Novel Eye

Some mornings I wake up and think, "I want to write a story, start that novel, try something on the page." But rather than walk right in to my laptop which I named "Writer" for inspiration, I have to get ready for work, or if home alone and free, like today, there is the dog to be walked, both animals to be fed and medicated. After my own breakfast, perhaps, and, oh, there is a load of laundry to be started. And I should... If I am so unhappy and underemployed in my current job, then I SHOULD spend every spare moment actively searching for work. Right? But I didn't do it even when happily employed (although sometimes I think that I have never been happily employed--either I liked the work and not the people or liked the people and not the work, and have never until this job liked the money--but that is a topic I've beaten before.) And I write essays/blog posts. They are so easy for me--they're half written in my head before I even sit down at the keyboa...

I often dream of fashions I cannot sew. Last night I dreamt of jewelry and art I cannot make. I lack even the ability to draw them as accurately as I would like so that someone else can make them. I can hear music in my head that I cannot transcribe. Should I take classes to try and learn the skills I would need to bring these to reality? And what would I do with them then? What do I do with the things that I sew and create now? I also dream of stories that I should write and that I can do, but then I grow afraid--thinking of what will I do with it when it's done, when I should just think of getting it down and seeing what it is. Does this happen to other people?

Patrick at Writing Life 3 has tagged me for a difficult meme. http://writinglife3.blogspot.com/2007/09/new-meme-five-strengths.html Name 5 of your strengths as a writer... This is difficult because I don't feel like a writer, just a blogger. 1. Interest in a great number of things. I think about and do research on all sorts of things. 2. A good way with words--with the way they sound together 3. A randomness that allows me to connect disparate thoughts and ideas and see how they are connected 4. A good vocabulary from reading such a range of novels and non-fiction from different times and different genres. 5. A lot of ideas both fiction and non-fiction. God, that was hard. I tag Mirror, Musing and Matt (and not for the alliteration). I recently got this in a newsletter. Are you burdened by the copywriter’s curse? Many a copywriter is hindered with a trait that damages productivity and constrains our ultimate earning potential. We here at Copyblogger may actually be guilty o...

This is my 200th post of the year. My next post will be the 200th since I started trying to write (on average) every day. I think it's helping me as a writer. Just as I think writing for work is helping me as a writer. Might get somewhere in a few years.

I had a small shock this week. I was thumbing through The Phoenix, a weekly free mag. for the young and hip that my husband had brought home and they had a column on new books and there was my college roommate's name. Which is doubly funny because I had just been speaking about her. We got along OK --not great. It even had her picture which I hadn't even realized when I first looked at the article (when I get to a scanner on Monday I'll scan it with a picture of her from college--she hasn't changed much). The book is called What You Call Winter , and it's a collection of short stories about a Catholic town in India. Her name is Nalini Jones (which made us the room of unpronounceable first names and really simple last names). Nalini means Night Blooming Lilly. Beyond the surprise I wasn't actually as upset as I feared I might be. For one thing, I knew that she'd had short stories published and that she had gotten a book publisher. She did all the...

Mad random thoughts again. Will I have time to get them down? Will I make time? One thing that occurred to me while writing the massive post below was tense in English. For awhile I was writing in present tense--I land, I walk, I see--but that becomes distracting esp. jumping about as I do and I went back in and changed it. There are so many tenses in English. It's part of what makes learning English very difficult. Past perfect, past imperfect. Japanese as I recall has only two. How different that must be and how difficult then to try and learn English and get all those strange endings right.

I read a new Inspector Lynley mystery. I enjoy watching mysteries, but I read very few because so many mystery novels are dreadful. If I can guess who did it early on I'm pretty annoyed, and I get tired of series where the "whodunit" is the whole point. Elizabeth George walks a fine line--I usually enjoy her and find the stories thought provoking. I think she's getting better as a writer. She has a fairly straightforward style and her novels seem very structured. This was confirmed when I read her book on writing (what is seriously becoming a sub-genre--I've read several). She plots everything out completely. Then she gets the details. Then she forms the structure so that the chapters end with cliffhangers. It shows. Sometimes it's a little too formulaic. Contrast that with Stephen King who talks about getting some "What if" idea in his head or some image and then he just starts writing and sees where it goes. If I was trapped on a deserted island I...