In light of recent events, I have asked Bettie Page to stop by and cheer you up.

Heidi's day in Twitter format:

• 07:44 You know, I'm still fabulous. Just saying. #
• 10:02 yoga'd. Showered. On deck: pretty up/orient the query, then do the synopsis. #
• 11:01 and that's a full query draft all set up and prepared. On to the synopsis. #
• 12:42 seriously, the "fractals" theme on igoogle. #
• 12:42 Done: rough outline of the full synopsis. Feeling pretty damn good about it. Bit of a surf, then it's errands for me, then back at it. #
• 13:56 Dude! The new themes in gmail!!!! I am currently grooving "phantasea." #
• 13:56 now it's time to work. #
• 16:37 This is very interesting. I think it's starting again. #
• 21:08 I mean, will gmail EVER go out of beta? #

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 You remember those two photos?  This is where they go.  

 Apparently I am back to NaNoWriMo.  This is what happened this afternoon.




I did wonder.  Especially after I saw that James McEvoy photo.  And now Charles and Aurel are walking out across the desert, and Aurel is creating shoes and clothing out of the sand.

The Curio page helped, too.  More on that later.

Damn, that is the fastest from-the-ashes turnaround I have ever had.  Usually when they shut the door, they SHUT THE DOOR.  Aurel, you have my attention.

(via)

Found via The Fix (on twitter), which, as he said, is in honor of Ted Stevens. I enjoy it for so many reasons, not the least of which I hear my brother's giggle in my head when I watch it.

Heidi's day in Twitter format:

• 09:15 all right! Time to go get stuff done. #
• 10:52 okay. Now I see why this conflict is so tricky. It is not a box. It's a lotus or something. #
• 11:03 I have a three-way conflict. AND I AM FINE WITH THAT. I just have to get over the fact that THE RULES say it can't work. #
• 11:04 I mean, the damn book is done! And people like it! I'm just going to be a rebel. COME ON, QUERY. Magically form on the page, please. #
• 12:34 I think the venn diagram plotting method is turning me into John Nash and his wall of newspaper clippings. #
• 12:35 seriously considering Dunhills. #
• 13:50 some potential success. Maybe. Some shape to the summary. Maybe. #
• 20:20 Right: kidlet's in bed. Now I am going to triumph over the query. NOW. #
• 20:20 The time is NOW. #
• 20:25 OH MY GOD I JUST GOT THE SIX SENTENCES. Now they just need to make sense. But they're there. They're almost there. #
• 21:20 SO. CLOSE. #
• 22:09 I HAVE A QUERY. I AM SO INCREDIBLY AWESOME. #
• 22:09 Okay, it's just the body, but that's the hard part. A SUMMARY. I HAVE A TWO PARAGRAPH SUMMARY. THANK YOU JESUS. #
• 22:15 All I know is that the query really, really loved Enigma's "The Same Parents." #
• 23:31 My god, but there's MORE new Enigma! I believe I deserve it, after that query. Listening to the last song, then bed. #

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 THE WITCH’S APPRENTICE is the story of Charles Perry, a degenerate wastrel who doesn’t know that he is, in fact, a lost god.  He doesn’t know that he is The Lord, that he has power enough inside him to destroy the world then make it over again before breakfast.  The only thing Charles knows is that he could do with a good lay, a fresh drink, and something to dull the grisly nightmare he has whenever he shuts his eyes.   

When Charles hires a magician to get rid of his dark dream, the lost god is lit up like a sunset, and every dark force in this world and the next wants a piece of him: literally.  Only his brother the soldier, his lover the concubine, and a renegade witch stand between Charles and those who would use him to conquer and destroy.  But more than just the world is at stake, and there is more than one god in the world.  If Charles claims his power, he must also claim his identity.  He must remember all that he has forgotten, and the nightmare that disturbs his sleep must become the heartache that destroys his life.  If the Lord chooses to save the world, again, this time it will cost him his Lady.

