So. No news on most of the fronts I mentioned last week, but I'm pleased to report I've made some progress on important Muse stuff. Airports and airplanes without internet can have that effect. What I accomplished this week, when not playing with my adorable nieces, was to rewrite a bit of chapter one, and work on my Spreadsheet of Awesome.

The rewriting I did was for the next stretch of the current scene. It was really wordy - more than can comfortably fit on a comic page - and got a little too philosophical. While lots of novel storytelling topics can be tackled fairly well in comic format, verbose philosophy is not usually one of them. So I cut out most of that and replaced it with a more succinct character-based exchange that gets back to the interesting part. I penciled the new stuff over my original script, so I need to retype it before I can divide it up into comic pages, but I'm pretty happy about it.

The flight home turned out to be a good time to work on my Spreadsheet. It was actually kind of good that I'd waited to fill it out, because I thought about the storylines more critically than I might have had I been mentally in the thick of them. I knocked down a good half dozen character arcs, and discovered some holes and new depths to the Muse plot. It was especially interesting to note that some characters' plot points were specific, and some were vague [e.g. "they have a big disagreement" or "showdown with X character"], and that's just fine for now. The idea is to focus these disparate character arcs to overlap into compounded, important story points, and that way I can nudge those vague plot points into the more specific ones wherever they work best.

Also, I discovered that some of my characters' arcs have more impact on the overall story than others. For example, Orpheus, for all that he is a popular public figure and I dote on him, has a storyline that only really impacts himself. Likewise with Ajax. But Arachne, one of my secondary villains, turns out to have a much more extensive impact with her character arc. Her character arc is going to force me to change some larger aspects of the main story. And it's going to be awesome.

And this is a big advantage to using a chart like this to plot out your story. Once you see where the threads want to go, you can shape the story into what you want it to be, like cutting out the unnecessary bits, or changing those stray storylines so they focus back in on the main ones and strengthen your themes. (Oh gosh, themes.. Yeah, focus would be good.) Upon filling in the blanks on some of my minor characters, I got the sense that some of them are more interesting than my main conflicts and main characters. Bad news? Potentially. But now I know to pump up the main stuff to a more A-story level, and/or tone down the side characters a bit. I did realize that a lot of the stuff I've been planning happens off-screen, so you won't even get the whole impact of it. In fact, I'll still have to decide what gets revealed when, so I can manage it that way too. So much of the final product is about execution of the concept.

Anyway, the point is that you can't shape the topiary until the shrub is already grown. And it's been cool to see how Muse is a-growin! This week: finish the SoA? And I'm thinking I may head back down to AZ next week to scope out the Phoenix Comicon artist alley space, and maybe start planning for a table next year.

No Muse sketches today. But here's this! In case you don't follow the LTUE group on Facebook, here is another NaNo opportunity that I heard about there: Camp NaNoWriMo. If November isn't a good time for you, now you can try June or August!

Audrey once told me that I didn't need to be pithy or memorable with every post. After a rough few hours, I am going to take her up on it, just this once. Your regularly scheduled Gwynne should be back next week with bells on.

I didn't write as much this week as I did the last but I'm not discouraged. 4000-ish words is still quite bankable. I slowed down a bit to make some additions in what I'd already written because I discovered something really cool about how Raquel's abilities work. I've also discovered that during this rewrite, I'm switching perspectives. The events are the same but viewpoints are different. It's interesting, at least to me. 

I'm pleased with my progress and feel very comfortable saying I should be done with this draft by the middle to end of June.

You know, barring the end of the world >.>

Weekly Report: 3/7 days; 2,433/7,000 words

This week was a little better than last week, and mainly proved to me that I need to move my writing time from the evening to the morning. My main reasoning here is that I tend to get distracted pretty easily in the morning by things like the internets and family members aimlessly wandering the house, and then at night I want to just relax and watch stuff or go out and do things. (I know, really specific, and not at all vague...) And writing tends to get lost somewhere in the middle. So, since it's easier to motivate myself before I run into a multitude of distractions, sitting myself down in front of a keyboard first thing in the morning seems like a good idea. And nothing else has worked, so why not. Still not sure what to do about the weekend, though...

The goal for this week is to get up to 6/7. I've got a few too many things going on to expect perfection, but near perfection shouldn't be out of my reach.


And now ( the reading list: )

It sounds like we're all finding our motivation during this last week, so let's play a familiar game to keep those juices flowing. Although, I'm not sure where they are flowing to or why they are there in the first place.

Standard Rules:

1. Reply to this post.
2. Three people will pick a prompt from this list (1 through 465 if you want to pick at random) to give to you.
3. You will then write a 100-word drabble on that prompt.
4. You must complete all three prompts before moving on to a second round. All rounds are 100 words. 
5. Open to everyone who can see this post.
6. Prompt giving ends at midnight in your timezone on Saturday.
7. Have fun! It's a rule!

