Category Archives: Diary

On Recent Writing

I’ve written some little dribs and drabs longhand over the past fortnight, bits of dialogue and scenes that don’t belong anywhere yet. It’s August and I’m engaging in the August Writing project as usual, where one writes every day. I missed a few days last week; for once, I’m not stressing about it or trying to write extra things to ‘catch up’. The Wings & Ashes novelette has submerged back into my subconscious to mellow some more; I can’t get into one of the key characters yet, and it’s understandably blocking things as she’s one half of the romantic pairing of protagonists and central to the story.

Yesterday, I sat down and plotted out the entire last half of Swan Sister, creating and writing out the key scenes in point form on index cards and ordering them in such a way that they made sense as a story. I now have the future of the rest of the book sitting on my desk by my pencil cup, existing as a quarter-inch stack of pink, green, and white cardstock and fountain pen ink bound together by a small green bulldog clip. Each index card is akin to a writing prompt. Now I know where to go; now it can be written. When I’m ready, of course. And the writing prompt doesn’t guarantee that the scene or scene sequences outlined on the card will be easy to write, or quick.

So yes, I am writing. I’m really enjoying the permission I have given myself to not write at the computer this month. I write for a living and I work at the computer; writing longhand somewhere else is a change I need. It’s more relaxing, less fraught with getting it right (write?), and a different method of creating. And allowing myself the permission to not transcribe and post it to the writing community (thereby removing a deadline of sorts) frees me up to create something less polished as well.

The August Writing project is about giving most people a structure to get them writing again. For me, it’s about removing the customary structure so I can write. Sometimes, as Bodhifox said last week, you just have to change the rules, to perform some sleight of hand in order to slip past the obstacles in your own psyche.

Toddler Logic

SCENE: After the morning ablutions, SPARKY and MAMA are back in the boy’s room, getting him dressed. SPARKY has flopped down on the floor, lying limply, making it difficult for MAMA to get his jeans on him. He pulls a large book over to him and drags it up onto his chest. Then he inches it up over his face.

SPARKY: Where’s Liam?

[MAMA looks at him. She knows darn well where SPARKY is: lying on the floor holding a book over his face. Then she gets it.]

MAMA: I don’t know! Where’s Liam? Where did he go?

[MAMA continues to wrestle a pair of pants onto the boy.]

MAMA: Is he… under the bed?

SPARKY: [very quietly under his breath, as if he were talking to himself; also with a hint of amusement in his voice, because he knows something MAMA doesn’t know] Nooooo.

MAMA: Is he… under the chair?

SPARKY: [as before] Nooooo.

MAMA: Is he… in the cupboard?

SPARKY: [as before] Nooooo.

MAMA: Where is he?

SPARKY: [lowers the book just enough to peep over the top, eyes merry]

MAMA: There he is!

[SPARKY giggles. Then he puts the book aside and reaches up, placing a hand firmly over MAMA’s eyes — or, rather, the bridge of her nose, because the hand isn’t big enough to cover both her eyes.]

SPARKY: Where’s Mama?

(This has been repeated with toys… toddler fingers covering the eyes of Thomas the Tank Engine, for example, followed by Liam looking at me with eyebrows raised and the free hand palm-up in the air making a ‘who knows?’ gesture, asking, “Where’s Thomas?“. It’s a variation of the old peek-a-boo game, this time with words, and it amuses me so much. I love how it still centres around the eyes and being able to see them, only in a different way: now if you hide someone else’s eyes, they become invisible instead.)

Dinner Tonight…

… was the best ratatouille ever.

The secret is to be willing to grate most of a seven-dollar block of fresh Parmesan, and make sure you put a decent amount between every layer. Also make sure every vegetable you use to make it was in the ground/on the vine three days ago at the most.

Between us, HRH and I ate the entire thing. I was expecting to put half of it away for lunches this week. Liam helped us by eating a mushroom or two, a bit of sweet pepper, and some aubergine that I told him was another kind of mushroom, ferried to his mouth with forkfuls of rice.

