Carolyn

Back to dreamwidth after a couple of years!  And back to GYWO too.  I dropped out a couple years ago after breaking my hand to bits, and totally blew off last year - and still wrote over 183k. :)    So I decided to come back to GYWO (and a bunch of friends are doing it too).  

I no longer am concerted with or desire writing for publication -  fanfic is my happy place, and 2023 will see my finishing up my epic BTS a/b/o multi-pov fic FINALLY (started pretty much the weekend i broke my hand, so over 2 years now).   After that, I have two other BTS fics and a SKZ fic as well as hopefully some SHINee :).  I do love writing the boys.

Anyway, cool to be back and involved in GYWO though now strictly as a participant.  I've lost track what year this will be for me but I think I've missed 3 years since it started.  

Onward!  (and gosh my icon user pic thing is SO OLD... Maybe I should put Sparky there but it gives me a bit of nostalgia, too)

Will this place pick up a bit now that Tumblr has shot itself in the foot?

I start to write stuff here but then end up deleting it because no one is really around to read.

It has taken me three years, and in 2017 almost a complete rewrite of the first half, but I have finally finished my beast of an epic fantasy, and on Christmas Eve no less.

I cried. Really.  Sat in my chair in disbelief, and cried. I wrote about 6k on Christmas Eve to finish it, was exhausted and emotional and it probably is a little bit sappy as a result but the feeling of finishing?  Wow.  Just wow.  

This is the first book I have finished since 2011, and finally finishing the 'first' draft has fulfilled a 15-year promise to myself I would find a way to bring my beloved characters to life. That it took creating an entirely new character, and relegating my beloveds to secondary status with no POV is something I fought. HARD. But in the end, letting Aneli, a refugee, tell the story of what happened to her country of birth, the family she wanted to deny because she didn't feel worthy of their love, was the best decision I ever made (even though as a result I put aside some of the best writing I did, back then - I think I will find a way to use more of the old writing, though, as casual side-stories. Not sure yet. Am thinking about a patreon for those, for myself even if I never get followers. We shall see.)

The ms has been shipped off to two betas, and queenoftheskies if you are still interested in wielding your mighty red pen at my story, pop me your email to cparagraphs at the gmail place.  I would be absolutely thrilled to have your eyes and thoughts on it.

I have closed the scrivener and the word document, and forbidden myself to look at any of it for a month.  I need to let the story go for a bit - of course it has issues, and there are parts I know can and should be cut out, but I want to do it with fresh-ish eyes, and a clear head.  The story is just about 207,000 words long and I would like to cut it down mean and lean to 170k. It took me forever to figure out how I wanted to handle Aneli's magic ability, too...but I will iron that out on the next big pass.

One thing I do want to do is update my outline spreadsheet, so I will let myself do that this next month.  It is mostly the final third I have to deal with.

So, here we go!  It is time to start thinking about book #2!  I have never written a second book, and I do want to add a 2nd pov in this one--a boy of about 10, who at the end of book 1 I put into an impossible, horrible position. So that will be even more challenge - 2nd pov, 2 in a series, and I REALLY don't want to take three years to finish this one!

This past year I participated again in getyourwordsout  the LJ/DW year-long writing group, and had chosen 200,000 words as my goal. I made it Sunday, though very messily between writing, rewrites, writing prompts, articles for the group, and a couple shorts I did.  But I did it!  I'm choosing a different goal for 2018 since a huge chunk of the Spring will be devoted to revisions.  But wow, I did it.  I wasn't sure if I would make it, but it happened.  Wow.  I love this group - we won't be on LJ in 2018 because of all the changes, but if anyone out there is interested in an awesome year-long challenge, you might want to take a look.  This is year 10!  Crazycakes and awesome. 

Anyway, I am at work, the phone has rung 5 times, my boss stayed home with his grandkids, and I am supposed to be typing discovery, so I better get to it.  

I always feared games like this, as I feared it would derail my writing.  But out of desperation and a true need to get away from politics and all the awful going on these days, I decided to play Skyrim, which I always enjoyed watching my son play, and really - I was desperate for some distraction.

What I have found though is, to my surprise, I am writing more, and getting more ideas, and inspiration from this game than I ever could've fathomed.  I love love love LOVE it. 

Book is up to 148k.  There's been lots of working and reworking this section to get it right - I wrote all day last Sunday and actually ended up with less words than I started.  Crazy!

Now to bed.  Am very tired and kinda feel like a cold may be coming on, which ticks me. off. 

