Drunken Owls and Other Delights

(Sorry, couldn't resist.  If you're wondering, it's some silly meme going around on Twitter.)

Things are going well on the writing end of things here in Spare Oom...which of course means I'm now nervous that I'm going to screw it up or jinx it and hit a massive writer's block!  Heh.  Seriously though... Project 750 (as I've been calling it) is actually working out exactly how I'd expected it to work out.  I wrote 1001 all-new words for the Apartment Complex last night with little to no problem.  Seems that narrowing my focus by force was exactly what was needed!  Still not going to call it a success just yet, though... i'd like to run the experiment for a few more weeks to make sure it works, and if I need to tweak it a bit more. 

In My Blue World: not too much to report here.  Just that the villain in this story is a bit...unconventional, at least in terms of fiction, at any rate.  My aim here is to make sure he's not a stock character but something unexpected and maybe kind of creepy.  It's an interesting experiment at any rate!

In other news, A. is hanging out with co-workers for the rest of this week, which means that I'm left to my own devices for the next few days.  The house hasn't exploded or flooded yet, so I suppose that's a good sign.


Hope everyone's having a good week!  :)

 Yes, I'm making a few changes around here.  I've been thinking long and hard about my writing lately, especially in regards to what processes have been working and what have not, and how to minimize the latter.  One thing in particular that had been bothering me was the fact that I had two projects in a row -- the Apartment Complex story and Can't Find My Way Home -- stutter to a halt, and both for the same reason.  And that reason being that it just didn't feel right.  I know, I know...that sounds a bit silly and I'm probably talking out of my ass, but at the same time, the last two projects -- Meet the Lidwells and In My Blue World -- DID feel right to me.

Now, I knew it wasn't just because of the story I was writing.  And I definitely had my moments of the Don't Wannas and the Oh God This Sucks with both of them.  But there's so much less drama with those two.  So I had to really think about it -- WHY was I having drama with the AC and CFMWH?

And then it occurred to me:  it could be the platform.

As you all know, Bob, I've been writing the first rough drafts of the successful stories in short bouts on 750words.com.  And I realized they were working well for many reasons:

--I'm always writing at a specific time.
--With each session I'm writing a complete or almost-complete scene arc, which also sets up the next scene arc that I'll write during the next session.
--I'm focusing only on the scene at hand.  The novel-as-whole is secondary here.
--I'm allowing minor editing as I go, when I know that I can write something better.
--Each scene or partial is on its own screen; I can only access the other scenes by backing out of the one I'm currently on.
--I need to hit at least 750 words before I can call the session done for the day.
--These sessions are often very productive, as well as fast.

And then I realized: This is EXACTLY how I wrote The Persistence of Memories.  Same exact process, just a different platform at the time.  Even the 'own screen' bit -- back then I saved each chapter of the project separately.  [That comes from the habit from waaay back, when I used MS Write back in the 90s.]

So I thought:  what if I set up another 750Words account?  I can use my other email for it.  I'll follow the same leads as above with whatever second project I happen to have going.  This can be my evening writing session, unless I decide to move it to a different time of the day.  

So that's what I did.  And I'm starting it tonight with another trial run of the Apartment Complex novel.  Despite my frustration with it, my thoughts still go back to it at least once a day.  I'm taking that as a sign that I should return to it, at least on this trial run level.  No major planning, no giant outline.  Just going to run with it this time out.

Here's to hoping this works...!

it's been a lovely weekend here in SF, in the upper 60s and even into the 70s at times, so we went against type and actually went outside both days!  Yesterday we walked up to Immigrant Point in the Presidio and got a lovely view of the Golden Gate -- both the bay inlet and part of the bridge -- and walked back town to Baker Beach and back towards home.  All told we walked just over four miles, most of it uphill!  After a lunch at the local burger joint, we relaxed for the rest of the day.  Today was a walk up to the other end of Clement to the local farmer's market and back.

Oh-- and there was an unexpected fireworks show in our neighborhood last night.  Apparently some venture capitalist / rich dude had his 80th birthday party over in Seacliff.  It wasn't just a random show, it was a legit professional show that lasted about 15 minutes with a showy ending an everything! 

