Month: November 2005

bookmark_borderWind!

Posted on by PaulaO

Luckily the first winter storm of the season packed more wind than snow.

Unluckily it packed a lot of wind. Our screenhouse went flying. I went out, thought i had it latched down again. Nope. I went out and took it apart and the cold air set off an asthma attack. The two doses from the whoofer made the breathing easier and the cough subside but it also raised my heartrate. And, much to the delight of friends everywhere, I lost my voice for a few hours.

Anyway, the wind. Check this out:


These are images from the WeatherUnderground page for a weather station in Weaverville, a town just north of us. The top image is yesterday (11/22) and the bottom one is today.

bookmark_borderDay 22

Posted on by PaulaO

I didn’t think I was going to get anything done today.

It started out as a decent enough morning but then went downhill fast. Unable to sleep, I decided to start working seriously at about 10 or so. 2218 words later, I am past a so-so section of the book and onward toward the next so-so section.

Sarah is still not quite the postcard common folk but she is also not glowing in the dark either so perhaps there is hope. Lea, however, is wonderfully revealing her stubborn jackass side so not all is lost.


source: NaNoWriMo.org

bookmark_borderQuotes

Posted on by PaulaO

I am sure have seen the little ‘quote thingy’ in the sidebar. Most of them came from internetbumperstickers.com, a way cool and groovy site. Others came from here and there that I have collected over the years.

One of my favorites is ‘If it has tires or testicles, it’s going to give you problems’. So true!!

My bud Winston came up with another: If it has bytes, boobs or bearings, it’s going to be a bitch-kitty.

I like it! So I stole it.

You’ll soon see it in the quote box thingy. Which, by the way, is a WordPress plug-in called Donkie-Quote.

bookmark_borderRace Those Ethnics

Posted on by PaulaO

I recieved an email the other day from Cherryl, thanking me for some links she found on my site. I replied, she replied and sent me a link to the Red Bull Word Clash. I’ve never been to a poetry jam but I think someday I will attend one. I have it in my head it is people in all black clothing with black tilted berets who spout some powerful words but their bodies are still and spouting nothing. The audience shows their appreciating by snapping their fingers.

I then went to Cherryl’s websites: The Heavy Mentalist and The Last Nerve. She is about hip hop, poetry and writing. I fell in love with her freedom of language.

This post started as an essay about language and race and ethnicity. But it grew to be huge so I moved it to another section.

bookmark_borderEmergency Preparedness – NOT

Posted on by PaulaO

Lorna and I were faced today with the reality that we dropped the ball.

We don’t have all of our winter gear set aside. We aren’t ready for a winter storm. However, we are going to get one tonight and tomorrow. It could stay up higher, it could stay along the state line. And it could hit us hard with wet heavy snow. That means down trees and no power.

Our 4×4 truck is still waiting to be repaired from the accident a freakin’ month ago.

Lorna’s ‘new’ Suburu is not AWD.

We are low on dog and cat food.

We are low on groceries.

And we have no pellets.

Our heat source is a pellet stove, meaning it burns little pieces of wood fed into the pot by an auger. This auger is electric powered but it is easy enough to open the door and toss a handful in. Seems as though the nation decided that propane and natural gas was going to be too costly and the sale of pellet stoves, and therefore pellets, exceeded the supply. We may get some Wednesday.

In the meantime, we are financially strapped and I do NOT want to see the electric bill for this month. We are running two little heaters to keep the house warm. Ha. Our house is rather drafty, to say the least.

Lorna had to have an emergency alternator-ectomy today out on the mail route to the tune of just over $200.

bookmark_borderDay 21

Posted on by PaulaO

I am working on the pivot point in the WIP. The first half leads up to this, the second half carries it through. Okay, so it is not really half and half but it is in my head.

I am walking a thin line here. I need to keep Sarah as a ‘common folk’ yet be special. I need Lea to be ‘goddess chosen’ yet be human still.

