Ever Bethany

Briefly, before we begin... I am having a moment of anger and disbelief so many people do not love the idea of The Carnie's Conspiracy. And am lamenting what I could be doing wrong...

On the other side of things, this morning I wrote a piece of flash (1000 words style...I need to cut out 47 words, if we're being strict here) titled:

The Fox of the Karaoke Bar

which is a title that was in my head several weeks, and then last night developed a story to go with it. Maybe I'll post it someday, though posting fiction has never gone that well for me when it wasn't fanfiction. (Is this a demand I ought to fill? WAIT. Save me from myself!)


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Last 6 days of the Obsessive Book-Lover's Month of Books meme!

Day 25

What authors do you most wish to have bring out a new book, right now? (Dead or alive, keep it down to five!)

Dead People include Tolkien (and endless back matter being presented as new books is not what I mean, but a Hobbit or Farmer Giles of Ham kind of book) and Jane Austen (but not something serious as Her Last, like Mansfield Park, tho' I don't think she would have done it again, she never did things again).

At the same time, I don't feel like they're body of work was incomplete. Tolkien told the stories he wanted to tell.


Hmmm. Living people? Saving the obvious that I've already been over? Well, first, I wish Christopher Stroud would stumble across an idea like The Bartimaeus Trilogy again--his other books have not caught me the same way.


...and Hey, Presto! Robin McKinley's about to bring out a new book that looks soooo good. Pegasus is not a winged horses story (read sarahtales  's latest post with an interview with her for a bit more on that) but a story about a pegasus race that has forged an alliance with a human race--and a pair of friends who are not alienated from each other enough for their respective sides.

I haven't gotten to reading Chalice yet, by a terrible negligence on my part and a wariness produced by both the wonderful darkness that is Sunshine (which I read) and the reactions to Dragonhaven (which I haven't). I'm not talking about the controversy, so much as the impression I got of the book from posts of various people. I need to buck up and just read them both.

Because apparently Pegasus is really Part One of a single story that's huge and the ending of the first is cruel. DO NOT WANT.

Frex, I'm fragile.

Hopefully tomorrow at Tokyo in Tulsa I won't be the Shy Mopey Girl, though since I'm not dressing up...
It's harder when I'm not play-acting.

I want to go to meet people, but the thing about this cyber age is that people don't really want to meet other people randomly in person. It's more uncomfortable.

How could you create a T-shirt target that means:
Yes, I'd like to chat intelligently
No, I'm not as young as I look and
Please don't take my default look of whatever-it-is to mean I am an intimidating person

I am printing a new version of The Carnie's Conspiracy!

This has new material, which significantly changes the feel without being a reconstruction. I hope it will fly.

This story has been a comparative pleasure to work on.
It may just be that the other projects I've tried to revise have been Purgatory, but it's nice to actually be *capable* to edit what I need to, and think I've accomplished something. (Yes, World Dom. 101, I AM looking at you.)


And I've remembered an idea that would fit in the same vein of MG quasi-fantasy that I could begin, as a follow-up.

Gentlemen of Fortune?
It involves a boy expiating his pawn-shop-owning ancestors' sins by helping The Pirates atone for theirs.
Burying gold in wild locales was actually a rite to avert the wrath of their god, see.
But it was only temporary...

I need to dig out the journals again, to find where I had bits of world-building, etc. Because I had some, but that was probably years ago now...


(This is actually one of the fun parts, the flipping through my random journals...)

This is a little banner for my Etsy shop gossamersong, now boasting
7 items, from a "technicolor kittens" Umbridge skein to the Spirited
Away Haku yarn and my Very Pink tribute to the Nutcracker.

Yes, I am striving to make the shop a Guess-The-Fandom Extravanganza!
why do you ask?

(I am inordinately proud of how those three central photos go together.
I am less proud, but at least relieved to be actually working on this again.)



Speaking of work, I submitted 3 poems and a story (two for the first time)
to various places today.

I am less industriously writing a completely new scene for Carnie's Con,
in which Poisson has Molly burgle back a letter. Her only condition is to
not have to go in through a coal-hatch. (Do you know about coal hatches?)

