It's A Brand New Year

A LOLcat starring my cat, Sophie.

With a new year comes a new writing journal (pictured above with Sophie) and, of course, New Year's Resolutions. Here are mine:

1. Submit a short story for publication.
2. Finish a novel.
3. Write in my writing journal every day.

Six Sentence Sunday - 12/25

It is Saturday night and my eyes are full of tears as I throw open the wooden doors to the Sunset Deck at the rear of the steamship. Sunset is a misnomer, because tonight the sun is setting over the forward deck at the opposite end of the ship. The rest of the passengers are gathered there to watch so I’m confident that this is the one place I can go to have a good, undisturbed cry.

I fling myself at the railing and let the tears fall overboard. At dinner Alan had once again been oblivious to my desperate attempts at flirting, and I'm so lost in my anguish over him that I don’t notice the small boy standing next to me until he speaks.

“Why are you crying?” he asks.

- excerpt from The Sunset Deck, a short story

 The sentence that begins "At dinner" has me very confused due to the mixture of past and present tense, but I think it's right. I don't have a lot of experience writing in present tense, but I believe this story requires it. If anyone with better grammar experience has an opinion on whether it is correct or not, please let me know!

Read more about Six Sentence Sunday here. To see the rest of my Six Sentence Sunday posts, click here.

Six Sentence Sunday - 12/18

Set up: While playing a game of paintball, the narrator and her friends are confronted by two figures in black armor who shoot them with a strange weapon.

A cold sensation washed over me, like I had jumped into a freezing lake, and things began to move in slow motion. My legs collapsed and then I was on my back, looking at the sky. One of the men stepped in to my narrowing field of vision, raised his face shield and peered at me. Only he wasn't a man at all - he had skin as red as hot coals and pupils so dark that it looked like shiny black beetles were hiding where his eyes should have been. A row of five short horns crossed his forehead and there was a nasty, jagged scar on the bridge of his nose. He smiled at me; it was the last thing I saw before my vision went black.

- excerpt from one of many versions of my untitled "girl gets kidnapped by aliens" novel

Read more about Six Sentence Sunday here. To see the rest of my Six Sentence Sunday posts, click here.

Six Sentence Sunday - 12/11

Set up: Geek Timothy "Oggy" Ogden is excited to meet actor Zac Furie at a sci-fi convention. But his excitement turns to mortification when Zac treats him rudely, writes "Froggy" instead of "Oggy" when signing a head shot, and charges twenty dollars more than listed for the autographed photo - twenty dollars that Oggy tells Zac he doesn't have.

“I’ll just hang on to this until the next ‘Froggy’ comes along, shall I?” Zac said.

Zac's lackey snickered and a few people in line joined in. Oggy’s neck turned red; the color travelled up his face, past his cheeks and stopped at his ears. An announcement came over the loudspeaker: “Dealer’s room closes in five minutes.”

Oggy gritted his teeth. “I don’t have the money. What do you want me to do?”

- excerpt from ZOMG, or Zombies, Oh My God!

Read more about Six Sentence Sunday here. To see the rest of my Six Sentence Sunday posts, click here.

Six Sentence Sunday - 12/04

Speaking of avoiding people…Nan stepped off of the sidewalk and in to the road to let Ruth McAllister pass. The woman had never grasped the fact that sidewalks were supposed to be shared. She walked straight down the middle, her Bichon Frise, Bambi, strapped to her chest in a Baby Bjorn. Nan nodded hello to Ruth and swallowed the giggle that rose whenever she saw Bambi’s head lolling side to side in the carrier. Would it be so wrong to let the poor dog down to get some exercise every now and then? She understood that people could be crazy about their pets, but there was no way she’d ever strap her cat Aggie in to a baby sling - not that Aggie would let her do it, anyway.

- Untitled Snowbird Mystery

Six Sentence Sunday is a blog meme where authors post a six sentence excerpt from one of their works every Sunday. I ran across it on Suzanne Johnson's Peternatura blog and liked the idea. I'm not "officially" participating (i.e. trying to get my link on Six Sentence Sunday's blog) because there are a lot of rules and they confuse me, but I will be posting six sentences every Sunday through at least the end of December. I think it'll be a fun thing to do and will make up for the fact that I won't have much writing stuff to post about, thanks to all the craft projects, travel, and family visits that I will be busy with during the holidays.

