My novel is stupid and boring and doesn't have a plot and is stupid and I want to throw it out the window.  And I can't log in to WoW to distract myself.  GAH!

And my dad was going to call me last Sunday and still hasn't.  His house almost burning down is no excuse.  Poo head.  Also, I don't have enough wine to get drunk.

Le sigh.  Talked to mom.  Feel better.  Tomorrow I'll do another round of editing and hopefully it'll look better.

Adding to the list from Mr. Bransford, here's five more from Editor Unleashed.  I think I'm pretty good on these (On Writing won me over to the anti- dialogue tags and adverbs camp).  Also ALL CAPS MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE A MORON.  In formal writing, at least.

1. Run-on sentences: Check for sentences that are more than three lines long or have more than three commas. There’s a good chance those are run-on sentences. Run-on sentences may seem deep and complex, but are often awkward and difficult to follow. Rewriting into two or three sentences will lead to better flow and readability.

2. Descriptive dialogue tags: The best dialogue tags are also the simplest. Ending a line of dialogue with he said (or she said) is always the best option. A dialogue tag isn’t the spot for long-winded character or setting descriptions.

3. Modifier abuse: Go back into your manuscript after you think it’s finished and circle each adjective and adverb. Chances are good that you can cut many redundant modifiers and create a cleaner, more readable piece. The simple act of circling the modifiers will make you aware of the right words to cut.

4. ALL CAPS: When is a good time to use ALL CAPS in your manuscript? Never! If you feel the need to provide visual emphasis, choose italics instead. Better yet, rewrite the line and let your writing do the heavy lifting.

5. Beginning paragraphs with the same word. This is a universal problem that annoys readers and editors alike. It most often happens with a main subject or character’s name, or “I.” Beginning paragraph after paragraph with “I” is especially irritating.

 

Also, from a guest post on Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent by Victoria Mixon - Everything You Need to Know About Writing a Novel in 1000 Words (condensed by me because why use 1000 words when a list will do).

The five biggest mistakes in plotting:

1) Starting with backstory. I know, chronology works in life, but not so well in fiction. Chronology did work back when Moll Flanders wanted to tell us all about where she came from before she told us where she was. But that was then. This is now. Hook your reader first. You've got to make them curious before they'll listen.

2) Letting the complications sag. The middle of a book is common bogland, and that's why you hear so many people say, "I started that book, but never finished it." Fitzgerald spent a lot of energy (and his publisher's patience) on the galleys because The Great Gatsby sagged mid-way. It's the writer's job to keep upping the ante on the complications, starting a bigger problem the minute the last one's resolved, keeping the reader turning those pages.

3) Dragging your denouement out. If at all possible, end at the instant of climax, like Henry James in The Turn of the Screw: "His little heart, dispossessed, had stopped." You may grieve to let your characters go, but your reader just wants to find out what happened. And if you're so brilliant they can't let go--wow! Even more reason to quit while you're ahead. The best compliment a writer can get is, "I didn't want that book to end." Hello, Constant Reader.

4) Putting the climax too far from the end. That's what your reader is reading for, and when they've found it--they stop. It's true, some brilliant works have been written where the catastrophe is the hook and the rest of the story is exploration of that catastrophe, but that's sleight-of-hand. The climax is still the point where the writer confronts the reader with the pivotal event. The end.

5) Using a trick ending. Never conceal information from the reader so you can whack them over the head with it on the last page. Even mysteries, which appear to be all about trick endings, give the reader the clues to see through the trick before they get to it. John Gardner was adamant: if you set the reader up to resent you--they will. Good-bye, Constant Reader.

I'm very depressed about this second list.  I'm working on the middle bit of the novel right now and it's making me very grumpy.  I think it's going to need yet another pass.  Or else I'm being much to hard on myself.  We'll see.  I suppose I should get back to it or else I'll never find out!

