7 days of NaNo to go

Since my last update when I reported that I'd finished my novella for this year's NaNo, I've also finished another of my unfinished novels - THE PHOTOGRAPH. I then worked on IVY NIGHT for a while, before the slog got a bit too difficult, so I moved to working on TURKEY BOURKE.

My wordcount is currently 41,255, though I haven't written any of today's words yet, as you can see from the chart. I'll continue to work on TURKEY until I feel that familiar "argggghhh" feeling. Hopefully that won't be until I'm finished the novel! It would be great to finish three works this time around. :) I'd also have liked to finish IVY NIGHT, but that one has quite a bit of writing still to do, so it's a longer-term project.

Once November's over, I need to get cracking on the last three songs for our next album. Billy has posted an update saying there is a new WAG album (ours), and a new Rotting Apples album (his) coming out next year. Eek! No pressure or anything! Sometimes he gets me to do some of his vocals for him, but I'm not sure what his plan is for the next RA album.

So that's my update for now! I hope you are all doing really well. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends.

Cephalopod Book Club & Goals :: NOV

Geeez, the days are flying by! It's almost December. Yikes!

I know you guys are celebrating Thanksgiving over there in the U.S., so maybe not as many people will be participating in these blog hops this month. But I'm posting anyway just 'cause it's a compulsion I generally don't ignore. ;)

So here we go ... !

I'd known for years that I should read this book, but only just got around to it this year. The first section was about Stephen King's life growing up, and his early development as a writer. A great read. When I got to the "on writing" section, I read a lot of things that I felt I already knew. Much of it seemed to be stuff I was already doing with my own writing. But later I got to sections that surprised me.

First off, I was shocked to learn Stephen King is a pantser, usually writing without a plan even if he has some general idea of where he's going. He doesn't necessarily know how his story will end when he starts it - in fact, he usually doesn't. A lot of people talk about the importance of having your plot all dot-pointed out. But Stephen King says this leads to certain doom, in the form of a stiff, boring story.

Obviously that's just his opinion, and many authors who rely heavily on plotting are still able to come up with great, gripping stories. But King's words really impacted with me, because I could relate to them. I distinctly remember becoming bored with my own story when I'd overplotted before starting.

Another section of ON WRITING that fascinated me was about editing. This section made me realise maybe I've been doing it wrong. I generally like to get stuck right into edits, but SK always reads through his entire manuscript before editing. I know I've done this before, and it worked quite well - but I stopped, for some reason. I'm considering starting again.

The book finishes up with a recount of the horrific accident that nearly took SK's life in 1999. And finally, he includes an excerpt of a rough draft, totally unedited, and ends with an edited copy. I found the comparison very useful, as I could see his wordiness needing to be whittled down, and this really reminded me of my own problems - my stories usually start out bloated before I get to trimming.

All in all, a fascinating read, and inspiring as well.

Reading

First off, I reached my annual reading goal:

2014 Reading Challenge

Trisha has completed her goal of reading 40 books in 2014!

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41 of 40 (100%)

view books

So that's one goal done & dusted for 2014!

Writing

Secondly, I am still working on reaching my NaNo goal, but wouldn't be surprised if I got to 50k tonight. But if I take it super easy, I will get there tomorrow, still a day ahead of November's end.

As mentioned, this has been a very slow NaNo year for me, but it's been necessary to not go at my usual breakneck speed.

Music

I should mention that my bandmate Billy is releasing his debut album, THE FALLING SOUND, under the artist name Rotting Apples (inspired by the song "Rotten Apples" by our favourite band the Smashing Pumpkins).

I sing vocals on most of the songs. I've already got my copies and have been distributing them to friends & family.

In General

It's getting to that time of year when we look back & reflect on what we've achieved since setting our goals. I think I may be disappointed when I get around to doing that, but I'll focus on the good things.

IWSG #7 - To quit or not to quit

It's the first Wednesday of the month, and so it's time to post for the IWSG again. I didn't forget this time, see?!

