leahbobet | Entries tagged with light

April 1, 2012 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 200.
Words total: 3800.
Reason for stopping: That was all blood. And I'm getting hungry.

Darling du Jour: The worst of it, here, was how the wind smelled wrong. It came whistling between the buildings wet as a rag stuffed in your mouth and clogged your ears like strep throat, and even if she'd known the blossoms and smoke it carried, she couldn't have pronounced their names.
Mean Things: I am doing a horrible thing in the story I'm telling right now. I only hope the result vindicates, because otherwise, seriously, we'll need to pass a hat and buy me a new soul.

Research Roundup: The Don River system; flora and fauna of the Republic of Georgia; terrain at Yonge and the 401; a Georgian-language translator. Have I mentioned I'm doing a horrible thing?
Books in progress: Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl.

Things that happened this week:

So today, Above is out in the US. Pre-game show is officially over. Fly free, little book.

Friday was my last day at the Dayjob. I have been quiet about it, mostly because I've been too busy to blog (or think, or breathe, or sleep) for about six weeks now, but I got some arts grants this spring, for two different projects: this one and On Roadstead Farm. And so I am going to be a full-time writer for a year while I write those things.

And then? Who knows what happens?

The third thing: Friday night I was out for celebratory drinks with friends, and I came home utterly weaving drunk and wanted nothing but to write and write and write. And last night I was out at the movies and then dinner and rambling 'til two in the morning, and came home wanting nothing but to write and write, with the feel of close-passing trains rumbling around in my belly.

Finally I've had an edge of sleep, and all I want to do is write.

I'm going to ride this as long as I have it. Or as long as it takes. It's midafternoon and I'm possessed and addled with fiction like I haven't had a chance to be in months. Okay, fiction. Come on in. Hit me.

Happy April. Happy afternoon.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: The Darcys -- Shaking Down the Old Bones

October 9, 2011 Progress Notes:

"On Roadstead Farm"

Words today: 1700.
Words total: 8000.
Reason for stopping: Finally ran out of steam on this, most of a chapter later.

Darling du Jour: He was silent so long I looked up, and his scrambled-up eyes were turned inward: the bunched-up splinters of hazel gleamed greenish in the cloudy light.
Words Hallie Won't Admit to Knowing: undersized, latticework. But she knows verdant. Go figure.
Mean Things: People who are willing to praise you to everyone but you. Awkward lunch table conversation is so very awkward. The fact that really, times are hard everywhere. Other people's awful family dynamics.

Research Roundup: What people actually use hay for. Trees of the Great Lakes region. How you prep fields for winter. Parks in Detroit.
Books in progress: Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't Be Jammed.

Light isn't playing nice with me the past few days, so I'm doing what any reasonable writer does: cheating on it outrageously. That's right: ho ho ho, little book. I'm running off with someone who respects my needs. We'll think of you when we're flinging red lacy underwear about the bedroom of our villa in the south of France.

Other than that, it is Thanksgiving, aka a holiday my family doesn't really do. This leaves me down one turkey and associated trimmings (and one shared majority cultural experience), but up one commitment-free day off work. I plan to spend it trying to sleep away the cold lurking in my ear and knocking out more words, and maybe making chicken stock if I can find some freezer-safe containers to store it in. I have used all the deli containers for actual soup, and you'd be shocked at how many of the storagelike objects I own do not hold stock and/or go in a freezer.

Seven days to finish this grant application; eleven days 'til Vancouver. We who are unready salute you.

Current Mood: quiet
Current Music: Catherine Wheel -- Fripp

October 5, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 100.
Words total: 3600.
Reason for stopping: It's late, and I'm not getting anywhere.

Darling du Jour: N/A.
Mean Things: N/A.

Research Roundup: The hours at the Moonbean Cafe.
Books in progress: Caitlin Sweet, The Pattern Scars.

I did not get even close to what I wanted done today. I'd say this has left me grouchy, but let's be honest: I was grouchy before things failed to get done.

Election day tomorrow. If you're in Ontario, get your butt out and do some voting.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: none

October 3-4, 2011 Progress Notes:

"Shine a Light"

Words today: 300.
Words total: 1050.
Reason for stopping: I had to head out. Plans!

