Ship it!

As of late last night, my 2013 NaNoWriMo story is waiting for approval from the Amazon/CreateSpace review so I can print it and add book #6 to my collection!

After some soul searching (combined with procrastination, laziness, and frustration with the story), I decided enough was enough, and that leaving the story where it is now is just fine. It's something I could probably pick up for the next NaNoWriMo. Or the one in 2016 (since this was the sequel to my 2010 story). At this point, I would like to go back and read through book 1 and 2, and make some notes on what should happen next, combined with what I already know is supposed to happen. I say "supposed to" because you know how characters can change your mind.

Many thanks to my writing buddy for helping shape what's already there. :-)

Freak on a Leash

One thing that I have always enjoyed doing - ever since I was a kid - is changing the lyrics of songs, making parodies that make the song about something completely different. Here's an example. I wrote this one some time around 2004.

To the tune of Freak on a Leash by Korn:

Sometimes I’m called Padme
Sometimes Amidala is me.
Every time you think you see me
Handmaiden steps out and it’s me, it’s me.

Trade federation’s messin’ with me (you wanna start a fight)
Blockin’ our trade so we can’t be free (so do I)
Send a Jedi to negotiate (you wanna big fight)
I tried to but it was all in vain, in vain

(chorus)
Sometimes there’s paint upon my face
With little dots in different place
I take my wardrobe every place
In case I need a change of pace
Some would call me Padme
As I tour the galaxy
Blackbird spaceship takin’ me
Some would call me Padme.

Couple of Jedi try to save me (just like "A New Hope")
Shoot the wall to help us get free (familiar)
How many times have I seen that scene? (since ’77)
Originality would be neat

CHORUS

(cut to a light saber fight with the two Jedi and Darth Maul)
11x Boom hum whiz whoom huh na wheeda da

(Obi-wan)
NO!

       /Oi! You kill Qui Gon
4x<  Jinn now,
       \Hey! Now you must die!

Some would call me Padme
As I tour the galaxy
Blackbird spaceship takin’ me
Some would call me Padme.

Padme....

Extending NaNo 2013: May 28

Writing since the end of November continues to be sporadic, but in today's lunch writing session, I hit another small milestone. Two months after my last "extending NaNo" post (which itself was four months after the end of NaNoWriMo), I've added another 10,000 words to my 2013 draft. I'm at 73,856 words. A lot has happened in the last 10,000 words, and the story is heading for ...

...well...

I'm not sure what. 

That's the problem I'm facing right now - I have an idea of how the current scenes are going to resolve, but it leads to a fairly wide open set of possibilities beyond that. At this point, I'd like to finish the writing I'm doing on the scenes going now, and then take some time to figure out an outline of the next part. It might end up being the outline for book three, or it might be a continuation of the story that's going now. I don't know. 

Redshirts - reading

Finished "Redshirts" by John Scalzi. This is the first book from Scalzi I've read. I went in knowing about Redshirts from Star Trek, and at the beginning, I had two possibilities in mind for how he might handle it. On the one hand, the Redshirts could behave like Redshirts in their own reality and deal with it in a way that is appropriate to a character. I think I would have liked that version more. On the other hand, they could have been written in a more meta way, the way Scalzi wrote them, which I felt was perhaps not as creative or engaging. Then throw in the codas at the end, and the fact that my exposure to Scalzi's writing comes primarily from his blog, and I came away thinking the book was on the lazy side, writing-wise. Yes, I'm aware that Scalzi has far more books written and published and loved than I do. But here we are anyway.

Factoring Humanity - reading

Finished "Factoring Humanity" by Robert J. Sawyer. In this book, a signal comes from Alpha Centauri for years, then suddenly stops. What does it mean? But then we go through the lives of a broken family in Canada (of course - Sawyer's Canadian). I thought the story was good and it was a quick read - Sawyer's writing style seems to match what I like to read - but I wasn't a huge fan of where the story ultimately went. Interesting, for sure, but either not long enough or too long, depending on if you think as I did that what was presented could have been a short story, or if you think as I did that the story elements presented could have been explored much more deeply.

Extending NaNo 2013: March 27

Writing since the end of November has been sporadic, but today I hit a small milestone. I've added over 10,000 words to my NaNoWriMo 2013 draft since the end of the event. There's still a long way to go, but now I'm at 63,753 words. The climax that is slow to build is still slow to build.

At least I'm mostly settled into my new apartment now, and writing can become a regular thing. Here's to hoping it does!

What? Just because I used the word "hope" in that last statement?

Fear Nothing - reading

Finished "Fear Nothing" by Dean Koontz. It was alright (3 of 5 stars), though I wish there were some way of knowing which of Koontz's books feature super-intelligent animals. I'm about done with those.