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Mar. 13th, 2016 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckLast night, I went to change the clocks and managed to go in the wrong direction and only realize it after I’d gone to bed. I chose to change my bedside clock right then and to wait to fix the other clocks as none of them were going to matter while we were all sleeping. I think mix up was wishful thinking on my part.
I slept badly last night. With just a sheet, I was cold, but the moment I added a blanket (the thinnest one I have), I was terribly and uncomfortably warm. Neither was conducive to sleeping. I thought about turning on the ceiling fan, but I suspected that, if I did, the sheet and thin blanket wouldn’t be enough to keep me warm, but the sheet and two thin blankets would leave me far too warm. I can’t adjust the speed of the fan in the dark. The process requires me almost standing on the bed, not quite, but I can’t reach the cord if I’m kneeling. I’m also not sure that, in the dark, I would get the right cord. Turning on the light would mean waking Scott in a fairly unpleasant way.
I went through my files and made a list of all of my story fragments and WIP. I’ve been working on sorting them into categories: things that aren’t ever going to go anywhere, things that will have to be novel length (or longer), and things that might be shorter than novel length (hopefully less than 20000 words, but who knows?).
There are four things in the first category. They’re all things I wandered into when I was having trouble writing. Three of them lack real plot or enough of a hook for me to try to find a plot. The fourth is just something that I think is badly put together and not something I want to pursue.
There are thirteen things in category two, novel length or longer. Some of them are things I’m pretty sure I’m never going to pick up again because I haven’t touched them since some time in the 1990s, but even those still catch my imagination when I reread what I’ve written so far, so who knows?
I think the Vampire: the Masquerade story will end up trunked, not because I don’t like it or want to go on with it but because there are characters in it based on characters played by other people in a long running campaign. I no longer know how to find any of those people (one is actually dead, but he’s the one who I actually asked for permission way back when, so I feel on more solid ground there).
The story based on characters from the first LARP I wrote will probably also end up trunked, but that’s because I feel like it’s overstuffed but don’t want to deal with cutting out the stuff that I probably should.
I think my early 1990s attempt at writing original erotica might be salvageable, but I’ll need to change the character names because, right now, the hero has the same name as a friend’s eleven year old son, and the heroine has the same name as one of Cordelia’s classmates/friends, and, um, no. Ick. When I picked the names, I didn’t know anyone who had those names.
There are two, possibly three, stories on list two that might end up shorter than novel length. I’m just not sure enough that they will because I don’t have a solid shape for them in my head. I probably could make them shorter. I just don’t know if they’d be as good if I do. Who knows, though? They might be better.
The third category, things I think will be shorter than novel length, has either nine or ten stories in it, depending on whether or not I include the fragment that a friend and I wrote in an effort to get ourselves back into the habit of writing. That one has the potential to be a decent story, but I’ve lost touch with the co-author. I don’t think we wrote more than about 500 words, total, but I’m not sure that I want to build on something that’s not entirely mine. It doesn’t feel right.
Oh, and there is sort of a fourth category— There are four things on my prompts/ideas list that I have enough of a feel for that I might be able to really get into them in the next couple of weeks. I’m looking at those with interest but also trepidation. I don’t think I need another story fragment on my hard drive. I’ll probably be happier if I finish one of the shorter things or make progress on one of the longer things.
I’m kind of curious as to the actual word count of my various fragments, but I’m not sure I’m willing to take the time to figure it out. Many of them are spread across multiple documents, and most are in programs that either don’t give word counts at all or don’t give word counts without some hoop jumping. I don’t know. I may do it anyway. I don’t have anything pressing to do at the moment, and it’s the sort of mindless time filling thing that I use for cat waxing.
Right now, I’m planning to go with Scott to the library today. I really, really want to get out of the house for something that’s not a medical appointment. I think I can deal with the compression pad shifting around for at least that long. It’s not as nice out today as it was a couple of days ago, but I won’t be spending more than five minutes outside at a time (I don’t count sitting in the car as 'being outside').
We got KFC for dinner last night because Scott got caught up in playing XCom 2 and lost track of time. I could have cooked, but Scott has very specific plans in mind for all of the ingredients that I might have used. I wasn’t prepared to try to figure out the pressure cooker last night in order to cook what he had planned, so nothing at all got cooked.
We ate dinner late enough that I didn’t end up having any cake after. I was worried that the chocolate frosting would end up giving me reflux when I tried to sleep. I’ll have my first piece a bit later on today. Scott and Cordelia both had some and seemed to enjoy it.
Scott is no longer so certain that he can repair the problem with the stand mixer. I’m disappointed by that because mixing by hand is often more than I can manage (doing the cake mix that way yesterday was pretty darned difficult). The problem with the mixer is that the very heavy arm from which the mixing paddle descends has gradually angled itself downward so that it presses the mixing paddle hard against the bowl. With a paddle with silicone ridges, that pressure folds up the ridges so that they don’t work. With a paddle that’s completely rigid, that pressure makes bits of the paddle come off, both flaking enamel and bits of metal (not bits that can be fished out, either. A trail of gray through the batter that is tactilely no different from the rest of the batter, just visually obvious) that are eroded off by the friction.
I guess, maybe, I put a new stand mixer on my birthday wishlist?
