lydamorehouse: (more renji art)
Just a head's up, I agreed to participate (as Tate) in the Writing Process Blog Tour next week. So, if you're interested in what I'm currently up to and how I do things, you can check that out. I'll be sure to link the post when it goes live, here. If you want to see what a previous one was like, here's the guy who tagged me, Conrad Zero: http://www.conradzero.com/2014-writing-process-blog-tour/

Otherwise, my weekend was made crazier by having forgotten that this weekend was Anime Detour. I mostly attended Saturday, though I did drop by for a little bit on Sunday morning. Mostly, I wandered the halls admiring costumes and buying too much stuff in the dealer's room. I have a few more photos I can share.

Here's Mason in the DeathNote/Clue x-over tee-shirt I bought him. Being the true and awesome nerd I raised him to be, Mason said, "Well, it really should say 'Mr. Boddy' instead of Colonel Mustard," but, we both agreed that it's still funny.
IMG_8904

I only took one picture of a cosplayer on Sunday, but I just HAD to get this guy because he's Sigfried from Soul Calibur, and my nephew Jonathan and I wasted HOURS of our lives playing that years and years ago (and now there's an iPad version of it, so Mason and I have played it too.)
IMG_8907

Otherwise, my con highlights were hanging out with one of the con's guests of honor, Christopher Jones at diner on Saturday night. We had a great time talking, but we were hampered from our usual mutual Marvel squee by the fact that I STILL HAVEN'T SEEN CAPTAIN AMERICA YET. (Though plans are in the works. I may be hitting a matinee on Tuesday with my usual Marvel crowd.)

Still, that was fun. A lot of the con, for me, was opportunities missed. Because I was Moon-Mooning, I missed out on a big-screen showing of "BLEACH THE MOVIE: Hellverse." I also didn't realize that one of the GoH's was a Dai Satō, a guy who worked on Samurai Champloo, and who, in point of fact, was a major contributor to some of my all-time favorite episodes. I never even heard him speak. The only thing I can say is that I breathed the same air as he did.

*head desk*

But, the other big thing we did this weekend, was get Mason to his UMTYMP test on Saturday. Mason was very nervous (for good reason--800 people apply, only 50 get in.) He decided he would feel best if he wore one of my ties and a white button down shirt. He looked super-sharp. And, he did his best. The testers are warned that they will encounter questions they'll have to guess at, and he said he'd had to guess a fair amount. But, I'm really proud of him for trying. I'll keep my fingers crossed until the letter arrives in May to let us know if he's been accepted. If we don't get in this year, he can try again next year (and up to seventh grade, I believe. So he has two more shots.)

Today I spent the day working on my next installment for Precinct 13's sequel, despite the depressing statistic (which I should never have checked!!) that half as many people read the second installment as did the first... so, my take away? I started out strong and then sucked it up. *sigh* Story of my life. Ironically, I posted the last of my Harry Potter/Bleach x-over this weekend and got more people to read that in a day than read the second installment of the sequel so far, since last week....

Yeah.

This is why people get discouraged with original fiction.

Anyway, it's a good discipline to have to write a 2,000+ word installment every week, though. That's much more progress than I was making before, which was zero. So good may yet come out of this experiment.
lydamorehouse: (more renji art)
Do you remember the Math/Barbie scandal of... the late-90s? Apparently, there was a talking Barbie doll who said any number of inane things, including, "Math is hard!"

"Math is hard, Barbie," has become one of those phrases that my family uses to shorthand an idea. In this case, we usually mean it to imply: this is something that really shouldn't be that difficult, but I'm struggling with it anyway. And, today, all I can say is, "Original fiction is hard, Barbie."

I think I may be finally getting into the swing of things, but... man. It's like pulling teeth over here for some reason.

I wish someone could explain it to me. Why can I bust out 2,000 words of fan fic in about a half-day (if that) and original fiction writing is as slow as molassas? Given the scene I was just writing, I think part of the issue is description. I have a lot more of it in my fan fic than some writers, but original fiction demands a LOT of scene setting in a way I don't think is quite as necessary in fan fiction. Certainly, physical description of characters can be lighter--after all, most fan fiction is based on visual media. I tend to put a lot of effort into describing (of all things) weather in my fan fic. Also, because of who I write, there's a lot of talk of food and smells. But, a lot of the other stuff can be "brush stroked." I can do that to some extent in original fic, but a reader needs to know where they are and part of that is physical description.

And that's slow going.

Also, I can't just start with established characters and situations. I have to make all that up, and worse, get you to sympathize and like these people I'm inventing.

Hard work, Barbie.

I'd better get back to it, or I'll never get the 2,000 words I've promised myself for the day.

