Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Back in the fall of 2002, while doing some side-project work on my Dreamweaver story, I decided I needed some fake band names that would fit with the college radio storyline. I brought this up with the gang at one of head58's gaming weekends and came up with the following list. If I remember correctly, the following were responsible for most if not all of these. Please correct me if I'm wrong (or would like to remain anonymous):
head58,aliwings,chaoticmoth,kevnes,gailee,lynxreign...I think kaisilverwolf was there too but I'm not sure...

( The Fake Band Names )

Just thought you all would be amused by that... :p

Should I write longhand or using a word processor? This is something that's been bothering me over the past few years. I don't ask myself this to mean that I must write in one form or the other; this is really more of a question of whether I could be more productive in my writing if I wrote longhand (that is, pen and notebook) instead of straight to MSWord.

When I was working at HMV, writing longhand was perfect because I had the time and the capability to do so. When I started The Phoenix Effect I came into work an hour early and sat in the food court and wrote a good five pages or so before opening the store. That worked out well for me, as I was able to use the time after work to transcribe what I'd written into the computer, sometimes revising it when I came to the end of a chapter. This also gave me extra time to work on other stories that I was writing directly onto the computer.

When I switched jobs and went to Yankee Candle, I lost a lot of time for longhand. By that time, however, I was already working on the trilogy and had chosen to go straight to computer for that, as most of the original story was already written. Most of the side projects languished when I diverted all my attention to the trilogy.

But now that I'm working normal hours and have the ability to write longhand again, I'm beginning to think that doing so is not bad of an idea. Due to space constraints, I don't have a chair for my desk--I use the side of the bed to sit on. This is fine, except for the fact that my keyboard doesn't reach as far as I'd like it to, and I have no back of the chair to lean back against, which is how I usually write. I could use one of the laptops Emm and I have, and I'm thinking that I may do so when I work on Gabriel and Cassandra, because it's already four chapters in and so far it's been written almost entirely on laptop.

But now that I have other ideas "on the backburner" that I'd like to pick up again, I'm thinking that I should invest in yet a few more notebooks (I know, Lynxie has a boatload of them in the house, and I have enough of them back in Athol) and go from there.

One of the positives of going longhand is using a steno pad for worldbuilding and general note-taking and coupling it with, say, a 3-subject or 5-subject notebook that all the main writing goes into. With these two notebooks I can write pretty much anywhere, including at work. I tend to stick to the spiral-bound notebooks, as legal pads tend to get roughed up and ripped in my book bag, and 3-ring binders can be too bulky to carry. And of course, I can work on this sort of stuff anywhere, at work or at home. The only negative to doing it this way is if the story becomes an aborted project, I have yet another barely-used notebook to put in my collection. And lord knows I have enough of those in a file cabinet back home.

The pros and cons for going straight to computer are similar. Using the computer, I have everything in one place and I can refer back to previous chapters, but the process of doing so can be a bit of a pain, especially when I'm getting near the end of the book, when I have to refer back to Chapter 4 to see if what Character X is doing now jives with what he/she was doing then. Then there's the fact that I'm always sidetracked by FreeCell and my mp3 collection (or Launchcast, for that matter). On the other hand, editing and revising things is a lot quicker and easier (and a lot less messier). On the whole, it's a toss-up.

When I get home today there's a good chance I'll fish out a couple of notebooks (or buy a few at the local store) and get started on one of the three or four side-projects that I've been threatening to start while working on G&C. I can work on this during the afternoon when I get home (and I'm too tired and/or lazy to start right in on writing), saving the main project for later in the evening.

I suppose the main reason for this post is the fact that I've been seriously slacking in the writing department lately and I'm sick of using the excuse "I'm too tired" or "Maybe I should take a day off" for not getting anything done. I have the energy and I have the reasons and the will to do it, it's just a matter of getting off my duff and DOING it.

How to Kvetch: The Yiddish Language and Culture In All Its Moods by Michael Wex

This promises to be a good one....

Sunday emmalyon and I went to Barnes and Noble, where I ended up buying the newest edition of Writer's Market Deluxe Edition--one of the best annual market listings for writers. The deluxe edition includes a year's subscription to the WM site which includes updates, industry news, and other nifty things.

Thing is, it cost me nearly fifty dollars, so I told Emm that in order to justify buying this edition (rather than the regular $30 edition which is just the book), I need to finish a story, revise it, and submit it to a publisher before the new edition comes out next year.

I'd like to make Gabriel and Cassandra the story, but if I can get something else as well, perhaps a short story or something, that would be great. Like I said, I have a year.

This should be interesting. :)

So last night, while IMing with emmalyon, I was watching Red Dawn on SpikeTV. I haven't seen that movie in a good few years, so it was kind of fun to watch it again. Like I said in the previous post, it brought back a lot of memories of writing the Infamous War Novel. So much so that I pulled the mammoth 3-ring binder out and started looking through all the notes, outlines, and whatnot that I'd accumulated over the years. I think the last time I actually worked on that thing was some time around 1996 when I was working at the radio station, as I was transcribing it onto MSWord. But the last time I actually worked on it, I mean actual writing, plotting, and worldbuilding with the original story idea intact, had to be some time in 1992 when I was living with L. (see my Radio Radio posts), and even then it was morphing into something different.

When I looked through the notes and stuff last night (I didn't actually sit down and read any of it yet), I found a lot of interesting things I'd forgotten about: the fact that I would sometimes just sit down and listen to specific songs or albums and try to pull a scene idea out of it (this was my "music video treatment" way of writing the story)...a 12 "issue" story chart that I believe was my way of retooling the story idea in 1991/2 when I was heavily influenced by Cerebus at the time...a jumbled mess of various notes from 1987/88 when I worked at the YMCA, when I would sit down on the steps down in the locker rooms and write (talk about choosing odd places to write!!)...a few chronologies of when I'd started the story and its various mutations...

This is a 5" thick binder, mind you, and it's FILLED with stuff. The original written version, the first typed version, a second slightly different version, and I believe two different versions after that. Plus an amazing amount of outtakes, false starts, and an even an unfinished sequel.

So let's sum up: The Infamous War Novel (its sequel included) morphed into an unfinished story called "Vigil", which morphed into an unfinished novel called True Faith, which morphed into a novel called The Phoenix Effect, which morphed into the current trilogy. Which may or may not go through one more retooling. You could say I've been writing the same novel for the last twenty-one years, and never quite managed to say what I wanted to say with it. Frustrating, sure, but at least I can safely say that I've got other stories I'm working on that have no link to it at all. At least I'm not a one-novel writer, which has always worried me.

And the funny thing is that the idea behind the Infamous War Novel still intrigues me enough, and I've been away from it long enough, that I could concievably work on it one final time and actually have a decent, finished novel. We'll see where this takes us...

The latest Oxford English Dictionary has been revealed and supposedly lists 150 ways to insult someone (including my favorite one, "chucklehead")...WOOT!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/08/11/dictionary.words.reut/index.html

Part of the story mentions words that are actually mixes of two words into one (charity+mugger (e.g., street person looking for a hand out)="chugger", labrador+poodle=labradoodle), and it got me thinking: post your own mutations (real or made up) here that you like to use or would like to see used in current slang. I'm very curious to see what we can come up with.

Post away, kiddies!