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 500.
Words total: 3500. (Yes, more trimming of extra bits.)
Reason for stopping: That's tonight's goal. Also, it's late.

Darling du Jour: The secondhand stores spilled onto the sidewalk: racks and racks of creaking plastic hangers sat on the cracked front-yard patios as if they'd grown there, Nehru jackets and thickets of jeans pulled from the ground with them.
Mean Things: A certain degree of fakery.

Research Roundup: Slacklining: now a plot point, and I didn't even know it was a thing but for the two dudes in the park at the corner who kept practising it this summer. Cute socks at Sock Dreams for Jonah's little feets. The Daft Punk Charleston video, which is an awesome thing if you haven't seen it.
Books in progress: Caitlin Sweet, The Pattern Scars.

The short story work was last night, the Light words tonight. I just ended up out later than I thought I'd be last night, and so did not log them properly.

Tonight's words mostly concern the Charleston. For someone so desperate and contained and concerned with disappearing himself, Jonah is a Big Showoff who comes wearing Showoff Pants and dammit, he wants his entrance. Also, he fishes for compliments. But y'know what? The Charleston is cool. So I can't argue.

Busy weekend here, otherwise: Nuit Blanche, and a bachelorette party for a coworker, and a visit to a friend's DJ night at a bar down the block which turned into hanging out for 2+ hours (and me on a school night). I am not complaining. I needed to blow off a little bit of steam here. But now I have 12 days to get this thing to 40 pages, and that means work, work, work.

I will not say I'm exactly undaunted here. There is so much to do before I go to Vancouver, and there is only so much time and only so much me, and my focus keeps pixelating like a bad cable signal. But, y'know:

That's my story. I'll stick to it.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Daft Punk -- Around the World

September 30, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 300.
Words total: 3025. Trashed some leftovers out of the file again, so no, this won't match from last time.
Reason for stopping: Sleeepy. And cold, besides.

Darling du Jour: The breath caught between his teeth worked itself slowly loose.
Mean Things: Not knowing how much you're actually missing. The past-catching-up-with-you false alarm.

Research Roundup: History of the Don River; finally figuring out what that building in the park next to my first apartment is.
Books in progress: Evan Munday, The Dead Kids Detective Agency; Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.

The grant application is finished, and mailed as of last night, and I feel infinitely better about all that if a little weirdly spent: I worked up a whole synopsis for this, and it's actually a plausible one. It has the normal hole in the last third, but hey. It might well resemble the book I actually write. Now, to get this up to 30+ pages for the next grant application, due mid-month.

Spates of wound-up, unhappy people continue. In fact, they have worsened. It may well just be That Week (tm).

Tonight, however, was the annual Counting of the Bookstore (aka inventory), and was spent with friends, eating pizza and counting books. It wasn't the kind of record finish we've had in previous years, but

dolphin__girl and I quite humbly kicked some ass and took a few names. It's nice to know that being able to inventory a bookstore the fastest will go down as one of my skills on the eventual headstone.

One wonders how it got to be October.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Foo Fighters -- Still

September 28, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 200.
Words total: 2875.
Reason for stopping: My back hurts. A lot.

Darling du Jour: The wild water-girl came out of the woods, dripping rivers in her wake.

Mean Things: N/A.
Research Roundup: Species of lily, and how spendy they are at local florists; etymologies of some river names; a few Cantonese etymologies.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.

Most of my effort tonight has gone to prepping a workable proposal-style synopsis of this, so I can ask some kindly organizations for some grant money and then write it. If you have never written a synopsis of a book you haven't written yet, I assure you it's a whole different kind of beast than the synopsis you write about the book you've already finished.

But it seems to be working, weirdly enough: a bunch of plot fell into place, and a bunch of images added up very kindly to Something. And then the whole thing came together in a flare of logic which I think might -- might! -- just work.

So. Sometimes brute force does go your way.

That said, I have been around way too many wound-up and unhappy people today, and my shoulders are wired like a bomb. Going to run a long, hot bath.

Current Mood: achy
Current Music: Foo Fighters -- Still

September 24, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 200.
Words total: 2675.
Reason for stopping: I think I just went to bed after. These were last night's, and I don't remember.