I'm so close.  I'm SO CLOSE.  I think I have an opening paragraph.  I have a sort of build up and a twist.  Now I just need the BIG CHOICES wrap up with another twist at the end.

Of course, all I want to do is sit here and stare at Kiki and Fifi, Anna's fish, which I can see through the window of my office in her bedroom.  They're doing their nightly laps, in sync, back and forth across the front of the tank.  They're very graceful, and eerily coordinated.


And they will never, ever, ever have to write a query letter.  EVER. 

 I have the plot of my novel in algebraic form.  I don't think it proved anything at all except that my brain is seriously demented.

Well, okay, it's interesting, and not just in a "gee, look, I can do it" way.  Basically it starts with X is in N state and ends with Y in N state.  Which is bookendy.  And it tells me about book two, because clearly X and Y need a Z variable to manipulate.  

Innnnteresting.  

And yet, doesn't do A DAMN THING for the query.

Oh, just hell.  John Forbes Nash and the wall of post-its and newspaper clippings with weird codes is clearly next.

 Okay, I've figured out my conflict.  And I get why I have such problems writing a query.  I don't yet know how to write the query, but I know what the query needs to say, at least crudely.  It needs to read like this.


This X thing is the surface conflict.  
THe real conflict is Y, complicated by PRST.  (I'm still working on the latter half of the concept.)
So, there's a deus ex machina, except it's literal and not out of thin air.
(Segue to hot theme thing.)


I mean, the above is complete and utter crap.  But it's the concept I'm working on, and that really is my hangup.  There's a surface conflict, and then there's the real conflict.  The ACTUAL story is very simple: X is lost and can't find Z without taking over Y, but X can't take over Y, and meanwhile Y wants to kill X. Z saves X, and now X is not lost, but there's a cost.

Okay, that makes no sense either, but now I am thinking of using algebra to figure out the conflict.  Or maybe Logic.  Venn diagrams, anyone?

I am seeing a text-only Curio page full of Xs and Ys and Zs.  But first, the kitchen, the bed, and the laundry.

Today I am going to kick the query's ass.  And the synopsis, too.

I will also do laundry and make black bean soup, and buy a cat scratcher.  It's possible a toilet might get cleaned.  But the query is toast.  Totally toast.  

Rwar. 

Heidi's day in Twitter format:

• 12:36 Apparently today "writing a query" = "playing with Curio." But I did get a good sentence in. Hope for more this afternoon. #
• 12:37 glad twitter is back. No LJ AND no twitter is rather lonely. #
• 15:47 OMG Stacey's brand toasted onion and rosemary pita chips. With plain hummus. OMG. Must not eat whole bag. Must. Not. #
• 17:02 fifteen minutes here on the query, then off to the marriage equality forum. #
• 17:08 Gah. My queries are either banal or cerebral. Where the hell is the graceful middle ground? #
• 17:43 okay, it's a bit better. I think I need to pull it apart on the whiteboard. #
• 23:25 The One Iowa forum was great! Way to go, Matt, Brad, Ryan, and everyone! #
• 23:27 So, tomorrow the plan is to work on that query and smoke the peace pipe with the book two characters. See if they have any more words. #

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 I don't like them.

Though, actually, I'm starting to get into it.  I worked on it several hours today, and I think it's starting to shape up.  I have to work on the mental block, though, that four hours's pondering and wrestling ekes out a sentence.  I waste a lot of that time thinking it shouldn't be this hard, then burp something up, and it's awful.  Then I get something that's sort of okay and then I can't make it jive with the rest.  

I keep viewing it like a resume.  Those I'm really good at writing.  I think I just care too much about the job, this time.  I have wanted a lot of jobs, but it didn't feel like my whole soul was on the line, and somehow this does.  It's a ridiculous image, but hard to shake.

Solace comes from order if you're me, so I've broken the thing up into sections.  

Section One: I called it "kissing the agent."  Overstated, but I needed something cute to make it less arghish.  Anyway, this is where I ostensibly say, "I heard about you in X because of Y in reference to Z."  Only prettier and with actual nouns.