Now that July is over, and I've finished all my vocal work for the album, it's time to get back to my other creative stuff. Namely, the editing I dumped prior to July in order to work on music. But you may notice that it's already August 6th. Since August began, I haven't yet picked the editing work back up.

Well, that's not quite true - I did literally pick up the chapter I was previously editing. It's in paper format, and has my scribbles all over it. It was on my coffee table for the entire month of July, gathering dust. I'm pretty sure the foster kittens trampled on it a bit, but thankfully nothing too damaging happened to it.

So anyway, I did pick it up off the coffee table, and I carried it over to my "workstation" (in case you missed it back in June, I was featured on Nutschell's blog for Wednesday Writer's Workspace). This is progress, in my opinion. But in the last few days I have to admit I've considered giving up on this particular edit job. So many times, it has just felt like such a struggle.

I'm not going to give up on it, though. I just can't bring myself to cave. ;) I won't be doing any work on this tonight, as I have to go out. I probably won't do any tomorrow night either, as I will be home from work late. But I definitely hope this week to get back into the swing of things.

Happy August, everyone! :)

Cephalopod Coffeehouse & Do You Have Goals? - a day late

I did miss this post yesterday, but for once I have a fair excuse, or I think I do. Yesterday was my birthday!! So I was busy doing other things, like going to work for the whole day, and then going out to dinner and drinking a lot of champagne. Anyway, it's Saturday now and I am here to post ... at last!

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse

I read multiple books that I enjoyed during July (so far), but the one book I want to talk about is Rachel Morgan's The Trouble With Flying. The review will possibly sound vague, to avoid spoilers. ;)

The characters in this book were great - I loved seeing Sarah's transformation from a bit of a doormat to a strong-minded individual determined to follow her own path. It was a slow journey for the reader, becoming privy to the reality of Sarah's relationship with her partner. But I think this slow revelation echoed Sarah's own slow awakening - because as we all know, sometimes in relationships it takes a long time to realise something that, after you've realised it, seems obvious.

I was glad when Sarah finally stood up for herself and asserted her own will. It had been a long time coming. I was very proud of her in that moment, for not backing down. I think any book that makes the reader go, "Yeah! You go girl!" has a lot going for it.

Since I have never visited South Africa, or any part of Africa before, I really enjoyed the descriptions of the landscape. It definitely made me want to visit the place and see it for myself. But the main thing that makes me hesitate is the weather ;) I really, really hate hot weather. But if, as the story suggests, South Africans usually get a magnificent storm after each revoltingly hot moment, I guess I could tolerate the gross hot moments ... for a while anyway.

All in all, I really enjoyed this read, and look forward to reading more of Rachel's work in future.

Do I Have Goals? Yes, I do!

July has probably been my best month this year for achieving goals. Sadly, the goals I achieved weren't anything to do with my writing, but they were still goals related to creative stuff. So I count that as a major win!

I guess I can thank my bandmate Billy for spurring me on this month, since I actually did have a deadline not set by me - heeyyy, maybe I do work well under someone else's pressure after all? Not that he actually pressured me - not at all. But knowing he was counting on me, after we both agreed to an end-of-July deadline, certainly did get me moving faster than I have all year.

Following on from my last goal update, I can say that I have now sent copies of all the songs that were due to Billy, and now I'm waiting on his word that the last song is good to go. Then I can send him the raw files. But obviously if it's not ready to go, I will do whatever vocal adjustments are necessary, and then send the new version to him in .mp3 format for assessment.

But July is nearly at an end, so now the pressure's on Billy to let me know what I need to do, if anything. ;)

P.S. I turned 34. ;)

How I'm tracking in July

I figured it's time for a goal update! Last time I updated, I was approximately halfway through July's goals, or possibly less than halfway. Now here is where I'm at:

So far in July, I've:

• reviewed three songs with previously completed vox and sent them to Billy in raw format for him to mix for the album - one of them I added some harmonies to;
• recorded vocals for one of the new songs, titled "The Shade of My Day", and sent an .mp3 version to Billy for approval or ... disapproval ;) - update - Billy approved it and I sent the raw files through;
• got halfway through recording rough vocals for an 8-minute track, then later finished it off and sent it in .mp3 format to Billy for dis/approval - update - after recording some additional vocal harmonies at Billy's request, I then sent the file back ... and it's now approved! :).

