Arrant Nonsense

At least I've lost half the weight I gained in Portland, but I swear sometimes it doesn't pay to get out of bed.

That being said, I just bought these from a seller on Etsy:



Considering the fact that all I seem to wear are Iron Man tees anymore, they're apropos, and they were under $10, shipped. So, yeah. I snagged the last pair, but I bet she'll make more if you need these in your life the way I do.

Dude, I haven't opened a single Word doc today. Not a new one, not the one for the new!Ben&Janni story, and not the one for Chains. It's like every bit of ambition has been sucked from my pores by some...ambition-sucking pore monster.

Part of it may be that Chains is intimidating the hell out of me, part of it may be that poor Ben has just had frakking enough, and part of it may be that I would love for the Short Story Muse to come out and play so I'll have something for next quarter's WotF, but he's resolutely staying hidden.

Or maybe I'm just having a dry spell. Who knows. Blah. You wouldn't think that pounding out two and a half drabbles a day in output would be all that difficult. You'd be wrong.

Fie. Fie and alas. And woe.

Kind of sucked, actually.

I mean, okay, yes. I added 17,000 words to the first novelthing and beat it into something actually readable. I'm 135,000 words into the sequel with an end in sight but god alone knows what's happening in the middle. I had two stories published (and paid for, let's not forget that), and another accepted at Anthology Builder. I'm getting a better class of rejection these days. I actually sent out queries for the first novel. Word-count-wise, I'm knocking on 170,000 if you count the Ghost Ship Story (which is not complete and may never be because it's So Very Broken) and a couple of fanfics I did. I wrote one of my favorite short stories EVER.

That's the Good.

The Bad is manyfold. I completed one short story this year. Count 'em, Jim, ONE (e-cookies to anyone who gets the reference). I missed a Writers of the Future deadline--and may miss this one too. Seriously, the Abducted!Werewolf story is the only thing I have that remotely suits, and it's a Shaggy Dog Story at best and a ridiculous waste of time at worst.

The new novel is horrible and I've written myself into a corner. I have piled more hurt on one character's head than it is humanly possible to bear (which means, I guess, that it's a good thing he's a werewolf). Not only that, but I feel like I'm spinning my wheels writing the thing because it's unpublishable and I don't have the chops to pull off the nuances anyway. And yet, if I don't complete it, that feels like a failure too, and a waste of an entire year's worth of writing.

And thus, the spectre of "Not a Real Writer" raises its ugly head. I think my stories are good, but apparently editors across the land are less than enamored of them. I'm not sure, at this point, I can NOT write--but that may be moot anyway as the ideas are drying up and I am, frankly, getting discouraged. I know, I know: Real Writers write, and thus by that definition I'm a Real Writer, rah rah rah. I'm just wondering if I'm an actual Good Writer.

On top of all that, I haven't actually written anything at all this week. Nothing. I've poked desultorily at the novelthing, and nothing's emerged.

Or I may just be suffering burnout and the Winter Blahs. Who knows. Feh.

This is two weeks' worth, because we weren't here last Monday. Yay?

Last time's word count: 132,044
This week's word count: 137,324
Word count for two weeks: 5,280

Hey, look, a mile's worth. Hee.

I think this is going to be my last Weekly Word Count post for awhile. I've done well on the year (I guess) as far as the count goes, although as far as the Story goes, the thing is all over the place and I have my doubts that it will ever see publication.

I may or may not do a "year in review" type thing. It's been kind of a dismal year, writing-wise, for me. I don't really feel as though I got a lot accomplished. I may change my mind after I look at the raw numbers. Maybe.

For a plethora of reasons.

It is entirely possible that I've run out of paying markets for the not!Iron Man story, having received (yet another) rejection for that one today (a nice rejection, but a rejection nonetheless) and discovered that the next market I was going to ship it off to has closed to subs permanently. And then I spent an ungodly amount of time wrestling with OpenOffice over taking a header off the first page, only to look over the guidelines of the market I was VERY SPECIALLY FORMATTING it for (seriously, some of these formatting requirements are whackadoo. I wouldn't mind formatting it after they accepted the damned thing, more than happy to do that, but I wish these markets would pick a format and stick with it. Preferably Standard Manuscript Format) and discover that they don't pay an advance at all, just a royalty. Which... yeah. Is fine and good if they were a major publisher, but...they're not. Also, they want me to come up with my own marketing plan. Because I know all about that, right? Aren't they the professionals? Feh. I mean, I'd be more than happy to do a local tour with signings and readings at bookstores and libraries and possibly high schools, and all that fun stuff, but an actual "marketing plan" is a little beyond my skill set.

Hell, I even chaptered the thing for them. It may or may not be better with chapters, crap if I know at this point. I just want someone to buy it so people will get to read it. This is the second story I've about decided will go up here with a tip jar, Miss Manners and her attitude toward "beggary" notwithstanding. My situation is a bit different (although I am also appallingly bad with money, but I have an excellent money manager in the Hubby) as I'd be providing content for said tips, and I view that more as a street musician playing with an open instrument case on the ground in front of me for people to drop a bill or some coins in if they so desire.