So since I started watching Battlestar Galactica a couple of months ago (or whenever) I've pretty much watched each disk the day I get it, or the next day at the outside.  But I've been sitting on the second disk of the fourth season for a few days now without watching it, and I probably won't watch it today.  Admittedly, I haven't been reading much recently either - most of my free time energy is going into writing.

( Spoilers Ahoy )

Subject: loos'd her slender dress, theres little tom dacre, who cried when his head

Body: all alone, who may or may not catch
the morning ride, the noonday halt, she bowd over the weeping infant, and her life exhal'd


Subject: runs in blood down palace walls he wheels about burning

Body: and it grew both day and night,
why, well: you see--if the truth must appear-- and the angel told tom, if he'd be a good boy,

(Walton, Anderson, Monette, Griffith, Valente, Singer)

CV: An extended meal can tell a lot about a culture. Sex likewise is an easy in for exposition.

JW: When world creating, think about who touches whom – when do people touch? Hug?

JS: How easy is import/export in your culture? What sort of trade is there?

TNH: Start with fuel to determine what kind of cooking is possible.

Audience Comment: Think about what the socially accepted drugs are.

Audience Comment: Also what euphemisms are used, and which words people will not say.

SM: Read lots of sex scenes, figure out what happens a lot, and don't do that!

JW: Often sex in books defaults to Western norms or is lifted wholesale from another culture.

I found this panel interesting because it covered one topic I've messed around with a fair bit in my writing, and two things I pretty much ignore. I get the point about food and fashion, but if one isn't especially interested in the subjects, it feels kind of forced. In terms of world building I'm more interested in history, trade, wars, politics, family and sexuality than I am about food and fashion. After the panel on family I made a point to look at each of my characters and their family, and see if I'd allowed their upbringing to influence who they are. I concluded that I've done a fairly decent job of that part, and of not assuming that all characters have the same family, or no family at all.

Likewise, sexuality is something I've been interested in as a jumping off point for fiction. I just reread the two stories I mentioned in the previous post on fan fiction. They need work. Oh boy do they need work. It's actually work I might want to do, though. Seven years later I still find the idea of gender very interesting, and I still struggle with pronouns while writing alternate gender characters. In the case of those short stories, I think the character would ultimately think of himself as a “he,” having been raised male, but I knew I couldn't do that for the androgynous race in “Light in the Groves.” The rough draft used “zie/hir” and the current draft “it.” I'm still not sure about that one.

Related to this, I usually have at least one homosexual or bisexual character in my stories.  Sometimes it feels kind of unimportant and unexamined, but that might be because I've usually run in circles in which there's usually a few people who are homosexual and it usually IS fairly unimportant.  I mean, if I'm hanging out in a bar, I'm not hanging out with my gay friend, I'm hanging out with my friend who, among other things, is gay.  A lot of times it just isn't all that important.  That's not to say that sexuality isn't important in building characters, just that it doesn't need to be the defining characteristic all the time.  There's a character in Light who's homosexual, but I'm not sure I'll ever actually say it because it just isn't pertinent to the immediate story.  It affects how I write the character, but I don't see that it's necessary for the reader to know, and it might just be distracting if I dropped it in.

It was this panel that went a half hour late and resulted in my missing the bus, leading to the angsty-ass "fail" post I wrote that night.  I said I wanted to write about why it wasn't really a fail so I guess here's a bit of it.  The thing is, I was exhausted at that point in the evening.  There really wasn't much I could do to avoid getting upset, because I was right on the edge after two days in a very stressful social situation and missing the bus just put me over the edge.  I decided that I should ask someone for a ride because otherwise I would have been being stupid or something.  The thing is, I should have recognized that I was already upset and just given myself permission to take the cab.

So the fail wasn't taking the cab, the fail was trying to force myself into being a person that I just couldn't be at that point.  It's good for me to push myself out of my comfort zone, but not when I'm already a wreck.  I'm an introvert.  I have a tough time walking up to strangers and introducing myself.  I like to spend many of my evenings alone.  And that's okay.  I can keep working on the things that need work while being happy with my life.

