idiosyncreant | Entries tagged with backlash girls

Do you know what this means, kids?

It means I finished an important project! In this case, BACKLASH GIRLS!
The very first-drafty Draft of it.

But we will not repine about it's lame ending pace and denouement! That's what fourteenth drafts are for.

What I love about this book is that there are so many guys in it--and so many girls in it. I think the MC has a pretty realistic (at least from my experience, as me) awareness of all sorts of men in her life. That's cool. She also has an intense love of her girlfriends, and the book is full of girls talking. I wanted more girl-drama in it, and I need the intensity to be more show, less tell, but it's a theme that's there.

And it's a book about an otaku geek-girl who gets turned into a real-live superhero. Goes away to a fancy boarding school. Loves to banter with people, and has found a group of people who know how to respond.

I wrote it because I loved these things, and sometimes that's all you can do for a book, in it's first draft.

...I feel a post about the superiority of girl-friends in shojo manga coming on, but I'll postpone that. 9_9

Current Mood: resigned

A follow-up to the post on hands--these photos are mine, so not at all to be compared with the art-shots I posted earlier.
Still, they are hands that I admire.

The ones I took of my brother's hands at work didn't turn out today. You can still see that they're kept under seige with fire, abrasion, and polishing compound. Several of his nails are shiny as glass, they're worn so much.

(actually Dan's shot, since I was shy...)
The head jeweler, Kerry Pace--he does the custom work, and has been bringing in his beloved roses for us to smell and admire every morning lately.

These are my hands. I like them pretty well, too. ^_^
There was one small request for pictures of my hands at work--I added one on the keyboard, because that's a skill, too.

Believe it or not, I have yet more to post on the subject of hands at work, but I'm going to leave off that subject for now.

Rally To the Finish! on Backlash Girls*
is still on, despite evidence to the contrary. I think I'm writing the final conflict right now. I think it will have to be very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very [are you tired yet? I'm not] different in the final draft, in fact, I may be ending it completely wrong.

BUT.
It's the ending I have.
Sometimes these things take a few/several/many months to reveal what they were really supposed to be like. Nothing like a false start to illustrate the correct place to be...

*this is my geek-girls turned superheroes turned media-props story. In case you missed it. I forget to explain these things.

Rally Points:
2043 yesterday.
only at 1400 or so still, today, but I have some hours left. I have my excuses, but they are weak, and will not appear here today...

An interview with a fashion magazine goes *well* (this has got to be breaking some shojo law) where Ena and Freedom confess to co-ordinating their outfits in the morning, despite polar-opposite wardrobes. There's also an impromptu photo-shoot at the picnic table, and...
well.
That's what I've got to figure out. But Ena would LOVE that cosmetics set...

[ETA: at the day's end 2541 or @%$!]

***

Speaking of nothing, I have a Twitter.

Well, I have two, but one was personal, and I got tired of it. That's what my Facebook is for.
...anyhow.

I am only following a certain kind of random tweet, and trying to only tweet random stuff that would be fun to follow in the same way.

Find me, if you like, as oh_gingersnap

Example tweet: (I won't be shipping this nonsense to LJ. I promise)

I enjoy this Hello Kitty with the opening skull wayyyyy too much.

Rally Points: 2430

The scenes including teen-fiction favorites: being helped down from heights by boys, falling asleep on your cafeteria tray, and an impromptu slumber party.

'Cuz once the villains are locked up, it's business as usual, kids!

***

Today I've weeded, recorded country rock vocals (my voice has a nice gravel now, and you're missing it!), and stolen my brother's kefir smoothie, but it's time to buckle down to word-smithery.

Or, you know. Hack Central Office Hours.

Current Music: Violet Hill - Coldplay

Rallying Points:

1943

I'm working on a sprint to the end of Backlash Girls.
Next week I start work full time for two weeks, covering someone's vacation, and then I have to be getting ready for my trip in July. I'll be all distraction and nerves.

I didn't think at the beginning that I'd actually finish the book this week, but it's looking more possible after covering so much story yesterday, that I thought would take more page-space.

So, almost 2000 words! Today I've got a few already and I think I'll go out and weed a bit to regenerate some brain, then come back to it.

...in which:
Schaeffer is less like a Kyoya and more like a Patrick Verona (show version)
There is a tactical use of the trap called The Bread Box
And there is an odd date set for going to the symphony, reminding Freedom that Schaeffer is a cellist.

After that little dissertation on theme and payoff, I finally buckled down to figuring out why I just *couldn't* write the ending to Backlash Girls. I had to talk it out with myself I guess.