So, there was that. There's also the fact that I don't think I got any new words in the new!Ben&Janni story today (I edited some old ones, which doesn't count). And then I was going to console myself with a Carl's Jr $6 guacamole-bacon burger...and the Carl's I went to was closed for remodeling. The next closest one was at least fifteen minutes away (depending on traffic and how I hit the lights), and television was starting in... twenty-five minutes. I did not get my burger-y goodness.

I nearly decided to drown my sorrows in Diet Dew and Southern Comfort after Da Boy went to bed, but decided that drinking alone without the excuse of "unleashing my creativity" (because the Muse has apparently Gone Walkabout again) was a bad idea. So, here I sit. Comfort-less.

Also, the engine light in the CruiserBerry is on and has been for about a week. This is Bad.

Just...screw this day, y'know? Sideways, with a rusty cactus.

I know, I know, cry moar, boo-frakking-hoo, there's people out there worse off than I am. It...is entirely possible that I am hormonal. Which, you know what? Screw that too. *hates uterus*

Also, I miss the Gray Cat.

At least TV was good tonight. OH GOD THE PREVIEW FOR NEXT WEEK'S MENTALIST. *kermitflail*

Ben...is not talking to me.

Of course, he's not talking to anyone right now, he's hiding. So why should I be different? *is grumpy*

And Janni is in "Oh god I can't help him" mode. This is not useful either.

Alex is just walking around, carrying a half-full glass of scotch, and laughing at me. Yeah, whatever, Alex, wait 'til you hit my radar screen again, boyo, then we'll see who's laughing. You're gonna think Bosnia was a walk in the park compared to what I do to you next. *shakes fist*

Maybe I'll take a little break from this and work on "Unquiet Neighbors" instead. Of course, a plot for that one might be nice.

Argh and blah.

This has been a shit day.

Sometimes I seriously, seriously wonder if I'm cut out for this. Seriously.

I may need me some Jamocha therapy after this. Which would be a shame, since I lost a pound yesterday. In fact, stepping on the scale this morning was the only bright spot of the day. Which made a nice change from the usual, but damn. Did it all have to go downhill from there?

But yay for 133.4 this morning. I shall have strawberries instead of a fast food shake. Yes.

And at least the branch of the library that really has an excellent SF collection has The Grantville Gazette I. So I'm not going to have to either go all over creation to find it, or reserve it online and then have to wait.

This is, of course, assuming we get out of the house today. Because Da Boy is being a big ol' Delay Fish here. We should have been done with school nearly an hour ago...

Yeah, those anteaters stealing D'Argo's sanity? Those would be Antubis and Flaubert. I'm beginning to wonder if they've gone on permanent hiatus.

Seriously. I now have six (count 'em!) WIP's, plus two with ends at the bottom that are cesspits of SUCK. And no words are flowing for any of them. The new one? I'm chock full of ideas for it, but I have no overarching plot, no theme, no idea where it's going or how it's going to end, and no reason, really, to write the thing. Other than I wanted to do something "light" in the vein of a screwball comedy.

Yeah, how's that workin' out for ya?

NOT WELL. THANKS FOR ASKING. I have five hundred words of SUCK.

I do "dark" pretty good. I'm beginning to think I suck at humor. Suck at writing, really, because, yeah, I'm back to hating the Giant Bugs story again.

Of course, to suck at writing, you have to actually, you know...write. And there's been precious little of that going on around here lately.

Frell, frak, dren. GET YOUR FUZZY BUTTS BACK IN MY HEAD WHERE THEY BELONG, YOU LAYABOUT ANTEATERS. I see you over there in the corner, eating chocolate-covered ants, drinking absinthe, and sniggering.

GAH.

The World Horror Convention has begun. In Salt Lake City.

And I can't go.

*cries*

The Hubby has to work this weekend, and I have no one I can ask to watch Da Boy ALL DAY LONG for three days. We're solving this problem for CONduit by flying him out to Texas to stay with his aunt, but no can do this time.

Yes, I'm feeling a bit whiny about this. Especially as I could have got in for the whole weekend for $25 as a volunteer. Wah.

In other news, some of you know that I do an hour a day/burn 500 calories on my stationary recumbent bike. Last night? I ripped out those 500 calories with eight seconds to spare in one session. I usually take two to four, depending on the day. The day before yesterday, I did one 35-minute session and one 25-minute session. I've heard that runners who train a lot can double their usual distance, and I now tend to give that some credence.

We went and saw Horton Hears a Who yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was terribly afraid they'd butcher it, but they did a great job. It's my favorite Seuss book ("A person's a person, no matter how small" tickles my little pro-life heart), and this one is definitely going in the DVD collection.

Also, I will get some writing done today. And I will also call my dad, whose birthday it is. We have four and a half hours of school to do (starting cursive today, and oh my gosh the whining!). Somewhere in there I'd like to go pick up my copy of "Everybody's Dead" that the comic store is holding for me. Food. Food would be good, as the cupboards are somewhat bare.

AUGH. At least I've caught up with my flist, mostly?