Thursday, August 25, 2011

Funny Things... About Novel-Writing and Kefir



Ya know, it's funny... that when you sign up for a course to "complete a self-edited manuscript within a year"... that THAT'S the week that your computer decides to quit on you...

Poor Glamdring... He still won't turn on... :-/ And so, I'm left using an Orc of a windows machine that is my husband's work laptop. He (my husband, not the Orc) has lovingly worked out somewhat of a schedule so that I can use the laptop often. Which is good. Because beyond my creative needs, I also need a computer to complete work blogs on.

Another funny thing... is that when you sign up to do a "complete a self-edited manuscript in a year" course with weekly emails from a guide/shepherd/instructor/friend is that those emails (which are actually INSANELY helpful) come... every week. And somehow after the first week my little brain was still in lalaland. Here's what my brain was telling itself:

"Ooh, cool! You signed up to write a manuscript! Hey cool, here's an email with lots of nifty tricks and tips! Woohoo! This is AWESOME!!!"

And then my brain must have gone on vacation... Because I definitely thought about what I was supposed to do. And I definitely did some of it. But somehow it didn't fully sink in... the fact that I am going to have to WORK and FIGHT to do this. It's not going to happen just because I signed up for it to happen. (Oh, if only it were so easy!)

And then I got the week 2 email from lovely Shay... And (confession time) I didn't read it for two days. Because I knew (guilty me) that I still had week 1 work to do... And (excuses excuses) I didn't have a working computer 24/7! Oh woe is me. Poor baby.

And so today I sat on my butt and got cracking. That's right, silly brain! It's WORK TIME!!!

(Pause... I just nearly choked on the Kefir I am drinking... Kefir is a funny thing. You should try it.)

Wanna take a peak into this kick-butt course I'm doing? Part of my week 1 homework was to come up with a one sentence description of my story. (I think I've posted a lengthier version somewhere on this site, but I'm sort of starting over..) Here's what I came up with:
It's the year 2045 and thirteen year old aristocrat twins discover that they are heirs to the throne - of an alternate and near-apocalyptic fantasy reality.
 It's still a work in progress... But it's something! :) AND, I definitely welcome feedback on whether this story idea sounds like something YOU would want to read. (Sidebar - huge pet peeve of mine - when creative artists never ask for feedback and never use that feedback to hone their craft! But that's another blog post...) Anyways... so let me know if you just finished reading a book about aristocratic twins that are heirs to the throne of a near-apocalyptic fantasy reality. Because then I might need to make some big changes. ;)

Okay... I'm off to finishing some world building and character-shaping.


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