Over the Mountain

I have to admit.  I have never before in my life felt as I did last night.  My knees were shaking, my teeth were chattering, I was light headed and sick to my stomach.  I wasn’t ill.  In fact, physically there was absolutely nothing wrong with me.  It all came on after clicking a button on a website labeled “submit”.

 

For the past decade I’ve put my writing out for people to read as they pleased without much care if they loved it or hated it.  It was always “just for fun” – writing groups, role-play, etc.  Towards the end of that decade of writing, I began developing a small following on the places I posted the works to and it inspired me.  I decided to pursue my writing as a career and began working on crafting my own fantasy world to create and write in. 

 

Most of you know that already.  What I haven’t mentioned in my previous posts was the matter tying into the “submit” button.  Blizzard Entertainment (who many of you know I am a huge fan of) is holding a writing contest.  The deadline is tonight at midnight PST.  The grand prize will receive a replica of the Frostmourn sword, the entire collection of novels Blizzard has released thus far and a trip to Blizzard HQ for a tour and lunch with the writing/creative team.

 

Here’s the real kicker.  On the application form for the contest, there are two checkable boxes.  On reads “I am a professional writer” and the other reads “I am interested in becoming a professional writer”.  While there has been on open talk or promises of a novel deal with Blizzard for the winner, those two boxes make the entire contest scream of being a recruitment tool.  Such an opportunity could give me more than just a foot in the door of the writing/publishing world. 

 

I’m trying not to dwell on it too terribly much, but it seems to be constantly creeping up into my mind unbidden.  In light of that, any and all prayers and well wishes would be greatly appreciated.  In the meantime, I leave you all with the caption summary of the piece I wrote:

 

Deathstalkers Vincent and Adamant were the best to be had and an absolute shoe-in when High Executor Hadrec went to pick the Forsaken who would infiltrate Shadowfang Keep. However, even they were not prepared for what the insane Archmage Arugal had at his disposal. All that mattered was that they get the information they gathered back to Hadrec, no matter the odds set against them.

I love you.

Today was amazingly beautiful outside.  The temperature never rose above the lower seventies, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and a gentle breeze kept one from getting to hot while sitting in the glorious sun.  Ah, but if only we could have more days such as this!  But, alas, this is Houston and so it will very soon pass into the miserable heat of summer.  I must take advantage of it while I can, for the beauty of the day gave me far greater productivity than normal.

How is that, you ask?  I know what you must be thinking.  In this modern age, writing is all done on the computer and, Kathryn, you don't own a laptop.  Admittedly, I very nearly wasted the day for this very reason.  However, as I sat at my computer, not typing and staring longingly out the window, a memory struck me.  Why, before there were computers, there were these wonderful things called pencil and paper!  I managed to dig around and, after a moment, found an old notebook from high school that I never did much with, grabbed up one of my drawing pencils and headed for the pool side.

With a nice cold bottle of water close at hand, the sun sparkling off of the water in the pool and fountain and the sounds of kids running and playing in the apartment complex, I managed to not only meet my minimum word count, but double it in writing 3k words (my minimum is 1.5k but my goal per day is 2k).  A large portion of my writing by the poolside was done in a script format for a lengthy dialog scene that I later expanded upon when I typed it up.  I think that I'm going to try and do much the same thing tomorrow after work, as I have another long dialog scene coming up.  If I can keep up that pace of writing, I'll be done with my rough long before my self-imposed deadline.  It's amazing how much easier things flow - both in writing and in art - when I have the feel of a pencil or pen moving across real paper.  Sometimes, the basics are best for a reason.

They have, of course, pulled the product, commercial and all mention of it from their website now.  However, I managed to snag a screen shot of the product on amazon.com right before they sold out.  I'm going to see if my mother has a copy of the catalog they sent out with this on the front page - if so, I'll update with a scan!

img.photobucket.com/albums/v487/KanamoYuriko/AvonAnew.jpg

( Easy Cheesy Drop Biscuits Recipe )

80,000 words and 342 pages into Vein of the Crystal Sea...  Six months of toiling over the world, the characters, plot, development, etc...  And I'm shelving it for now. 