We are all several people at once. I am daughter, sister, lover, friend – just to name a few. Each one of my roles is not only different in itself, but how I act/react is different. One could say that my energy patterns change. In one role I may be polite and semi-decent. In another, I may be rude and obnoxious. (you figure out which one is which)

Where Sarah and her friend K. is in the WIP, they are learning about energy patterns. How every has energy including plants and rocks. In having Sarah learn this, she is leaning further away from ‘common folk’ to being special, gifted. I don’t want her to be gifted. Her strongest part is her Self, that part of that remains when all the roles–and their energy patterns–are removed. There is a saying, and I am sure I don’t have the words right, but there is a saying that your true self is who you are when you think no one is watching.

In today’s writing, I got 1220 words done. Not nearly as much as I wanted, but I had to do a lot of get up and walk away moves today. Dang, I even had to think! I hate it when that happens.

bookmark_borderCharacters

Posted on by PaulaO

How into your characters do you get? Do you dream about them? Think about them during the day when you are not writing? Do you consider them to be real while you think/dream about them?

Sometimes I do. I have gotten into ‘discussions’ in my head about a character. I say things like “That Nikki, you know, she ought to get rid of that second job. She’s too busy, too distracted from everything else in her life. She needs to do something about it.”

So I sit down with her, I mean the WIP, and she changes.

Am I crazy? Am I a little more weird than the average bear?

Well, probably, but are my characters, my writing to blame?

bookmark_borderDay 20

Posted on by PaulaO

Wow, it is already the 20th. Thanksgiving is around the corner. Snow is in our forecast. Time flies when it’s having fun.

Had a weird day but I did get some really good words in. A little here, a little there – it adds up. Today it came to 2178 new words.

On the one hand, I love this book. On the other hand, the plot pace is going fast. I know I will go back and add things in but still…

Lorn helped me with an awkward paragraph this afternoon. Like I told him, most of the time I ignore the usual crappy sentence structures but sometimes it just eats at me until I give in and fix it. So I did.

Tomorrow will be a long day for Lorna so I will be responsible for dinner and the like. I’ll try to get some writing in early-er than usual then do more after she’s gone to bed. This time is the worst for the post office. Catalogs, magazines, packages, advertisements, and then the dang fake phone books (the ‘yellow books’ I think). They are so big and awkward that the carriers can only take fifty at a time. And when you have nearly 700 boxes, like Lorna does, it means you are taking them out every day for a while.

BG2b, the WIP I set aside to do NaNoWriMo, has a lead MC who is a postal worker. I toss in little trivia facts and real-life events into her life to make it feel real. Lorna has read some of it and she says the woman never has a flat tire. I will have to fix that error. One week at the post office, after several days of heavy rain after a long dry period, the 7 carriers when through 15 tires. (hint: after a heavy rain that comes after a long dry time, keep away from the edges of the road. that’s where all the road debris winds up. like nails. and screws. and glass.)


source: NaNoWriMo.org

bookmark_borderDay 19

Posted on by PaulaO

I had trouble falling asleep last night so I thought about my WIP, especially where my MC was headed. So when I woke up this morning, I had my usual breakfast (pb&j) and got to work. I wrote some, played a game, wrote some, checked email, wrote some, surfed the ‘net, wrote some, played more games….This cycle repeated itself several times.

As a result, I am caught up with the NaNo goal for today. I am behind no more. I wrote 6567 wondeful words today. I got into an hour word war with my bud Sophia and later a several hour fest with another online bud, Lorn. I was so into writing, that with my concentration and the headsets, I didn’t hear the dogs barking to be fed. They were well over an hour late in eating, poor babes.

I decided to ignore the time line for now and just let it flow. Once I let go of the outline I had, the words just came, which is why I hate the things. My MC is being chased about wonderfully. The love chemistry is there as is the mystic. They’ve had a fake map, some secrets revealed and, just now, a push off a cliff. Oh the fun!


source: NaNoWriMo.org

bookmark_borderHistory of Books

Posted on by PaulaO

In my current WIP, I have a lot of books that the MCs use, talk about and live around. So I thought perhaps it was time I made sure I had things right.

Wikipedia (my fave source) has a page on book history.

The article on parchment is turning out to be useful too.

Heck, this is getting long. Let’s do it this way, hmm?

And then there are all the external links and references within the articles.

What I have learned is that perhaps I have my world a little behind in the book industry, although I have accidentally gotten it on the mark for other parts. I have a religious order of inventors, the Mechanics Order, so perhaps it is time they make what Johann Gutenberg did.