Today's excerpt is from a 4000-word cozy mystery short featuring Nan and her husband Charlie. They are snowbirds - retirees from northern states who "fly" south for the winter. In this story, Nan hunts down a thief who has stolen several thousand dollars from a Cow Pie Bingo charity fundraiser.

Reading back over the story to find these six sentences, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was better than I remembered. With a little bit of editing, I think it'll be ready to share with my beta readers. I love the idea of a snowbird detective - the constant moving provides lots of opportunities for new locations and people - and I would love to have Nan star in further stories, assuming I can come up with some good mysteries for her to solve.

Who is Mary Sue?

Who’s the girl that in implausibility’s face flies,

Who can do the impossible the first time she tries?

The youngest ensign to join the fleet,

Who saves the ship from utter defeat.

The long-lost daughter of an elfin queen,

Who rescues the hobbits and steals the scene.

She’s cute and clumsy, with a past that’s tragic;

Beloved by all, she can also do magic.

Her heart is pure, her aim is true,

Do you know who? It’s Mary Sue!

 (poem by Cat Carlisle)

Part of the problem of living off in my own little world is that I start to assume that things that are obvious to me are also obvious to everyone else. Case in point: I wrote the above poem, posted it on Facebook without the last two words and asked my friends to fill in the blank. I thought it would be a fun, easy riddle and was extremely embarrassed when NOBODY knew what I was talking about. I only had two guesses: "Mr. Magoo" from my brother and "Ashley Judd" (Huh?) from my husband.

I'm Doing Camp NaNoWriMo!

At least, I think I am. Camp NaNoWriMo is a version of National Novel Writing Month that takes place in any month instead of just in November like the original NaNo. It sounds like they will have it up and running for July and now that we are mostly settled in our new home (still a couple of boxes left to unpack), I'm eager to work on a novel that's been stewing in my head for several years. You can join Camp NaNoWriMo here and follow my progress here. Let me know if you're participating. I'd love to be camp buddies!

So what's my novel going to be about? The description I currently have up on Camp NaNo is this:

Most Victorian Ladies Didn't Wear Trousers

Most Victorian ladies didn't run around looking like this:

Irene Adler in the 2010 Sherlock Holmes movie

Most polygamists actually like polygamy:

The cast of the Sister Wives reality show

A tenth-century Chinese person probably wouldn't find foot binding disgusting. Slave owners didn't feel guilty about owning slaves, or else they would've freed them. And despite what Bollywood wants us to think, in modern day India up to ninety percent of marriages are arranged marriages.

What's my point?

Department of Redundant Words Department

 

Above is a word cloud from my unedited first draft of last year's NaNoWriMo novel. The text size of a word reflects how often it's used in the novel (common words like "I" or "and" are excluded), so it makes sense that the biggest words are then names of my main characters. But look at the biggest word that isn't a name - that big orange one just under "Simon". Yes, it's the winner for "Cat's Most Unnecessarily Overused and Redundant Word" Award, "back"!

I Can't Multitask

I've always thought of myself as a multitasker, but lately I've come to see that I'm not. Sure, I can watch TV while crocheting or looking at polymer clay genitals on Regretsy.com, but does that really count? (No. No it doesn't.)

When I say that I can't multitask, I mean that I'm unable to juggle writing and, well, doing any other project at the same time. The other projects typically are craft projects (I've been writing a craft blog for over four years now), but they also include animating and doing home improvement stuff.

Here's how it usually happens: I start to write but I can't stop thinking about the Other Thing. I should really be working on the Other Thing, shouldn't I? I mean, the story can wait. It doesn't have a deadline. But someone is waiting for the Other Thing. Sure, they said I could take my time but it's been days/weeks/months already...I'll just stop writing for a little while and go finish the Other Thing real quick and then I'll be able to write without anything hanging over my head!

That's how it starts, anyway.