It’s that time of the week again — give me an idea, and I’ll write a story.
It’s magical!
Remember, ideas are better than plots — my best pieces have come from one or two-word suggestions.
Drop it in the comments, and I’ll pick one tomorrow.
My main focus is fantasy — but don’t feel bound to that. You can suggest a genre too, if you like!
Whee!
I am now H.N. Sieverding’s first official Amazon customer. YEAH. I have tangible proof of your writing in my fleshy paws.
Let’s skip to the part where I play my trumpet every night, and meals are on the house.
Hey — anybody read this book? It’s awesome.
Why? That’s a whole ‘nother blog post — what I’m curious about is where the heck has the author, Eve Forward, disappeared to?
This book has been out of print forever, easily fetching over $500 on Amazon, and more on eBay and rare book sites. And I though “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if the author put out an ebook version, or ..hey, I wonder what she’s writing now?”
A rudimentary websearch turned up a nearly barren wikipedia entry, and a wordpress site that may not even be hers. http://www.eveforward.com
So, come on WP nerds — what’s the deal? Someone out there in the vast internet’s gotta know.
After much deliberation, I have only conservatively adjusted my writing schedule. I wrote 9 pages last week, and really wanted to be a badass and set my benchmarks up to 10 pages a week, to force myself to finish the rough draft that much quicker.
But in a moment of sober adulthood, I kept it at 5 pages per week.
I know — I’m a little dissappointed in myself, too. But The Schedule has been a great security blanket while working on That Thing, and I knew it was wiser not to put myself in danger of falling behind.
In other news, writing is cool.
Tomohawk ran, brown fingers pressed against the mottled brown cardboard of the package. The black address scrawled in fresh marker — the scent stung his nose, and made his eyes water.
Too many people. Too many bodies pressing packing filling the streets – the mad streets, sick and full and press packed full. He felt battery acid in his legs and human acid in his throat and the buzz buzz buzz of the people, and the press and the fingers, his fingers pressing on the box so tight, and the people like fingers on his brown skin pressing pressing pressing down. Tomohawk ran harder.
The thick faces, and eyes swimming in haze — the green lime sherbet vomit of a scarf on a blue woman’s neck, the yellow dragon moan of taxi — it was too much, and too late, and he was late and they were late and all the late in the world was his, and he ran and the fingers. The fingers pressed, down so hard and Tomohawk ran. He ran harder.
Concrete yellow, black, yellow black — his white shoes slapped and the concrete moved faster and he moved faster, and still the people-fingers pushed and stank, and the horns and the pressing and he ran faster.
His toes dug into the concrete, simple white plastic puncturing the rhino hide of the city and he ran faster. The people moved slower, and he ran faster — and the fingers pressed, less and he ran faster — tearing gouges in the street with his speed, and people were running and screaming and moving away away away, and Tomohawk ran faster and faster.
He was so fast, his feet obliterated the street. He moved quicker than the fingers, but the cardboard box and black sting still was in his hands, and his fingers and he laughed. He threw the package away, and it vanished. The box was gone the people were gone the streets were gone and the fingers were gone and he was gone.
He was gone. Tomohawk ran.
[Story on Demand for Jared — now wander over and fondle his site for a while. Thanks for the idea!]
Hey, give me an idea.
And then — story.
2-3 Business Days — less if the Fates are kind.
Do it!
Man, it’s hard to be grumpy when your evening consists of a stage production of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu, followed by performing with a local burlesque troupe.
But I’m doing a pretty good job of it.
I’m still going to work on That Thing, and update my writing schedule.
But I will be petulant about it!
Petulant also sounds like the name of an Elder God.
Or a good cat’s name.
There’s something nice about typing. The comforting clack of the keys and the black words sliding across the 
white empty box.
At my day job – I type a lot. A LOT. 100 emails is an average day. And when I sit down in the morning, I actually feel a dim sort of muscle-pleasure at the prospect of typing. On weekends, or days away from a keyboard I feel an odd sort of regret.
I’m also particular about keyboards — I miss the giant, tall-button clacky ones from older PC’s ..and typewriters! Man, typewriters were awesome.
So, the eternal question – why do you write?
Because I like to type, apparently.
Very productive couple of days on That Thing – I just crossed the 100 page mark!
I know it gets old, me crowing my feeble accomplishments — it must seem so unimpressive to WordPress at large. But this is the first time for me on a long-form writing draft. [I know, I know — I should just give up and call it a “book” or “novel” — that neurosis is a whole ‘nother blog post.] The first time I’ve ever had 100 pages of my words in one place — all existing and crap.
My writing schedule called for me to be hitting this benchmark by 3/3 — so I am nearly two weeks ahead of schedule! I don’t want to jinx the productiveness of this week, but on Friday I’m officially going to recalibrate my schedule — don’t want any danger of getting lazy, or losing the forward momentum. I’m shooting for around 140 pages/45,000 words for the first draft — very exciting to feel I’m so close.
I know, I know — lots can go wrong in the next section. But as any unpublished or semi-published author can tell you — you gotta take the days of deluded optimism when they come. There will be plenty more rays of Infra-Doubt to dodge later on.
spell-sword.com 