ROW80 2013:3 3rd Update

It has been a couple of weeks since my last update, but I have been busy in that time. I've been keeping up with my writing goals and my art goals, as well as plodding away at my research. I picked up the keys to my new office today; it has my name on the door and everything :)

In other big news, I resigned from my contract at my retail job a few weeks ago, so last night was my last night. I am still a casual there so I will get the odd shift every now and then, but since I'm essentially doing more than a full time load at uni already, something had to give.

Anyway, progress:
Creative Goals 

• Write at least 500 words per week: Yes, and have managed closed to 1,000 words in the last two weeks. Most of that was for my main WiP, but there were a few hundred words added to a side project as well.
• Do one painting or drawing each week: I do have a painting in progress, which is almost finished; all it needs is the shadows from the objects on the table and background. I've reached that point of a painting where it's actually turning out quite well and I'm terrified I'll screw it up, so I'm practicing glazing on scrap bits of canvas before I do it to the painting (hoping to finish it this week). This is acrylic on a canvas pad:

I also hit up the local art supply shop when I saw they had a big special on... I couldn't help myself :)

Academic Goals

• Begin research on PhD topic: Have started reading academic articles and jotting down a few notes. Also started doing some reading for my coursework units.
• Teaching stuff: Have started looking over class material since tutorials start next week.
• Research assistant stuff: Not much to do this week (still need to get software on my computer)

Health Goals

• 20 minutes slow exercise-bike riding per day: Yes :) Have also been trying to eat healthier a well, which has mostly gone okay except for today (I had fast food for lunch AND dinner).

I don't think Judgemental Dog approves of my art supply shopping spree: 

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 7: 7th Update

This week has been a bit better than last week, with Rex finally feeling a little more like himself. He is still fairly quiet, especially since we've just put him back on his full dose of medication for his bowel disease now that the vestibular disease has mostly passed. Dad and I took him outside today for a little play, and though he got tired sooner than he usually does, he had a good time running around, chasing us and catching his ball, with only a few falls (and he was always up and ready to go again straight away).

I managed to write 1,500 words on Dark and Silent Waters yesterday, and another 500 so far today. The next couple of weeks will probably be a lot less productive, since both subjects I teach have assignments due, so I'll be spending most of my time marking. Still, at least I've made some progress :)

Also, someone shared a link to this post on Twitter, and I thought it was quite handy since I'm writing fantasy. Though no one has magic in my novel except for the antagonist (and, for a while, the protagonist), it was still a helpful exercise to go through and answer some of these questions; some of which had obvious answers, and some I had to think about quite carefully. The questionnaire has also planted the seeds for a few other plot points, so that can only be a good thing. I'm also going to fill out the same questionnaire for my previous WiP, Exile, so that when I return to it, I'll have a clearer idea about how the magic is structured. It also reminded me of the utter car wreck that was my first novel manuscript from when I was 13 or so (it was hand written in an A5 exercise book, filling up about 2/3rds of the 320 pages). Every major character had a different magical ability, and there was no consistency to what their magic did, what limitations it had, how they could use it etc. And the sad thing was, that wasn't even the worst thing wrong with that novel haha

Judgemental Dog has decided to reassert his authority:

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 2 - 5th Update

Another Sunday update! Once again I've actually got a fair bit done this week so I'm doing an extra post. Also, I may not have time to do a Wednesday post because of assignment work later in the week, so if I don't, at least I'll have this one.

Friday night saw me once more reaching for my trusty bottle of Baileys. I then randomly wrote an entire scene for the third book of Exile, my high fantasy trilogy, which I haven't even touched in more than two years and wasn't supposed to touch until my dark fantasy novella is finished. And it was a dark scene, with lots of torture and dismemberment and death, but when I re-read it later, it was still quite good. To the point where I actually felt sorry and mildly horrified by what I'd put the characters through.

Does this make me a mean drunk?

Yesterday I also decided to set up a blog over at WordPress:

http://rebeccajfleming.wordpress.com/

Part of this was because I just think WordPress looks cleaner and more 'writerly', somehow. It was also because I thought that my Blogger site was kind of disorganised and pretty much cluttered with ROW80 updates and useless gadgets; anyone trying to find something specific would have a pretty hard time doing so. I've decided I'm going to keep using Blogger just for ROW80 updates and for any personal rants, whereas WordPress will be my 'professional' (I use the term loosely because I'm an immature idiot at the best of times) site, which will have more structured updates on my progress and will also be easier to navigate to find my current/planned projects.

Anyway, as far as my ROW80 Round 2 goals go: So far I've sort of met them, sort of haven't. I've got 4,000 of the 6,000 words I need for my literature review (well, probably 3,800 once I take out the reference notes) and I've kept up with all my other assignments so far. And I have added a lot more words to my novella (a good few thousand now), but I haven't been writing 500 words a day - it's been more like "write 1,500 words a day and then don't touch it for a few days" - which was meant to be my goal. So that earns me a nip on the bum from Judgemental Dog. But we have this week off uni, so hopefully the extra time will allow me to get back into the 500 words per day habit.

