Pookel's writing blog

I'm still alive ...

Not writing at the moment though. Had my baby 3/20/05. Keeping personal notes on my livejournal now, so anyone who's actually reading this can check there for updates.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/pookel/

62180.

My average is dropping steadily. I don't know if there's any way I'll finish by the end of December. The plot is getting more complex and thus more difficult to write.

I wonder if I could call in to work sick tomorrow because I'm too depressed to go?

I probably shouldn't. I need to save my sick days for the birth, if I'll be able to use them then.

61314. That's 1256 words for the day, the first time I've written since NaNo ended. Not great, but OK. And I have a list of everything that needs to happen by the end of the book.

The bad news is, there's a LOT of stuff that needs to happen by the end of the plot. I'm not sure if I can finish this in 90K or not. Last book, I had a relatively small amount of plot to fit in among leisurely character development and descriptive color. This time, it's escape-conspiracy-battle-assassination-conspiracy-execution-escape-battle ... I'm afraid its going to end up being terribly quick and badly described.

But at least I'm still writing it.

Still taking a short break from writing.

Over on Making Light, Teresa Nielsen Hayden's blog, there was a discussion recently about recommended books for a bright 9-year-old who's already read Harry Potter, Narnia, and several other commonly recommended series. I've compiled and alphabetized a list of all the books that were mentioned. I removed a few that were criticized by other posters or that came with comments like "might not be right for that age ..." because I wanted the list to hold up without explanation.

Here's the list:

Joan Aiken: Wolves of Willoughby Chase and sequels
Lloyd Alexander: Prydain series, Westmark series
Isaac Asimov: Fantastic Voyage
Clive Barker: The Thief of Always, Abarat and sequels
John Barnes: One for the Morning Glory
L. Frank Baum: Oz series
John Bellairs: The House with a Clock in its Walls, The Face in the Frost
Lucy Maria Boston: Children of Green Knowe, Treasure of Green Knowe
Frances Hodgson Burnett: A Little Princess, The Secret Garden
Oliver Butterworth: The Enormous Egg
Eleanor Cameron: Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, Stowaway to the MP, Mr. Bass' Planetoid
Suzy McKee Charnas: The Bronze King
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl series
Susan Cooper: Dark is Rising series, Seaward
Helen Cresswell: Bagthorpe series
Kara Dalkey: Little Sister, The Heavenward Path
Peter Dickinson: Changes trilogy; Tulku; King and Joker; Time and the Clockmice, Etc.
Ann Downer: Hatching Magic
Diane Duane: Young Wizard series, Cat series
Edward Eager:Magic series
Elizabeth Enright: Gone-Away Lake, Return to Gone-Away, Melendy family series
Nancy Farmer: House of the Scorpion
Penelope Farmer: The Ear, the Eye and the Arm
Louise Fitzhugh: Harriet the Spy
Cornelia Funke: The Thief Lord, Inkheart
Monica Furlong: Wise Child, Juniper
Neil Gaiman: Stardust, Coraline
Doris Gates: Blue Willow, Little Vic
Alan Garner: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath, Elidor
William Goldman: The Princess Bride
Harry Harrison: Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers
Robert Heinlein: The Rolling Stones, Red Planet, Starman Jones, The Star Beast, Between Planets, Time for the Stars
Frances Mary Hendry: Quest for a Maid
Eleanor Hoffman: Mischief in Fez
Tove Jansson: Finn Family Moomintroll, and sequels and prequels
Norton Juster: The Phantom Tollbooth
Karen Kushman: Catherine, Called Birdie; The Midwife's Apprentice
E.L. Konigsburg: From the Mixed of Files, The Second Mrs. Giaconda, and others
Evelyn Sibley Lampman: The City Under the Back Steps
Madeleine L’Engle: A Wrinkle in Time series, Vicky Austin series
Ursula Le Guin: Earthsea trilogy
Gail Levine: Ella Enchanted
C.S. Lewis: Chronicles of Narnia
Hilda Lewis: The Ship That Flew
Astrid Lindgren: Bill Bergson series; Ronia, the Robber's Daughter; The Brothers Lionheart
Dave Luckett: Rhianna series
George MacDonald: The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie
Michelle Magorian: Good Night Mr. Tom
John Masefield: The Box of Delights, or When the Wolves were Running
William Mayne: The Grass Rope, A Swarm in May
Patricia McKillip: Riddlemaster of Hed, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
Robin McKinley: The Hero and the Crown, The Blue Sword, Beauty
Sheila Moon: Knee-Deep in Thunder
E. Nesbit: Five Children and It, Phoenix and the Carpet, Story of the Amulet
Garth Nix: Old Kingdom series (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen), The Keys to the Kingdom series
Pat O'Shea: The Hounds of the Morrigan
Daniel Pinkwater: Lizard Music, Snarkout Boys adventures, and others
Terry Pratchett: The Bromeliad trilogy, the Johnny Maxwell trilogy, and some Discworld books
Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials trilogy, Clockwork
Arthur Ransome: Swallows and Amazons, and others
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: The Yearling
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter series
Sherwood Smith: Wren to the Rescue and others in series
Lemony Snickett: A Series of Unfortunate Events
Zilpha Keatley Snyder: Black and Blue Magic, Season of Ponies, The Headless Cupid, Witches of Worm
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit
Patricia Wrede: Enchanted Forest books, Mairelon the Magician, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot
Patricia Wrightson: The Nargun and the Stars, Nancy Cato, Nin and the Scribblies
Diana Wynne-Jones: Dogsbody, Archer's Goon, Chrestomanci series, Howl's Moving Castle


