Scrapblog!

(Note: This post is cross-posted to my main blog.)



Check this out-- online scrapbooking! I wish I hadn't found out about this. I'll be wasting a lot of time here!

And in other news, Thomma is at it again. This time she gave me a cool little award:






All this in spite of the fact I still owe her a meme! Now that's a real friend!

Random Things About Me as a Writer

I stole and modified this meme from Thomma!

1. I wrote my first book when I was six. It was a guide to flowers, lovingly illustrated with crayons on manilla paper and professionally bound using my very own “tot” stapler.
   
2. I wrote my second book when I was in sixth grade. It was a rambling, mostly plotless space epic. Hey, space stories were “in” back then!
   
3. The first book I really think of as my “first” is one I wrote while I was in grad school. There’s something about statistics class that makes my brain flee to creativity as a self-defense measure, in rather the same way an animal will gnaw off its own foot to get out of a trap. I outlined my novel in stats class and actually saw it through to completion. It was based on the people I met and experiences I had working in the restaurant/nightclub business. It’s a fun story, but so badly written I can hardly stand to read it now.
   
4. I like writing “long.” Forcing myself to write anything under 5,000 words is a challenge.
   
5. I hate writing poetry, although I sometimes wonder if I should force myself to practice it, since it might make my prose better.
   
6. Characters and dialogue come easy for me. Plot less so.
   
7. I like editing. When I’m having trouble moving forward in a story, going back and editing the last few paragraphs often helps put me on track.
   
8. I like to use a plot outline. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, and I never end up following it exactly, but if I have no outline at all, my plot will wander and go nowhere at all.
   
9. I don’t use character charts or character trait lists, except very occasionally for minor characters. My main characters never need them—they’re too busy telling me about themselves.
   
10. I mostly write late at night. I like the time after Dan has gone to bed and the critters are settled in. The world is quiet. I know no one is going to interrupt me, and I can immerse myself in the story.
    
11. I love those times when my characters start doing things on their own. It feels like I’m watching a movie in my head and just writing down what I see and hear. Only fellow writers seem to understand this.
    
12. I get my best writing ideas in boring situations, like meetings and classes.
    
13. I’ve been writing stories based in a dystopian American Southwest for several years now.
    
14. My character Diana has her own web presence. She will answer questions on “her” blogs, if she knows the answers.
    
15. I have a new blog fiction idea that would be in a contemporary setting and have a lot of “extras,” such as video, artwork, podcasts, etc. But I can’t do it alone and right now my partner on this project (read: husband) is dragging his feet.
    
16. More than anything, I like sharing what I write. Posting things on my blog and illustrating them is oddly satisfying.
    

Fiction, Blog Fiction, and Just Thoughts

I’ve decided to go ahead and post all of "Bella Diana." I don’t think I can sell it because it doesn’t fit a market niche, so why not? I’m enjoying posting and illustrating it, and words and images are, first and foremost, for sharing. Putting it out there is also breaking the hold that this story has had on me ever since I started it. I don’t know why it's been so hard for me to move on from this particular story, but it has been. Even the Diana’s Diary blog, which is a sequel, didn’t help. But as soon as I started posting Bella Diana, the spell was broken and I could start to entertain other writerly thoughts.

Thoughts like what to do with "Tin Soldier." Even though it takes place in the same dystopian world and contains many of the same characters as Bella Diana, I think "Tin Soldier" is marketable. It needs one more good round of cuts and tightening up (got a few more darlings to kill!) and I think I’ll be ready to jump back on the query-go-round with it.

I’m also toying with other ideas for novels, I have a couple of short stories I’d like to tweak and pitch to the e-zines, and I’m thinking of creating a blog fiction clearinghouse site. The ones that are out there aren’t very good. What’s needed is a site that not only has links, but brief descriptions, viewer ratings and info about frequency of posting, last posting date, and status: in progress, lapsed, complete, in hiatus, etc.

So I’ve got lots of ideas milling around in my head right now!

As for Bella Diana, I’m doing daily postings, and will probably continue to do so until it’s all up. I know I said “never again” in my Lessons Learned post after finishing the “first diary” portion of Diana’s Diary, but this is a little different. With Diana’s Diary, I had no idea most nights what I was going to write, and I really burned the midnight (ahem- 3AM) oil on that one! But "Bella Diana" is complete, and I’ve got a lot of posts waiting in the queue.

So just like with Diana’s Diary, I won’t be leaving any readers in the lurch!

Guest Blogging at Allie's

I'm a little late posting this here, but I'm Wednesday's guest blogger on Allie Boniface's blog! Drop by and take a look!