Archive for June, 2005
June 30, 2005
better
10 pages tonight, on page 241. If I can manage this rate during every writing time I have, I will, against all belief, get this done when I wanted to, or very close. The end of a book always comes much more quickly than the beginning or middle.
I’m feeling calmer. A little.
I’m also pleased I now have a character called Dewi. I had a little crush on a guy (Welsh, obviously) at Cambridge called Dewi. He sort of looked like Martin Short (as he looked in the 80s, but then again, this was in the 90s).
This morning, one of my friends let me babble at length to her about the conflict at the end of this novel. Somehow, articulating my ideas aloud really helps me to understand them. Either they sound really stupid, in which case I know I’m in trouble, or the person who’s listening nods and asks all the right questions (as happened today), and I feel like I’ve got it. Does this happen to you, about writing or other things?
June 29, 2005
panic!
Okay I have an hour to write tonight, I have Thursday and Friday and Saturday nights and all day Sunday, and that is IT for writing until I go to Maine. This means NO WAY IN HELL is this first draft going to be done by the 8th of July.
Aaaaaggghh!!
June 28, 2005
chaos
This is a photo of my work space at the moment, with book deadline counting down. I sit at my desk until late at night, go to bed, go to school in the morning, come back in the evening, sit at my desk some more. Stuff accumulates. It looks like this.
On floor, from right to left: Notebook. Thesaurus (open to “gentle”). Dictionary. Three and a half pairs of shoes.
In middle: Orange chair to match Mac.
On desk, from left to right: Original version of book, calendar, pens. Mac. Nail varnish, CDs, moisturiser (for girly moments). Cord for Dana. Water. Printer, box of business cards I don’t like. All my filing since January or so, which I have not done. A stuffed beaver dressed like a Mountie (dwarfed by filing). Orange lamp to match Mac.
The dust doesn’t show up, but believe me, it’s everywhere.
June 26, 2005
column
My column’s up on Romancing the Blog today.
Leave a comment if you visit there, please…I want to feel popular even though I never have anything controversial to say.
googliweird
And this is way weirder than the nude Canadians–somebody has done a Google search for “well-balanced healthy person” and has turned up HERE!! In fact this site is number two of three sites that turn up on that web search today. How ironic.
HA!!!!!!! Sorry, Google-searcher, you will find NO “well-balanced healthy person”s here! Only an obsessive writer bordering on a stress-related breakdown! These days, my right eye starts twitching from the moment I wake up. I expect any day now I shall begin swearing at random in my local post office.
That said, 10 pages today. Insanity does have its compensations.
no pith, just batman
Ohhhhhhhhhh, Batman Begins.
Brilliant. For a comics geek like me, even more brilliant. I thought it was SO true to my favourite Batman comics. Dark, with a self-deprecating humour. Just this side of disturbing. And character-driven. I wish Lucas had learned from something like this before he did the latest Star Wars.
There’s this one scene, where Bruce Wayne is in a cave full of bats. And he fears bats more than anything. And they fly at him, and he cowers. And then he stands up. And they don’t touch him.
Fab, fab, fab, fab, fab. Must go write now.
June 25, 2005
holy pithing pithheads, batman
Wrote 7 pages today. Am going to see Batman Begins and eat obscene amounts of popcorn tonight. I love Batman.
I’ll tell you if my hero starts wearing a mask and assaulting criminals.
June 24, 2005
success!
Sight deviation from pithy blogging style, which will no doubt return tomorrow. I just managed to get in my strange phrase of the week, which I mentioned was my personal goal for chapter 10.
For a variety of reasons I had to change “oysters” to “lobster”, but otherwise it’s in there, the last line of this extract. The hero is a chef, and Magnum is his restaurant, and he’s shown up unexpectedly at the heroine’s house:
“What’s in the box?”
He took off the lid and pulled out a succession of plastic takeaway containers, naming their contents one by one. “Ravioli of Scottish lobster and langoustine, poached in lobster bisque. Fillet of turbot poached in red wine, with creamed leeks, pomme puree, baby spinach and sauce St-Emilion. And most of a lemon tart.” He peeled up the cover of one of the boxes and examined what was in it. “The presentation isn’t great, but then again these boxes were designed for chicken chow mein.”
She stared. “You brought all this from Magnum? As a takeaway?”
“Domino’s doesn’t do lobster.”
In other news, I’ll hit page 200 tonight, which means I’ve written 50 pages in the past week. This isn’t bad since I’ve been working full time, too.
June 23, 2005
pithing about
I have one thing to say: man-custard.
June 20, 2005
pith yourthelf
Speaking of “nude Canadian hippies” and other oddities, what’s the strangest phrase you’ve ever inserted into something that you’ve written?
June 19, 2005
thtill pithed
Hot again today. I’ve been working outside.
And I got the phrase “nude Canadian hippies” in there! Yay!
June 18, 2005
pith
Hot day. Writing out in garden in bikini. Hero keeps talking about his nice backside. Wish mine were nicer.
