I spent some time rewriting the remix project yesterday and I got stuck on this one particular scene. Something was wrong with it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why it was bothering me. I stopped working for the day. I was sick of reading my own words anyway.
Then this morning I woke up and thought about the scene again. I realized that I had inadvertantly changed part of the setting. A lot of what I had written didn't belong. I actually had to gut the whole thing and start that part over, which was okay because the new scene was much better.
I’m going to blame this issue on a pause between work sessions. Most of the time, I write and proofread during little snippets of time I can grab during the evening or weekend or a lunch break. I work for as little as ten minutes at a time sometimes, which is probably bad.
Working for a long period of time is better because I catch issues like secenery inconsistency. But I have to work with what time I can get, and 90% of the time periods I get are snippets. Such is life, for now.
Let's see where we are. Page 28 of the 107 page original draft. Creeping toward acceptable novel length at 60900 words.
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
nightmare fodder
I took the day off. The boy and I went to the park. I saw this crazy bug on a fence, so I snapped a picture of it.
Using the all-wise and knowing internet, I have identified this charming specimen as a red-footed cannibal fly.
Cannibal.
Fly.
Why does it bear this name? From what I've read, it can take out pretty much any other insect, including dragonflies. And one site claimed that it can also take down a hummingbird if so inclined.
Using the all-wise and knowing internet, I have identified this charming specimen as a red-footed cannibal fly.
Cannibal.
Fly.
Why does it bear this name? From what I've read, it can take out pretty much any other insect, including dragonflies. And one site claimed that it can also take down a hummingbird if so inclined.
Yes the second picture is of the same bug. It looks different in flight.
The other pictures I saw while doing research showed the bug eating bees and wasps and such. It seems to like to go for the head-face area first. yummy.
Sleep tight, kids. Don't let the red-footed cannibal fly bite.
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
Thursday, July 28, 2011
thursday stuff
The prodigal dog has returned! Well actually I had to go get her. She was not eaten by a coyote and/or pups thankfully. Which is a good thing. I kind of like that dog.
This is the picture I used on the missing dog poster.
We put them up in various spots in the neighborhood and a nice lady called and said she had the dog. Zoe was tied up in her back yard and seemed quite happy to see us. I was late for work but we have the dog back. Woo!
Yesterday was kind of a weird/stressful day overall. There was the missing dog. My daughter is at band camp and didn't return any of my texts. Her phone probably died or whatever, but we are rarely completely out of contact.
Then there was an issue with another child, which I won't go into detail about, but I will say that I was peed on a little. All the drama put me off balance. I didn't really get any editing work done by the time I finished dealing with everything. Rough day.
But today is better and we move on.
Can you believe that July is almost over already? Wasn't the 4th like two days ago? No?
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
This is the picture I used on the missing dog poster.
We put them up in various spots in the neighborhood and a nice lady called and said she had the dog. Zoe was tied up in her back yard and seemed quite happy to see us. I was late for work but we have the dog back. Woo!
Yesterday was kind of a weird/stressful day overall. There was the missing dog. My daughter is at band camp and didn't return any of my texts. Her phone probably died or whatever, but we are rarely completely out of contact.
Then there was an issue with another child, which I won't go into detail about, but I will say that I was peed on a little. All the drama put me off balance. I didn't really get any editing work done by the time I finished dealing with everything. Rough day.
But today is better and we move on.
Can you believe that July is almost over already? Wasn't the 4th like two days ago? No?
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
dog
The dog is missing.
This summer she seems to have made a hobby of taking off. At first she would squirm out of her collar. She did that a few times, and we bought her a harness. That worked for a while.
But this morning, a family member who shall remain nameless let the dog off her chain at the end of the deck. Usually when we do this, the dog runs inside. This morning she decided to bolt instead.
She usually comes back within an hour or so of taking off. She’s a short, butterballish creature who gets winded when we take her on short walks. She’s not exactly built for survival in the wild.
I’m also worried because the coyotes are in the process of teaching their pups to hunt. I saw that on a news report just the other day. Zoe the dog would be a really easy target. The sun is going down right now and she still isn’t back.
Hopefully someone has her safe in their house. She has a really cute personality. I could see someone wanting to take her in. If they did, I hope they give her back.
I have no one to eat the food I drop on the floor. Max has no one to beat up on except for Sneaker, and she kicks him in the face.
I’m going to go work on a missing dog poster now.
