Weekend Writing Warriors – The Aurigae Express 3

Good morning! It’s time for the next eight sentences from my Camp Nanowrimo project “The Aurigae Express.” To briefly set the scene, Alan and Diane are police partners who’ve volunteered to visit an alien planet where very few Earthlings have gone, to track down a fugitive and retrieve her ill-gotten millions. They’ve boarded an alien ship that takes Earthling passengers through hyperspace, and the ship’s just made its first Jump.

First Snippet Second Snippet

He felt a mixture of pain, confusion, and some kind of a deep melancholia or depression. All of his limbs appeared to be hooked up the wrong way, and he wasn’t even sure what the proper number of them was. Some kind of vibrations and lights appeared to be assaulting him from particular directions, but for a long time he couldn’t make sense of them. Everything hurt, especially remembering.

Eventually things clicked near enough to the reality that he knew that he could recognize a few things. He remembered that his name was Alan, and that he’d actually lobbied to get into a starship travelling to an alien planet eight and a half light years away using some mode of transportation far beyond everything that the human race understood as being possible under the laws of physics.

For a second he tried to reject that identity. Alan was obviously dangerously insane.

Visit the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/.

Sprinting with myself

Every time I think I know the mysteries of the Nanowrimo forums, they surprise me. The Word Wars, Prompts, and Sprints forum is a good case in point. There are over 300 threads in that forum, and most of them center around a challenge, gimmick, or goad that can get you writing even when something is holding you back. I’ve hung out a lot on that forum, but I tended to stick to some of the popular timed wars during Nanowrimo or Camp Nano, and probably haven’t explored more than a couple dozen threads all told.

Yesterday evening, I knew I needed to get some writing done on a short fiction contest entry, and the forum was very quiet. There hasn’t been that much activity since April ended, but often when I poke my head in there are a few threads that have been updated in the last few hours. No such luck this time, so I went searching for challenges that I could do by myself, and found four:

• Sprint as Many Words as This Thread Has Replies. I was #242, and it took me a little over five minutes to get over 242 words. This wasn’t really an easy story to reach ‘creative abandon’ on, partly because of the contest deadline tonight. My inner editor insisted on a seat at the table, though I was able to keep him from dragging my muse to a standstill.
  
• Sprint to the Nearest Thousand. I was still under 1000 words for the story, so this became ‘sprint up to a thousand’
• Song Wars. In this one, you pick a song, post the title, artist, album it’s from, how long it is, and how many words you got while it was playing. I did Six o’clock news by Kathleen Edwards, and that gave me a whopping 179 more words.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVtAblO50Fc

• Finally rounded the evening off with a 100 word sprint. I’d done these before during Camp Nano, when I wanted an easy way to get started for the day or a few more words before I gave up.
  

One type of thread I’ve noticed in the forum but never actually participated in is the theme marathon. To start one of these, you come up with an overall premise, (road trip, pub crawl, army boot camp,) and figure out how to slot other threads in as a part of that experience. So, for instance, if you want to include the ‘write to an hour of rain sounds’ challenge as part of a boot camp marathon, you say that it’s raining and everybody has to spend an hour in their tents.

If you’re trying to get some writing done in the Nano off-season, I’d recommend taking a look through this forum. You just might find the kick in the pants you need to get words on the page!

Air Conditioner day comes early!

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the awkward things about my apartment is that it heats up really quickly in the summer. I’ve got a good window air conditioner in the kitchen, and I keep it in there year round, because the windows make it a pain to take it out and back in with the changing of the seasons. But because being exposed to the winter weather is a bit tough on an AC unit, I get Don, my ‘Air Conditioner guy’ to come and give it a cleaning and a checkup every May before I fire it up.

I really like having an AC guy.

It wasn’t really easy to figure out when I should call Don this year. We had a bit of a heat wave in early May, hot enough that I turned off the gas pilot light, and then a sharp cold snap this weekend, with overnight frost. But the cold weather had definitely passed by yesterday, so I gave Don a ring.