Darling du Jour: N/A.

Mean Things: N/A.
Research Roundup: N/A.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.

Today was ~~the annual festival of book debauchery~~ Word on the Street, and a gorgeous one: hot, summery temperatures, big blue sky, a slightly insane amount of people crowded into Queen's Park. We had a posse! We wandered! We bought books! We got very achy and tired!

Saw a lot of the usual suspects -- the CZP folks,

davidnickle and Madeline, Stephen and Greg of Xeno's Arrow, Tara Tallan,

cszego and the rest of the Merrill Collection folks, the usual HWA contingent -- and a lot more of the less-usual ones. I've been meeting more and more people from the CanLit end of things this summer, and they were pretty much all in attendance: publicists, subrights agents, magazine editors, book bloggers, etc. etc. etc. And so were a lot of the public space people. Worlds collided. Matter and antimatter met. I did more authoring than expected, and my friends laughed at me behind their hands.

But the important bit: the haul.

Municipal Mind: Manifestos for the Creative City, Pier Giorgio Di Cicco
Eye Lake, Tristan Hughes
Monoceros, Suzette Mayr
The Dead Kid Detective Agency, Evan Munday
Social Acupuncture: A Guide to Suicide, Performance and Utopia, Darren O'Donnell
Blank Slate Volume Zero: Condopocalypse Now! and Blank Slate Volume One: Death of a Spearholder, Dave Proctor
Black Eyed Kids, Ian Rogers
Holding Still For As Long As Possible, Zoe Whittall

There are several items of squee in there, notably Evan Munday's book, another Zoe Whittall (!!!) and Monoceros, which I have really, really, really been wanting to read. Acquisitions will be spread gently between my library books and rationed out to last through the long, cold winter.

The bedside pile of books is teetering precariously again, which is sort of how we like it. My feet hurt. And all is well with the world.

Back to Dayjob tomorrow. Farewell, fall drafting utopia.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Deloro -- No Fun

September 23, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 300.
Words total: 2475. No, doesn't match; I finally took some of the debris out and stopped counting it.
Reason for stopping: I'm so burnt on this. Seriously.

Darling du Jour: It had drifted up behind her, curious, windblown. The fabric billowed like a cloud.

Mean Things: A bitter, bitter little death. And earlier, betrayal by clothing.
Research Roundup: What pashminas are made of.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.

And this is why I work a dayjob, aside from the nice financial benefits: another day inside, plugging at the words (and grant applications), and it's been rainy and dark throughout. It was evening all afternoon today. I'm getting restless again.

Did manage to walk a bunch of it out last night: sushi for dinner with Dr. My Roommate, and then a rambling walk with friend Jeff that ended up with us sitting in the park at the end of my street at 1:30 in the morning, hashing out plot points. I have been accused of being an addict. I didn't argue.

Luckily there are things to do tomorrow: a tour thingie at The Stop, the Clothing Show with

sora_blue, and a birthday party in the evening. And then Sunday is Word on the Street (!!!). So. Light wordcount, presumably, through the weekend.

Current Mood: drained
Current Music: Morcheeba -- Over and Over

September 22, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 200.
Words total: 2500.
Reason for stopping: That took over four hours, which is ridiculous. And Dr. My Roommate is home, and has offered to liberate me from my bondage so we can go get food. And I'm going.

Darling du Jour: The thrum of water rustled, gathered around her planted feet.

Mean Things: Losing your last escape hatch, for real this time. That thing where she told herself that nobody would ever find out. Ha ha ha ha--*ahem*.
Research Roundup: N/A.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.

It's fighting me today: everything that looked solid yesterday now feels dead and flat, although

hawkwing_lb kindly assures me that's probably just my burnt-ass brain. It is true that I have spent a possibly unhealthy amount of my precious vacation days in a tee-shirt and pajama pants, in front of this computer, circling and picking at words.

I really need to get out of the house tonight.

In other news, Sunday's volunteer excursion was written up by one of the smaller newspapers, and I got quoted pretty reasonably, considering how spoken language and written translate between each other.

And I'm off for dinner. And perhaps an adult beverage afterwards.

Current Mood: restless
Current Music: Morcheeba -- Over and Over

September 21, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 500.
Words total: 2300.
Reason for stopping: All day is probably long enough to work on this.

