My One-Sided Conversations with Victor Hugo

Okay, so I've undertaken the task of reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.  I'm about 40% through and the daily conversation goes something like this...

"Please, god, let this Bishop be somebody important in the novel!" - after Vic spends the whole beginning of the book talking about him.  Spoiler: He was kinda important, but Vic didn't need to spend the whole beginning of the book detailing the poor man's life in infinite detail.

"Honey?" I said to the Hubs who's read this several times.  "Please tell me all of this has something to do with the story."  His answer was that only about 300-400 pages of the 952 page novel is actually necessary to the story.

"Why are you talking about 1861??  Jean Valjean would be dead by then!  Or really really old.  Please tell me he's not really really old and you're doing a flash-forward before you go back."  Turns out he was just setting up his explanation of Waterloo...

"Victor, Victor, Victor... no, you do not NEED to tell us every little detail about Waterloo."  Turns out he used the entire battle of Waterloo to show - once again - that the man who took in Cosette was an ass.  Which came at the very end of the entire narrative about Waterloo.  :headdesk:

"Please tell me that this boat you're described in painful detail will be important at some point..."  It was for about a paragraph.

"Oh god, you already explained the entire moral character of the convent.  You do not need to tell us about the buildings! Or the garden you already described once. Or the really really old nun."  At which point, I looked at the Hubs and said "You know, I could probably draw the inside of this convent just from his descriptions.  Hubs laughed.  I think he's enjoying my frustration with this book.

All in all, though, once you get past the long-windedness of Mr. Hugo, the story itself is really very good.  I'm drawn in by the characters and by some of the description, but I think a lot of the time, Vic was talking just to hear himself talk.  He even references himself and why he thinks the reader really needs to know what he's putting down in the book.  (He's mostly wrong about that, though.)

(In my defense, I rarely talk to or about the authors of the books I'm reading, but Victor's been dead for a really long time, so I think I'm safe.)

The Hungry Games Starring Catness Evermeow

Every Saturday morning, her majesty walks around the house meowing because she knows it's the day she gets canned food.  (And Sundays, which are, to her, second Saturday.)  This morning, I decided to document the fun.  While I was taking pictures, and she was dancing around keeping up a constant stream of meowing I happened to tell her that I didn't appreciate her catness... which led to today's post title.

So, without further ado, here's our version of The Hungry Games....

(I didn't get pics of the start of the Games, wherein she paced in the kitchen merowring while the Hubs asked her "What Day Is It?" like the commercial camel and then I sang "It's Kitty Tuna Time" which brought her running into the office.)

First off, she shows me exactly where her food should be placed...

Then she feigns disinterest while I get the food out of yon cupboard.

"Is Fancy Feast Turkey and Giblets acceptable to you, madam?"

Head-bonking of kitchen appliances begins while she waits impatiently for me to put it in the damn bowl...

Followed by pacing and expectant glares...

 ... until the time arrives for product placement

And the first round of gobbling can commence.

She'll eat part of it, go sleep and then come back later for more.

Thus ends today's Hungry Games.  Not quite as exciting as the movie or the book, but we work with what we have here.  ;o)

Superstitious Me

Hi All! 

Just so you know, I'm not usually a superstitious gal... Well, not anymore anyway.  I used to be super superstitious, but I got better.  Nowadays, I'm pretty good about not throwing salt over my shoulder, or flinching when a black cat crosses my path, or worrying about jinxes. 

Nope, nowadays, my superstitions are confined to writerly things.  For instance...

I cannot read writing advice if I want to write.  I even see a blog with an advice type post and I steer far far away. 

I cannot read about other writers having problems - like writers' block or stumbling or being at a loss for ideas.  Even if they've solved the problem and have the answers for how to avoid it.  (See #1 up there.) 

These aren't just fanciful superstitions, though.  For some reason, as soon as I read writing advice, I freeze up.  I lose my self-confidence.  As for reading about other writers' problems, more often than not I read about their problem and suddenly I have their problem.  It's like a form of writerly hypochondria. 

Recognizing these flaws, I stay the heck away.  Sure, I could sit down and find a way to fix the flaws, but I don't want to chance the many weeks of not-writing it would take to fix any of this.  So I avoid it all.  (I'm really good at avoidance.)

:shrug:

What about you?  What are your superstitions?  Do you avoid them or have you tried to fix them?

Post NaNo Roundup

You may have noticed from my widgety thing over on the left, that I 'won' NaNo.  I hit the 50K mark yesterday afternoon, and then for the site verification, I just did the whole book - including the 1541 I wrote before November first. 

Frankly, it was anti-climactic.  In the past, I've dawdled and dragged my feet.  I've had days and days where I was behind, always struggling to catch up, until finally in the last few days I typed like a madwoman to reach the goal.  This year, I did have a few days off, but for the most part I was the tortoise.  "Slow and steady wins the race."