It wasn't an easy decision to make, but now that I have made it, I'm glad I did.  Veins is a good story and I think my writing in it thus far is good as well.  The characters are interesting and believable, the world is dynamic and intricate and the events were compelling.  However, for the story I wanted to tell in the overall trilogy that Veins was to be a part of, well... Veins would have ended with a LOT of lose ends that would lead into the next two books.  Of course, Veins had it's own plot and it's own "end" but the driving force of the overall trilogy was apparent from the get go in that first book and could not be gracefully seperated out. 

I have also been doing a lot of research on what editors/agents look for in a first time author's book.  A story with that many lose ends for a first novel would be a hard sell.  Beyond that, while the story and everything about it is GOOD... I know I can do better.  I know I can write a story that will have them jumping to pick me up.  The overall story of the trilogy that starts with Veins is such a story, but I came to realize that I need that condenced down into a single novel.

And so I have closed the cover on Veins for now.  The story I am currently mapping out in my trusty spread sheet is one of the latter books I had planned to write in this universe... It just takes place about 200 years before the events in Veins.  I suppose that my eventual fans will appreciate me writing in order of the timeline.  Haha.  The main characters are Medelitha and Jyrunai, with Galreon and a few others being primary supports (for those of you I've discussed various characters with).  This book will also be the first in a trilogy, however it stands 100% on its own.  If a person was to pick this book up and read through it, they would have a complete story with no lose ends... Unlike Veins.  

When I first made my spreadsheet for what would eventually become Veins, I spent days toiling over the plot.  In the matter of just a few hours, I already have the plot nearly mapped out - I'm on the final handful of chapters now.  I am so excited for this story - far more than I was even for Veins when I first started it.  I have set a deadline for the rough draft to be completed by June 19th but I'm going to try and press for it to be done much faster than that.  Wish me luck.  I plan to rock this fantasy to its core.

( Muffins and Cookies OH MY! )

My god Friday the 13th was awesome this month. Over the past few months, I've rediscovered a lot of my running crowd from back in High School. Many of them still live here in The Woodlands as well! So, this past Friday, we decided to get together for some zombie fun. Yes, that's right, five zombie-fan-girls and one guy all hanging out watching zombie movies. Ahaha, be jealous of my husband, boys!

One of the coolest parts of the night, though, was what our hostess - Claire - set up for dinner. She had closed the dinning room off and none of us thought much of that as we sat around the kitchen bar and breakfast table chit-chatting and munching while we were waiting for the homemade pizzas to finish cooking.

When finally she called that supper was ready, she invited the "distinguished guests" to adjourn in the dinning room. Upon the dining room door was a sign reading "Welcome distinguished Guests to the Friday the 13th Banquet Hosted by Umbrella" with the Umbrella logo. That was enough to elicit a fan-girl squeal, but it got better. When we went into the dining room, the table was set all in red and black and each place had a name tag. I wound up being Claire Redfield and Xero was Billy Coen. The center piece of the table was the real show stopper, though. She had died and carved a head of cauliflower to look like a brain and then placed it in a glass jar.

After dinner, we proceeded to watch Shaun of the Dead followed by Diary of the Dead. (Shaun first so that Adriana wouldn't be too freaked out by Diary... It sort of worked, ha!) There was much snacking - I brought homemade cookies and a veggie tray and Paullett and Shannon brought more cookies and candies. Adriana also brought chips and dips and aside from making the pizzas, Claire also made delicious homemade frappuccinos. I think I probably gained twenty pounds that night, but it was all so tasty! We finished the movies around 11:30pm and wound up just hanging out in the kitchen munching and talking until somewhere around 2:00am.

