Author: Kiki Writes

Rumored to be a writer. Never hip. Land of Lincoln Cleavage Queen three years running.

Writing–Three Day NaNo Weekend

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Typebars in a 1920s typewriter

The stars aligned for me this year when it came to NaNo’s kick-off.

This year NaNo happened to start on a Friday that I didn’t have to work. I chose to seize this opportunity and schedule myself a three day weekend devoted to eating, sleeping, and NaNoWriMo.

I was originally going to start at midnight like I used to do and try to get a couple thousand words in right out of the gate. It turns out that I like sleep too much and ended up going to bed around eleven.

But I made up for it.

After my usual round of procrastination that usually happens whenever I start any new project (but happens most notably with NaNo), I found that the words came a lot easier than I thought they would with this project. An hour and a half in and I had 2,100 words. After a lunch break, I got another 2,000 words or so in that same amount of time. I decided to do a third jag just to finish the section I was working on and ended up with 4,457 words. Not as much as I was hoping for, but I did have to write a couple of blog posts, so it was a good enough start.

That sort of productivity really lights a fire under my ass. I feel invincible, like I’ve got the story by the tail and I can go as far as I want to and this weekend, I wanted to go far. I wanted to get as much done.

On Saturday, I decided I need to really push it. I ended up writing 6,100 words (bringing the total to 10,557) and feeling like I didn’t write enough. It’s part of my stupid writing guilt; I feel like I never work enough even when I exceed my goals/expectations. I did 2,000 more words than I’d hoped to do (I was gunning for 8,000 total) and it still felt like I should have done more.

I’d originally had a goal of 12,000 total for Sunday, but since I’d done that extra 2,000 on Saturday, I bumped it up to 14,000. The words didn’t come nearly as easily as they had on Friday and Saturday, but I still managed to exceed my goal, writing 4,443 words, bringing my total word count to 15,000.

This is probably the most I’ve ever written in a three day period. I think 8,000 words might have been the most I’ve ever written in a day, but the 6,1000 I wrote on Saturday were probably the easiest mass I’ve ever typed out.

What’s more, a lot of what I’ve written isn’t bad. The story is good enough that I should have something to work with when it comes to revising.

This opening weekend has given me some confidence that this NaNo might be okay, no matter how many jobs I’m working. It also shows me how far I’ve come as a writer when it comes to my discipline and my ability to turn off my internal-editor and just let the words fly.

I’m calling it a success.

Writing–NaNoWriMo 2013 Project

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NaNoWriMo Day 3

I’ve decided to do something a little different this year. Instead of my usual 60,000 word novel target, I’m going to instead do two 25,000 word (or there about) novellas. The novellas are connected, so it’s almost like I’m doing a novel. I’m just behind the rules, not outright breaking them.

Besides, they have a category for rule breakers.

The two novellas are about The Rainmakers, Annie and Wil McCain, who are traveling 1880’s Kansas, practicing their trade, a gift they inherited from their parents. Naturally, since this is the Wild West, things can get a little rough. And since this is an alternate history replete with certain paranormal elements, things can get a little weird.

In the first novella, while traveling between towns, they encounter some prejudice as well as some folks that would like to kidnap them and use them for gain. In the second, they make rain in a spooky, not-quite-friendly, almost-ghost town.

I blame this idea on the fact that I watch mostly Western TV shows in the afternoons (and that’s where most of my knowledge about the Old West comes from so I’m sure it’ll be fine). The idea was further encouraged by listening to Michael Nesmith’s “Rainmaker“.

In the end, I decided this idea worked best of the few others I’d come up with. It was the most developed, easiest to further develop, and seemed to be the most agreeable with the double novella concept.

Even though research-wise I might have some issues (I have done some basic stuff), I’m actually pretty excited about this project. It’ll give me a chance to try something I normally wouldn’t think of trying.

I think this NaNo should be a good workout.

Writing–How Will I NaNo with Three Jobs?

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English: My own work. Created using "Inks...

I had three jobs last year when I did NaNo and I came through it just fine, true. But last year I was only kid minding in the morning. Now I’m kid minding in the afternoon, too. Writing time may get a little scarce and/or awkward.

The days when I kid mind and teach will be the toughest.  I usually have a spare hour, hour and a half before teaching that I can use to get down some words. The more the better, obviously, and this is probably when I’ll try to get the bulk of the writing done during the day. And I can write a little more by hand during afternoon kid minding.  The rest will have to be done after dinner, if there are any words left to get.