Been dilly-dallying for weeks now.

I started trying to write a new synopsis, which has the effect of drawing out the thematic elements for me, and also skimming over some of the scenes toward the beginning. These actual activities did not help, but having taken out the wireless card in my computer so I couldn't turn to the distraction of the Internet left space between the two have the answer occur to me.

I had been planning an action sequence as the final flourish.

This story has had a certain amount of action, because it IS a superhero story, and I'll still go ahead with the scene, but that's not the end.

by kurafire at Flickr

Because the core of the story is much more about the heroine learning to make herself wonderful, to master being something her abilities have made her.

The answer is obvious, when I sat and thought about it. Something I should be doing more often, obviously...

It's the media response she has to conquer, not the actual attack from the people who would kidnap her. Which will be harder to make satisfying, but more interesting to me...

Must be spring! Tykes of about 15 are checking me out in the grocery store parking lot.

This is both very amusing and very mortifying.

(I had *not* sprouted a third eye. I checked.)

I've picked Backlash Girls back up (again) and I think I just crossed the point from How Do I Fill This Book? to How Do I Fit this into a Book? SNAFU, and all that jazz.

I think I'll need to come back and fill this part out, because the pretty Maine cove and ice-cream parlor and Raw Marshmallow Party could definitely use some more body glitter.

But whatever!~

Current Mood: irreverent

So here's a first lines post, but without being the first line all of the time...

Sunschild

Everett felt the SunLord come up the mountain, and grinned.

She wasn't touching the volcanic power beneath her, but she felt it. She and the fire of Rainier had connected.

( Short Stories, Unfinished, Including some really ancient ones... )

Outright Skip-Beat fic

Kotonami had her eyebrows raised as Kyoko finished the print-out.

“Usually I don't bother with those moronic celebrity sites,” she said. “But I have an alert set up about That Jerk. I take him as a very serious threat.”

( and some not-so-straight-up derivative stuff. Batman, Han Solo, HP... )

And the only NOVELS I'm working on actively:

Backlash Girls

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said at the mirror. My Han impression wasn't stellar, since for one, I have a definite girl voice (I envy those altos) and for two, I was looking at myself in the mirror. Not the best context for sounding cocky, if nervous.

Letters to my Nemesis

First day of Higher School over. It wasn't so bad. Maybe it's being two years older than my classbros but the hallways didn't seem so crowded with menace. I did avoid the elevators, though.

No sense in entering a warzone before your time.

Still trying to write a bit of Backlash Girls every day.
Revelations about Tom Brady's influence on the fate of a young Power, Ena's comfort with gymnastics in outsized hoop earrings, a rogue card, and the creative use of a pommel horse have all emerged since the last time...well, I collaged here anyway.

Freedom has requested to be taught how to fall, as the first piece of their action hero skillset...
This story is incredibly easy to write.
You'll no doubt hear all about how hard it is to revise shortly.

Most Recent Neurotic Bent:
I'm waiting for some rejections. Worried I'm missing them because of e-mail address drama.
The only one that's really overdue I sent a query about a few months ago, though, with the correct one. Pointless circles...

My studies of Korean, however, are going better than I expected...

Current Music: Joo Kwan Woo ~ Day by Day (Witch Yoo Hee OST)

This picture? This is a tradition I have with myself...*

What it means today is
I finished NANO!

It wasn't so much of a battle this time, so I am not really having much of a finisher's high...in fact, that will have to wait till I finish the book. Which still could be quite distant..

StupidFunny Quote of Me in the Past, via tag-surfing today...
Things I have to do Monday other than writing (sadly, there will be no Poisson...) are Legion, but do not include being disenfranchised and critical of: Poets on critique forums, Young Adult/MG writers at NaNo, my own ability to walk away from demeaning situations, the course of the world, the sick state of humanity, or My Own Ability to Accrue Library Loans to Read and Return At Inopportune Times.
(10/11/08)

* I started it back when I was on Xanga with my school friends. I posted hero-pictures when I finished papers or sometimes exams. It just helps express my feelings. ^_^

Intimidating Thing:

Today I have to do a day and a half of writing. I'm sure I can--not so sure if the NaNo site won't be crashing when I attempt to load my status.
I kinda don't care, though. I've been writing this book when I wasn't sure I ever would. I think it's going to be a two-book deal, though, looking at word-count. I don't think I've meandered that much.

I mean, carrying a wounded comrade over a bridge just can't be cut, right?

Odd Thing:
sleep deprivation and Harry Potter go so well together.
I'm reading Goblet of Fire right now (HP is also great mood-setter for my Backlash Girls writing: enough unlike it just helps me feel in the right mood) which is strangely comfortable for after long nights of not-quite-sleeping.

