Chapter 10

The chapter is done. Finished it up with some dialogue. I don't like the ending line, but it'll do for now. I need to double check that my logic...makes sense. Logic and I do not get along.

Current word count: 64,479

Would have posted this two days ago, but blogger felt it was a good time for maintenance. Working on chapter 11 now. Would have had more done last night, but I was focused on editing and making sure my video didn't explode. Took six hours to upload. That is ridiculous. I have been told that I need to make videos in a different way. Hopefully, this will reduce the size and upload time.

I need to learn how to write without so much dialogue.

Hell Must Have Frozen Over

And not because it's -30 degrees outside.

What an eventful reading week. I've been meaning to post something for days now, but either skiing or censors have stopped me from doing so. The place I play badminton and go bowling does not like Blogger...or DeviantArt...or Freewebs. So I'm limited to other sites I'm sure they would block if they only knew about them. Let's just say I probably shouldn't be reading Scandinavia and the World comics when there are mothers with their four-year-olds sitting behind me.

EXHIBIT A: Ten pages worth of writing in the past two days

That...doesn't seem like much, but it's pretty good for me. My story on bowling has been going well, and has been fun to write. I have to be careful with the style and content though. Style because it's mimicking another author a little too close. Content because I want to avoid being too technical and I need to have some sort of "point" to it.

EXHIBIT B: WMRR exceeding 100 pages

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I have surpassed the 100 page mark. Well, technically I'm at 104 pages, but 3 of those pages are more or less blank. They have notes on them and that's about it. Dan's little bit has turned out to be longer than I anticipated, but I'm loving it. I might need to rewrite the freerunning bit. It's a little...lacking. Also Chapter 10 so far needs a lot of revision. I made the mistake of reading it again, and the writing is weak. Oops.

EXHIBIT C: An article everyone should read

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

Given to my fiction writing class by our prof to read over our break. It makes a lot of good points and I agree with most of it. A good way to make your writing better. Also I will point out that there are a few mistakes in the piece, but I think that's caused by it's reproduction on the web. At least I hope so. I'd laugh hysterically otherwise.

EXHIBIT D: A video everyone should watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UouP8cRYZ8

Because I'm beginning to hate Facebook. A lot. Mostly because I realized that I would have no idea when, where and if people were planning events, social gatherings or sports teams otherwise. Essentially I'm counting on Facebook to have a social life. Permission to shoot me granted.

This is also a little loaded coming from me since I get half my viewers from links on my Facebook. Creepy.

EXHIBIT E: Editing success?

What is this "suck-cess" word and where did it come from. I have actually received requests from people to edit their work. AND GET PAID. Oh lordy. I may or may not be a little insane with my edits though, so I think I need to tone it down a bit. Just a bit. At any rate, I have a big job coming up. Yay.


------

ARGH MY ANKLES. I MEAN LEGS. I MEAN CALVES. I MEAN MID-CALVES. Seriously I've been having problems defining the injured body part after the French medic told me multiple times that the pulled muscles were NOT IN MY ANKLES. Then he insisted on checking my arms, neck and upper legs for injuries before asking me if I remember what happened and if I hit my head. I realize it could be standard procedure, but I don't understand why since it was only my legs that were messed up and he didn't bother asking what happened. Regardless, it hurts like hell. I still skied with injured legs for three hours after, but it hurts.


And apparently peanuts do not make bombs.

Down to Business

Editing business that is. So far so good is my report. I've only edited three papers (two people), but a lot of people seem to have taken the tags on my posters. And posted other stuff over them...but that happens at the uni. Which reminds me of a genius advertising scheme, but I'll get to that in a moment.

I'm convinced that I'm a terrifying editor. I get a little nuts about the edits at times. I was supposed to edit another paper of someone's, but after I gave them the first edit I never heard from them again. In my defence, I received the paper late Sunday night when it was due on Monday. I didn't have time to do the type of content edit I would have liked and ended up skimping a little on the comments. I was up all night preparing for presentations and document analyses, so I was a grouchy bitch all day. A lot of the time when I'm tired I look extremely sick. I might have frightened my poor customer off.

So back to the advertising. Some sort of poetry event is going down at the university (I'm not sure what that's about, but let me explain) and to promote it the people organizing it have torn down other people's posters, turned them and wrote the name of the event on them. The event is entitled: Deface. It's offensive and awkward, but at the same time enticing. That and it's a great way to get attention. It's either arrogance or brilliance...probably both.

