Writing Projects – Page 2 – A Most Unreliable Narrator

WIP: December writing schedule summary / January writing goals

Dear Internet,
Getting back on track after a several month temporary setback. You can get the full scoop of there temporary setback here. This won’t be as complete since I’m starting so late, but it’s a good start.
Italicized is the original list. Regular text is add-ons. Bold is completion and totals.
Projects for January:

Plow through current library loans and ARCs from NetGalley and get reviews written
Collate notes on the Edwardian mystery, continue with research, and get most of the structure sorted
Collate notes on the 45th parallel project and continue with research
Research (aka read) stream of consciousness novels
Finish or shelve in-progress short stories and submit completed ones; submit at least one a week
Get most of Vol 1 of secret Kindle project formatted and edited
- Line edits started. Publication date set for January 31, 2015.
- Vol 2 (year 1999) and Vol 3 (2000) started.
Continue note carding ideas / quotes / etc for future projects
Query/submit non-fiction pieces
Blog writing count for December
- Words written: 7510
- Number of posts: 12
Continue shilling to get more submissions for so glad is my heart
Outline and begin 3rd Triangle novel

January projects:

Plow through current library loans and ARCs from NetGalley and get reviews written
Collate notes on the Edwardian mystery, continue with research, and get most of the structure sorted
Collate notes on the 45th parallel project and continue with research
Research (aka read) stream of consciousness novels
Finish or shelve in-progress short stories and submit completed ones; submit at least one a week
Publish Vol 1 of Kindle project
Continue note carding ideas / quotes / etc for future projects
Query/submit non-fiction pieces
Continue shilling to get more submissions for so glad is my heart
Outline and begin 3rd Triangle novel
Blog writing count for January
- Words written:
- Number of posts:

Previous WIP

July writing schedule summary / August writing goals

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2003

introductions, introductions

The cottage from The Holiday. — The cottage from *The Holiday*.

Dear Internet,
Happy early Svein Forkbeard day. I’m in the wilds of Connecticut prepping for the series of holiday events that will be happening over the course of the next few days. Tonight most of the Connecticut family is heading to the midnight service and I’m thinking of joining them. There is something about theological rituals during the holidays that I still yearn for even though I do not prescribe to any particular religion.
Like previous years, I’m in the throes of making holiday cookies. This year the list is small: macaroons, white chocolate cranberry oatmeal, no bakes, sugar, and finally, gingerbread cookies. I’m shipping cookies to my brother and TSTBEH and of course, leaving some for the Connecticut family. Since the next couple of days is going to be jammed with family activities, I’m stealing time when I can – like waking up at 5:30AM to start the prep work for the cookies and the cornbread stuffing for the big meals that are happening today, tomorrow, and Boxing day.

It’s also time for holiday episodes of my favorite British TV and radio shows. So far Stella, the first part of the Zurich episode of Cabin Pressure, and first episodes of Good Omens have played. Then of course come the regulars and new shows that are upcoming like: Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, and Miranda. This is yet another reason why I love the British: the unabashed love for holiday episodes of their favorite shows which Americans give no fucks about.
But I have to reaffirm the bigger news than holiday cookies and TV shows; though in my world, those are very good things.
Skaldic Press Presents
Reminder about the 4x a month newsletter from Skaldic Press (my publishing arm) that includes updates from Exit, Pursued by a Bear, so glad is my heart, and other adventures in addition to Skaldic Press. Includes themed GIFs. You can check out the archives for a better taste of what to expect and then subscribe below.

The Lisa Chronicles, Vol 1: 1998
Also another reminder that my book is now available for pre-order. Publishing date is January 31, 2015.
From the blurb:

In 1998, having an online diary was a brave new world. Mailing lists, communities, chat rooms, and more all sprung up over people’s favorite diarists. Now we would call them bloggers. But then, THEN was a whole ‘nother beast. Then writing online was intimate. Then it was more personalized and personal. Then writers had less shtick. Not much was expected of these online exhibitionist scribes other than the ability to tell a good tale and regularly update.
I miss those days.
I never expected to get rich or famous, but what I wanted was to be able to connect to others who were like me. The scared, the frightened, the brave, and the bold. (No relation to the terrible soap opera of the same name.) I wanted to eat the world and in 1998, what better way to do that was through the Internet?
What can you expect from the first volume? Love, conflict, obsessions with people, places, and things. Rotating cast of characters and adventures. Sprinkle of song lyrics here and there. Pop culture references galore. Sex. More sex. Profane words and a bipolar girl desperate to connect with a world she did not understand.
While this work has been edited for grammar, clarity, and the obvious typo, it remains largely unchanged from when it first appeared online nearly two decades ago.
And lastly, every word here is true.

