Nikki M. Pill

Frustrating, frustrating week.

I’ve made some progress in the names department. I find that I can’t really get rolling with a character until I have names. So I’m just about ready with the burlesque characters.

However — this week has been a big pile of aggravations at school and at work (like an email at 8pm at night saying “Hey Nikki, that thing you’ve been telling us about for six weeks is this weekend, shouldn’t you do a handout for that?” — a handout that would be done if someone had gotten back to me the third or fourth time I’d asked!). I decided to do some revisions on the Mythos Story.

Of course, the cats decided to act up this morning. Romer howled at the door. Milo chewed on electrical cords and knocked stuff over. I almost threw them out into the apartment hallway on three separate occasions.

Miraculously, I stuck with it. I re-read the Mythos story and got started on revisions. As I’ve discovered with previous stories, it’s better than I thought! Of course, there are HUGE gaps in this one. I really didn’t have my description hat on. But it’s a decent story, and I can work with it.

This weekend, I will carve out an hour to name the girls in the troupe, and start churning out some serious wordcount next week. Since I missed a month, I’ve increased my writing goals for my month of light schoolwork and my month of break. 2K/words per day or bust!

Words written:  1,246

Total words: 4,904

Pages: 9

Reason for stopping:   fini!

Darling du Jour:  ”He smelled like rain and leather and a hint of soap – so reassuringly human after the smell of air conditioning and old liquor and Citronella. His fingertips deft brushed her hair from her neck and she thought Forgive me, not sure if she was asking Gil or Vic or herself, forgive me but this softness, this warm and alive while Vic has an arm around the trainee waitress, not in his right mind I know but in the wake of that cold dark figure, taking this comfort, I’m not the strong one, if this is the end just let it happen please. “

Fail du Jour: (ngelic? Sweet?)

Mean Things: The single most blood-curdling death I’ve ever written, before the calamari is even battered.

Jury-rigging: Lots of slapdash in this one. It was clear the end was happening today — even went an hour over my allotted writing time to do the end. The stakes aren’t quite high enough and some things come out of nowhere. Ah well. The magic of editing will take care of it.

Still a ways to go — but after the story gathers dust for a month and I have perspective. For now:

Words written:  471. Le sigh.

Total words: 3,658

Pages: 7

Darling du Jour:  It walked out of the wall.

There was no door. The tall sinister figure walked out of the wall next to her. She looked up and couldn’t be sure, in the dim alcove behind the potted palms, because it was a silhouette against the lights and its face at least a foot above hers as it left – she couldn’t be sure that its face was ink-black and smooth as an egg, a horrifying calm indifference on that featureless head – she couldn’t be sure and shuddered.       

Fail du Jour: Poor Gil has no personality. Sorry, buddy. I’ll work on that in the next draft.

Mean Things:  Jello shots before the slaughter.

Misc: For the past few days, I’ve noticed this strange feeling as I sit down to write — you know how a cat flails its paws in the air when it sees a tub of water and realizes you’re about to put it in? I have that sort of apprehension. It’s certainly not as severe, but I feel as if my feet aren’t under me. “No, no, I’m not ready to write the climax and end yet!” But I don’t want a long-ass Gravedigger’s Daughter tale. I want a short fun one, like eating candy. Erm. Halloween candy, I guess. I’m really excited about starting the novel, and doing revisions on Gravedigger’s Daughter and Chaotic Water and then this. I’m thrilled to have so many ideas and so much creative energy — but after the past few years, I’m also a littel afraid of the excitement.

Well. If the past year has taught me anything — and it has taught me a lot — it’s that writing is a practice. Every story is about 90% sweat and 10% inspiration, and I’m lucky if I’m on a roll less than 3/4 of the way through. The only thing that makes it easier to write and get ideas is devoting myself to writing an hour every (week)day, like it or not.

Words written:  1114. I’m hearing a piece of classical music that is very famous and I can’t remember what it’s called. But you know the one, with the heavy strings, duh-duh-duh-DUNH, 1114. (Don’t ever tell my father in law I can’t remember. Oh, the lectures and CDs in my future if he knew…)

Total words: 3,171!

Pages: 6

Darling du Jour:  Wife. Jacy’s face burned. Wife, you bitch.

Fail du Jour: None, actually. A pretty good day.