Darling du Jour: --and she fell like a plane crash onto the bed.

Mean Things: A vision of grace. Yes, that can be cruel sometimes. Realizing that yes, you did do that thing you just did. We can also argue that the amount of times I've rewritten this one scene this week is mean to me.
Research Roundup: Don River reference photos; what kinds of fish are still there; symptoms of shock. I seem to look up the symptoms of shock for an awful lot of projects.

Books in progress: Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues; Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.

Make that five rewrites of the same scene in five days. Started right from the beginning this afternoon -- split it open, deleted, added, tweaked -- which means that after six hours of work I have lots of new words, but not a hell of a lot of forward. Panning and chaff-sorting and puzzle-piecing continues. I've got 500 words of just discarded old-version paragraphs at the bottom of the file, which I keep picking through and plumbing for good bits every time I rewrite the working copy. So consider 500 of that total to be fake words. I just haven't pulled them out of the document yet, because I might need their bones for later.

I did find the leading tendril of the early conflict. And grabbed it with both hands, and pulled. And believe you me, there are things at the end of that line, so.

This version seems to cut right to the chase (burn plot, Leah, burn plot), and it's the first time I've actually hit a scene break thus far, so hopefully it might all settle out sometime in the next calendar month. :p

That's really it for today: It's been blustery and rainy, and I found myself too sleepy to go watch Council in person, so after a few morning errands I've been parked at this desk all afternoon, writing, with a faithful pot of Russian Caravan tea at my side. Dr. My Roommate was kind enough to pick up the farmshare on her way home, since the location is right by her office, and let me work straight through. We have carrots and peppers and greens, and I really need to make something that uses a lot of eggs. I have a lot of eggs.

We'll see if the scene has set when I open this back up tomorrow. Until then, I need to be not at this desk.

Current Mood: working
Current Music: Morcheeba -- Over and Over

September 20, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 450.
Words total: 1800.
Reason for stopping: Hit a stop. And before midnight, for once.

Darling du Jour: The quiet seeped out of the walls.

Mean Things: Waking up to some unexpected complications. No, even I didn't expect them.
Research Roundup: Sunrise times for late September.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.

Odd process things tonight: For the fourth time in four days, I am rewriting this same little scene, changing tense (we're back to past) or moving bits around or trying to start it from different places. Tonight I have it disassembled on the floor, cutting and pasting bits of paragraphs here and there, moving them like puzzle pieces, to try to make a picture that's the same picture -- two days later, girl gets up, notes bruising, and goes to Kensington Market -- but new. Somehow. There's a trail of sentences and images, the litter of previous versions, tailing down pages at the end of the file.

I think I am panning for narrative voice. And the leading tendril of an early conflict.

Revising, man. I'm telling you. It does things to your brain.

Otherwise.

Today, we did some small necessaries: mailed a few things, bought a new bedside lamp (the last one died the death last week), returned the extra yarn from the sweater to the yarn store for credit, and found some bubble bath, because it's September and chilly and there is no good reason for me to not have one drop of bubble bath in the whole house.

Things learned during this excursion include:

1) There are things Blue Banana* does not have for sale, notably lamps that aren't those ridiculous solid quartz lamps and/or bubble bath;
2) There is a vintage/antiques store in Kensington that, while not having lamps I wanted, has Atari games (!!!);
3) I won't even go east of Spadina anymore if it can be helped.

I also blew off what was probably a very good launch party for the Toronto Review of Books because I'd hit a good patch with the wordcount, and wrote all evening instead. Sometimes it's just like that.

Quick laundry, perhaps. And then bed. Lots to do tomorrow.

*Aka the Kensington Market Hippie Megamall.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: The New Pornographers -- Falling Through Your Clothes

September 19, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 275.
Words total: 1350. No, it doesn't match. I frogged a couple paragraphs.
Reason for stopping: This is what happens when you stay up late watching all-night deputations to Council's Executive Committee. Such are the wages of municipal nerdery.

Darling du Jour: Three blackened dots along the inside of her left forearm, where she'd hugged a century-old girder and the massive iron rivets pressed hard into her skin.

