(You're all very lucky, BTW, because I *almost* made the topic "FLOAM," because the commercial for it is on TV as I type, and it's so....grotesquely appealing that I almost used it. Plus, it's fun to say. Try it -- FLOAM!)
We got this stuff. The kids had been dying for it, but forgot to ask for it, for Christmas. I remembered their Floam love about a week before. We ordered it. It was about 20 bucks. Scott paid the super-fast shipping fee which was also about 20 bucks, so we'd have it by Christmas. It came a couple of days after, during the time everyone was sick.
We decided we'd make it a New Year's present. Scott opened it when the kids weren't around. He said it's disgusting, and the neon pink stain on his sweatshirt which is even worse than liquid amoxicilin stains backs him up. I guess it has to be mixed or mushed together or something, before you use it. They still don't know it is here. It's living in a box, on top of the fridge.
t /natter
So, anyway.
I finished London Calling.
401 manuscript pages. 86,484 words.
Done. Doo-bee-doo, done DONE like a done thing.
Now I wait for feedback on the epilogue. I make whatever tweaks I think are needed. I let Mme. Agent know it's done. I take a day and write the (yuck fooey) long form synopsis, and get that off to Mme. Agent. Then I slam through the associated short story about the detective in the series. Then I start the fourth book in the series, Cleveland Rocks.
Meep.
Damn, woman, you write fast. (I know this is fast for you, but I thought the ghost books were much faster than I could do, too. Of course, I only rarely get that many good ideas, at once.)
This is one reason I steer all the way clear from the coy blogging discussions about "process".
I aint got no stinkin' process. There are characters and a road, for me. That's pretty much it.
To some extent, I like them. Because I'm new at it and writing is kind of...solitary so shop talk can be amusing.
But I get just as irritated as you with the people that have these super-involved rituals or say that it *must* be with this special paper...ugh. Or, I saw this really famous airport book author on TV one time and she swore the characters talked to her...that was embarrassing.
Or, I saw this really famous airport book author on TV one time and she swore the characters talked to her...that was embarrassing.
Characters talk to me all the time, and I don't just mean you people.
The easiest stories for me are when I've got the characters talking in my head. Those are the ones I know are safe until I can get them written down. Other times, I'm staring at the cast in my head and mumbling, "Do something, already."
Someone over on LJ linked to a writing teacher's site, where he was saying stuff like "Make sure to foreshadow the theme of your story three times. If the story's about someone having a baby, use things like opening a door to show a transition or someone on hands and knees doing something, because that's a very earthy position."
True, my Buffista-corrupted brain supplied, but my first thought would be about sex, not giving birth. Like Freud, sometimes opening a door means someone is just opening a door.
