Novel Buddies & Goal Charts

Novel Buddies

My MFA friend, Ashley Cowger, and I have decided to become novel writing buddies this year. She's written a few novels before, and this is my first one. We're going to set word goals and hold each other accountable. Not in a threatening way, just in an "I know what your goals are - how's it coming along?" kind of way.

I've always kind of felt like writers go to some remote, secret space when they embark on a novel. So it's nice to have this mutual word playground. We're building our own castles, but we can talk to each other while we pat the sand into shape.


Commonplace Book

I still have my lovely notebook for keeping ideas, random journal entries, and bits of inspiration. But I wanted to get a notebook specific to my novel project. And I needed for it to be light, so that I would actually carry it around with me. I can't really take my laptop to work and write on my novel during my lunch break (I tried - too stressful). But I want this novel to be a part of my life for the time I'm working on it. I want to fall into the story and then write my way out.

So I did some browsing and found a great little journal :

         

It was super cheap ($3), has tight binding, good paper quality, and is small - not quite as wide as the tip of my forefinger. I can throw it in the back pocket of my purse and have it with me if inspiration strikes.

Here is my prediction: novels are like people. The more time you spend just hanging around, just being with them, the better you get to know them. Listening to their story before you tell yours is how you make a friend.

Taking this commonplace book with me reminds me to listen:

Researching, bringing words and themes from different sources together

Goal Charts
Here's our goal: 10,000 words by November 15th. I started out with a daily word goal of 150. I kept it up for two days.

Goal chart for the novel project's first deadline

But even though I stopped writing words on paper, I didn't stop writing. I've been twisting the story this way and that in my head, trying to find the angles that catch the most light. At one point I became so frustrated that I swore off this novel idea, started working on something else, and that's when the lightbulbs started going off.

All of those little X marks where I didn't write, they still kept my mind tethered to the story. And they made me honestly evaluate how I've been spending my time.

My daily word goal is up to 210. I'm getting a really good feel for how not terrifying writing a novel can be, at least, drafting a novel. And while I can't allow myself too many reverie breaks, I feel more centered and motivated now that I know my novel a little better.

A New Job Begins and a Piece of Paper Arrives

Last week I started a temporary job as a full-time administrative assistant. It's a wonderful position - great co-workers, a quiet but productive office, and it's on a university campus. In my mind this type of job has one really wonderful feature - I can leave it behind at 5PM and spend the rest of my time writing. 

But last week I was so tired that I didn't write at all. On Thursday I came home from work and fell asleep by 7PM, woke up for an hour, then went to sleep for the night. I'm hoping that my body readjusts fully this week, and I can have my wits about me enough to step into my stories.

One definite plus is that I've been able to read much more. I read an entire book in one week, something I haven't done since grad school. It was a shortish book, only around 200 pages, and it was a memoir, but that's still a step forward. I have to take a one hour lunch break in the middle of the day, and I spend most of that time reading. It's strange - my room of my own is my office. 

I'm considering taking my Eee PC with me and trying to write a little on my lunch break. No big goals, just a hundred words or so. Enough to push me into my novel project every day, so that my brain can work on it in the background as much as possible. 

On Saturday, a large envelope arrived in the mail. No padding, the edges torn. Mail from Alaska always comes in a bit chewed. Thank goodness the contents were in great condition:

My Diploma!

I know it's silly, but damn am I proud of this sheet of paper. Maybe proud doesn't describe how I felt when I held it for the first time. Maybe - excited. The kind that shakes the fibers of your heart a bit. 

I've felt in-between for a long time. It's nice to be out the other side. 

Being Shy on the Enterprise

Season 3, Episode 21 - "Hollow Pursuits"

I loved this episode. It's a character-driven short story with a protagonist we've never seen before - some shy guy who everyone (even Wesley Crutcher) calls "Broccoli."

Lieutenant Barclay pisses Geordi and Riker off by being late to his post, and delivering his engineering analysis in stumbling sentences. He spends his time on the holodeck hanging out with variations of the crew - a much shorter and squeakier Riker, Troi - goddess of empathy in flowing robes, and a wonderful caricature of Wesley as Georgie Porgie.

But outside the holodeck the ship is crumbling, and Barclay's creativity is needed to solve the mystery of the sudden ship malfunctions.

The previous episode, "Tin Man", also dealt with an outsider. A prodigy empath, who seeks the solace of alien creatures that communicate at Ent-like speeds so that he won't be overwhelmed with their voices inside his head.

But while the main character in "Tin Man" was too far removed from the rest of the crew to evoke empathy from the audience, Barclay is a Starfleet officer. He's what many people - including myself - would probably be like if transferred from real life onto the Enterprise. Picard would be terrifying as a boss. And even if given the chance to show your skill, then Wesley pipes in, telling you your half-spoken idea is incorrect.