Mean Things: The kinds of bruises that are going to make even strangers want to ask who's been hitting you. Sleeping 48 hours straight and not knowing where those two days went.
Research Roundup: Construction of 1920s buildings; how dark bruises on your neck actually get.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.

I am trying this in present tense. Nothing seems to be objecting so far.

The fun volunteer gig of Sunday was indeed fun: I spent the afternoon alternately manning the Not Far From the Tree info desk and helping wash, chop, grind, and press apples into cider at City Cider, at the Spadina Museum. Let me tell you, working on a demo of cider-pressing under a big blue sky and apple trees, with a nice crisp breeze and music, chatting with the other volunteers all afternoon? That is not work in the slightest. That is hanging out and playing with a cider press.

Also we got to drink some of the leftovers. The benefits cannot be overstated.

Today was rainy and crappy from dawn to midnight, so today I slept in, stayed in, and puttered around the house. Potato salad and honey walnut cake got made. Apple rings will come out of the dehydrator in the morning. Ideomancer duties were done. Three (3) author interviews/guest posts were written up and dispatched, and some receipts filed, and most of my inbox cleared. And then I got sucked into watching Council and there went the rest of the evening, but it was still and all a reasonably productive day considering I never got out of my pajamas.

Tomorrow there must be out: there is some extra yarn to exchange, and a new bedside lamp to buy, and other little things. Vacation continues to be more productive and less stressful than dayjobbing. There's a moral in that, I suppose.

To bed.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Sandbox -- Three Balloons and a Trapdoor

September 17, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 250.
Words total: 1100.
Reason for stopping: Volunteer gig to get up for tomorrow! Fun volunteer gig, but still.

Darling du Jour: Instead she stared into the bathroom mirror with her chin yanked up high, and pressed and pressed the speckled, puffy skin. It paled under her fingers like a sunburn; throbbed right back at her restless fingertips.

Mean Things: The kinds of bruises that are going to make even strangers want to ask who's been hitting you. Which is embarrassing all around.
Research Roundup: Reference photos for two-day-old bruises.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe; Rae Carson, The Girl of Fire and Thorns.

The chicken was good. So was the rest of the day.

We did not go for grilled cheese as planned, because the grilled cheese place was so full it was spilling people into the patio, but

sora_blue and I had a perfectly creditable brunch at Le Kensington Bistro, being (1) a bistro (2) in Kensington Market that is (3) new. The eggs benedict were plentiful and a little too salty, and came with a nice rosti thing and greens. The coffee was solid. The lavender honey creme brulee with little meringue cookies was worth the whole price of admission.

Afterwards there was some wandering of the vintage stores on Kensington Ave., and apparently it's magpie day, because I brought home both a giant sparkly fakeass green plastic ring worthy of being a Green Lantern ring (good thing I liked it, because it got stuck on my finger) and a beautiful burgundy-and-black Goth Pashmina. And then a quick drop into the bookstore, further vintage stores having been judged dangerous, and home, where I made pasta with the sausages from yesterday for dinner, watched Double Indemnity, finished knitting the green tweed 1980s Flashdance sweater I've been puttering at most of the summer, and retired to my bathtub with a book and a pot of tea.

This has been the most leisurely, thoroughgoing day of chilling out I've had in a good long time.

It's still cold in here. Dr. My Roommate has filled the dehydrator with apples and peaches and is running it overnight in a bid to generate some heat. So, dried peaches in the oatmeal tomorrow morning.

And I want to read a few more chapters before going to sleep, so. This has been your official Week Off Report, Day the First.

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Sandbox -- Three Balloons and a Trapdoor

September 16, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 200.
Words total: 850.
Reason for stopping: I have lunch plans tomorrow. This still being awake thing is really unwise.

Darling du Jour: And: maybe I'm dreaming, but she was shaking too hard; her yanked knees hurt much too much to be asleep.

Mean Things: Just because you lived don't think you won't be sore for weeks.
Research Roundup: N/A.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.

Today is the first day of ~~the rest of my life~~ a whole beauteous week off work. Possible plans include spectating at City Council (like a ~~nerd~~ boss), visiting

dolphin__girl at her island writing retreat and co-retreating a bit, cooking ridiculously large amounts of things, getting some auctorial and Ideomancer shit done, three book signings, the Clothing Show, a birthday party, a bridal shower, Word on the Street (!), a concert, and a small volunteer gig on Sunday.