 (Notkin, Bujold, Gwin, Brown, Brust)

This was a highly entertaining panel. Lois McMasterson Bujold started the panel off by sharing a Star Trek FanZine she'd helped create in the 1960s or 70s, then telling a story about how she went through a period recently where the only thing she was reading was Lord of the Rings fan fiction. The moderator (Notkin I think) said that the discussion was not about the ethical aspects of fan fiction, which did help direct the conversation, although I thought that other discussion would have been interesting as well.

Either Gwin or Brown was a really awesome addition to the panel, as she was a medievalist who had studied the evolution of the Arthurian legends and how derivative fiction worked before modern copyright. I think that the overwhelming agreement on the panel was that, in general, modern copyright laws are overly constricting and that fan fic has a much worse reputation than it really deserves. Someone suggested a system where one could sell licenses to intellectual property that I thought was a really interesting idea, unfortunately I didn't write it down to I've forgotten what the jist of it was.

DN: Fan Fic used to mean fiction about fans, or original fiction written by fans. Fiction is only of the only fields with a distinct line (publication for pay) where you count as a professional.

The idea of writing fiction ABOUT fans is just really odd. Actually it's the idea of a fandom where everyone (or a good chunk of people) actually know each other is what's really odd. I suppose that reflects the transition from conventions being the backbone of fandom to it being primarily internet based. I wish I'd taken better notes during this discussion, because I know there was some talk about the internet.

LMB: Fan fic can be used to critique the canon, answer the interesting questions.

Audience Comment: In contrast to fan fic being disrespected, professional artists are expected to copy the masters in order to learn.

LMB: Fan fic can be a way to learn the craft, but only to a certain point.

Story time! The very first things I ever wrote, aside from random stories for school, were X-Men fan fiction (I can't believe those are still online - they're not quite as bad as I'd have thought, but yeah, I didn't know how to edit worth a damn back then), which I wrote through junior high and the first couple of years of college. I created an original character that was absolutely an author stand-in (though not quite, I hope, a Mary-Sue) and took the universe off in a direction that I thought made more sense than the comics were doing. Two of my favorite stories ("He's Unsure about Himself" and "A Tiger is a Tiger") were almost entirely original characters in that setting.  What amused me later on was that the direction I thought made sense (the school being a real school, with lots of students of different levels of ability rather than just the small X-Men Jr. teams the comics were doing at the time) was the direction the comics themselves ended up going in about a decade later. I laughed.  

I definitely recognize the point that there is only so much one can learn writing fan fic unless you consciously push yourself to fill in those gaps. You're starting off with a real boost, with the universe, characters, themes, even tone already in place. I enjoyed the challenge of creating characters within the universe, and in my reading tended towards the stories that improved upon the canon, filling in plot holes and such things. My favorite fan fic of all time was probably a series of novels by Minisinoo who I stopped following when she switched the Harry Potter (and good god, she's doing Twilight now? God I honestly would want to give it a try). She started with the X-Men movie universe and completely re-worked it until it was much, much better than it had been starting off.

The end of the discussion sort of deteriorated into various people sharing the names of the most bizarre or hilarious crossover fictions they knew. It was very funny, though grumpy Megan would generally have liked more conversation.

Another panel I liked a lot, almost entirely a “how to write well” lecture with very little audience participation. In this case, I was good with that.

(T. Nielsen Hayden, Monette, Bujold, Walton, Valente, Dean)

TNH: Difference between SFF and other genres is the expository burden of explaining the context in which the story exists. Historical fantasy has a similar burden.

JW: It's the glory, not the burden! As a reader, I have more tolerance for crappy SFF than that set in the modern world.

PP: Exposition is an infinitely flexible tool, which can be used for time, structure, and characterization.

SM: Good exposition is there only when the reader wants it. Bad exposition stops the story.

