The · Moving · Finger

Finished complete draft of Yuletide story today. Not that I seriously believed I would have to default, but I was up against a personal deadline, which I'm very glad to have met. Mostly satisfied with my work, first beta didn't find any serious problems with it. May tweak bits of it here and there, but overall, I think it holds together as a complete entity. I only hope the recipient is pleased with the result as well.

Fingers itchy right now--they want to go on writing, but I think I'll hold off on signing up as a pinch-hitter, mostly because I can't predict how the next 12 days are going to go for me and I would hate to default on anyone. I suppose I could always check out Yuletide Madness when the time comes.

Longtime friend visiting tomorrow with her kids. Much earlier than last year, and alas, one of her Xmas gifts is still in transit as of this moment. Unless I wake to find it miraculously on my doorstep tomorrow, which seems unlikely but one never knows. Something like that actually happened this morning, when I went out to get the newspaper and found a gift from a relative had been delivered either late last night or just at daybreak.

Holiday deliveries are strange.

My apologies for not getting this letter up a little sooner--the last few days have been chock-full of troublesome real-life stuff. Thank you in advance for taking up my challenges. As a newcomer to Yuletide this year, I am eager to please and be pleased, so I'm predisposed to enjoy anything written in my chosen obscure fandoms.

Since I tried to provide specific information in my prompts, I don't have much to add nor do I wish to hobble your own muse with too many demands. But if you feel some general guidelines might be helpful, here they are.

1) I'm not a rigid canon-purist, but on the whole, I prefer stories that are canon-compatible. When I read a fic, I like to feel, "Yes, this could have happened, and happened in this way." This also holds true for keeping canon characterization and "voice" intact and composing dialogue that sounds authentic.

2) Humor. I love funny stories and, of late, my life has been a bit short of hilarity, so I'd appreciate more. Whether it's the gentle humor of Elizabeth Enright or L.M. Montgomery or the broader comedy of the Muppets or something in-between like Music and Lyrics, I'm a pushover for anything that makes me laugh or even just smile. (Except bathroom humor, 'cause that gets old fast.)

3) Gen is always right. Gen is my default subgenre of choice, and I can be as thrilled by a simple story as by a complex one, as long as it's well told.

4) Romance, in the relevant fandoms, can range from mild to moderate to "so hawt!" Or it can be nonexistent--I like stories about families and platonic friendships too.

5) I prefer optimistic endings to bleak, nihilistic, or even ambiguous ones. It doesn't have to be all rainbows and kittens at the close, but upbeat trumps downbeat for me every single time.

Hope these guidelines prove helpful. And thanks again!

Well, I've done it: signed up for my first Yuletide challenge. The list of requested fandoms was too intriguing to pass up. I think this could be fun, though I'll admit to a few beginner's nerves. I was in charge of something like this a few years ago, though on a much smaller scale, and it ended up being a success. And I do rather like writing something special on request. But if anyone who reads my LJ has some wisdom to pass along about the Yuletide challenge, I'd be glad to see it.

November is . . . okay, so far. Several crappy things that I couldn't control happened in October, but I've decided that this month doesn't have to be like the last. I'm making sure I write every day, even it's only a few paragraphs, and I'm trying to keep a fairly positive attitude towards life in general and appreciate the small pleasures more. The new J.D. Robb is supposedly waiting for me at the library, and I managed to write up my response to While My Guitar Gently Weeps and post it on Amazon a few days ago. Really enjoyable series--far too many recent releases have had such a same-y, been-there-done-that feel, but this feels fresh and different. I hope it has a good long run.

While I prefer the resumption of standard time to the start of Daylight Savings Time, there's still a big circadian shift to get used to. I wake up and get sleepy much earlier until my system adjusts.