So it's no surprise that Barclay's perilously close to holodiction. Geordi's the only person in the real world who feels as real to Barclay as the projections on the holodeck. But Geordi surprises Barclay with an admission:

"Listen, I know how you feel. I fell in love on the holodeck once, but you've got to know when to let it go."

Anytime there's holodeck shenanigans it can be easy to brush off the episode as silly. Look - there's Picard, Geordi, and Data as a very rowdy set of Musketeers! (Everyone on the Enterprise looks better with long, flowing locks, apparently.)

But if you look back through the crew's use of the holodeck, Barclay really isn't that different.

Remember Riker's perfect woman, impossible to replicate without the complex interactions of the Bynars?

And what about that moving scene between Worf and K'Ehleyr, when he proposes marriage after they've made love in the rush following a satisfying holodeck battle?

And of course Geordi falling in love with a woman he'll never meet, the holodeck representation of his intellectual peer. Together solving an engineering quandry that's nerdy, sensual foreplay.

So we might expect for the crew to understand Barclay's desire to escape. If there weren't holodecks on board, he'd be reading books. I bet he'd have great discussions with Picard.

Early on in the episode, when the stakes are low, everyone's taking potshots at Barclay. Geordi forcing himself to be civil to a crewmate - it isn't a scenario I had expected. It's interesting, and it opens up space for this exchange:

Barclay: Being afraid all of the time, of forgetting somebody's name, not, not knowing...what to do with your hands. I mean, I, I am the guy who writes down things to remember to say when there's a party. And then, when he finally gets there, he winds up alone, in the corner, trying to look comfortable examining a potted plant.

Geordi: You're just shy, Barclay.

Barclay: Just shy...Sounds like nothing serious - doesn't it?

Watching episodes of The Next Generation, especially in sequence night after night, the Enterprise can begin to seem like a perfect environment, where the threats are almost always from external forces. The crew will come through in the end, thanks to teamwork and individual competence.

But I like having life on the Enterprise be a little less perfect. It makes the crew feel more open to failure, more vulnerable to even small dangers. After all, they're out in the far reaches of space, often very alone.

The world they live in is made more realistic by showing that it is a place from which people need to escape.

Barclay on the holodeck, after deleting all but one of his programs

Submitting Early

Shadow taking a rest from the submission flurry

Literary journals are opening back up to submissions as the school year gets underway, and I've been pushing myself to submit each of my lit stories to at least two markets.

I think there's great value in submitting early. Whether it is to a literary journal soon after they open to submissions, to a fiction contest, or to a themed issue, submitting early has some concrete advantages.

First of all, I'm much more likely to actually make the deadline if I submit early. I have a spreadsheet where I track deadlines, and sometimes I wait until the night before a market closes to look over the story that I had planned to submit. Most often when I wait until the last minute to submit, I realize that there were revisions I wanted to make to the story before sending it out. And that one night before the deadline is never enough time to revise. I find myself at 11:30PM, halfway through writing a scene that feels like it is finally pulling the story together, wishing I just had a few more days. I work on the story until after midnight, but it still isn't finished. In the end I wind up putting the story aside and not submitting it at all.

By submitting in the fall, I'm also more attuned to different markets. I've signed up for Duotrope's weekly newsletter for fiction markets, and each week I get an email with the fiction markets that have reopened to submissions. Going through the available markets chunk by chunk, as they open to submissions, is extremely helpful. I've already found several journals whose aesthetic I absolutely love, but whose name I had never heard before. There's just so many journals out there, that even using Duotrope's search subcategories returns an overwhelming number of possible journals. 

When submitting to literary journals, I find that I get a much faster response when I submit early. Thanks to Submishmash, I can tell when my story is in-progress. That doesn't tell me a lot about where my story is in the slush pile, but at least it lets me know that my story has moved forward a spot. Of my ten submissions that are currently open in Submishmash, half of those are marked "in-progress" instead of just "received." The earliest submission I made was on August 22nd and the latest September 5th. I've already had one response that was incredibly fast - just a few days.

In the past few years when I've submitted stories in March, near the close of the literary journal reading period, it often takes months for journals to respond and sometimes a whole summer, or a year. I know these journals get an insane amount of submissions, and in most cases I am submitting to journals that do not require a reading fee. Response times are expected to be slow, and with good reason.

But submitting early seems like a good best practice. It's kind of like introducing myself to an editor or agent on the first day of a convention, instead of the last. I have more time to make sure my submission is in perfect shape and that I've followed the journal's particular rules, and the journal readers are fresh from their summer vacations and ready to read new stories. We're meeting each other at our best to see if we're a fit. And if we don't fit, that's ok - it's part of the process. But I know I've met my half of the challenge with my best foot forward.