Evidently I will have to make more. Good thing I have extras of all the ingredients, and it’s dead simple to make.

Made Of Awesome

Three sheets edited today, one more than my average on this project. I am mighty mighty, especially since there was a toddler careening around and plastering himself against the French door to my office, pressing his face against the glass and squealing “MaMAAAAAA!” at irregular intervals. One of the interruptions was to give me a daisy he’d pulled out of our garden, complete with huge smile on his face, before dashing back outside with his father.

So yes, I am made of awesome. I think my back isn’t talking to me, though. On the other hand, I am sinking back into the swing of this script instead of fighting against it; it’s a momentum thing. While this is good in one respect, in another I fear I am losing brain cells.

Keeping me company music-wise today were The Cowboy Junkies (Miles From Our Home), James Ehnes (Bach’s Solo Sonatas & Partitas for violin), and Jaqueline du Pre (the Dvorak cello concerto). I picked up Tori Amos’ American Doll Posse when it was released this spring and it didn’t grab me. But I had it running in the background while I worked after dinner, and I’m warming up to it. It will never approach my love of The Beekeeper or Little Earthquakes or Under the Pink, but it may end up hovering somewhere around my feeling for To Venus and Back.

Break To Gabble

Argh! Not only is this slow because I have to compare three documents, eliminate some minor differences and maintain others, but I have to dance around all these damned newly added tags and code. It slows me down dreadfully. Did I mention that I’ve been through this script or variations of it four times already, and it now bores me? Boredom makes focusing very difficult.

I’d plead for release via death, except that would preclude getting paid for finishing the work.

I will finish this first sheet tonight. I will.

I’m only halfway through.

*headdesk*

Break’s over.

(Why do I have no Walnut Whips left? Why?)

LATER, 10:49 PM: DONE! Well, the first sheet of thirteen, anyway. Now, to bed with a cup of warm milk because I”ll be damned if I’m going to wake up at 4:30 AM like I did today. Also, I have a book to finish.

Wednesday

Thank you all for your good wishes. The boy was reunited with BunBun this morning and gave him a fervent cuddle. “Liam hugging BunBun now,” he said, wrapping his arms so far around the bunny that it was gripped in the crooks of his elbows in front of him, and rocking it back and forth in a mildly violent fashion.

Meallanmouse and I met for lunch today (pasta chips at L’Etranger, how I have missed you), and while I was out I picked up a new notebook as well as doing a quick stop at Archambault to look at double bass method books (Eva’s a fretless bass, okay? Regular electric bass books keep telling me to put fingers on my non-existent frets, and double basses just happen to have the same tuning and thus fingering as an electric bass). I stopped at Indigo to get a book as well, but ended up leaving it behind after carrying it around for a while. (Gratuitous and self-serving stock check: they had one copy of my second book on their shelves, and two of my third.) When I got home there was mailbox joy in the form of the first cheque for the urgent work I did in July, which means Hydro and Bell can be paid. Also in the mailbox was my first issue of the Strings magazine to which I subscribed as a birthday gift to myself. (Of course, that was before I bought Eva as a birthday gift, so I ended up with two from me to me.)

I’d forgotten how public transport allows me to read a lot. I began Stephanie Cowell’s The Players last night, and as of now I’m something like two hundred pages in, with only fifty more to go. I’ll be finished tonight. And finish it I will, most likely in a warm bath, because I will need the break after an afternoon of reducing this script. This is the fifth time I’ve gone over a version of this story (three different versions are required for the project, let’s call them X,Y, and Z: I went over X twice, and this is the second [and significantly longer] edition of Z), and I’m already cross-eyed. And now we have the added twist of working within very specific coding tags, so I have to be extra careful of what I delete and add.

Very pleasant weather we are having. We have only had the air conditioner on for all of five days this summer so far. In fact, HRH took it out just before we left for our long weekend away, and it won’t be replaced unless absolutely necessary. I approve.