My new writing schedule has continued remarkably well. I wrote a total of 2,658 words for Uncanny Valley in my early morning sessions. Even though I met my weekly word count goal, I’m still behind schedule on the whole write-100,000-words-of-fiction-this-year thing. And that’s okay. I only have to write a little extra each week and soon enough I’ll be back on track.

I’m really amazed by how much writing I can get done before I have to start getting ready for work. I’ve never considered myself a morning person, but after that fifteen to thirty minutes of waking up time, I’m actually writing. It also helps that I’ve taken to shutting off the internet during that writing time so I can’t get distracted as easily.

What I really need to focus on next week is working on my Avatar: The Last Airbender rewatch after my day job. I’ve been feeling so self-congratulatory about my early morning writing and exercising three days a week that I haven’t been focusing on my other project. This, of course, means that I still have not replenished my buffer. I’ve been relying on miracles and speed to crank out a rewatch post in sometimes as little as a single day. That needs to stop so I can spend a quiet weekend with a book instead of trying to be clever.

All in all, last week was a good one for me. With the 4,067 words I wrote for the rewatch, I cranked out 6,725 words total. And that, my friends, warrants some salted caramel pretzel ice cream.

Well, classes are officially over. My students took their final yesterday, so all that's left for the semester is grading, which will all be over by Monday, most likely. (I'm looking forward to Monday.)

And I've been writing--actually writing. Not a lot, and not often, but it's been real writing. Most of what I'd been doing was straight plotting, putting words on the page in a "so then this happens, and maybe this happens, but how does this fit in" kind of way. But now I'm actually writing prose fiction in my protagonist's voice! It feels so good. Yes, I still have plotting to figure out, but I'm going to do it as I write instead of rambling while I procrastinate. Because the thing I seem to need to keep reminding myself is this:

I don't have to have all the answers to start writing.

It's a really hard thing for me to accept, since I'm the kind of person who is easily terrified by anything I feel like I don't know enough about. But writing is about breaking through insecurities. (At least for the first draft. Later drafts are for covering them up.)

Also, I haven't been setting any goals lately aside from "do something." I've gotten to the point where I'm doing things, so it's time to take that next step. This week I will write 3,000 words. (I will also finish two novels for orals.) It shouldn't be hard to do, since my reasons to leave the house commitments will be significantly lessened. Here goes.

What a week! Or rather, what a couple of days it's been!

So I got started on my goals later than I intended. Thursday I had a bunch of errands and obligations to take care of, and then went to see "Avengers" at MIDNIGHT!! And it was AWESOME!! Friday I spent most of the day recovering from the midnight showing (I remember why I don't really do those anymore, employment complications aside), and then went to see the movie a second time. I think I spent the rest of the day basically spamming Facebook with Avengers promotion videos and stuff. I'm not sure. I spent the weekend in kind of a superhero stupor.

Anyway, it was after I got this week's page up that I turned my focus to the goals I made last week. I spent a good long while working on my Elance profile, since there's kind of a lot to it. And as a result, well, I think maybe there really is magic in beginning.

I'm not going to lie: I'm still kind of terrified about all this. But I have tried to be honest about it with myself and with God, and push through anyway, and it's been interesting to see things unfold. First, as I was working on the profile, I got a phone call from my school. From one of my faculty, actually, and he told me how excited the department is about me, how they're very selective with their grad students, how I have great potential, how they were glad to hear that I'd been offered a scholarship (they can recommend, but they don't really have a say beyond that), and they were really excited about helping me move forward in my career. It was pretty cool. I know he called to answer my questions about the program, and to sweet-talk me into committing to come (since I haven't yet), and that my admissions advisor was there with him, but it was still really cool. In fact, I only remembered afterwards that these faculty are all working professionals in the comics industry, and it was pure luck that I didn't lose my nerve about talking to an Eisner nominee who thought it no big thing to be invited to present at Dragon*Con on a regular basis.

Yeah. This is the world I'm headed to. [ALSO: I have just now discovered, while fact-checking my post, that another teacher there was the original artist (i.e. co-creator) of a Marvel series called "Power Pack" that I used to read in junior high!! I've been having a minor freak out!!]

Anyway, it was cool, and I told him I've mostly decided to come but have to work out the money still, and he gave me some tips on finding other funding and then gave me his personal email in case I end up going to Dragon*Con (the week before school starts) and want to meet up with some other students and teachers there. (!!!)

