To blog or not to blog…

To blog or not to blog… this is the question: whether it’s better not to make a fool of myself and hide under a rock, or to expect the viewer count to be zero and post the damn thing anyway… 

Well, here goes: to my huge fanbase (currently limited to my cat and my two dead hamsters), I deeply apologise for having kept you waiting. Two years ago, being under medication that was supposed to save my life by stopping my brain from functioning, I began writing something that I knew I wouldn’t care too much about. The medication having since been reduced, I abandoned the thing altogether and started something else. Unfortunately, it was by this time about 100 pages long, and I kind of felt sorry for it. But, since it needs rewriting like a junky needs his fix (or her fix, please don’t mind my sexist remarks, usually I mean them, but this time I just had to pick one), and since I never ever take trouble to rewrite anything because I find it boring once I know what happens next, I have decided to give my characters their miserable chance at life. So I’m putting up the first draft of it, as it is, typos and all, and bad grammar and awkward phrases. I usually edit, or at least proofread something before I post it, but in this case, since it’s the version that needs to disappear anyway, I won’t bother.

Any and all feedback is welcome and would be of use to the creation of the second draft, but since my cat can’t type and the hamsters are dead, I hope I may rely on other readers for suggestions.

…. Yeah, right! What readers?

Butterfly - here for your viewing pleasure. 

Writers' Support Group

Day 1:

Her: “I have a problem. I’m falling in love with Max.”
Max is her character. All the people we talk about are characters. In this case, Max was supposed to be the bad guy, and the one the heroine doesn’t end up with.
Me: “That’s fine. It’s good that you can relate to Ambra’s feelings while writing about her being in love with him.”
Her: “Yes, but what about Darius?”
Darius is the one Ambra is supposed to end up with.
Me: “You’ll like him more when you get to the part where you write about him.”
Her: “I don’t think so. Max says he doesn’t like it. He says he wants Ambra to stay with him.”
Yes, they have a strong personality. Don’t mess with your characters, they tend to win.

Day 2:

Me: “I’m sending you what I wrote today. A small note: the names for the two countries are placeholders. I’m pretty sure I’ll change them later on, but I couldn’t come up with anything on the spot so I just wrote these until I get a better idea. Also, Roy… I swear I didn’t want to name him like that! But while I was still looking for a name for him he said he wanted this one.”
Her: *hides under her desk at work so she can laugh without people noticing*

Day 3:

Me: “Roy is pulling a Max on me. I wanted Quinn to end up with the blond guy, the one who beat her at sword fighting, but Roy wants her for himself. And I’m beginning to feel sorry for him. But I can’t have them end up together because I want her daughter, the heroine of the next volume, to have blond hair and blue eyes and a really angelic look so that no one would suspect her of being a spy! I just can’t have her be a redhead! She’d look too foxy.”
Her: “Well, if Roy wants her to be a redhead, then you can’t help it.”
Roy has red hair. Notice how none of us considered changing his hair colour. That sort of thing would simply be unthinkable.

Day 4:

Her: “What am I going to do about Max? He’s growing more and more charming every day. His voice? My God, his voice! It’s so sensual and enthralling. Wtf? Darius was supposed to be the one with a sexy voice, not Max!”
Me: “You know? I think they are plotting. Ever since your Max and my Roy started spending hours on end talking to each other on the phone, they’ve been plotting to take over our novels.”
Her: “You’re right!”

I put Roy in a dress to punish him. A pink dress. Made him wear it for a whole chapter. He’s plotting revenge and pointing out to me that red hair actually suits Quinn’s daughter’s personality better. We’ll see…

More crap to be posted soon

Someone I admire once released a music CD, then listened to it and decided it wasn’t at a level one could charge money for, then decided never to sing again. At least that’s how I remember it. After reading the crap I’ve been writing for the past few years, I realised that this too is not at the level where one could charge money for it. I have several novels and collections of short stories that I began writing at some point and that are in various states of completion. I was going to finish them all one day and then try to get them published, but I realise now that would only be a waste of postage, not to mention of the various agents and editors’ time. So I’ve decided to give up. What I have written already will be proofread and posted here whenever I have the time. If I ever write again, out of boredom or something, that too will be posted here.

The first is a novel that I’ve actually finished, but deemed impossible to publish. The good news is that it will all be posted eventually. The bad news is that it needs proofreading and a bit of editing, so it will be posted one “scene” at a time at irregular intervals. It starts here.

Edited August 10th 2009: After reading my genius cousin's tweets and realising he's better than me at everything, I've decided to take down the novel.

Merry Christmas!

Hello and a belated Merry Christmas to everyone! I wish I could say that I have a Christmas present for you all, but no, I only have a new chapter of Love Perks, here. I hope you enjoy it. I realise this is still an introduction. I usually begin my books faster, actually I usually begin in media res and then throw in a flashback whenever I need to explain something, rather than writing an endless introduction that explains the world and presents the characters and their relationships one at a time. I don’t know what possessed me to write this novel like this. If I give in and write a filler chapter about Christmas next, please shoot me.

Anyway, I don’t know when you can expect the next chapter, since I haven’t worked on the novel for a week now and if I don’t make time for it soon I might forget all about it by the time my life gets back to normal in February. That being said, don’t expect any updates of any sort by February, not even my uploading old stuff. I got today off by bluntly refusing an invitation from my friends and shutting myself up, which is why I’ve had time to type this chapter, but starting tomorrow I’ve got a full schedule till… 17:40 on January 29th 2009. After that it will take me a week to recover, but I’ll definitely post something for Valentine’s Day because I get depressed around that time of the year and writing makes me feel better.

Well, Merry Christmas, again, and a Happy New Year!

Old site transfer and new novel

About a week ago I took down my old site, with the intention of moving the contents to Blogger. I’ll get to posting them slowly, when I have the time. It should not take long, because the text already exists, but with the holidays coming, I can’t promise anything.

Meanwhile, readers of the old site should rejoice at the thing that I am posting today, because it’s new. Did I mention a new fantasy novel in my last post? Well, that one isn’t going to happen, since I’ve lost all interest in it. However, I’ve been working on a new novel, though a SF one. After writing at it for 12 hours straight last night, and after taking 4 hours off writing to get some sleep, I’ve decided to type and post at least the first chapter before Christmas, mostly because I’m really eager to get feedback on it. I’m usually pleased with my work, but this time I feel the introduction is too long and too boring. However, I have no idea how to make it shorter, and the long and tedious speech at the beginning actually serves as characterization of the speaker, so what I really want to know from the readers is whether, though long and boring, this introduction is acceptable. The story picks up in the second chapter, but if the reader will give up in the middle of chapter 1 then I’d better find a way to fix it.

Anyway, long story short, here is the blog for the novel. I’m making it a separate blog because I don’t want the chapters to be separated by other stories. Please read the first chapter and let me know if you can get to the end of it, or, roughly, around which paragraph you gave up reading it. Thank you!

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my personal blog.

Today I begin documenting my attempts at writing, as well as publishing some of my work on the internet, in my short fiction blog. The first piece that I want to share with the world is Sir Joseph’s Choice. It was published in Gryphonwood Magazine in the winter of 2004, but Gryphonwood only bought the first appearance rights, and since the magazine can’t be bought anymore I wanted to make that available to readers around the world. That, and I’m very proud of it.

In time I will continue to update the short fiction blog with fantasy short stories, as soon as I get ideas for them. I’m also planning to start serializing a short novel in a blog which I intend to create especially for it.

I hope you enjoy reading Sir Joseph’s Choice and I hope I can post something new soon.