http://www.hobgoblin.net/ Resources for Writers Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:44:10 -0500 http://backend.userland.com/rss/ Writer's Blogs weBLog en http://hobgoblin.net/images/logo.gif http://www.hobgoblin.net/ 144 80 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2442 Yay! I have a new job. I am now a librarian in my local library (or libraries, seeing as I get posted around various ones in the county.) It's excellent, I get to work with books all day! Well, not even all day, really. I'm only part-time at the moment, which is nice because I still have plenty of time to write. And since I have three new book plots, that's a lot of writing! Yes, I'm liking the library job very much. I've been working there now for three weeks, and I'm about 95% competent on everything - the only things that stump me now are unusual requests. Had one, I shall say interesting, customer. He said I shouldn't be working in a library because I was a woman, and women shouldn't have jobs. And that I should get a man to carry the terribly heavy box of books he was delivering. Make of that what you will, ladies. I very kindly told him that I'd be fine carrying the ludicrously light box of books and that this was the 21st century, and women can do anything we want.Undoubtedly that encounter will find itself a home in one of my books Read on!And write on! Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:27:53 -0500 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2442 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2441 I finished Chapter 3 of Vengeance last night. It's not as pretty as the first two chapters, but it's done. Everything that needed to happen in it happened, and a motive for why Hernando wants Craig alive just dropped out of the sky while I was writing it. In short, Jessica's task can no longer be completed by any vampire, and here comes a non-vampire who could possibly do it. Just because he's a mortal enemy is only a minor problem. ;)So in Chapter 4, Craig will be visiting the bookstore, and I'll be introducing Aaron to the non-game audience for the first time. Should be fun. While Craig was talking to Hernando, Aaron's love interest Alice was getting kidnapped by Hernando's rival, so Aaron isn't having a very good day...That's what's happening with the front half of Vengeance. The back half, meanwhile, is now the opposite side of Tragedy of the Hand - which, right on schedule, I've still not gotten Round Tuit and it'll be what I tackle for Labor Day Novel 2008 coming up in a few weeks. In general, I realized last night that at the rate I keep pushing fiction to the bottom of the priority list, I was never going to get anything done. Meanwhile the not-having-written pressure mounts while I'm at work or trying to sleep. So I need to prioritize better. I have four workdays and three free days per week. I have four categories of writing things to fit into those three free days - fiction writing, roleplay writing (RPoL), free nonfiction (my blog), and mercenary nonfiction (eHow and whatever I expand to for writing for pay). Mercenary writing has to be at the top, just because I will be needing that money in a few more months when it (hopefully) starts paying off, assuming I invest enough time-capital into it at the beginning (i.e. now). Ideally I'd like to be making at least as much with it as I was getting from the takeout on weekends - around $200 per month. It wasn't a lot, but it took the edge off on rising gas prices and such. At the moment I no longer have that padding there, and while I'm not in trouble, it's still alarming to see how close I come to running down my checking account to the no-fees minimum.RPoL writing I really can't seem to get away from. I'm in five slow but stable games, and I run mine slowly as well. None of them are at all likely to end anytime soon. I have no plans to join any more of them, like, ever. As a general rule, I pretty much have to devote one full day out of those three free days to RPoL to keep up. Blog writing, on the other hand, I can draw back a bit. Daily posts took a lot out of me, and I'm down to 1-2 times per week nowadays, but the community I'm in doesn't at all mind. There's about 20 of us who read and comment each other's blogs, and I can just comment on theirs without posting much on mine.So that leaves fiction. As with roleplay writing, to really do a good job it's better to give it big chunks of uninterrupted time. Last night I squeezed it in after I got home from work and before bed, but that meant going to bed at dawn, so I don't know if that's such a good idea every time. Certainly not if I have something scheduled in the morning/early afternoon.So... merc writing gets one day, RPoL gets one day, and fiction gets one day. Blog now goes to the bottom, basically to squeeze in whenever I'm taking a break from the other three (instead of having fiction in that capacity and therefore never doing any).One thing I've noticed is that the nonfiction writing can be done basically anywhere, and I can be interrupted without too much impact. Fiction can really only be done from home; with roleplay, I often have to look up stuff in my books, and with the writing I need to avoid distractions. So, I just need to do more nonfiction writing while I'm waiting around on errands (in lines and waiting rooms, etc.) to make better use of that offline time, and therefore give me more time for the fiction. Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:38:12 -0500 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2441 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2440 Just a quick post to say that I've finally finished the move to California, well in a general sense.I have no internet connection at home, so am very limited in that regard. I can check in occasionally though.Maybe in another month we can afford to get things hooked up here. Currently we're still paying the mortgage on our house in MD, and an apartment in CA. Cross your fingers for us that the house sells soon so I can have internet and cable again. In the meantime, its budget city. Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:04:11 -0500 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2440 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2439 So annoying! Just when I figure out what to do for my book, I find that I cannot write a thing! I started a dozen different beginnings, tried to write some of the middle bit and ended up throwing a complete tizzy fit (figuratively speaking) and going like this:- I need to get my head organised. I have so many good ideas, but as long as they're all zooming around, I can't whether they're logical or flawed. Maybe when I have less time to write, I'll actually want to. That's usually the case.Very excited about starting work on Friday. Write on! Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:17:41 -0500 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2439 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2438 Well, basically, I'm doing almost no fiction writing. Roleplay load was exceptionally light in the past six months, after I mothballed my game. It was so light that I reached a point where I missed all my players, so I started it back up again a few weeks ago, right on July 1st. I'm also still technically helping with another game (though in practice I don't have to do much, just a couple posts every two weeks or so), and playing in three others. Grand total: playing 6 characters in 4 games, running one game with 9 active/semi-active players. Everything moves slowly. I'm allegedly trying to join a 5th game, but it might've already died. Oh, and What is it to be Human? got deleted. Line hasn't been seen on RPoL since last June or so, so he wasn't around to undelete it, and then they purged it from the system entirely, so it's gone for good. Aside from roleplay posts, my fiction writing is nonexistent. I did finish off Chapter 10 on the bus story, but it turned out to only need another 41 words. The lengthy scene I'd been thinking to write turns out to be superfluous, and so I'm going to skip some travel time and start Chapter 11 at the bus stop in Clarkston. So far I haven't figured out all the details of the setup to that yet.I also figured out that the back part of Vengeance and Tragedy of the Hand are actually opposite sides of the same story. Which, well, should've been obvious, considering that I was using the same setting for both. That makes a lot of things easier overall. At the rate I've not gotten started writing any of it, though, it'll probably end up being my Labor Day 2008 project.In nonfiction news, I've been writing articles on eHow. It's a website for how-to articles about anything and everything, and they have a program where you can get royalties (sort of). It's an ad-revenue-share scheme. Robert has had a bunch of art articles up there since last fall, and he's getting a lot of money off them, so I know it's legit. He also has a few articles up at HubPages, which doesn't have quite as restrictive a format, but he's not been there long enough yet to see whether it's worth writing for for me. I write extremely slowly, and he's highly prolific, so it works best if I just watch what he does instead of expending tons of effort personally. ;)As for life in general. I took up yoga in January, quit the takeout job in May, rearranged my work schedule at the main job in June, and try to get offline more nowadays than I used to. I use the apartment complex pool more often than before (which was never), and have gotten to know some of the neighbors - including a rambunctious 5-year-old who is totally fearless when it comes to talking to strangers. I also have a number of small potted plants - chives, basil, and tomatoes, and I've once again begun thinking about starting up my 20-gallon fishtank. Maybe this summer I'll actually do it... Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:27:22 -0500 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2438 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2437 Well, we've managed to now lose our front room to dad's enormous new hospital bed. He can no longer make it upstairs, and so we have an in-house wheelchair, an out-'n'-about wheelchair which takes up the entire space in the car boot and a whopping great electric bed dominating the living room. It was a bit of a shock, finding all this new stuff suddenly crammed into the house when I got home yesterday. Left a house, returned to a hospital ward! lolI've not done any writing lately, at all. Very bad. I've just not had any urge. I've been reading a lot, that's why. Still, ironing just now, and (hopefully) had a major breakthrough for the novel. It's such a lovely, exhilarating feeling when the old cogs start to tick round again. I'm surprised they're not caked in dust up there, my brain's hardly been taxed these last few days.I'm also very pleased because I have a job. I don't start until the first of August, but I'm really looking forward to it. I am now a Library Services Assistant. Whoop! Lots of mooching around bookshelves. It's perfect! And, bonus, it pays well. Life is good.So, what's the rest of y'all up to? xxx Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:10:39 -0500 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2437 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2436 Hey there! I've worked on the same storyline in various forms since I was in Jr High School if not before. I'm now 28 years old and rewriting the one story that "fits" the concept I've been trying to express.It's been alot of work, and I've gone through so many re-writes of passages that I'm sure my friends who have read one version would only recognize the characters; not the story. Which is fine. I actually look forward to doing this rewrite as well as dreading it. I worry that I'll go and change something that will make everything else in the story wrong. And that is so easy to do all by itself. So my goal (and this just a self-promise not a challenge) is to type out the manuscript again without changing anything. And then do the editing.By the way---if anyone out there wants to play editor after I'm done...let me know. 'cause I'm not the best person to find misspellings or bad grammar. *wry grin* Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:48:51 -0500 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2436 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2435 I've noticed an interesting trend these past few weeks. I only ever want to write right after I've gone to bed, or when I'm hard at work at work. During those times I angst a lot about how I never do any writing. But when time rolls around when I can write, I never write. It's starting to get annoying. -.- Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:14:46 -0500 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2435 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2434 Wow, could that title be any more boring??? Seriously. Anywho. Well, the reading challenge seems to be going well, I have some brilliant ideas for my fantasy saga from the Feist book - I know the kind of things people like to read about now, whereas before it was liking shooting in the dark. Although, that does sound like fun... I kid.The writing's going quite well at the moment, not exactly steaming along but it's moving, and that's the main thing. I found a new format on my computer which I'm now using to write up all of the chapters, it has lines like a notebook, which makes it a helluva lot easier to proof-read as I go. Had my hair cut yesterday. I like it, it's nice and short now so it's easily manageable and cool for summer, but it does look very gay again... oops. That was NOT the intention. Ah well. Hehe. It'll grow out. That's one of the good things I really like about my hair. It does grow at an alarming rate. Okay, I'm off to write some more now. Just got to a really good bit of the chapter. Sun, 11 May 2008 07:29:56 -0500 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2434 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2433 I'm writing my book again, a lot, it's fantastic, such a sense of achievement! AND the writing is good, and I still have the motivation for dozens of ideas...SO I hear you ask, why is this bad luck? Where is the disastrous turn of fate to which you refer!?The bad luck is... I get this sudden burst of inspiration the exact same week I have 2 essays due...You see my predicament?I have the choice, make the most of this once yearly burst of inspiration... OR write some sucky essays so I can pass my course...EVIL CHOICES! Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:28:38 -0500 http://www.hobgoblin.net/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=2433