Yesterday I attended a crafting afternoon I'd been invited to, even though I am not a crafter. Not sure what I would do with myself for several hours among strangers (though one person who would be there I've known for years, and used to write-in with), I grabbed my old, original notebooks for my story, thinking I could at the very least spend some time rereading my old notes and such. The semi-dreaded event, because STRANGERS, turned into a heck of a lot of fun and very entertaining. Everyone else there is involved either as artists (milliner!) or actors/teachers of Scarborough Renaissance Fair, which I've never been to (but will now - I comped a freebie ticket to go with a solemn promise I would come next year). Through my friend who plays one of the characters there, I know a little bit about the training and devotion these people have. They were so much fun! And heck no, not interested in becoming involved - I have never wanted to act, thanks (and the TIME involved is outrageous, but they love it so), but it was fun to just listen to the stories, learn about quilting (I'm gonna!) and just...be with creative people, many of whom also write fiction(yay).

While one person worked on a costume, another worked on really cool microwave bowl holders (I want one now), others knitted. Watching one of my new acquaintances frog her entire piece of knitting because she found several errors, it truly struck me how casual she was about it. "Oh well! Happens!" Someone else stated that sometimes, you have to take a project to a certain point to realize the right path to take with it, then rip it apart and start it all over again. Her words hit me like getting struck with a case of lightbulbs.

Knitters are fearless, in other words. They know that a whole project scrapped is a bit of a pain, but only means better is to come next time. I watched not just this person, but two other people frog their work back to a certain point before continuing onward. Just part of knitting, I was told, and I had a sudden burst of envy for this attitude, then realized -- why not adopt it for myself?

And so I have. Rereading my old notebooks, all geared toward the YA I ended up merging with the big fantasy story, made me realize that it is possible I took that path for a reason -- and that it is also possible that I will be going back down that path again, armed with the new understanding of the behind-the-ya-scenes of what is happening in Aneli's world, but that I don't necessarily need to show it all. I needed to go through it, yes, I needed to knit all that information together, but to tell Aneli's story, as I had originally planned - and which I honestly, truly love -- I don't need to share everything I've written.

This doesn't mean I have deleted a thing. Instead, I made a new Scrivener, made a copy of the conjoined version, and removed everything but Aneli's storyline. I'm going to finish her storyline and then at that point decide -- keep her separate? Or go ahead and finish the other storylines and mesh together? Or, what I am feeling strongly is the right thing to do (for me), finish the other storylines for myself, sharing later perhaps on a Patreon.

Or at the very end I may decide hey to put them all back together again which is easily enough done! For now though I am excited to finish Aneli's storyline. Then we will see what happens!

I can't believe it has been April since I posted. May was a busy flurry both personally and at home, with way too much going on at the office, and my house finally getting worked on and finished.  Only took 26 months to finally have my house completely repaired after our double hail storms of terror and doom.  But it is finally done so I can look forward to the rest of the summer being all about paying off stuff, losing weight (16 to go!) and writing.  So, I thought it would be helpful to me (but maybe boring to read) to have a place to keep track of certain things, starting today. I plan to do this every Sunday evening,though I didn't last night - great way to start out, right?

There are several areas of my life I am setting goals for, and keeping track of.  They are:

1.    Weight.  I'm down 16.2 lbs. since April 27th. I want to lose  17-20 more.  I am using My Fitness Pal again after a brief stint on the Lose-It app, but I find MFP easier to use.  I am CeeGray on there.  Love more friends!  

2.   Exercise.   I have a spin bike, a treadmill, and a kettle bell, and a yoga mat.  Hardly touched any of them since I got back from vacation.  Losing weight is primarily a food thing - but I want to get back to regular, light exercise.  Strenuous isn't necessary, and it also seems to backfire - for instance, for me, 6-7k steps a day is perfect.  For awhile I was doing 10-12k steps a day and all it gave me was inflammation in my knees.    I have joined a team challenge on Reddit - I am part of Team Superman. Not my fave superhero but I love the guy moderating our group - he is golden.  It actually starts July 1, so I will be doing all I can to be successful with my group.  I'm looking for a kettle bell routine to do, and I'm restarting, again, Couch to 5k, but with the goal of slow jogging, not the mad running speed fiend I thought I had to be. I don't.  

3.  Writing.  Oh writing - working on my epic fantasy. This is my favorite, most personal world, and I love it -  and I don't know if I will ever share it.  I feel very little urge to write for publication right now - I don't have that kind of drive currently.  Too tired at the end of every day to go home and sit more at the computer - but, I am writing during lunch some, so that is good.  And I signed up for Camp Nanowrimo in July, so there is that!  After this is done, which should be around the time I go to Sirens, I am going to make a decision regarding my writing future. 

