My laurels

No, not blogging about my garden. I've yammered enough about that elsewhere. I don't have any actual laurel bushes growing. Not sure I would recognize one. Maybe I'll look them up. Then I'll know that upon which I've been resting.

I have been busy un-writing. Un-writing is the process by which one takes a perfectly good 52,000+ word manuscript and systematically cuts it to 50,883 and counting (down). Chopping words. "Tightening." Putting the whole thing on a diet devoid of "he said", "she said", "so", "that", and "just". Someone stop me before I have to either buy a whole new wardrobe of sub-genre (like "novella"), or else add scenes. Scenes without dialogue tags. Because I use too many of them.

I am taking an on-line self-editing class over at AccessRomance.com, and have been treating my poor short contemporary as a whipping boy. Leap, my sci fi, does not have a "bye", just a temporary reprieve. So far, I'm learning a bit, and practicing a lot. And I need practice. And I've got a running list of my own writing sins and exactly what sort of penance I should be doing for each. Here goes so far:

Upon this manuscript, thou shalt
1. Run spellcheck. Seriously. Ignoring the cases where MS Word things that "goddamnit" is a misspelling of "goldsmith", but otherwise heeding the almighty dictionary.

2. Highlight all dialog tags such as "said", "asked", "muttered". Then write them out. Thou shalt refrain from using the structure "blah blah blah," he said, as he did something far more interesting.

3. Thou shalt not use two spaces whereupon one space is required. Find and replace. And repeat until it says it found none to replace. Because I like my space bar and sprinkle it generously thorughout my writing.

4. Highlight every "its" and "it's" throughout the manuscript. And examine each one individually. Not because you don't know the difference, but because sometimes the right-hand pinky fails to heed your warnings.

5. Highlight "garbage" words: that, so, just, very, really, totally, practically. This list may grow. So far, I'm keeping most of the ones I find in dialogue because they sound more natural in speech. And I'm toasting ones that are truly extraneous. And leaving a whole lot more highlighted because blue and yellow blobs all over the file will make me come back and re-read when I have more brainpower.

The class isn't even half over. So maybe I'll be back with a few more commandments.

Bits and Pieces

The last couple of weeks have been pretty quiet for me. I have not done much writing--mainly a couple of short items for my class. My last one was rather silly--we had to create two character profiles, one for us (or at least mostly based on us), and write a scene involving the two of them--just a scene, not an entire piece, focusing on characterization. We are supposed to be writing a longer item--a short story or chapter--for our final assignment, and I'm not intending to use myself in any way in my story. So I took the assignment and decided to make my other character a cat. More of a shapeshifter, really. I left out the shapeshifting bits, but the whole thing was a conversation between the two of us during a cooking class, and she left all kinds of clues (her ex-husband's name is Tom...having triplets runs in the family...silly stuff that hopefully didn't sound too silly...).

I don't think it turned out half bad. Unfinished, yes. There wasn't really a conflict or anything in the piece. We talked about them all outloud during class, and most of the commentary on mine were about where else the writing was going with these two characters, which totally made sense. They weren't going anywhere, and it reflected that. But hey, I was in a cooking class with a cat lady...I don't know where it could have gone without getting a lot goofier.

This week, we're examining setting and I'm supposed to visit somewhere new, and write a scene including my observations on it. I'm not entirely sure where I'll have time to go outside of our normal routine, so I may have to cheat on that one. We'll see.

For our longer piece, I'm attempting to re-write my intro for my novel-in-progress. I'm not thrilled with what I have, though the plot line is essentially staying the same. Basically, just shifting points of view in some places, and doing much-needed editing. I'm hoping that it will be cohesive enough to stand on its own. Basically, the main characters meet at a Renn Faire, and both are actors in the faire, though it's not supposed to be obvious to the reader until the end that it's all a farce. Almost by accident, I think my setup falls in so nicely with several themes running throughout the entire story--about appearances, figuring out who they are, being truthful to themselves and each other, etc.

Coffee ice cream is a bad idea at bedtime

I did get my enrollment figured out--apparently, faxing in my "payment voucher" paperwork from my employer didn't go through or didn't get processed the first time. Second time was the charm (I also got a very helpful person on the phone and a different fax number).
Wash U has apparently rehydrated my old (old old old) email address and set it up to forward to my work address, and I've received a lovely notice about their automatic emergency notification system. She also said she would try to get my name changed in the student records...in the mean time, I am finding it rather odd to see emails addressed to my maiden name.

Last week's class was amusing in part because I am so out of practice for attending a college class. I was running around trying to get ready, debating whether or not to pack my laptop (and whether I'd find a wireless connection if I needed one), that I nearly forgot to bring paper. And a pen. In my defense, the only classes I've taken in the last 10 years (gulp...that's a really big number), have been entirely computer related, with pens optional (generally only used to initial the roster on the first day), and lined paper completely unnecessary. I also had to check the campus map to find the right building (Eads). This class is not in one of the many, many new buildings on campus. In fact, I know that I had at least one class in this building as an undergrad. I just could not remember which one it was. Lucky for me, there is a new (to me) coffee shop in the library that is about 10 feet from one of the doors to the building, so after arriving early (doh! class doesn't start till 7 after...), I had plenty of time to get a nice steaming cup of my favorite beverage :)

My homework's done, though I realized after I printed it out that I forgot to put my name on top (take credit for my work? Normally you'd have to check the userid in the revision history to know who to blame for the spelling errors....). I also realized that I'm probably the only one in the class who won't didn't indent paragraphs. Lucky for them I didn't start the whole thing off with "1 Introduction...1.1 Document Scope...1.2...." :)

I need to get some sleep.

First class

I had my first fiction writing class session on Saturday. Except that the instructor still didn't have my name on her roster, after I'd played phone tag and fax tag with the registrar's office last week, this should be fun. There are only 4 of us in the class, a nice variety. Two are undergraduate students, the other student is finishing (or maybe just finished) going back to school for her bachelors. I am looking forward to having other people give me feedback on what I'm writing.

We have writing assignments every week, along with a small amount of reading--mainly short stories I gather. The biggest writing project is supposed to be a 10-15 page work that could be a self-contained piece, or a chapter to somethign larger. I may work on revising my introduction to my novel to use for class--of all of the stuff I've written, that's the one that fits the size limit best, could be used standalone, and would really benefit from some attention and critique. Or, I could choose to write something different.

First, I guess I have some more phone tag.