Category: Writing

2000 word day

Finished the chapter on Kima’s pregnancy yesterday, and wrote a really weird little squib about Michel and his time in Montréal.

At the last minute of the the children in the story crawled up and said, “But wait there’s more!” and it will all feed in to the rest of the plot, so I’m happy.  And there are parts of it that are surpassing weird, and a couple of really funny lines.

But I feel weird today.  When I’m writing really hard I feel altered. Not bad, just not quite seated in the detent, ifn you know what I mean.

“Baroque kitchen sink feminist sf with hard sf pretentions”.  Still trying to work on the perfect phrase to get people to want to read it.

 

Words yesterday, words today

I’ve already made wordcount (over 1000) today, so now I’m thinking about working on churchy business and making something for the Circle Dinner tonight.  Sue’s going to give me a lift.

And that’s about all.  I had a lovely time with Katie and Alex and Jessica and Ellie at the Quay yesterday, but she hasn’t sent me the pics yet…. sadface.

Also, VERY SORE from yesterday’s walk. Five more days until I see the specialist.

I have a job interview on Monday.

Non compliance

This is a new device for people like me, non compliant CPAP users.  No thanks, even if I didn’t actually use it last night I’ll stick with the CPAP that hydrates the air.

I believe I wrote 1007 words yesterday, but my counter went a little bloopy, so maybe it was only half that.  Bhwa.

Skytrain tracks caught fire this morning, so things are going to be dripping with slow for the commute. Line’s shut between Joyce and Waterfront, what a cluster.

Back to the saltmines.  I am trying to get started on a chapter that needs way more research than I have the energy for right now.

More non-compliance, this time from the Mayor of Burnaby. Go Derek.

WHO launches a program to catch the next big outbreak.

This is the kind of news item that really fires up the mystery writer hiding under my sf writer.

DADBODS ARE A THING.  Full disclosure.  Long about a million years ago, I was walking through the CNE grounds with Lois and Ruth (erstwhile Sisses-in-Common-law) we saw a lovely young man of about 20 rocking chiselled everything.  I turned to the ladies and said, “I dunno ’bout you, but I just can’t find a man super attractive these days unless he’s got a tiny bit of a gut.”  They both turned to me and burst out laughing.

 

the casting game

Of course, having designed the books to be turned into a tv series (well, I did, right from the outset and if not a tv series then some other form of episodic televised joy), I get to play the casting game.

George.  I have not run across the actor who could play George. Andrew Scott is fairly close to him in body type, shape and sizewise, but he’s not quite eastern European looking enough. Think a more hooked nose and higher cheekbones.

Kima.  Kima would mostly be a voiced character.  Some skinny young thing who’s a dancer could play her on the rare occasions (mostly in the first book) that she’s bipedal.

Michel.  Ditto, alas.  If he ever settles on an appearance he could be played by a Big Scary Bald Black Dude, since that’s the human form he likes best, kinda.

Raven.  Unknown Canadian actor. She’s fat, so it would be a plum role for a qualified lassie.  (No older than 25).

Jesse.  Unknown actor from anywhere, since his physical qualifications are going to be tough. (Jesse is big, tall, dirty blond, pumps iron and does not take steroids). Jesse’s the same age as Raven, give or take three months.

Grandmother.  Sue Sparlin. After seeing my friend in Lost in Yonkers, playing the evil old grandmother, I went, yup, that’s her (both for the performance and for her grip on the accent).  I know for a fact that she would be deliciously narcissistic and crunchily fun, and she would be able to portray confusion and dismay with more than enough style. Photo credit her daughter Aura McKay.

Avtar, Winnie and the Tornado: All unknown actors. Avtar is subcontinent extraction (and furry), Winnie is Chinese and Caucasian, and the Tornado is (obvs) a loud and interesting blend.  Vancouver is a town full of marriages and liaisons between every ethnicity on earth, so I thought it would be good to show one.

Brendan: Just about any competent actor in his 30’s could manage Brendan, but a 9/10ths scale model of Chris Pratt with the gut back on and some acne pitting would do the job.

Ruby, either Michelle Thrush or Columpa Bobb.

Gwen the publicist.  Maggie Gyllenhall. Hands down.

Farah Jalali.  Well of COURSE I WANT ARCHIE PANJABI but I think Rekha Sharma (who played the assistant in BSG and is a local) would do better than well. Actually now I think of it she’d be awesome.

 

892 words yesterday .4 hours. 319 words today so far.

I went downstairs, Jeff’s watching F1, and I say “Monaco?” because I like guessing which track it is before I sit down, and I was right.  First, you look for the palm trees…. then you look at the architecture.

SUMMER

It is Suddenly Summer after a long spring.  It wasn’t forecast, but Vancouver got the May 2-4 weekend we’ve been longing for.  Normally, we have overcast in May.  This weekend was rilly glorious.

No cpap, no writing.  I did get the disgusting hell hole that was the front hall where the litter pan was mucked out, ran some laundry (and used the line to dry, yay!) and hacked away at The King Will Never Die (the BB King memorial song, which is, as frikking usual, morphing away from me into something else.)