So yeah, now we're here at home, watching the Super Bowl.  I'll be honest, I'm okay with the Eagles possibly winning this, as they've had a pretty good season.  I mean yeah, I'd be thrilled with another Pats win, but it'll be a tough game getting there either way.  Meanwhile, we'll have our halftime nachos for dinner (of course), and after the game I"ll sneak in some more writing work.  In fact, since I"m typing this up during Q2 of the game, I might even do some 750 during the game to open up more time.  Yay multitasking!

Speaking of writing, I finally started doing a bit of transcription for the Apartment Complex story.  I have two chapters in plus an in-between note of ADD THINGS HERE so I know what holes I need to fill.  I can already see a handful of things I need to change and work on, but for the most part it's not nearly as bad as I'd expected.  It's rough, but it's definitely something I can work with.  I've been doing the transcription during the day (during slow Day Job moments or on breaks), which not only keeps me from revising when I'm not quite at that moment yet, but opens up time for more longhand during my nightly writing sessions.  Works for me!

Also, still working on the magical girl story (now called In My Blue World after the ELO lyric) on the 750.  I've written down some of the main plot points and worked on some character notes, so with that one I can just keep plugging away at outtakes and see how much of it I can piece together.  I'm thinking once I have more to work with, I'll do some note card outlining and build up the story a bit.  I probably won't get around to writing this one proper until midyear (at a guess), so I'm not too worried about getting this one up and running right away.  The Apartment Complex story takes precedence right now, and I'm hoping to at least have a rough draft finished mid-year or thereabouts.  I'd like to see if I can keep with the six-month turnaround if I can.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

It's almost September! How the hell did that happen?

So...what do I have planned for next month, anyway? Good question. I've been making a little bit of noise that I want to return to a more packed whiteboard schedule again, as my only major project focus at the moment is finishing off this manual line edit of The Balance of Light. [Okay, there is a non-as-major-but-still-important project of working off the galley edit for The Persistence of Memories and getting the tpb for that available for purchase, but that shouldn't take me long to do. A couple free weekends should do it.]

I'd like to return to the daily 750 Words once more. I'd like to return to my artwork on a more consistent basis. There's also a longhand project or two that I'd like to toy with in my spare time. More importantly, however, I'd like to get myself back in the habit of prepping my blog entries a day or two beforehand and giving myself a buffer. As I've said before, I can finally see the light at the end of this long-ass Trilogy tunnel, so I'd like to prepare myself ahead of time for the new projects.

Am I going to announce what these new projects are? Well, not as of yet. I'd like to make sure they've got a good strong hold before I start obsessing over them online. You've heard me talk about them before, I'll say that. I'm trying to stick with the JK Rowling quote: "I find that discussing an idea out loud is often the way to kill it stone dead." I've had this happen before, so I'd rather not jinx them this time.

That said...right now I'm just looking forward to new projects. It's been far too long and there's nothing more fun than coming up with new ideas from a completely new universe! :)

Every time I choose to do a bit of book purging, I find myself a bit fascinated by my decisions. It was another major 'will I ever read this/will I ever reread this' process, and this time I included not only my fiction but my music and my writing books as well.

What's this, you say? Getting rid of writing books??? *GASP!* Well, most of these were from the Writer's Digest Book Club (or whatever it was called then) where I'd ordered a handful of 'learn how to write' books. I used a handful of them, but for the most part, they've been getting more use as dust traps, so it was high time for them to go. And the good thing is that we've been donating all our books to the Friends of the SF Public Library, who run a twice-a-year Giant Book Sale down in Fort Mason, so they get to be bought and used by others who can get more use out of them. And the best part is that opened up a spot on the bookshelf near the window for Jonc's Officially Published Works. Which for now contains two titles and those two ZYZZYVA issues I was in, but hey, at least I know it'll expand over time!

As for the music books...many of these were bought between 2010 and 2012 when I started thinking about writing Walk in Silence. I did get some use out of them, but with a good handful of them, I doubt I'll pick them up again, so they too can go. Quite a few of those will probably be 'read and get rid of' as well.

But that's not all! The Spring Cleaning Bug seems to have bit hard, as I now have decided it's high time to get rid of some other things as well. I still have some old PC and laptop stuff from the last six or so years, and when I have the time, I will donate those to the local electronics recycling place down in SoMa that I usually go to. [They not only recycle the parts but for a fee will run the hard drives through the woodchipper (or whatever it is they use) to make sure they're completely destroyed.] I may have a few other things to get rid of in the next few months as well. Just one of those things where you just want to let go of things you don't need anymore and start fresh.