I read Goblet of Fire for the first time after buying it in Narita Airport.
I had just delivered my exchange sister to her airplane after a bit of a trip to Kyoto & Osaka, and spent $30 on it, something ridiculous anyway. (It was just out that year.)
This was the return trip from nightmare-land, with wandering about Tokyo station (but not in it) for about two hours after 7:30, reading in the fairly bitter cold and slight rain, not wanting to stay in one place too long. (Don't ask me why, I was even more neurotic at 16.)

I didn't sleep very well on the night bus home, even after reading late, and once in my own bed slept until mid-day and finished the book while still in bed, feeling warm and befuddled.

One of the more memorable reading experiences I've had.

And also the power of drawing on hands...how can that be taken out?

~ Amusing Thing:
knowing which showings at the dingy little theatre across for the jewelry store are New Moon.
(Hint: THE ONES WITH PEOPLE AT THEM)

Ponds with wave-machine booby-traps are likewise too good to waste...

Off to make more words, wish me luck...
48758 Words Down, 1242 To Go

Current Music: Thru The Looking Glass ~ Adham Shaikh

This is the part of the process where I realize nothing has happened, and seek desperately to fix that. I wouldn't say it was this far into the word-count on most novels, or even that it happens every time I try to write a novel.
When it doesn't, it's because I make a conscious effort to prevent it, though.

Word-count wise, though, it's going good!

42559 (59224) 2600 today, since I worked hard to get a main plot-point well underway...

Which involves taxis by evening, candle rituals, and a Very Big Press Conference. (Cleverly, I've managed to not make the press conference the actual plot point. This is not just because I know nothing about press conferences, much less ones for entertainer-types.)

Current Music: Ludovico Einaudi ~ Divenire

Today we touched upon poisoned darts, metallic sneakers, gum-wrapper communication, and a love of airbrushing.

Freedom fears she is a sell-out, but if they're going to make posters of her face, touch-ups are a godsend. She mentions this in a self-introduction. I think this book has more introducing sequences than any book should have, but we'll fix that L8R.
Besides, the point is this is sort of a drill...

Today: 2148 words
NaNo: 33255
Total: 49894

I got to ask my brother a firearms question this morning which turned up info to change what I'd been doing into something cooler. Apparently, they really can shoot darts from an M-16 (the gun I put a picture of last time). It involves blanks, which would still have panic-inducing loudness, and an attachment. It also would kick less so a 17 y.o. girl wouldn't have so much trouble. PERFECT.

You probably already know this, but Linkin Park has some pretty skiffy music videos.
"Leave Out All the Rest" here is straight-up SF, if a bit space-opera.
I mean, these guys are astronauts getting caught in a solar flare or something. Have you seen it?

Current Music: Linkin Park ~ In the End

Up over 30,000 words, the latest section of which includes an emergency escape swing-set, doubling as a Korean boy-band, and intimidating fake weaponry.

Here's a snippet, where Freedom talks with some of the people who are interning at their school. Under the man who maintains and constantly updates the trap-filled Wood behind the gym. (Joey, Chelsea and Sienna are fellow students.)
_________________

“I don't know when I'm going to have the next chance to walk through your little wonderland," I said, "but the bits of it I could process the last time had me very impressed. Is the rain system permanent?”

“Oh yes,” said Clive. “That was here long before I arrived, anyway.”

“What about the Breadbox? We were in that one for a while...”

“We dug for that one,” said John. “And then planted the masking grass and so on. I was surprised it worked, though, with the first trigger, then the second trapping of two people. Glee knows his stuff all right.”

“You'll have to see if the veterans get fooled,” I said. “We're the perfect suckers for any of them. If it was a barb-wire fence I'd get right over it, but my trap sense is not so good yet.”

“Y'all from farm country?” Clive asked with a grin.

“You betcha,” I said, in my best redneck accent.

“Hey, you eat up, girl,” he said, apparently adopting me for my bob-wire skillz. “No use in exercising if it don't give you license to eat hearty.”

“Once I'm used to the exercise maybe it won't be so hard.”

Chelsea was looking unhappy. Maybe it was something personal, but Sienna also had an eyebrow raised.

“Sorry, did I come interrupt a conversation?” I asked.

“Not really,” said Joey.

“You're doing your job well,” Chelsea told me. “Filling the awkward silences.”

“Apparently, all those years keeping my stupid comments to myself were a mistake.”

John the Earnest laughed at this, and the other guys smiled.

