The ides of December
Dec. 15th, 2005 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pbrayWriting: So far this week has been spent dealing with the copy-edits and preparing for holidays. Taking a few days off next week so I hope to make significant progress.
Reading: FOREVER ODD by Dean Koontz. One of those me-presents I picked up while shopping for others. Normally I don't buy hardcovers, since my TBR stack is so tall that new books are often out in paperback before I have a chance to get to them. But I really liked ODD THOMAS and so far I'm enjoying the sequel.
Shopping: Out of the original list, I've finished up fifteen folks and have five left to go. Every day I go home and find more boxes on my front porch as the internet orders keep arriving.
Meme:
15 Things About Me and Writing (aka "Look, I'm a lemming!")
Had to think really hard about this one. These aren't necessarily the 15 most important things about me as a writer, but they're fun.
1) I listen to music as I write. When I'm starting a new project I load up the 5 CD player and hit play. Often the same 5 CDs will be in there for the entire book.
2) Red wine is an essential ingredient for plotting or brain-storming. White wine or beer is acceptable accompaniment for critiquing, the actual writing process, and discussions on technique, but red wine is required when you're working on the big picture.
3) So far I'm published in two genres: romance and fantasy. I plan to be published in more. I'd really like to do space opera SF, and at least one mystery.
4) I have one complete unsold novel (my first) plus an unsold proposal.
5) To date my books have been translated into German, Hebrew, Portuguese and Russian. The Hebrew translation is still the coolest, since it was the first.
6) There is one common thread running through my fantasy books--how often I refer to someone's feet hurting. I'd never noticed this until![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jennifer_dunne pointed it out.
7) If I ever describe how something smells in one of my books, you can rest assured that it smells bad. There are no pleasant scents in my world building.
8) The only Creative Writing course I've taken was junior year in high school. I still remember the teacher fondly, and dedicated a book to her.
9) Since 1994, I've made a habit of writing down each day's writing progress in a pocket calendar, along with making notes of significant writing-related events. At the end of the year the calendar gets filed away. Should I ever decide to donate my papers for research, I'm sure a grad student will get a kick out of mapping the intervals of productivity versus procrastination.
10) I don't read in genre while I'm deep in the throes of writing. Since I'm currently working on an epic fantasy, this means I'm reading mysteries, urban fantasies, thrillers, SF, mainstream, et cetera.
11) My goal is to write at least 1,000 words every time I sit down at the computer, and I consider a good writing session to be 2,000 words.
12) I don't believe in endless revising of scenes. I will go back and revise a scene two, three or sometimes four times, but that's about my limit. If it's still broken at that point, my subconscious is trying to tell me something, so I'll just delete it.
13) My writing is character driven. Deeply character driven. My characters never behave in unexpected ways, and I'm always mystified when I hear authors describe this phenomenon. If one of my characters did something unexpected I'd kill them. Seriously.
14) As a writer, the most important lesson I've learned is that there is no One Right Way, and anyone who tells you that you're not a writer unless you do X, Y or Z is full of crap.
15) My friends and relatives are waiting for the day that I'm famous enough to be on Larry King, so they can phone in and dish the dirt on me. I'd like to take this opportunity to categorically deny everything in advance.
Reading: FOREVER ODD by Dean Koontz. One of those me-presents I picked up while shopping for others. Normally I don't buy hardcovers, since my TBR stack is so tall that new books are often out in paperback before I have a chance to get to them. But I really liked ODD THOMAS and so far I'm enjoying the sequel.
Shopping: Out of the original list, I've finished up fifteen folks and have five left to go. Every day I go home and find more boxes on my front porch as the internet orders keep arriving.
Meme:
15 Things About Me and Writing (aka "Look, I'm a lemming!")
Had to think really hard about this one. These aren't necessarily the 15 most important things about me as a writer, but they're fun.
1) I listen to music as I write. When I'm starting a new project I load up the 5 CD player and hit play. Often the same 5 CDs will be in there for the entire book.
2) Red wine is an essential ingredient for plotting or brain-storming. White wine or beer is acceptable accompaniment for critiquing, the actual writing process, and discussions on technique, but red wine is required when you're working on the big picture.
3) So far I'm published in two genres: romance and fantasy. I plan to be published in more. I'd really like to do space opera SF, and at least one mystery.
4) I have one complete unsold novel (my first) plus an unsold proposal.
5) To date my books have been translated into German, Hebrew, Portuguese and Russian. The Hebrew translation is still the coolest, since it was the first.
6) There is one common thread running through my fantasy books--how often I refer to someone's feet hurting. I'd never noticed this until
jennifer_dunne pointed it out. 7) If I ever describe how something smells in one of my books, you can rest assured that it smells bad. There are no pleasant scents in my world building.
8) The only Creative Writing course I've taken was junior year in high school. I still remember the teacher fondly, and dedicated a book to her.
9) Since 1994, I've made a habit of writing down each day's writing progress in a pocket calendar, along with making notes of significant writing-related events. At the end of the year the calendar gets filed away. Should I ever decide to donate my papers for research, I'm sure a grad student will get a kick out of mapping the intervals of productivity versus procrastination.
10) I don't read in genre while I'm deep in the throes of writing. Since I'm currently working on an epic fantasy, this means I'm reading mysteries, urban fantasies, thrillers, SF, mainstream, et cetera.
11) My goal is to write at least 1,000 words every time I sit down at the computer, and I consider a good writing session to be 2,000 words.
12) I don't believe in endless revising of scenes. I will go back and revise a scene two, three or sometimes four times, but that's about my limit. If it's still broken at that point, my subconscious is trying to tell me something, so I'll just delete it.
13) My writing is character driven. Deeply character driven. My characters never behave in unexpected ways, and I'm always mystified when I hear authors describe this phenomenon. If one of my characters did something unexpected I'd kill them. Seriously.
14) As a writer, the most important lesson I've learned is that there is no One Right Way, and anyone who tells you that you're not a writer unless you do X, Y or Z is full of crap.
15) My friends and relatives are waiting for the day that I'm famous enough to be on Larry King, so they can phone in and dish the dirt on me. I'd like to take this opportunity to categorically deny everything in advance.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-15 09:26 pm (UTC)(ObPedantry: the ides fell on the 13th this month.)
---L.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-15 10:51 pm (UTC)I sometimes wonder if the reason why I'm not surprised by my characters is because how much character development goes on in my head long before I put fingers to keyboard. I'm the kind of person who doesn't leave the house until she knows where she's going, and I don't start writing about a character until I know where they're going.
Or maybe I'm just a massive control freak :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-16 12:33 am (UTC)---L.