All of us live here in the Woodlands area still except for Adriana - she went off and married a crazy Canadian (and let me tell you, the Canadian/Venezuelan Catholic wedding was very interesting!). As this was one of the last weekends that Adri was going to be down here in Texas for a while, and that was part of the reason for the zombie-night, she made each of us a little drawing to commemorate the event.

( Commemorative Zombie Drawing behind the cut.... )

I hope we can do this again sometime soonish. It was so much fun! Too many of us are moving all over the bloody place, though. In the next couple of years, it looks like only Paullett and Shannon will be left here in The Woodlands. I guess I just need to get rich so that I can fly everyone to our mansion in Colorado for every Friday the 13th. Ha!

In other news; Mmm, I really do love carrot cake. Too few people appreciate just how good it is.

You Are a Carrot Cake Cupcake

You are a complex person. You have many interesting layers to your personality, though others might not know it. You are drawn to a cross section of people. You friends play different roles in your life. You are like a cupcake because you are are deceptively simple. There's actually a lot to you! There are many ingredients in your life, and you only want them in proper amounts. Being you is a delicate art.

( Very Blue Blueberry Muffins Recipe )

As promised, here are some pictures of our new conure, Marley.

( Pictures )

No, I'm not talking about the book. I've never read it. I'm not talking about the movie either. I haven't seen it. I'm not even talking about a dog. I am, however, talking about a pet - specifically an American Dilute Conure.

Conures are a type of medium sized parrot, coming in all of the different colors that parrots are known for. An American Dilute is, well, what it sounds like - a mutt. However, these "mutt" conures are very beautiful. They have the rich olive green back, wings and throat of the green-cheeked variety mixed with the prominent yellows and reds of the yellow-sided and "pineapple" breeds. They even have a beautiful navy that reflects turquoise on the tips of their wings.

Tuesday night, Xero and I ran into one of our neighbors and hot tub buddies while we were out running errands. We got to talking a little bit and, while I still have no idea how it came up, we got on the subject of birds. Sherry (our neighbor) is a pet lover. She has two dogs, a cat, a bunch of finches and an American Dilute Conure (though she mistook him for a green-cheeked conure). The problem was that she had so many pets, she wasn't able to give the conure the sort of attention that the larger tropical birds require. To magnify this problem, she couldn't even keep him inside because of the cat and her work schedule... So the poor bird was left out on the porch without any company save the finches.

Now, for those of you who don't know much about the needs of larger tropical birds, a bit of explanation. These are extraordinarily social creatures. They are flock birds in the wild, and when placed in captivity as a pet, they transfer their need for a flock on to the humans keeping them. Such a bird should be in the center point of activity in the household - such as the living room - and needs to be physically handled and talked to at least once a day. When these sort of birds don't get that, they fall into depressions and begin ripping out their feathers and can eventually degrade so far in their health that they will literally die of loneliness.

Well, Sherry's bird had started ripping out his feathers and she was looking to put him in a new home where he would be able to get the sort of attention and care he needed. As we talked on Tuesday, she offered him to us after learning that we had taken in another rescue bird (Bebe, our deranged and psychotic parakeet). At first, we were a bit wary. We knew this conure wouldn't be coming with all of the emotional trauma that Bebe had, but still... The last thing we wanted was a second bird that we could not handle without bleeding for it (literally, Bebe bites anything and everything that comes near her). Finally, we agreed to go over to her apartment and meet the bird.

I fell in love instantly. He was well trained, a very affectionate cuddler and seemed to have a great personality. Once that bird was on my finger, I knew that I was going to be taking him home. I got Xero to hold him for a bit as well - and mind you, my husband was a bit wary considering the only bird he's had extensive interaction with was Bebe... Who bit his fingers, hands, legs (don't ask) and even his face - and he agreed that I could keep the conure.

