And Research

As I was saying, my post-NaNo resolution this year is to write more--daily. I plan to spend at least an hour per day writing...and/or doing research for my novel. I'm really excited about this one. It's an idea I came up with five or six years ago. Today I spent time learning about making swords and the difference between European swords and Japanese katana. I also learned that swords were a weapon of last resort and not one of primary use. My next novel includes quite a bit of sword making and sword fighting, so I need all the books I can find on sword play and swordsmanship and blacksmithing. Movies might also be nice. I know I was watching quite a bit of Inuyasha when I had the dream that gave me the idea for the trilogy. Oh, yeah, did I mention this was going to be a trilogy? Yep. It'll be my first. Today I found a few good sources online that have a recommended reading list. I checked out my local library and discovered that the search functionality is not quite what I had hoped it would be, which is a shame. I'll have to bring that up to the right person at the right time.

Speaking of which, I have a job interview next Tuesday. Wish me luck!

What I Learned from NaNo This Year

I learned that I can spend more time writing. My post-NaNo resolution is to spend at least one hour a night writing--writing anything.

If I Had Any Spare Time with Books That Would Like to Live in Another Form

I came across this blog post and thought it was amazing. I thought it was even better when I found out that no one knows who the artist is as s/he leaves the artwork behind with a little note to the organization or about the piece. It makes me want to read these books, which may have been the point behind making the pieces. I especially want to read the one about the dragon if it exists, which I think it might not yet.

The Help

I am in a book club, and the pick for last month was The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I liked it well enough, but what I found annoying was the fact that she needed a better editor. The character descriptions were inconsistent and some of the story left me feeling short changed. Instead of investing a little more on the outcome of a certain character, that character was just killed off. It's not that I particularly loved the character or anything, but it was a pretty decent part of what motivated the main character. I think that character deserved a little more than "oh, she died." The story was good, though. What I found I could take away from this book, though, was the need for me to work hard to maintain consistency in my own writing. I saw a few tricks other people did when I was reading the review for a book I was thinking about purchasing. The author was talking about author rituals and how she used to have one and had heard of other rituals other authors do. One I found interesting was making a collage for each of the characters to incorporate what they look like, their likes, etc. I think I may try this. I don't really have much room to display them while I'm working on my novel, but I think it would be better to keep it small enough to put in a file that I can carry around with me. Maybe I should put Photoshop on this laptop and create digital versions or I could scan the physical ones I create. So many options...oh, dear, could this turn into a procrastination method?

TLA

I've just returned from two days at the Texas Library Association Conference in Austin. For the first time I must say I had a really good time there. My previous trips to Austin had left me with the feeling that Austin felt like the least Texan town I had ever been in. This time I didn't really have that feeling. People were friendly and warm. Maybe it was the influence of hundreds of librarians being in the city...

I presented for the first time on the rights research I've been doing for Houston Public Library. I was on a panel of three, the other two being the Vice President of Digital Services at Baylor University and the other being the Copyright Librarian at University of Michigan. When I first was invited to be on the panel and I found out who the others were, my thoughts were, "Oh my God! Who am I to be on this panel. I'm just a student...!" Then my good friend Nicole set me straight saying I'd be fine because I'm the one in the trenches, so to speak, doing the actual work. Well, after hearing the presentations of the others, I realized she may have been a little off on that assessment, but it did what I needed: a little self-esteem boost, a little encouragement. I must say I think I did en excellent job on my presentation. I wasn't nervous at all. I got some laughs in the right places and people asking good questions that I knew the answers to. The best part was afterward, the VP from Baylor handed me his card and said to give him a call when I graduated. I think that was a pretty nice compliment.

At this conference I also go to meet Karen Coyle. How big a nerd am I that I'm still bouncing a little inside when I think about having met her? She gave a great talk about the future of the semantic web. Once I finish my school work, I plan to think more about the ideas I had while listening to her presentation and to read more about the current developments. I agree with her that while the computer nerds, as she put it, have done a lot, it really is up to librarians to help push this forward in the direction it needs to go since we have the experience thinking about how users search and what a useful interface would look like for them and, really, for all of us.

