Category: Writing

Brevis in longo

Dear Internet,
Apparently, I’m pretty prolific. In addition to upping my writing here, I’ve also been writing every day in DayOne, which I mentioned here, and also actually working on my fiction. There is one thing to be said for a humanities scholar: We know how to crank out verbiage like no one’s business. Between the three, and this is including the re-writes of public blog entires and the fiction, I’m cranking out about 5,000 words a day. And that is being conservative. Now how much of that is “good” writing? Hard to say, really. My writing in the public sphere tends to be tighter since I obsess over the editing, the writing on the private journal has better readability (because I an writing more freely and more about the minutia of my life), while the fiction writing is still uneven in a deckled edged way. Some of what I produce for the fiction side is dreck and other times, it’s pure gold.
(Also, I decided to style myself as a modern day Samuel Pepys, at least in my head.)
I think one of the reasons why this is becoming a lot easier is that I have finally figured out a system that works for me to keep all of this organized which was so problematic for me for years. I know, it’s crazy considering that I organize shit for a living, but I couldn’t organize my writing to really work for me until now. Finding the Day One app was probably the tipping point, and also being a heavy user of Evernote and Scrivener also helped.
Here’s the status of my current projects, and which will find it’s way to Readers. The main landing page for my writing will also have all posts about this topic on the page, and if a project has their own landing page, those too will have posts updated on their landing page. Thus, if you’re hot into Edwardian good times but not Viking gore, you can skip directly to the landing page for the Edwardian projet instead of slogging through all the posts about Vikings and everything else.

Books

Project Name: Cabinet Particulier
Status: Research
Details of the project on its own page, so I won’t repost them here. I started collecting the research in July and currently haven’t moved forward yet other than doing the readings. Ideally, I see this as a pretty big project (read book series) so I want to get it off to a good start and I have a vague idea of how the first book will go, I want to dig deeper into her world before I begin writing.
Project name: Unnamed Medieval project
Status: Idea formation and preliminary research
Details: At this point I know it’s going to concern a woman, possibly in Scotland, sometime before 1066. Possibly containing Vikings.

Short Fiction

Title: PETITIONS OF THE GODS
Status: 80% finished
Summary: From my notes: Anonymous protagonist gives background on the invitation, a brief history of the Althing, and beginning of the world creation.Our protagonist is losing power and she knows this. The struggle with her, and with others like her, is how to remain relevant in a world when less number of people are believing in them. What would you do to stay relevant?
The beginning and ending are strong, but I’m floundering in the middle. It’s already at 2500 words with some heavy revision in the last week, so much so that the outtakes have their own folder in Scrivener. TheHusband read one of the first drafts and liked a lot of the clever uses for explanation of things but I can’t unstick the sticky at the moment. While I think this is at 80%, I would not be surprised if I end up ripping it entirely apart and restructuring all of it.
Title: AD LIBITUM
Status: 80% finished
Summary: What happens inside the Sistine chapel when no one is looking? Answer: Sex, drugs, and disco.
Idea sparked a “what if” when reading an article tonight about Russia’s Golden Ring and the author wrote eloquently about the medieval cathedrals and churches they were visiting. The line, “Jesus jumped off the cross, stretched, and went to light a cigarette.”, which sparked the idea of what in the hell happens in a cathedral at night when no one is around? Within minutes, I found this gorgeous virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel and the story started writing itself.

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So far, I have nearly a dozen people signed up for Readers, which is awesome. I haven’t decided if I should close the request at this point or keep it open. I had planned on start pushing some of my older stuff through the list to get those cleaned up and publishable, but after reading through many of them decided not to. They are that wretched or I am not into the genre as much anymore or the story just doesn’t appeal to me. So they will stay buried in the digital trunk.
I’m so motivated to be creating again but I keep thinking what do I want to do with the stuff that I create? I definitely want it to be read by the world, but how to go about that is tap dancing in the back of my brain. Having been a bookseller for many years, I work now as a librarian, and then throw in all the writers, literary agents, artists, booksellers, and other people in the publishing world I either know personally or stalk online, I feel pretty grounded on the back end o the industry. I just want to make sure that I do the right thing by my work.
I was pretty thrilled to discover Duotrope yesterday in my quest to sort out submission organization for at least the short pieces because my librarian-fu was actually failing me looking for a comprehensive source for magazines, literary zines, and other such publications to submit my work to. At the very least, I know this is the path I want to take with my shorter fiction. I’m also thinking of some kind of crowdsourcing shenanigans might also be in place too. This is going to be amazing.
TTFN,
Lisa