JW: It's okay just to straight up tell the reader things.

LMB: If it's not pertinent to the story at hand, leave it out.

TNH: A natural point for exposition is starting with where things have changed. Then people will naturally discuss both the past and the future.

ML: Good exposition is like a little kid who learned something new: I explain because I like you.

TNH: You don't want the reader to get into an argument with the writer because then the reader falls out of the story.

CV: Make it do double duty: don't just tell about the world, but also advance plot or character.

JW/LMJ: Why we have to write stories in order: because that way you don't screw up the exposition. You don't know what you're going to need in terms of explanations until you need it.

LMB: An exception being when there are multiple PoVs.

JW: The danger of a series is if you realize you need something earlier but you've already published that part of the story.

TNH: You have to sit down and figure out a lot about the world, then leave a lot of it out.

JW: Keep in mind that you have to be consistent with what your PoV knows.

JW: The Tiffany Problem: Tiffany is a 12^th century French/British name, but it's so associated with the 20^th century you can't use it in a historical/SFF story. When you know something that is correct but contradicts popular knowledge.

CV: The artistic life of the fantasy world is a fantastic way to explain about a world.

JW: All names are a great opportunity for exposition.

I really enjoy world-building (although some thing like language drive me bonkers), but figuring out how what to insert into a story and what to leave out is the real trick. As LMB said, you want to leave out everything that isn't pertinent to the story, but you still want to have a vivid world. CV's advice on making exposition serve double duty, especially to serve characterization, was the most useful for me.

I will also say that I could listen to Jo Walton read the phone book, because that woman has a fabulous voice and was generally deeply entertaining (and smart!).

I skipped the Children's & YA panel because I wrote up something at lunch on Saturday (which yes, I did eat alone, but as it was the only meal I ate alone I don't feel so bad). It's still on my AlphaSmart so I'll post it later.

(Meacham, Barnhill, Lingen, Notkin, Furr, Gordon)

Another panel that I really liked. This was more focused on what authors do wrong rather than what one can do right, and gave me a lot of ideas on ways to go with my writing and things to pay attention to. This panel also acknowledged the roots of fantasy literature in the fairy tale, which is a subject I find very interesting. I would have loved a panel tracing how mythology translated into fairy tale and then into fantasy. I think that might be more a college class, though.

BM: There has been a change in how fantasy addresses family. The fairy tale has the horrible family, more recently the focus has been on building one's own family.

DN: Fantasy has great potential to examine family structure.

ML: Is the “traditional family” a myth?

DN: The phrase “nuclear family” shows how recent that concept it.

ML: The default seems to be the blank slate regarding the family.

KB: Families are messy, so the blank slate is easier.

There was some interesting cultural stuff going on in this discussion. The panelists were making a real attempt to address the assumptions that are made in fiction, but were running into some of those assumptions that people make in life, such as assuming that one's own experience is the normal one, and not being clear enough what one means when they say “our culture” and that kind of thing. I know eventually one just has to try their best to be specific about what you're saying and hope that everyone listening knows that any assumptions are well intended.

Which leads into something else I was thinking about but wasn't mentioned in any of the panels, that being the Race Fail kerfuffle that blew up on various writers' blogs in January and February of this year over race in SFF. If I'm not mistaken the whole thing started on the LJ belonging to the writing partner of one of the Fourth Street panelists, and I think the part where it went from debate to flame war was when two of the fourth street panelists stepped in and tried to stick up for her.

The whole thing was a mess and probably a good example of how good intentions go bad on the internet, but it's also an interesting discussion. It did not come up, however. I mentioned this to someone on Sunday and they pointed out that pretty much everyone at the convention was white. Interestingly, about half the attendees were female, and the panelists were predominantly female. I'm not sure where I'm going with that, just thought it was interesting.

This ended up being one of my favorite panels, and one in which I took the most notes. The notes kind of speak for themselves I think. What I liked that this panel ranged across a good number of topics, it did so gradually and the panelists kept the thread of the conversation going. 

