Category: Uncategorized

Here’s a story I’d like to tell…

by Shoshana, posted in Uncategorized

So here we are again, sleep and I, estranged and unloving bedfellows. We should be snuggling up, enjoying some dreams about sexy television stars (my friends know I’m a sucker for Castiel from Supernatural), but alas, we are parted by silence and unkind stares. That’s a super dramatic way of saying I took a nap this afternoon after doing the last of my holiday shopping (I’m really done, I swear this time!) and now I can’t sleep. So I decided to update here.

My writing has taken a back seat to a big dilemna in my persona life right now. For a very long time, I’d been deciding what to do for a future career. There was always a large part of me that was drawn to law enforcement and another huge, galloping, tremendous part of me that wanted to be a writer. When I entered college, I was sure that no matter what happened, I couldn’t take up writing as a career because there was no future in it. The world is full of people saying that they have a novel that they’ve been writing,  and even those who do get into the business are usually poor, starving things who hope to not be a hack and want to be as big as the big names they’ve always looked up to. Me, I wanted to be able to pay my bills and eat, so I chose to go into film. Yeah, I was real smart. Lookit me. S-M-R-T. End of college and I realize I not only didn’t want to get into film, it wasn’t going to make me happy and I wasn’t motivated by it. So I decided to seek out the things I love in life. That came down to becoming a cop or writing.

Two diametrically opposed notions, right? Most definitely.

I took the police exam, and aced it. Like, flying frickin’ colors. I looked at the possibility that, if I lost weight and got in shape, I could legitimately be a police officer. It’s a good job. It’s something I wanted to be since I was a little girl. It’s a career I can be proud of. There is just one problem.

I’m a writer. I wake up wanting to write. I breath writing. I talk about it constantly. I have ideas for stories coming out of my ears. And when I’m not writing, I’m not happy.

If I became a cop, there would be no time for writing, no energy. I would be breaking my head to become the physical specimen that I would need to be to become a police officer. I wouldn’t be able to write, consistently, in any way that would be good when I’d be tired all the time.

So while I was waiting for the local hiring freeze to wear off for the police department, I decided instead to go to graduate school for writing. I came up with some great ideas of where to go. I went to some open houses. I got some great feedback from teachers, from people I spoke to at these schools. It seemed that I could get my MFA, teach, and go forward as a writer and teacher. The idea thrilled me. It made me so happy I can’t describe. Sure, I’d be giving up one dream to live another. It was less sure, however, monitarily. In fact, it meant wagering a lot on how good I might be, and that… is less something I can do with a clear conscience. But I had decided.

Just as I was filling out applications, the police department called to start processing my application. The hiring freeze is over.

So now the dilemna begins. Do I go forward with the police department or graduate school? Which part of my heart do I follow?

I’m still writing. I’m trying to find money for graduate school applications. I am, in fact, working my tail off to get all this lined up by the deadline. I have less than a month to get most of these out and filled out. But the fact is, nothing is for certain. The police department is less certain because of my weight. Grad school is also uncertain because they don’t take everyone. Nothing is for certain but I keep trying anyway so at least one of my dreams can be fulfilled.

Where writing fits into all that, I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up. I’ve just really begun, and I won’t let that go now.

Scrivener is my savior

by Shoshana, posted in Uncategorized

In the ongoing struggle against writer’s block and plot-holes the size of Howitzer tanks, I have started converting over my old projects to my new best writing-buddy, Scrivener. Along with the many other things that I got out of this year’s NaNo, I went ahead and got the best program for writing stuff that I have ever seen! I really love the interface and the side-menus allow me to separate parts of my story so I can edit with ease. I don’t know if you can tell, but I adore this program like madness. I’ve already brought over my large fantasy project and I’m bringing over my monstrosity that I nicknamed Big Pete as well.

If you’re a Mac User and feel like taking a chance on a good thing? Download yourself a free trial usage and then if you like it, pick it up? It does wonders.

Here on the insomnia bus I am, converting files.

It won’t go to my head, promise…

by Shoshana, posted in Uncategorized

So apparently, there’s a little more to this writing-dangerously win in NaNo this year. I got contacted tonight to be featured on the NaNo website’s Q&A section, picture and all. Here’s a link:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3471186

It kind of amazes me that I got put on the website and everything. Getting recognized for writing or for anything related to writing still feels strange to me. I really appreciate what they’ve done with NaNo and giving people a little boost, when they’re struggling to write, is an amazing boon. I actually turned bright red when I read the email asking me to do the Q&A. What a nice surprise!

It’s just redoubled my whole confidence in my writing, honestly. Not that I need someone giving me funny viking hat prizes and such, but as I said before, it’s nice to have someone point at the work you’re putting in and say ‘hey look, you’re working hard, nice one!’ I appreciate that so much from them.

The magic of NaNo and the Glory that is Victory!

by Shoshana, posted in Uncategorized

So there is nothing better in the world, I think, receiving a little bit of praise for something that is not often noticed or recognized as an accomplishment. That’s why I love NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) – it gives writers a chance to bust their chops to produce something in the month of November, 50,000 words in one month, and then get a little bit of a celebration for their accomplishing their goal. When you get down to it, writing is often a thankless creative outlet that can bring nothing but frustration and sleepless nights. This time, however, it has brought a little bit of fun and frolic along with the bouts of rampant creative-inspired insomnia.

