A Nice Rambley Bit For My First Post of 2012 (I even talk about writing)

What?

It’s 2012 and nobody told me?

I was supposed to start preparing for the apocalypse. You know, stock up on canned food, Purell, and DVDs. Get my zombie survival kit together. Etc.

A hope everyone has had some happy holidayness in their lives. The great thing about Christmas is that it provides solid evidence of how the people in your family see you. As in: “Hey, these earrings are really weird. Just odd and strange and abnormal in every way. I bet Cacy'll love them!” Le sigh. It’s hard being the “artsty” one in the family. I'm not that weird, Mom. Really, I'm not.

But I do now boast a new favorite necklace:

(Made by this company.)

Freakin' awesome. And it matches this ring I got a few month ago:

(This guy also makes Lego jewelry.)

(Check him out.)

So sometimes they get it right. Even though, of course, Christmas is not about the presents. Is the lie we tell children.

In other topics, I finished the preliminary revision of my rewrite. (You know, when you go through and fix all the obviously bad stuff before you let anyone read it. There was this one scene in particular that was so bad that if it had been a published book I was reading I would have written the author an angry letter. Fortunately, no one shall ever have to see that scene EVER. Though I kinda want people to read it after they read the new and improved scene so that I can be like see, SEE what I saved you from…before I forced you to read it. Anyway…)

Tada!

Printed out for easy reading by people in my life who don’t like reading long stuff on the computer. (You gotta work those margins and font size to save some paper.)

I know there’s all kindsa fancy technological computery ways to breakdown the editing process, but this is how I revise when it comes to re-ordering half the scenes in the book:

First I type up a list of every scene in the manuscript and color-code them according to like characters or what part of the story it deals with or something. I don't know. I just like colors.

After cutting the list up, I re-order the scenes as needed.

Then tape 'em down to blank sheet of paper so I can easily refer to them when I go back to my computer to start moving things around in the actual document.

Who needs Scrivener? (Okay, I probably do. But it costs money, see. Plus, cutting stuff out and using tape is fun. Ask any four-year-old. Tape and scissors are the best things ever.)

The thing about finishing something and coming to the point where I’m waiting for other people to read it is that I’m left with a “What now?” feeling. What should I do with myself right now considering that if this were yesterday, I’d have been working on that thing I just finished.

I suppose I could read something. Maybe re-watch the fourth season of Buffy or all the episodes of “Life After People” I recorded. I should probably clean my mess of a room which I’m sure is a fitting reflection of my life in general. I could work on a blog post.

All of the above?

Well, I did all of the above. So what now?

In the bigger picture in which I’m always working on some writerly endeavor or another, what now?

Eh, I’ll figure it out.

But you know, going over my manuscript, setting is one of the changes I’m happiest with when it comes to all the decisions I made for the rewrite. Originally, I’d set the story in some made up middle of nowhere town. But for the re-write I thought, why don’t I bring them home. My hometown of Los Angeles, that is.

Because of this change, I’ve set some of my scenes in what I think are interesting parts of the city. I might not have thought to use some of these types of locations if I’d stuck with a made up town.

Which I guess means I'm not as creative as I lead people to think I am.

(The Venice Beach Canals is one of the interesting places in L.A. I do not use in my story.)

Besides, people talk trash about my city. Saying it’s a wasteland and the people are shallow (to which I respond, maybe that has something to do with the part of the city you hang around). But I love my sprawling town. According to popular music, it never rains here and we know how to party. And you can believe that because popular entertainment never lies to us. Ever.

(Now that I think about it, I didn't set any scenes in my book around water, which is kinda odd cause I love water-adjacent locales.)

So…that’s probably enough a ramblin’.

No, wait!

Doesn’t anybody finish their games on Droidwords? Or is it just nobody wants to finish the games they start with me? I’ve been waiting for my sister to make a move for like six months now! Some people!

Okay, now I’m done.

Have a Happy New Year anyone who made it to the bottom of this post. The rest of you…a plague upon your houses! (Not really, I give you permission to have happiness in your new year too.)