Tony Stark, Slightly Crazy Inventor-Scientist

So last night my husband and I finally watched Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog. Which got me thinking about mad scientists.

[Side note: I have this giant poster of a book cover hanging over my tv:

If you didn't know, I wrote the story introductions to this book, and the cover is AWESOME. But having a giant poster of a mad scientist hanging over one's television makes you think about science a lot!]

Anyway, after watching Dr. Horrible, I found myself full of rage. Why are superheroes always using these innate powers and abilities to save the day, but scientists are always using their gifts for evil? Why are scientists always portrayed as bad guys? After all, in real life every single good thing in the world comes from science!

And then I remembered Tony Stark. Tony Stark! Inventor! Computer scientist! Student of strange physics! Hero! And hottie!

Batman uses technology to save the day, too, but at least in the Christopher Nolan series, it's suggested that he cannibalizes a lot of ideas from his family's company. He's a clever guy, and I definitely approve of his work, but Tony Stark seems to have a much more scientific and inventor-ish approach to his superheroics.

Needless to say, Iron Man is officially my new favorite superhero.

Halloween weekend? W00t!

Well, Nanowrimo is out of the question. *sigh* I'm making terrific headway on the revision, but that terrific headway has turned into a major retooling of the last third of the book. I'm excited, but I'm also a little stunned. The good ideas in this book just keep bludgeoning me over my head--if they're not careful, they might give me brain damage!

I have a bunch of great plans for this magical weekend--dinner & a movie (Ichabod Crane! The Disney version of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" WITH Bing Crosby as a narrator!) with a good friend, a walk in a cemetery ... I'm really excited!

Earlier this year (okay, even this week) I was incredibly bummed about missing the World Fantasy Convention. My writing clan will be there, and there will be some great events, including a party with some Rigor Amortis readings. But I'm feeling a lot better. It doesn't hurt to know that I'll be doing my own Rigor reading in just two weeks!

Final week of October

Since I'm deep in the bowels of this final edit, I'm going to try to limit my online activities this week. That means I should be spending ONE hour a day instead three slacking on the Internet ... ha ha ha.

(It also doesn't help that everybody I know will be at World Fantasy, so I'll pretty much be talking to myself, feeling like an absolute loser.)

But if I'm really lucky, by the end of the week I'll be jamming java and rocking a rough outline for my next book! I'm looking forward to hearing all about everyone's upcoming Nanowrimo projects. Pass along your best survival tips--I'm eager to listen, even if it takes me a while to get back to you.

Fingers aching and blissfully blistered!

Fi finished her Nanowrimo project this morning! It weighs in at 3500 words and she dictated the whole thing to me. I'm so proud of my baby girl. She didn't give up; she didn't get writer's block; she just kept trucking. She is my new writing hero.

I tell you guys, sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am: I got the best kid. She's so darn cool I sometimes don't know what to do with her, and fully expect to spend her teen years reeling in awe at all the fun, crazy stuff she decides to get into.

Yep, this year I'll be thankful for my amazing midget, who not only doesn't mind that she has a crazy mother, but actually joins in on the insanity. Way to go, Fi!

Thomas Hood approved

Thomas Hood was English, but in his heart he was an Oregonian. His famous poem "November" bears re-reading two or three times a year. If you don't know it, here it is:

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease.
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

Of course, if he was still alive today, he would probably get sucked into Nanowrimo, and he probably would have needed a few more lines. I suggest:
no movies - no board games -
no friends, no family, no social life in any form
no food or housekeeping that meets the social norm.

But that's just me. I did just put back a slice of pumpkin pie, a square of dark chocolate and a cup of coffee after spending a day hearing my child complain about how filthy our house is. (Note to DHS: I did run the dishwasher and wash both shower curtains today, so I no longer feel our home is a health hazard.)

After two days trapped in the house with a sick kid, I could easily run on for another page of digressions. I have cabin fever and I'm starved for grown-up interaction. Normally I'd just hang out with my handsome sweetie-pie, but he's hard at work, too. The basement is full of primed canvases awaiting his paint brush. So it sounds like I'd better just bite the bullet and get back to work. My imaginary pals and their adventures are almost the perfect substitute for a life!

Now if only I was writing about good weather ...

SOWISA!!!

Whew! The first week of Nanowrimo is drawing to a close, I'm on my weekend, and it's time to SOWISA, baby, SOWISA. Not a fan of King? I'll translate. In his book Lisey's Story, Stephen King coins one of the best acronyms of all time: SOWISA. Strap On Whenever It Seems Appropriate. It means to take charge. To gird your learns and jump into the fray. To get your guns on and be ready to shoot whatever moves.

That's what I'm doing today. Some surprise company changed the gears of the week, and some surprise exhaustion doubly shifted them. I was a little panicked this morning. My writing goals this month are big! My biggest ever! And all week I've been burning energy fretting about them, getting stuff done but also running terrified. This morning though, I took a hot bath and set my mind on a new course. I re-examined my schedule and made a new plan to maximize my writing time. It felt good.