4.  House.  I am purging crap left and right.  I love finally getting a handle on this, at long last.  Now that my kids are all moved out it is much easier!  

5.  Work.   It owns me, it is my life, and I am not really too upset about that. I am proud of my work, and love what I do. But I am so tired, working for 2.5 people. It is very stressful.  But, we are working to find a new person and if we are successful, I will stop working for Jim and just work for Desiree. This is kinda both sad and awesome - I love Jim's work, but most of my high internal stress comes from him. Desiree 'gets me' as she puts it and we work well together, and she needs full time help.  Plus, she is only 34 - Jim is almost 65.  How long will he continue?  I don't know - but Desiree will go on many more years.  I want to work about 10 more.   This change may or may not happen - if it does, the downside is I lose my office with a view - not that I have time to stare out at it much.  

6.  Pets.  I love them.  The dogs are great.  My betta Thor is sick - he is bloated, so I have him in a salt water hospital tank, with the temp turned up to 81, and is not getting food for a couple days. I feel awful - I accidentally gave him too many bloodworms, and he has symptoms of dropsy - this could do him in.  His water tests fine so that is something, but I am sad. I want him to get better.  He is resting in a plant right now, so hopefully he will improve.  

7.  Love.  Single. Mostly okay with it, sometimes lonely, but I am used to it too.  I wouldn't mind meeting someone but in today's political climate, I am super wary, especially of white men.  I still am trying to figure out how to clone N so he can live here and still live his life in the UK but that will never happen.  Besides he has his own husky now and she is adorable!  I don't know how to put myself out there, anyway.  Where is Idris Elba when you need him? 

8.   Friends.  Making efforts to get out as much as I can without overloading.  At least once a week, anyway!  I keep looking at Meetup groups too but so far haven't seen one that makes me definitely want to get out and go attend.  Not sure what I want honestly - just someone to call up and say hey, want coffee?  I miss that so much (see 7. above).  Sometimes, it really kills me I don't have that.  Lots of friends, but everyone has their own lives. I have no BFF here (elsewhere, yes).  I have my kids thank the stars - we had a blast Saturday - but they have SO's too, and really do love both of their partners.  They don't need me hanging around them constantly.  I guess I need someone like me, with no BFF... LOL!  Sigh.  I loved my vacation so much because my friend Kieran and I just enjoyed just hanging out together so much. Dammit.  

So future weeks I plan to just have each heading, and write a brief 'this is what happened this week'.  I think that will help me out considerably.   Short and sweet (after this one).

And now for bed - pretty tired, I was up late last night as I started writing late and got Super-Jazzed.  Oops.  I was going to bed just when N was getting up in the UK - oops.  

I did everything but write this weekend - yesterday was a kid day (both kids, and also my son's gf, came by to see me).   My daughter was the real surprise - I see the son and his g/f Summer over here pretty regularly - but Tiffany rarely comes here, I usually drive to Dallas so I can see her doggie Bruce! He is a Corgi.  What more can I say - CORGI!!!!!  She has some good friends (and okay they are mine too - I went to their wedding, the weekend after 45 slayed us all and won (cough) the presidency - the friends are a gay couple, and their wedding was the best wedding I had ever been to.  Now they are close by and that makes me happy, just because.  :) 

So, it was pretty sweet to have her come HERE - and the dogs went nuts, of course, as they hadn't seen her in ages.

Yesterday I shopped as I hadn't since before vacation so was out of everything.  And today I didn't leave the house but completely gutted my kitchen, and completely redid my back porch/zen place.  Man that feels good to have that done but now I am exhausted but that is okay as my (main) boss is GONE FOR A A WEEK YAY!!!!! A week and a day!  Maybe a week and TWO days!!!  JOY JOY JOY!!!!

So, I will drink LOTS of coffee in the morning.  I did think a lot?  I am trying to untangle how I want to finish the last act/part of this story.  I have all my POV characters at their moments of becoming warriors, so to speak - and I've been working through different ways to get everyone where I want them to end this thing.  I have two options - and they are big options - I could either choose to wrap up this story in one go, a stand-alone novel, or I could choose to not do so.  Now, as I am getting ready for the drive toward the end, is where I have to decide.  

A huge part of me just wants to complete their story in its entirety - been working on this 15 years off and on, after all, and the thought of completing their narratives makes me very happy.  But the thought of not writing them anymore, either?  How can I bear to say goodbye to these characters?  This dilemma is a huge/major/overwhelming reason why I have not made much progress this last month (and did no writing at all on vacation).