The downside to the book purge is that Spare Oom is once again getting a bit crowded with boxes. I'll try not to keep them here for months on end this time, though.


As for writing...new month, new writing schedule. I'd given myself most of April to relax and do some fun short-term projects (like the A to Z Challenge meme and build up a backlog of Walk in Silence entries), and so starting today and going forward, I'd like to get back to work on stuff I need to do. Primarily, starting the Epic Revision of The Balance of Light. I'm going to take my own time with this one, really...it needs a lot of work so I'd like to make sure it gets all the TLC it needs. I don't have a set date for the release of that one either...just a rough guess of late autumn.

I'd also like to return to the small exercises again as well, just to keep my writing muscles moving. Nothing big yet, just the usual 750 during the day, and also posting at the two WP blogs. I should (hopefully) have time to put up some short 500-700 words a few times a week. I still have the weekends open for catch-up and whatnot. Once Book 3 is out, I'll have much more time to spend on new projects. Speaking of which, I told a friend earlier that I'm curious as to what my turnaround time will be for my new projects...I'm not going to hazard a guess, considering I don't know what scale these new projects will be.

However, I do have some interesting writing-based plans in the works that I'm looking forward to...can't reveal them just yet, but hopefully soon!

...or in this case, the pantry. At least a dozen or so out-of-date foodstuffs tossed (most of them over a year or so old, including a forgotten tiny bottle of some kind of spread with a sell-by date before we even moved to our present location!!), things re-arranged, other things to be put away elsewhere. Realized we have an insane amount of jams and preserves, and an even more insane amount of tea. Our snack situation is positive, considering we made a run to World Market today and found various tasty things like Coffee Crisps, Tim-Tams and chocolate bars, and followed it up with an assortment box of Jo-Jo's from Trader Joe's. Oh! And not one but two assortment boxes of Samuel Smith beers (the three-bottle gift box that comes with a pint glass, so now we have a matching set of four glasses). And earlier this week I boxed up the books that I should bring down to the SF Library store at Fort Mason. I should probably go through my clothes this weekend as well, and bring it to the local Goodwill. Maybe next weekend. The apartment laundry facilities are still on the fritz, so I've been heading over to the laundromat up the street on Sundays. [Why yes, as a matter of fact I have been writing longhand while waiting for the cycles to end, why do you ask?]

So yes, things are looking spiffy round these parts!

In other news, the daily 750 Words exercise is once again going to be put aside for the time being, for the simple reason that Emm has now finished reading A Division of Souls and offered suggestions and comments, so now I can go through my galley copy and make the final fix. Once they are complete, then I can put the physical book up for sale on Amazon, get a few comp copies for various people, and update the e-book version as well.

As for The Persistence of Memories, I'm about a third of the way through the edit, so I'm hoping that I'll be finished by the end of the year. It looks like I should be on schedule to release it mid to late January, maybe even on my birthday. We shall see. I will most likely be doing the same thing with the physical copy--formatting it, getting a few galley copies made, editing it, and releasing that a slight bit later. I'll have a more solid date to announce as soon as it gets closer.

[On a side note...all this preparing for an official drop date has given me a bit of background on how it works when releasing a book or a record. This will definitely come in handy with a music-related fiction project I will be working on in the future.]

So all in all, things have been busy but creatively and positively so. Can't complain about that. :)

It's been a busy three days of 2015 so far, in a very good way. Keeping up with the daily words, prepared work for the Blogging the Beatles ebook project, posted at my WordPress blogs like a madman, and I even managed to get some guitar practice in there. Not a bad start, all told.

I already have my "this is due" whiteboard list--for instance, I have a Welcome to Bridgetown post due today--so I already have it hanging over my head. My instinctual response is "but I don't wanna". The trick for me for overcoming that? Doing it anyway, even if it's purely out of being a stubborn contrarian. Because I know for a fact that if I don't work on it and spend my evening goofing off on YouTube or something, I'll climb into bed feeling guilty and annoyed with myself for wasting time. In short: 'just STFU and do it already' seems to be my way of working on projects. Mind you, it's not the only way I'm getting myself to get things done, but I know enough to utilize it when necessary.