I thought I was going to have to work from home tomorrow morning, but he left me a voice mail this morning asking about this evening, and I was able to rearrange my schedule. Hopefully I’ll have cold air before I go to bed tonight! And a good thing too. My kitchen was up at 27C by the time I’d finished washing up the dishes. Not incredibly hot, but not exactly comfy either.

Surprising news about my Muse!

Over the weekend, I started working on How to Think Sideways lesson three, which involves a really cool brainstorming exercise, “Calling down Lightning”, and talks a lot about getting to know your muse better. The brainstorming went really well; I came up with two good ideas over a few waking hours and one night of sleep on the weekend, and I think I’ve got another today that I’m going to start this evening for a short fiction contest.

But I was definitely startled by some of the things I learned about my muse. For one thing, I found out that it wants to be able to communicate by talking to me out loud. I’ve suggested a few ground rules on that so that I don’t blurt out a story idea in a situation where it would be awkward to explain what I was blathering on about, but in general I liked the concept.

I was wondering about a picture for my muse too, and at first I didn’t come up with anything but the old standby I’ve told you about before, and I got the sense that my muse wasn’t really wild about looking like Liz Parker, but didn’t suggest anything different over the weekend. At some point yesterday or the day before, I walked into the living room, noticed some of my stuffed animals sitting on the stereo, and idly remarked, “Maybe some of you guys  could be the face of my muse.”

To which Ember, the golden owl with the smart black bow tie, shot back, (with my voice,) “Who says that isn’t what we’ve been all along?”

That really got me thinking. I know that a lot of people, writers or no, might think of having stuffed animals around, talking to them, and having them talk back, as something childish that should be stopped before you enter your teen years. My mother and I definitely wouldn’t agree with that sentiment. She has some beloved teddy bears of her own, and while I don’t know how much she talks to them while I’m not around, she usually doesn’t mind chatting with them if I do.

We even have two small stuffed bears who have become a package deal; Almond was mine and Praline Mom’s, but now they shuffle back and forth between our homes, seldom splitting up. They look fairly similar, maybe six inches long or so with brownish coats, but lying on their bellies in a sortuv polar-bear-like pose. And there have been a few moments when I wonder if Almond and Praline are ship-teasing us, dropping hints that their relationship is a teddy bear romance and not just a close friendship, but never admitting anything straight out.

I never really thought of stuffed animals in terms of my muse or my inspiration before, but considering the fact that my muse wanted to speak to me out loud, and that since I was little I’ve been speaking for teddy bears and other stuffed animals with my own voice, there’s probably a deep connection there. And big thanks to my parents, for never telling me that that spark of imagination, that suspension of disbelief, that can give a teddy bear or stuffed cat a personality of its own is something I have to give up in order to grow up. I’m sure that spending all this time with them has helped me keep my creative edge in ways that I never guessed.

Road to Odyssey update

Things are moving along fairly well in terms of my preparations to attend the Odyssey writing workshop. Jeanne sent out a couple of updates over the weekend, including one introducing me to the guy I’ll be sharing a residence apartment with–except that I already know him a little from his blog: JW from Author Alden! How cool is that? I know I’ve surfed over to his place for Insecure Writer’s Support Group and the My Favorite Martian blog hop.  He’s a Nano writer too, which is definitely something good to have in common.

Jeanne’s updates also included some more information about what will be expected of us when we get to the workshops, (classes most days from 9am-1pm, then working on our writing most of the rest of the day,) and suggestions for what we’ll probably want to bring. So I’ve got plenty more ideas for packing, even though the final list of what I want to take probably won’t be settled for three weeks plus. I’m hoping to be able to take the laser printer, and some pots and dishes to cook with in the apartment. The toughest part there is that we’re unlikely to be able to use a microwave, because the wiring in the dorms can’t take it.

I went down to the mall this morning, to get a US money order made out for the residence fees and mail it off. That’s the last of the money I owe Odyssey. My to-do list is starting to shape up, and four weeks from now I’ll be looking back on my first day of classes and writing in New Hampshire.

Yay!