Section Two; "Story enticement."  This is supposed to be the logline or the zippy "read my story because I so rock" stuff.  I think I might have this part.  Maybe.  I'm close.

Section Three; Story summary.  This part bites.  I keep stumbling over what to emphasize.  I can tell the plot, which makes it sound lame. The problem is, there's the plot, and then there's the REAL plot.  And then the plot under the plot.  If I could just insert a graph for this part, I'd be fine.

Section Four: Story theme/round off.  The last chance to sell it.  (Yes, I've turned my query letter into a five paragraph essay.  It's how I cope.)

Section five: Closing.  Here I briefly mention my credentials and then say thanks for reading best of luck pleasesignmybook butonlyifyou'recool.

Actually, I think I like the Five Section Plan, but I think I need to finish the synopsis.  The full, big, multipage summary.  And then I need several hours with the whiteboard and virtual cigarettes so I can make sense of it.

Tomorrow.

Heidi's day in Twitter format:

• 22:14 I did not tweet today. Except this. #
• 23:10 Loving the "fractals" igoole home page theme. Loving it lots. And now: bed. #

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As has this one.


The first is Aurel--except it's not his personality at the beginning.  I have the feeling this is him mid. And I see a lot, lot lot of Charles in there.  I'm just trying to decide if that's literal.

The second . . . . Don't know.  But it's at the center of the Curio, and I keep staring at it.

 I am not quitting nanowrimo, and I am not at all considering the month over.  I am, however, now radically changing the game.  I'm going to continue to keep everything in one Scrivener document for now so I can easily continue tallying total word count, but I am ending the wild, weird party of this draft.  I am officially beginning version 2.0.

There isn't any plot to this one--none.  There were a few forays into it, but it hasn't stuck.  There was a great deal of character exploration, and I think, largely, that was what this was.  This is the first time in ten years, too, that I've attempted to write straight through in one new draft, and this is with the cheat of established characters.  I have a lot of really good stuff.  It has been very, very good work.  And now it's time to close that folder and open a new one and start it over, this time with plot.

The only real question now is how much to actually plot.  A little, I think.  These characters are all more than a little drunk.  Clearly I need to tell them as much sex of whatever kind they like is perfectly permissible, but we're going to have to herd towards something.  And we need an antagonist here.  On the page.  Seriously.  

Of course, now I might not be able to write today--it may be All Query now, which is just fine.  That, and/or cleaning.  And organizing.  Something to turn the Virgo brain on, that I know.  The Scorpio has had her run.  I think she needs some time with a cigarette and a fifth while the Great Librarian comes out and does her wonder work.

You know, this feels very good now that I've decided it.  I feel very free, and happy, and almost giddy.  I like where the drunken, whoring Scorpio took us.  She really opened up some fascinating doors.  But now she's just finger painting in the living room, and it's time to stop.  I think the universe thought so, too.  All morning I could not get to the computer, no matter what I tried.  When I finally got all set up, the phone rang, and I almost ignored it, but I always check to make sure it's not Anna's school saying she cracked her head open, and my heart stopped as it WAS in fact, Anna's school.  Her head was not cracked open, but her pants were split.  It's been like that all day.

But now that I've said, you know, 60,000 words and seventeen days is enough for me, it's like everything has shifted.  Nobody is calling.  Nothing is blowing up.  I'm a bit sad about not whizzing through to the end, but you know, I have never done that in any single month of writing.  The past two years I just kept writing, all stuff I completely rewrote later.  It is the way I write, so why am I surprised.  I'm not, really.  What I do like is the calmness with which this has all happened.  Also, the efficiency!  If this is what I did in two months in 2006 and four in 2007--if I did in fact manage to lay out the Heidi's Fantastic Technicolor First Draft in seventeen days, then I am not upset at all.  

Bit nostalgic, though.  Bit nostalgic.

So there it is.

