So… Close…

December 29th, 2008

The climax of my novel is part way through. Believe me, it is going to need desperate amounts of editing. I cannot stress that enough. I have this horrible feeling that the editing is going to end up more man hours than the initial draft.

Nevertheless, I am about 98% complete. It feels so close, and yet it’s so hard to figure it out. See, I’ve outlined up to the end of this scene I am now writing. But I need to work out what happens afterwards, which is probably an important part of the meshing of the story. Well, we’ll see what happens.

Haven’t worked on the comic in a few days, sadly. But once the novel is out of the way it’ll be much easier to work on.

The End?

December 27th, 2008

Well, that’s the last time I use the WordPress “QuickPress” box on the Dashboard – I clicked “Save Draft” and my last post disappeared into thin air. Joy.

Anyway, I will try to recover the post as it was stored in my fallible human hard drive (also known as my “brain”). Ahem.

So, in keeping with my vow to finish the first draft of my novel before New Year’s, Drawing the Line is coming to its non-red-herring climax. Hurrah! Basically a chapter to go, or around 4,000 words. If I keep up what I did today, 1.8k, I’ll be done on the 30th. I will be finished by New Years.

Having said that, my climax is really hard to write now. My characters have developed beyond their original motivations when I planned this scene in detail two long months ago. Le sigh. Well, filling plot holes is a job for future drafts. My main mission is to get this junk out, despite my utter annoyance with it. I am so sick of writing this novel, you have no idea. I like my characters, but I am sick of describing all their actions and thoughts. They’re real enough in my head now that it seems like they’re lazy in that they’re making me write their stupid story, instead of them doing it.

On the NaNoWriMo forums, people kept talking about their characters as real people that had personalities and spoke to them in their head. I’m starting to understand it. But my characters are uncooperative. They keep willing me to stop writing about them doing heroic things. They just want to run away and hide. Screw you guys!

Do I sound crazy yet? I think writers need to have a crazy streak… writing begets crazy, and crazy begets writing. The circle of storytelling spins for eternity. Or something.

Christmas and Whatnot

December 26th, 2008

So Chrissy is over now, thank goodness. Yesterday I ate so much I hung around the bathroom late last night in case I had to vomit. Luckily, the nausea passed by midnight and I had a pretty nice 9 hours of sleep. My eldest sister, Kelly, was not so fortunate and was very sick last night and today. Not sure what it was. She ate and drank quite a bit so it could have been due to that, or food poisoning, though she didn’t eat anything that nobody else did.

So, we brought our nephews back home with us, and they’ve been fairly good. They both have Nintendo DSes now, so they’re unusually quiet. I’m liking it! Anyway, I’m under the weather today. I might do a little bit of writing, but I just need to sleep off the overindulgence, I think. I’m going to really get stuck into my projects starting tomorrow. The kids will be going to our caravan in Gerroa (near Gerringong) so I will have some good quiet time, I think. I’ll be going to the van sometimes over the next couple of weeks, but we only live half an hour away, so it’s easy to come home to sleep, instead of being packed in the sardine can that is the caravan.

I didn’t get many interesting presents this year, sadly, nobody really did. See, every year for the past 3 or 4 years now we’ve been doing a “$5 Christmas”. The family agreed to spend exactly $5 on each person, no more and no less. It is getting harder each year to do, due to inflation. And it has seemed to eliminate giving and getting… well, good presents. The only people to get decent presents are the kids, because they do not have the $5 limit.

So, I don’t know, it’s left Christmas feeling kind of anticlimactic for the adults. In my opinion, anyway.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

December 24th, 2008

Well, the summer solstice has just been, and you know what that means… Christmas… i.e. the holiday based on the winter solstice.

So I’m going to be going up to Sydney today and staying Xmas Eve at my eldest sister Kelly’s place, with my two nephews Jake and Luke, and new niece Meah. Since my nephews demand a lot of time, and I will probably spend a lot of time playing their Wii. I probably won’t get time to do much, if any, writing. Not that I did any yesterday. Holy crap.

So like, don’t expect an update on here for the next couple of days. If I do get a post in, it’ll be a miracle.

I certainly hope to finish the first draft of my novel in the next few days, if I can work on it.