I'll also note at this time that the conure was named "Millie" at the time. Notice how I keep referring to the bird as "he"? Now look at that name again... Sherry had mistaken the bird’s gender. Needless to say I didn't much like the idea of continuing to call a male bird "Millie" and so we decided upon the name Marley - after Bob Marley because the bird’s colorings reminded me of a Bob Marley poster.

The first night we had him in our apartment was a bit iffy. I'll admit getting a bit nervous that maybe we hadn't made the right choice, even as I reminded myself that moving to a new house with new people was an unnerving experience for a bird. He spent the majority of the evening on top of his cage - a rare treat to even be out at all - and the few times that I tried to handle him, he bit me. Mind you, he didn't bite hard enough to draw blood (and he has the beak to be able to, I assure you!) but he did leave some pretty hefty indentations in my skin. I let it slide since I knew how unnerved he was, but my concern grew when he began charging me every time I tried to raise my hand towards him.

The next evening, things went much smoother. He tried to bite me once when I was ordering him onto my finger and, I fell back into my old bird-training habits and thwacked him on the beak for it. He blinked up at me several times in surprise. When I held my finger out for him again and gave the command, he perched without a complaint. He spent the rest of the evening on my shoulder or perched nearby wherever I was - he even watched Wall-e with Xero and me.

Today makes the third day that we've had him and I couldn’t ask for a better bird. Even as I'm typing this, he's on my shoulder alternating between picking at my shirt and hair and nuzzling up against my neck. He's started giving me kisses rather than trying to even do warning bites and is quickly turning into my constant companion while I'm at home. I'm hoping to get a bird-leash for him soon so that I can start taking him grocery shopping with me like I used to do with my cockatiel, Rocky!

Right now, Marley looks a mess, though. He has a large bald spot on his chest/stomach and both legs have been stripped of feathers. The feathers on his wings and tail all are in sad shape. Their tattered and the color is greatly faded. I'm hoping within the next couple of months that his feathers will fully regrow, regain their vivid colors and flush back out. He's certainly getting enough attention to pull him out of his depression now!

Here's a couple of pictures of healthy American Dilute Conures. I'm going to try to take some pictures of Marley tomorrow - if so, I'll post them this weekend.( Pictures behind cut )

Another one of my originals.  This one had my husband all but falling over in ecstasy - and I have to agree!

( Shrimp & Scallop Bruschetta Pasta )

Well, it took me long enough but I finally sat down and did this little bugger.  This was taken from Facebook.  I figured that if I was going to post it there, I might as well post it here as well, as many who read my LJ don't know me on Facebook.  Enjoy my randomness!

( 25 things behind the cut )

( Fish heads, fish heads... )

First and foremost, a belated Happy Valentine's day to you all.  I hope you had as wonderful a time as I did with my sweetie (fillet mignon, brie & crackers, cabernet sauvignon and good company, oh my!)  To those of you who celebrated St Sebastian's day instead, I hope yours was just as lovely.  (Here's to you, G.)

And now, on to a strange little quirk I seem to have developed.  I have a ankle-length black polyester skirt.  It is ridiculously comfortable and, despite being older than my marriage, still looks fairly good.  I also have annoyingly thick hair.  How do these two things relate, and more importantly, how do they fit in with the title of this post?  Well, you see... My hair is so thick that I cannot blow dry it completely dry.  No matter how hard I try, it still retains at least some water and is damp even after going at it for half an hour.  To this end, I've started taking my showers fairly soon after dinner each night so that my hair can completely dry before I go to bed.  Rather than put a pair of pants back on, I've gotten into the habit of putting this skirt on instead.

That seems all fine and dandy, but when my shower is finished, that is my "writing time" during the week.  Somehow... My muse has become attached to this skirt.  I've found that even on the weekends, I tend to go and change from whatever else I might be wearing into this particular skirt before sitting down to write.  Whenever I attempt to write while wearing something else, the words just don't want to flow as freely and the ideas are a struggle to get to.

