Write Stuff: August 2009

Friday, August 28, 2009

Regrets

I had a great evening out with my friend, finally getting around to see The Time Travelers Wife. I adored this book, and the movie was pretty good. Thankfully I didn't bawl quite as much as I did at the end as I did while reading it. At any rate, while running afterward, I started thinking--if there were one thing (or more than one) that I could go back and tell my past self to avoid, what would it be? Would I win the lottery, like in the movie? Probably not (okay, only if I only had one shot, otherwise, yeah, I'll admit it, I would give myself the winning numbers and move to Tahiti).

Really, there are two things I might tell myself to do differently: not go to grad school, or to never start writing. The first because although grad school's all fine and dandy, it's been a long haul and often I wonder if it's worth it. I probably could have gotten my masters and taught at a junior college and been plenty happy. The other option, to stop writing, is something I think about from time to time. I love to write, and I know it's a big part of who I am, but it's also a massive time-sink and what do I have to show for it? Some lousy, not very original stories that I had a little fun writing while not tending to my husband or other school stuff? I tell myself that it should be about anything other than doing it for me, but I'll admit that some part of me wishes there was something more to it. Or that I just didn't suck.

Anyhow, in the world of regrets, these are my big ones. I'm not sure if they're really regrets, yet, but they certainly feel like it sometimes.

Of course, there's always that time I got stuck in the boy's locker room in junior high. I certainly could like without that!

Titles

By: Meradeth Houston on 3:01 AM

(It would seem that I have used this title for a previous post. Hmm. Good to know.)

I really hate titles. I mean, I like reading them on other people's work, but I really have a hard time coming up with them for my own stuff. At any rate, I've been attempting to come up with something for my novella wip. I've spent the last hour going through my chapters, searching for tidbits, words, other stuff that might work. It all pretty much sucked. I have a nice list though, and reading through it now makes me want to laugh. I have to tell myself that it's all part of brainstorming, otherwise I'd never write anything down (though maybe that would be better than "the truth" because that just downright sucks). At any rate, the list has a few decent ones on it, and the one I like best:

The Chemistry of Fate

I have to write it all by itself like that to see how it looks :) Anyhow, I like it, and I think it may stick for a bit, at least until I realize how much it, too, must go the way of all the earth. Or I find that it's been used before (though searching on google and amazon didn't bring anything up).

Goat Drama, or why I have kids and not children

By: Meradeth Houston on 5:52 AM

(ever come up with a title and just have to write a post about it? Maybe it's just me...)

Have you ever noticed how much a family's profession can influence the kids? DH comes from a family of lawyers. They like to argue. A lot. This is all fine and dandy, except that, ya know, I don't. I come from a family of health-professionals. We tend to like to discuss science, and the crazy guy who somehow managed to get one of those long gummy lures used in fishing sucked inside his male-member (don't ask me how, but yeah. Imagine that one. Now, imagine this story being told at the dinner table when you have a date with you.) So, what does this have to do with goats? Well, there's been this little incident lately:

Occasionally on here I decide to share a little about what it's like to live on a ranch. At any rate, living in the country is what I love, and I also love my goats. Incidentally, I hate sheep (stupid, stinky, dirty animals!), so although we randomly have a sheep or two, it's my herd of pygmy goats that keeps my heart. DH got me a goat when we first moved back to my family's ranch to take care of the property, and he's been our "dog" for the past five years. Niels Bohr (yes, we are nerds, he's a Boer goat, and my husband couldn't resist the physics pun) follows us around, sleeps on our steps, and is overall the best goat on the planet.

Two months ago, we made The Move. Into town. UGH. I'm not a town person (which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I enjoy keeping the blinds open a lot, which is something that's not so great when you have neighbors). But, this meant leaving Niels behind on the ranch, under the care of my mom. Well, as it always will happen, the day before we left, Neils got hurt. Somehow or another he ended up with a back injury. The vet said he'd probably gotten in a fight with another goat and had taken a horn the wrong way. Personally, I think it was an emu. Bed-rest and staying away from the other goats was what he needed.

That was two months ago. Today, Neils is doing better. His back legs don't wobble the way they did, and although he still has some problems walking in circles (yeah, try getting a goat to do that), he's looking pretty good. DH, however, does not think so. At all. Like he vehemently denies that Niels is even a little bit better. It's led to all sorts of really fun arguments, which I'm sure have led our neighbors to really wonder what is wrong with us.