And here's a list of graphic novels that were recommended for an 11-year-old girl in the same discussion.

Mark Crilley: Akiko
Phil & Kaja Foglio: Girl Genius
Larry Gonick: Cartoon History of the Universe
Jay Hosler: Clan Apis, The Sandwalk Adventures
Linda Medley: Castle Waiting
Meridian
Ted Naifeh: Courtney Crumrin
James Robinson: Leave it to Chance
Stan Sakai: Usagi Yojimbo
Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis I
Skeleton Key
Jeff Smith: Bone

Burnout vs. need for speed ...

I finished NaNo at 60,058 after spending half the last week not writing at all and getting depressed about it. I'm still feeling blah about my plot and my characters and am sort of burned out about writing this book in general. I ended up with 3K more than I got last year, but since I hit 50K a full week earlier, it should have been higher, shouldn't it?

Still, this year I have the excuse of pregnancy, plus I didn't have the advantage of being at home with my parents (where I always have a lot of time to myself after they go to bed early). So I guess I did all right.

My NaNoFiMo idea seems to have taken off somewhat, as I'm now seeing threads on NaNo about it that weren't even started by me. Looks like a few dozen people are going to be finishing in December, at least. I want to do it again this year because I promised myself I would, but I don't want to force myself so hard that the burnout gets worse. So I think I will take the rest of this workweek off, which means today through Saturday, and then restart on Sunday. That'll still give me 27 or so days to write about 30K, which is a lot easier than NaNo.

On a different note, and because I just promised everyone in FM chat I'd share, here is the recipe for the best cookies I've ever had. We ran a bunch of reader-submitted recipes in the newspaper, and when our photographer took pictures of one woman baking her cookies, she sent him back to the newsroom with a plate. They were amazing! Here's her recipe:

Chocolate Crinkles
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoon vanilla
4 (1 ounce each) squares unsweetened baking chocolate, melted in microwave and cooled
4 eggs
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar, to roll in

Mix the sugar, oil, vanilla and cooled melted chocolate in a large mixing bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours. Shape into balls and roll in powdered sugar and bake on a greased baking sheet at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes, until almost no indentation remains when touched slightly in the center. Makes 6 dozen cookies.

-- Judy Kutzer, Bismarck , ND

---

Edit to note: It sounded wrong to me to roll the balls in powdered sugar before cooking, but I tested it and that is indeed the way it works. Make sure to grease the pan very thoroughly before cooking; Pam isn't good enough. The powdered sugar really makes them stick. They're excellent, though.

Green bar!!!

I didn't do much over the last couple of days, at least not considering that I wasn't working. So this morning I got up and randomly decided to hit 50K today.

This morning I was at 43259. I'm now at 50210. Woohoo!