But I really need to make a decision.   As a standalone, it would clock in easy at around 325k, maybe even 350k.  A big book, a big story.  I think I am leaning this direction, but with spin-offs, or stories running simultaneous to.  I have two such stories teasing me right now, one that I've also had for a long time dancing around in my brain (about 7 years). 

In any case - busy, tiring weekend.  I started a new diet as well, which I will talk about more later - it is basically Whole30, if you are familiar with that.  But, I am counting calories, which you aren't supposed to do on Whole30.  But I am, and there is a reason for that, and so there, that's just how it is. LOL! 

And now I must curl up with the puppy, and watch some  netflix.  I'll seek out American Gods tomorrow and watch the first episode then.

The best part of my vacation was just spending time relaxing, talking with my friend (also a writer) and walking his dog.  It was just so relaxed and lovely, but then I came home and just was swamped with work, which left me too whipped by Friday night to go to writer's group.  Saturday I ran errands but got to spend time with my son and his girlfriend - other than that, I spent the weekend alone and got into a funk of blah.  I really need to find people around here who don't live in Dallas area.  Sigh.  So I just had a blah kind of day - happy to be home with my dogs, but I just felt... tired. Just tired. And lonely - I think that is the main problem.  Having someone sweet and charming and fun to talk to about anything and everything all day and then not having that has made me a sad person.  I will snap out of it, but dang it, I miss my little buddy.

I also have realized my adorable Chromebook doesn't have the Intel processor (I didn't even THINK to look at that) which makes it pretty impossible to have any form of Scrivener on it.  I can either just write on Googledocs, or return it.  I haven't decided yet.  Writing on Googledocs is not a bad thing - I wanted this baby laptop for first drafting anyway - but I had really liked the idea of Scrivener on it. Returning is such a hassle too, you know?

I swiped this from queenoftheskies (how do I do a person on DW when using the hTML editor?) who got it from Nanoing, and I love it so I am seeing if it works for me! I desperately need a title for this thing. DESPERATELY. Nothing makes me happy!!! THAT DID NOT WORK TRYING AGAIN: YAY IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My love-hate relationship with Scrivener is long and ridiculous. When I started this current ms (well, technically this one), I started it in Scrivener. Single POV, straightforward YA fantasy, I thought. I entered it in the Hodderscape thing and barreled onward, mostly writing it by hand then typing it up into Scrivener.

Then I got annoyed that I could only use Scrivener at home - so I took it out, put it in Word, and used the Outline feature to create a Scrivener-like outline on the side. We were happy.

Got a wild hair and decided you know what, why not just keep it in Scrivener - and change the POV! From first person to third! BACK TO SCRIVENER. Wait, I realized dammit, it is MUCH easier to change things overall in Word. Back to word.

In Word it stayed, and grew, for a long time. But as I got closer to the end of Aneli's story, I realized just how incomplete it was. I love the story, the world, and realized her POV was not enough to tell the story I wanted to tell. Since it just so happened I had another fantasy sitting around 15 years or more that was in this world, I considered - could the two be combined into a whole? Turns out they absolutely could. So I combined them, kinda willy-nilly - Aneli, the YA story, was set apart from the original fantasy - she is of the people who are my other peoples' enemy, though she grew up a refugee far away from the rest of her real people. So that was pretty easy, honestly.

After that, I printed the whole dang 220,000 thing out and went through it, part by part, and took a full Moleskin notebook to outline all the various characters and their threads. And that is when I realized I needed to see the overall picture at a glance because I knew I needed to shift things around. But how to do that? Notecards? Spreadsheet?

Scrivener.

SO BACK IT GOES INTO SCRIVENER...

And I am glad of it. I LOVE the notecard feature! The Outliner, which takes from the notecards, is fabulous too. I'm now working my way through each chapter, moving parts around easily in the notecard section and adding blank ones for a few characters who need more. It seems like an awful lot of work for a book not finished, but being able to tell at a quick glance what is going on. I make the notecards different colors for the different characters, and use the status feature to point out which ones still need drafting. I added Scrivener for Ipad so I can haul it around with me and leave the computer behind.

I keep setting goals for this story, finished by X date, but I think now that I can say another five months and I will have the draft done. Finally. For real.

This story is consuming my life, and I love that, though I know I am starting to hermit a bit over it. But that is what I have missed so much--wanting to be totally immersed in a world. My last 2 books didn't really do that for me. They were a chore to write. Not this, not now. Getting ready to go to Seattle for a week too (Tuesday through the next Tuesday) and I'll have lots of time to work on it then.

And that is it for today's ramblings.