It is late and I am tired, but I still need to do one more critique for writing group tomorrow, plus (maybe) time, practice, and mark my reading. Which will be the beginning of "Salvaging Scottwell," as it's recently published, although I'm a bit worried that enough people followed the links I posted and read the first bit to make it repetitive. Ah, well.

Sometimes, being a writer is a lot like permanently having homework. With deadlines.

12/07/2009 - Monday
* Performance advice from a poet: http://inktea.com/2009/12/07/performance-advice/
* Posted writing logs.
* Meh freewriting.
* NanoWriMo (though it's past the WriMo now).
* Redmarked "Writ in Sunshine and Snowflakes" AKA "Ice Mother"

12/08/2009
Deleted from "Writ in Snowflakes and Sunshine"

Old wordcount: 6,684 words
New wordcount: 5,747 words
Dead darling: When she woke, night had fallen. Light pollution and cloud cover turned the winter sky a strange ochre color. For a moment, she longed so passionately for the star-spangled black skies of her childhood that her chest ached.
Reason darling killed: Taking a nap just kills the tension, and this didn't fit in anywhere else.
Notes: I'm a bit worried I'll have to kill the first half of this story because it's not hook-y enough, even though that would mess up characterization, pacing, and atmosphere. Grumph.
Other writingy stuff:
* Posted writing log.
* Freewriting warmup documenting Bitwise's bespoke mallow story.

12/09/2009 - Wednesday
* Notified Critters, tweeted, and posted to Facebook, Livejournal, and MinnSpec about "Salvaging Scottwell" publication.

12/10/2009
Read WritersWeekly

In my dreams, half the time I'm male, and half the time I'm female. One-quarter of the time, I'm much older than my real age, and half the time I'm younger. I find this interesting. Last night, I was an older man, kind of a retired-badass sort of character. Also, there was river surfing on 2x4s, which totally wouldn't work in the real world.

...

Some combination of my mule-headed stubbornness, devil's-advocate tendencies, and "I can write anything"-itis results in my brain clicking over into plot-generating mode as soon as somebody issues a challenge, or doubts that a story type can be done well, or mentions how rare a certain kind of story is. That's how I got a Highlander parody involving the evolution of mallows nesting in my story idea file. Can't somebody just pay me for my plots?

GUD Magazine, a high-quality literary+genre publication, has switched over to a "Pay What You Will" model. Their PDF issues are available for purchase for a minimum of $.01. Interesting. I wish them luck, and I plan on digging out my wallet and buying an issue soon.

This shirt's for all the writers:

More of my NanoWriMo story:

• "I don't know, ma'am. You're the only one I could think of wot might be able to handle this." "Oh, I can handle all sorts of things." #nwm
• After his explanation, Mrs. Crinoline raised her voice to address the empty air, "Mary, don't remember the girl or what happens here." #nwm

.

To all you who are embarking on NaNoWriMo, we salute you!

If, on the other hand, you think that perhaps that's a little too demanding, perhaps you would like Nano WriMo! Instead of slaving away at the keyboard all the livelong day, write 4200 characters--or the equivalent of 1 140-character Twitter update a day.

I've started mine, Walking Out of the Machine.

Welcome back to Spec the Halls !

Spec the Halls is a contest for speculative winter holiday-themed fiction, artwork, and poetry. The holiday may be fictional or real; it may be Christmas or Yuletide as we know and love it, or it may be something much stranger.

Submissions open November 1st, and the earlier you submit, the more likely your submission is to be a featured submission! And you should submit, since this is still a relatively small contest, which means your odds of winning are good. Not that you'd be that calculating and cold-blooded, of course.

The contest guidelines remain essentially the same as last year, though the prize amount has increased. To refresh your memory, read the guidelines.

Post about this contest! Spread the holiday cheer...the strange, twisted, weird holiday cheer.

You can sign up for the weekly-ish newsletter sent from mid-November to Christmas, at the Spec the Halls website.

Or if you prefer, these newsletters will also be duplicated in an RSS feed spun off from my blog at:
http://cloudscudding.livejournal.com/data/rss?tag=specnews

x-posted from penthius because this is more memory than story prompt. I'm trying to figure out how to use this "Zen in the Art of Writing" thing.

The stones gleamed a golden beauty beneath the rain from the downspout that polished the ordinary dull rocks to shining jewels. The water ran over her fingers, reflecting the sun that shone through the clouds. The storm light made the leaves bright green and the pebbles precious jewels, it made the air heavy and fragrant with promised fertility and possible death. The sunlight shone green, tornado-green, though the clouds were only light. Cars drove past on the street, heading home as soon as possible. On the edges of town, wind blew through the wheat fields.


Inspiration: "Zen In The Art of Writing." I don't think this approach to memory-mining works for me. Maybe I need to do the linked word-groups thing. Very odd, but seems like an approach worth attempting. So--ah, yes. I loved storm weather as a little girl, and my favorite thing was to be out in it, staring out how it transformed ordinary pebbles. Well, not strictly ordinary. My mother collected granite and quartz and other interesting-looking rocks, possibly as part of the same thing that made her interested in gravestones.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Maybe high potential? Storms transforming nature/beauty. There's something there. But I'm also looking harder for something because of the source. Hrm. I mean, really, there's something in anything.