This is the latest I've written (and this was the end of the day when my quality control was shot to hell):


Cara had stopped at a table covered with leather purses and belts, and she started to hand the vendor a newspaper, but when she looked up, she realized she recognized him. It was a young black man with an AK-47 strapped to his back and a serious look on his face. When he saw her, though, he grinned. It was Darius, the leader of the Black Wolves.
She stepped back, and then paused to look at him. "You're not in your territory."
"No, I'm not. So I won't shoot you today. Do you want to buy a purse?"
"No," she said. "I want to give you a newspaper."
"You're joking," he said. "What would we do with old newspapers?"
"Not old newspapers. New ones. We printed them up this morning." Cara handed him one of the papers and he stared at it, amazed.
"You're doing this?"
"Some of my friends and I, yeah. I didn't write any of this, I'm just handing out the papers."
Darius began reading the story about the Dreamers, oblivious to other customers approaching his table. "Holy shit," he said. He tapped the photo of the mass graves. "This shit is for real?"
"I was there and I saw it myself," Cara said. "It's real, all right."
"You were down there in Oklahoma?"
"We came to Chicago to get away from those people."
"Damn." Darius set the paper down and looked at Cara. "This is what you people are doing up here?"
"Yeah," Cara said. "That's why we were new in your territory."
"That's impressive," he said. He dug in his pocket for a moment and then his hand came out with a gold-toned chain and a gold ring. "I kept these separate from the rest," he said. "I kind of felt bad about keeping it after what you said about your mother." He handed the ring back to her.
Cara took the ring wordlessly and bit her lip. "Thank you," she said at last.
Bailey came up behind her. "Are you still handing out papers?"
"No, I was just stopping for a minute to talk," Cara said without turning around.
"Who the hell are you?" Darius asked.
Bailey paused, then held out his hand. "I'm the president of the United States."

I love the NaNo Character and Plot Realism Q&A forum. You can get answers to some of the most bizarre questions imaginable.

I've been compiling a list of the funniest or strangest thread titles. The web site isn't currently loading, so I'll post what I have so far and edit more in later.


 What's the best sports equipment to bash a shadow with?
 Ingredients needed for modern day anti-magic potion
 What fruit would be easiest to break someone's nose with?
 Goats on a wagon train journey?
 Strangulation: How long?
 Herding the people
 Killing a werewolf - what gun should I use?
 would you have sex with an alien?  
 How to derail a train
What would an adult male have in bedside drawer?
 How would you spend 16 million pounds?
 nickname for woman with huge hair
 Laws on Cannibalism in Massachusetts
 killing a god
 Illicit drugs and their prices
 what a dominatrix might wear?
 Need someone poisoned, but don't know how? Come here!
 Behaviour of a Male Courtesan?
 How to humanely kill a baby? 
 What's the name of the "oven" or "table" where people are burned during cremation?
 How do breasts feel? 
 How much damage can 1.5" do? 
 Cats; The good, the bad, and the ones that look they chased a wall. 
 What would be different if America had been settled by Pagans instead of Puritans?  
 Funniest thing you've done/heard/seen/other wise experienced during an orgasm ?
 Do you know what a gazebo is? Do your kids? 
 What is S&M?  

34491. Not a great pace these last couple of days, since I've been working, but I got good counts on the weekend. I've having some difficulties getting the subplots to work the way I want them to, but I think I just got past a hurdle - figuring out how to convince the vice president to help them.

Excerpt from a few days ago:

"After a while, you stop caring." Abby lay down on her bed and propped her knees up. "It was like that in Tulsa. They burned the city down for no reason and then they went around and killed people in the streets. Not just organized gangs like it is here, but everyone. Like everyone went crazy. I saw girls younger than me having sex in the back alleys with anyone who would give them food or a place to sleep for the night. And it was better for them, because at least they were willing."

"I'm sorry," Cara said.

"Don't be. It was just like that there. You stopped caring about anything. Did I tell you I killed a guy out there once?"

"One of the guys who raped you?" Cara regretted being so blunt as soon as she'd said it, but Abby didn't react.

"No, this other guy who stole a box of canned tuna from me in the winter when I was hungry. I mean, that was really important. There wasn't enough food. I guess I thought it would be like that everywhere. I didn't know there would be places where people still lived in houses and had friends and always had enough to eat."

"And you say you aren't tough."

"I'm not. I don't want to be. I killed this guy with a butcher knife because I caught him stealing the box out of the basement I was sleeping in, and it was horrible. There was blood all over the place, but I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I just dragged his body into the street and left it there, and I left the blood on the stairs where I'd killed him because I didn't have anything to clean it up with. In the morning, when I went out and looked at the body, I saw he was about my age. Maybe fourteen years old."

