Tag: writing

December musings

I’m starting the preparation for the big day – Christmas Day when I cook like I’m expecting a whole army but get only a small platoon.

What’s the ‘writer’ career up to during holidays? Especially vaca time away from busy corporate writing job?

So far, I’ve worked on changing a short story into a movie idea. It’s for a contest looking for dark SF, fantasy or horror shows. I normally don’t / can’t enter contests as they’re for people who haven’t sold yet or aren’t members of the WGC or WGA. But this one is a good excuse to adapt a story I have.

Also, I cook and see friends. No one does any real business this time of year in tv. Or film.

I’m also reading. I love books on writing. My newest acquisitions are kobo versions of Save The Cat by Blake Snyder and Max Adams updated version of one of my favorites The New Screenwriter’s Survival Guide.

Max Adams’ book is mostly for full-time movie writers but there are great tips for all of us.

I wish I’d re-read her chapters on agents before continuing with an agent who absolutely couldn’t sell me as a writer. Nice guy but not for me. I was too involved in trying to make a living and developing my day-job career as a tech writer to think about it.
To be fair, too I also didn’t generate the number of scripts needed per year to become a movie writer. The third time I turned down a gig from him, he dropped me which was expected, too. But the gigs weren’t totally ‘writing’ and not good enough to replace the day job.
Now I think I’ll be working on the prose and tv/film and only look for a new tv agent when I have a good portfolio built up.

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Ali Matheson photo gingerbread typewriter

 

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Christmas cactus blooming

 

Challenges of writing in the summer

At 56000 words of novel. A week off really helped. I multi-task like a crazy thing most of the time. It takes it’s toll.
Some nights I wake up thinking- did I send that last email before signing off day-job computer? One of my rules is no going back on till the next scheduled work period. I learned to do this after getting up and emailing producers (Lynne Booth and Larry Raskin) at 3 am. Larry kindly convinced me that nothing in our documentary show was that urgent.
So, now I separate my ‘work lives’ as much as I can. The home computer has my novel on it. There is no tech writing on my IPad, etc.
I really got a lot of words done on my novel during my week off– about 6 thousand! But, alas, today it’s back to the corporate job, dance lesson ferrying and, soon, child in new school.
No wonder people dream of a solely creative writing career. I can’t do it – unless my ship comes in, I sell big time, or my teaching gig goes full-time (unlikely ) ! But then again, I often create new stuff under pressure!

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Clarion West Write-a-thon 2014

Today I re-upped for the Write-a-thon. Last year it propelled me into my novel project, and I’ve been very happy plugging away at that between my ten zillion other things to do.
SF /F is such a supportive field & one I’ve enjoyed being part of for many years. Clarion is one of those specific workshops that benefit the whole field- in that it improves and supports new writers in a meaningful way. It also encourages creativity in other writers who just want to run a writerly marathon of sorts. It’s a great thing.
If you want to support Clarion or just read a piece of the novel In progress, visit ClarionWest.org and click on the write-a-thon area. They want 360 writers to participate this year in this writerly sprint. They also are famous for incredible 6 week summer intensive workshops each year. The writers who do those say they’re career- makers.
For me, I need a solid reminder that the novel is important enough to finish! I used to write for tv and there was always a way I was reminded / nagged work at my script. Reminders could be the production schedule itself – an unforgiving item that ended in an inflexible air date and required input constantly like the machine a tv series is. It could be a hopeful Locations Manager wanting to know “even just the settings list, please”. Ultimately, it was a Showrunner emailing me on my month in Australia with rewrites for a next season script! So I need a push, I guess & Clarion is a mild reminder-type push.

January and clear skies above

In the new year, the writer must make some goals.
For me, the goals for my creative side are all about my novel. I’m 33,000 words in now. This novel started with the Clarion West workshop fund-raiser. I’ve been working on it via my IPad since.
I had a bad period when ancient IPad died – it just wouldn’t take a charge anymore. After consulting my Mac guru and the Apple store, realized it wasn’t fixable.
Christmas was very good to me. My dear friends gave me a new IPad mini. Now the novel is sailing along again! Thanks to those who believe in my talent!
So, I delivered chapter 4 to my first reader last week. My new goal is chapter 5 delivered this week. I do rough versions of between 500 and 1000 words per writing night. Since the child dances 5 days per week, I can get 1 or 2 good writing nights in each week. Doesn’t sound like a lot but it has delivered 33 thousand words so far – all done after I do my busy corporate day job.

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Late November

This time of year is difficult for me. It’s dark out and cold.
Day job is less amusing than normal and sometimes grates on my nerves.
I miss Jessica’s late father a lot. We were both born in November. He was such a bright spark in the universe and burnt out way too soon.
So, what do I do?
See friends and share coffee or a meal. Email his brother, also a friend. Find, buy, and post his other children some presents, hoping they arrive in far off Australia and the UK before Easter.
And decorate like a crazy thing.
Yes, it sounds dumb and it probably is, but it works. I’ve always loved Christmas and it needs to start a lot earlier now.
So, here is our little Village of holiday cheer.