(Notkin, P. Nielsen Hayden, Bjold, Valente, Wrede)

On the relationship between a character and the type of story:

LMB: Every character has a quintessential story. A book is a rack upon which to display a character.

PCW: There are two kinds of series character. One is the kind who continues to change, the other is the detective model, the character who does not change but is faced with different situations.

PNH: Characters are roving points of view through which to view the world.

DN: The rack perspective is character type one, the PoV is type two.

I don't really like that second type of character as much as the first type.  Of course, I don't read mysteries, which is where that character seems common, or very much older science fiction or high fantasy.  This kind of character just strikes me as unrealistic, like the tv shows that reset every week so nothing that happened before matters. Also eventually I stop believing that so many interesting things would happen to a single person (let alone without really messing with their heads) even if they are a cop or reporter or whatever.

What readers want:

Q: Difference between more of characters and more of the world, which do readers want?

LMB: Usually readers want more of the characters.

I think I can go both ways. Some series that I've really liked have had the same characters all the way through but switched the emphasis. The Kushiel books start with a trilogy about Phedre, then the second trilogy is about her adopted son, and she's just a supporting character. The first and third Old Man's War books have one narrator, but that character doesn't appear at all in the second book. And the Sevenwaters books each have different narrators: Sorcha, her daughter, and then her niece. I think I like this approach because it maintains a certain continuity, but it recognizes that these characters' stories have ended, and they are allowed to live happily ever after (sort of) while someone else takes up the adventures.

I know that I definitly don't like it when a story continues when it's really finished.  If the author has nothing left to say, or the characters are done growing, then I'm fine with letting it end (even if it makes me sad).  It makes me even more sad when authors keep telling the same story over and over, or twisting characters until they aren't the characters I cared about any more.  This happened for me with some of the characters in the Star Wars books, which of course had the extra challenge of being written by multiple authors.  I think that universe is bad about allowing characters to retire when it's time for them to be done.

PCW: Depends on which expectations were established. If you're a character centered writer it's hard for readers to let the characters go.

DN: What about place as character?

LMB: SFF is defined by setting. Mainstream lit is the world's largest shared universe series.

PCW: World defines what is possible.

PCW: Fans always want more of what you left out.

LMB: Readers want to understand the world.

I think I raised my hand at this point to make the comment that this is one place where fan-fiction can really shine. I either didn't get called on or decided it wasn't worth saying, I don't remember.

 

Q: How do you know when to say no to the fans? When to end?

LMB: It's hard to say no to the pleading eyes.

PCW: Readers don't get that authors get sick of characters.

PNH: That explains why authors torture their characters.

That last comment made me laugh. There is something masochistic about being a writer. That said, of course the comment was a joke, but it's not quite true: the reason a writer tortures characters is primarily because that's how to make a good story. I'm sure there are good books where nothing bad ever happens to the characters, but I can't think of any right now.

Types of series:

LMB: There are different types of stories – open ended, stand alone in a shared universe, single arc, thematic.

PCW: Most frustrating is the series with the built in ending that never gets there.

LMB: Long series can comment on themselves.

PNH: Likes when the end of a series subverts the beginning.

1. The second and third days of 4th Street and why I wish the brunch had been on Friday or Saturday instead of Sunday

2. Why taking a cab home on Saturday night wasn't really fail and I probably should have just done that in the first place

3. How I'm still having to write mostly new stuff but am kicking butt on anyhow

4. How my best friend is completely awesome because he helped me figure out a way to avoid heavy rewriting in chapter fifteen

5. How I freaking hate summer

6. My realization today that I spend too much time feeling bad about feeling almost perfectly happy with my current levels of socializing and how I should really work on knocking that off

7. My ambivalence about the end of the third season of BSG

But I'm not going to write about those things now because I'm really tired and it's almost 11 and I've slept like poo the last two nights because of the heat.  Time for bed.