So if you’re intrigued by the book description or want to help support me thanks to the saga of #teamharpy, I would be most grateful if you would pre-order the book.

[amazon template=image&asin=B00R2808QE]

<<<<>>>>

Not much else is going on in my world right this very second other than prepping for the holidays and editing my book. Typically I feel some sort of sadness and isolation since my family and I are not very close, but while I feel some semblance of that feeling this year, being around people who care kind of lessens the pain. I still feel awkward and out of place, but when do I usually not feel a disconnect to others’ lives?
The drugs may stabilize my moods, meditation may help me deal better with impulse feelings, but some things about me will just never change.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2011, 2002

Moving Part Deux

Dear Internet,
Well, here we are again: I’m moving. This time Two Men and a Truck put what I pillaged from Throbbing Manor (thanks to the generosity of TSTBEH) into storage for a month while I’m out on the east coast; then they will move me into Valkyrie Estates (name may change) in mid-January. Then, THEN, work will start on my book(s).
My pillaging helps TSTBEH out as he would have had to either donate, sell, or take with him the remaining furniture he decided he did not want after the split. With the exception of a bed, I’ve almost completely furnished Valkyrie Estates. I’ve got a list of smalls I need to pick up when I get back (like laundry soap and toliet paper), but really, that is it.
This manic last two months, easier to give it a simple explanation when the explanation is really much more complicated, has been financially AND mentally expensive. Truth be told, if I wasn’t counting on the settlement from the selling of the house to pay off my debts, I may have reigned the spending in but that’s an excuse for my own folly. I must accept the responsibility of what I have done financially.
It’s now mid-Sunday afternoon and I’m camped out at a hotel. Again. This time the only thing I’m running from is sleeping on an air mattress in a house that is freezing. Between the consignment shop swopping in on Thursday and my movers on Friday, all that is left until Monday is an air mattress, a 50″ TV and related stereo equipment, dining room table and chairs, TSTBEH’s boxes, and the art deco hutch. In 3200 sqft. We attempted to sleep on the air mattress every night until the closing of the house on Tuesday but I just couldn’t do it. I gave in to my inner diva, left late Friday night for a hotel, and here I am.
And yes, I’m keeping track and earning points with all of this hoteling, flying, and other travel.
My entire life is now split between two suitcases and my messenger bag of electronics. There are a few odds and ends in my trunk but my worldly possessions are now in those two suitcases; it’s a freeing feeling and an exhausting one. Now that my mind is finally clearing and I’m starting to put things into better perspective, I want to nest. Now.
I have to learn patience, I have to learn that waiting is okay and things will still be there when I’m done waiting. Not everything is gossamer and clouds but water and dirt. Things are tangible, holdable, and lovable. These are things I need to remember and need to not forget ever again.
So let’s move on to something other than my mental geographical quandary.
Part of ThePlan is bundling the previous years entries into an ebook volume and publishing it on Kindle and other eRetailers.
Today I finished the first draft of volume 1 and it clocks in at roughly 114 pages.
The plan is to take previous years (beginning, well, at the beginning) of The Lisa Chronicles, bundle them by year into an eBook version and see if I could shill it on Amazon (and maybe Apple) to make some passive income.
The idea was pitched to me about four years ago when a library school friend offered to go through these entries, edit for clarity and grammar, and help me format them for the Kindle. I was a bit trepidatious at first, for I often do not find myself to be that fascinating, I just happen to get into fascinating circumstances. But apparently there is a market for this type of writing and I had oodles of it already written at my disposal.
But I stalled, as I do, on the project when I was working full time; I started nibbling at the idea again when I started planning for my sabbatical. The process seemed simple enough: get the back entries of The Lisa Chronicles up online on EPbaB for completist sake. Then move the content over to Word for formatting and editing. Find a cover. Set a price. Write a forward and a description. Upload and BOOM. Book is on the Amazons.
But it wasn’t that simple, rather, it was much more complex than my simple plan. Two things were happening in parallel. First being I had to set up as a business entity to help with writing off things related to my sabbatical AND to properly handle any income coming in from the sales of the eBooks. Second, that I had to find the content (easy enough as I kept multiple copies), get it on to EPbaB so the archives were complete, then move it to Word. I knew how prolific I am, so I figured I’d break it down by year and each year would be roughly 50 pages of formatted book text.
Did I mention that year one is at 114 rough pages? And only from April to December 1998? So I was obviously wrong in my page prediction.
I consider 1998 to be the very beginning for the sheer amount of content, though I have pieces that were published much earlier. I have gotten 1998 and 1999 into the EPbaB archives, so the first two volumes of the eBook project are going to be easy to do. I’ll have to work in tandem with getting the later content up and editing the current project and writing the fiction book.
I’m going to be a very busy girl.
Getting it up on Kindle was not that difficult: I opted out of the KDP Select option which means the work would have only been sold on Kindle and I opted out of having DRM on the eBooks. I was able to, with the help of TheBassist and cmmrb, figure out the cover design (Amazon has a free cover creator). I have my EIN and LLC name (Skaldic Press), so everything on the business side was ready to go. It was just a matter of getting the content up, formatted, and edited.
So basically the hard part.
You know where you can find me for the next month.
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2012, 1999, 1998

