Drunken Owls and Other Delights

*sigh* It's Sunday afternoon and the last day of vacation, so now I get to look forward to two months' worth of Q4 ridiculousness at the bank. On the plus side, Q4 in EDI is nowhere near Q4 in retail, or any tax season for that matter, so while we might get waves of OMG requests (usually in the form of "something broke HALP"), it's not as if I'm forced by guilt to work hours of overtime. And as long as the systems don't get all jacked up for some ridiculous reason, I should be okay. Still--it's kind of weird that on the one hand, I'm kind of sad that our final vacation of the year is coming to an end, but on the other hand, I'm totally fine with heading back to the grind tomorrow. We got a lot done, had a lot of fun, and we're looking forward to visiting places old and new next year already.

So did I get anything creative done over the vacation? Well, yes and no. I did keep up with Inktober for the most part, missing only a few days but catching up quickly thereafter. I did finally get a response from Angry Robot (rejection), which has given me some food for thought as to where the Bridgetown Trilogy will go next. I did another Two Thousand reread to remember where I am. But other than that? Not a sausage. No poetry, no journal, no 750 Words. Though I did bring those notebooks with me to Portland, I chose not to break them open, mainly because I wanted to take a mental break from it all. I can afford a week's distance every now and again, I think. Besides, with all my extraneous creative energy going nowhere, it ended up in some of the drawings, so I managed to reawaken my love of art pretty quickly. I even chose to buy some quality drawing pens. All my art pens and some of my pencils are now in a repurposed takeout container under my monitor, right next to my journal and notebooks.

So! What's next, once Monday rolls around? Back on the horse, of course of course. Back to hitting the daily 750 Words (aka the New Idea Playground), back to working on Two Thousand and Walk in Silence, back to weekly WordPress entries, back to the whiteboard schedule. I'm ready to go!

Let's try this again, shall we?

It's been a busy couple of weeks here in Spare Oom and elsewhere. We've had a busy schedule of things going on, including a double-header last Saturday of A Prairie Home Companion and Beethoven and Mason Bates at the SF Symphony. Work featured a new scanning program that's supposed to make my work easier but has instead turned the entire week into a giant clusterfuck of biblical proportions (not affecting me directly, but seriously affecting the workflow so much that it's affected clients' workflows--yeah, it ain't pretty). On Thursday I was out most of the morning getting a work PC refresh (and high time for it). Suffice it to say, the last two weeks have been filled with all sorts of WTFness and letting things slide so as to retain some semblance of sanity.

That's not to say it hasn't been a complete wash, though!

--750 Words: I've let this slide on multiple days this past week due to the work issue or simple exhaustion, but I aim to pick right back up where I left off. My 750 have been meandering as of late, though, a lot of random babbling about things. Now that things have quieted down a bit (sort of), I'd like to return to the daily morning words as an ongoing exercise in attempting short story writing. I'd written two examples earlier of dialogue-only scenes and enjoyed it immensely, so I'd like to continue with that. I've always complained about being unable to write short stories, and I think this is a good way for me to change that.

--Journaling: I think doing this has definitely helped on a personal level...I'm forcing myself to channel any frustrations or personal thoughts into a notebook rather than on Twitter or here on LJ, and in effect it's given me an outlet where I don't have to worry about editing or censoring myself. Not that I'm known to curse a blue streak or think impure thoughts on a normal basis, mind you--more like I've given myself free rein to say whatever's on my mind without the worry of what others may think about it. And hey, no trolls! And in the process, I think it's cleared up a lot of my other writing...if I write in my journal early in the day, the inner frustrations and distracting thoughts are already purged, leaving me with a clean slate for other projects.

I've also been making sure I keep my desk calendar updated as well--I have one of those hardbound "engagement calendar" books that I picked up from Green Apple and have been making it a point to write down what I did that day creatively, however big or small. I'm doing this as another exercise, this time to gauge my creative output and see where I may need adjusting or if I'm doing better than expected. I haven't done this in ages, and it's actually kind of fun. I don't have any set goals for word count (other than the daily 750), so it's more like a creative diary for me.

--Revision: Almost done with the 2013/4 revision run for The Persistence of Memories! I may want to run through this novel one more time on my tablet after it's done, just to give it a once-over, but this revision run for the most part has been pretty smooth. A few changes and rewrites here and there, but for the most part a lot of it has been surface cleaning, mostly changes in grammar and phrasing. Two more chapters and I'm done with this pass! Then to start on the revision of The Process of Belief. That one's going to need a lot of work, but I'm looking forward to it.

--Submission: No word yet on the Angry Robot submission, but I did happen to hear back from the JABberwocky Literary Agency after sending something to them some months ago. It was a rejection, but hey--it was something!

--Blogs: Due to busy weekends and crazy weekdays, I'm a little behind on these, but I hope to get caught up again once everything calms down again. I'm about halfway through the next-to-last Blogging the Beatles post at Walk in Silence, and may write something new for Welcome to Bridgetown soon. I noticed that I don't have much daily traffic on those blogs, but I'm happy to say it does go up a bit when I do post, so that's a good sign.

--Music: Been making it a point to pick up one of my guitars and noodling around during slow moments. Or more to the point, creating slow moments in the day, and using said noodling as a way to unwind. Haven't written anything new other than a few riffs, but hey, it's something. Plus, it's keeping me calm, which is good. I have a habit of going straight out some days and exhausting myself in the process. Music has charms to soothe the savage breast, as Congreve says.