: (
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
This summer she seems to have made a hobby of taking off. At first she would squirm out of her collar. She did that a few times, and we bought her a harness. That worked for a while.
But this morning, a family member who shall remain nameless let the dog off her chain at the end of the deck. Usually when we do this, the dog runs inside. This morning she decided to bolt instead.
She usually comes back within an hour or so of taking off. She’s a short, butterballish creature who gets winded when we take her on short walks. She’s not exactly built for survival in the wild.
I’m also worried because the coyotes are in the process of teaching their pups to hunt. I saw that on a news report just the other day. Zoe the dog would be a really easy target. The sun is going down right now and she still isn’t back.
Hopefully someone has her safe in their house. She has a really cute personality. I could see someone wanting to take her in. If they did, I hope they give her back.
I have no one to eat the food I drop on the floor. Max has no one to beat up on except for Sneaker, and she kicks him in the face.
I’m going to go work on a missing dog poster now.
: (
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
Monday, July 25, 2011
movie twofer: Domino and Insidious
Hey there, weblings! I am being quick with these two movie rundowns because I have a whole lot of page edits to enter. I have to finish them this evening or I’ll get behind in the computer end of the work and that makes for a very unhappy me.
First up is Domino, staring Keira Knightley as Domino, a female bounty hunter who joins two guy bounty hunters. I lifted the following description from IMDB.
“The daughter of an actor with a high-society woman, Domino Harvey, bored with her life, decides to join the team of Ed Mosley and becomes a bounty hunter. But she gets in trouble when the Mafia's money is stolen from an armored truck, while Mosley and his crew are in action participating of a reality show produced by Mark Heiss. The situation becomes out of control when the sons of a rival mobster are kidnapped while FBI is monitoring the two gangs of mobsters.”
Mickey Rourke plays a member of her team. There were many other stars in it too: Lucy Liu, Mena Suvari, Christopher Walken, Macy Gray and Mo’Nique were around. 90210 was a consistent theme throughout the movie, which was really sort of strange. Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green played themselves.
The movie was filmed in a gritty, hip sort of way. There was a lot of action. Keira Knightley makes a good badass. But the plot felt scattered. There were way too many characters and too much going on, too many subplots. Domino wasn’t bad, but it could have been better. B-
Next up, Insidious.
Oh, hell yeah, a horror movie – and a decent one at that. I’m grabbing my story description from IMDB again.
“A gripping story of a family in search of help for their son, Dalton, who fell into a mysterious comatose on one ordinary morning. Little do they know that there is much more to this endless sleep than meets the eye as they explore the paranormal, and rediscover the past; the key to getting their son back once and for all. Written by David Murray Arthur”
What separates the men from the boys when it comes to horror movies is a unique concept, a story that holds the interest of an audience without leaning too hard on the gore factor. Such things require skill.
Insidious excels in the story department. The first half hour gives the viewer the impression that the movie will be a Paranormal Activity knockoff. While there are some similarities in the beginning, Insidious goes so much farther in the way of plot. There are some seriously crazy, tripped out scenes. I don’t want to spoil anything because people who do that are assholes, but just trust me, it’s pretty wild and scary.
Insidious gets an A.
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
First up is Domino, staring Keira Knightley as Domino, a female bounty hunter who joins two guy bounty hunters. I lifted the following description from IMDB.
“The daughter of an actor with a high-society woman, Domino Harvey, bored with her life, decides to join the team of Ed Mosley and becomes a bounty hunter. But she gets in trouble when the Mafia's money is stolen from an armored truck, while Mosley and his crew are in action participating of a reality show produced by Mark Heiss. The situation becomes out of control when the sons of a rival mobster are kidnapped while FBI is monitoring the two gangs of mobsters.”
Mickey Rourke plays a member of her team. There were many other stars in it too: Lucy Liu, Mena Suvari, Christopher Walken, Macy Gray and Mo’Nique were around. 90210 was a consistent theme throughout the movie, which was really sort of strange. Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green played themselves.
The movie was filmed in a gritty, hip sort of way. There was a lot of action. Keira Knightley makes a good badass. But the plot felt scattered. There were way too many characters and too much going on, too many subplots. Domino wasn’t bad, but it could have been better. B-
Next up, Insidious.
Oh, hell yeah, a horror movie – and a decent one at that. I’m grabbing my story description from IMDB again.
