July?

Man, Real Life has been nuts this past year. I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s starting to settle back down into normal insanity. I’ve actually managed to start getting back on track writing-wise and am slogging through edits of my ex-Army guy / twinky college student novel (2008’s nanowrimo product – yeah, I’m a little behind). I have one major change left to work in; the rest is all minor continuity issues and proofing for grammar.

Hot Summer Nights, my Jersey life guard story (started BEFORE “Jersey Shore,” thank-you-very-much) is finished and awaiting revisions, as is my unnamed 2009 nanowrimo project. Apparently, I only work under insane deadlines, since it took me four years to finish HSN, but I pulled off nano two years running with fairly decent first-draft results.

Now, I need to get working on some shorter pieces and figure out what comes next.

Beyond that, we’re getting ready to tear out the rest of our blackberries to make room for a greenhouse. Buried in the blackberries are one old, rotting shed, a 55-gallon drum (which could be empty or filled with something scary), and an old bathtub. We bought the house in the summer of ‘03 and the shed was literally covered in blackberries; when everything died back in the fall, we discovered our surprise bonus structure. Fun times!

(Almost) Half-way there

My "official" nano halfway mark is in a little over an hour; at this rate, I’m roughly 6,000 words behind but can still finish if I write an average of 2,000 words a day for the next two weeks. A lot, but not unattainable. Write or Die helped me get close to 4,000 words this evening alone!  

19572 / 50000
(39.14%)

Write a novel in a month?!?

You will not beat me, nanowrimo.

 

6740 / 50000
(13.48%)

And so it begins…

Nanowrimo 2009. I’m late getting started, but I have the day off so catching up shouldn’t be too much of an issue. I have my plot, a one-page summary, and lots of coffee.

I’m also trying out Windows Live Writer so I can cross-post between LJ and WordPress.

502 / 50000
(1%)

Is this necessary?

I was going to post about the publishing world’s new gimmick product last week but never got around to it. It’s a Vook, an electronic book with video clips.  So far, there are 4 vooks available – two novels, an exercise book, and a beauty guide book. I can see the usefulness for exercise and other how-to books – maybe – but for novels? Do we really need to pause in our novel-reading to watch a video clip?

Isn’t part of the point that reading involves the reader’s interpretation of what’s on the page? If we’ve already declared the author to be dead (i.e., the author’s intent is irrelevant to the reader’s experience), is the videographer now also dead? Or does the interpretation provided by the video clips become the canonical interpretation?

What’s new?

What’s new, you ask? My new Sip, Overtime, was just published by Torquere Books; I have to say, I love the blurb:

Jerry loves his job as a real estate developer, loves it down to the sawdust and the nails. On weekends, when he’s alone and the site is quiet, Jerry comes to wander the half-finished buildings, to marvel at the changes that occurred in the week, and to appreciate — in his own way — all the things he loves about the work. When a very attractive employee shows up unexpectedly, Jerry has to face facts: he’s busted. Good thing for Jerry he might not be the only one interested in putting in a little overtime.

Meanwhile, I’m wrapping up the day job for my two-week vacation, most of which will be spent in New Jersey, writing porn, er romantic fiction. Featuring hot guys. Having sex. Also, hanging out hanging out on the Boardwalk (me, not the hot guys) trying to win cute baby Mets gear for my new niece who I’ll get to meet for the first time.

Let’s see, what else? I have the office almost completely set up now, so that should help the productivity. My friend Rob, who’s an artist, is working on creating business cards for me.

We’re kegging a new beer  – a cherry porter named Black Forest III (and by "we" I mean me sitting on the couch typing this entry watching Bill through the doorway). Black Forest II was brewed in June 1997, so this was well overdue, considering it’s a great recipe.

And I’m setting up RSS feeds on Google Reader to try (once again) to find a convenient, all-in-one-place way to follow the blogs / livejournals / news sites that I follow.

One of my other goals for this week (along with packing and buying new shorts) is to finally set up my page on GLBT Bookshelf page.

And now – back to writing!

Second story contracted!

I just sent in the contract for my second Sip with Torquere. No publication date yet, buy yay me! Now I just need to finish up one of the longer pieces I’m working on. Damn time management.

Newsflash

I hate pronouns.

And homonyms.

But this entry from dictionary.com made me giggle (which could be the coffee and exercise on an empty stomach):

Synonyms:
1, 2, 3. Homonym, homophone, and homograph designate words that are identical to other words in spelling or pronunciation, or both, while differing from them in meaning and usually in origin. Homophones are words that sound alike, whether or not they are spelled differently. The words pear “fruit,” pare “cut off,” and pair “two of a kind” are homophones that are different in spelling; bear “carry; support” and bear “animal” are homophones that are spelled alike. Homographs are words that are spelled identically but may or may not share a pronunciation. Spruce “tree” and spruce “neat” are homographs, but so are row /roʊ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [roh] and row /raʊ/[rou] “fight” as well as sewer /ˈsuər/[soo-er] “conduit for waste” and sewer /ˈsoʊər/[soh-er] “person who sews.” Homonyms are, in the strictest sense, both homophones and homographs, alike in spelling and pronunciation, as the two forms bear. Homonym, however, is used more frequently than homophone, a technical term, when referring to words with the same pronunciation without regard to spelling. Homonym is also used as a synonym of homograph. Thus, it has taken on a broader scope than either of the other two terms and is often the term of choice in a nontechnical context.

Okay, back to proofreading smut.

Finished!

Well, with the first draft anyway. "Where You List Expect It" is 63,821 words and ready for rewrites.  Potentially lots and lots of rewrites, but we’ll see.

March!

So. I am a bad journaler. Journalor. Journalizer. Journal writer. But I’m a great procrastinator, so I guess that’s something. Layla and I have started writing together one afternoon a week, which is helping me actually get some fiction writing done, and I got her through a plot issue, so yay us! And I finished a short (3200 words-ish) smut fic that I’m going to sub in a couple of weeks. Nothing like avoiding writing porn by writing other porn! Writing with L also gives me at least one plot bunny per session.