:yawn:

Sure, it's good practice to get you where you're meeting a goal of writing every day.  And it's a lot less stressful.  But stress is what makes life interesting.  Will I make it?  Will I fail?  OMGOMGOMG

I'd rather be the rabbit and get the excitement... but still win like the tortoise.  :shrug:

Anyway, I figure this book still has anywhere from 30-50K left to write on it before it's a first draft, so tomorrow I'll be starting HoHoWriMo - with the goal of having this sucker all the way to THE END by the end of the year.  Shouldn't be a problem.  I just need to maintain my motivation.

What about you?  Did you accomplish your goals for November?  If not, will you still be trying to complete them this month instead? 

Whatcha Readin'?

With two days left in the month of November, I'm a little sick of talking about writing.  (Not sick of writing, just of talking about it.) So, let's talk about something entirely different - READING!

Yeah, if you're my Goodreads friend, you may notice that I started reading Les Miserables.  I know, I know... it's a monster of a book.  And chances are I won't reach my updated goal of 110 books this year because I'm reading this.  But through some error in my youth, I've never read it before.  (Maybe because instead of assigning great books like this, I got stuck reading Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies.  Bleh.)

I also know good ol' Mr. Hugo can be as dry as dust sometimes.  Thanks to my awesome husband, though, I managed to get through Ninety-Three with no problems.  (And I cried which means I definitely was not bored.)  When we first got married, he handed me his copy of Ninety-Three, warned me about Hugo's penchant for over-describing every little freakin' thing, and told me to flip past those parts.  It made reading Hugo so much less daunting.

So yesterday, we were flipping through the channels and noticed the movie was on a premium channel (which we're getting for free this weekend).  It was near the end, but we watched it anyway.  OMG.  Afterwards, I found a Kindle copy for free at Amazon (because there was no way I was going to be able to sit through a hardcopy of this) and started reading it last night after I finished my writing.  So far, it's pretty bland, but I know amazing things are coming.

I also picked up several other books (all for free) I've somehow missed over the years, but that I always wanted to read - Don Quixote, The Three Musketeers, Tom Sawyer, etc.   With the Kindle, I should be able to knock those out a whole lot quicker than in paper form.

Anyway, that's what I'm reading these days.  What are you reading?  Ever read Les Mis?  What have you always wanted to read, but haven't yet?

The Loves and Hates of Writing Fantasy for the First Time

Yes, I am writing a fantasy novel for the first time in my life (if you don't count that SF/F thing I did in high school).  And as I'm about 35K words in, I've learned some things...

I love the fact that when I'm feeling like the book is dragging, all I have to do is insert a mythical beast and mayhem ensues.

I hate that I have to make up every single freakin' name.  It's not like I can have Susans and Bobs and Larrys and Lauras running around.  And they each have to be unique.  And every single person they meet has a goddamn name.

I love that I have to make up pretty much everything else.

I hate that I'm going to have to go back and research all the little things - like what the hell they'd be wearing in what is basically medieval-ish times. 

I love that I can let my imagination free.

I hate that I can't let it totally free or no one would understand what the hell I'm writing about.  You say 'dragon' and people know what you're talking about.  You make some beast up totally from your imagination and call it say 'a hurchess'*, and people would be all like 'WTF?'

I love that I spent my formative years reading fantasy and playing D&D**.

I hate that I can't remember everything I read in the Monster Manual, and I gave my copy to my nephew years ago, so now I have to resort to more research.

I love research - just not when I'm trying to sprint to 50K words.

Sure, some of this stuff I encountered when I was writing urban fantasy.  And some of these problems can crop up in dystopian - especially if there's been a nuclear holocaust in the past.  But this still feels like I'm learning how to write all over again.

Heh.  It's kinda awesome.

Ever step totally out of your comfortable box and try a new-to-you genre?  How'd that work out?

* There's no such thing as a hurchess - even in this book.  I just threw a made-up word out there. 

** A great many D&D monsters come from various well-known mythologies, so I'm not writing a D&D fan fiction novel here.  I'm just wishing I could access my old Monster Manual as a reference.  The book I have - The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures - is jam packed with every critter every conceived and it's a bitch to wade through.  And since this is set kinda in a mythical Scotland, I can't use creatures from Indian, Native American, Japanese, etc. mythos.  That would be too weird.

Internet Difficulties

Something is weird with CenturyLink in the state of Missouri (at least that's what the tech guy told me).  Earlier I could still get on FB, at least, then that went away, too.  At least I still have some of the blogs I read - the ones held by blogger - and my gmail.  I can Google stuff, too... just hardly any of the links take me anywhere. 

So, anyway, if you need me, email me.  I'm still alive.  I just can't reach Pandora or the NaNoWriMo site or my friend Silver's blog or Twitter or... :sob: Facebook. 

I watched UP! instead of being online.  It made me cry.  Twice.

What are you up to tonight?

(And yes, I know... this should be the perfect time to write, but I've lost the will this evening.  And :whine: I can't play my Pandora station I created just for this book - the one with the kind of music I don't have on CD.  Well, except for that one CD, but I refuse to listen to the same CD on repeat.  Blame my brother who listened to the same three records on repeat ad nauseum when I was a kid.  I still can't listen to John Denver without cringing.  Anyway, I'll make up the words tomorrow or over the weekend or something.)