Once again I didn't have time to look for a good Judgemental Dog photo and caption it, but I did film another Judgemental Dog video (quality's a bit crap because it was filmed on my phone)! Here he is playing with my dad:

This has almost become a nightly ritual in our house; every time Dad gets home from work, he sits in his chair and Rex goes over to him for cuddles and ends up doing what appears to be a failed backflip before plopping onto the floor, all the while yowling like a cat being murdered. It never stops being entertaining :D

Check other ROW80 updates here.

I'm a Writer... So Why Aren't I Writing?

With the beginning of ROW80 Round 2 only a few days away, I thought I'd better get into gear and write my sign-in post :) Also, some of you following my Round 1 ROW80 rants may remember that I was working on a Multimedia Narrative assignment, in which I had to draw five characters for a fictional game of a recognisable genre. I've since finished the assignment, so here are my steampunk characters, in all their finished glory:

The other day I came to a sad realisation. I've been writing seriously for around ten years now (well, maybe seven; not sure if the garbage I wrote in high school counts as 'serious'), and yet I have never finished a story. Not even a first draft. Once this thought entered my head, I freaked out a bit, wondering if I was deluding myself by thinking I'd ever manage to become a published writer. Sure, I do a fair bit of writing in the holidays, but once I start back at uni, I tend to just give up and go, "Well, I have too much homework, I don't have time to write at the moment." But then I think about other writers pumping out a book or two each year, with a full time job and/or kids, and I think to myself, "If they can do it, why can't I?" I don't know what the writer's equivalent of a mid-life crisis is, but I think I just had it. Then I read this post from serial funny bastard, Chuck Wendig, paying close attention to the section on 'Cheating on Your Manuscript' (I know many of my friends will be nodding and smirking as they read this) and thought it could have been aimed at me specifically. I'm a story-whore. I can't help it. When it comes to novel ideas, I'm like that little kid running around the supermarket because she can't decide what lolly she wants, and then throwing a tantrum because she can't have all of them.

The first decent story I worked on was my high fantasy trilogy, Exile, which I wrote and workshopped throughout my years in the TAFE Writing and Editing course. About 25,000 words into that I lost momentum on the story - mainly because I really had no idea what happened next - and didn't write for almost a year. Then I had the idea for my dark fantasy novella, Dark and Silent Waters and, since Exile was still too intimidating to go back to, I more or less abandoned it, focussing instead on my novella. And now, though my main project is still DASW, I keep getting distracted by ideas for more stories. At this rate, I will never finish a book.

Something needs to change. If I want to be taken seriously as a writer, I have to make the time to write. And I have to learn to focus my creative energy on one damn project at a time. Which brings me to... ROW80 Round 2 Goals! *cue trumpet fanfare*

Since I'm working on my thesis as well as completing two other subjects, most of my time is going to be taken up by research, assignments and classes (as well as my part-time job). The most pressing of these are two things I have due Friday next week; my research proposal, and a survey questionnaire. However, I do want to add a small writing-only goal to my academic requirements, and that is to write between 100 and 500 words each day on my work in progress (DASW). This is a much smaller goal than anything I had in Round 1, but I think it's a lot more achievable in light of my workload. Ideally, I will get into the habit of doing this every day during ROW80 and therefore find it easier to continue once the challenge has ended.

I'll also only be doing one weekly ROW80 post, most likely on Wednesdays; writing two posts a week was a bit time consuming, and I can probably communicate my progress just as well with one post as with two.

To finish on a positive note after my emo writerly ramblings, here's an alien I drew during a Data and Networks lecture one day (in my defence, I was high on the sugar of pancakes with syrup, a hot chocolate and two cans of V):

And fear not, ROW80ers, Judgemental Dog will be at my side the whole way, nipping at the heels of all the writers out there to make them write faster :)

ROW80 Round 1 - 15th Update

On Monday I managed to show that my innate talent for hurting myself in idiotic ways has in no way faded; not five minutes after dropping a full frozen-solid tub of ice cream on the middle toe of my foot, I managed to trip over my dog as he snoozed in the doorway of my room, accidentally kicking the corner of my cupboard in an attempt to stop myself falling. Even the doctor admired my determination in making sure my toe was properly bloody broken :D Luckily it didn't require plaster, though, so I can hobble around as normal, just slightly grouchier than usual.

Haven't got as much writing done this week as I would have liked. I continued revising chapters 1 and 2, as well as filling in more bits of chapter 3, which is now almost complete (I'm hoping to have the first three chapters more or less polished by the time I go back to uni next Tuesday). I think that, before long, I'll have to sit down and just do some research on medieval European history, circa 900-1200AD. While in some ways it's better to just write the first draft to get the story out, research be damned, there are some bits that I'm finding increasingly difficult to work on because I just don't know enough about the time to write about it convincingly. However, research during first draft will be at the bare minimum level, just so I can (hopefully) avoid the most glaringly obvious mistakes; the rest can be fixed up later.