Mean Things:  ”A gentleman is a man who knows how to play the accordion, but doesn’t.” — Tom Waits

Jury-rigging: [Note to add at the beginning: waitress is a trainee. ]

Misc: Last night I started wondering… I put a lot of time into watching serial killer stuff. So why don’t I write any? I started wondering about it, and I got a bud of an idea… and then wondered why I don’t write about dance or yoga, and the idea bloomed, and now the whole thing is there except for the killer’s signature.

It would be very, very risky for me to release a suspense/thriller as my first novel when I’m a fantasy writer. I could gain and lose a fan base in the space of 2 books. Or I might like it and write in both genres. But I have a good feeling about this one. It’s actually making me eager to finish this story so I can get on with the next one. I can’t evern remember the last time I felt that.

Words written: 685!!!

Total words: 2,057!

Pages: 4. Single spaced.

Darling du Jour: At the top of her Top News page, Doug’s status said “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”  There were 31 comments, most things like “Dude you are so drunk” or “One of your wife’s students take your phone again?” Except for Amy’s comment, which said “Ia shub Niggurath! The Black Goat of The Woods With a thousand young!”

Fail du Jour: Still virtually no description of the characters, and apparently transitions are things that happen to other writers.

Mean Things: “With me, Jacy,” he said, placing both hands on her shoulders, and inhaling exaggeratedly. “Deep breath…”

“I hate it when you do that,” she said.

I think I wrote 5 words.

Helping Hips ate my week last week. Well. I allowed it to. I decided I’d have to work extra hard this week on writing. I read Holly’s Lesson 14, which is about exploiting the Law of Unintended Consequences — something I’m actually pretty good with. I sat down for my actual AIC time and dithered with this sentence and that. I was rather colossally bored, and wondered if I should let Jacy have the shot and pass out with the medication as her escape route or allow her to Sinatra out of it.

Then I realized: I know what the bartender and waitress LOOK like, but I have what Holly aptly calls the “Dark Elf Level 3 Problem.” They’re minions, but I have no personality for them yet. Not even names. I gotta fix that. Watching a hero defeat a personality-less villain is like eating turkey bacon.

Words written:  555!!

Total words: 983

Pages: 3

Reason for stopping:   Running out of steam — I can tell when it’s petering out. However, this is good. I set myself a goal of 400 words a day, because then I’ll have the story done in 3 weeks, or 15 writing days. More like 2 weeks, because I can get 900-1200 words in once I’m really going. 555 is pretty exciting this early in a project.

Darling du Jour:  “They have a parrot!” she said, and wandered over to the parrot cage at the end of the bar. He was a scraggly bird with outrageously blue feathers. He cocked his head, regarding her with one malevolent eye.          
“Hellooooo?” she said. “Hello?”
“Ya! Ya! Cthulhu fhtagn!” the parrot said. “Bitch!”
“Sorry,” the bartender said. “Some of the locals think they’re funny.”

Fail du Jour: Virtually no physical descriptions of the characters yet. I should do something about that.

Mean Things:  “I shouldn’t,” Jacy said. They had only just gotten the medication right. When was her last drink – an hour ago?

Exercise: Dance practice yesterday. Gotta bolster my system with some protein and then go dance and do some of my strength training today. Oh, and lots of sewing.

Jury-rigging: “What can I get you?” I really should describe him. He has florid skin and tufts of tawny hair around his head.

Conflict one: managed. The doorjamb did not win, though it made a valiant effort. I should address the pain a little better tomorrow, though.

Words written:  263. 4 of them were pretty damn hard-won, as I’d forgotten/lost the names I picked for my characters last time — except the protagonist. Edie didn’t fit her well, so I re-named her Jacy. I have a friend named Jacy and think it’s a cool, cool name. Her husband is Vic because that makes me think of Vegas, and their friends are Doug and Amy (secretly after Douglas Adams and Amelia Pond).

Total words: 549

Pages: 2

Darling du Jour:  Ukelele music floated lazily in the air… The room smelled faintly of Citronella and old coolant.

Fail du Jour: Forgetting the characters’ names, forgetting the word for vestibule, and having the sense that each Tiki mask is actually Kal Torak. Eesh.

Mean Things:  Jacy smacked her head on the doorjamb on the way in. She’s accident-prone.

Exercise:   Elliptical & rehearsal with Piper last night. Solo practice and calisthewhatever this AM.

Jury-rigging: She peered down the Strip as [description].

I actually caught myself grinning as I wrote the description of the bar. This, friends, is a good day.