Monday, December 3, 2007

Vin Diesel is a nice guy, but I'm a slack-ass.

Ok, not completely slack-ass, just mostly slack-ass.

Haven't written one damn word of my novel in a while. I know, I suck. My first NaNoWriMo was an anemic attempt to say the least. Oh, well. But, I am furiously working out my plot holes, etc. The new timeline is to do a full outline, plot, etc. by the end of December, followed by a 30-day first draft for January. Followed by a 30-day outline of book #2 for February, then a 30-day first draft of book #2 for March. And so on.

Yeah, I know. Ambitious. But I'd like to get a lot of major writing done the first 6 months of next year so that come summer, I can go back to my first attempt and revise like a maniac. The eventual goal is still one readable (i.e. 3rd or 4th draft that doesn't suck so bad that my peeps can't read it yet) manuscript by October 31st, 2008, otherwise known as my 33rd birthday.

Vin Diesel came in to my restaurant, and I was vaguely interested because he's a goofy D&D nerd like me. He really liked our hostess, Danielle. He was such a sweetheart, acting all shy and goofy when he asked for her number. And he was so polite to the servers & other hosts, too. He gets my nice guy vote.

Also, I forgot to mention my Jon Lovitz sighting a few months ago (illustrating his golf swing to someone no less), as well as Danny Bonaducci, so I'll add them to the list below.

KRS-One
Nick Lachey & his VJ girlfriend ( I should look up her name, but that implies that I give a damn...)
Ashton Kutcher / Demi Moore last December
Bruce McGill (he was on MacGuyver, among other things - classy, pleasant fellow!)
Mark Dacascos (Brotherhood of the Wolf - AWESOME guy, really nice, too!)
Kirk Cameron
Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit)

(again, the above list is just for the peeps back home in Atlanta who would think these sightings are cool/weird. Unless they're from Star Trek or Star Wars, or just one of the exceptionally cool ones (coughBenicioDelTorocough), I really don't care. They're just people. Plus, it is kind of neat to mention who else I've seen who isn't in nerd-dom. I was starting to look like a geek when all my celebrity meetings involved dragons or spaceships, not that that's a bad thing.)

Food for thought:

Krispy Kreme has a Star Wars themed doughnut cake available. I know what you're thinking. Don't. I'll balloon up like, well, a balloon.

Friday, November 9, 2007

More work on my book...

So, work progresses very slowly on Tuesday and the Moon. I'm only at 1450 words so far. :(

However, my darling Gabriel has lent me a few of his Writer's Bootcamp materials, and I pretty much have the whole thing plotted. I think that will make the actual writing a bit easier.

For those interested, here's the general premise:

"Tuesday's boyfriend gets kidnapped by a flesh-eating warlock and taken to a magical world just between Earth and the Moon, the entrance to which is in a rundown barbershop closet in Termonfeckin, Ireland."

Wacky. It's funny to see my story boiled down to a couple of lines...

Monday, November 5, 2007

750 Words Down, only 49,250 more to go...

Ok, so I wrote 750 words of my novel, Tuesday and the Moon.

Don't laugh, I did some significant plotting as well. 3 hours or so of work, or thereabouts. I have a good idea of the full plot now, with more to be hashed out shortly. I'll call it a success, so far.

For any who are interested in following my NaNo WriMo stats particularly, they can be found here:

Jenna's Stats

Or in the link in the sidebar, even. How's that for service?

National Novel Writing Month is on!

National Novel Writing Month is on! And here is their website!

http://www.nanowrimo.org

Funny, If I'd paid attention to what it actually IS, I woulda gotten started already. Here's the lowdown:

"What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: Sign-ups begin October 1, 2007. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

Still confused? Just visit the How NaNoWriMo Works page!"


Sounds fun, eh?? I think I'm going to write my rather fun, swashbucking tale called "Tuesday and The Moon" Hell, I've got 25 days left. 2000 words a day?? No problem! (ERK!!!)


Also, while hanging out in Barnes & Noble, (writing a resume, not my book, slacker that I am! How dare I want to pay my bills and eat!! Write, fool! ) I ran across this book:

First Draft In 30 Days: A Novel Writer's System for Building a Complete and Cohesive Manuscript
The link will take you to the Amazon info on the book, including reviews. I might give it a try. Granted, this is an OUTLINE in 30 days, not a draft. I dunno who the hell they're kidding with the title, but I might grab that later this week when more funds are available. Even if I took 60 days to outline, that's still a good ways towards writing that novel of mine before next year...

Friday, November 2, 2007

Celebrity Sightings.... 2 in 2 days!

Well, on Oct 30th, Nick Lachey and his MTV Vj girlfriend ate in my restaurant. Ho, hum. Not particularly excited, but it's a sighting, ya know?

I was MUCH more enthused to see KRS-One sitting near my section on the 31st, though! I mean, KRS-One. Come ON! The girl with him looked familiar, but I couldn't place her.

Um, other than that, I saw Meredith Baxter Birney in Santa Monica a couple of weeks ago.

General list so far is as follows:

Ashton Kutcher / Demi Moore last December
Bruce McGill (he was on MacGuyver, among other things - classy, pleasant fellow!)
Mark Dacascos (Brotherhood of the Wolf - AWESOME guy, really nice, too!)
Kirk Cameron
Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit)

I'm sure I'll remember more of whom I've seen. They all run together, and they're just people, after all.

I'm hoping that the members of Wu-Tang Clan that have been in before come back when I'm on shift, though. That would be DOPE!