Short Story Reads: September 1-7, 2012

"The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury"

Author: Neil Gaiman
Publication: Shadow Show: All-new Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
Publication type: Anthology, Multiple Authors
Favorite lines: "I learned your books. Burned them into my mind. In case the firemen come to town" (Gaiman 15).
Thoughts: An immense treat for anyone who has read Bradbury, and still a lovely, moving story for anyone who hasn't. The sadness at losing Bradbury, and the joy of having read him, all condensed into a shortish short story. I want to keep this one on my shelves forever. 

"Renovation"

Author: Amanda Curtin

Publication: Inherited
Publication type: Short story collection, single author
Favorite lines: "In making this house mine, I will probably destroy more than I know" (Curtin 77).
Thoughts:So many characters, time periods, lives in the space of a short story, but somehow I feel like I know them all. 

"Magic Palm (for Mei)"

Author: Kevin Brown
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, 2010
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman
Thoughts:Time used so well here. And a cycle that is expected, but doesn't feel trite. 

"Candlelight"

Author: Christy Strick
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, 2010
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman
Thoughts: A one-sentence short story with a beautiful voice, smells and bright echoes of people. 

Anime for Girl Geeks

In November 2010, I attended my local anime mini-convention, Hamacon. The mini-convention is held in the fall and is a one day event, and the main convention is held in the spring and takes place over three days. The mini-cons are great because there's still a wonderful amount of good programming and amazingly cute and cool stuff for sale in the vendor room, but there's less people, which is excellent for those of us who have a hard time dealing with huge crowds.

At the mini-con, I went to a panel called "Getting Your Anime Groove Back."

Fallen out of the anime habit? Or know of a friend that has? Here's some shows that just may rekindle that lost interest!

The program booklet doesn't list the person who led this panel, but I believe he was from OSM Cast.

Whoever he was, this guy was great. He introduced around 15 different anime series, played the introduction sequences and sometimes short clips, all while explaining who the main characters were and giving the audience a good sense of whether or not they would enjoy the anime.

His main goal was to give everyone in the room at least one anime they would like to watch. There were anime about chefs who hunt down alien creatures, mysteries, and of course gundams. Most of the animes had at least one aspect that I really loved - amazing animation, a great character, funny dialogue. But there was one anime that ticked all of my boxes.

The panel host showed the opening sequence for Princess Jellyfish, an anime about a girl otaku. The opening sequence places the main characters of the anime in familiar scenes from movies like Star Wars and James Bond. It's funny and the lyrics are about wanting to reach out to other people, wanting to embrace life, but feeling like there are some secrets that can't be shared.

Best of all, the host mentioned that it was available to watch for free via Hulu.

Lady geeks! And easily accessible, free anime - how could I pass it up?

I think it was a few weeks later that I started watching Princess Jellyfish. Once I started, I was hooked.

Here's the gist of the story:

Tsukimi lives in an all-girl apartment building in Tokyo. Each girl has her obsession, and Tsukimi's is jellyfish. So when she spies a jellyfish in a tank at a pet store that's been taken care of incorrectly, she tries to talk to the shop clerk to save the jellyfish from dying. But she's shy, so the shop owner brushes her off. A stylish girl overhears Tsukimi and, armed with confidence, convinces the shop clerk to give the ailing jellyfish to Tsukimi. The stylish girl walks home with Tsukimi and falls asleep in her bedroom. The next morning, Tsukimi freaks out when the stylish girl reveals that he's a boy - Kuranosuke.

The anime is about their friendship, and about how their childhood memories of their mothers have influenced who they are as teenagers.

There's only one season of 11 episodes. So if you'd like to try watching an anime series but don't want to get into an epic that will take months to watch, Princess Jellyfish is a great place to start. The story doesn't come to a complete close at the end of this season, but I think the series is enjoyable even if you don't know how everything ends.

There's a bit of the usual makeover story here - without glasses, with a little make-up and some stylish clothes, Tsukimi transforms into a beauty. But Tsukimi can't see without her glasses, and she keeps reverting to her true, geek girl self.

All of her companions in the "nun house" have social anxiety issues, and I liked seeing characters struggle with their desire to take action and their need to have a safe space. If you're a geek girl, like me, there's a good chance this anime will speak to you.





P.S.
And look at this easy, amazing cosplay! She made the little stuffed Clara (the jellyfish) herself! It looks perfect!

Short Story Reads: August 25-31, 2012

Cool bug on the front porch

A rough week in the real world, and I can't believe I only read one flash story the whole time. I started reading a novel, but not so much that there wasn't any time for short stories. I need to push myself harder to read. After all, the bad times are when I need stories the most.

"Balancing Racks"

Author: Jason Sinclair Long
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, 2010
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman
Recommended by: Ashley Cowger

Too short to quote - the story is only half of a page. And there aren't any witty lines or lyrical indulgences. But the effect is impressive. Time handled deftly, interactions pitch perfect, a scene that is a story of one moment that ripples out both forward and back. Excellent.