I slept badly last night. With just a sheet, I was cold, but the moment I added a blanket (the thinnest one I have), I was terribly and uncomfortably warm. Neither was conducive to sleeping. I thought about turning on the ceiling fan, but I suspected that, if I did, the sheet and thin blanket wouldn’t be enough to keep me warm, but the sheet and two thin blankets would leave me far too warm. I can’t adjust the speed of the fan in the dark. The process requires me almost standing on the bed, not quite, but I can’t reach the cord if I’m kneeling. I’m also not sure that, in the dark, I would get the right cord. Turning on the light would mean waking Scott in a fairly unpleasant way.
I went through my files and made a list of all of my story fragments and WIP. I’ve been working on sorting them into categories: things that aren’t ever going to go anywhere, things that will have to be novel length (or longer), and things that might be shorter than novel length (hopefully less than 20000 words, but who knows?).
There are four things in the first category. They’re all things I wandered into when I was having trouble writing. Three of them lack real plot or enough of a hook for me to try to find a plot. The fourth is just something that I think is badly put together and not something I want to pursue.
There are thirteen things in category two, novel length or longer. Some of them are things I’m pretty sure I’m never going to pick up again because I haven’t touched them since some time in the 1990s, but even those still catch my imagination when I reread what I’ve written so far, so who knows?
I think the Vampire: the Masquerade story will end up trunked, not because I don’t like it or want to go on with it but because there are characters in it based on characters played by other people in a long running campaign. I no longer know how to find any of those people (one is actually dead, but he’s the one who I actually asked for permission way back when, so I feel on more solid ground there).
The story based on characters from the first LARP I wrote will probably also end up trunked, but that’s because I feel like it’s overstuffed but don’t want to deal with cutting out the stuff that I probably should.
I think my early 1990s attempt at writing original erotica might be salvageable, but I’ll need to change the character names because, right now, the hero has the same name as a friend’s eleven year old son, and the heroine has the same name as one of Cordelia’s classmates/friends, and, um, no. Ick. When I picked the names, I didn’t know anyone who had those names.
There are two, possibly three, stories on list two that might end up shorter than novel length. I’m just not sure enough that they will because I don’t have a solid shape for them in my head. I probably could make them shorter. I just don’t know if they’d be as good if I do. Who knows, though? They might be better.
The third category, things I think will be shorter than novel length, has either nine or ten stories in it, depending on whether or not I include the fragment that a friend and I wrote in an effort to get ourselves back into the habit of writing. That one has the potential to be a decent story, but I’ve lost touch with the co-author. I don’t think we wrote more than about 500 words, total, but I’m not sure that I want to build on something that’s not entirely mine. It doesn’t feel right.
Oh, and there is sort of a fourth category— There are four things on my prompts/ideas list that I have enough of a feel for that I might be able to really get into them in the next couple of weeks. I’m looking at those with interest but also trepidation. I don’t think I need another story fragment on my hard drive. I’ll probably be happier if I finish one of the shorter things or make progress on one of the longer things.
I’m kind of curious as to the actual word count of my various fragments, but I’m not sure I’m willing to take the time to figure it out. Many of them are spread across multiple documents, and most are in programs that either don’t give word counts at all or don’t give word counts without some hoop jumping. I don’t know. I may do it anyway. I don’t have anything pressing to do at the moment, and it’s the sort of mindless time filling thing that I use for cat waxing.
Right now, I’m planning to go with Scott to the library today. I really, really want to get out of the house for something that’s not a medical appointment. I think I can deal with the compression pad shifting around for at least that long. It’s not as nice out today as it was a couple of days ago, but I won’t be spending more than five minutes outside at a time (I don’t count sitting in the car as 'being outside').
We got KFC for dinner last night because Scott got caught up in playing XCom 2 and lost track of time. I could have cooked, but Scott has very specific plans in mind for all of the ingredients that I might have used. I wasn’t prepared to try to figure out the pressure cooker last night in order to cook what he had planned, so nothing at all got cooked.
We ate dinner late enough that I didn’t end up having any cake after. I was worried that the chocolate frosting would end up giving me reflux when I tried to sleep. I’ll have my first piece a bit later on today. Scott and Cordelia both had some and seemed to enjoy it.
Scott is no longer so certain that he can repair the problem with the stand mixer. I’m disappointed by that because mixing by hand is often more than I can manage (doing the cake mix that way yesterday was pretty darned difficult). The problem with the mixer is that the very heavy arm from which the mixing paddle descends has gradually angled itself downward so that it presses the mixing paddle hard against the bowl. With a paddle with silicone ridges, that pressure folds up the ridges so that they don’t work. With a paddle that’s completely rigid, that pressure makes bits of the paddle come off, both flaking enamel and bits of metal (not bits that can be fished out, either. A trail of gray through the batter that is tactilely no different from the rest of the batter, just visually obvious) that are eroded off by the friction.
I guess, maybe, I put a new stand mixer on my birthday wishlist?
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no subject
Date: 2016-03-13 07:45 pm (UTC)I always change our clocks the night before because the last time I was awake at that unsightly hour was when my youngest son was born. :P
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Date: 2016-03-14 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-13 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-14 01:43 am (UTC)But in the spring, I never feel like it's the time it is.
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Date: 2016-03-13 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-14 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-14 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-14 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-15 12:07 pm (UTC)I also hope you get a new stand mixer.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-15 05:44 pm (UTC)I think that the main thing that sorting my WIP has done is to give me a short list of things that I can focus on in April and maybe actually get done with a few thousand words here and a few thousand words there.