Thoughts of a Struggling Writer

This is a quick, on the fly update. This is mostly because I’m having entirely too much (feline) assistance in trying to type.

Cacöethes Publishing has a description up for Amaranth. There is also a release date: December 15, 2008. Eyes on the prize.

Many thanks to Danny for  jerry-rigging the iBook G4 back into working for now. I’m doubt it’ll keep working forever, but it does seem to be working for now. I still want to start putting money back for a MacBook (not a Pro or Air) though. Just to be safe.

D. Marie and I are actually just coming back from seeing The Happening, the newest M. Night Shyamalan film. Personally, I’d give it about an 8 out of 10. Tomorrow, the two of us and our friend Christopher are going to go see The Incredible Hulk. Now that’s one we’re all really excited about.

I’m less than 200 words from being caught back from last weekend. This will be a relief. Maybe then I can have a few nights that end before 1 or 2 a.m.

And now to watch The Sixth Sense and maybe even Signs, before we both settle back in to write some.

So, obviously, I’m back in Florida-land. Yes, I had a fantastic time. I usually do, when I’m visiting my grandparents. I got to relax a bit, play with animals (including Oscar McWiggles, the newest marmie kitten), pick some fruit for me to take home, assist in cooking (which I love, since I get to absorb my grandmother’s cooking style), and just generally have a good time.

The one thing I didn’t do, though, was write, at least in the amounts that I needed to. Friday, I wrote about 300 words, and Saturday, I wrote about 500 words. So, instead of my 30 word surplus, I now have a 900 word deficit. Okay, a good day or two of writing will cure that, but it’s a little disappointing. I’ll make it up soon, though, maybe even this week. I don’t like having my little word chart in the red. In fact, it kind of sucks.

As it is, though, in the in between moments today, I’m going to try working on that deficit. It might actually be a bit hard. I got on a spree last night and didn’t go to bed till 1 a.m. and woke up right around 6 or so. (I so should add a space to my writing chart for number of hours of sleep.) Therefore I have a pretty spectacular headache building for today. I’ve already taken some ibuprofen, but it’s yet to kick in, which really actually sucks.

And now it’s time for my weekly meeting, so I’ll be back when I’m back with more words.

In continuation of the iBook saga, I finally heard back from the seller - and he grows more and more belligerent and hostile with each communication; he flat-out refuses to help and gets ruder and ruder about my inquiries. (I’m waiting for him to invoke Godwin’s Law or something of the like. He’s already gone with me being the bane of used sellers on eBay everywhere.) Finally I had to file an eBay dispute and filed an ICCC report. Oh, what fun times it has been lately.

In the meantime, Danny is looking into getting the thing fixed, if it can be. We’re cautiously hopeful.

I will be heading out shortly to drive up to Georgia. I borrowed the old laptop back from D. Marie, so I’ll be trying to keep up with my totals. I’m currently up about 30 words.

So I hope everyone has a good weekend and a good Father’s Day. I’ll be back with the (ir)regularly scheduled blog after that! Ciao!

Something out there hates me. No, seriously, it hates me, whatever it is.

Just under 2 months ago, I splurged and got myself a new iBook, a G4 this time. 4 days short of my SquareTrade warranty going into effect (yes, read the fine print: if it breaks in 60 days, they won’t do a thing to help you!), the logic board went kaput.

As stated above, SquareTrade won’t do anything because I called it in today, registering it as breaking 4 days short of the warranty kicking in (because their website wouldn’t accept my password). It’s been over the 45 days that PayPal allows for disputes. So, pretty much, either the seller takes pity on me and replaces/refunds/fixes it or I have a worthless iBook and I’m out over $600 for the iBook and $70 for the warranty. Why money the way it is, ain’t that just a kick in the pants?

To top it all off, I’m behind on writing thanks to all of this. And now I have nothing to write on when I’m away, like I will be this weekend.

And if I were a worse person, I would so start begging for donations towards a new writing computer.

So I’m falling a little bit behind on my writing. Okay, I could stand to marathon a bit today and tomorrow to make up the difference: I only wrote 275 words yesterday. I suck. I was thinking of trying to write today at work while it’s still slow, but no go: it’s very noisy and I’m having a hard time concentrating between phone calls, people talking on the other phone lines, typing, and the other usual assortment of noise made in a fairly busy office. The IMs and my stomach growling aren’t helping either.

Anyway, I’m going to try in the next couple of days to make up my deficit - and maybe rebuild my surplus, since I can’t guarantee how much writing I’ll get done over Father’s Day weekend. That said, remind me to shoot for 1500+ words today and tomorrow (and maybe Friday during the day, after the guests leave and before I leave).

I just got the form today to fill out to receive my copyright for Amaranth: The Preterhumans Book 1. It requires a complete copy of the book to be published, so I need to find out if it’s an edited or an unedited copy that they need. I’ll be waiting to here back from Janice on that.

Well, it’s almost lunch. Thank goodness! D. Marie and I are going to go grab quesadillas from Fat Sandwich, a local “hole in the wall” restaurant with what has to be some of the best subs, (obviously) sandwiches, and (my favorite) quesadillas.

The heat is already becoming unbearable. It’s not even officially summer yet, and already it feels warm, hot, intolerable. I’ve always been more prone than many to overheating, but this summer seems to be bound and determined to make me faint from the heat or the humidity before the month is up.

They say that every year it gets a bit hotter. Most days, I would not doubt it. The weather station says it’s pushing over 95°, but with the humidity and heat index, it should feel closer to just under 100°. I can’t help wondering if they have vastly underestimated.

It’s been so warm inside this apartment that the air conditioning is kicking on every so often: more often than perhaps my wallet can afford, but not often enough to keep me at a bearable temperature. This month it broke the $200 mark for the first time since I moved to Florida four years ago. I dread to think of what next month’s will be.