Jeff took me to brekkie.

The agent for the landpeer comes over this morning and we re-up on our lease.  And why not, they aren’t raising our rent, which in Vancouver is better than winning a lottery because then all your friends and relatives aren’t bugging you for cash, but you still have more in your pocket.

Time to go make three days of wordcount.

The wor(l)d as it is

Jumpin’ Jimmy Christmas, I just entered “How do you say fucked in the ass in Hindi” and in .67 seconds (!>?) I have the Hindi text, the gloss pronunciation (not in the international spelled alphabet which I hate so bad.  SO VERY DeRANGeDLY. I could be persuaded that it would be a bad idea to kill the fuckers who invented it, them and all their waste-canister friends, but in marked up but recognizable English plus a rather convulsing rendition of it in a woman’s mechanical voice.)

Given a choice between editing that sentence, which could wring pity from an abandoned kitten, and deleting it, I’m going to just leave it there. If there are flies on the internet, they will soon gather.

I suppose there will be an unanswered question.  Research.  It’s for the novel.  I hope to god I won’t need it.

Lots and lots

Yesterday I wrote 1700 words, only 1200 of which will end up in the novel unless I tweak them hard.

Keith came over and blitzed through GoT after taking me for a walk (we went to the Twist and got beer, which Keith kindly carried home, which is good, because I am very sore), and I made bread rolls, which was pretty much all I had to do to get Keith to come over.  (I think in some ways Keith considers my cooking to be pretty good.) The rolls are incredibly dense and chewy.  I will have to do that again, this time when Jeff’s here and before they vanish.

1.2 hours.

Margot and Buster are irritated that Jeff’s door is closed. Margot mewed as loudly as she could to wake me up this morning, which is not very loud but reasonably effective when she’s jamming her face under my door (the gap is very big.) Margot’s in the living room right now and Buster is on the top bunk sleeping in my suitcase.

Back to writing.  Pharos and George are working their way through a long to-do list.  mOm is enjoying it and so I wonder what I’ll dream up today.

whatevs

I am in a super strange mood, as I often be when the migraine (atypical) is pending (which it can do for weeks and then go back into its hole).  I shall make no decisions heavier than what to order for dinner (Mike’s treat) for the next 24 hours, and somebody please shoot me if I start making meeping noises about how nobody loves me, cause it just ain’t true.  Also, I’m doing laundry, because no matter what I do I get food on mah clothes.

Bwa ha ha, mistook Mike’s voice for Keith’s on the phone today.  I blame my brain chemistry.

I made word count yesterday (500 words a day is the recommended minimum) but continue, even after cleaning it with serious thoroughness to rassle with the cpap.

Wrigley!!!! omg Chipper you are the best.  I wish you could have heard me scream when I read that, you would have laughed your ass off.

Sometimes the cops have to use deadly force.

But sometimes it really seems like they don’t.

Back to naming babies.  Michel is NOT THE PERSON FOR THIS JOB.  Which is why he volunteered for it.  And of course he has ulterior motives, which add up to “The sooner the babies are born the sooner I can go back to making time with Kima hurrr durrr.”

Paul is supposed to collect me mid-afternoon to go walkies.  I am having trouble even making 2 k, but I suspect if I stick to someplace flat I’ll be fine.

 

Writing is the very devil

666 words today.

Paul and Keith hosted our Mother’s Day dinner, Katie and Alex also being in attendance. I didn’t take any pictures, but I have lovely mental images now of Alex confidently and speedily crawling while carrying things and jamming them in his mouth, showing a mastery of multitasking one normally doesn’t attribute to a seven month old infant. Of course my notion of normal doesn’t really apply.  Once a grandmother, imagination takes wing, hyperbole becomes common speech, modesty goes skinny dipping with the paparazzi, and sanity departs on a baby-powder scented puff of wind.

wonderful meal

Rantroid

I just read Murray Rothbard on the subject of whether parents should be legally obliged to feed their children in a libertarian paradise, and since I find his views so repellent I shan’t repeat them here.

Yesterday I was supposed to go to church, and didn’t, because Sue never got my texts and didn’t respond to any that I sent her.  I couldn’t contact anyone at church and Jeff, sensing that my neurotic desire to find out if my friend was dead in her apartment was not just a passing phase, assisted with that.  Finally Robbie called me back and all was well and Sue was at church and we agreed to phone instead of text in future, but I was quite prostrate with concern and then embarrassment in consequence.

Also mOm I figured out what I was seeing (Jeff helped.)  The hummingbird was chasing the jay because it had just eaten its egg.  Happy Mother’s Day indeed!  I thought it was funny, and it was tragic.  How often our opinions are shaped by our location when we form them.

Katie knows me so well she figured I’d bail on our mother’s day walk after this contretemps, and actually I wanted to go after a while but she’d already changed plans to hang out with Suzanne. Oh well.

So yesterday was a day of thinking about the dark mother, and of course Kima trying to be pregnant and not dead.  I wrote about 500 words yesterday.  Pudding’s philosophy may not make it into the book, but the 250 words on Kima’s new section will. Yes, one of the babies is named Pudding. Her naming story will be included in the book.

