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?
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| 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.
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| 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!