Right now, I feel like I'm in charge of this crazy situation. I am choosing to set my goals high and I am choosing my methods of achieving them. I'm strapped on! But now I want to know: how do you take charge of tough situations? If you're doing Nanowrimo, do you feel like you're in charge of your project, your approach to creativity, or are you running wild on too much caffeine, like I was earlier this week?

Also updated winniewoohoo with another Nanowrimo tip. This one has saved my buns over the last couple of years!

Smug as a bug!

I just want to say that I brainstormed some new exciting scenes for Nanowrimo and created 1600+ new words on the Work In Progress. Also, my bathroom is awesomely clean (thanks to the kid for her assistance!).

Despite morning misgivings, this was an awesome day and I feel great about it!

I also learned that when you buy the bottomless cup of coffee at the Artemis Cafe, you run the risk of drinking way, way too much of their delicious house java. I actually drank enough coffee that every hair on my body stood on end. That might be a little too much, even for me.

November 2nd!

I am trying to stir up my spirits and get busy. It's not easy. Instead of one gloriously insane month of writing--Nanowrimo--I'm setting myself for 5 months of balls-out-lead burning (okay, I don't actually use a pencil these days, but keyboard burning doesn't have the same resonance) to wrap up one book and solidly draft another. I was super-thrilled about this, but whether it's the after-effect of the flu or the contemplation of November's nightmarish schedule (do kids even GO to school in November anymore? And how can one month have so many social activities?), I have the blahs. The don't-wannas. The "I cleaned the bathroom so I didn't have to work"s.

Me? Mop my bathroom floor? That's pretty crazy. Although it's actually linked to the social-events thing. There comes a point in time when you just can't subject guests to your bathroom any longer, and our bathroom was beyond that point.

All right. There's only one thing to do. And that's drink so much caffeine I transform into a Writing She-Hulk. Raaaawrr!!!!

Nanowrimo Prep!

Just a quick pre-Nanowrimo tip: once you get started writing in November, all those beautiful threads and ideas are going to knot up into a jumbly mess. It's fun and dandy during the caffeine-crazed 30 days of November, but come December, it looks a little overwhelming. My last two Nanos are still lurking in a drawer, suffering from too much confusion.

This year is going to be different. This year, darn it, I'm starting with a structure.

I've never really been an outliner, but this year I'm following a design program espoused by screenwriters; I read a lot of sceenwriting books this summer and decided the structuring tools they discussed might serve me well. And then one of my favorite bloggers (and another awesome horror author!), Alexandra Sokoloff, decided to run a month-long blog workshop on building story structure. Hooray! Needless to say, I've been directing every writer-type I know to her blog, The Dark Salon.

Anyway, I'm off to do some editing and create some index cards. And maybe some housecleaning, since my adorable baby (you know, 22-year-old) brother is coming to visit today!

Domesticity break

1st draft of dress: check. Homemade focaccia: check. Freshly baked zucchini bread: check. Top of stove uncovered: check, check & check. That should be enough domesticity to last me a couple of days!

Gearing up for a trip to the folks's house. Got a few deadlines to beat, so I plan to knock out some stuff tonight, but right now, feeling the blogging urge.

I just read a note from a friend who successfully completed her super-in-depth book outline. I've never been much of an outliner, but I like her idea. She calls it the Craptastic Speed Copy, and it's sort of an outline-1st draft hybrid that pushed her out of that beautiful-writing mindset and into "this is actually what is going to happen in my darn story." Her (epic--this thing is going to be multi-voluminous) project ran her 60,000 words.

I might try the Craptastic Speed Copy for Nanowrimo this year. Or not ... this is going to be my first horror Nano, so creating mood is going to be my biggest challenge. The first year I did Nano, I worked through a convoluted story spanning about 30 years--I could have really used the CSC method! Last year I had a solid idea for the story, but the project was pretty much crap (although it inspired one great short story). This year, though. I have high hopes for this year. Anybody else out there have their projects lined up for Nanowrimo? Anybody even doing Nanowrimo?

36,000 words

I am embarassed to admit that the last two or three days have produced very little in the word count department. However, today I went to the food co-op and picked up some veggie jerkey. And then promptly chomped out 1700 words of fun craft. Also, I organized the next couple of days work so I can crank out some serious product.

Veggie jerky. How did I ever function without it? May the gods shower blessings upon Kt, who introduced me to the stuff!

I'm in love ...

... with Google Docs!

After the file-tastic chaos of last year's Nanowrimo writing explosion, I am really wracking my brains to keep track of all the notes and chapter files I generate in an all-out draft creation. Plus that, I need safe back-up space for all of that, and you don't know how good I am at getting all those files mixed up all over the place. I think I can Google Docs like a giant virtual filing cabinet for all that back-up goodness.

Woot!

Yeah, Google might be taking over the world. But I don't see why more companies aren't jumping on their bandwagon. Their ideas are SMART.