I have a feeling that getting my absolute minimum will likely be my goal on those days. No overachieving will be happening, thanks.

Of course, I’m saying all of this with the anticipation that I will struggle on those days. It’s entirely possible that I won’t have much trouble, that the pressure of getting my words done in a short time will motivate me and I’ll get my word count for the day in no time.

And then I’ll end up struggling on the easy days when I have more time.

The balance must be maintained, you know.

I realize that I could always make up any low word counts on my days off. I try to get double the word count on the weekends anyway. But there’s something in me that wants to see my little word count graph steadily rising. Even if I win NaNo and hit my word count and finish my project, that little flatline will haunt me. I have a daily word count and I’m determined to stick to it.

If I sound a little paranoid, well, that’s how my brain operates. I anticipate the worst and prepare for it, even though more likely than not, I’m worrying for nothing. In this case, I’m probably worrying for nothing.

Whatever. I like to have a plan.

Five Fun-Bad Horror Movies

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Cover of "The Return of the Living Dead"

If there’s one thing I love, it’s a bad horror movie. I’ve said repeatedly that most days I’d rather watch Friday the 13th Part III or Halloween IV over most Oscar winners, but I admit some of those bad flicks are more fun than others. Well, fun for me anyway (and this list could probably be used as an indictment on what I find “fun”).

So here are five of my favorite fun-bad horror movies.

1. The Return of the Living Dead (1985)-Clu Gulager Alert! In this zombie flick, containers carrying zombies are accidentally ruptured by two medical warehouse employees. When a reanimated body is burned, the resulting smoke causes a rainstorm that re-animates the local cemetery. Naturally, this results in many people killed, like most horror flicks. But really, the whole film can be summed up by a zombie using a police radio. “Send more cops.”

2. Jason X (2001)- I could probably put a few Friday the 13th movies on this list, but if I’m going to pick one, it’ll be this one because it’s the most fun. It’s Jason in space in the fuuuuuture. He and one of his intended victims were cryogenically frozen and revived something like 400 years later by space-school kids that found them. Of course when Jason wakes up, he has to go killing folks and there’s a whole bunch of people on this ship, lucky him. It’s fun because the kids are snarky, right up until death.

3. C.H.U.D. II-Bud the CHUD (1989)- A childhood favorite. A couple of high schoolers break into a government science lab to steal a corpse for a prank and SURPRISE! It’s a CHUD named Bud. Naturally, hijinks ensue. CHUDs aren’t zombies. They’re Cannibalistic Human Underground Dwellers. And they’re a lot of fun. This film has a lot of intentional humor, including one of the CHUDs that can’t keep his head attached and at one point is kicking it down the road trying to pick it up. My dad has been quoting it since I was a kid, most often before dinner. “Eat ’em up! Eat ’em up! Yum yum yum!”

4. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)- Afraid of clowns? Well, this flick won’t help, but I still feel compelled to watch it every time it’s on. Just like it says, clowns from outer space invade a town and proceed to eat a bunch of humans, encasing them in what looks like cotton candy and then stabbing the cocoons with crazy straws and sucking out the contents. Of course, it’s up to three teenagers to stop them. The clowns are all doughy looking, their ship is like a fun house, and there’s a popcorn gun. It’s the fair from hell, fun but without the funnel cake.

5. Tremors (1990)- Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward lead a quirky little group of townspeople (basically the whole town) against giant, underground worms. It’s fun because the people are fun. The folks in Perfection act and react a lot like actual people might, from the gun nuts to the mother to the money-making grocery store owner. Val and Earl (Bacon and Ward) are big on coming up with plans, but their plans aren’t always the best.  Remember, running’s not a plan. Running is what you do when a plan fails.

Writing–Polishing the Ivy Novella

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An open can of shoe polish with a side-mounted...

No, this damn novella still doesn’t have a title, but I can at least call it almost done (my beta reader found a HUGE problem that I have to figure out how to fix, but that’s another post).

When we last left this novella, I was in the process of revising it, specifically focusing on cutting down the word count. And I hated it as a story. That happens sometimes for me when I revise projects. I get to the point where I think it’s shit and I no longer want to even look at it. Some projects I learn to love again; some I never do.

I honestly thought that Ivy was going to fall into the the latter category. I didn’t think it was that great and was really considering not to self-publish it like I had planned (setting up another dilemma of me not keeping my word, which is an issue that’s another post all together). But I was determined to at least see it through to the end. I wanted it to be completely done even if I did decide to shelve it.

And then I started polishing the piece.

For me, polishing means I start at the very last sentence of the work and read the whole thing backwards, one sentence at a time. It’s a trick my honors English teacher taught us. It takes the sentence out of the context of the story so you can find errors more easily (your brain isn’t lulled and reading things the way they’re supposed to be, not the way they are).

It was during this polishing business that I found that I did like the Ivy novella, a lot more than I thought I did. Sure, it still has some issues that need to be cleaned up, but on the whole, it’s a lot more enjoyable for me now than it was before.

I guess reading it backwards helped me shake it loose from the context of my dislike, too.

If only it could have given me a title for it.

I’m Not Afraid of Bugs

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shot at chalakudy kerala India Angle-wing Katydid?

A couple of weeks ago, during my afternoon kid-minding, I picked the boy up from school and when we got out of the car, he suddenly jumped back. Apparently, he thought he saw a hornet. Naturally, I teased the boy a little bit because, dude, you jumped and squealed over a bug.

And then I got to thinking.

I’m the only person I know that doesn’t have one bug that causes me to freak out. None. They might startle me if they appear suddenly, but even that is a mild start and I certainly don’t squeal. I like some bugs better than others. I’m uncomfortable with the number of legs a centipede and millipede have, but never has one had me fleeing the room. I’m allergic to bees and hornets and wasps, but I’ve never flailed in their presence. Even June bugs, my least favorite bug for its habit of flying into my forehead like a drunk kamikaze pilot, don’t warrant much more than annoyance.

The number one feared bug, spiders, do nothing for me. I once had one living on my computer monitor for a year. I named him Douglas and often bitched at him to get out of the way when he’d decided to descend on a string and swing in front of the screen. Even getting bitten in the face by a spider didn’t cause me to turn on them.

I guess the whole bug fear thing baffles me because I can’t relate to it. I don’t get being afraid of something so much smaller than you. I can understand being wary of some bugs. Some spiders have really nasty venom and some bugs can be a bad sign for your house-life (hello, roaches and ants). I can understand not liking them. I’ll be the first to admit, they’re hard to like.

But I can’t relate to being afraid of them.

It actually makes me feel pretty weird. Like there’s a part of my brain not properly functioning. If everyone else is afraid, shouldn’t I be afraid, too? Why am I not afraid? What’s wrong with me? Am I broken?

And then I realized that no, I’m not broken. I’m part of a rare breed. I’m one of the un-afraids, whose responsibility in life is to protect those who are afraid. It is our job to rid the bugs from the presence of those afraid of them in order to keep the delicate peace and balance of the eco-system.

Also to tease those afraid of the bugs with the bugs, but that’s only a side-job to be done sparingly.

So, yeah, it’s a little weird that I’m not afraid of bugs, but at least it serves a purpose.

Writing–Boys and Girls

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sex symbols

I’ve heard people say that they can’t write women. Or they can’t write men. And I can’t understand that.

Okay, I can understand it but I can’t because I’ve never had any trouble with it, and I guess I’ve never had any trouble with it because I really don’t put much thought into it. I have this annoying tendency to write people and not think much about their genitals, I suppose.

Typically, when I start working on a story, I know pretty quickly whether or not the POV character or main character is a man or a woman (though, “Spillway” was in first person and I never identified the gender of the character). I’m not sure how I come to that decision or what the science is behind it. If Stephen King is right and stories are found things, then it’s really a choice made for me.

However it’s decided, once it’s decided, I don’t think much about it. Gender is part of the character, sure, but I tend not make a huge thing about it. I don’t feel compelled to swathe my characters in pink or blue; I just write about certain people in certain situations and call it good.

This isn’t to say that sex and gender isn’t a serious  contributing factor to people’s lives and experiences. Hello, I’m a woman. I’m quite familiar how that impacts my behaviors and personality and life in the overall. I also know that sex and gender is much more complex than what I’m talking about here, which is only the very simplest and most basic concepts.

I suppose what I mean to say is that I don’t stress over writing POV from a particular gender. While there are differences, I don’t consider them to be great hang-ups to throw my hands up over and say I can’t write them.

The more I try to explain myself, the worse I make it sound.

Basically, what it boils down to is that I can write people and very little prevents me from doing it with some competence.

There.

Rerun Junkie–Gilligan’s Island

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Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…about a show that ran for three years in the 60’s and then lived forever in syndication.

For the five people with Internet access that have never heard of this show, here’s the rundown.

The theme song pretty much fills you in on the back story.
The theme song pretty much fills you in on the back story.

The Skipper (Alan Hale, Jr.) and his first mate Gilligan (Bob Denver) along with their five passengers, the Professor (Russell Johnson), farm girl Mary Ann, (Dawn Wells), movie star Ginger (Tina Louise), and the millionaire Howells, Thurston (Jim Backus) and Lovey (Natalie Schafer), were on a three hour tour of the Hawaiian Islands when they were blown way off course by a sudden storm and ended up stranded on a deserted island where hilarity ensued.

Our seven castaways.
Our seven castaways.

The show wasn’t exactly heavy on realism. For a group of people on a day trip, they ended up taking a whole lot of clothing with them (though there must not have been any room for the Skipper, Professor, or Gilligan to bring their wardrobes). The Professor could make anything from coconuts, bamboo, and palm leaves, but a boat. Everyone else in the world could arrive and leave the island as they pleased, but the castaways were perpetually stuck. Speaking of, anything in the world washed up on the shore or dropped down from the sky -mines, lions, space capsules, robots- but not a damn message could off of the place.

A few of the people that washed up on the shores, and then later left, included: Vito Scottie (four times!), Zsa Zsa Gabor, a 14 year old Kurt Russell in a loin cloth swinging from trees, Mel Blanc (voice only, of course), Hans Conreid aka Wrongway Feldman, Denny Miller, Larry Storch, Harold J. Stone, Nehemiah Persoff (taking a break from drama, I guess), Vincent Beck, Richard Kiel, Phil Silvers, John McGiver, Don Rickles (he shows up everywhere), Strother Martin, and Rory Calhoun as a big game hunter hunting Gillian, which should have been gruesome, but instead was pretty funny.

It was that sort of silliness that has most people writing the show off as stupid.  Silly, yes. Unrealistic, of course. Stupid? I wouldn’t say that.

If you pay attention, it’s funny. Not just the slapstick and sight gags, but the dialogue. Okay, none of it is quite as cutting and brash as something you’d see today, but the back and forth is pretty great, particularly if Mr. Howell is involved. There’s some really hilarious, LOL stuff that you wouldn’t expect to find on this wacky island.

Besides, the show is supposed silly. It’s supposed to be a complete deviation from reality, a break from it. Embrace that and enjoy it.

I will say, though, now that I’m watching it as an adult, I’m realizing just how often and how quickly the other castaways take advantage of Gilligan. If this was as realistic as people think it should be, Gilligan would have been the first one killed in the eventual murder rampage that no doubt would have gripped the island. And those that survived would have eventually died of some malnutrition related disease because you can only eat so many coconut cream pies and bananas.

Yeah, so maybe it’s better the show went with silly rather than realistic.

So sit back and relax and enjoy.

Hit the music.

Writing–2013 Reading Goals Update…Again

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Fiction Stacks

With a little less than three months to go, here’s where I’m at.

Of my goal of 24 books, I’ve read 20. Yay!

Since July, I’ve read one more non-fiction book which brings my total to five.

Since July, I’ve read five more fiction books which brings my total to twelve.

The non-fiction book wasn’t a re-read (yay!)

Of the five fiction books, I’d count four of them as being outside of my usual genre.

So, if you add this all up, carry the one, subtract the one non-fiction re-read…then I need to read six more non-fiction books and two more fiction books. And since I’ve been so good at reading outside my genre, the last two books can be horror if I want them to be, which is good because I just got Stephen King’s Dr. Sleep.

I’ve made up quite a bit of ground after my first six months of fail, but I’m still really lacking in my non-fiction reads. This is kind of frustrating considering how much non-fiction I used to read. You’d think it be easy for me to find a few books on various subjects to read about and yet…no. I’m really struggling in this department for some reason. It’s become an effort to get over it

So I need to read a total of eight books before the end of the year and most of them need to be non-fiction.

I’m sure I can do that.

Maybe.

Ugh. When did reading get so hard for me?