Weekend Writing Warriors – The Aurigae Express 2

Good morning! It’s time for the next eight sentences from my Camp Nanowrimo project “The Aurigae Express.” To briefly set the scene, Alan and Diane are police partners who’ve volunteered to visit an alien planet where very few Earthlings have gone, to track down a fugitive and retrieve her ill-gotten millions. They’ve boarded an alien ship that takes Earthling passengers through hyperspace.

First Snippet

A thought sprung into Alan’s head of Coyote on her own Aurigae Express trip. If she’d feared Global Justice at all, this must have been nerve-racking for her, knowing that she was essentially helpless until the ship arrived on Argos. And just at this point in her own trip, Pete had been frantically trying to stop the launch. Had she any idea how close they’d been to snatching her?

A new countdown appeared on the wall, with less than three minutes to go, with the letters capital HSI after it. Was that for Hyper Spacial Insertion or something?

And a few seconds later they weren’t there anymore. Not Alan, Diane, the Aurigae crew, the earthling passengers, or the ship.

Visit the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/.

Ad Astra 2013 flashback: Best Fuego Grilled Burger!

Okay, well, the first thing you need to understand is when I went to bed on Saturday night, I set an alarm on the iPhone to wake me up with a custom ringtone. The second thing is that I’ve gotten into this habit of taking the iphone with me when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, because whatever email might have arrived between midnight and 3am is obviously SO important.

So I wake up very groggily to the dim strains of a ringtone playing over and over again in the next room. By the time I finally got to the hotel bathroom to shut it off, that alarm had been ringing for something like ten minutes. Oh well.

I went to the hotel restaurant for the breakfast buffet, and wasn’t too impressed with their french toast or milk, (and there were no pancakes at all,) but went back for a second helping of bacon and breakfast potatoes. Maybe that was because I’d gone the day before with no meat and possibly a low level of protein, (peanuts notwithstanding.)

So after breakfast, went back up to the room again; the plan was to check out by nine AM so that I could help out with the vendor’s room again and not need to worry about running back upstairs. That worked out pretty well, except that I forgot about a work thing I was supposed to do on the laptop Sunday morning, (but that worked out okay twelve hours later.) I took a few things out to the car, and left other luggage behind the front desk with a claim check. It was a little while before anybody showed up for the vendor’s room, so I pulled out the Kindle and read some of Jim Butcher’s “Ghost Story.”

After the vendor’s room was open, I went upstairs, and met Magie and Maggie from the browncoats in the corridor. They were a little upset that the Star wars/Disney panel (with Jim!) wasn’t where they’d expected it to be, but I pulled out my schedule and figured out that they were nearly an hour early.

The Masquerade awards were given out at ten-thirty Sunday morning, and the participants outnumbered the few fans who’d come out to see who won. (And one participant, Link, wasn’t able to come because he was stuck on duty at the registration desk.)

So… I won an award! 

How to Draw your SSM

No, not that SSM. After a few false starts, I’m finally making progress on my new Holly Lisle ‘How to Think Sideways’ lessons. I asked my family for this course for Christmas, and my sister’s side came through, paying for my first eight lessons! Thanks, sis.

I remember I took a stab at lesson one back in February sometime, downloading the worksheets before going off to Williams for a write-in with Elizabeth and Nixy, and I got through at least one exercise that day, the shadow room, which is a lot of fun. I think I did my first visual clustering exercise back in February, or maybe squeezed it into May when I was sick and tired of editing. But my attempts to get some Thinking Sideways done during April were completely squeezed out by Camp Nano. (Getting to 50k in a month is never as easy as I think it’ll be.)

But I’ve been going a little gangbusters on HTTS since May started, finishing lesson 1 in a few days, (where you’re introduced to four fearsome villains of the mind: Safe, Perfect, Victim, and Feel–doing battle with each in an introductory exercise.) On Sunday afternoon,  I touched based with Elizabeth about her own experiences with the first few lessons in the course, and read through lesson 2. The next day, I started the lesson 2 homework: a giant six-page cluster of free association that Holly calls a Sweet Spot Map, or SSM for short.

My first SSM is almost complete now. There’s a starting ‘node’ on each of the pages: Things I love, things I fear, things that make me shiver, and so on. From these six starting places, you just let your brain free-wheel and draw your own things to connect, creating a big cluster of things, names, and concepts that make sense in your own inscrutable brain. It’s a lot of fun.