All in all, not a bad week despite my exhaustion. I even got a small bonus on my last edits. Either he thought I did a good job or was grateful for doing the one so late, but it certainly made my day.

I've actually been working hard on WMRR over the past few weeks whenever I've had time. I have my fourth short story to complete, which has been fun to write so far. It's about bowling. Bowling can be surprisingly sexual. I was shocked. As for WMRR, my order of writing is a mess. I am essentially writing four chapters at once (chapter 10, 11, 12, Dan's Interlude). Let me just say that Dan's part has been going exceptionally well. I have the first portion and part of the middle done (middle is hand-written on paper in my notebook). I still need to add a lot of details concerning free-running. I'm still working out how to write 10 and 11 (half done 10...it's a short one, and I'm only done about five sentences in 11). I haven't started 12 yet, but it's going to be quite different, told from the perspective of a character I haven't introduced yet. It's going to be a fun one, especially when I introduce his status and how he fights. OHHHHH THIS IS FUN. Insert excessive amounts of smiling faces here.

Also, my spelling is getting better. I made it through this entire post without my spell-check underlining anything. Go me.

Throw a Freaking Party

I have finally, officially, adverbally, finished chapter 9. It is done. It took me an eon, but it is finished. I have a complete segment of WMRR. The sad part is I am probably only a little over a third done. In the final final edit I will probably be cutting out 10% of what I wrote, but right now that doesn't matter. Why? Because I'm DONE CHAPTER 9 YEAHHHHH.

So Chapter 10. How the hell am I going to write this one?

Oh and....

Current rough draft completion: 47%
Overall completion: 35%
Word Count: 51, 094

Blugh?

I read differently.

I discovered I enjoy trashy novels, but only if they are passable. Only if they can be redeemed. I am currently reading "Age of Ra" by James Lovegrove. It is a horribly cheesy, cliched book full of death, horrible sentences, plot holes and hilarious usage of BIG WORDS, but it's entertaining. It's a fun book. Essentially the Egyptian gods have defeated all other religions and pantheons and have become the sole gods on earth. Two warring factions were created because of this: ones who worship Osiris and the others who worship Nephthferereiriewshfdhswhateverthenameis (seriously I can't pronounce ph and th together, so all the letters after them look EXACTLY like that to me while reading). The only place neutral is "Freegypt"...which is pretty much Egypt. This notion is fantastic. This irony is actually funny. So far, there's been soldiers dying, commanders spewing nonsense and over-the-top cliche lines, ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LASER BEAMS (I am not shitting you here...just like YTAS man), getting lost in deserts, sodomy (...), random love interests and a lot of random bullshit about the gods that sort of makes sense but needs cleaning up. This my friends, is the kind of exercise my brain needs. The writing and story is good enough that I can stay engaged and bad enough that I can edit as I go. I found a new hobby!

WMRR progress is slow as usual. I have finally, FINALLY typed "Chapter 10" on a page. This, my friends, is the double digits. This is where it gets real. OH YES. That said I still have a tiny portion of chapter 9 to write which includes a short discussion and a description of Joey and Jennifer Strongback. Yes I'm going to leave that ambiguous. Excuse me while I grin stupidly.

School starts on Monday. I have mixed feelings. I want to go back and take another stab at school. At the same time, I got the outline for my 500 level history course. Two individual presentations, a research paper and a participation mark worth 25%. The bright side? Well there's no final? Blugh.

Constantly making up new words.

YA POOPIN?








No, I will not explain.

String Cheese Manifesto

So my shit-tascular week is thankfully over. Tomorrow I'll get my poorly-written first short story torn to itty bitty bits. My class is generally good about being gentle with such matters, but it will be painful none-the-less. I am planning on actually going to all my classes this week (perish the thought) and I also plan to write like a madman...er woman.

I had about 4 days where I did absolutely nothing. I had to put my dog down last week, which really wounded me in a lot of ways. I'm still recovering. I'm just glad she had a long, mostly healthy life (nearly fifteen years...where the last year she was ill with Cushings). I'll miss her a lot, but I think after a weekend of mourning, spending time with family and friends and being lazy, I am ready to get serious about school and writing again.

