End of Month Roundup

[temporus]

Short month.

Unfortunately, I got a lot less done this month than I had hoped.

One new short story for the month.  I don't like the title at this point, so I'm not going to bore you with my overlong temporary title.  This one was written during the month, though the outline and notes are from some work I did in 2005.   

Worked on, but did not complete two articles.  Need to get those done up before the weekend is out.  I promised the newsletter editor I'd have something.

No revisions completed.  I thought I would make it through this one I'm working on, but, um...no.  It's a fairly substantial revision, and it taking a lot more work than I had anticipated.

One story still in the wilds.  It should be more by now.  Have to step up the work a little.

Read one book:

The Incomplete Enchanter  by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt.  Wow.  A whole book in under 200 pages.  Who would have thought?  Okay, this is a classic book.  There's some datedness about it, but at the same time, it was rather fun.  It just goes to show you don't need to write monstrously huge books for them to be an enjoyable adventure.  The one thing this book told me, was that I am sadly lacking in having never read Spenser's the Faerie Queen.   I'm going to have to rectify that. 

A lot of non-writing events took place this month, which required a lot more of my time.  Some of it couldn't be helped.  Some of it, was to spend time with friends and family, and that's just going to have to be the way it is.  I bet I could still trim some time off my goofing off/TV time.

Comments

[dqg-neal.livejournal.com]

What sort of articles are you intending to send in?

[temporus.livejournal.com]

Technical stuff, planning for disasters, etc.

[dqg-neal.livejournal.com]

One thing I noticed missing in your article was a suggestion to email yourself. With the amount of space gmail and other services give for storing things, it is a great way to keep up with multiple versions of stories you are working on.

[temporus.livejournal.com]

I decided to break things up into several articles.
So that article was meant to just cover the basics of the backup concept. The next few will get into more details.

[reillye.livejournal.com]

ummm.... when i had a 2 month old, i considered myself lucky to get a shower in every day. You're doing GREAT!

[temporus.livejournal.com]

Yes. I think that its a lot more draining on Mothers though. Especially if you are doing as much work as my wife is doing these days. I honestly don't know how she manages.

I think my frustration is mostly because I know that there are moments where I make choices, and those choices aren't the ones between family and writing, or friends and reading. But often, they are: Watch TV vs writing. Or putter on the internet, instead of reading. That's where I could be making better use of my time.

That, and I have always felt that there was never enough time, and that I could see time just flying on by. Time, and its passsage, is one of my personal obsessions.

Incomplete Enchanter

[(Anonymous)]

It's been a while since i read Incomplete Enchanter, but wasn't it more of a collection of short stories centering around the same characters and theme? (Or did I read a "Complete Incomplete Enchanter" with multiple stories collected?)

I enjoy reading novels to short stories, but when I do get on a short story kick I get reminded how much of a different art it is. I just finished an interesting book of short stories by Tim Powers called Strange Itineraries, and looking at it from a writer's eye, short stories feel more like poetry then prose to me.

By that I'm playing off the old saw of prose is using the exact right word, and poetry is using the exact right word in the exact right place. (Too lazy to Google the exact words.)

If you're looking for more ways to goof off, I could use some of your excellent cartography skills - but really, get to your writer's aerie, pop a few jellybeans and write.

Cheers,
=Blue

Re: Incomplete Enchanter

[temporus.livejournal.com]

I had the feeling that the novel I read was really two Novellas put together. The first half and the second half were linked, but could easily have just been two seperate stories. It's quite possible there were more stories in the same "series" but this one really just had two.

Normally, I read more novels. However, if you are going to write short stories, I find it helps to be reading short stories. Which I am as well.

As to Maps, I might be convinced to work on some soon. Really, it depends on when the Little Man chooses to settle into a schedule. Right now, it's been a challenge to even get my butt in the chair to write.

Good to see you dropping by Blue.