I've also made a character sheet for Dark and Silent Waters, mainly so I can stick it to the wall beside my desk and feel productive. And I've started doing character sheets for my fantasy trilogy, Exile; I know I'm not meant to be touching that series at the moment but I was in a character-sheety type of mood :P

I think Judgemental Dog means business:

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

Imperial or Metric in a Medieval Fantasy World

When I had the first chapter of my novella critiqued at my last writing workshop meeting, one of the issues that was brought up was the discrepancy between my use of measurements; I had used metres at one point, only to refer to inches a paragraph or two later. Obviously keeping this consistent is important, so I'm going to have to pick one or the other, but my main issue is this; which system do I use? My novella, Dark and Silent Waters, is set in a medieval fantasy world; so far I haven't given it an exact time period, but it would closely parallel 900-1200AD in our own medieval European history. The Exile trilogy (my other major project) is also set in a medieval fantasy realm, though probably at a slightly more advanced level than in Dark and Silent Waters (perhaps 1200-1500AD).

Imperial terms - inches, feet, miles etc - are generally shorter. They are faster to write and they seem to flow better in a sentence. And they seem to be the norm, for I can't recall seeing the metric system used in any fantasy book that I've read (apart from the Australian urban/steampunk fantasy subgenres, which I don't think can really be counted in this case since it's completely different to the medieval subgenre. But I could be wrong.).

However, I am used to the metric system. Probably because I live in Australia and have been raised to think in terms of centimetres and kilometres and so on. Also, being Australian, I feel a sort of grammatical obligation (is that even a proper phrase?) to use the metric system.

What do people think? Will the story still feel natural if I use my preferred metric system? Or should I stick to convention and go with imperial?

Illustration: Yarraine from Exile

Going through my illustrations for things to put into my IT folio, I came across this; one of the first illustrations I did of Yarraine, the Dragon General, protagonist of my fantasy trilogy, Exile.

This illustration wasn't drawn specifically for my novel; in first year graphics, we had to create a character for a computer game, so I took my novel character and modified it slightly to fit with the game story I'd created (basically, Yarraine became the Dragon Empress instead of the Dragon General). At the time I was prepared to run with it as a suitable illustration for Yarraine as the General, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised her Empress costume I'd given her wasn't appropriate. The long, flowing dress and the mystical sceptre are all very showy and mysterious looking - which Yarraine is, in a way - but no one in their right mind is going to go into battle wearing that little number. And the pose doesn't really suit a powerful warrior-mage (though it does perfectly suit another main character from the trilogy, so I may reuse it when I draw the other character).
In the near future, I'm hoping to draw another version of Yarraine, this time wearing more battle-appropriate armour, and with a more commanding posture. And I'm also going to try to fix her hair (not 100% happy with how it turned out). I've improved my drawing skills since I drew this one, so hopefully my next effort will be cover-worthy hehe

The Yoyo Writer

I've spent most of today working on one of my fictional works. And when I say 'working', what I actually mean is 'staring blankly at the screen waiting for inspiration to strike'. So I thought I might as well do a blog post on writing (it is, after all, one of the main reasons I created the blog in the first place).
To begin with, I would like to point out that I will not post exerpts from my novels in this blog. Well, I MAY occasionally post a single line or sentence (if I feel like showing it off, or if I feel that it needs critiquing), but you won't be seeing any full chapters. While I would like to share more of my work publicly, this runs the risk of impacting any future copyright assertions I may have if/when I get something published. Generally, the only people who see my work in progress are family and friends (particularly those I went to TAFE and did the Writing and Editing Diploma with. As an aside, I'd like to thank anyone who has workshopped/will workshop my writing :D).
Those of you who know me are aware that I have several vague, unfinished story ideas bouncing around in my head, many of which will probably never see the light of day. However, there are two projects that I am deeply engaged with, and I tend to bounce back and forth between them like a yoyo. The first is Exile, an epic/dark fantasy trilogy I began in early 2005 and the second is Dark and Silent Waters, a dark fantasy tale that started early this year as a short story idea, and then exploded into a novella.
For almost three years while in the Writing and Editing course at TAFE, I had been plodding away with Exile, throwing together a very vague outline of the trilogy as a whole and writing the first seven chapters of the first novel. But I never felt like I was making a lot of progress with it, perhaps because the sheer scope of the project was so massive I just couldn't visualise it ever being completed. In a way, it was starting to depress me. So when the idea for Dark and Silent Waters came along (inspired by a song I found while randomly browsing music on YouTube), I seized the distraction from Exile with both hands. More than that, I beat it half to death with a stick and shoved it into a cage so it couldn't get away. And then I sat on the cage.
Though I've only worked on Dark and Silent Waters for a few months, I already feel that I've made more progress with it than I ever made with Exile. Not only have I written the prologue and the epilogue (I find it difficult to write in chronological order, I have to write scenes as they appear in my mind) and chapter 1, I have also managed to write a complete outline, from beginning to end, of the whole story. This, combined with the fact that it is a smaller project than Exile, makes it seem more achievable. I'm hoping that once I finish this novella, I will have the confidence and experience necessary to bounce back to Exile once more, and take on the trilogy in a way that will do it more justice. Ideally, I would like to have a completed first draft of Dark and Silent Waters by the end of this year (though whether I can actually pull it off remains to be seen).