introducing skaldic press

dear internet,
i am a ceo and now own my own company.
it’s true. i even have my own EIN and some fool gave me a business credit card.
i own 100% of a company which is (currently) worth $0. but that’s all about to change.
skaldic press, llc came into existence in the spring of 2014 when i started planning my year long writing sabbatical. i needed a business front for all of my writing activities and a way to track expenses related to research and other necessities. as most of you know, however, the last few months of 2014 have been unbelievably hellish and the concept was shelved.
now that I’m better equipped emotionally and rationally to handle all of this change, it was time to kick start skaldic press, llc back into existence AND i needed a way to make an income.
what exactly will skaldic press, llc be publishing?
easy.
me.
on a more specific scale, skaldic press, llc current projects on the table are the eBook front which will be volumes my online diary entries from the late ’90s and early ’00s bundled in eBook format, which i will be selling on amazon and ibook. the entries will always remain free on the website.
there is also a literary ‘zine, so glad is my heart. which i’ll be launching in the spring. plus i have a few other projects that will be coming to fruition in the next couple of months.
i’m pretty fucking excited, let me tell you, about this whole endeavor.
skaldic press social media presence is pretty bare bones at the moment, but you can follow us at:

will this be hard? yes.
will this be a eating bon-bons money maker? probably not.
but i’ve got IDEAS and a burning passion to make this succeed. i have no interest in turning this some sort of MLM with videos, podcasts, and other gewgaws; rather i want to just quietly publish my stuff while i write my books.
wish me luck.
xoxo,
lisa