I’m not quite sure what I do with this map now. That’s in lesson 3.

 

Ad Astra 2013 flashback: Cosplay Saturday!

Well, it’s more than a month since I went to Ad Astra, but I figure I can still tell you guys about it. My last Ad Astra post covered Friday, so this time I’ll start with Saturday morning.

I woke up pretty early, showered, headed out to look for the Tim Horton’s at the corner that I’d seen listed on Google Maps. It turned out to be a coffee counter at a gas station, and they didn’t have TimBits, so I grabbed two maple dip donuts for breakfast. Once I’d eaten, I suited up into security gear and went downstairs to see if I could help.

The volunteer room wasn’t open by nine, so I just kinduv hung around, and kept an eye on the vendors moving their stuff into the room. Soon the guy who’d deputized me as a volunteer showed up, and told me that my main job was to keep non-Vendors from wandering into the Vendors room before it opened up at ten. That worked out pretty well; I got to say hi to a lot of people, even though some of them were disappointed that they couldn’t get an early start on their window shopping. I also challenged a vendor or two who didn’t have their lemon-lime colored vendor badges out, and let a few people with ‘panelists’ slip through because I wasn’t sure I wanted to give them a hard time about hanging out with their vendor friends. And it was fun to get to check with the ConCom liaison in charge of the Vendor’s room and tell the gathering horde that it was time to go and buy!

At ten, I went to a panel for ‘What’s new in fandom’, but started paging through my schedule and realized that I had a busy day of stalking Jim Butcher ahead of me, so I left the panel to take care of some business. First I checked in with the guy in the volunteer office to ask some questions about spending the day in Cosplay. The volunteer guy said that I could just leave the yellow T-shirt and the radio gear in my hotel room while I was dressed up. He was bonding a staff from somebody’s cosplay outfit when I got there, so that answered another question, if I should ask to get my blasting rod bonded as safe. So up the elevator I went, put on my Harry Dresden finery, and back down to the volunteer office, where a bit of black zip-tie was wrapped around the end of my ‘blasting rod’ broomstick, to mark it as convention-safe or whatever.

There were Jim Butcher panels in the next two time slots: “Standalone novel versus series” and “Magic in the big city.” I was complimented a few times on my costume, and two people suggested that I should sign up for the Masquerade contest that night, so I left after the first few minutes of the ’50 years of Doctor Who’ panel to go to the signup table and entered as a novice, no craftmanship judging: I didn’t craft most of the costume myself. My Mom did more of that, with all the time she put in on the white bead pentacle, and helping with the shield bracelet too.

My local library and Adobe Digital Editions: a decent combination!

I’ve started to get into the habit of checking the Hamilton Public Library catalog when there’s a book I’m interested in that I don’t have a copy of, (and that isn’t in the public domain,) because it’s a good way of trimming the budget for buying books. A few weeks ago, after Storywonk announced Sophie Kinsella’s “The Undomestic Goddess” as their Book Club pick for April, I hit the online catalog and was surprised to find that it was listed as a library ebook.

Now, I’ve wanted for a while to try checking an ebook out of the library, but had never found an ebook listed that I was actually interested in. So I took a closer look. There were two ebook copies in the Hamilton system, both checked out, but no outstanding holds, so I placed a hold of my own, and the website assured me that I’d get an email notification when a copy became available.

And I didn’t hear back for a while, to the point where I was starting to get worried that I was misreading the part where the website said “Library copies: 2″ and there weren’t any ebooks at all. In the meantime, Storywonk Sunday went on hiatus and postponed the Book Club discussion to May 26th. Finally, Monday morning, I woke up and found out that there was a notification in my email that it was finally ready to check out, two and a half weeks after I placed the hold. These titles can be checked out for 1 to 3 weeks, (with no early return because there’s no way to make sure that every reading device has deactivated the authorization codes,) and I think it’s a bit odd that both copies were checked out just a few days before I searched, but I’m not complaining.

So far, I’m impressed with the process of borrowing and reading an ebook. The library offered 3 different borrowing option with this title: