Back to nature

So, I'm going back into the country this weekend and I will stay for as long as I have to. When I return, I'll have three full length novels with me. I already have plots for about five novels or so waiting when these three are done. But first thing's first and I have to finish and roll these three out to editors at publishing houses.

I'm going to take two novels with me on vacation, since reading (or listening to audi books) always stimulates my imagination and rests me in between writing. The two novels I picked are:

From the Corner Of His Eye by Dean Koontz. This was the first novel I read by Koontz and none I've read by him after that has compared.

As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem. I haven't read this one before but I'm fascinated by the notion of a sci fi novel that's somehow represented as a regular novel ;-) I'm looking forward to reading it.

And so it begins...

The writecation has begun. I have three novels to completely finish:

Against All Odds
The Other Woman
That Fat Feeling

My first project is to organize the plotline for The Other Woman. My plan is to create around 20 chapters, each starting with a diary entry and ending in the scene that envoked and/or sparked the diary entry. To set up the plot I believe I will use a large whiteboard and postit stickers. The story will be told in the first peson, past tense (very typical).

The challenge is to keep the underlining story even and going throughout the whole plot. Setting the plotline up on a board will help me work through that challenge.

My next project will be to re-write (again) the sub-plot for Against All Odds. I'm just not ready for that one - not yet.

World of Warcraft

I've heard some pretty great stuff about WoW but never really tested it until recently. I have to say that it is so amazing!!! I also tried EverQuest but that wasn't as appealing to me. Of all the online games I've tried, WoW is the best. Still, I haven't really tried Star Wars: Old Republic yet (because it hasn't been released).

During my vacation I have to be especially careful not to let WoW swallow all my time and focus instead on writing. The result is nevertheless that WoW ROCKS!!!

More about poems

I'm suddenly very interested in poems and I've been reading a lot of them lately. Kevin, from Toronto, wrote to me as he shares my love of poems in a "fairy tale getup". He also advised me to read Emily Dickinson. I've never read anything by her, other than was fed to us in school, but I'm really starting to appreciate her.

Here are the first two stanzas of Dickinson's poem Hope.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

For some reason those lines spoke to me. Perhaps it's because hope is really the thing that keeps me warm ;-)

The Final Countdown

Only one more workday before I go on my vacation. I've already set up a timetable for my writing projects and finally I will be able to focus 100% on what I love doing the most.

Isn't life just wonderful??? :-)

Damn my horrible memory!

Last night as I was going to sleep, I had the most interesting idea for a sci fi short story. As the idea developed I got more into the story. In the end I had the plot outlined and my main characters in the bag, and as I drifted off to sleep I had decided to write the story tonight. Now, as I sit in front of my computer totally ready to write, I have done everything I can think of to remember what the plot was about. Unfortunately I can't even remember the characters I had pictured so incredibly live in my mind just last night.

This teaches me to get up and write down when the idea hits me, even if it's just a few words. Oh well! If its meant to be, then it will come back to me... (I hope).

Star Trek TOS

I've watched all The Original Series episodes, of course, but recently I saw them in BlueRay. Although it's nice to see the stuff in HD (you can see the makeup, zippers, etc) the really cool thing about this release is the re-mastering of the space images (planets, Enterprise, etc.)

The old franchise is very delicate and this re-mastering is very well done. Examples:
Old screenshot
New scrennshot

The re-mastering only enhances the wonderful experience that is Star Trek TOS. My favourite character has always been Spock and he continues to be so (even though I can now see his terrible eye shadow ;-)

I've already ordered my own copy of Star Trek TOS on Blue Ray and I can't wait to see all the old episodes in a new light :-)

Poetry

I gave up writing poetry many years ago but - to be fair - my first attempts at writing turned out to be poems. I was 9 years old when I produced the first poem and sadly it has been lost in the sands of time. I only remember that it was very dark and gloomy (I came into teenage angst very early ;-)

Still, I enjoy a lot of poems and some of my favourite poets inlucde Lord Tennyson, W. H. Auden, and of course, Edgar Allan Poe. These three authors all have in common to have written "fairy tale" poems. Here are examples:

Lady (weeping at the crossroads) by W. H. Auden
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
Lady of Shalott by Tennyson

So, I wrote some poems back in the old days and now and again I come across them. Here is one that I found recently when searching through some of my notebooks from about 12 years ago:

Resurrection

I found my heart in my head
And realized I was dead.
I pulled it out -
Without a doubt -
"Now you're stupid", it said.

I left some love in my brain,
It made me go insane.
There's nothing more
To keep the score
Of sorrow and simple pain.

Not a masterpice and I don't really remember what I was thinking while writing it. Usually these poems just came and I never struggeled with them. Actually they still do (come to me that is). The difference is that I don't write them down anymore. Writing poems is not my strong side and I'll leave that to others ;-)

The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub

The book (I actually listened to the audio book version) takes off slowly but once it get's going, it becomes a typical Stephen King book, totally sucking you in. I'm not really sure where Stephen King ends and Peter Straub starts. I haven't read much by Peter Straub but maybe I will now.

The Talisman was haunting. It carried me off to an unreal world and for some reason I was contantly thinking of an attitude that was presented to me by one of my literary theory teachers back in university. He said that literature was like the starry sky; you couldn't really create anything new, only give a new perspective. He told us to imagine that we were on Mars, looking up at the sky. We would see pretty much the same stars as we do on Earth but from a different angle. I've never quite forgotten that and listening to The Talisman I was reminded regularly. I don't exactly know why.

Anyway, must remember to pick something up from the library by Peter Straub. I hope he's as good solo as he is writing with Stephen King :-)

Writecataion Confirmed!

I've just confirmed my vacation - that is my extra long vacation that will be spent writing. I actually got a pretty good idea for a thriller while driving out in nature last weekend. I'm feeling the "mood" come over me more frequently but I'm also having less trouble shaking it off.

I'm just hanging on because after three weeks I'll be free (as a bird) to write all day - and night!!!