this day in lisa-universe: 2013, 2013, 2008, 1999

call for submissions: so glad is my heart

Dear Internet,
history
a million and half years ago (1999), a bunch of friends and i got together and put together a little ‘zine called called tripping on stars. the premise was simple: 500 words, creative fiction or not, specifically detailing the little moments in our lives that we often overlook. it was a the little ‘zine that could but sadly, did not. publication ceased after the first month. go here to get a taste of the type of content we were looking for
present
i like getting daily stories in my inbox, but the content and size tend to overwhelm me. some publishers will publish just about anything, in any size, and i end up deleting more than i read. i want bite sized pieces to cleanse my palette. stories or thoughts that provoke, challenge, entice, beguile, and speak to me. i didn’t care if it was something as mundane as the 30 seconds it takes to put on your socks in the morning.
sometimes i look at people and wondering what they are or doing a that exact moment in their lives. we all like the idea of random slices of interesting stuff in our lives, that are seemingly forgotten.
i want little snippets, either made up or real, about life.
the internet has come a long way in 15 years. it was time to bring back my little ‘zine.
so welcome. welcome. have a look around. we publish monday through friday. you can sign up to have the stories sent you via email, rss, tumblr, twitter, or facebook.
you can also submit an image or a story (and we’ll love you for it even more).
—
99% of the above is from the about page of my new ‘zine, so glad is my heart. When putting the old content from the lisa chronicles back online, I stumbled upon the old site that was long buried in my drive and discovered the gems that were there. some of the work was quite good and it was a shame that it had fallen to the wayside. i knew it was time to resurrect the ‘zine but with a new name. like magic, so glad is my heart was born.
i’m chuffed as chips as I’ve started reaching out to some talented writers to contribute and so far, everyone is on board. Now it’s time to reach to do a public call to get even more people participating! I hope to begin publishing sometime in ~~september~~ february 2015.
so glad is my heart

about
submission guidelines
contact

xoxo,
lisa
P.S. the site has most of the infrastructure up, but there is a still tires to be kicked and what not. Please excuse the mess.

this day in lisa-universe:

WIP: July writing schedule summary / August writing goals

Dear Internet,
I’ve been up at Throbbing Cabin since Wednesday with some of my favorite ladies for a weekend retreat, which is turning out fabulously. There has been beach time, s’mores time, lots of reading and down time, not getting out of our jimjams time, and lots and lots of drinking time. Tomorrow we are going to photograph Val walking on water for GISWSHES before heading back to our respective households. It’s been a lovely break from the world and I’m feeling recharged and maybe, just maybe, reborn.
True to my promise, here is this months writing roundup.
Italicized is the original list. Regular text is add-ons. Bold is completion and totals.
Projects for July:

Launch lisarabey.com finally – Completed July 8
- TheHusband got the website up and running pretty early on in the month, so yay! I spent some time adding more back content and moving the Ephemera and other fiction-y sections over to lisarabey.com. There are a few bits and pieces that still need to be done, but the biggest chunk of the project is completed.
Plow through current library loans and ARCs from NetGalley and get reviews written
- Was not as productive on this as I had hoped, but it is the beginning of August and I’ve already surpassed last year’s totals on books read, so I’m calling this a win.
Collate notes on the Edwardian mystery, continue with research, and get most of the structure sorted
- Words written: 2500
- I knocked out the first draft of the first chapter while at my retreat a week ago and started chapter two, but then LIFE happened and things have kind of stalled. I will be kickstarting this this week.
Start fleshing out 45th parallel story
- Took a research trip up to The Headlands International Dark Sky Park.
Finish or shelve in-progress short stories and submit completed ones
- Did not accomplish. Will work on next month
Get Vol 1 of secret Kindle project completed and online
- This is turning out into a bigger project than I had originally envisioned. About the 1/4 of the way through and that’s already at 50 pages in the proper Kindle formatting. As I started, I realized that I was missing a lot of content to be added to the project, thus I went back and started on the back fill again. Going to shoot for end of August to have most of Vol 1 completed and edited.
Continue note carding ideas / quotes / etc for future projects
- My note card box grows!
Get LLC sorted out – Completed July 25
- LLC was finalized and I still need to do an entry on that process. I have secured a CPA; business checking and savings accounts opened, business credit card obtained, receipts kept, and domain has been purchased and is currently pointing to lisarabey.com. There are some minor work to be done, but the process is complete!
Query/submit at least half a dozen pieces
- Two completed on July 11
- Status: Both rejected, boo.
Blog writing count for July
- Words written: 22,097
- Number of posts: 36

August projects:

Plow through current library loans and ARCs from NetGalley and get reviews written
Collate notes on the Edwardian mystery, continue with research, and get most of the structure sorted
Collate notes on the 45th parallel project and continue with research
Research (aka read) stream of consciousness novels
Finish or shelve in-progress short stories and submit completed ones; submit at least one a week
Get most of Vol 1 of secret Kindle project formatted and edited
Continue note carding ideas / quotes / etc for future projects
Query/submit non-fiction pieces
Blog writing count for July