I'd like to publicly congratulate myself on finishing the Conspiracy of Cons series, in first draft. ^...^

I wrote the last line of The Return of Mr. Birch this morning at 1.

I probably won't feel the triumph until I've typed it in, getting a chance to reread it a bit, but it feels really good to be freed up to concentrate on the *first* book's heavier editing aspects.
We'll see how long I can hold out before the next book project swallows my life.

“Some authors seem to have a fairly specific internal age; very likely it's the age they remember best from their own childhoods. When they write for this age, it sounds right; it feels right. Their characters' thoughts and speech and action feel inimitably their own, which comes both from the author's deep empathetic connection to the characters, and from the respect that empathy engenders.”

~ Editorial Anonymous, a great children's book industry blog


This made me think a bit. Particularly about the glee with which I wrote The Carnie's Conspiracy, to me a Middle-Grade novel.

Realistically, I was pretty much in literacy what I am today by 13. I was not able to write up to my ability to comprehend, and I now enjoy Jane Austen's books and others with a much better sense of nuance and humor.

However. It makes me curious. Have I been writing too old for myself?
...I wrote a picture book the other day.

Randomized Song Response Whoseemawhatsit:

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Pressing On

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Arch to Achilles

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Boy on a String

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
More Love, More Power

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Simon


( In Which Some Can Make Sense, Some are Humorous, and Some Leave the Imagination Blank )

      Well, I certainly didn't intend to spend New Year's Eve day in bed, napping, reading. and watching a lion's share of the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice. But I did. It would have been fun, too, if I hadn't felt like my throat was playing Judgment Day and not looking with grace on all my sins.
      (Apparently, my immune system DID notice all that sugar.)

New Year's Day I was generally done with living in my pajamas, and instead wrote 10 pages of The Return of Mr. Birch.
This may not seem monumental, but I'd been going about three sentences at a time before.

It also now sounds like I've been watching too many Austen dramatizations (this is true), but at least the plot's begun to move.

Win some, lose some.



Quick, what do Haku and my yarn have in common?
...too late. Beautiful colors, is what. I love interdisciplinary geekhood.







(Question to ponder: why we can't have a kissing scene
for *this* guy in Sense&Sensibility? Even as a deleted
scene?)
(This is a rhetorical question. The world is just cruel,
I know that.)

Today was my first day to not be sore from dancing,

even though I did practice yesterday.
My face is showing the exercise already, a trait I certainly cherish.
Keep it at it! the mirror says.

I also have sold 2 skeins of handspun yarn in the last two days, my first ever.


(Actually *this* yarn, whereas the feet above...not so much.)

These things (with some other random stuff) seemed to be designed encouragement for me, because there is something else in my life right now that just...whoa. Not good.
A lot of little happy stuff outweighs one hard thing for me, though. I'm cruisin'.

I'm going through Poisson No. 1 in my first sweep. Beware, lures to Beta, soon!

Chyaaa!
The book is done!

And for an image that really expresses my feelings:



(This picture thing is in the tradition of my previous blog--
I'd forgotten about it, but now I'm reminded there is no escaping!)

Writing Quantifications for The Day--

Trace Elements on Manuscript: Breakfast Fusion Green & Black Tea Blend (with lemon & hunny) I know, right? Yum...
Though I put tooooo much honey in, it's like the spoon could hold up to jig in it, and it's more like a dessert than a drink.
( Etc with the pretty graphs... )31032 / 50000 words. 62% done!

General Mood to the Effort: determined. To not sit in front of a notebook for 12 hours!

Current Outlook: Fair Sunshiny

Media Influences: Anberlin*, Kung-Fu Panda"There is no secret ingredient!), Batman Beyond: The Last Resort (reform school story)

* Guess who found out their newest favorite band is considered em0? *sigh* There is not a well-mocked facet of modern culture I have not endorsed...
** !Hott Villain Alert! Though his voice is a disappointment--but we can't have little girls loving scary kung-fu murderers. They must have learned that lesson after Shere Khan. (Not that he did kung fu, in case you were confused.)