I need to write some more query letters and there are a couple more beta readers.

No cpap – after a couple of days no problems with allergies, the nice weather has kept the pollen count moderate, so my schnozz is rejecting having anything stuck on it.

Miss Margot is continuing to learn how to fight the rodent menace under Buster’s tutelage.  I heard a ratling squeak as it ran into her googly face the other day, scaring it back toward Buster who admittedly is better at catching everything except flies.

Buster’s covered in scratches again.  There’s a big black and white cat from across the street that he always scraps with.

I have a google news alarm set up for Dorothy Dunnett.  Everytime something comes up on the internet about her I scan it to see if other Dunnett heads have any interest and then post it to the twitter Dunnett fan account.  I also have one set up for filk and then post to the Filker account on facebook.  Somewhere in the English speaking world the perfect actor to play Lymond has been born….. sigh. Show up soon!

 

Thunder

Just as I was waking up, I heard distant thunder.  Our little run of glorious sunny days is temporarily over.

3.4 hours, no writing, practicing Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked. Still messing with the chords, it won’t be an exact copy.

Interesting article about the Brit Royals.

This woman needs years of therapy,  but I suspect all she’ll ever get is jail.

Joss Whedon has been driven off twitter by criticism of his latest movie.  Marvel Avengers Age of Ultron.  Jeez, kiddo, can’t you just get your assistant to block and mute the assholes? I mean I totally get why you want to leave twitter.  I haven’t got my fill of Garret Dillahunt’s funny pictures, Jewel Staite’s twitter cocktails full of a limewaterish sarcasm, William Gibson’s powerhouse retweets, Alice Dreger and her Level 70 Snarkmaster comments about the state of sex education and many, many other mines of gleeful snark, Imani Gandy for her razorwire wit and bite, Lydia Shark because who doesn’t want A REAL GREAT WHITE SHARK on her twitter feed, all of the municipalities close by because they provide real information I can use in my daily life, News 1130 so I can laugh at all of the horrific things that happen in traffic every day in this clowncar of an assemblage of cities, Louisette Lanteigne the Metis/Acadian environmental writer and activist (her retweets are awesome), Katie Sackhoff for her dog pix, Matt Bryant formerly of Headwater who doesn’t even put his fucking gigs on twitter so I missed his Railway Club show in March (grr) and various filkers who I prefer on facebook anyway.  So I’ll be on twitter a while yet, it’s just too entertaining….

I didn’t even drink that much

Gosh it’s been ages since I was hungover, I really can’t remember – and I was tipsy enough when I came home last night I fired up the computer and wrote another 200 words on top of what I’d done that day, which was approximately 500.

Now I get to take this wackiness to church, oh doodie. Alex and Katie are threatening to be there.  We shall see.

This morning Katie ponied up incredibly cute pix of Alex playing in fingerpaint.  His expression makes him look like a tagger in training. Our little anarchist.

No cpap.  Freaking allergies.

If brO gets to the lawn this afternoon I’ll do the weed whipping.  It’s not for us, it’s for a) the landlord and b) the neighbours. I’d love it if the grass got tall, and so would the cats. Also the rats.  The deluge of vermin has halted – the last one was while brO was gone.

Yay, I have the chords for Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked.

 

Here are some deep philosophical questions by way of Mary Bennett, from James Hollis PhD:

1) Where do my dependencies show up in my intimate relationship?
2) What am I asking my partner to do for me that I, as a mature adult, need to be doing for myself?
3) Am I taking too much responsibility for the emotional well-being of the Other? Am I taking on his/her journey at the expense of my own, and if so, why?
4) In what ways do I seek to avoid suffering?
5) What fears, lack of permission or old behaviors block me from living my life?

I wish I had asked these questions of myself 10 years ago.

 

Negative numbers

So…

You will note the blog looks different.  Jeff and I had a quick confab yesterday to refresh the look.  His take on it is that now that I’m shifting to more commercial writing, the microblog portion of me going on at short length about my petty health problems should probably go behind a wall, with the long form pieces, the rants of varying sizes and selected humor, going to the front.

As long as we can keep a link happening so mOm can see my daily production of weltercruft, it’s all good.

No words (actually I went backwards yesterday as I am editing the GASP 17665 words I have written already.) I sent out a number of query letters yesterday and ONE OF MY FILKING BUDDIES has a sister who’s a literary agent so I am being extra specially careful about crafting a letter to her so I don’t blow it.

No CPAP.  I’ll be back on it tonight after I clean it.

Jerome and Shannon are having a barbecue!! me happy.  Jeff may come too if we keep it a short visit.

Now if you’ll excuse me, a cup of coffee must be made before I can perform morning normativity. Perform morning normativity.  MMMM.

My CT scan is scheduled for May 8 can you believe it? it’s at night, but o well.

a word

1034 of them to be exact, plus 1.5 hours on cpap.

Paul came over after supper with beer and he, Jeff and I watched a documentary about the sun.  That man sure knows how to cheer me up. I baked a cake as soon as I heard he was coming…. just one of those things.

I have an appalling craving for Indian noms.