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2012, 2012, 2012, 2012, 2008, 1998

gilded tongues and pretty words

Dear Internet,
It’s been a hellauva week.
There are two things I cannot discuss just yet, but many of you are aware of at least one of them. So let us trip up instead on good news instead of navel gazing on the bad.
Earlier this week, I posted on various social spheres that a present arrived on my doorstep, courtesy of TheBassist:
thud!
And when I mentioned in the posting the book took 8 years to get to me, questions were raised about why and how. It’s simple: TheBassist and I dated. We broke up. He had gotten the book signed for me at some point. The book had been lost, and then refound. So against his promise to never get in touch with me again, he did reach out because a promise made to me superseded a promise made to himself.
(Yes, the same person I mentioned almost a year ago about finding his coded messages to me on various Internet places and he clarified as to why he did it. The promise he made to himself to never get in touch was because he knew he had hurt me so badly, he didn’t think anything he could ever say would ever help ease the hurt of what he did.)
Complicated? Absolutely. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
After our stilted feeling out dance around each other, we became Facebook friends, laid down some boundaries, and started to get reaquainted with the other. In a very strange way, it is not like eight years has passed between us as conversation picked as if we had only spoken last week. You have to understand when we were dating, we used to text, talk, and email the other all day long. Literally, from the time we woke up to the time we went to bed.
(TheHusband and I have a similar relationship, which is one of the reasons why I married him.)
Really, what is kind of awesome about this new forged friendship between TheBassist and I is that he’s given me carte blanche on getting the answers about what happened between us, what has happened to him, and what is going to happen to his future. It’s intoxicating and overwhelming at the same time.
It is a heady power, one I will not use for ill will either.
(Plus he states on the reasoning on why we broke up, he says in honesty yet it will come out sounding cliched, it really was him and not me.)
Last year, I said

He splintered my heart the first time that when he came sniffing around the second time, about six months after our first tussle, I showed him my partially fixed heart which he took a sledgehammer to. Again.
While the connection between us when we were together was insane, he routinely lied to me on just about everything
I could never trust him again, even in a platonic manner

1 is absolutely true. 2, he clarified and filled in the missing details, which were easily verifiable. So a lot of his actions are much clearer now on what happened and why, so it was not so much as lying as things were withheld. 3, perhaps is not wholly true because unlike some people from my past, I don’t feel like he’s creeping on me for the sake of creeping nor do I feel he has ulterior motives. (We’re both happily partnered up and I don’t think I would ever leave TheHusband for even Alexander Skarsgard. Maybeee James McAvoy.)
In my long storied history, TheBassist is one of my top five exes. And I’m really thrilled we were able to get closure on a lot of things that happened in the past, which apparently has freed up some unintentional emotional baggage because TheHusband said I’ve been really happy these last few days. (But I think the happiness has more to do we had really good shawarma for dinner, which precluded to me making happy noises while we ate.)
(When I broke this all down for my therapist last week, Dr. P. said this was not going to end well. When I asked why, Dr. P. seemed to be of the mindset that men and women can’t be friends once they have a romantic relationship because doing so brings up all the old feelings which can only lead to no good. I vehemently disagree with this because I am still in contact with many of my exes, the bad and the good, and some I’m quite close to. Just because we’ve seen each other naked and inserted things into orifices does not eradicate the bond we shared long after the romance was over.)
Time to switch gears and talk about a project I’ve been working on for the last few days as part of my writing schedule for July which is the get Vol 1 of secret Kindle project completed and online. The purpose of this project was to test out the ease and flexibility of selling stories via Amazon’s Kindle publishing platform. I don’t wholly expect to make millions off this, but it’s nice to figure out a new tech and make it work for me.
This project is turning out to be much bigger than I planned. I was originally anticipating that about a years worth of content would roughly translate into 200 pages after being formatted for the Kindle, but I’m four months in and already at 50 pages with the formating. So this may turn out to be one big, glorious mess. Hooray!
As part of the project also coincides with getting more of my old content on the websites, I’ve spent the last two days curating, uploading, mildly editing, and publishing stuff from the mid-late 90s and up to mid-00s. All of the existing prose pieces that used to reside here at EPbaB were moved over to my author site. About 50% of what’s on that page is “new.”
If you follow the weekly round up I do every Saturday, I typically list out these “new” entries that I put up for that week, but I often don’t give them summaries. I was pretty pleased with few of the pieces I found today, and was passing them around various social spheres, so here they are:

sassy skirt seeks alliterative ally
This is my personal ad I put on match.com circa 2006. I’m pretty sure if I were single today and looking for fresh meat, I’d use this same ad with some minor edits.
rock*star
I wrote this piece in my undergrad for a creative writing class and I’m pretty proud of it. I blend together The Afghan Whigs lyrics, the time before a concert begins, and finding my high school love after nearly a decade.
popular suicide
I wrote this in 2004, documenting my 1989 suicide attempt and the advice my mother gave me after it happened.
Tripping on Stars
This was a lit ‘zine project some of my friend and I did in the summer of 1999 that lasted for an entire month! The few pieces I created for the project are not half bad.

Word to the wise: If you do decide to go down the Lisa of yore, be prepared for lots of angst, self-loathing, frank discussions about sex, and more.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2012, 1998

notes for cabinet particulier, part iv: draft of first chapter completed

Dear Internet,
It’s about 8:30PM and I’m sitting on the front deck, still in my jim jams from the night before. This is the second time today I have stepped foot out of the cabin, the first being this morning when after I woke and received a phone call from the Cedar postmaster telling me the post carrier had flagged where we can put our new mailbox and I had walked out to check to verify the location. After that, my butt was parked either at the island in the kitchen or in the chaise (so very chic) writing and researching.
My book takes place in 1907 London that revolves around an aging actress who is not terribly good but she is what matters most and that is she’s one of the most beautiful women of her age. I’m styling her looks after the famed American silent film actress from the same era, Maude Fealy.

As my character is an Edwardian London stage actress, I spent some time today gathering moar research on the theaters of the era and discovered a gem of a site that also had a handy Google map of theaters from the era, including play programs, photos, and loads more.
I also dipped into cosmetics and etiquette of the era, finding a boon of a book entitled Every Woman’s Encyclopedia, from 1910, which ran into a hefty 8 volumes and 6000 page. The book is intense. Here is a gem on how Edwardian lady should keep her eyes more becoming:

Yes, let us not weary our poor optic nerves, shall we ladies?
I had the idea of how I wanted the book to open and numerous first lines had already appeared, so instead of working out a vague outline of where I wanted the book to go, I just sat down and wrote instead. Several hours later, I had 2100 words in a pretty good first chapter under my belt with ideas of where I was going.
Tomorrow I was to go kayaking with Emili, but I just texted her to beg off since I’m in the zone and needed to continue plowing through with my work. Kristin is coming up tomorrow evening for the weekend and we’ll be busy and I’m heading back to Grand Rapids on Sunday (can’t miss my Sunday evening telly). Next week is going to be busy as John is coming into town on Tuesday evening to stay at Throbbing Manor and we are heading to the Code4Lib Midwest conference on Wednesday/Thursday. Since many of my favorite people are going to be at the conference as well, there will be lots of socializing. Friday I head to Mt. P to hang with Kristin for the weekend and we’re meeting up with some of our cmmrb pals and then it’s back to the grind on Monday when I head back to the cabin for MOAR writing for a week and then the cmmrb weekend will be here and then it will be August.
Jesus fucking Christ. In the four days I’ve been up here, between blog posts, writing the chapter, and research I’ve cranked out 10,000 words. I am a mutherfucking machine!
On that note, I’m getting off the laptop and calling it an early night. I’m going to brush the fuzz off my teeth, wash my filthy body, and make a bowl of popcorn. Yes, yes I did indeed bring my beloved hot air popper to the cabin with me. I’m then going to curl up around my ipad and watch Downton Abbey, for you know, research.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2008, 2003, 1999, 1998

