K. and M.'s Youtube Dance-Party!

Greetings!

Yes, it is after 6:00 A.M. I have been awake all night, working on this lovely, little video- since I've already spent the last 6 months talking about my characters (and how awesome they are, of course), I may as well put faces to names, right?

Making this video was equal parts amusing and annoying- one scary power-failure, 3 Windows Movie Maker-initiated crashes, and tons of lost data later, I hereby present you with the end-result:

K. and M.'s Happy Dance!

Naturally, I am completely and utterly sick of hearing that song now. ;)

Dancing along,
L.

More Epic Adventures of Aspiring Writerdom.

As anticipated, Donna's workshop was a total blast! All of us (14 women and one man) had one helluva time learning how to combine fiction and truth- to make our characters so real and flawed that they are, in the readers' eyes, like old friends. The exercises opened our minds and helped us to see that even our antagonists are human, somehow- take M, for instance. He's as whiny and annoying as they come, but there's a part of him that's real (and lovable), too- the awesome Lynn Casey and I talked about this over lunch, and the ensuing conversation was more amazing than even our cheeseburger-meals!

I love meeting other writers- hearing their stories, getting to know them and the passion they feel for their own projects. Assuming that we all become literary phenomena (sooner, rather than later), I will buy a copy of everyone's published work- including some 60 copies of my own, which I will display proudly whilst admiring my own artistic genius. Gotta have a sense of humour!

The most-important thing I learned today, though (besides that writers are awesome- d'uh), was rediscovering my voice. When we shared some of our work (exercises we'd done in class), I read a poetic prose-piece that I'd written about Ron/my bro-in-law, and Donna said:

"That's your voice right there. I hope that your entire novel is written like that because, if it isn't, you're going to have to rewrite every, single line!"

Did I mention that I love writers?

Off to rewrite every, single, damn line of that manuscript- it's not going to write itself, after all.

Signing off,
L.

Honey, I'm Home!

Yes, we are back in business!

I managed to get my six-year-old fire-hazard of a laptop running, so I'm not completely stuck. In lieu of the novel, however, I've been working on a series of short stories based on it- the idea is that it will:

1. Produce some potentially-publishable sequences of events that may or may not appear in the sequel's final draft. Some neat characters and subplots have already resulted from this process. :)

2. Ward off writers'-block.

My 'pooter is in the shop as we speak, and should be back any moment, so I'll turn this thing off, lest it torch the apartment.

-

In alphabetical order,
this is K, L, and M. signing off.

Writer's Blocked, Me Arse!

It's one-thirty in the morning; boyfriend is passed out drunk, and I am staring at my manuscript, trying to make it write itself. Not going to happen.

If I were awesome, like K., I would put my kick-ass imagination to good use and write an entire chapter about myself and how great I am. Alternately, were I like M. (read: moody, selfish, and practically bipolar), I'd drink myself into a stupor, then complain about how much my life sucks and write about that instead.

On that note, maybe I should just go back to my old job and stick my head in a fryer for inspiration- hey, it worked for both the title AND the tagline of this blog-thingy, so don't knock it 'til you've tried it. That, and it's a lot easier to channel your inner emo when your life actually DOES suck and you have something to whine about, like the cold and crappy weather we had last week- perfect for sparkly vampires; not so much for me.

Off to stare at the computer screen some more,
L.