Quidquid Latine Dictum Sit Altum Videtur

Hello mes peuples!

Been doing a bit of writing this morning...just a quick half-scene, as I'm going out with my mum in a hot second for a birthday hang-out day!  It might be cut short by one of her clients, but I suppose if that happens I'll have more time for writing. 

Anyway, one thing I thought I'd talk about today is the title of this book.  I've been calling it Nosce Te Ipsum, which, in Latin, means "know thyself."  Roughly, anyway.  However, I've not decided on the final title of this book, and so I thought I'd show you some of the titles I've been considering:

Book Names:
       Book 1: Nosce Te Ipsum
       Book 2: A Road Without Deviations
       Book 3: Sturm und Drang

Alternatively, maybe change 1 to Sturm und Drang and 3 to Tempus Fugit, or leave 1 as it is and name 3 Tempus Fugit…figure out at a later date.

Alternate order:
       Traditor
       Nosce Te Ipsum
       Sturm & Drang/Tempus Fugit/A Road without Deviations

Other possible names:
       1
          Traitor
          Traditor
          Sublimation
          The Sound of the Surf
      
       2
          Reclamation
          Land no More

       3
          Transubstantiation
          Beyond the Shore/Beyond the Sure

Fairly certain, at this point, that Nosce Te Ipsum is actually going to be the title of the 2nd book.  It's much more pertinent to that book's storyline than this one...and besides, Traditor is really, really perfect for the first book.  Traditor is Latin, and it means, according to Wikipedia, "one who delivers."

Anyway, I must fly!  Got to clean up and get dressed for my birthday date with mum.  Au revoir!


Working Title: Bryn & Mer: Traditor
Word  Count: 100,472
Writing Mode: Excited to write what's next!

Angels With Filthy Souls

Just finished catching up with my Tuesday-Thursday writing...my Monday and Friday writing I actually accomplished on the days themselves.  In total, over yesterday and today, I've written 2,033 words.  I hope to write more later on today, but for now I must stop and shower.  I'm heading down to my mum's in a bit for birthday fajitas and cake! 

My birthday is part of why I've gotten so little done this week--every night someone was dragging me out for birthday shenanigans.  Awesome, but not conducive to productivity.

Anyway, I managed to give myself a wonderful birthday present--I BROKE 100K!!!

:D

I am super, super happy, and I'm so excited to get to the rest of the book.  I think it's going to take forever because of my now-limited writing time, but so long as I keep up my 500 words per day it'll get done eventually.  Then I'll have to edit, and edit, and edit again...and maybe eventually look for someone to publish it (not to mention getting started on the next one!).  Still, despite all the work ahead, I am SUPER PUMPED!

Anyway, I must depart.  There is a Soul Wash outside of my window and I'd really like to figure out what the hexagon that entails before I toddle off to mum's.  Maybe I could just run through there instead of taking an actual shower...whatever cleans my filthy soul must also get my epidermis clean, right?


Working Title: Bryn & Mer: Nosce Te Ipsum
Word Count: 100,176 bitches!!!
Writing Mode: Excited, looking forward to doing more...after cake, of course.

Anything Worth Doing...

So...yeah.  Haven't posted in a while.  Oops.

In my defense, everything has been crazy.  I've been keeping up with my 500 words, though I'm no longer anywhere near the 1,500 or so average I was achieving before.  It seems this new job was a huge mistake in terms of my writing.  Well...not just in terms of my writing, but that's a topic for another time.

Anyway, in spite of the world, I'm still plugging away with my story!  I'm fairly happy with what I've written over the past week or so: an encounter with Jules, then another with Pilot and Bard...and I'm about to reveal a secret from Pilot's past that's really going to mess with Mer...but will go a long way towards explaining why Pilot is the way she is.  Plus it encourages her to storm out of Dissenter HQ, which means that she gets to her plane before they lock it down.  I'm sure none of this makes any sense to you, but it's all exciting for me!