Looking for alpha/beta readers

I need eyes other than my own (and TheHusband’s) to read, comment, make suggestions, and the like on stories that are mostly finished, on some that are rough sketches, and everything else in between.
Here’s how it will work:
I’ll subscribe you to an announcement list. Every time a story gets posted, you’ll get an email that will include a link to the password protected story on my blog as well as the password. You can either comment on the blog piece directly or email me with thoughts/suggestions.
Only major revisions will be posted. You’re not obligated to comment every time. The announcement list will only come from me.
Please add readers @ exitpursuedbyabear . net (minus the spaces) to your allow list. Gmail is sending confirmation emails directly to the junk folder.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!
(It goes without saying: Please do not post commentary in public spaces (Facebook/Twitter/etc) or repost my content anywhere without my explicit permission. Thanks!)
And a huge thank you to everyone whose already signed up!

Bumps in the midnight

Dear Interent,
Recently one night while it was incredibly late (and almost shockingly so), I found myself in my office writing for the first time in so many months. Earlier in evening, TheHusband had dropped off to sleep earlier then his usual times and I found myself anxious to move out of bed and into my office, so in attempted silence, I walked-thumped to my office to work. What struck with me in particular about that night was the intensity of the desire, which has been burning for weeks, more brightly then it has for years. It was becoming physically painful to ignore the urge. I felt like I was in high school all over again, except without the forbidden pack of cigarettes hidden in my desk and the 2 liter of Diet Coke on the floor by my side.
Lately, I’ve found myself sketching out story ideas, notes, and other ephemera on anything I can get my hands on. That night, I decompressed a Moleskin notebook I’ve been carrying around for a few years and found that it contained travel logs, journal entries, and notes for knitting and gardening amongst a few of the types; kind of a catchall, if you will. A page of WOULDN’T THIS BE AWESOME flipped with “CO 68 ST st” and a drawn out pattern of the design I am remarking on.
In addition to decompressing the Moleskin, I’ve been picking apart some editing and doing some note taking on existing story lines. The vast amount of notes on story sketches is startling to me whenever I chance upon them. I keep finding fairly decent first chapters written, note, and outlines for the projects. I see potential here for amazing creating to occur and that gets me excited. I’ve started to collate everything into either Evernote or Scrivener, depending on the status, and will begin the world building and story plotting.
I’ve got three distinct worlds that are fighting in my head at the moment: Pre-history, medieval, and Edwardian. Sometimes it gets a bit messy. I have A Teach Yourself Guide: Complete Old English (Anglo-Saxon) rubbing shoulders with Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End. I have Beauty and Cosmetics 1550-1950 snuggling against The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. I’ve almost finished The Prose Edda and I’ve got The Dark Mirror: Book One of the Bridei Chronicles waiting in the wings.
This is just the tip of my (almost too long) reading list.
Right now I’m falling, almost rather neatly, under the weight of the research. The next month I’m working on shorter hours so I’ll have time to get organized before I go full-blown day job mode. My first priority is to organize writing schedule with the research schedule into something that can be scaled back to a doable mode once work goes in full swing.
I’ve got a couple of completed short stories I need to start workshopping and a few more to finish in the next few weeks. I’m going to be looking for alpha readers, so keep your eyes peeled for that announcement.
TTFN,
Lisa

