so much about one of the characters, who, what, where and very importantly the biggie WHY. So it has managed to stay in the story, limping along being too short. I think I lost my concentration on the Lost Dutchman Mine at the wrong stage of writing.
Listening to Heart and Soul I Fell in Love With You, I did get a blast of wind driven sand into my brain and came up with some more action that will fit in that chapter.
The second area of expansion is in the first date scene. I got it to one point and just stopped it with a joke. DS2 writing partner read it and laughed out loud. Then he wanted to know if Rocky got nekked. Such is the Heart and Soul of man!?? Does Dr. Scarpetta get nekked, indeed not.Well, on occason she has, but with that Wesley guy, who I think would be like having two glaciers bumping, but P. Cornwell's books do not need Dr. Scarpetta to be bed hopping. Maybe the author just feels that she can't write sex scenes well. Tho' she does a wonderful job with that aspect of the victims of the crimes. And while we are on the subject, why oh why did she never allow Kay Scarpetta to finally fall in love with the big goofy detective? She let him go all to pieces. It didn't take too much to see that the spark in Scarpetta could have been ignited beautifully and readily, but no she sticks her with that ice cube Wesley. Oh well, I still wait on the book truck for the latest Scarpetta and Heart and Soul will forever sing for them.
So back to my measely little book and Patricia Cornwell can deliver her latest to the store and I'll be thrilled.
Back to topic. I can expand the date scene, though I really like it just the silly way it turned out. I may have to expand, because I'm also thinking of a section that I want to remove, and it isn't a little bitty three paragraph jobbie either, it goes on and on and on and on. Which is exactly why I'm thinking that the section needs to go bye bye.
Write on, have a wonderful day.