notes for cabinet particulier, part iii: sorting the research

Dear Internet,
As planned, I got up early and headed into Traverse City to get Jeeves’ tires attended to. I called the local BMW dealership and was told, despite confirmation from MINI Grand Rapids and the TC BMW receptionist, they do NOT service MINIs. His suggestion? Take my car to MINI Grand Rapids. When I pointed out a 160 mile trek on possibly bad tires was not a wise move, he suggested I head to Discount Tire (as I had originally was leaning towards) and also gave me the name of a local TC shop that specialized in MINIs and other foreign cars.
Once you get off of M-72 and start heading into Cedar and then further on to Throbbing Cabin is some of the best driving roads around, barring M-22 of course. I love this part of the drive when we come up here as this is the kind of roads where Jeeves thrives and begs to be driven on. There is a stretch of about five miles after you leave Cedar that is hairpin straight and goes up some minor hills; when you hit the apex of each hill, you can see Lake Michigan beckoning in the distance.
Uncertain to the status of the my tires, I drove ever so slowly down to TC and who am I kidding here? I was probably white knuckling it the entire way, waiting for the supposedly bad tire to just fall off and planning in my head how I was going to handle each and every bad scenario that landed in my brain.
Discount Tire was busy for 10AM on a Wednesday morning — me and all the OAPs hanging out getting our tires issues sorted. The tires are fine and the TPMS is all normalized (again). Rationally, I knew this was going to be true, but anxiety eats away at all rationality. I spent time on the deck last night staring at Jeeves as if he was a monster because I could not stop thinking of worse case scenarios of having massive car issue 160 miles from home. THIS! Despite having insurance, an incredible maintenance and warranty plan, tow truck numbers programmed in my phone, and local numbers (now) for car repair, I could not let it go until the nice man at Discount Tire told me everything was going to be fine.
I got back to the cabin several hours later than intended as I ran a few errands since I was out and about. After having lunch, I started getting settled into doing research for the book around 4PM and here it is four hours later and fuck man, I am overwhelmed.
researchoverload

On Monday night I started culling all the random tidbits I had been collecting for the last 18 months and began to import them into Scrivener. I broke each thing down to its own category for easier sorting and updated the research page for the project in the process.
Today’s work was much of the same as I found more locales where I had stored bits and bobs. I think in my head I always fancied myself to keep things neat and simple, but apparently I keep trying to find the best product for everything, test it out, and ultimately forget it and all the content I stored there. Today the culprit was Pinboard, which while it seems to prove useful for many, I need visualization to organize.
(Still sitting on Pinboard is a good chunk of research I found for my viking and medieval lady boners which still needs to be imported over to their respective Scrivener projects. Marginalia for the win!)
Granted Scrivener has a learning curve, but once you get in the groove it starts to really make sense. Best thing I’ve ever done? Put all my notes, ideas, and everything into a single Scrivener project.
storyideas

I’ve also been reading contemporary stories while I’m up here based in the Edwardian era – of which there is surprisingly not many. I suspected with the rise of Downton Abbey that there would have been a huge influx of lit based in the Edwardian era, but no, there really isn’t. I know of less than half a dozen mystery series based in that era and handful of fiction books written in the last five years but that’s shockingly about it. Since I’m having a hard time finding contemporary books of that era, I’m going to create a bibliography over on my author site for read alikes. Because librarian, yolo.
I’m also collecting titles of works written in the era to read to get a better sense of the period. so watch it Lawrence, Forster, Galsworthy, and the whole lot of you. I am on to you. And lucky me, most of their work is available in the open domain.
(I finally finished Maugham’s Cakes & Ale, though written in 1930 much of the book takes place in the Edwardian era. Holy fuck, do I hate this book. It was just so awful for a large list of reasons I will be discussing later.)
Additionally, there is only a handful of sites dedicated to the Edwardian era and some of them are dubious in nature while others tuck that period in as very-late Victorian without giving the period its proper due. I was distressed to find that one of the sites that I had considered, due to the breadth of research and writing, to be a fabulous resource was passing on debunked knowledge as fact.
Case in point: I am supremely disappointed to discover Edwardian women did NOT pierce their nipples to make them more pert. This is repeated over and over again in many legitimate sites but apparently there is no reference other than to a correspondence page in the back of a publication from 1899 that was more of fetishism than actual fact.
I have a draft started for a blog post quaintly entitled, Who the fuck are the Edwardians and why should we care?, which I hope to write tomorrow. Because we should care, dammit.

