I'm bored and you get to suffer
Jul. 21st, 2003 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cherryQuery: How many words is the average novel? I've heard 50,000-100,000, but I've also heard 200,000-250,000, and that's a fairly major discrepancy.
Bored out of my skull.
It's dead out here. There is absolutely nothing happening.
At. All.
I work. I sleep. I work out. I talk on the phone. I randomly annoy people on AIM. Stare at the corner.
I'm starting to ponder hitch hiking to Whitehorse or something, just for a change of pace. At least it would get me away from my sister's latest "I'm so literary and you're so *not*" kick. It's getting to the point where not writing a 'Dear Sis' letter is trying. Read what you want to read, because you want to read it, gal. Not because you think it makes you smarter than me, and you want to lord it and your poetry over me. You think you're smarter than me. I get it. You think you're a poet, and I am a literary hack who can't string together a proper sentence. I get it. Moving on, now...
::Sigh:: The novel is not behaving. Remember that promise I made my English teacher? No? Okay, would've been rather surprised if you had. Moving on. It seems I'm getting so caught up with making sure I know my characters that I'm having a hard time smacking them into the present.
I only have one strong fic-ish idea I have right now. Having only one real idea is, for me, a thing in and of itself. This however, a Gen-X/X-Force AU, is twisted and snarled and knotted enough that this may be a good thing. Karma Downs didn't take on a life of its own until somewhere around chapter 5 or 6. This one, Higher Ground, only made the second part.
Things blew up. Large, important things.
I didn't see that coming.
The assassination was also unplanned.
::Head on desk::
Oh, and yay! Rec! All mine!
Yes, I'm a self-centred twat.
The other day, I purchased three shirts and four books for $33. I love Value Village. ::G::
Yes, I'm poor.
Bored. So very, very bored. Perhaps I'll make a run to the city to hit the library tomorrow. Rural Saskatchewan is dead at the moment.
::Looks cute:: Entertain me? Spam me, hit me on AIM, recommend a book, inform that you've been faking all along and can't stand the sight of me. Regale me with an anecdote involving three bottles of whiskey and a trained monkey. Let me know that there's a LJ out there that I absolutely should be reading. Yell at me for not yet writing your request fic.
Heck, request a new one, or smack me across the back of the head to work on something.
I'd say ask me a question, any question, but no one ever seems to actually do so when I offer...
Bored out of my skull.
It's dead out here. There is absolutely nothing happening.
At. All.
I work. I sleep. I work out. I talk on the phone. I randomly annoy people on AIM. Stare at the corner.
I'm starting to ponder hitch hiking to Whitehorse or something, just for a change of pace. At least it would get me away from my sister's latest "I'm so literary and you're so *not*" kick. It's getting to the point where not writing a 'Dear Sis' letter is trying. Read what you want to read, because you want to read it, gal. Not because you think it makes you smarter than me, and you want to lord it and your poetry over me. You think you're smarter than me. I get it. You think you're a poet, and I am a literary hack who can't string together a proper sentence. I get it. Moving on, now...
::Sigh:: The novel is not behaving. Remember that promise I made my English teacher? No? Okay, would've been rather surprised if you had. Moving on. It seems I'm getting so caught up with making sure I know my characters that I'm having a hard time smacking them into the present.
I only have one strong fic-ish idea I have right now. Having only one real idea is, for me, a thing in and of itself. This however, a Gen-X/X-Force AU, is twisted and snarled and knotted enough that this may be a good thing. Karma Downs didn't take on a life of its own until somewhere around chapter 5 or 6. This one, Higher Ground, only made the second part.
Things blew up. Large, important things.
I didn't see that coming.
The assassination was also unplanned.
::Head on desk::
Oh, and yay! Rec! All mine!
Yes, I'm a self-centred twat.
The other day, I purchased three shirts and four books for $33. I love Value Village. ::G::
Yes, I'm poor.
Bored. So very, very bored. Perhaps I'll make a run to the city to hit the library tomorrow. Rural Saskatchewan is dead at the moment.
::Looks cute:: Entertain me? Spam me, hit me on AIM, recommend a book, inform that you've been faking all along and can't stand the sight of me. Regale me with an anecdote involving three bottles of whiskey and a trained monkey. Let me know that there's a LJ out there that I absolutely should be reading. Yell at me for not yet writing your request fic.