30294. I keep having bad days but managing to make it up at night anyway.

This is a difficult part of the plot, because the subplots have all been kicked off and all the major scenes I'd planned for the beginning are over with, and now I have about 30,000 words of "stuff happens in the middle that leads toward the climax."

Here's some of what I wrote yesterday:


"Traitors?" Maia sat down on the cot. "Are you the government? Is that how you see this?"

"You're from California, I see. I know that things are different out there, that it's every man for himself, that there's no one in charge. Out here, we've brought order to society. We've been rebuilding towns and schools, we've given people hope. And so we've ended up in charge. Yes, I suppose you could say we're the government. It's not so formal an arrangement as governments were before the plague came, but we keep order here, and in order to do so, we have to enforce laws."

"But I haven't done anything wrong, and you've arrested me and brought me here. How do you justify that, if you're supposed to be the good guys?"

"Our methods aren't always easy. They're not easy for people to understand, and they're not easy for me to carry out. But it's what we have to do." The Prophet sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of Maia's cell; there were no chairs in the hallway. Even now that he was sitting below her eye level, he still showed no sign of self-consciousness or weakness. "I apologize, personally, for using you in this manner. We're holding you as a way to draw your father out of hiding. We assume that he will be willing to turn himself in as an exchange for your safety and freedom. Until he does so, you have my personal guarantee that you will not be harmed or mistreated in any way."

"You're using me as a bargaining chip," Maia said. "As if I were a piece of property."

"We do nothing unless it must be done. I would rather not involve you at all, but your father is doing continuous harm to my work as long as he is free, and it's urgent for us to find him and stop him. So far, we'd been unable to track him down, but now that you're here, I'm sure he will give himself up to us, and then you will be free to go."

"And what will you do to him?"

"I won't lie to you," the Prophet said. "The crimes he will be charged with are serious. If he is found guilty of treason, he may be executed."

Maia's eyes burned and she bit her tongue to keep her expression under control. "I don't want any part of this."

"I'm sorry, Maia." The Prophet stood and held the newspaper clipping out to her through the bars. "This is yours; would you like to keep it?"

She sat unmoving on the prison cot. "I'd rather die than watch my father sacrifice himself for me."

"That isn't your choice to make." He let go of the yellowing paper and walked away from the cell. The clipping fluttered gently to the floor of the cell as his footsteps faded behind him.

Maia sat still until he was gone, and then she buried her face in her hands and cried.

25083.

That is all.

P.S. I forgot to mention, I had an ultrasound and they think the baby is a boy! He's started kicking me, too. A lot.

OK, scratch that. Apparently Blogger just isn't working in Opera. Thanks, guys.

I'm at 21K-something now. Going OK. The main characters are in Chicago, I wrote a couple of scenes about Owen even though I'm sick of him, and I'm about to spend more scenes with Cliff, whom I really like.

Excerpt:

He took a last forlorn look at his hand and dropped it facedown on the table. "Fold." He stood and turned to face Jodie and Cara as the other men continued the game. "Was there something you wanted, ladies?"

"Mr. Bailey --" Jodie started.

"Damn. Spotted again. What is it this time?"

Jodie got right to the point. "Do you know who the Prophet is?"

"I know he's a crypto-fascist psychopath, why?"

"Not exactly crypto, but otherwise accurate," Jodie said.

"He came up here and spouted gibberish to the crowds a few months ago. Didn't seem to be that effective here, from my vantage point. He's a strange little man."

"Do you know what his people are doing?"

Bailey shrugged. "They're promising the people a brave new world, they're dressing up in black uniforms, and they're probably killing people who oppose them. Seems about par for the course for their sort, to me. I'm sorry, but there's not much I can do about it from here. If that's the sort of leadership people want down South, leave them to it, as far as I'm concerned." He was maintaining a steady pose, graceful even, but Cara could smell alcohol on him from several feet away.

Cara stepped forward. "Did you know they're taking people out to the middle of nowhere by the truckload, shooting them, and burying them in mass graves?"

"Unfortunately, that too is par for the course for their sort."

"And they're burning books."

"Of course they're burning books," Bailey said. "That's what people like that do. I'd be surprised if they weren't burning books."