5 scenes today, woohoo!

132/184
Start: 114 End: 264 (+150)

133/184
Start: 162 End: 271 (+109)

134/184
Start: 192 End: 208 (+16)

135/184
Start: 150 End: 154 (+4)

136/184
Start: 851 End: 894 (+43)

Turned the last "corner" in the plot. Got one major subplot on the way to revision, and another morphing.

(At least, in the fictional sense.)

I managed to give a 179-word scene some coherence and conflict and purposefulness, and 213 more words in the process.

First was whatever of the car. It started having trouble starting, so I went to the local Auto Zone (I love them!) The guy tested the battery, and yup, it wasn't holding much of a charge. (No big surprise, it's probably original equipment.) So I bought a new one, and the guy installed it, and I sped off to work.

I went to lunch, and when I tried to start the car, it didn't. I walked back to work, took the bus home, and met some friends back at the car in the morning. We jumped the car and drove it back to the Auto Zone, where the guy checked it again. The connection to ground had gone bad; the guy from the day before had tightened it as far as it would go, and I'd been in a hurry to get to work, so he hadn't noticed that it was loose. But it would have to be replaced.

So I bought the part and the tools. (Diagonal cutters are also called dykes, which launched a series of jokes between me and Ceece. She said I should have bought a [wire] stripper too, but I couldn't justify it.) I cut the old connector off, stripped the insulation from the wire, and crimped the connector on it.

Then I turned the key -- and it started!

I'm sure some of the random passers-by thought my victory whoop and dance were a bit excessive, but who cares! (Even Grandmommie and my stepmom were proud of me.)

Then, after dinner, I cleaned all the expired food out of one of my cabinets. I call it the "spider cabinet" because it's got big spiders in it. But I wore my purple rubber gloves with the cuffs turned over so they couldn't sneak up on me, and I did it!

Now I'm sweaty, tired ... and proud of myself. :D

I took my first test in self-paced math today. (I'm taking Beginning Algebra, which I took 3 1/2 years ago, but didn't remember ANYTHING, so I decided to re-take it rather than plunging right in with my nemesis, Intermediate Algebra.) The test functions as an entrance exam, so I was really worried.

I got 98%

Go me!

Now I can get back to (occasionally) doing non-math thingies. Yay!

Got a late second wind (right before I took the trileptal, funny that) and finished writing the new scenes. The current draft is a total of 81519 words, 184 scenes. So I'm gonna stick it in the file cabinet for a month before I go back through it scene-by-scene.

Next, make the synopsis for Unlocked make sense ... and of course, work on Giving Red.

Finished the triathlon. 0.75K Swim, 20K Bike, 5K Run. Whew!

Will post pics when I have the brainpower to figure out the CD thingie.

Gonna go collapse now.

I finally managed to work up my nerve to ask the cute girl in the ceramics class if she wanted to go for coffee sometime. She said thanks but no thanks, which stings a bit, but hey. Other fish in the sea, right?

I'm actually pretty impressed with myself for managing to get the words out. Which takes away a lot of the sting.

So ... go me!

Oddly enough, beating myself up for being a coward was worse than the actual being rejected. Unfortunately, I think it's going to be awkward for a bit, but hey.

I. Asked. Her. Out.

This is big!

One of my main baddies in Unlocked has a fake British accent. (He was actually born and raised in the L.A. area, and has come back later in life.) I decided this in the last revision, or rather, he decided it for me, since I started hearing his lines in the accent.

Too much Brit-Coms, I guess. Or maybe too many Sean Bean movies. (Waaaait ... you can never have too many Sean Bean movies.) Anyway, there it was.

But of course, I was worried that it would be seen as the stereotype of "oh, yeah, make all your villains Brits" since of course, since it's not from his POV, you don't know for a couple nother chapters that the accent's fake.

But going back through it, interspersed with his intro scene, are a couple of other mentions of people faking or picking up accents.

In the scene before his intro, Sam accidentally picks up the phlebotomist's Jamaican accent, and thinks of how her estranged husband referred to her as an accent sponge.

In the scene after his intro, it's revealed that the phlebotomist is from New Jersey, her accent's fake (she's an aspiring actress) and later on in the scene, she switches to a British accent herself.

I didn't do this on purpose, didn't even notice it until this draft, but seriously. Go me.

The response I got:

Notes: Good opening line! I like the Van Helsing tie and wish you’d addressed that and Shannon’s characterization more. Watch for redundancies. The second and fourth sentences are repetitive. As is the word “killed” in the third sentence. Why does her attraction to Troy complicate things? Give us a few more details. I like the lead you gave about Arnot being sinister. A little tightening and this’ll be perfect. Good luck!

I think this counts as a "go me"!

I've got a list of things I can't do on the internet -- phone calls to make, things to see ... stuff like that. But I can't wait for that to write the new scenes -- gotta keep moving.

So I've got 2 weeks -- 10 working days -- to write the new scenes. Entirely do-able.

Jecine is done. Final word count ... 73845.

Night night, see you in a week! (It's no-reading week in the Artist's Way, so I shouldn't be here but ... I'm posting, not reading, so it's legal.)

Which went surprisingly easy, once I'd gotten started. I was actually able to use more of it than I'd remembered; the second para was fine. The first was just taking Miss Snark's advice on how to not bury my lead, and put in the threats that Arhi will be facing in the course of the story.

( Read more... )

Go me!

Well, except for the whole editing thing and the try-to-get-it-published thing, and, did I mention I ended it on "To Be Continued" so I do kind of have to write the sequel but really ... :p

I. Won. NaNoWriMo.

53,297

I came, I saw, I KICKED IT'S ASS!

(With over 23 hours to spare.)

And for my finale? I'm going to bed, cuz I have to work in the morning.

But seriously. GO ME!

1,006 words in Jecine.
Ch. 6 polished in TCS.

After just a little over a year (started pre-planning in March of last year, which is for me a v. fast turnaround) the first draft of Unlocked is done. 69,196 words. I think the end goes by too fast -- going to have to futz with the pacing when I revise. But that's for the revisions. Which are later.

Anyway, going to bed. Totally zonked.

So I went over to OCC to pick up my textbooks, since classes start next week. While I was there, I stopped by the Forum and checked if my History grade was posted. With some fear and trepidation (I had my History and Algebra finals on the same day, and spent most of my study energies on the math. With predictable results.) I checked. And discovered that I'd gotten an A. Since I already knew I'd gotten an A in the math (miracle of miracles) that means that, for the first time in my life, I'm an A student. 4.0. Let me repeat that. 4.0

I think this calls for a squeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Classes start next week, and my math textbook for this semester says Algebra and Trigonometry (Run away, run away!) So I'm just going to enjoy my a-studentliness while it lasts.

Almost forgot, the final count for Deception's Heart is 91980.

Go me!

Bed, now...

Okay, I've got a lot of laundry to do. Some of it that needs to get done by TOMORROW so my lord has garb to wear to Knewbie Knockabout tomorrow.

Aaaaaand...the washer downstairs is running slow. Cold water coming in at a trickle, and it's not stuff I can wash on hot. It still works, but it takes hours. Hours that I don't have, unless I want to be up all night to do 2 loads of laundry.

Um...no.

So I get to thinking; it probably runs on a sensor, right? And there's a garden hose right around the corner, right?

And guess what; I was right. Oh, the floor's a wet mess, but it's plain concrete, it'll dry.