Most exciting is where I am in the story.  I've got a bit of slog-writting coming up, but after that it'll be one exciting, terrifying thing after another until the conclusion.  I'd love to be done by the end of November (for NaNoWriMo!) but I don't think that'll happen.  If not November, I'd love to be done by the new year...though that might also be overly optimistic. 

Mostly I'd really just love to break 100k by my birthday...which is in 2 days.  Don't really see it happening...but maybe I'll get loads done tomorrow?  Or I could push it off to this weekend--give myself the rest of the week to get it done.  It's my birthday present to myself, after all!

Anyway, I'd love to blather on, but I'm STARVING.  I have a pizza crust in the fridge that's calling my name, just waiting to be baked into delicious gooeyness.  Nom nom nom!

Laters  ;}~


Working Title: Bryn & Mer: Nosce Te Ipsum
Word Count: Holy shit, 98,101!!!
Writing Mode: Foot-gnaw-offingly hungry


P.S. I've designed the cover of the book.  It's beautiful  :} 

I'll post a pic as soon as I have it all put together.

And Nothing Hurt

It's 4am, and I need to be up in three hours. However, I haven't posted in a week...I owe you.

I've kept up with my 500 per day this first week of my new job, but only barely. Had to make it all up Friday night/Saturday morning...which I did, and then some. No numbers, but I for sure got my 500 per day...just more or less all at once.

I could talk about the current plot, but I suppose that can wait. I could (and, I'm sure, soon will) talk about my new awful job...but that can wait, as well.

Today I was at the Small Press Expo.

My whole life I've heard creatives say that they had to do X (write/sing/dance/paint/act/etc)or they would die. I always thought this was a bit melodramatic.

Since beginning this long-term writing project, I've noticed a direct correlation between writing and my happiness. If I write, I'm happier. If I don't get to, I am more easily depressed. Thus, today, when an artist said that she had to create or she would die, I finally understood what they all meant. It isn't that if I can't write I'll die, it's that writing gives me a reason to live.

Writing lets me cope with people I can't comprehend in a world that makes no sense. I deal with the madness of working in an office for months and years on end by writing my way to a sort of tenuous understanding of the world.

And speaking of the office, I'd better pass out so that I actually will make it there in the morning. Good night, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.

Working Title: Bryn & Mer: Nosce Te Ipsum
Word Count: 93,000ish?
Writing Mode: Inspired but exhausted

He Who Controls The Starbucks Controls The Universe

1,191 words today, each one an epic struggle against the three deadly sirens of my apartment: the shower, the tv, and, most deadly, the dread bed.

I started my new job today. I was in orientation literally all day...and thus had to write when I got home. There's nothing quite like spending 7.5 hours listening to people talk at you (and downing coffee like it was Spice) to make you wanna go home and bust out 1k. I'm really trying to hit 100k by my birthday, though, so that's a big incentive. Besides, I've been super inspired lately...even if I haven't had time to do much about it.

Anyway, I've still gotta shower and brush my teeth, so that's all for now. Nighty noodles!

Working Title: Bryn & Mer: Nosce Te Ipsum

Word Count: 92,253

Writing Mode: Zzzzzzz.......

Is This A Kissing Book?

Ok...I don't want to be a girly-girl...but writing today was so fun!!!

Today was just going to be the meal that Bryn & Mer were eating, maybe followed by their meeting with Jules. However, I got into editing a couple of things, adding a sentence or two to what I wrote yesterday...and then I wrote a kissing scene.

<3

Ok, I know I'm being a huge girl about this...but it was adorable. I know, I know, poor Bryn & Mer...I'm such a voyeur. They were fighting over Bryn feeding Mer marshmallow salad (which is gross, btw), and then he got all smarmy and kissed her. Squee!

Well, if I'm being honest, he didn't get that smarmy. I'm really over books that make everything super smarmy...if people are into each other it's got to be all flowers and chocolate and fat cherubs with rosy diapers...ew. With Bryn & Mer I want it to be love, of course, but also lust (desire), honesty, equality...and no rosy diapers.