Woe be me the day this skirt finally hits the dust!  And ah, what silly little quirks we creative types form.  I need to find a scientist to make an exact clone of this skirt before it starts to deteriorate!

I've now officially topped the 50k word count mark on my novel.  At first, I wasn't very excited about that.  I had not gone back and read through everything from start to finish to see how it flowed and I had managed to convince myself that I was going to have to rewrite over half of it.  This weekend, I decided it would probably be in my best interest to go ahead and reread the novel thus far and get the rewrites out of the way before pressing on any farther. 

I was blissfully surprised.  Upon reading straight through from chapter 1 on, the novel flows (in my opinion) as well as completed novels by some of my favorite authors.  I only had to make minor edits here and there either for clarification or better wording.  Unfortunately, taking the time to nit pick my way through the first 50k words of my novel ate up a significant amount of the time I had planned to write this weekend and I am thusly nowhere near where I had hoped to be by this date.  Ah well.  I had to do the read-through at some point and this allowed me a chance to regather my thoughts on coming scenes and gain confidence that my novel IS, in fact, going well.

In other news, Xero and I attended Nathan and Julie's wedding today.  It was lovely, even if we did get sprinkled on a few times through out the ceremony.  At least the clouds did not fully open up and force the ceremony to pause as we all ran inside.  Julie looked stunning (as all brides inevitably do) and Nathan was so cute.  He was literally giddy, all but bouncing in place during the ceremony and grinning from ear to ear the whole way through.

There isn't too terribly much else going on in my life at present.  Bebe (our parakeet) has been warming up to us more.  I'm not sure if she'll ever fully get over the abuse from her previous owners, but at least she doesn't attack the sides of her cage when we walk by any longer.  That, and we're teaching her how to wolf-whistle.  Heee.

Closing notes:  Tartanic makes excellent music for writing festival scenes.  Likewise, Apocalyptica is wonderful to listen to while writing battles and/or emotional scenes.

As some of you may or may not have noticed, I haven't posted or reposted any of my writing here for quite some time now.  I've decided to no longer do so, for several reasons.  The primary one is, as odd as it may sound, a courtesy to you all.  I've discovered that as I am writing, I am constantly making subtle changes to things that are going on to better the flow of the overall story.  That means that I'm constantly editing small things in previous chapters, though.  I certainly can't expect you all to keep up with every teeny tiny minute change I make as I'm going along... But the problem is that if you don't keep up with all of those changes, when the subject comes up again later in the story you'll get rather confused.

So... I've decided to change this journal to something else.  When I do get published and get a following and all that jazz, I'll need some sort of public journal for people to keep up with if they so chose.  This is going to be that journal.  What does that mean for my other journal, then?  Well, my other journal will most likely be posted in far less.  I'll save that one for my more personal entries - things that I don't want broadcasted the wide world.  From this point forward, my other journal will be semi-shut down save for the times when I just really need to vent something of that nature and this journal will become my primary, public journal.  I may also use this journal to post small written pieces that I don't plan to publish.  Perhaps bits of poetry or little (and I do mean little) short stories that I write just for fun.  Besides all of that, the old journal has had a good run but it's time for me to move on. 

In keeping with the title of this entry, and what this journal was once dedicated to, a few changes and updates in regaurds to my novel.  First, as I've drastically changed the first novel to the point that what I had planned for the ending is now the end of the second novel, we have a new name.  The first novel will be titled Vein of the Crystal Sea  and the second novel now holds the old title of Sworn to the Sword.  As of this posting, I'm sitting around 40k words.  I've still a long way to go, but I'm happy with the new direction the story has taken, despite my frustration of rewritting the entire thing from chapter 2 on... and various parts multiple times I might add.  I guess that's just how it goes, though.

That's it from me right now.  I have delicious BBQ calling my name and it must be answered!  See you all around here from now on - we've got a big mountain yet to climb.