Kender’s New Toy

For a year or two now, kender and I have been discussing the option of him getting his motorcycle license. Last Tuesday, this dream came true when he passed his license test with flying colors. Then he began the long process of finding his bike… which took a lot less time than I expected. He bought a brand new Kawasaki ER-6n (the n stands for nekid) in a beautiful blue shade.

He spent all last weekend riding it around the neighborhood and city streets. After the first ride on Sunday, he announced that he was ready for me to hop on the bike. So a very nervous jaymi tossed on her 20-year old leather biker jacket, jeans, and kender’s old autocross helmet and fitted herself on the back of the bike for a short loop around the neighborhood. I wasn’t sure about how I’d feel but after a week’s worth of rides, I can say that I’m loving it.

Systems and Dealing with Overwhelm

Since I returned home from the Readers Studio last Monday, I’ve had so much to write about. Namely, my experiences at the convention. In between writing those posts, comes all the other stuff that wants my attention. And while I “should be working” on those things, what’s caught my attention right now, is this post on how I deal with “overwhelm” and how I knock things off my list.

TL;DR version: I’m not sure if what I write below is a system, but I do have a daily order to getting things done. Breathing helps, so does focusing the attention on where the passion lies and then working on one thing at a time.

Simplifying the Writing Notebook

I’ve been keeping a writer’s journal/notebook/thing for years now. At first, I used a simple bound notebooks where I’d scribble stories, ideas for stories, freewriting, dialog snippets, and character descriptions. Later, I tracked submissions and notes on stories, freewriting, character descriptions, etc. as well as submission tracking and various odds and ends of my work. A few years ago, I switched to a Circa binding system. Lofty goals of keeping an orderly and organized notebook ran through my head. I had tabs for Submissions, Work in Progress (WIPs), Characters, Settings, and Quotes. I made fancy labels and had a fancy case to set this all in. And guess what? I never used it.

Recently I dusted off that notebook and revisited the idea of keeping a usable writer’s notebook. Having done NaNoWriMo for a decade and relearning how to do scene tracking helped spur this decision as I needed to figure out how to collect all the new data.

Story Soundtracks

The first year I participated in NaNoWriMo, I created a soundtrack to write by because I thought it’d be fun and help motivate me to greatness. I’m a writer who writes to music and it did spur me on. Over the years, I’ve created more playlists and soundscapes for my works. I’ve found that when I set up a list of songs, carefully crafting the way the sounds play and match images in my head that it does something more than creating something fun and tangible to share with my friends and cohorts.

Creating a playlist of songs, helps me set my story pace. There are fast songs and slow songs and I find that I have to have a certain pace or beat to fill the gaps between each major plot point. So, behold… here’s the playlist for my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel. Enjoy!

The Value of Tracking Scenes

Last night I attended a NaNoWriMo Plot Party where we discussed various techniques on plotting and drafting stories. One of the things that stuck with me was a small discussion revolving around the idea of scenes in novels. Taken from Book in a Month the idea is that a narrative should only contain between 10-20 scenes total. If you look at current blockbuster movies, they have very little scene changes as they try and do more inside each setting than usual.

Today I pulled out one of my writing notebooks and decided to put my own writing to the scene test. I broke open a new pack of Circa storyboarding sheets (sadly, Levenger does not make these anymore) and sat down to practice this process using the past four years worth of NaNo novels. I sat down with each novel’s plot outline and started unraveling the story into scenes.

Summertime Fun Updates

So crazy month came and went and I’ve been spending the final weeks of August completing various projects. I got my level one certification with Katrina, started working on BATS items and Fall Equinox, and completed writing and sending in more reviews for Witches & Pagans magazine. Also been hard at work in trying to get my tarot business up and running. So far things are slow but steady.

The big news? Well, I learned how to crochet a few months ago. There was a particular thing I wanted to learn how to make so two of my fiber friends muddled through and taught me how to do it. And the amazing thing is that it’s stuck. I’m making thing after thing after thing and actually enjoying it. So, go figure.

In the Studio

Kender spent some time in his studio yesterday. He’s been rather melodious lately and it’s been great to hear what’s been rolling around in his head. The new tune was great but he really wanted to add vocals. So, I turn to him and told him the words that the song sorta kicked up in my head. He tried to run with it but it didn’t sound right.

Instead, I told him to let me give it a shot. So, we recorded a bunch of snippets of me singing and the result is “Make Me Bleed”. Go listen and be gentle please. This is my first attempt at singing since womens’ choir in college.

Perusing the Shelves

I was poking around on a website called Shelfari and found that they took pictures of Neil Gaiman’s library. Other author’s writing spaces and libraries fascinate me, so of course I gotta check out those images through to see what he keeps on his shelves.

I start clicking on the thumb nails to expand the images to their large size. That’s when I come across this:

DIYP Article Up: Review of Scrivener

This week, I wrote a review of my favorite writing application, Scrivener. If you own a Mac and are serious about writing in any capacity or genre, I highly recommend you get this application. It organizes your thoughts and has a built in revision tracking system that can keep up with all your drafts. It makes writing fun! Go read my review and see what else I had to say.

I can’t believe I just did that…

Amazon.com makes it really easy for you to create tons of new wishlists. Over the past months, I’ve accidentally created several new lists while thinking I was telling their system to just display my one and only wishlist. Today I decided to delete those empty lists (I like running a clean social network).

Well, I thought I clicked on the first of 3 empty lists… and then… realized to my horror… that the first thing that got deleted was my SIX FREEKING PAGE amazon wishlist that I had since 2000 or so. Everything gone. Never to return.

Needless to say, I now have a clean slate to fill. Anyone got any pagan, tarot, paper arts, young adult, fantasy/scifi, or horror books, DVDs, or industrial/techno CDs you’d like to recommend? Comment away and I’ll link them up to my new “Massiv Wish List”. This is your chance to help influence my book habit in 2009.