I have two tiny little pieces breaking up chapter 8 and 9, which I am actually going to finish today (horray for outragiously long delays). Then I can move on to something completely different, chapter 10. I'm excited to write this one. Here we get a perspective deviating from what I've been writing for the first 90ish pages (it will be around 90 when I'm done the two chapters). I will post a completion percentage update later today when I'm done.

In other news, I have a Dungeon Keeper mission to play and record, my hours at work have been drastically reduced (THANK GOD), I get the Thanksgiving weekend off, we are probably not going to Vegas because we are all dirt-poor and I posted my first assignment in Fiction II here: http://drschwa.deviantart.com/#/d2zyycl. Some wonderful person favourited it. That made my day Saturday. It's not my finest work by any means, but I had a lot of fun writing it, which is what counts in the end.

More news unrelated to me!

All writers that come across this should check out:
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/feb/09/the-dull-new-global-novel/
This is disturbing in many ways. Good that works can be shared globally...bad in every other sense...

Contests!

First Person Narrative National Essay Contest
Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives
This Year’s Topic ~ Where I Come From
Essay Length ~ 2000-2500 words.
1st prize $500.00
2nd prize $300.00
3rd prize $200.00

With a special prize of $100.00 for Best Under Nineteen
Prizewinning essays will be selected by award-winning writer and CBC Radio Host
Bill Richardson and by Anne Fleming critically acclaimed author and creative writing teacher.

Submission Due Date ~ November 1, 2010
Prize Winners announced ~ December 10, 2010

Entries should be typed, single-sided, and double-spaced with your name, address and story title on a separate sheet. Parent/Guardian signature required for anyone under 19. Forms can be found on our web site. Entry fee is $10.00 payable to Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives by cheque. Free for anyone under 19. Contest details available at www.clga.ca

Send your stories, with payment, to
Jennifer Coffey
Managing Editor, QA
106 Walpole Avenue
Toronto ON M4L 2J3
The contest is open to all ages and all backgrounds.
All entries will be considered for publication in Keeping Our Stories Alive, Volume 1, A Journal of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives.

ANDDDD ANOTHER ONE (For Canadians only sorry!)

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
18th Annual Short Prose Competition
for Developing Writers
$2,500 PRIZE

The Writers’ Union of Canada is pleased to announce that submissions are being accepted until November 10, 2010
for the 18TH ANNUAL SHORT PROSE COMPETITION FOR DEVELOPING WRITERS.
The winning entry will be the best Canadian work of 2,500 words in the English language, fiction or nonfiction, written by an unpublished author.

PRIZE
$2,500 for the winning entry and the entries of the winner and finalists will be submitted to three Canadian magazines.

JURY
Writers Tarek Fatah, K.V. Johansen, and Sharon Pollock will serve as the jury.

ELIGIBILITY
This competition is open to all Canadian citizens and landed immigrants who have not had a book published by a
commercial or university press in any genre and who do not currently have a contract with a book publisher. Original
and unpublished (English language) fiction or nonfiction.

HOW TO SUBMIT ENTRIES:
· Entries should be typed, double-spaced, in a clear twelve point font, and the pages numbered on 8.5 x 11 paper,
not stapled.
· Submissions will be accepted by hardcopy only.
· Include a separate cover letter with title of story, full name, address, phone number, e-mail address, word count,
and number of pages of entry.
· Please type the name of entrant and the title of entry on each numbered page. This is not a blind competition.
· Make cheque or money order payable to The Writers' Union of Canada. Multiple entries can be submitted
together and fees can be added and paid with one cheque or money order, $25 per submission.
· Entries must be postmarked by November 10, 2010 to be eligible. Results will be announced in February 2011.
· Mail entries to: WFC Competition, The Writers’ Union of Canada, 90 Richmond Street East, Suite 200,
Toronto, ON M5C 1P1.
Results will be posted at www.writersunion.ca. Manuscripts will not be returned.


WOW long post. Last, but certainly not least...

Lately we've been talking in class about the differences between Albertan (North American Western) writers and other larger centres of writing like New York and Ontario. All those huge writing centres are so cut-throat and competative, which is good in a lot of ways, but after our class discussions, I have a new respect from writers who aren't attracted to those places. I recently went to a reading here in Calgary, and all the writers and other literature-related people were all so kind and talkative. We all don't mind helping each other out and sharing our writing experience with each other. Maybe this is because we aren't a HUGE centre of writing, but this is why I share contests and news. I like that kind of cooperative community.