Smiles, Seminars and Searching

The word of the week is lulling.

Aug 20 – Writer’s Group Redux

I went to another meeting of the local Victoria Writer's Group, which was again rather well-attended( as these things go ). Out of the blue I ended up reading the prologue to my novel to the group, who to a person closed their eyes and pictured the scene in their heads. Their comments ranged from 'striking' to 'that was incredible' and I was simply thrilled by their responses! One person across from me waxed on happily about the imagery I had created and some of the praise he gave was both well-considered and very positive!

I ended up talking with several of the long-time group members late into the evening about some of the general issues I had been having with the book. They were rather helpful despite not knowing the overall story or even most of the details and I came away from the night feeling MUCH more confident in my choices that I'd made in several places while writing the novel. People's reactions to the story have so far been EXTREMELY positive across the board, commenting that they can SEE the scenes I have written and THAT makes ME very happy. It means that the next draft may literally jump off the pages!!

Aug 21 - Returning Smiles

The stress has been falling from my shoulders gradually over the last six months, with each day better than the last and the occasional exception not dragging me down like they used to. I've lost weight in a good way thanks to my daily walks and I'm smiling more.

That's important.

My smiles used to be broad, but years ago they started to become subtle, for various reasons. My eyes didn't crinkle, my dimples were hidden and for the most part, you might swear you'd blinked and missed it.

Now I'm smiling again daily, letting my face do it's thing and not being pressed down by the weight of things on my mind all the time. It's odd, but I'm looking forward now to finding some crow's feet around the edges of my eyes in a few years… as that means I've let the smiles out enough to leave some tracks.

Aug 22 – Which Sci-Fi Character Are YOU?

Quite often when I've taken online 'personality tests' that use fictional characters, I've ended up with results telling me I'm like Spock, Data or other rational / logical characters. Which is why I was pleased( sort of )to get a rather different result with THIS test: I apparently am most like James T. Kirk. What?

Two of the greats - together!

Not Spock. Or Data. Or even Picard... nope.

It was an odd result, but I answered the questions truthfully, so I suppose it's about as accurate as these things get. If anyone out there knows of some better tests, send them my way; I always get a kick out of finding out which fictional characters I'm most like. One of these days Spiderman will come up and that will make my day…

 

Aug 23 - Fireplace!

I love a good fireplace. Heck, my favorite house in my life was our place in Fonthill, where we had TWO wood-burning fireplaces in the upper and lower living rooms, built into the solid wall of bricks that made up the entire ends of those rooms. I loved curling up in the lower room the one year to watch Space: Above and Beyond on TV during that fall and winter; the crackle and warmth of the flames lulled me to sleep quite often on the couch. I've been without a good fireplace for nearly 20 years since then; even my first place here in Victoria which had a gas insert wasn't a decent substitute as it lacked the LOOK of burning logs. Over the last few years I've often eyed stand-alone electric fireplaces as possible substitutes, but they've either been too expensive or too fake( painted logs with a tiny red light? Bleh! )so I've kept looking, especially among local used listings.

A little blurry but this captures the warm feel of the fireplace...

This week I FOUND the perfect fireplace! Its not too big, not too ornate, has a heater with 2 settings and most importantly it LOOKS like a real fireplace when it's on! Oddly, it came with the smell of smoke from the previous owners, though it's the wrong kind( not woodsmoke ). I'm extremely happy with it and can't wait to try it this winter to see if it can lull me to sleep as well as the old ones used to do… but it does have a fairly audible motor. We'll see.

Aug 24 - Last of the Seminars

All this week I've been attending WorkBC seminars from 9-12pm, to aid my job searches. In the main, they've been rather useful as I've gained new insight into the job search process - having been out of the job market for over a decade, I'm surprised at how things seem to have changed( and for the better ).

What I've learned: It's no longer a case of firing off resumes to advertised jobs and hoping for a callback; now it's all about targeted searches and networking. WHO you know is 10x's more likely to get you a job than what you know. The 'hidden' job market also revolves around the networking factor, helping you get a leg up on people who don't know people who know about job openings, or even the needs of an employer. Being able to sell yourself is now a key factor in getting yourself noticed by an employer, especially if you can target them by positioning yourself as being a perfect fit for their company.

I'm glad I went to each of these different seminars( for free, plus I had the time )as each had some gems hidden among the more common-sense aspects of the job search process that was reviewed. I met some interesting people and networked with a few of them, which was great. But I think the most important part is that the information I learned has made me less jittery about my search and will aid me greatly in focusing my 'job wants' to help me land a GOOD job in the next few months, not just one that I'll drag myself into every day to make ends meet. I've already done that for the last 12 years. Never again.

Aug 25 - Critical Chapter!

Yesterday was the first time in the last three months that I haven't been able to finish a chapter the same day that I've started it. It was Chapter 35, the MOST difficult chapter of my novel and one I KNEW would be the hardest to finish from the time I drafted the final outline of the book in June. Some writers work organically, starting with just and idea and letting the book evolve from there; others write out every detail from first to last. I work somewhere in the middle, in a way building a blueprint for a house but filling in the details like finishes, paint, furniture and occupants as I go along. It’s worked VERY well so far but for THIS chapter, there was SO MUCH riding on one scene that I had to get it right.

Yesterday I set the writing aside and went for a two hour walk to clear my head and THINK HARD about the whole sequence of the scene as it related to the rest of the book. Once I got back, I went through the scene event by event, almost scripting it into 17 separate points. From there, I set to work thinking through the scene AGAIN to be sure that each point melded into the next in a series that made sense.

Today I set it all down in only two hours, which was exhausting. The scene played out in my head properly and FLOWED as I went along from point to point, in one long mental movie that ended up on the page at last. It's by no means perfect, but it WORKS - and that's a victory in my eyes any way you write it.

Aug 26 - HISHE: Batman!

Last weekend I went to see Batman: The Dark Knight Rises at the IMAX. It was great! The story was fairly tight( with some spots which were not )but overall I liked the movie, though not as much as Avengers. I thought Anne Hathaway was excellent as Catwoman, definitely capturing the self-centered nature of the character and nailing( if I can use that word )the sexy deadliness as well. I wasn't big on the character of Bane as I kept waiting for him to double in size and start tossing buses around; nope. Still, not everyone was cool with that and HISHE( How It Should Have Ended )took the plot holes and made a rather solid short trailer that addresses most of them rather neatly:

As for today, I finished another solid chapter, but I'm feeling rather low on energy. We'll see how tomorrow goes when it comes to the creative flow of things... I feel as though I've pushed the boulder to the mountain's top and stopped there. Now I need to give it the final shove and see where it lands...

Overall it was a good week; I was busy with the WorkBC in the mornings and writing towards the final few chapters of my book that will be finished next week. I think the early days wore on me though, especially as I kept waking well before 7am most days; this week coming I think I will 'sleep in' until 8 or so, if the people upstairs will let me. Here's hoping!