Heck, request a new one, or smack me across the back of the head to work on something.
I'd say ask me a question, any question, but no one ever seems to actually do so when I offer...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-21 11:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-21 11:25 pm (UTC)I tend to know the major plot points and fill in the rest as I write, but in this one, it seems to want to add more major plot points in on top of the planned ones.
It's alllllive!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-22 02:15 am (UTC)A's Fans: Please be courteous and pick up your trash.
Non A's Fans: Please be courteous and move to Saskatchewan.
Oakland A's are a baseball team in the Bay Area. They have funny Fans/Nonfans signs like that all over! It's funny cuz of Saskatchewan. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-23 03:40 pm (UTC)I love Calvert. ::G::
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-22 06:03 am (UTC)*tosses in a twenty*
As someone who has published poetry before in magazines (god that sounds so conceited that's why I don't use the line often) and someone who voraciously reads in a wide spectrum (not just literary writers or prize winner poets), has terrible grammar and spelling skills and genuinely thinks you have talent as a writer I'd just like to go on the record as saying,
Your sister can eat me.
Okay so it's not very poetic, so Frost is rolling in his grave and cummings wants to know why I didn't type y(o)ur sis(can)te(at)r m e. I just don't like snarky people who "lord" their "talent" over other people. You're a writer of prose, she's a poet, there's a difference.
Like that anxiety over actually typing to the end of a line. The fractured sentences, the attempt to say it all in few words and skip over some vital aspects that a prose piece would linger over.
In My Humble Opinion
Lemme tell ya, a good poet will know all the rules of spelling and grammar to break them. To bend them and make them into their puppet, their vehicle, their tool to finding just what they need to say.
A bad poet will read a work of a master that everyone knows and shun the small phrases and whispers of someone that didn't hit the lucky number in being well recognized. A bad poet will get so caught up in the idealistic dream of being "good" that they lose it, they lose the spark, the drive, the will.
Do they write what they need to write or what they think will be accepted? Take chances? Hurt in a hundred small ways, hyperventilate when they see the crap that at midnight seemed so brilliant?
you're a good writer Cherry. A damned fine one. If you haven't read all of shakespeare's work, or Chaucer, or cummings, or frost, or plath, or sexton, if you haven't wallowed in greek tragedies, dipped through classics of "genre work" it doesn't matter at this point. They'll always be there for you to go to later on, when/if you ever feel the desire.
I'm a firm believer that reading helps a person grow as a writer but I don't have a set list of what is "acceptable" or "literary" that I must read.
*looks for change, realizes I ranted for a long time, shrugs and walks off*
Remember, you're damned good. Don't be afraid of the original work, I'm sure it'll be just as wonderful as the fanfiction.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-23 04:07 pm (UTC)The thing with Shakespeare for me ::ducks:: is that I don't really enjoy him all that much. (Insert mandatory gasp/shock here) Romeo and Juliet's been done to death. Macbeth was boring. I wanted to drag Hamlet out back and kick him in the teeth. Repeatedly.
I had a real Hamlet-hate going. He was a *ninny.*
Only Shakespeare I've really enjoyed is 'Much Ado About Nothing.'
Lemme tell ya, a good poet will know all the rules of spelling and grammar to break them. To bend them and make them into their puppet, their vehicle, their tool to finding just what they need to say.
That's what I've always thought. You have to know the rules before you break them. Since I started using Word instead of Appleworks, the grammar-check has been tripping things that even *I* realize work. I have that green underline all over the place, and it's really starting to annoy me.
::Grins and hugs again:: Thank you, seriously. This was a lovely piece of encouragement.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-23 04:39 pm (UTC)Problem with Romeo and Juliet: I don't think it should be taught to teenagers since even though the main characters are teens themselves.
Hamlet: wanted to ring his bloody neck, especially after Ophelia.
Macbeth i haven't read yet. *shrug* So many books in the world, so many I still need to indulge in.
Says the woman that didn't read the Lord of the Rings trilogy until last year when she had to know what happened next.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-22 11:36 am (UTC)hit me on AIM
I read that as 'hit on me on AIM'. o.o
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-23 04:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-23 05:19 pm (UTC)Yeah, but in a good or bad way? *g*