Been a relaxing and lazy weekend here...we did a bit of shopping yesterday, including heading over to the Haight to spend mumbletymumble dollars at Amoeba. Amanda found many sweet deals in the dvd section, and I made a significant dent in the dollar bins looking for (and finding!) exactly what I was looking for! Yay! Oh--and in the dvd section I found a used copy of the Space Above and Beyond box set--I've been meaning to pick that up for ages, so I'm quite happy that I finally own it! It's been ages since I've watched it, so I'll need to set aside time to rewatch.

Not too much on tap for today, other than my daily words, a WtBT post, and football games. Sushi down the street may be involved at some point, we'll see. Going to take it easy and enjoy the weekend while it's still here!

For those of you who follow me over on my Tumblr site, you may have noticed I've decided to take part in Inktober, which I would describe as an artist's version of NaNoWriMo--draw something every day of the month and post it somewhere using the #inktober hashtag. The only rule being the end result has to be in ink (and again that leaves it wide open--I've used both my art pens and a ballpoint Bic from my back pocket). It's been fun so far, because I get to doodle something every day! I'm not going out of my way to make a masterpiece...just a caricature or a Murph drawing or something that usually takes no more than a half-hour tops to make, and post it using my phone.

This is on top of my ongoing attempt to ramp up the output. Per my last post, I did pretty good with hitting goal at 750Words.com 29 out of the 30 days. Some of those entries were just personal ramblings, but many of them ended up being exercises in figuring out who the characters in my latest project are. I'd have conversations with myself, asking 'what does [character] look like?' or 'what's their ultimate goal in the story?' and so on, and it really helped me figure out where it's going. The other goal of using 750Words is that it forces me to sit down and think about writing-related things for a bit--it's breaking the wall of procrastination that bites me in the ass so often. And ultimately, it's gotten me back to the 2001-2003 levels of dedication to my writing, which is what I've been aiming for. Those were the Trilogy years where I was down in the Belfry without fail, every single day, working on something...and this is exactly what I've been aiming for, and I'm quite happy about that.

Oh! And also, we have a new modem/router! Yay! Our 2Wire has been in the apartment for a few good years, and it was starting to crap out more than usual. It would drop at the most inopportune times, especially while we were working. I'll admit we were taxing it during the day, what with her terminal, my work router, and me streaming a radio station. This new one's a Pace and it's working a treat. Quite happy with it so far.

So. Today's goal, outside of writing? Ice cream! I heard tell that there's a nifty ice cream shop down in the Sunset on Noriega that we should check out. Has numerous flavors and they're made locally, and it's quite a find. We may just jump on the 29 today and check it out. :)

Okay, summer technically ends tomorrow, but Q4 is already here. School has already started, retail has started to ramp up their sales, and soon enough we'll start seeing holiday-themed things in the stores. And of course, it's time for the big-name bands to release their albums.

So what's in store for me this autumn? I mean, aside from me getting all wistful and thinking about 1988 (more than usual, I mean), and writing bad poetry and yet more nostalgic blog posts?

Well, Q4 pretty much kicked in at the start of September for me, and that's when I restarted the whiteboard schedule, and I'm happy to say I've been sticking to it pretty tightly. I've had a few days where I don't get to a poem, or I missed a day of writing my 750 Words, or some such...but I'm okay with that. In most cases (aside from the 750), I can make up for it a day or so later, and I'm okay with that. In fact, I may not get to the schedule today due to the fact that we have plans with the in-laws later today. But the point of the schedule is not to assign myself strict deadlines--it's to ensure I get off my duff and do these things.

So for the long-term goals? That's a good question. There are a few book-related things I have in mind that I won't go into here just yet. I'm still near the beginning of Two Thousand so I can't quite tell when that one's going to be finished. Walk in Silence will also take much longer than anticipated, but on the other hand that one's a lot further along than I expected it to be. And do I have any projects that I'll start after that? Well, good question. I'm not focusing on that too much just yet. I have a few vague ideas, but that's about it. I'm not looking at them for the moment because I want to devote as much time as I can on my present projects.

Other than that? Having a pretty relaxing weekend! Hope everyone's doing well!

It's been quite the long week here in JoncWorld, busy all around. Work has been relatively calm-ish, not that many clients going off the rails, so I can't complain there. Nothing much to report, really.