NaNoWriMo

Oct. 11th, 2012 09:24 am
lydamorehouse: (more renji art)
Since I'm still an unemployed writer, I've decided to sign up for NaNoWriMo.  I've decided to do this under my real name "lydamorehouse," so if you're also doing it and looking for a writing buddy, feel free to connect to me. 

I've been told the best way to survive National Novel Writing Month (which, btw, starts in a matter of weeks, beginning in November,) is to do a lot of pre-plotting and outlining before the big event.  The idea is that will keep you focused when you're trying to push words out.  But, I have a much bigger problem:  I'm not sure which project I want to focus on.

At Gaylaxicon, thanks in large part to Kyell's enthusiasm for it, I actually got an offer to publish my gay superhero story, which I read as a work in progress at WorldCON.  Being the sort of person I am (*cough*writingwhore*cough*), the idea that there's a built in market for this novel/novella really appeals to me.  Plus, the story is a great deal of fun.  It would not be the sort of thing that I would find difficult to sit down and plow through for an entire month.

However, the editor who offered kept apologizing for the fact that almost no money would be available, and he encouraged me to try to sell that story elsewhere, should I finish it.  At this point in my career, any offer works for me.  However, it does put this project on a more even ground with something like writing the next Garnet Lacey and/or Precinct 13 story as an e-book.

I could potentially make some $$ if I self-published a sequel/continuation of one of my existing series as an e-book.  Presumably there are fans out there who would want to buy an e-book release.  My biggest worry/concern about doing a Tate Hallway e-book is that I'm not quite sure what my rights are in regards to those books.  All of the Tate books are still in print, which means they belong to Penguin USA.  Technically, my contracts stipulate that the publisher has right of first refusal on all sequels/next works of paranormal romance, but I have no idea if that extends to a project like this.  I suppose I should ask my agent.  She would know.

The other drawback is one I probably shouldn't admit to in public, but part of me still resists this business model: self-e-publishing.  It still feels really labor intensive to me, and I remain unconvinced all that work upfront is worth the supposed eventual paycheck.  One of the things I like about having a big, New York publisher is (the advance, but also) that I don't have to mess around with all the formatting details.  Plus, I'd suddenly be responsible for the single most critical part of a book's success--the cover art.  That, quite frankly, freaks me out.  And, I'd need to be super-rigorous about typos.  Anyone reading here or my frist-drafty fanfic KNOWS I have a problem with spelling and I have NEVER ACTUALLY mastered the use of the comma in the English language. 

On top of those super-appealing options is a third one--all those other stories I said to myself, "damn, if I ever get time I'd like to work on those."  The problem, of course, is that I've had time, and nothing has quite grabbed me, alas. But, this feels like the perfect time to take on something that's been a dream project.  So, I don't know. 

I need to decide soon.  With NaNoWriMo approaching, I'm going to need to focus on those outlines.  (Another plus in the Hallaway projects column is that all the potential novels is that they come with book proposals/outlines already written.) 
lydamorehouse: (Default)

Romancing the Dead keeps kicking my butt.  I whined about it over at wyrdsmiths again.

In fish news, I'm getting anxious to move Joe and Fergus over to their new tank.  Bob seems (knocking on wood) to actually be thriving.  We're waiting for the features Shawn to arrive and then I think once they're in place, we'll do the big switch-a-roo.  I got the old "hospital" tank up and running again.  It's empty still, and will be for some time, but I kind of like the gurgles and burbbles of the water feature.

My folks made Shawn and me a new bookshelf for the bathroom at my request.  Books had been piling up in there, and there's a lot of funky space in our bathroom (It's kind of octagonal) that doesn't get used.  So they made a custom tall, skinny bookshelf that fits nicely right next to the "throne."  Shawn and I decided that the best bathroom books would be those cheesy classics, like VILLIAGE IN THE TREETOPS and JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH.  At an estate sale, we found a whole bunch of skinny pocket books like the kind we were looking for, some vintage Raymond Chandler and James Bond books.  I also picked up the John Carter of Mars (Burroughs) from Uncle Hugo's on Saturday because I had such a nostagla rush looking at them. I'd read all 150 or whatever of them when I was in high school.  Just seeing the old covers made me remember where I was when I was reading them.  Anyway, I picked up THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT the other day and started reading it.  I don't really have time for reading, what with the book that ate my brain, but I pick it up every time I'm in the potty and I've gotten pretty far.  Not the book I was expecting.  I'm half way through it and we're still on the submarine and there's no sign of dinosaurs.  

Hurmph.

I'll write a book report on it when I finish it. 

May 2025

S M T W T F S
    1 23
4 56 78910
111213 14151617
181920 21 22 2324
25262728293031

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated May. 29th, 2025 04:03 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios
OSZAR »