Photoshop Friday*

*kind of.

Well gang, I had every intention of throwing you guys a Halloween Photoshop Friday to remember. But then I went over to Natalie's blog and well, her party is way cooler.

Granted, the fact that I won first place (WOOO!) makes me more inclined to send you over there, but it's a rockin' party either way! And if you are in the mood for my particular brand of humor, which a Photoshop Friday could have provided, just go there and read my flash fiction, Dust.

(Didn't I promise you a mummy love story? Well, you're getting it.)

In the meantime, I want to invite my fav Halloween character to express my appreciation at winning. Take it away, Teen Wolf.

Stalking in the shadows . . .

It is I, Dracula. I am hanging out here on this blog, vaiting for vhat must be vunderful Photoshop Friday. But I am told that it vill come tommorrow, for a Halloveen special.

Alas! I must keep vaiting. . .

In the meantime, has anyvone ever told you that you have a lovely neck?


***Oh vait, I forgot vun thing. If you are desperately craving to see Renee's vurk, you can check out her qvery letter, vhich is now being drained of blood at Evil Editors. (He and I are pretty tight.)***

The Path to Wisdom

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." -Confucius

I've been thinking a lot lately about my personal growth in regards to writing. So this quote struck me because I could see myself and my writing journey in it. In fact, I think it applies to many writers.

At one point, we try to learn by imitation, because, as Confucius says, it is the easiest. I remember myself in junior high, writing novels that were absolute rip offs of the book I had just finished reading. You should see the 1984 clone I wrote in seventh grade. Shameless. But, did I learn? Sure. Does imitation alone get you there? No.

Learning by experience, the bitterest. Oh, how well I understand this statement. Last summer, I was burning with the desire to make it. To get there. I had a book that I thought was great and I was raring to go. I plunged into querying with wild hopes and enthusiasm. Oh sure, I edited the thing, a few times even. I felt like I was putting the best product out there. But alas, I wasn't ready, not truly ready. And as a result, I faced bitter disappointment.

This year has been one of reflection for me. And I don't so much mean sitting and meditating about myself as a writer, my writing, and so forth (although as I've said before, I do spend a great deal of time pondering.) To me, reflection as related to writing simply means taking ones time. Whereas with Midas I was so fired up just to try and do it, with Searcher, I've spent over a year now working to make it the best I can. This has involved reading books on writing. Making long notes in my Moleskine just to analyze my progress. And of course, editing and editing and editing until my eyes bleed.

And you know, as tired and worn out as I have felt about it sometimes, I'm sure that I've grown. Am I there? Have I learned all I need to learn? Of course not. But I feel that at the very least, I have become, as Confucius would say, wise.

Cliches

This video teaches us writers to be constantly aware of cliches. They can happen to the best of us. Please watch, if only to catch the su-WEET keyboard solo by J.J. Abrams. (Seriously.)

The Boring Blog Award goes to . . .

Me.

Sorry guys, I've been VERY preoccupied lately, aka: boring. That said, I am nearly finished with the Great Tense and POV Change of 2009. (Wooooo!) But now that I'm done, I'm going out of town. So the blog will yet again go dark.

Somehow though, I don't imagine you are crying many tears. :)

See you in a week!

Busy, busy, busy, busy

No Photoshop Friday today. Sorry if I disappoint. As the title to my blog states, I've been pretty, freaking busy lately. Edits and all. Oh yeah, and CHANGING THE ENTIRE TENSE AND POV OF MY BOOK.

*breathes heavily*

I'm just feeling a little tired. Look at the time I posted this! Yet another late night. In fact, I don't think I've gone to bed before one in the past seven days. Ah well. Must soldier forth.

To make up for my lack of amusement, I thought I'd borrow someone else's. Enjoy. (You can click on the picture to make it bigger.)

A Big Bottle of Crazy Sauce

So remember how I was celebrating my triumph of finishing my "last big edit?" Remember? Yeah *sigh* me too.

Well apparently I have a love of self-torment, because folks, I'm doing another one! And not just any run-of-the-mill hard edit, I'm changing my entire story in first person, present tense.

(Like I said, CRAZY SAUCE!)

The reasons why are many. I think it adds to the immediacy of the story, and it better delves into the head of my main character, Jetta. My story has a lot of action, so I felt like it needed a pulse. FPP does that quite well. Only problem being that it's a HUGE amount of work.

It's more than changing over the "she said's" to "I say's." Much more. I've found myself rewriting entire scenes. In fact, I don't think a single page has gone by so far where I haven't reworked at least one whole paragraph in addition to the tense and POV changes.

But you may ask, do you think it will be worth it?

My answer: oh yeah, baby.

(Does that sound cocky to say? Sorry, it's one in the morning, and I have a strange habit of being unreasonably confident in the middle of the night.)

Photoshop Friday

Lately, we've all heard a lot of talk about the Swine Flu. Seems like people are in a total hysteria over it. But most people don't know that there is a related, but even more deadly viral strain out there.

The Writer's Flu H1W1; Do you know the symptoms?


One of the first symptoms that manifests is what we call the glaze. Hypnotic staring at computer screens, printed manuscripts, and notebooks. Sufferers of the Writer Flu have been known to be lost in these trances for up to several hours at a time. Productivity during these trances is unreliable.



During what is known as the drafting stage of H1W1, many have complained of a highly complex form of schizophrenia, resulting in a constant presence of character voices in their head. The voices are said to not stop until they are "satisfied" with output of the sufferer.



In later stages of the Writer Flu, patients have been known to suffer severe manic/depressive episodes. There is a huge spike of these symptoms during the editing stage.



And on a final note, many have reported a symptom through every stage of the Writer's Flu involving torture by doubt demons, however the existence of said demons has never been medically confirmed. (All the same you might want to keep your eyes open.)


If you should feel any of these symptoms . . . join the club. :)

The Fear

It's very amusing to look back on the days of querying my first book, Miss Midas. I was so full of hope, so confident. The thought of querying made me giddy with excitement. I absolutely couldn't wait, (which consequentially might be why I didn't do so hot, but that's fodder for another post.)

So here I am, a solid year later. (I sent my first query exactly a year ago yesterday.) And oh, how things have changed. This time around, I'm absolutely terrified.

It's funny because I know for a fact that Searcher is much better than Midas. And yet I'm still shaking in my boots at the idea of querying. Maybe it's that I've learned a ton about the publishing world in this past year. I've met a lot of different writers, all with different stories. I have a better picture of the harsh realities of it all.

I thought understanding something was supposed to make you less afraid. Looks like this would be an exception to that rule.

I love being spontaneous

We'll on the spur of the moment, my hubby and I decided to drive to Aspen. (Monday is his day off.) So I won't be around for the next little while. I'll let you know if I see any glamorous movie stars! :)

Party!!

I am afraid to say there will be no Photoshop Friday today. Why, you may ask? Well, I've been busily working away on what I hope to be the final editing round of Searcher.

And guess what? Tonight (or last night, depending on when you read this) I FINISHED!!!

*glee* *happiness* *much grinning*

Now it's off to my final round of readers (who will probably give me a list of things to do, so perhaps this celebration is a bit premature . . .) Ah well. At any rate, I'm feeling happy tonight. It's been a long haul with this book. Six months to write the first draft, and six months of editing. Now I suppose it's time to think about putting her out there. GULP. *shudder*

Well, I'll think about that later. For right now, I'm just going to . . . go to bed. (Hey, that's a party as far as I'm concerned.)