And this, ladies and gents, is why we don't have children. In case you were wondering. If we can't even agree on what kind of treatment for our pet, I'm not going to put up with when it's a person. (And right about now, I'm liking goats a whole lot more than certain people!)

Friday Five

By: Meradeth Houston on 2:35 PM

Somehow or another it's gotten to be Friday. Friday night, no less! What am I doing? Playing on the net. Because I'm a total nerd. At any rate, today's been a busy day and I did get out with my mom and sister to watch them get their nails done, then share yummy Mexican food and sit around laughing til we were crying. Fun times! At any rate, my five for today:

I finished my novella! Whohoo! I even typed in "the end" which is something that I never do. Now, I'm editing. I managed to get through the first page this morning, realized how much work this is going to be, and went out to breakfast :-) After writing this, I plan on tackling that all-important second page.
This week I managed to book my tickets to Mexico. I'll be heading down there for a chunk of September to collect some samples and visit a friend. I'll get to spend Independence Day down there, which should be awesome. I've got to start watching Spanish TV again (my fav way of making my Spanish brain start working again).
I haven't heard back on a single query this week. Gah! I keep telling myself "no news is good news" but it basically makes me start worrying my email has gone haywire. Still, no new rejections, and I need to get my partial request in the mail.
I spent a good chunk of today reading "Race is a 4-Letter Word" by C. Loring Brace. It's about the history of the concept of race, for the class I'll be teaching in the fall. I love this topic! Totally fascinating :-)
I've also been reading the Vampire Academy novels (thank you Davis library) and have been really enjoying them. There's a signing by Richelle Mead and Lili St. Crow in SF later this month and I hope I can talk my crit partner into going with me!

Hmm, those are seriously boring. At any rate, whatever, I'm off to revisions!

"The End"

By: Meradeth Houston on 1:35 AM

Lately, I've been working on something new. It's a novella for an anthology (have I mentioned this before? Bah, whatever, I'm saying it again), and it's been going pretty well. I managed to reach the required word-count a few days ago and have been steady building toward the ending. Right now, my characters are languishing in the middle of a very tense scene, complete with a nasty decision that must be made. And I'm totally stuck.

The pathetic part is I know exactly why I'm stuck. I hate endings. I hate finishing books, leaving a great movie, watching good friends move away, etc. I just don't particularly want to leave that world right now. It's been a fun place to live for the past months. It's gotta be done though, and today I'm going to force one of the MC's into something she's probably not going to like me very much for, but it's the only way I'll get to "the end."

The other problem I'm facing is a little more troublesome: I know how the story needs to end (thanks to the anthology guidelines), but what I've written doesn't fit the requirements well. Ooops. I know I can fix this during revisions, but right now it's making it super hard to get those two little words down on the page. I'm bending characters to my will, not exactly what they'd do if I just let them. This makes me feel like some sort of cruel over-lord who forces people to abase themselves at his feet. Okay, maybe not, but kinda. :-)

All right, it's time to get those two little words down on paper. (Then it's time to come up with some kind of working title...*gulp*)

Back to the Big Bad World

By: Meradeth Houston on 8:12 AM

Of queries.

Yep, folks, today it's back to the agentless world of awesome. I sent out an email earlier and now it's back to the agent-hunt. I probably shouldn't call it a "hunt" but considering all the research (as some have put it, stalking) that goes into this process, well, maybe it fits bit better than one might think. It does help that I've already got a full out there with someone (*ahem* dream agent *ahem*), which is the result of a long and confusing tale. Still, I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Really, all this has been quite a test of my determination. I want to be published. I want to do it right. I want an agent who believes in me and my work, especially when I think it's all a bunch of crap. That's what I'm going to be searching for now. No looking back! Still, there's that little voice in my mind asking "well, if you'd been good enough to start with, you wouldn't have had this problem." Grrr! I hate that little voice. Too bad it isn't easy to get him to shove it. All I can do is go back to my lists, see who I got requests from last time and I didn't send to because I'd already accepted elsewhere, and check out all the shiny new agents that are out there now (holy cow, there's been an agent Explosion!). It is time to move forward.

So, back to the trenches for me. A little wiser this time, too :-)