Heidi's day in Twitter format:

• 18:39 Did not fall down on my butt ice skating. Also, I did not remember that pizza was part of the package. Nice surprise. #
• 22:05 I love Bernard Black. #

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Heidi's day in Twitter format:

• 07:59 Much, much improved this morning. Next up: birthday! #
• 21:40 Family day--but I went to a write in tonight, and am back on the horse. 56,265 words for nanowrimo. #
• 22:46 Actually, check that: 58,145. #

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This week I hit 50k, and this week I fell way behind.

My goal is to finish this book in November or come as close as I can.  This week I won nanowrimo, but I lost the very fragile sense of the story that I had when I went under on some virus/bacterial combo thing that I am still fighting, now with the help of antibiotics.  My throat is no longer making me claw at the walls to distract from the pain, but my head is full and I'm dizzy and tired, and I have to tell you, writing is real work.  I don't want to do it.  I want to knit my grandmother's hat.  I want to play with Anna.  I want to bake things.  I don't want to go to this book, because it doesn't make sense.

I went to the Ames write-in tonight feeling rather internally sulky, not wanting to go because I didn't see the point.  I would love to tell you that I went and suddenly it all flowed and I could see the end, and the rainbows came, and the gays married and we all had cokes around the tree of love.  Not so.  I did, though, write quite a bit, and I regained my word count.

This story is something to do with women.  It is a lot to do with religion.  It is quite obviously something about sex, since the books default is apparently, "Who can boink now?  Who should boink again?"  It is in desperate need of an antagonist.  It has several candidates, but they don't show up.  But it's something to do with women.  Women who fight.

I think part of it came down the other day when I had NPR on.  I forget the show.  All I know is they were interviewing someone about a show that was going to be on PBS about women fighting in Iraq, and some WOMAN veteran came on and said, no, women shouldn't be in combat, too many bad things will happen, and rattled off all this stuff, most of it hinging on "if they're captured they'll be raped."

I keep thinking about that interview, and that comment.  I think about the women talking about what they've endured in Iraq, and women talking about what they endure from their male serviceperson counterparts.  I think, too, about all the protests that keep going on (and YAY to them all) over Proposition 8 and all the anti-gay amendments that went down last week or whatever week that was.  It's all rolling around in my head as I write, and it keeps coming out in hand to hand battles between women of three different races and countries, and men, gay and straight, who keep having sex with each other.  And women who keep eyeballing each other, looking like they are next.  

I don't know what this means.  

What I know, though, is that tonight at Panera bread all of a sudden I opened a new file and started writing, at light speed, what felt like a creation myth, but this time from the perspective of a different culture in the story, and boy do they not like women.  It was weird and visceral and very interesting.  What I know is that I find I can just keep writing on this, and it's babble and nonsense, but I swear there's something quietly working beneath it.  Some thread is weaving its way quietly, hiding behind the looking and smiling and frowning and the finger farts over words that are practically typed backwards and the run-ons and the cliches.  Something is happening.  I'm laughing, sort of, because I'm recognizing it as the something that always happens, but usually as I panic and start it over again, go back to the beginning, again.  This time I just keep writing, no panic, lots of eyebrow lifting and saying, "Hmm," but I don't start over.  I just keep writing.

If this works, if I get to the end and a story just sort of lifts up through the vines of weirdness and obscurity--if this method turns out to be a real one, the way to find my story in the middle of the mess--well, this could be quite fine.  Because I could so take a month and puke out a raw draft and then spend six making it make sense.  I could do that without any trouble whatsoever.  Well---trouble, yes.  But I could maintain that.

Of course, this might not work.  I might be projecting.  But then, I wonder, is that all it really is?  There is nothing.  There is chaos.  There is nonsense.  And then, by sheer will and a little bit of pixie dust, suddenly, it is a story.

Don't know.  What I do know, however, is that tomorrow morning I am going to wake up and write nothing but antagonist.  Ten thousand words of antagonist.

And I know that right now I"m going to get in jammies, brush my teeth, wash my face, and then get into bed and knit my grandmother a beret.  Because she asked me to.  

Tomorrow I skate with seven year olds.  And I"m kind of excited about it.

Good night.