Another Spot

I've been following a writing blog called The Red Dress Club, and every week they post a writing prompt and if I write it then I link up on Friday to show what I've written. This week's prompt has to do with writing a story using mainly dialogue to move the story, which reminded me of something I wrote a while back ago. It's called "Another Spot". Here it is.

“Well, I’m off,” the young one said.

“Where are you going tonight, Darling?” She said.

“I don’t really know. Some place where I’ll smoke and drink and have sex with anyone who asks nicely or at least tells me I’m the most beautiful thing they’ve seen in the past hour,” the young one said.

“But you’re not twenty-one yet. Do you know a place that will let you drink despite your age?” She said.

“Doesn’t matter. I have a fake ID. Says I’m twenty-three,” the young one said.

“Brilliant. Simply brilliant,” he said. “What if someone asks your sign?”

“Darling, I don’t think that’s really appropriate. ‘What’s you’re sign’ went out with the seventies,” she said.

“Well, I was just trying to prepare her, Love,” he said.

“Well, I really need to get going,” the young one said and left.

“You know, Love, I like her the best out of all the others. The others were just so boring…not quite real like this one…What’s her name again? Love isn’t it?” he said.

“No, I think it’s Darling,” she said.

“Well, whatever her name is, I really like her. She’s great…How is it she got here?” he said.

“Oh you remember, that stork brought her and dropped her sown the chimney,” she said.

“No, that was the first one. Remember? The one with the weird chemically reactive skin. When we first took her out of the chimney she was black but whenever water hit her skin she would start turning white,” he said.

“Oh yes, now I remember, Darling,” she said. “We had to keep dropping her down the chimney to keep her skin from changing too much. Poor dear, to be born with such an affliction…”

“As I recall that one didn’t stay here too long. Whatever happened to that one?” he said.

“She got herself stuck in the middle of the chimney stack somehow and wouldn’t come out…even when we tried to smoke her out. She was so stubborn,” she said.

“And messy, too,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said.

“I know. Maybe she was the one you digested. You know, the one that came out of your stomach,” he said.

“Oooooh. I really didn’t like that one. She was so ugly. No, definitely not this one. Remember? We left that one with all those others with those people dressed in white. I mean they did have all those others. What could one more hurt?” she said.

“Oh yeah. That one was ugly,” he said.

“I remember!” She said, “that one morning…the doorbell rang and woke us up really early. We opened the door and there she was in the basket—“

“Crying. No, I remember that one. The noisy one. Definitely not our…our…ours.” I especially hated that one. She was so noisy. I remember petting her, letting her play with the dogs, everything, but to no avail. She just kept crying and yelling. Oh! How I hated her,” he said.

“Oh, yes. Sorry to bring up such an awful memory, Darling,” she said.

“So how did this one—this wonderful one get here to be our joy and happiness?” he said.

“Hmmm…let me see. Okay. Think back to right before she was here. When was that?” she said.

“Ah…yes. It was ten years ago. I saw her at the county fair looking so lost and sad so I decided to go and talk to her, buy her some cotton candy or something. She was such a dear. So adorable, I just had to have her. I just had to bring her home to meet you. And I did and you loved her, too. And now ten years later we’re still happy. The three of us living happily ever after,” he said.

“That’s us. You, me, and…and…Alice?” she said.

“You really think it’s Alice?” he said.

“I’m not sure. Remind me to ask her the next time we see her,” she said.

“Of course, Love,” he said.

To Edit or Not

I was still trying to decide if I should edit my NaNoWriMo novel or not. Then I read this blog posting about editing the first draft of a novel. I think I will take the advice posted there and start working on something else. There's a story Joy and I were working on last year and I really got into it before I had to drop it for something mundane like school work or work work or something like that. Lately, though, those characters have been enacting very interesting scenes that I really want to write. And soon. I'm excited about this next project, which means I should start on it right away before the inspiration leaves me and then it becomes work requiring effort and I won't have a NaNoWriMo deadline pushing me to write more more more!