Then I went back to working on my profile, and a short time later I got another phone call. This one was regarding an artist job posting I'd replied to last week, which turns out to be a freelance-ish ongoing gig doing art for a sort of band promoter for royalty pay. I'm a little on the fence about it, but it seems very lax and a cool opportunity, and I don't see any harm in giving it a try. It has potential to be somewhat far-reaching. As in, "you-could-see-my-work-in-Hot-Topic" far-reaching.

Today I finished the profile thing, thinking that I would wait a bit to submit proposals on jobs (I'm going to be out of town for the weekend, and I have a lot to get done before then). I was also feeling pretty intimidated by the idea of competing for jobs with other illustrators, and knew I'd have to put time and thought into each proposal. And then, three hours after finishing my profile, I got an email from a job client inviting me personally to submit a proposal. It's a small job, but still! Mere hours! That means someone was already browsing my profile and thought I'd be a good fit.

So the short is, I've stuck my foot in and already see some crazy ripples in the pool. I've got an irregular week coming up, so I don't know if I'll make much headway on keeping to a schedule - but I made one! More ripples!

I've talked before about all this feeling like trying to catch a freight train with a butterfly net. Maybe my metaphor needs some people leaning out the windows, ready to pull me on.

( Some old Muse scribbles )

It's probably too soon to say I've conquered my block with Chrysalis, but I'm into chapter 5 and I I wrote over 8000 words this week. I forced myself to write inside Book 1 and not Book 6 although I did do some prewriting for Book 4 but it was only 1000 words I promise and I'm sure my writing soul has been better for it. One interesting thing I'm doing is to type out every single word regardless of whether or not it's new or if I'm pulling it from the previous draft. This way I made sure that every word is in line with my revisions and new characterizations of my heroine and hero. I'm kind of proud of myself for doing it this way.

Now. I want to talk about The Avengers. I promise not to be spoilery or too fangirly.

Specifically, I want to talk about Black Widow. When it comes to superhero movies, I feel it's really easy to love the heroes and expect very little out of their girlfriends women. They tend to get captured, hurt, or do a lot of fretting while the hero is in danger. It's gotten better recently but when I heard Black Widow was going to be part of the Avenger team, I'll admit I was worried.

I was less worried when I heard Joss Whedon wrote the script and was directing the movie but still worried. It's no secret how much I worship him as a writer, director, and creator, especially when it comes to depicting women in his work. I love Buffy with a psychotic passion. I really liked River, Kaylee, and Zoe from Firefly. I was not the biggest fan of Dollhouse's Echo but he can't be right all the time.

But Avenger's is a superhero movie, which means men doing male things with other men. Don't get me wrong, I like action movies. Just, unusually, if there is a girl and she has "masculine" strength, her gender is remarked upon repeatedly, and she's highly sexual with the camera shots to prove it. If she has "feminine" strength, she becomes an object to protect, does lots of screaming, and is highly sexual with the camera shots to prove it. Or she's a girlfriend object to be won and used at the end of the fight.

But Joss was in charge-ish, so I paid attention to Black Widow and her characterization. Joss did not let me down. Her introduction scene is marvelously played, revealing her entire skill set, which she uses against the villain later on in the movie. She's treated with respect by her coworkers (and her gender or her relative strength is never commented on) and is trusted to take care of herself in battle. Strengths balanced by weaknesses. Not perfect but trying to be something better. Something normally only the male heroes get to do.

She had layers. Like a parfait. 

Things are not perfect in the movie making industry and I'm not saying Black Widow's characterization was perfect but it's nice not to be let down by one of your own heroes. For me, it hit most of my soap box points.

So, my fellow HoKers, what movie or book has impressed you lately?

Weekly Report: 3/7 days; 1,567/7,000 words

It's been tough getting back into writing this week, and I think the weekly report reflects that. Oddly, I think the biggest problem I'm having is with setting aside time. I was expecting to have a hard time getting back into the story, or getting my brain back into writing mode. But the first night I sat down, I plugged out a thousand words in an hour, so that wasn't a problem. The problem was that that hour of writing occurred between two and three o'clock in the a. m... In case you were wondering, that's not a very sustainable schedule. So this week the goal is to set a time to start writing every day, and to come up with some rewards. I think I'm ready to get serious about this again.




And now ( the reading list: )

This week's challenge is short and sweet (since the weekend's almost over). I've been focused on goals lately. So the challenge is to take a look at your goals (be they for writing, drawing, or life in general) see where you are with them. If you're sitting pretty, then kudos, you've completed the challenge. If you're not where you expected to be, then run the numbers--you know the drill--and figure out what you need to do to get yourself back on track (remember: moving the track closer to you is an option).

And just for fun, here's a vid I just ran across about happiness--it's awesome. Go, watch, enjoy.
Srikumar Rao: Plug into your hard-wired happiness