“A gripping story of a family in search of help for their son, Dalton, who fell into a mysterious comatose on one ordinary morning. Little do they know that there is much more to this endless sleep than meets the eye as they explore the paranormal, and rediscover the past; the key to getting their son back once and for all. Written by David Murray Arthur”
What separates the men from the boys when it comes to horror movies is a unique concept, a story that holds the interest of an audience without leaning too hard on the gore factor. Such things require skill.
Insidious excels in the story department. The first half hour gives the viewer the impression that the movie will be a Paranormal Activity knockoff. While there are some similarities in the beginning, Insidious goes so much farther in the way of plot. There are some seriously crazy, tripped out scenes. I don’t want to spoil anything because people who do that are assholes, but just trust me, it’s pretty wild and scary.
Insidious gets an A.
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
Friday, July 22, 2011
writing stuff
The rewriting of the remix project is going very well. I'm making an effort to be patient and pay attention to what should be happening in the story. There have been a couple of instances where, in a fit of wanting-to-finish, I flew through a moment that was far more significant than the one-two sentence I gave it the first time around. So I write farther into it and explore the various possibilities for that particular interaction between characters or emotion or action, whatever.
Another thing I'm trying is injecting as much personality into setting as possible. I hate it when my descriptions come off sounding like lists. I know I said that before. The rattling off of various details is an efficient way to be done with setting the scene but if I'm being honest with myself, it's the lazy way out...and maybe the coward's way too.
I previously gave myself a tentative deadline of the end of July to finish messing around with the first draft of the remix project. Today is 7/22, so that gives me 10 days.
Errmmm.
Maybe if I can activate a laser rocket attention span or possibly borrow someone’s time machine, I can make that. Realistically, I would say it's probably not going to happen, but what I will do is try my damnedest to finish within that time frame. Is that really a word? Damnedest?
I would have to run through about ten pages a day to get there. It took me 2 days to get through 8 pages this week.
Of course, those were at the beginning of the book, which is the part of the book that I always end up rewriting the most. The beginning is extremely important because it's the part that helps people decide if they want the ebook. When you allow sampling, the sample runs from the beginning.
Anyway, I'm off to hang out with my purple binder and see how much rewriting I can cram into my two days off.
Have glorious times.
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
Another thing I'm trying is injecting as much personality into setting as possible. I hate it when my descriptions come off sounding like lists. I know I said that before. The rattling off of various details is an efficient way to be done with setting the scene but if I'm being honest with myself, it's the lazy way out...and maybe the coward's way too.
I previously gave myself a tentative deadline of the end of July to finish messing around with the first draft of the remix project. Today is 7/22, so that gives me 10 days.
Errmmm.
Maybe if I can activate a laser rocket attention span or possibly borrow someone’s time machine, I can make that. Realistically, I would say it's probably not going to happen, but what I will do is try my damnedest to finish within that time frame. Is that really a word? Damnedest?
I would have to run through about ten pages a day to get there. It took me 2 days to get through 8 pages this week.
Of course, those were at the beginning of the book, which is the part of the book that I always end up rewriting the most. The beginning is extremely important because it's the part that helps people decide if they want the ebook. When you allow sampling, the sample runs from the beginning.
Anyway, I'm off to hang out with my purple binder and see how much rewriting I can cram into my two days off.
Have glorious times.
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
Thursday, July 21, 2011
pictures of various things
Before we get to the pics, I forgot to mention that the slightly revamped version of MacDowell Sisters & AnnaBeth is up in the Amazon Kindle store and it's on Smashwords. It will probably take a while for the other ebook stores to update their records.
Here we go. The first set is from a nearby park. There are some shots of a heron and dragonflies in blue, green and black, some sort of raptor bird like a falcon or whatever. The tunnel is also in the park. Trains pass over the top, not actually through the tunnel.
The plane is a crop duster that was dumping pesticides on the corn field across the way.
Here we go. The first set is from a nearby park. There are some shots of a heron and dragonflies in blue, green and black, some sort of raptor bird like a falcon or whatever. The tunnel is also in the park. Trains pass over the top, not actually through the tunnel.
The plane is a crop duster that was dumping pesticides on the corn field across the way.
Broken feather on the right. Poor birdie!!!
inside the tunnel is some low quality graffiti
BLACK!!!
GREEN!
BLUE! and black
I like how it looks like they're playing chicken or something.
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
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