For this year’s NaNo, I decided to try a different novel idea than what I had done previously in the past. The last three years, I wrote a trilogy of novels set during an apocalypse with demons and angels in them. This year, its a modern world with ancient and crazy gods. You can see how my  brain works, of course, to destroy the world blatantly in so many ways. I went for something a little more subtle, though, this time (and yes, I can hear you wondering – how are crazy gods actually less destructive? Oh they are!) and the result is a novel called Emerald Fires. This is the working title, of course, but for once in a long time… I think I have something here. I think I have a solid, creative idea that is actually a new take on something old and well-done to death. So the stats go down to this:

As of November 29:

  • Word Count: 52,972
  • Page Count: 149 (in manuscript format)
  • Chapters: 15

This new story is one I’m hoping to continue for the next little while, so I’m postponing the work I planned on doing for the other two huge projects of mine, Exeter and Big Pete (my monstrocities, as I call them).

Oh, and update! So instead of lugging about my current writing machine (two-year-old 15 inch macbook pro), I have decided to go much more portable which is a Dell Mini – I have gone to the land of the PC for a netbook. The little thing is driving me nuts, though, because the keyboard is smaller than my frickin’ hands, but we’ll see how it works out. I’m looking to upgrade my Macbook Pro anyway, so that will make my old machine a stay-at-home anyway… I just plan on making sure that writing for me is the most painless process possible, and lugging around a 15-inch macbook pro when you’ve got back pain like me? Not painless!

Speaking of painless, for any Mac user? Check out a program called Scrivener for writing. It is fantastic – helps compile everything into manuscript format for you, and on top of that? Helps you keep your research, old drafts, everything. I heartily enjoy it and it made NaNo-ing this year a dream.

Anyway, that’s it for now!

The Muse Visits Sometimes… and Sometimes, She Sets Up a Condo.

by Shoshana, posted in Uncategorized

I’m so happy about how much work I’ve been getting done recently in writing. It has been a very rough few months, personally, with a very drastic moving and preparing for the end of my college career. Things have been very up in the air monetarily and so all of these things are not conducive to me being very productive writing-wise. Instead of letting it get me down, however, the Muse has come down and started tapping me on the head. In fact, I’m pretty sure she’s set up a nice time-share here and is making me industrious.

I’ve been working on several projects and finished one the other day that I’m particularly proud of, all of which I will summarize below, but first I just wanted to say this: sometimes writing is hard. Sometimes, it comes effortlessly. And sometimes, you get into a writing fever that has you so caught up that your heart pounds and you actually feel the burn. This last one happened when I produced a short story recently and honestly, I thought I was some kind of nut until I realized… this happens to creative people. We get into the zone and we put everything into producing our piece of art. I actually sat there, eyes closed, typing as fast as my fingers would go, until I finally realized it was 3AM and I had to go to bed. This is the kid of fugue that I want to tap into more often because the writing I do is stellar. Anyway, on to the breakdown:

What I am Working On:

1) I recently got inspired by reading over a series of pre-teen/children’s books called Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which is being turned into a movie series very shortly. I suppose Hollywood realized that Harry Potter was going to be gone soon and they wanted another cash cow but this series is particularly well-done and I wanted to see what it was like. I bit through the entire series in a week and became very inspired on working on a kid’s concept myself. I think it might be a little age-confused (as in I can’t get the language to match the age market I’m looking to go for) but I really like it. It’s a super-hero genre story for pre-teens and its still in development.

2) The second piece of work which I started and finished within a week was a short story that evolved into a forty-page (single spaced) novella inspired by.. well, lots of things. It really came out of nowhere and became more than I could ever imagine it was going to be. This was the story that I ended up sweating over, as I mentioned above, and when it was finished I felt a sense of accomplishment that I never felt with my other stories. Not only is it a complete story but it creates a world around the characters and brings in elements of different kind of narrative that I love. It integrates the journal of a town sheriff whose town is being overrun by an evil and the journal is found by some vagrants years after, when the town is abandoned and empty and the sheriff long dead. I think its some of the best work I’ve done and very different than anything else I’ve ever put together before.

3) As soon as I finished with that story, the muse apparently wanted to whap me on the brain again because I started up a short story about vampires. I know, I know, everyone is doing vampires lately. Everyone and their brother thinks that because its hot and sexy, we should write more about vampires. The fact is, I wanted to see if I could do it too and do it in a different way than your typical ‘sexified’ vampire stories or, God forbid, sparkle sparkle vampires. I was very inspired by the short story collection that just came out called By Blood We Live, edited by John Joseph Adams. I have read his other collections (The Living Dead about, duh, zombies, and Wastelands, about post-apocalyptic worlds) and his choices in stories have always impressed me, so I’ve put it on my goals to get myself published in one of his collections one of these days. But first, I’m going to focus on getting published at all.

That reminds me, the next goal on my list. I’ve now got two stories, the one I just completed and another one from last semester, that I feel actually could be published. I think I need to get an editor in there to really get the fixing done up on both of them but once they’re finished, I feel that they can both be published and I want to start submitting. So now, the question is submitting where and getting up the damn courage to put my work out into the market. If I don’t, then why the hell am I producing in the first place? And producing, it seems, I am. Short stories are the order of the day, but that doesn’t mean that my major projects, including The Big-Ass Intimidating Project of My Life and a new one which I have nicknamed Big Pete for lack of a better name are on the shelf. Nor does that mean I’m going to throw away my ideas for novels. I just feel short stories are a medium I enjoy and want to focus on that.

That said, novels soon too yes. More work there. I’ve already got seventy pages in Big Pete and I got some inspiration for The Big-Ass Intimidating Project. Even the kids book is sitting on my desktop, just waiting for movement. Now it’s time to get some.

The Muse, she can live here whenever she wants. I’ll keep the place dusted and all cooshy for her.