Category Archives: Writing

Orchestrated Update

Total word count, Orchestrated: 7,390
New words today: 2,197

So this is what happens when I actually leave the document open all day and remember to put words into it…

Of course, I didn’t do any work on the workshop for the weekend. Which means that’s what I have to do tomorrow afternoon, and finish it on Thursday. Which, in turn, means no more Orchestrated until I’m home from the festival next Monday. Sigh.

ETA: Except I did half an hour of moving things around and consolidating thoughts in the workshop file, and huh, look at that, I have the bones of a coherent workshop emerging. Again, the problem is going to be keeping it to one hour; I’m used to workshops being two hours. I suspect once I’m there I may toss everything out and just talk about why home-based spirituality is important and how to recognize/add spiritual elements to daily home life.

Orchestrated Update

Opened a ticket yesterday afternoon with the help desk of my hosting company, and they “restarted the related service”. This was after the blog came back on its own, mind you, so who knows what they started. We’re still going to try to make things more efficient from this end, starting with a reinstall of WP and a new template later this fall.

Enough angst! There was writing yesterday!

Total word count, Orchestrated: 5,193
New words yesterday: 1,143

I remember when a good day was 4K. Now I’m happy if I break a thousand. Sigh.

It will get easier as the story forms and the characters develop. If I can just keep writing it every day, the mind and body will suddenly remember what it’s like to be working on a book, and everything will be happy.

I can hope, can’t I?

I have now made bread, handled some work stuff, checked e-mail, and made plans for tomorrow. One last e-mail to write up and send out, then I get get to writing again.

Hullo, World

First things first: Happy birthday to Sandman7 and Pdaughter!

I just spoke briefly with t!, who says life is very good at the new homestead in southern Ontario. Just to let those who are wondering know, the Coalition Stronghold does not have internet access and will not until early next week.

I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off today, and did not in any way need the New Construction Headache in the middle of town this morning as I tried to get gas and to the bank. Argh.

My computer will not recognize my camera at all, no matter what USB port I use. Tonight I plan to open the box under Blade‘s supervision (which at this point consists mostly of Blade drinking Scotch and tossing me a screwdriver; he’s moral support and the voice of wisdom that suggests I may not actually want to plug/unplug a particular cable inside) to insert the USB expansion card Jan gave me before she left, to up the number of installed USB ports to eight. I have pictures to share, you see, of the new haircut and the new glasses and other things, and not being able to get them off the camera is annoying.

I finished the huge freelance project yesterday, two days after I’d wanted it gone because I realized I had to do one final step. I may do a timed writing thing around noon before I have to head out to the doctor just past one, simply to get some words down. After that it’s to the south shore to drop off postdated cheques with the boy’s preschool, because they were forgotten yesterday which was in fact Wednesday not Tuesday as we all thought it was. And if I’m out there I might as well pick HRH up from work before going to get the boy from his caregiver, who is having a little party today with the kids.

Next week’s work is all mine, because I have to draft the workshop I’m doing at the Hamilton Pagan Pride Day event on September 13. Which is next weekend. We’re leaving a week from tomorrow. Eek.

Right; off I go to do more headless chickeny things. Which reminds me… I need to think of something for dinner.

Day One: Conclusion

Lunch out with Ceri was fabulous. We haven’t seen one another since my birthday, and that was for all of ten minutes. We chatted about so many different things: some writing (she asked what Orchestrated was about and I’ve never had to sum it up for anyone before…. other than the three-paragraph synopsis, that is), games and gaming, houses, her experiences at voice recording sessions for the game she scripted, her experiences at Comic-Con demoing the game, and her recent trip to Germany for more of the same. (Travel stories are much more interesting than my staying-at-home stories.) Then we went and petted all the gorgeous quilts on display in the shop next door.

Once home, I sat down and wrote a book review for an uncorrected proof I’ve read as part of the Mini Book Expo project. I’ll proof it and polish it tomorrow if necessary, then post it. I’m all set for freelance work tomorrow, and I may divide the day into half for someone else, half for my own writing. (Which is theoretical payoff in the future, as opposed to immediate income. But I’ve been over this countless times to make it All Okay in my brain already.)

The boys should be home soon. I’ll be making my homemade tomato-onion sauce for pasta tonight, with tomatoes, onions, and basil from the garden. No, they’re actually pulling in now, so in a few moments I should hear how the boy’s first full day at preschool went. I imagine I’ll hear about it while he’s still in the driveway, actually.