...and that's been the last two weeks!

Today's update? Had a nice long walk to Q and back, and will be heading down to the symphony again tonight to see another Mason Bates piece ("Liquid Interface") and a few Beethoven pieces. We may drive this time, as it's an 8pm show and I'm sure we'll both be too tired and irritable to wait for the buses at the end of the night. Saturday night in downtown San Francisco can get a bit silly. And WOO! Long weekend! Hoping to get a caught up with stuff that fell by the wayside, maybe post a few things, and maybe even relax a bit.

In the process of editing/revising A Division of Souls, I've been preparing a few chapters ahead of time so I can just pick up the next one when I get to it. The preparation has mainly been taking the last version (2011), shifting scenes if need be, and saving them as a new chapter for working on later. It works out well for me, as this is quite similar to how I wrote it in the first place (mapping out a few following scenes before I write them), and any shifting has already taken place. This way I can revise a chapter in a week or two. Added to this, I've been dedicating my weekday writing sessions solely to this project, so I've been getting quite a bit done. This dedication has worked so well that I even want to pick it up on the weekends when I should be working on other things (not that that's a bad thing...).

The other week while preparing the next batch, I suddenly noticed I only had nine chapters left to go and I'd be finished! WOO! Of course, once this is done, then I'd go through one more time specifically for grammar and flow (as well as some serious Find/Replace work on a couple of names). But the fact that it's only the end of February and I'm this close to being done with this round of rewriting/revision makes me extremely happy! This means two things: I get to jump in on revising The Persistence of Memories (probably my favorite in the trilogy), and more importantly, SUBMISSION TIME! I haven't submitted a manuscript anywhere for quite a few years, and I haven't submitted anything from the trilogy since probably 2004, so I'm very excited about this. Yes, even if it does get rejected! It's been WAY too long since I was at this point.

I have to say I've kicked my own ass repeatedly on this revision, and it was worth it. I did some serious overhaul of the first few chapters (as mentioned before, some of the passages hadn't changed much since the original 1999-2000ish versions), killed off quite a lot of deadwood and wrote a hell of a lot of improved sequences to take its place, and in my opinion, made this the best damn version it's ever been. And in the process I've learned a hell of a lot more about my own writing than I ever expected. That ain't bad at all.

All that said, if I keep up the speed I'm at, I think I should have everything done by the middle or end of March. Another month to do the cosmetic fixes, and I should have everything ready to go by May.

Here's to hoping... :)

Haven't posted lately due to being busy with all types of things...plus I've been trying not to be distracted by the internets as much as I have in the past. That's a work in progress, but I'm getting better. Now, what with football preseason (GO PATS!! :D ) already up and running, that's another distraction entirely...

So what's been up over the past week?

WRITING:
Gads...still slogging through that damn chapter in ADoS, and it's taking a lot longer than I want it to. It's not so much that I'm avoiding work, just that some of these new scenes and extended/revised scenes are a bit tough. I'm not giving up, though. I've invested lots of time in this trilogy, and I'll be damned if I give up now. Time to take off the gloves and give it what for. (What does that phrase mean, anyway?)

Also, ordered the new Writer's Market, which I skipped on last year due to not really needing it at the moment. Amusingly enough, it cost exactly the same at the Writer's Digest site as it did on Amazon. Still--I plan on using it this year, both for the above monstrosity as well as looking out for some smaller press and poetry stuff. 2010/2011 will be the years of submissions, damn it!

Note to self: Any more "damns" in this post and I'll get the MPAA on my butt. I'd better calm down. :p


LIFE:
Things are good. Feeling old and out of shape, but our weekly walks around the Presidio and Golden Gate Park have been helping, and it gives me more practice with my camera as well. Now if this Bay Area fog that's been permeating our area for the entire summer would finally KINDLY GO AWAY, I'll be even happier. Other than that, keeping busy and having fun when I can.


MUSIC:
Heard a preview of the new Interpol album and OH MAN is it good!! Very angular, and very similar to their first album, so I'm quite happy about that. Went ahead and pre-ordered the album straight from the band's site as soon as I finished listening. Nothing else too exciting to report, though...still following the new stuff that's coming out that I like, and there's a lot of it, but nothing amazing as of yet aside from the above. In a weird way it's reminding me of 1997--a lot of good stuff, but the REALLY good stuff should appear next year. We'll see.


BOOKS:
Recently read: Harmonic Feedback by Tara Kelly--typical YA story, but the lead's name is Drea and she's a musician. Very much like dollydelusion, and I couldn't help but picture her in the role. :p Also: Still reading kateelliott's Spirit Gate as my commuting book. Quite good, and I'm looking forward to reading the other two in the series! Currently reading: The Oishinbo manga series, which emmalyon and I are quite enjoying, and well worth checking out. There's only 7 or so volumes out so far, but I'm hoping there will be more. :)


...and that's it from JoncWorld. How's everything out in there?

No, really. I'm actually glad I heard back from them, rejection or no! :p

It's been, let's see...four months and two days since I sent the SASE and query for Love Like Blood to the agency. And okay, it's a bit of form rejection letter, but I'm glad they answered back the way they did.

Onto the next agency!! :D