fiction baby

last night, while i was browsing the web, i had remembered reading about a place that specialized in on-line journaling. I feel somewhat compelled to go there, as I have had a voice on the web since 1995. However, my attempt, now three years later to get in the game of on-line journaling, is being overshadowed by slick design and not a lot of content by other competitors.
however, i have realized that there are many people who can write articulately, and have something interesting to say. my friend jane is one such person.
but anyway, i found a another place that specialized in on-line journaling, also allowing people to create on-line journals, with the sake of anonymity, and also not having to worry about design, concept, and other such things. they just write, for the sake of writing.
while browsing around, i found that they held a slam contest, which is now all the rage with the lit world. intrigued, i read more on how to participate, and found it was fairly simple. the creatrix of the website presents a image, and you write based on that image. 1000 words or less please.
compelled, inspired, whatever; i wrote. my story, which i had to chop out 1000 words. I have presented both the abridged and unabridgedversion. Do be warned however, the unabridged story is not complete, nor has it been formatted in html or spell checked. I like the unabridged version better, and I will probably continue writing the story tonight when I get home from work.
my entrance into the art of short story writing prompted me to update Tripping on Stars, my anthology of all the on-line versions of my work. I have created a new category, called appropriately enough, ‘short stories’, which will host all the fiction crap i write.
i haven’t written any short stories in years, mostly dealing with i didn’t have the patience. my big concern (and now, don’t laugh), has always been with names: I could never think of names of my characters. last night it was pretty simple coming up with names, as justin and i have created fictional characters for ourselves. He’s Panama Jack, and I’m Virginia Slim, Ms. Slim to you. Unfortunately, since Virginia Slim happens to also be a trade marked name, our little shticks that Justin and I do have to be done in person or on IRC.
Carrying over our on-line shticks to real life has been really interesting, since we are both lovers of J.D. Salinger and F. Scott Fitzgerald, we end up doing these shticks based on the characters that those authors have created, namely Franny & Zooey, and Zelda & Scott, respectively.
On IRC, Justin and I would go for long periods of time just making up scenes and characters, to the bewilderment and amusement of those on the channel. This creation of characters included Jackie the Pumpkin (also known as Justin’s first wife), Harold the farm boy (also Justin’s ex-lover) and many others. He and I would sit giggling for hours just playing along, and no one would get what the fuck we were talking about.
That was always okay. We basically didn’t give a shit or not, because we got it and that is all that was important.
Justin is also wonderful because he has a mind like a girl. He’s not effeminate, gay or hell, even bi, but he knows how a girl thinks, and he also has good taste. he’s the best girlfriend a girl could have, and the wonderful thing is, he has a cock. Justin and I have decreed that i finally became a lesbian, since i’m fucking my best girlfriend. how many other men do you know that can sit with a female and talk to her about men, pms, clothes, make-up and is either not gay or afraid?
not many i would assume.
many of my friends have been concerned with the age gap (7 years), and it bothered me as well for awhile. but i realized love really doesn’t know age, race, creed or religion, it just is.
i don’t think about his age anymore, excuse me, i should say obsess with it. i’ve come to terms with the fact i will always be older than him, but since i look so damn young for being 26, and he looks older than 19, it’ll work. Justin’s life, which would make a therapist rich, has wonderfully made him more wise then his years. the big difference, was especially when my brother, who is also 19 was living with me, and seeing my brother act like a boy of 19 and justin acted at least 10 years older was amazing. you can’t always assume because of one’s age that they are mentally that age. watching my brother and justin interact taught me that much.
i love justin, and i love him very much. it’s been especially hard with me because i can’t always accept a person as they are: i have a habit of changing them. but i can’t do that with justin. i don’t know if he’s the one, hell, i’ve thought damn near every boy i’ve dated was the one, and i don’t want to muddy my relationship with justin thinking that. i just want to love him in the here and now, and not worry about the future. it’s really nice, being with someone who knows all your secrets, who accepts you for you and gives you the freedom to do what you want. as stated, since justin is barely legal, and i’m prone to go drinking and dancing, he doesn’t give a rats ass that i do things without him. he’s said, and i quote “as long as you come home to me, i don’t care”. he doesn’t question me, like Danny, if i’m late getting home from work, or if i make other plans without him. he understands that, while living together, i don’t need to spend every waking hour with him. but i do anyway. justin gives the best hugs. being 6’8″ must have a lot to do with that.
as always, i’m looking at the clock and now i’m late for work. a part of me doesn’t care, it just feels good to be writing again, and branching off into other area’s that i haven’t explored before. Jeffwas wrong: love is unconditional.
it feels good in my mind, that i can say these four words and not cringe anymore:
i am a writer.