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Tall Tale of A Wonderful Moment

In the midst of a crazy-busy life, sometimes I do get some absolutely amazing experiences. As a tv writer there is no visible recognition- I mean no one pouring me coffee says “weren’t you that girl on that show?” But at VCON a couple of weeks ago, I had a terrific moment of recognition.
Child in her pirate gear and I were in the elevator at the hotel. She says to me: “Mum, that’s Cybersix!” I say: “Nah” without looking carefully. The girl, Rebecca, says : “Yes, I am Cybersix!”
I’m gob-smacked – she’s a gorgeous, perfect Cybersix! I tell her and her friends that I wrote an episode of the anime version. Not only do they know the cartoon but one of them loves my episode!
I’m high on this for at least a week – it’s gotten me through an 18 hour day on corporate job and still makes me smile. Cause even if I had a nonunion deal, which means no cash residuals ever, I did get a lovely emotional residual & on front of child, too!
Here’s a picture – btw no one is wearing heels!

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What we do instead of writing….

There are writers who produce 12 books a year. The rest of us have developed various stratagem to avoid writer’s cramp.
This weekend I’m at VCon 38 in the quite decent, clean, good- natured, and very understanding Delta airport hotel in Richmond BC.
It can be argued that it’s a useful thing to come and sup with friends of like mind; all of whom know what a Bjoran ear cuff is, or who wrote SandKings, and why we weren’t surprised at the success of Game of Thrones.
I listened to some new authors read from their works. Due to this con, I now know who Mur Lafferty is and will be picking up her book – The Shambling Guide To New York – which sounds very amusing.
I supported other artists by buying handmade jewelry and- fabulous stone coasters with Buck Rogers space ships painted on them!
I have wish lists of art I can’t buy yet – love Lynne Taylor Fahnestalk’s metal sculptures – my fav is Benny!
Also child purchased excellent crocheted Koshi Stuffy by Cat.

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Morning Pages aka how we keep sane

Not every morning, but definitely by late evening, I write in a journal. It’s an old habit – Anne of Green Gables did not have a diary but Miss Emily of Emily Climbs did, so like a lot of girl writers, I owe a lot to PEI’s fav writer.

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Many decades later, I’ve kept it up. Once I read Julia Cameron’s work, I realized it wasn’t just useful for basic sanity, but that it could help to focus my writing.
Now, it’s not always the gorgeous Westside coffee shop Butter, where the photo’s from, but this May be the ideal spot. The sky is visible as are busy people walking by. The interior’s amazing- sweet and flowery. Okay, it doesn’t suit a bad mood, but it can raise your spirits with the amazing baked goods.
What about the writing, you may ask?
Hmmmm

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Just stupid….

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When it rains, it pours in Vancouver. Sort of like my week . Dance and coffee shop corner inundated just now.
The level of ‘just stupid’ things happening was high for the past 2-3 days, so having to wade through a foot of water here, when the rest of the city’s sewers work is not unexpected.
Writing suffers when this happens.
The live screen-savers experienced an irretrievable failure of environment – which is developer-speak for ‘the fish tank leaked’. We’re still considering whether we buy another tank or give them away. Gotta decide soon as the hurricane glass candle holder they’re in isn’t ideal. Temperature is an issue – but child came up with an excellent temporary solution. We use the magic bag (cloth filled with barley) heated 3 minutes in microwave, then wrap it around the bottom of the container. It heats up gently thus delivering that couple of degrees the fish need.
So, I guess the truth is just like the fish situation, I must seek solutions to my ‘writing time and energy’ dilemmas.

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On Writing With Tech

Clarion West got me started on a new venture. The requirement to write something every day got me to revive a novel project. Now, so far I’m 18,000 words in which is pretty amazing considering my schedule. I’m a full time tech writer for a corporation. I’m a single mum, who does all of the ‘lessons ferrying’ by bus. My child does 7.75 hours per week of dance. So, I realized that the only time I have, is while ferrying or waiting at dance.

So, I’m using new tech to get me there. For example, this post is being written in WordPress on my iPhone while on the bus en route to Lyrical dance at Westside Dance.
For actual creative writing, I’ve worked out a system with my own blended Mac / Windows world of home computing.
Thank the gods of tech that we can move things from Mac to Windows easily now.
I’ve used the iPad for a while thanks to my friend Sui-Fai who donated his old one to me. Now, I’m finding that I can incorporate it into my creative writing work if I make a concerted effort to do so.
It’s not easy, frankly, but I’m learning how to type on the auto- keyboard. It’s not as flowing for me as typing – I type on a standard keyboard very fast and can type as I think of dialogue or description. Many more spelling errors, too. Plus punctuation just seems like a big effort – but I fix it later.

I use the Pages app on the iPad. It’s fine for initial creation, but I must move everything via email as doc files. Then I open or in Word and copy and paste the new stuff into my novel- writing app.
This is because, back on the HP pavilion is my new favorite app, which organizes by chapter and has a great interface for writing larger projects.
The eureka app is Scrivener, which is a good value for 40$ or so.
It gives me an HTML smart interface that can compile to a txt output. It can also save my chapters individually to Dropbox which is a great auto-archive.

The image is an Ammonite from the Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. Not quite as old as I am.

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