I also reserve the right to blow any and all of this off to sit in my pajamas and read with a handy stash of bonbons by my side. 'Cause I'm on vacation, suckers.

We have started this whole thing right: a walk through Kensington Market on the way home from work, where I got three (3) kinds of cheese, a fat organic small-farm-raised chicken, and some pork/maple/something else awesome sausages. The chicken was roasted for my dinner (nom nom chicken). There was loud radio and dancing in sock feet, and today was one of those days where the sky was blue and crisp and clear, and just the shifting of the light through the bright green leaves was enough to make me root-deep happy.

September is a virtue. I could have September forever.

And tomorrow is grilled cheese for lunch with

sora_blue, and one of those book launches, and crisp sunshine and big blue skies and getting stuff done. Or, y'know, not.

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: The Arcade Fire -- The Suburbs (continued)

September 15, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 200.
Words total: 650.
Reason for stopping: Bed beddity bed bed bed.

Darling du Jour: The pigeons shifted and bobbed below her, a feathered carpet, living, as grey as the sky above the river, stained and spreading with dawn.

Mean Things: Our suicide attempt has taken a surprising turn.
Research Roundup: A reference photo. The etymology of bewildered, to make sure it was thematically appropriate. Infiltration (always useful) for some subway layout around the Viaduct. And a bit of messing about with diagrams and body position on how you actually fall if you jump like I said she jumped.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.
The glamour: This is the first day in a week where I haven't had to do an authorly thing. Instead, Dr. My Roommate and I went for dinner at Pho Hung and bought tiny farmer's market blueberries and stayed up way too late working and drinking tea in our freezing cold apartment, wrapped in piles of sweaters.

Yes, I looked up an etymology so I could use the word in a scene, and did a patterning structural micro-macro thing besides. When you spend enough time taking apart other people's work for essay fodder in university-level English Lit courses, you build in some nice detailing and Easter Eggs for future generations. Or, y'know. For fun.

I got even more free books today. By some metrics this is turning into an absolutely capital kind of week.

Tomorrow: dayjob and possibly the Queen West Art Crawl. And sneaking back, late, for words.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Sandbox -- Three Balloons and a Trapdoor

September 14, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 450.
Words total: 450.
Reason for stopping: Sleeeeeep.

Darling du Jour: Down there: the highway, like an opened vein, and the river, invisible in the trees.

Mean Things: As ever, until I get past a beginning on this, suicide.
Research Roundup: Human terminal velocity; height of the Bloor Viaduct.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.
The glamour: One day I will trade in my brain for one that sleeps at night instead of pacing circles and cooking up prose.

You do not want to know at what time on this calendar day I actually wrote these words. Let's just say that it takes more than a paragraph floating through my head to get me out of bed and to the computer at that hour.

Whatever; I reread them just now, while I'm...well, I can't say I'm awake, but I'm differently tired. And they're good. So it was worth it.

Otherwise, tonight ~~Shark Week~~ Authoring Week continues on Discovery: attended the Sunburst Award presentation, and then swung by the Chiaroscuro Reading Series to see if anyone was still hanging out, since I missed the reading proper (they were). This all scored me two review copies of books I have wanted, for the low low price of free. I am actively relishing cracking them open on the weekend.

For now, bed is pending. Bed misses me. I miss it too.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Johnny Hollow -- Nova Heart

Here's yesterday:

July 19, 2010 Progress Notes:

"The Closet Monster"

Words today: 1250.
Words total: 13,550.
Reason for stopping: Things to do! Places to go! Block parties to attend!

Books in progress: Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies.
The glamour: I think I used it all up on the weekend. *slug*

And here's today:

July 20, 2010 Progress Notes:

Light (bad and incorrect working title)

Words today: 200.
Words total: 200. Yeah, this is less than the last time. I scrapped the old opening.
Reason for stopping: Work tomorrow.

Darling du Jour: Too early for one of those.

Mean Things: Vagaries of Toronto urban planning policy. No, really.
Research Roundup: A quick refresher on my Viaduct history.

