Personal rating: 5/5 stars

Personal rating: 3/5 stars

• Tarcher Top Artist: Drawing Competition: Although the deadline for the writing competition has passed, there’s still just over a month left to enter the drawing competition, based on Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. (Guess this is as good a reason as anything to get the book which has been on my to-buy list for a while now.)
• Etymology of First Names: I enjoy knowing where certain names come from; it helps me decide if a name has the right ring of appropriateness for a particular character. Plus the site has other interesting “name” type lists.
• Interview with Camilla D’Errico: I recently discovered D’Errico’s artwork and it mesmerized me.
• dotEPUB and EPUB Creator: A couple of tools for helping to make an EPUB file (sometimes out of a webpage).
• Month of Letters Challenge: Everyone loves to receive something other than bills or junk mail in the (snail)mailbox. Although the month is over, the spirit lives on. Send someone a letter. It might even help you become a better writer.
• Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret: The goal is to not break the chain. (h/t Ms. Bookish)

It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing this blog, it’s just that my mind jumps around quite a bit and sometimes I become so paralyzed by the possibilities that I don’t get around to writing at all (or I do and the result is…erratic). But I’ve been thinking about this blog and my hopes for it and realize it needs a tighter focus, but I still want it to incorporate all the things I enjoy: writing, reading, art.

With that thought bouncing around in my head, I decided I should sit down and sketch out a rough publishing schedule with planned topics. Part of the reason I didn’t do this sooner is because I had a strange notion that blogs (well, certain blogs under which my blog fell) should be spontaneous and shouldn’t be planned lest they become dull and uninspiring. What a silly notion that was. Because I now realize that this blog’s posts can be planned and still be inspiring and fun.

As it stands I’ve planned out a 7 day publishing schedule with a different area of focus for each day. One feature I’m particularly excited about is the (Short) Short Story Sunday where I plan to publish 5,000 (or fewer) word short stories based on story cubes or an inspiring picture. I also hope to open this up to other authors who may wish to participate. I figure it could be a fun writing exercise.

For now I’m happy with the proposed publishing schedule and I am praying it doesn’t become an exercise in futility.

So, I’ll just add my spare change: I’m a creative type. I write. I make art. Take photographs. Create software. I even make music. You know what else? I’ve also had my work pirated. In some cases I didn’t mind because, well, it was free advertising, but in a few instances, it stung for a minute until I brainstormed ways to (successfully) use it to my advantage.

But I’m veering too far off course. My point is, although I’m a creative, the type of person these bills are essentially designed to protect from piracy, I think it’s all a crock. These bills will do absolutely nothing to curb piracy or protect people like me and will do absolutely everything to stifle creativity and innovation.

Scenario: You write something that criticizes something else, using excerpts under Fair Use, but the person whose work you’re criticizing decides she doesn’t like it and calls foul. She then posts a link to a seedy pirate site on your site via comments (you know, so you look like a pirate supporter) and then all she’d need to do is send a letter to the ISPs and payment processors and advertisers (assuming you’re selling your books or have advertising on your site) to have them deny access to your site and cut all ties with you—due process be damned. If you’re not flush with money to fight it, you’re dead in the water.

Yes I believe something should be done about piracy, but SOPA/PIPA surely isn’t it.

Take a moment to learn up on the subject at AmericanCensorship.org and then call your congressperson.

I’m not making unreasonable demands of myself and expecting to be a completely different person in a day or two, I’m setting small reasonable goals which will (I hope) lead to the accomplishment of my larger goals.

One of those new smaller, more reasonable goals is simply to tell the story first and then refine it later. One of the reasons I have difficulty finishing a writing project is because somewhere during the process I start questioning the eloquence of the writing, the logic of the situations, or the general quality of it. No more.

Will it work? Not sure, but it’s certainly worth a try.

Sometimes I write like a woman possessed for hours on end. Words drench the pages like a frenzied summer storm. Other days a drought has settled.

Sometimes the block sneaks up on you. You start a brand new work with zeal for miles only to have that passion fizzle out a few pages in.

Then the block stays just long enough for your inner critic to set up house in the forefront of your mind and tell you all the reasons why you shouldn’t even bother writing in the first place. (Most of which seems to begin with, “You don’t know how to start that sentence.”)

But, in learning to fight this internal demon — The Block — I’ve discovered there is really only one thing you can do to disarm him: Write.

Write a postcard, write a fleeting thought, or write a grocery list. What you write doesn’t matter so much as the fact that you’re writing. Then, write a little more each day and keep it flowing.

And if that demon begins to rear his ugly head again, pick up your sword and cut him deeply with your words.

But yesterday I was able to get back on the writing bandwagon and churned out a couple thousand words in the story. I also fell in love with it all over again because I now have a clearer picture of where it’s going.

When I decided to call it an evening, I was struck with a teeny bit of insomnia. Instead of cracking open the netbook to write some more, I grabbed a sheet of copy paper and my pen and did a doodle of one of my main characters.

Her (temporary) name is Elestine. She’s not human. However, she’s lost all memory of who and what she truly is and why she’s where she is. And there’s a scene in the story where she cries…putting a point of her not-normal-ness since her tears aren’t exactly liquid. That was the inspiration for the illustration.

And because I wanted to illustrate a few aspects of her physical appearance, I decided to add a splash of colour. (The scan is horrid. I’m sorry.)

Yes, her hair and eyes and lips are a greyish blue colour. And yes, I’m aware that those also should have been giveaways of her not-normal-ness, but it’s complicated…and, I hope, properly handled in the story.

Finally, the feathers. No, she is not an angel. However, the feathers do offer a clue as to where she’s from.

Here’s hoping that I can get a couple thousand more words written today.

WORD COUNT: 7,762

And yes, Day 3 is missing because I wrote a grand total of zero words and there’s no good way to summarize that. (Not sweating it, though. It’s still early. I have time.)

Today I only wrote about 1000 words. It’s not what I anticipated, but it’s progress. Now without further fanfare, the shitty first paragraph:

Elestine looked over at her mother before returning to her studies. She wondered if there might be a way to escape, but she knew that her mother was aware of everything that happened in the room, even if she didn’t show it. Elestine’s punishment was bad enough; she didn’t need to make it worse.

Even though midnight is around the corner, I’m going to continue writing until I’m face down and drooling on my notebook.

WORD COUNT: 4,458