But so far, I've put that extra hour to good use. I finally finished Roberta Gellis's Roselynde, which I started all the way back in July and kept putting down, even though it was very well-written and thoroughly researched. The pacing, though . . . egad, what a slog. Fortunately, later volumes--events have conspired to have me reading this series out of order--seem to move along more quickly. Time was, I used to inhale epics, but these days, any book significantly longer than 400 pages has its work cut out to hold my interest. I have to be in the right mood to lose myself in the story or the author has to be a known quantity, whom I would follow just about anywhere. If an unpublished manuscript by Dorothy Dunnett or Winston Graham surfaced, I'd be all over it in a flash.

Length notwithstanding, books have been a big comfort to me during these last difficult weeks. I've read and enjoyed the new Kleypas and the new Roberts--one historical, one contemporary romance, both sweet, straightforward, and satisfying. And I have the new Crombie on hold at the library; it looks very promising. And I got hold of the second JP Kinkaid, which I'm really digging. The mystery itself is perfectly serviceable, but it's Deborah Grabien's depiction of the kinetic energy that goes into creating and performing music that gives the book its real juice. Once I get my thoughts on it into some kind of coherent order, I may do a write-up because this series as a whole deserves more attention.

Wrote more than 500 words yesterday, which isn't a bad start. Not on the WIP (although I intend to get back to it this week), but in a whole new fandom--and a non-historical one to boot! It feels a little strange to be doing fan writing again, after spending the better part of two years on original work, but enjoyable too. If it weren't for fan writing, I don't know if I could have gotten over the twin hurdles of a) finishing my projects, and b) showing them to anyone but a handful of people. And if that hadn't happened, I might never have finished my original MS and started querying it. So, going back feels a bit like giving back, though I haven't the faintest idea what I'll do with this fic when/if I finish it--its fandom is pretty obscure, as far as I can tell.

New month. Whew.

October was the Month from Hell for me, and I can't say it redeemed itself at the end, so much as it simply tired of playing Cosmic Whac-A-Mole with me. Naturally, I was the mole. I'd poke my head out, hoping things were improving or at least settling down a bit, and BANG! down would come the Mallet of Doom on my skull.

Well. November now, standard time has resumed, which pleases me because I have an extra hour to devote to something I enjoy, whether it's reading, writing, sleeping in, or just thinking. It would be lovely if something nice occurred this month, but at this point I'd settle for nothing nasty happening.

Getting back to writing is my top priority this month. I did manage to finish Chapter Ten in my WIP, but it's nowhere near the progress I'd hoped to make in October. Still, to keep things in perspective, I only got the idea for this story in June, and by those standards, it's coming along fairly well.

Tweaked a minor scene in my finished MS--wrote an alternate version, to be precise, and it might read more smoothly than the one I've currently got in place. I'll run it by my beta readers and see if they agree.

Made cherry-walnut muffins for breakfast and got in my morning walk. Saw four cats, about twice as many dogs, and a rabbit. Not a bad start for the day.

As in nine chapters, ONE HUNDRED PAGES into the WIP.

There's something very heartening about reaching the triple digits. You start to think it's more likely that you will finish and, instead of just a bunch of pages, you will actually have a book at some point.

And now that I've achieved this goal, I can relax just a little. I've been positively grim lately, focusing so much on getting to this point that I haven't been very amusing company. I suspect I need to lighten up--seriously.

I was too young to remember Peter, Paul, and Mary at the height of their fame. My experience of them came through old recordings and, during the 1980s, televised reunion concerts. They may all have been greyer and heavier by then, but they still sang with the passion and conviction of the long-haired kids they used to be.

One more flower gone. Long time passing.

R.I.P. Mary Travers, 1936-2009.

Finally broke 25K yesterday, after a week's delay attributable to September heat wave, insomnia, and the usual chaos of the school year starting up again. And at least I finally know where this chapter is going, which I didn't at first. Being neither a strict plotter nor a complete pantser, I tend to follow a middle course, but things began to diverge from my loose outline earlier than anticipated.

