Word Counting

Longing, Essays, Wordcounts, and Dancing to PJ Harvey

PETERMBALL Journal, Works in Progress , , ,

This morning I got up and, lacking sufficient motivation to get ready for the dayjob, put PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me on the stereo so I could dance around the house to the track 50′ Queenie while still in my pajamas.

There are certainly worse ways to start your day, even if it does mean you’re five minutes late for work and the chaos that entails. Here’s hoping your day started just as well (and if it didn’t, I can recommend dancing to PJ Harvey to start your day tomorrow).

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I mentioned this on twitter when I first read it, but I’m posting a link here because its just that good. If you have any interest at all in fantasy, writing, fairy tales, or just general awesomeness, please go take a look at Catherine Valente’s Confessions of a Fairytale Addict over on Tor.com.

There are many writers of fiction who double as excellent writers of essays, and Valente is easily one of the best I’ve come across in recent years. In a fair and just world someone would probably go and pay her to write a book of essays, which would be smart and cutting and ultimately brilliant, but since we live in a capitalist culture where essays are an undervalued form we take what we can get.

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So yesterday there was writing. A thousand words on Flotsam 6, a thousand words on a short story, and some writing of new scenes for Black Candy since I’ve officially given up on rewriting the bastard book and just started redrafting it from the beginning so I can make it story shaped without doing my head in.

By ten o’clock I’d done my 2,500 words for the day and stopped, since I’m trying to get out of the binge-writing habit and back into something that resembles a work ethic. Being done by ten o’clock is slightly odd, since it meant there was still an hour to go before I usually collapsed into bed, half-dressed and fretting about not being done.

So I had a cup of tea and read for a bit, working my way a little deeper into Charles de Lint’s Dreams Underfoot, and then I went to sleep.

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I’ve typed the title of the de Lint collection three times today, and every time I’ve typed it Dreams Underfood, which is weird because I’m not entirely sure why my subconscious is latching onto that particular mistake and repeating it over and over.

I find myself suddenly tempted to write about the existence of a magical, dreamlike land that exists at the bottom of the pantry, waging wars with the goblins who live in the nightmares that occur when eating cheese too close to bedtime.

Or, you know, not. There are some ideas that aren’t quite worth pursuing.

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I find myself, inexplicably, missing a number of people I used to know. It’s happened a few times this week, and it’s quite bothersome, because I’m not terribly good at keeping up with the people I currently know, let alone the friends who have gradually drifted away over the years. I imagine things would have been easier if something like Skype existed ten years ago, but I suppose we had email back then, and that doesn’t seemed to have helped.

I suspect this will result in stories. It usually does, for some reason. Stories are the way things get worked out in my head.

What I’d like it to result in is a whirlwind trip to Melbourne, say, or Adelaide, and places even further afield, with lots of surprise visits and bottles of wine and interesting arguments, but at the moment the logistics for a whirlwind trip to the grocery store is really more my speed.

One day I will remedy this, really I will, but today I will content myself with spicy tomato soup and a nice thick slice of crusty bread and some quality time with Fritz the laptop where I get today’s 2,500 words written.

 

Rain & Writing & Too Much Pizza, Man

PETERMBALL Journal, Works in Progress , , , , ,

It’s been raining in Brisbane for the last few days, but it appears that the rain has finally given up and sunlight is starting to peek through again. This makes me rather melancholy; I was rather enjoying the rain and the cold snap and watching the bands of grey cloud overhead while taking my afternoon stroll around the block.

The best part about the rain has been walking the path alongside our local drainage ditch, where the grass is the kind of green I’d forgotten grass could be and the drainage ditch actually does an impressive job of seeming like a stream.

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So I wrote a few things last night. Mostly the fifth installment of the Flotsam series, which was overdue and then overdue again on the date I said I’d have it sent through after emailing the editor and letting her know it’d be overdue. Afterwards I did a couple of hundred words on some new things. Flotsam 6, for example, and the beginnings of two other stories. Then I ate leftover pizza, again, and swore that I will find some other food to serve as the I-have-a-deadline-and-no-time-to-cook standby.

I am heartily sick of pizza right now. There’s a grocery list in my wallet, full of things which will be used to make tastier, healthier meals. Bowls of chili and spicy tomato soups and plates of Moroccan chicken with couscous, which is one of those meals I make primarily because couscous is an awesome word to say aloud.

Alas, these things must wait until tomorrow, when the payday comes around and the grocery shopping actually happens.

And at least there will be writing, regardless, and I will watch my nascent little stories grow in ambition and word-count. Then I will proof my Daily SF story, which has just arrived in my inbox for proofing-type things.

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Occasionally, when I lament the wasted time that occurs in my dreaded dayjob, people will ask me why I don’t sneak in a little extra writing time. This is a remarkably hard question to answer with any satisfaction, but it largely comes down to this: there is nothing sneaky about my writing process.

When I’m at my most subtle, writing still consists of talking to myself and sighing a lot and staring at the ceiling trying to picture what happens next. This is something of a rarity, reserved for those instances where I write in public, for when writing alone in my house the act of writing is considerably more physical.

I pace from room to room, pondering things. I re-enact scenes, complete with conversations that are spoken aloud. Often I will find myself dancing for plot, which is less euphemistic than it sounds since it largely involves actual dancing, assuming dancing is the correct verb for the peculiar bopping and flailing that happens when I’m alone in my apartment.

I suspect I pull funny faces too, although I’ve never written in front of a mirror to check this. But there is nothing subtle or sneaky about writing fiction, so it’s never something I’ll sneak in at the dreaded dayjob. If I tried, someone would inevitably notice, and I suspect my dreaded dayjob wouldn’t be a dayjob for much longer.

Which would be fine by me if writing paid my rent, but thus far, writing does not.

This probably wont be my new author photo

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Somehow people neglected to mention that I was having a truly dire bad hair day yesterday. I managed to ignore it myself, right up until I got home from tutorials, caught sight of my reflection, and thought “hmmm, that’s not a look I want to continue with, is it?”

For a while now I’ve been aware that I’m hitting the decision point where I either shave my head again, or settle in for the process of growing my hair out. These are, by and large, the only real options with my hair – genetics have essentially eliminated all other possibilities due to a weird series of cowlicks and a tendency towards ringlets.

I used to think it came from my mother’s side of the family, largely because my dad has maintained the same hairstyle since I was, like, four, but after his brief experimentation with forgoing the regular haircut earlier this year I learned that it may well have been the male half of my DNA that’s causing problems.

Still, either way, I’m destined for either short-haired spikes or long-haired scruffiness. They’re the only two approaches that have ever really worked for me (for a certain value of “works” which mostly includes being better than the alternatives), and I’m still not entirely sure which I want to head towards.

Expect I will flip a coin over the weekend.

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Two good days of writing in a row. Not great writing, but that’s fine, I’m writing first drafts and they don’t have to be great. But good writing, stuff that feels like it’s heading in a direction I like, rather than being written for the sake of writing wordcount.

Either way, I suspect I’m done with my attack of distemper. If I’ve been scaring you off with the attack of the grumpy pants this week, it’s probably safe to return.

Probably.

You know, like, 90% safe. Or maybe 85%, if we’re giving ourselves a buffer.

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I am behind on email again. This, too, will be rectified over the weekend.

And I really need to start remembering to bring a snack to the Dayjob on Fridays, because the sprint from the dayjob offices to the university tutorial room doesn’t exactly leave time for eating. This is how bad habits start forming, much like the late finish on Thursday nights is turning into a bugger it, I’ll just eat take-out habit on the way home.

My life, I tell you, the glamour and wonder.

See you all monday.