I managed to not retch as I saw an ad on Craigslist looking to hire paparazzi photographers. I won't be applying for that one. I don't need the cash *that* badly.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Reflecting on getting older...

So tomorrow, I turn 32. I was born on the 31st, and I am finishing my 31st year, so I am leaving a certain amount of numerological significance behind as of tomorrow. Even though I'm considered old by a vast majority of the teenagers that come into the mall by my restaurant, I'm still quite young.

Funny, that.

I don't mind this ageing thing. That's probably because it's not so bad at the moment, and I'm not that wrinkled yet, but there you are.

Anyway, I'm making myself a promise, kind of like a new year's resolution. After all, it *is* a new year for me.

I'm promising myself that I'm going to have at least one novel finished (as in "I've reread the first draft, let it sit for awhile, and come back and reworked it a bit, and it's ready to pass to a couple of readers" kind of finished.) before I turn 33. No, writing two half-finished novels will NOT count!

I'd like to also add that I shall become more organized, add another part time job, start school again, and generally move forward. If possible, writing a couple of short stories and doing some editing work would be a lovely little cherry on top of my 32nd year.

33, with its lovely numerical symmetry, will be even better, I think. Here's to working on that.

'scuse me, I'm off to disembowel some orange gourds and do artistic renderings upon them in honor of the Halloween God...

Friday, October 26, 2007

I'm a non-writing ass....

So I've had the choice to write and haven't. We got (crippled and malfunctioning) cable last week. So I've been watching house porn and the food network. (G4, BBC, and any channel with Star Trek on it hasn't worked for shit, though. Mr. cable comes back today, on cable man time, naturally. He will fix this issue, or cable will go away, never to return.)

On the upside, I now know how to make my own gummies. I have an idea how to make brittles and truffles. I have yelled at a gray screen for not showing me an episode of Doctor Who.

Downside: haven't written a word.

My level of procrastination is astounding. It will stop! I work a lot the next couple of days, and the few minutes I'll get with Gabriel will be precious (since he wasn't home last week, and won't be home much the next few days due to work and conferences), but the other times involve me doing the dishes and becoming one with an ink pen. Sunday, I'll find a way to get to the farmer's market, and I'll write around that.

Also, as a spur, I just discovered that November is National Novel Writing Month. Cool! Here is their website:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/ I will use that to my advantage!

Ok, start your ball-busting engines.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Testing....

testing the RSS feed... which doesn't like me....

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Facebook wants my immortal soul and Dumbledore is gay.

Ok, shouldn't've signed up for Facebook. I keep up with a few friends, yes, but mostly I waste a lot of time playing Pirates. Don't ask. Found an old friend that I'd been hunting for years, tho!

Also, J.K. Rowling announced at a reading that Dumbledore is gay. I have but one response: Right the fuck on! That answers a lot of questions, but what I like is that by not revealing this in the plotlines of the books, she didn't make *that* the issue, but rather that he was a good guy, the most powerful wizard ever, mr. noble dude himself. Who happens to be gay. Me likey! Gays and Lesbians are everywhere, they're cool, and good peeps to boot!

I wanna be J.K. Rowling when I grow up. Hell, I'll take being 10% of Jo. That's still a hell of a lotta woman!

Which brings me to what *I've* been writing--or not writing to be more precise. I wrote a brief passage about hate to plop somewhere in the midst of a novel I'm working on. The temporary title is "Lilith's Anchor", but that's kind of wildly inaccurate to the story.

I write longhand. It just feels better that way. College rule paper. I'll type after I've written the damn thing.

So far, I've got 16 pages, single spaced, plus the bit about hate. I have a general-ish plotline for book 1, maybe book 2, and I know the main character ends up on Pluto at some point. She's cheeky and funny and wears funky pants. She's also smart and a vampire. Not a standard Anne-Rice-Man-Love kind of vampire, nor a Bram-Stoker-classic, nor a Nosferatu-lookin-badass-as-Willem-Dafoe kind of vampire, but a vampire. She's a superhero wannabe, but Superman isn't real, nor is she channeling him, as much as she might like to. She's getting used to her limitations. She's intriguing. I rather like her!

Oddest bit about this novel so far is that it incorporates a dream that I had when I was about 17. Been waiting for years to place this bit! It just sprung itself on me!

I have plans for 12 novels, screenplays, and stories, which is good. I wrote them all down with the basics just to get organized. That's good. Now, my slack ass needs to write.

Parts of me consider attcking something shorter first, so I may flit between a Dragonlance fanfiction short and the novel. Or, maybe that's a bad idea. Maybe when Gabriel is in class Wednesday, I'll write up a wee storm. Probably a good idea...

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

I have a Bowl of Darth Vader Heads and you don't!!! Nyahnyahnyah!!!!!





Um, quite honestly, is there really anything else to say???

(ok, I got these at Target. They're filled with candy for Halloween. The candy looks like skeleton pieces, and they are vaguely like Runts. Okay, other than THAT, nothing else to be said.)

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The opening of the blog...

Yes, dammit, I have a blog. Happy now??

So anyway, the point of this whole thingie is to get me writing again. I've had my thumb in my ass for too long. Time to actually BE what I am, which is a writer. This way, you guys can keep me on task if I get off task, know what I mean? The idea is to blog about what I'm writing, although other little tidbits are *quite* likely to pop up. For those of you still in Atlanta, this might be a good thing for you to read if you miss me as much as I miss you.

And you'll get my weird celebrity sightings, too. Bonus! :D

I love you all!