We made it a point to get back to heading to the YMCA on a nearly daily basis, as I tend to sit on my duff here in Spare Oom for way too long. The first four days were well taken care of, and by Friday we were twitchy from work issues and decided a walk around the neighborhood was in order instead. We headed up California, cut over around 10th Avenue and walked around Mountain Lake before heading back. They've done a really good job at cleaning up the lake this past year--it was drained, dredged, decluttered, had goats eating the overgrowth (no lie--there's a company out this way that rents out goats for all your de-brushing and de-brambling needs!), and had a lot of the invasive species of plant, animal and fish taken away. Not to mention some serious filtration work, as it's right up against the stretch of Veterans Boulevard as it cuts through the Presidio, and the lake has seen its share of litter and toxic runoff through the years. It's nearly done, but they've done a beautiful job.

Today was a roadtrip up to Santa Rosa, which is always one of my favorite places to go here in the Bay Area. It's a large small city, so to speak, population around 160k, but it's spread out quite a bit. Downtown SR is a neat place as it has a large number of restaurants and shops. On Fourth Street there's Treehorn Books, a veritable Narnia of used tomes (it's good for "oh, I wasn't even looking for this, but I want this!" shopping) and up the street there's a really cool Barnes & Noble that's in a large building straight out of the 1920s, complete with a Jazz-Age style front. And just about a mile or two up the road is Copperfield's, a small local chain that saps our wallets every time we go into one of them. So yes, today was a mini-book crawl. :)

Tomorrow? We're not exactly sure. We may head to Q for brunch or we may go to Japantown, depending on what we're in the mood for. The problem with going to Q is the temptation to stop at Green Apple and buy EVEN MORE BOOKS.

There was, of course, a bit of a kerfuffle online about WorldCon this past week, but as I said on Twitter, I really have no horse in that race, so I'm choosing to not get publicly involved. I do of course have some thoughts about it, but I felt it was probably for the best not to add to everything that went on.

As for writing...? I'm happy in that I managed to get four out of seven days' worth of 750 Words done, considering. The "Townies" idea is expanding in unexpected and interesting directions, turning into some kind of pre- (very pre-) Bridgetown Trilogy story. I figured it would head in that direction eventually, but I wanted to let it expand organically rather than forcing it into a specific shape. That's why I let the 750 lag for a short while, so I could let the ideas simmer a bit. This may or may not expand into the next major project, but we'll see.

Chapter 5 of The Process of Belief was a big pain in the ass and most likely needs another go-through, but I finally got it done early in the week, and jumped in on Chapter 6. That too needed some tough love, but less in the prose and more in the editing department. There's still a lot of stage direction to get rid of, but not nearly as much as the previous chapter, and much easier to clean up. Book 3 kind of feels weird to revise, as it's pretty much Act III in a very long story arc. While it ties in with Books 1 and 2, the overall feeling of this one seems different. There's a hell of a lot more ongoing tension, and I think that's what I'm feeling with it. In a good way, of course.

I also FINALLY finished off the Blogging the Beatles series over at Walk in Silence! Yay! I admit I lapsed a bit on it, but I like how it ended, and that leaves me free to add new posts. Starting this week I'll be working on some new Walk in Silence stuff for your reading enjoyment. I should also be starting up on the Welcome to Bridgetown stuff as well, as I have a few ideas to work on there.

Which brings us to a few other web-related things:
--Will I ever update my Dreamwidth site again? Probably not; I'm thinking I'll copy the poetry posts to a document file and then shut it down, as I just don't use it anymore.
--Will I stay here at LJ? Of course--I have a permanent account. I still check it on a daily basis, maybe comment now and again, though I'm pretty much just at the weekend updates at this point. It'll remain the personal blog. I do have the other one, Scribble Diem, which I haven't updated since May of 2012, so that one I'll most likely close down at some point, as I just don't use it anymore. Maybe create one of those LJ Books and then ditch it.
--Tumblr. Yeah, I haven't posted there in some time, have I? I need to rectify that. Thing is, I haven't taken any pictures worth posting lately. Maybe that'll give me reason to start rescanning my stuff (and maybe photographing some of the larger or more colorful things) and posting those. One of my aims this year is to reignite my love for art, so why not?
--In cleaning up the Joncblogs, that'll mean that Walk in Silence and Welcome to Bridgetown will become my main go-to websites. I will endeavor to post links here and elsewhere so others are aware, of course. I have both connected to Twitter and Tumblr so they'll show up both places.

So yes...busy week. Busy, but productive! And that's what counts. :)