The thing that really sucks is that I think I would really love talking to these people - in fact, I KNOW I would love talking to them.  It's just the getting started part that's continually killing me.  I missed my bus and the next one wasn't for an hour, so after standing around awkwardly for a while I finally asked someone who very kindly said yes, but that they weren't sure when they were leaving.  So that's when I hang out with them for a while, right?

No, instead I took a cab home.  Because I fucking fail.

This is just so frustrating.  Now I feel like I'm having a hard time appreciating what I am getting out of this con because it's overshadowed by what I've not been able to do, namely connect with any of these fantastic people.  I know I'm going to get over it, because I know that I can meet people, I just need it to be fewer people at once, or more structure.  I mean, I asked a question in pretty much every panel today, and I think only one was kind of dumb and at least a couple were pretty good questions I think.  So I don't fail at everything, I guess.

I got home maybe a half hour ago, and was going to do some writing, but it's really warm in the apartment and between that, the fact that I was up late last night, the come-down off my adrenaline (or whatever) high, and the glass of wine I just drank I'm feeling really sleepy, so I think I'll just jot down some thoughts and then go to bed.

There were three panels today: "How to sound smart on panels", "How has fantasy changed in the last 20 years?" and "Reasons things go wrong".  There was a fourth informal panel "Beer and the moral philosophy of fiction" but that one was an informal one that started at 9:00 and I didn't want to start busing home at 10 or later, so I skipped it.  Plus I was kind of borderline panicked the whole afternoon (breaking to put panic meds in my bag) so I figured I'd just go home.  More on that later, maybe.

So the first panel was kind of an ice-breaker.  The panelists were Steven Brust, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Debbie Notkin, Jon Singer and Elise Matthesen.  It was primarily anecdotes about panels the various participants had been on and was quite funny.  There was a lot of audience jumping in on this, which was fun.

The second group of panelists were Tom Whitmore, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Sharyn November, Magenta Griffith and Jenett Silver.  This was a really interesting topic that kind of went all over the place.  I think I would have liked for it to actually stay more focused on the last 20 years but a lot of what came up was really interesting as well.  Some highlights:


The last panel was the most technical.  The panelists in the first two were a mix of writers and industry people (editors, librarians, etc), the third group were all writers: Catherynne Valente, Marissa Lingen, Pamela Dean, Sarah Monette and Jo Walton.  It was a really fun group of people - I really enjoy hearing professional writers talk about the difficulties of writing.  I've read a couple of quotes from writers to the extent that if you don't poop literary gold on your first attempt, you're not worth talking to, which I find to be very off-putting.  Unlike the first two panels there was very little back and forth with the audience on this one actually, which I was cool with, as the panelists were really interesting.  Some highlights:

So that's about it.  I'm more awake now but I should probably try and sleep. 

It's been kind of a tough week.  Work's been kicking my butt.  If I could take the rest of the summer off and write, I would absolutely do it.  I actually haven't done any new writing this week, but have been outlining my butt off and am hoping to plow through the next part this weekend.  Of course, I also have the Fourth Street Fantasy Con to go too, which is going to be awesome.  I'm really nervous about it, but I figure I'm just going to bring my alphasmart and if I end up being all anti-social and crap I'll just enjoy the panels and write.

Yesterday I watched the second to last disk of the third season of BSG (The Woman King, A Day in  the Life, Dirty Hands and Maelstrom).  ( Some spoilers about character background, not really plot spoilers, but I figure cut to be safe. )

Writing Advice Database

Before You Start

How to format your manuscript
It's important to have a good premise...
But execution is more important than originality
Are you the right person to write that book? (nonfiction)
Why you shouldn't follow trends
Can you turn your blog into a book?
Novels with disaffected male protagonists are common; it's important to make yours really stand out
Should you write in first person or third person?
Are you sure you want to genre hop?
Do you have a plot?
You Tell Me responses: What are your favorite books on writing?