I may have found a discussion that needs having with myself. And/or the beginnings of a narrative voice. Dunno. We'll see.

Either way, I need to be at work early tomorrow.

Current Mood: quiet
Current Music: Broken Social Scene -- Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl

June 10, 2010 Progress Notes:

Light (bad and incorrect working title)

Words today: 250.
Words total: 350.
Reason for stopping: Work tomorrow, and it's late.

Darling du Jour: The cars moved like tiny metal blood cells north and south, ceaseless, and what was there to do at this time of night anyway, and beside them the river lay low and barely visible, drifting down to the locks and lake like a severed vein.

Mean Things: Suicide. Inconsiderate people who make you climb to kill yourself.
Research Roundup: Bloor Viaduct photo references, some name etymology that didn't really pan out.

Books in progress: Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day.
The glamour: Very little, sadly. I did do some filing, at least.

Well, it's something. Not the world's most copious something, but it is something.

Laptop Debtkilla:

16600 / 17000 words. 98% done!

Goodnight, LJ.

Current Mood: quiet
Current Music: The New Pornographers -- Falling Through Your Clothes

May 11, 2010 Progress Notes:

Light (bad and incorrect working title)

Words today: 100.
Words total: 100.
Reason for stopping: My air raid siren of a freaking fire alarm. No, there was no fire. There is never a fire. Just noise, and shattered concentration.

Darling du Jour: She snorted. Yeah. Only she would get on her own case for forgetting to bring warm gloves to a suicide.

Mean Things: Well, suicide.
Research Roundup: The Bloor Viaduct, composition and history; bird mythology, specifically bluebirds, robins, and red-tailed hawks; the lyrics to "Bluebird of Happiness"; when they put up the Luminous Veil; date of the fall equinox; the Navajo bluebird song.

Books in progress: Ian Tregillis, Bitter Seeds.
The glamour: Out most of the day today: trying to sell books I don't want anymore, looking at an apartment, having coffee with a friend from high school, getting groceries at the market. And after that there was some SU work and entirely not enough working on my list. I am inexplicably sleepy today.

This is three hours of long, slow circling, spurred by hearing the right song, sinking into a big-eyed and holy melancholy, and diving for the file and my Winamp repeat button.

The title appears to be the thing. This is, as I said, a wrong and bad working title. But it's a right enough title that I got a small bucket of notes, both thematic and structural, three more soundtrack songs, the epigraph, and the first dribbles of the beginning.

Apparently, I also like my titles to mean two things at least. Five is better.

We'll see if this is still hanging around tomorrow. I think I need a sleep.

Laptop Debtkilla:

14950 / 17000 words. 88% done!

Current Mood: moody
Current Music: Foo Fighters -- Still

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leahbobet

Fiction and Other White Lies

November 2016

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Page Summary

'Cause we only get the one shot.
Too much is not enough.
Thud: Light
Oof.
Promise not to say another word.
Bring some change up to the bridge; bring some alcohol.
The word on the street is "limping."
I'd like to meet a madman who makes it all seem sane
Falling over and over and over and over again
Passing out is taking off into the stubborn deep
Circling the edge of the neverending.
All I can do is fly away.
But my soul is safely riding three balloons.
All the time that we wasted, I want to waste it again
Angels never show you trapdoors.
At ease with my thoughts
Now you're all gone got your makeup on and you're not coming back.
Pinwheel spark, break loose and roll.
Bring some change up to the bridge; bring some alcohol

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Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

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Drowning Nor Waving

This girl's life among the electrical lights

Entries tagged with light

'Cause we only get the one shot.

Too much is not enough.

Thud: Light

Oof.

Promise not to say another word.

Bring some change up to the bridge; bring some alcohol.

The word on the street is "limping."

I'd like to meet a madman who makes it all seem sane

Falling over and over and over and over again

Passing out is taking off into the stubborn deep

Circling the edge of the neverending.

All I can do is fly away.

But my soul is safely riding three balloons.

All the time that we wasted, I want to waste it again

Angels never show you trapdoors.

At ease with my thoughts

Now you're all gone got your makeup on and you're not coming back.

Pinwheel spark, break loose and roll.

Bring some change up to the bridge; bring some alcohol