(Ah yes: there he is, telling the neighbours, “Hi! I was at school! I had fun!” And he evidently napped a decent while too. Excellent.)

Preschool: Day One

HRH asked for my moral support in dropping the boy off at preschool this morning. “This is my school, Dada,” the boy said as we pulled up in front of it. This is where I work.” HRH and I exchanged amused glances at this. Because if HRH ‘works’ at a school, the boy’s school must be where he will ‘work’. We had to call him back to take off his shoes, and back again for hugs and kisses goodbye, just like on Friday. “It’s harder for the parents,” the teacher said. “Are you kidding?” we said. “We love this!” The boy flew back through the entryway and out the door to dance in front of two new arrivals, shouting, “Hi! I’m here!” and then leaping back into the entryway, throwing his hand out to indicate the newcomers and say to us, “These are my friends!” He then darted away through the corridor to the classroom. “Oh, yeah,” the teacher said, “he’s so ready for this.”

HRH took me to school with him after dropping the boy off, and I saw his office for the first time and did the first half of his morning walkabout with him. The work rooms are huge and airy, with lots of windows. The weather was just lovely today, too; it really felt like the first day of school. Not too hot, sunny with a scattering of fluffy clouds, a good breeze. I walked the ten minutes to the metro station, which is set in a terminal that looks remarkably like a modern airport, and figured out the new ticket system. I thought I was buying a permanent card that gets loaded with money and debited as you pass checkpoints but I ended up with six paper cards that get fed through the turnstiles and stamped with dates and such. I smiled all the way home through two metro rides and a bus ride. It’s such an incredible day in all respects. I love feeling like this.

When I finally got home after the hour and a half commute, there was no mail, alas. I was hoping for my new glasses. Tried to return a couple of phone calls without success.

On the way home I read some of A Thousand Days in Venice and made a connection that had been lacking about the Poppy book, which has been in mothballs for a couple of years. I realised that I have to work my protagonist through her fear of travel. It’s the obvious and logical conclusion to the conflict and the story, and I evidently needed those two years away from the book to see that. I’d been trying to work another story thread through, thinking it was the main issue and therefore the focal conclusion, and it wasn’t working properly in my head. Paired with the other Revelation, this may mean a finished novel by the end of the year. If I focused only on it, that is. Which I will very likely not do, as I don’t think it’s as marketable as some of my YA stuff. Whatever. I have lots of time to work on writing now; I don’t have to pick and choose what to cram into a day or so. A good thing, really, because I’m feeling somewhat blissfully bemused at what to do first today.

Wiktory!

I have four beautiful pristine Clairefontaine A4 properly ruled notebooks! As a bonus I picked up one of Clairefontaine’s 17×22 cm Forets vertes ‘Forever’ notebooks made of completely recycled paper. It doesn’t have the brushed vellum finish but it’s the smoothest recycled paper I’ve seen, and I want to see how my fountain pens work on it. Because, you see, they do an A4 Forets vertes cahier too and although Clairefontaine specifically uses pulps originated from certified ecologically managed forests, recycled paper is just that much more responsible. I managed to rein in my automatic desire to buy pens just because I’d bought new notebooks.

I am such a papeterie geek.

Let’s see, what else? We saw the film adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles last night, and I was disappointed. If I’d seen the film first then gone to the books I would have been thrilled, because I’d have gone from a coherent story to a much more complex and rich plot that unfolded at a more measured pace, but as it is I did it the other way around and felt the story was rushed. I was impressed at the characterization of just about everyone (except the main villain — can we say ‘cipher’?), loved the CG work and the general design, but the story just felt… well, it’s hard to describe, because the scriptwriters did a good job of taking key plot points and constructing a story that took place within twenty-four hours. It just lost a lot of the story’s impact and scope.

We went out this morning so HRH could order shoes for himself, and I found a pair of shoes to dye green. Now, two years ago I decided I wanted red shoes, and searched long and hard before I found a pair that was right. This year I decided I wanted green shoes. Can I find any? Of course not. But everywhere there are red shoes I’d love to wear. (I have to keep reminding myself that I own a pair already that don’t get worn very frequently and I do not need another pair.) Not long ago I realized that I could buy a white or bone-coloured pair that I liked and get them dyed green. Today, even though I wasn’t looking, I found a nice pair of loafer/pump type things with a nice stacked heel in a light tan colour that fit me like a glove (always surprising), and I bought them. Nice bonus: on sale! Now I need to find a reliable local cordonnerie who will dye them dark green for me.