The Writing Process

The limits of verisimilitude
What is pacing?
Is your dialogue stilted?
Is there such a thing as being too controversial?
Avoiding non-said/asked dialogue tags
How to work with a co-writer
Your characters have to have the power to make a choice for that choice to resonate
You should probably go easy on the similes
The importance of complexity, as demonstrated by The Wire
Character and plot are inseparable
Are you sure you want to begin with dialogue?
Is your protagonist sufficiently sympathetic?
Does your novel have enough conflict?
You Tell Me responses: What makes for good dialogue?
Do you (and your readers) know what your characters want?
You Tell Me responses: What is the best writing advice you've received?
You Tell Me responses: What is the worst writing advice you've received?


Revising

You Tell Me responses: When do you follow/ignore advice about your writing?
You Tell me responses: How do you revise?
You Tell me responses: How do you know when your novel is finished?
Comprehensive revision checklist


Genres and Classification

What makes literary fiction literary?
The difference between young adult and adult fiction
Commercial fiction isn't quite a genre
Book club fiction
The difference between mysteries, suspense, and thrillers
When in doubt, go with the section of a bookstore your book would be categorized in


Staying sane during the writing/publishing process

When should you give up?
The perils of overconfidence
It's not you, it's the odds
You Tell Me responses: how do you deal with writer's block?
Dealing with negativity
Dealing with frustration
You Tell Me responses: How do you handle rejections?
10 Commandments for the happy writer

I couldn't get the color on this right (I thought it made me look like I had poison oak all over my back) so black and white it is!  The tattoo is black anyhow, so nothing's being lost.

Generated from Wordle when I put in the entire text of my novel.  So cool!  Also, I need to do something about all those thoughts and thinks.

Copied from Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent.

- Does the main plot arc initiate close enough to the beginning that you won't lose the reader?

- Does your protagonist alternate between up and down moments, with the most intense towards the end?

- Are you able to trace the major plot arcs throughout the book? Do they have up and down moments?

- Do you have enough conflict?

- Does the reader see both the best and worst characteristics of your main characters?

- Do your characters have backstories and histories? Do these impact the plot?

- Is the pacing correct for your genre? Is it consistent?

- Is your voice consistent? Is it overly chatty or sarcastic?

- Is the tense completely consistent? Is the perspective consistent?

- Is there sufficient description that your reader feels grounded in the characters' world?

- Is there too much description?

- Are momentous events given the weight they deserve?

- Look closely at each chapter. If you can take out a chapter and the plot will still make sense, is it really necessary? Should some events be folded in with others?

- Do the relationships between your characters develop and change and become more complicated as the book goes on?

- What do your characters want? Is it apparent to the reader? Do they have both conscious and unconscious motivations?

- Do you know what your writing tics are? Do you overuse adverbs, metaphors, facial expressions, non-"said" dialogue tags, or interjections? Have you removed them?

- Do you overuse certain words or phrases? Is your word choice perfect throughout?

- Does your book come to a completely satisfying conclusion? Does it feel rushed?

- Do your main characters emerge from the book irrevocably changed?

- Are your characters distinguishable? Does it make sense to combine minor characters?

I've been putting off taking my cat George to the vet for about a year.  I was raised with a lot of cats who pretty much took care of themselves.  They weren't neglected, but we didn't take them to the vet very often either unless it was an emergency.  Since he's an indoor cat, I don't see the point of annual check ups.  That said, his brother dying was really hard for me and I really do love this cat.

So I made an appointment and told them that 1. he is not declawed and 2. he's very difficult.  I figure that they're used to dealing with tough animals.  I managed to get him into the carrier this morning without too much trouble and immediately he starts yowling.  I walk the three blocks to the vet (oh, and it's raining) and get there to find out that his records haven't been faxed from the old vet yet.  Okay, no huge deal there.  I wait around for a bit then we take him into the back.