“Maybe just a different one than you're making now,” Sienna muttered.

I've reached the point of this book where I have room in my head for other stories to fit.
This is also the point where one is throwing cues around and hoping for an exit strategy... The significant lack of plot is going to be fixed soon, though. I just have to wait until the time zones align and then--WHAMMO.

Freedom's problems go nuclear mutant.

This is, in any case, the theory.

Today there is climbing of trees, and silver headbands. Also, reappearance of eyeliner angst.

Nano Count: 23802 (total MS count: 40387)

The greatest thing about this book is that it's full of girls--they talk all the time!
The worst thing about this book is that it's full of girls, and...

Right now, the Backlash Girls are discovering the delights of the Danger Wood training ground at their new school which include:
a fort, trip-wires, and menacing ponds.

I'm particularly proud of that trip-wire image--despite the fact that it was sheer luck I came across it. Man, I love autumn colors...

The Facts Are...
I have no neuroses to report today, nor any particular triumphs. I was up to almost
14,000 words
new since NaNo started, though. (As of yesterday.) That makes the novel a little over
30,000.
I think it's a little fat, but this is a voice-driven YA superhero story. Whatcha gonna do? She's just *talking*...

The Big Question:
To bring to writer's group or not to bring?

Current Music: Thy Fleeing Time ~ Dargaard

This is a meme; it was more interesting this time around. It's partly that I'm doing better with opening lines, especially for short stories, and partly that I've been doing a lot of short stories.

List the first lines of your last twenty stories. See if you find any patterns. (And flist, I'd love your opinions on patterns you notice.)

1) Harry hated to run away from anything, but he would have made an exception for this garden party. {The Enchanting Miss Tetley}

( 2-20, if you're interested. )

Also: My Raven King yarn is done! Come look at it...

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: rainy morning OK
Current Music: Pandora: a music education

I dug out my Spiderman poster to put on my door. (I actually received 2 the year I was 18, an undeserved reward for being annoying about that particular fangirl phase.)

Back to the Superhero Research!

Sky High may be awesome, but it's really just fodder for Backlash Girls. However much I may be whole-heartedly indulging avoidance behaviors toward writing, it's really got my attention right now.

I even stripped the walls of most of the pictures I had up for "Charming" (librarian glam story) since the visuals are turning out different anyway.

Wanna hear a bit?

The Lamest Powervillain EVAR

My Zombie Boyfriend T-shirt (brains over beauty, yesh) is a little too stretched over significant areas, since I've gained a little more weight, and I didn't like my face without the frames Ena gave me. Stupid Carter had stepped on them. Even my gamer-chick look wasn't at its best.

Also, I had calculated that since Teddy hadn't been at the gamer coven last time, it wasn't basketball season, and the newest Halo had hit the Game-Stop shelves he was sure to be there tonight. Doesn't that sound dangerously neat? “What could go wrong?” says the heroine.

But no matter what Ena and Chelsea would be there, so it would be fun.

See how you jinx yourself?

( How it All Begins )

And yes, the post title is a later quote.

Current Mood: devious

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June 2022

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Rally for the Finish! ~ and that's a wrap
Working Hands
Rally for the Finish! ~ success and its trappings
Rally for the Finish! ~ the start of the real Ending
Rally for the Finish! ~ red herring battle scene
practicing this writing nonsense
(no subject)
Tedium Tuesday ~ first lines meme
five years since I reupped my Higher Combat Training...
(no subject)
(no subject)
Day 19 ~ EEK, she said eloquently
Day 15 ~ I'm (Again) Not Worried, We're on Course
Day 14 ~ At This Point, Business As Usual...
Day Eleven ~ Staying a Course...a Talkative One
Day 8 ~ Playing Hooky
another long day in the dungeon
I guess small town infamy is still infamy

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Ever Bethany

do we make it out alive?

Entries tagged with backlash girls

Rally for the Finish! ~ and that's a wrap

Working Hands

Rally for the Finish! ~ success and its trappings

Rally for the Finish! ~ the start of the real Ending

Rally for the Finish! ~ red herring battle scene

practicing this writing nonsense

(no subject)

Tedium Tuesday ~ first lines meme

five years since I reupped my Higher Combat Training...

(no subject)

(no subject)

Day 19 ~ EEK, she said eloquently

Day 15 ~ I'm (Again) Not Worried, We're on Course

Day 14 ~ At This Point, Business As Usual...

Day Eleven ~ Staying a Course...a Talkative One

Day 8 ~ Playing Hooky

another long day in the dungeon

I guess small town infamy is still infamy

Profile

June 2022

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