I'll feel even better when I reach page 100. Somehow that number feels more reassuring than the actual word count, though I couldn't say why.

Seven chapters done, and a digital word count of 20,605 K.

Not perhaps as much as I was hoping for by this point, but solid progress nonetheless and I'm not hating my characters or my story, so it's all good.

Finishing a draft by November--aka NaNoWriMo--would be good, but not imperative.

And I've reached 11K on it, so far. Aiming for final word count in the neighborhood of 80K, because I write long and it's almost certain to exceed that amount.

It's early days yet, but I think this story might have legs. I'm growing fonder of the characters and more interested in what happens to them. It helps that they're quite different from my first cast, though there's a slight connection between the two. When I tried writing the prequel to my last one, my main couple kept turning into pale shadows of the first couple. And yikes, the info-dumpery! This time, there's no such problem with the characterization--though I'm sure there will be others specific to this story.

Had short but lovely vacation on Central Coast. Hard to get back in harness after being away, but gradually, things are settling into their groove again.

Radio silence on all my outstanding fulls. August is said to be a slow month in the publishing world. ::sigh::

My partner and I wrote this two years ago for a 'zine. It seems fitting to post it today.

TITLE: Old Soldiers
FANDOM: Hornblower (mostly film canon)
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: Not ours, don't bother suing.

( Old soldiers never die--they just rendezvous 10 years later. )

Goodness! Two posts required for this puppy? This is the most writing I've done in months--I only hope it's a sign of good things to come.

( Memorial Fic, Part Two )

Nineteen years ago, the world lost someone truly irreplaceable. I felt the urge to write tribute fic. Feel free to pass on by if it's not your thing.

( Memorial Fic, Part One )

Not because I never tried the form. I did, once or twice, though I have no idea where I put them and have no great desire to go looking for them. They were rather paltry efforts compared to the one that follows--which makes a fitting coda to National Poetry Month 2009.

( Villanelle )

A very challenging form. I can't remember if I've said this before, but it bears repeating: when composing one of these, try to pick a refrain that won't bore you or the reader with its repetition.

( Kyrielle )

I learned about this form a few years ago and tried my hand at some. Here's the one that's probably the best of the lot.

A SAIL AGAINST THE SEA

Iseult
Of Brittany
Gazes out to sea and
Scans the horizon for a sail
White as a swan's breast, a tall ship bearing
Tristan's love, but her heart turns black
To know that she must yield
To another
Iseult.

It's been a couple of years, at least, since I wrote any poetry. But just to keep things going, here's my effort at an Italian sonnet, composed further back than I care to remember.

Of Arms and the Man

With cocksure ease, you ride to try your lance
Against the virgin surface of my shield,
Against myself, in virtue's armor sealed.
Astride your plunging steed, with steely glance,
Your weapon at the ready, you advance
In hopes I will surrender you the field
Without a blow or murmur, that I'll yield
And grant to you the mastery of this dance.

A sudden stroke! Beneath your blade I fall!
The standard topples and the gates swing wide
To let the conquering guest within the hall.
Yours is the crown, the sceptre, and the ball.
Yet I am undefeated: you abide,
As I wish, who, by yielding, have won all!

Wrapping up Sonnet Week with one of the Masters--or should I say, Mistresses. I admire nearly all the poems in this sequence but there's something special about the first one and the ringing note of change in the final couplet. A life was about to be turned upside-down--mainly for the best as it turned out--but I like how EBB doesn't overlook the unsettling aspect of falling in love when you've abandoned all hope of it and think you have no business doing so.

From Sonnets from the Portuguese

I
I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, -
"Guess now who holds thee!" - "Death," I said, but there
The silver answer rang, "Not death, but Love."

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

The break in line 11 sometimes makes me forget this is a sonnet--and a powerful one.

Apparently, swans are aggressive, bad-tempered creatures best admired from afar, which I have no difficulty believing.

Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

--William Butler Yeats(1865-1939)