Either way, it was super cute to write...and honestly, FINALLY I get to write a kissing scene that isn't poisoned with betrayal. I think I'll have Mer waffle about that a bit, apologizing for the last time, and Bryn be all noble and say that he trusts her, etc. SMARM.

Anyway, writing has been going swimmingly...hopefully it can continue in this vein in my new job. Or after work. Whatever happens, I've got to keep on keeping on. What matters is the writing!

And speaking of...today I broke ninety-thousand words!

Out for now, time to do a bit of grocery shopping before curling up with a cup of tea (and, with dinner, maybe a Belgian beer) and Harry Potter V. Cheers!


Working Title: Bryn & Mer: Nosce Te Ipsum
Word Count: 90,992
Writing Mode: Invigorated (and smarmy!)

Stressed

Well, first things first:

Writing has been going swimmingly! Yesterday I wrote 1,816 words, and would have had more if I hadn't had a damn end-of-day report to do. I was at an easy bit, of course, but still: exciting!

I'll have to slog through a meal scene today, blah. Then rest and a bit of interesting stuff as I show how Pilot does when out of the sky for any sort of extended period of time. Then our heroes will meet with Jules once more before setting out.

I'm actually kind of excited for their on-foot journey. I think that it'll give me a lot of opportunity to develop their relationship, as well as provide Mer with opportunity to grow as a person. And, of course, at the end of the journey is a trainwreck (pun intended! Oh, you don't know what's gonna happen, so you don't get it...muahahaha) of epic proportions, so that'll be fun to write.

I'm hoping that I'm approximately two-thirds, or three-fifths (five-ninths? seven-thirteenths?) through with the story. We'll see...I have a feeling that the last few events will drag out like woah...but I'm okay with that. I don't care how long the story is at this point...as long as I hit 100k before September 26th. It's my birthday present to myself!

So...on to why I'm stressed. I am SO stressed!

I am starting a new job next week. Yes, again. I'm actually quite sad about it--I've come to really like the people I'm working with, and will miss them. I'll also miss being literally a five-minute walk door-to-desk from work (I left at 8.22 this morning and was at my desk by 8.28...but then was sent home as the girl I was temping for is now back). Plus the work environment is good: everyone there is very nice, the work is light (as evidenced by my ability to churn out 1,000-2,000 words whenever I'm there), they have a decent cafeteria, great food trucks outside, and everyone seems to think I'm a godsend. I reformatted a word document the other day, integrating several different drafts into one, and the woman in the office whom everyone hates and fears wrote a letter to my project manager saying that I'd put in "a herculean effort" and was a massive asset to the company, blah blah blah. I mean, I'm crazy giving this up, right? But everyone said I should take my new job. Better opportunity, they said. Might open doors, they said. Might meet young, smart, fun people, they said. And maybe they'll be right...but I'm terrified it'll be ridiculously bureaucratic (I've been warned about this...multiple times), stuffy, stuck-up, and awful. Plus it'll mean getting up half an hour earlier. And it'll probably be a lot more work, i.e. less writing time. Which I get...it is work, after all, but I wanna get this damn book done.

I dunno. Guess I'm just nervous. Also, evidently someone's been going around telling everyone I know that this is my dream job, so I'm having to explain (over and over and OVER) that working as a goddamn admin is hardly my idea of a dream job. And then I sound ungrateful. Blah.

Anyway, I suppose I should get back to recruiting (yuck). At least I shouldn't have to do that in my new job...er, at least, I don't think I will. We'll see.

Off for now! Can't work on the story until this afternoon because I'm supposed to be recruiting (I wrote this on and off on short 1 or 2 minute breaks between reviewing resumes). Hopefully I'll still get a decent amount done, though.

Live long and prosper.


Working Title: Bryn & Mer: Nosce Te Ipsum
Word Count: 88,111
Writing Mode: Delayed due to actually having to work during work hours