The mosquitos are eating me alive out here and it grows late. My treat for getting work done will be a vegan white russian, dinner, and a not so terrible book.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2012, 2010, 1998

WIP: July writing schedule

Dear Internet,
It’s ~~mid~~ late Sunday afternoon and we’re still up at Throbbing Cabin. TheHusband and I are teaching ourselves how to relax and he’s doing a fine job of it at the moment ~~if his snoring is any indication~~ by cleaning the gutters and other yard work.
Me, on the other hand? I~~‘m actually working but it’s the kind of work I love to do so it is actually fun, not work~~. Following him around the perimeter of the cabin with the shop vac on my shoulder so he can suck up all of the last years worth of leaves from the gutters. ~~And isn’t this what the whole adventure was to be about in the first place?~~
Fuck. I was tricked into doing yard work.
Moving on. I am not allowing myself feel guilty for not getting much writing work done my first official week into this new venture. Domesticity had to be done and so it was and now that I have a sort of rhythm going to my day and making heavy use of my calendar, I’m sort of figuring out what direction I’m going in.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. When I’m not being tricked into doing yard work, that is.
Today’s writing task was to sort through all of my scraps stored on Google Drive and Dropbox, consolidate them and remove the duplicates, then import non-journal based things into a Scrivener project I manage for such works I titled Story Ideas. Story Ideas is my launching pad for all of my fiction writing as any idea, line, scrap of something lands up here and organized into one of seven main sections, Book Ideas, Story Ideas, Stories in Progress, Outtakes, Research, Scrivener Projects (projects with their own Scrivener project file), and Completed.
Most of this is pretty self-explanatory except perhaps for Outtakes which is chunks of writing I’ve removed for whatever reason and did not want to trash and Research, which is links to things I want to dig into more but not sure what for just yet.
This task turned into the rabbit hole of all holes as I have folders inside of folders in various places across Dropbox and Google Drive. I’ve now made a ToDo item to dig more to figure out what each piece is (journal entry? prose? short story? something else entirely?) and sort it out later. Everything that could easily sorted today got moved into Scrivener to keep it all in one location.
Right now the stats are

46 story ideas (various states)
16 book ideas (mainly first few chapters, synopsis, and related material)
8 short stories in progress (most are near completion)
8 notes in Research
4 completed short stories
2 existing Scrivener projects

This does not include all the notes I’ve made in paper journals or index cards not yet transferred, notes made in SimpleMind for an Icelandic saga cycle I’m working on, or what other treasures are still lurking on my drives.
(If this all sounds impressive, it is and isn’t. I had no idea the sheer amount of prolificness BUT a lot of it is dreck. I’ve got NaNoWriMo projects dating back to 2001 (and novels started as far back as 1999) that are very clear indicators of what I was into at the time, which isn’t the same as I am into now. 95% of this will probably never see the light of day as it’s pretty bad, thank fuck.)
The big thing I need is accountability, because this current organization in its natural chaotic state is a hot mess.
At the beginning of the month I’ll put up my writing plan and at the end, summarize what I did. I’m not going to do word counts (yet) because I have no idea how to apply it realistically. From June 28th – July 5th, on the blog alone, I cranked out 9, 724 words over 13 blog posts. That’s not including work I’ve done on note taking, story editing, and anything else since I don’t have those numbers. So word counts are out (for now).
Additionally, TheHusband wants to see some kind of timeline of my work progress so he knows when he needs me to crack the whip or for me to calm the fuck down. All very civilized in our household.
Behold! Projects for July:

Launch lisarabey.com finally
Plow through current library loans and ARCs from NetGalley and get reviews written
Collate notes on the Edwardian mystery, continue with research, and get most of the structure sorted
Start fleshing out 45th parallel story
Finish or shelve in-progress short stories and submit completed ones
Get Vol 1 of secret Kindle project completed and online
Continue note carding ideas / quotes / etc for future projects

Is this a lot? It feels like a lot but at the same time it feels like I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I feel what needs to be done.
When I check in 25 days, we’ll see how it went!
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2003