A Life of Crime and Chocolate

onesecondglance said:

I just killed someone. I think that makes thirteen so far?

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Family, cats or characters?

It isn't so much the killing off of characters that's keeping me awake at night but the side effects of a year of editing.

I like to read before I go to sleep. You know, kick back and let the day wind down as you lose yourself in a good story. It hasn't been working for me lately because I can't stop editing. I want to grab a pencil and make notes in the margin - like this:

<--- Unnecessary adverbial clause.
<--- Tautology!
<--- Dangling participle.
<--- Clumsy sentence, too many conjunctions.
<--- Ew! What were you thinking?



Anyone know where the editing OFF button is?

Good Morning, guys. How are you stories going?

Hello Everyone, today, I have met Simon Kernick, what a lovely man. He was so down to earth.

GailD said:

I like to read before I go to sleep. You know, kick back and let the day wind down as you lose yourself in a good story. It hasn't been working for me lately because I can't stop editing. I want to grab a pencil and make notes in the margin - like this:

<--- Unnecessary adverbial clause.
<--- Tautology!
<--- Dangling participle.
<--- Clumsy sentence, too many conjunctions.
<--- Ew! What were you thinking?



Anyone know where the editing OFF button is?

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Nope. This spring, I read almost a novel a day. In the last eight weeks, I think I finished eight, and four of those were YA (thus short). And I was thinking as I "read new posts" today in EditHead mode, "you don't need that 'from'" in that post title...huh, you could have said that much more clearly" so yeah, it kind of gets under your skin.

your novel query may need work, re your sig, but it'll get requests for more, I'm sure. Even the first version made me want to read it.

Well, I did a word war today and I got some words written down. I still have to do some more plotting for one of my stories that I'm working on; I still can't figure out what the "enemy" is and why they're doing what they're doing. I may work on my first novella some more until I can figure it out. I'm seriously at a blank right now.

I haven't been on in a while, but I just wanted to say hi to everyone and let people know I'm still kicking. Took out the WIP that I haven't really been working on today and started revising parts of it, too.

I managed some words yesterday, but I feel a bit disappointed - I could have done more in the evening, but didn't.

The hardest part about trying to fit writing in around other things is how easy the excuses come.

heyjude said:

Onesecond, are you having trouble even with the challenge? You're not seriously going to let me beat you, are you?

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hj, I know that you know that I know that you know well the horror of finally finding some free time to write, and then your body saying "but I'm tiiired, I don't waaaanna."

The only thing that keeps us going is the steel determination that lives within our hearts; the drive to leave behind the world a better place; that on the day we die, we can look back and say, without falsehood, that I made something, and I saw that it was good, and I did not fail, e'er the dread hands of fate tried to drag me down, and I said No - I will not give up, I will not back down. I am a writer, and I will never surrender!!!!!!




... ahem. Not sure what happened there.

So... interesting chocolate stories?

^ wasn't that from Braveheart?

hiya mat.

It's almost muggy here this morning. 47% humidity, which for Arizona is rain forest-y; it's the official start of monsoon season. My guitar must be sighing in relief.

Happy July 4th to all those over there! Don't explode yourselves with fireworks, that can get messy.

Me, I am just back from the archaeological museum in Heraklion where I've been geeking out over artefacts all day, and the back of my brain has been rumbling about that alternate history novel I started to write ages ago, that I had to look up Minoan history to research, and which I really liked the idea of... But not at the moment, I have a near-future police procedural to deal with first.

Still, it was so cool to actually see this for reals, the mural that actually inspired my MC in that story - http://yfrog.com/kekjxnfj (Photobucket's not working for me today)

heyjude said:

Very neat mural! How did it inspire you?

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The scene was the traditional 'bull leaping' ceremony that they think the young men, possibly young priests, had to go through as sort of initiation or rite of passage. These guys had to be the elite when it came to athleticism and fitness (and I suppose they also had to be slightly nuts), as they had to basically jump over the bull as it charged them, without being gored in the process. The BBC did a sort of docudrama about the last days of the Minoan civilisation, mostly guesswork to be honest since they know so little about the culture, not even what they called themselves, but it gave me the idea to have one of these priest-athletes as the MC. I was working on an alternate history / fantasy sort of thing, taking the premise what if Atlantis as it's described by Plato really existed and what if it hadn't bene destroyed, what would the Mediterranean etc have developed into? So my MC ended up as an Atlantean priest, getting ready for the big bull ceremony where he'd see if he was going to progress or not, and of course all sorts of nastiness ensues...

Set it aside because although it's fantasy I wanted it to be as historically plausible as possible, so all the stuff set in Mycenae, Knossos, Egypt etc had to be as near real as could be, and the research for it was starting to get to the silly level. But I did like the plot (it was along the Game of Thrones lines in terms of nastiness) and the characters, so maybe it's something to potter away at in between edits of the other WIP or something. Hmn. But so odd to see all these actual artefacts that I'd looked up online or seen in the books I had already, that were the basis for so many of the characters!

Happy Independence Day, everyone!!

--

I think I might read some more today. I don't know what though. I just kind of feel like reading. Haha.

jeseymour said:

I hate the title. I'm calling it Arrhythmia (which is related to heart problems, which is related to the main character having relationship problems in this book.) But it's a terrible title. Nobody can spell it, much less understand it. So I need a new title, something simpler.

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You came to the world's worst titler. Have you thought about punching some chest-ish symptoms in the mayo clinic on-line symptom-checker? At the very least, it's a fun diversion. Or looking up in wikipedia ways that the heart can kill you, I got:
heart failure, which might work.

I've been looking for a job and today saw the job of my dreams:

"LEARNING SUPERVISOR
£3,085 - £1,714,100 per year
Norwich, Norfolk"

The wages seem to be reasonable, don't they?

I think today is going to be another slow day of writing for me. Haha.

Shakesbear said:

"LEARNING SUPERVISOR
£3,085 - £1,714,100 per year
Norwich, Norfolk"

The wages seem to be reasonable, don't they?

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Yeah, that doesn't look scammy at all.

Shakesbear said:

I've been looking for a job and today saw the job of my dreams:

"LEARNING SUPERVISOR
£3,085 - £1,714,100 per year
Norwich, Norfolk"

The wages seem to be reasonable, don't they?

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That's some slippery sliding scale. Are there Nigerians involved?

I phoned the organization who placed the ad in the newspaper and spoke to a nice young man in the Human Resources dept. He was silent after I read the ad out. He then said asked me to read it again so I
did. There was a pause and he said, trying not to laugh, "I think I'll apply for the job!" He thanked me for bringing the typo to his notice and said he would contact the newspaper. He did and the ad has now been amended.

I think it must be something in the water round here, not noticing silly typos. Last summer my niece and I were strolling round the town centre and we stopped to look at an estate agents window and the properties for sale. My niece asked me if I know what was special about the property she was pointing at. I looked and asked her why she thought there might be something special about it. The house was large and detached, but not particularly outstanding. She told me to look at the price. My jaw dropped. We went in and the woman in the estate agents asked how she could help us. Niece asked about the house and the woman looked relieved. She said we were the first people to enquire about it. "Not surprising," said my niece, "When the price tag is sixty million!" The woman smiled weakly as she took the ad out of the window and said "Too many zeros."