Even the nights are little cooler. There have been more than one in the last month where I have woken up from the heat, unable to sleep till I can get cooler.

Right now it’s all I can do to pull in each breath, and finally I give up and start upstairs, shedding articles of clothes till I’m almost comfortable. It’s the middle of the afternoon and if I sleep too much now, I won’t be able tonight, but I can’t bring myself to care too much. Instead, I close my eyes and dream of cool darkness and vampires.

Half an hour later, Princess comes to wake me up for her afternoon pettings. Once that is accomplished, I come back downstairs to write.

Working towards my goal mentioned in the last post, it’s now early in the morning on Day 05 and I’m sitting pretty at 4,272 words. Yes, I’m running just a tiny bit over my intended goal — and that’s quite fine by me! The more I go over, the more leeway I’ll have if I have a non-writing day.

For instance, in two weekends it will be Father’s Day here in the U.S. Now, granted, I forgot about that until my Mom mentioned it on the phone yesterday, and I had already made plans to go visit my grandparents up in Georgia. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to get much in the way of writing done whilst I’m up there, even if I am going to take the new iBook with me. (It finally has a name now, more or less: Bakura.)

I’ve been pestering my editor at Seven Seas Entertainment, trying to find out what’s up with my check for “Dance in the Vampire Bund” 2. What’s a bummer is that I keep having to do this — and that I turned the volume in on the last day of February. Oh well. It’ll get here sooner or later.

And dude, another hit here from a search for Thomas Raith fanfic! That is so awesome! Consider my socks officially rocked.

And now it’s time to be off to work. Ciao!

Currently feeling:// Not awake
Currently hearing:// D. Marie making lunches
Currently reading:// Still too busy to be reading

So apparently I’m a bit loco. I decided that I was going to start trying to write about 1000 words a day throughout the month of June on Verdant: The Preterhumans Book 2. Actually I decided to give myself a challenge for every month till the end of NaNoWriMo. It breaks down sort of like this:

June = 1000 words per day x 30 days = 30,000 words
July = 1700 words per day x 31 days = 52,700 words
August = 1500 words per day x 31 days = 46,500 words
September = 1500 words per day x 30 days = 45,000 words
October = 1500 words per day x 31 days = 46,500 words
November = 1700 words per day x 30 days = 51,000 words

For a half year total of 226,700 words.

Of course, this wouldn’t all be Verdant; it would also be spread between Ash and Azure. I’m hoping to get these finished by then, take December off (and maybe ask Terra to help out with a first round of editing again), then in January start to work on Hunter’s Path in earnest.

We’ll see what actually happens, though. It’s Day 04, and I’ve written 3171 words total so far. I’m sad to say that that was more than I had written in quite a while. This might actually work.

Currently feeling:// Good but sweating (it’s in the 90s here)
Currently hearing:// Epica - Feint
Currently reading:// Actually… nothing. Wow.

So, the blog that had been attached to my domain is now, well, gone. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I only went to BBaC when it was time to clear out the spam and I was rarely remembering to make a post whilst I was there. Therefore, I decided it was in my own best interest to just combine the two blogs and save myself half the work. I might shorten the name of the blog a bit: maybe take out the “struggling”. Thoughts?

I got a first draft of a potential cover for Amaranth: The Preterhumans Book 1 today. Other than one small error (the lack of the letter “h” in my name), it looked fantastic. I’m so excited about this! Once it’s approved, then marketing for the book can start.

(Once it’s approved, I’m posting it on my profile at Fanfiction.net and MyFandoms.com to get my fanfiction readers to pick it up. If even half of my readers get it, that will be a fair number sold right there.)

I’ve got a short day at work tomorrow (8 hours, instead of 9 — I stayed late on Tuesday, so I get to make up the time), so I’m going to take some of my extra and work on my website. I think it’s about time a lot of this information started going up there. At least, if nothing else, I’m going to work on the wiki, to help me get it straight in my own mind.

And now, I need to go take my contacts out, try to work some, and then maybe crash early.

Currently feeling:// Exhausted
Currently hearing:// Drain STH - Black
Currently reading:// Knight Life by Peter David

I am a Nightwish fan.

Said that way, it sounds almost dirty. Nonetheless, I do adore the band and its music, and I would love to see them live someday.

I came into liking Nightwish during the End of an Era tour. In fact, I was only a fan a few weeks before Tarja left. That didn’t stop me buying all the albums and singles I could get my hands on. That also didn’t stop me from following the contest to get a new lead singer or from buying Dark Passion Play when it came out.

Here’s a revelation: I like Tarja and Annette. I might even like Annette a bit more because she is easier for me to understand (and my cats don’t go insane if she hits a note that frightens them). I don’t dislike Tarja, and I’m still taking the whole events of her leaving the band with a grain of salt. (It’s been said that there are three sides to the truth: your side, their side, and what really happened.)

However, in looking at Nightwish videos, images, and even lyrics, I have noticed a disturbing trend: Annette bashing from Tarja fans. I have even noticed that this trend only goes one way: Annette fans don’t return the bashing by saying things against Tarja. It is always the Tarja fans heaping the abuse on Annette (Tarja is prettier, Tarja dressed more sophisticated, Tarja did this, Tarja did that).

The psychology minor in me knows that this is their way of coping. The fan in me wants to yell that Tarja has left the band, she still has a solo career, and if they don’t like the new direction the band is going in, why don’t they quit listening to it… and stalking the message boards… and acting like little jerks every chance they get.

But that would be the grown-up thing to do.

And now my rant is over.

Currently feeling:// Tired
Currently hearing:// Meat Loaf - Left in the Dark
Currently reading:// Rogue by Rachel Vincent