let's get lost, me & you

[ontology]

Been feeling terrifically topsy-turvy of late -- more an hour-by-hour thing than "yesterday was rubbish but today is rather nice". Lots of whoosh. I don't like it very much; I'd like to be simply and effectively clear-headed. Then I feel like a rational creature and I get things done. (Although I worry that if I get too clear-headed I realise the full magnitude of sundry worries, failures, and faults, and get horribly sick ... ) 

Jonathan fixed the laptop I was using last summer, so here I am interneting in my bedroom, carefully propping up the screen with pillows, so that if the velcro stick gives way, the screen won't fall backwards and turn the computer off and possibly destroy it forever, it'll just -- slump a little. Anyway, the bedroom laptop is good, because as I recall last time things were thus, I spent less time on the internet, but got more done. (There is the initial "INTERNET!!!" phase in which one spends too much time at Tv Tropes and posts on Twitter every ten minutes, but that wanes, eventually.) I may even show up on instant message clients ever so often. You never know. (Also I am using an OS that is not Windows for the first time in my life. It is quite curious, but surprisingly not very difficult to get accustomed to.) 

But really I am hoping to get some writing done. I am writing a short story which I will not describe, because talking about anything I happen to work on seems to lead inevitably to its premature demise, but I am wavering between liking it a lot and not liking the direction it's taking (my narrator's voice isn't as good as it as it started out; I actually have no firsthand knowledge of how high school works, and since high school is, by requirement, a large part of this poor story, I am floundering miserably). At least I am writing, though, yeah? Perhaps I might even take a very very deep breath and plunge back into the Evangeline story ...

The Day Off has been a moderate success: books came in for me at the library, and I went out to fetch them -- and, ah, the local candy shop is right on the way home; it was utterly unavoidable. Look, if peppermint truffles were whispering your name, how well could you hold out? I THOUGHT AS MUCH. And I have just finished the task that I end up having every day off: cleaning the bedroom. What with work and being profoundly depressed a lot lately it has been getting into its disaster state more quickly and thoroughly than ever of late.

Comments

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

Did...did my Evangeline notes and stuff help at all? Maybe a little?

Heh, I don't think my having my own computer, with reliable internet, has done anything for my productivity...actually it's probably decreased it. That's kind of ridiculous. But maybe you might show up on Skype or MSN or something? I'm signed in on those most of the time, if not Facebook and/or Gmail.

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

I'm ... not actually sure yet. Which sounds kind of terrible in actual words, but ... you're right, the really big central things I have to think of myself. And the fact that these things elude me in every single major story project is endlessly frustrating. Maybe I'm thinking too big. Maybe I should find the simplest possible answer and run with it.

(Have been thinking about Mr Caruthers' past a lot. He is rapidly turning into the most fascinating character of all; hilarious as he was not in any of the plot outlines I sketched before NaNo.)

Oh oh oh! I tried to use my old MSN name and Hotmail probably ate it for inactivity, so I have got a new one, only I am using a wacky programme which allows me to combine all of my instant message accounts into one? So, I'm not actually sure how to add you, but I am themoonhaslosthermemory@hotmail.com.

[airys1.livejournal.com]

Adding with third-party IM clients can work, but it depends...some have an add buddy function and others don't. Which one are you using? If it's one I'm familiar with, I could possibly help :)

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

Well, the huge major things are the most important, of course, so it probably makes sense that they take the longest to figure out. I still don't have a good chunk of Thieves' Honor figured out, but I've had brainstorms over the past few years that have opened it up in huge ways--the whole Daemin-killed-his-mother thing, the Massacre, etc. etc. It's taken forever, of course, but then that's just when I wait for the brainstorms to happen--times when I've sat down and said, okay, let's force something out here, and started turning over a character's motivation or plot point or whatever in my head and writing out the problems in it I need to solve, I almost invariably make some kind of breakthrough. Freewriting can actually help--just sit down with a blank document and start rambling about the plot questions you haven't solved and what the problems are, and throwing out random solutions. Maybes can get you places.

Well, you know, probably. Different writers work in different ways.

Also, Evangeline = good messenger = light-bringer. That's probably the connection I was trying for. Or something.

[airys1.livejournal.com]

Your laptop sounds so cute...in the way you have to baby it. That's just...awesome in some way.

[tobie-rosemary.livejournal.com]

I remember that laptop. :)