So now all I have left to do in July is:

• send the raw files for "Your Love Won't Change" to Billy ;
• go back to the song I've been avoiding for months now, which I have to record new vocals (to new lyrics and, I believe, an entirely new melody) for, and ... do it!!

There are in fact two options for melodies for that last song, so I have to figure out which one I should go with. I hope to get some of this done today, but I had a family event on earlier, and later on a friend is visiting. So, we'll see how I go ...

How are your Julys coming along?

July's goals ~ an update

So far in July, I've:

• reviewed three songs with previously completed vox and sent them to Billy in raw format for him to mix for the album - one of them I added some harmonies to ;
• recorded vocals for one of the new songs, titled "The Shade of My Day", and sent an .mp3 version to Billy for approval or ... disapproval ;) ;
• got halfway through recording rough vocals for an 8-minute track.

For the rest of July, I need to:

• finish off the 8-minute track and send in .mp3 format to Billy for dis/approval ;
• go back to the song I've been avoiding for months now, which I have to record new vocals (to new lyrics and, I believe, an entirely new melody) for, and ... do it!!

I hope you are having a great July so far.

Happy belated 4th of July to all my American friends out there! :)

Oh, oh, oh - a P.S. is in order.

This Friday is the Songs of Summer blog hop:

You can sign up here!

BuNoWriMo report card ...

June is over, and so is BuNoWriMo. This year I was a BuNoRebel (hence the image above), and edited instead of writing fresh new words never written before.

I didn't do the best during June - but I did something, at least. I started out the month still working on the very pesky Chapter 13 from SQUEAKY. I ended the month still stalled on an equally pesky Chapter 16. That's progress, sure, but it's the usual hard slog.

This month I am going to be concentrating on music as my number one priority. I sort of have a deadline of July's end to get a bunch of vocals done for my bandmate Billy's debut album (we are in my band together, and I contribute a lot to his band's songs as well).

There is one song that I've been wrestling with for months now, trying to get the vocals right. I really can't wait to get that one done. There are three songs I need to revisit one last time to add any last-minute vocal harmonies if I feel like it. And there are still more songs I haven't even started on yet.

I haven't really had much inspiration this year for any of my creative projects, music included. So everything has been a bit of a struggle. But I am getting things done, still, and that's what matters.

Now I just have to speed things up and get things done ... faster!

Sometimes it helps to have someone else's expectations pushing you along. ;)

Teensy tiny little writing slump?

I have actually set myself a little goal, and it is to get my novella ("Lost, Missing, Gone") polished up in time for QueryCon 2013 in September. I set this goal the other day, and even publicly recorded my goal (which I just wrote as "gole" ... wow, I'm going good ay?) over at Misha Gericke's Five Year Project blog. I haven't actually started polishing it yet, well not since I settled on it for realz as a goal - a single goal I will concentrate on to the detriment of all other goals. It's been polished previously, but more in a proof-reading sort of way than anything else. But at least I've chosen my single project, right?

Oh, wait, I have other stuff to get done - namely stuff for my musical collaboration reciprocation (I owe Billy some GarageBand files and two in particular) - and I also wanted to get a short story of mine polished enough to submit to a magazine by the end of this month of August. But I've been watching a lot of Gilmore Girls (yes, I do love that show) and that's just kind of taken up all my time. ;)

I've probably lost my writerly mojo a little bit ever since June (and BuNoWriMo) ended. At least I managed to get those 50k written, and then I moved house. Not long later, I also managed to add to those 50k until I was done with the story (in very rough draft form). But I'm sure the writing bug is going to come back and bite me in the butt at any moment. After all, I can feel the creativity bubbling away inside me. It's just not spewing out just yet. I guess you could say I've had a little break, and that little break may continue for a few more days. But I do hope that Gilmore Girls breaks its hold on me sometime soon.

Will I have to wait until I've finished all 7 seasons? (I'm on season 4 right now)

What's keeping you from your goals, if anything?