The vet opens up the carrier by taking the top off and George jumped out and goes into the corner.  The vet goes to pick him up and he manages to wiggle behind the refrigerator.  The vet says the he didn't know this was possible.  George is not a tiny cat, either.  I'd say he's on the small end of average.  This is him a year ago, and he's put on weight since then.



In any case, they moved the refrigerator, got him out, but the vet said that in order to do anything with him they'd have to anesthetize him, and that they wouldn't be able to manage it with the carrier I have now, so I took him home.  Now I'm wondering how long he's going to be upset.  I guess I'll find out tonight if he comes to say goodnight.  He almost always jumps up on my bed to be petted when I'm going to sleep.

The vet didn't charge me for the visit, but I'm upset that I put George through that for nothing, and I'm upset because I suspect that something happened to him in his first few weeks of life that made him so frightened of people.  He was twelve weeks old when we adopted him and his brother, and while they were both very skittish, George was always worse than Fred, who ended up being very affectionate towards me in the last few weeks of his life.  His tail is kinked at the end and was healed when we first saw him, so obviously something happened there when he was very young.  It could have been a lot of things, but given his attitude even after so long I feel like a person must have done it.  He's been living with me for two years and still he often runs when I move towards him, jumps at quick movements and does not tolerate being picked up.

Le sigh.  Oh, and just to put icing on the fail cake, I seem to have strained my wrist somewhere in this whole mess.  Awesome!



*Fail cake stolen from Cake Wrecks

My alarm went off at 9:30 this morning.  I hit snooze until about 10:30, because I'm a total snooze fiend when I sleep alone.  Bad habit.  Whatever.  Got up, made a pot of Earl Gray.  Caught up on my blogs.  The second round of BlizzCon tickets sold out in five minutes or something goofy like that.  I'm bummed not to be going, but even if I had decided to go, seems like it would have been pretty tough to get tickets.

Called the vet and made an appointment for George to get checked out.  He's overdue for another round of shots and whatnot.  I was able to get an appointment for next Saturday morning, which is quite nice.  I don't look forward to George trying to kill me when I put him in the carrier (I'm glad I still have the one I keep forgetting to return to Ben's parents, as it's larger than the one that's actually mine), or to him sulking for weeks after he gets home again (I really hope I'm exagerating that part).

The rest of the morning I've been playing WoW (my death knight Haramis is level 68 and just started Northrend) and thinking about my novel (I SWEAR!).  This is about what I've been doing all week actually.  I'm at a spot where the rest of the chapter I'm working on it mostly going to be heavily edited scenes I've already written as opposed to brand new scenes like the first 2/3rds of the chapter, but I need a transition between the new and old stuff and have been futzing with it in my mind trying to think of a perfect way to do it.  I suspect I need to just suck it up and write something, regardless of whether it's a shining beacon of amazing, then move on.  

It looks amazing outside, so the question is do I a) play wow for another hour or two until the sun is a bit less directly overhead, then go for a walk around the lake, then come home and write, or do I b) suck it up, put on a hat and go for a walk now, then come home and write.  Sub options involve bringing something with me to the lake to write (though the editing I need to do makes that tricky) and/or going out again after my walk and writing at a cafe.  Considering I owe the dentist $550 for a crown, rent is due and I have a doctor's appointment, eye exam and vet visit lined up, I think I'll want to skip the going out to a cafe part.

Decisions decisions.

I just registered for the Fourth Street Fantasy Convention.  Haven't done anything like this before and I'm going on my own, so I'm pretty nervous, but it looks like a good group of people, and I figured I should go for it and not let myself not do something cool because I'm scared.  So there!

Note to self: jogging is all well and good, but next time, look up a good stretching regimen FIRST.  At least now only one of my legs hurts instead of two.  Lame.

Also, does anyone know how to change language settings for LJ?  I have it so that all the back end stuff is in English, but can't get the German off the front end.