So, I’ll see you round. I don’t expect many people to actually be reading this, though. I only am aware of three people that even are aware of this blog’s existence. If you are not one of those people, leave me a comment (though it may not get approved until after I’m back). Heh. Anyway, bye.

Natalie out.

Working Over the Holidays

December 22nd, 2008
My Broken Bone Broken bones aren’t meant to feel this liberating.

Late November, I was blessed with a broken fifth metatarsal.

“Blessed?” you ask? Well, okay, so that’s a slight exaggeration. What I mean is that it gave me something of a “free pass” through the holiday period. For the first time in six years, I do not have to face the horrors of working in the service industry on Christmas Eve. Thank you, little bone, thank you so very much.

But wait! There’s more!

Being so inactive, though I’m sure it’s bad for my health, also allowed my creativity to flow, and it’s what caused so many project ideas to form. I was already working on my novel for NaNoWriMo, but most other things surfaced during my idle time.  It really pays to take a time out once in a while. I’ve finally figured out how my motivation works, or at least I think so.

Anyway, I think this has put things into perspective for me. I’ve had a great three weeks of crutch-wielding, arse-sitting and sounding like something out of a haunted house as I walk (clank, bonk, phwoosh, clank…), as Mum put it the other day.

It has also brought to the forefront other medical concerns that I have been putting off. Might talk about that in a future blog.

Slacker!

December 22nd, 2008

Yesterday I totally slacked off.

I procrastinated SO HARD, I actually spent most of my time marking every spam page in the AVENwiki. Then I played the Spicks and Specks board game with Allyson for a long while.

Ended up only writing about 800 words on my novel (I started AFTER MIDNIGHT, mind you), and nothing else on any other projects.

I hope to do far more today.

Slowness

December 20th, 2008

I noticed this blog was loading like a sloth, so I complained about it on Twitter. @bma told me to use a cache plugin, so I went to the WordPress Plugin Directory and found WP Supercache.

After setting it up, the blog does seem to load dramatically faster. The main drawback is that the dynamic widgets are very slow to update now, which means you may not (let’s say probably not) get my most recent Tweets or tracks (not that it matters what I listen to). This doesn’t affect things too much- I’d rather have a quick loading page than an up-to-date Twitter update, but I just needed to make it known.

The other advantage to the cache is that the database will be under far less stress by multiple visitors. And that’s wonderful.

Getting Organised

December 19th, 2008

Long ago, I set up an account on Remember The Milk . I did absolutely nothing with it.

That was probably a mistake. You see, I work so much better when I have self-set goals. It worked when I was losing weight, it worked during many web sites I worked on in the past, and recently it’s worked like a charm for NaNoWriMo.

It doesn’t work well when someone is cracking a whip. That’s why I was so slack with homework in high school. I can’t stand people trying to control me. So, I kind of act passive aggressive and either do a bad job, or I don’t do it at all. Now, this is different at work, because I want money and I know that I need to do things to have money. But when there is no tangible and impending motivational factor, such as being at school or TAFE, I just slack off and do what I feel like. Procrastination to its extreme.

When I have my own goals, my own motivation and my own rewards, that’s when I do work. And hell, I enjoy it too.

So that’s why I’m making a to-do list on Remember the Milk.

Look! Another Boring Blog!

December 18th, 2008

Hey, guess what?

Natalie has started up another blog. Doesn’t that just excite you no end?

…Okay, you didn’t have to put it that way…

Look, I know I have not been known to keep up a blog, but this time it’s going to be different (groans are heard)! This time, this blog is going to bring together the vast majority of my bajillions of projects that I’m always working on simultaneously, and yet seeming to get nothing done.

Things I’ve been doing recently include:

  • NaNoWriMo
  • NaNoFiMo
  • Inventing a new webcomic and/or published comic (an actual 24-page comic book. Something I’ve never attempted before)
  • Started up this blog (duh)
  • Have plans to make a new website centred around the Illawarra Region that I somehow expect to update regularly with journalistic-esque articles (yeah, right)
  • Have been working as a freelance Web Developer/Designer, my recent work being the website for Taren Point Titans Junior Footy Club

So basically, this blog will help keep you up to date with what I’m doing, and also help me to be able to think about these things in a more organised manner. That’s one of my main problems, I think. Too disorganised.

Okay, so expect to see lots of junk posted on here, frequently! In theory.

Natalie out.