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 Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:51 pm
Welcome
Introduction:
My name is: Tilly
I am: a writer, a rat owner, and attempting to go on a soda-free diet. I'm also editing my book, hoping one day to publish it.
Important things you should know:
My rats are:
Gooboo-Female-black hooded.
Rayray-Female-agouti (brown) hooded.
Pippen-Male-Black, partial white belly.
And that's about it! Thanks!
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:57 pm
9:57pm
June 16, 2008
At the moment I have two rats, Gooboo and Rayray, crawling around on my bed while I write this. Rayray is particularly interested in one of my stuffed animal ducks, and Gooboo is attempting to tear up a sock.
Today I continued working on Chapter 12 of my book I'm editing. Actually, I've never written this particular chapter twelve, so it's not much editing. And another thing I've noticed is I haven't done much editing at all! I've mostly been re-writing.
I'm looking for ideas for some character development at the moment. I've got two flat, one-dimensional boys ages 19-ish in need of some personality! I'll probably just hack out some generic traits and see where to go from there.
So, is anybody else interested in publishing? Particularly, is anybody else on the editing stage of their book? I'd like to know because a lot of the writers on Gaia have the 'I'm going to wait' mindset, and I wonder if anyone's around who isn't going to wait.
Also, could somebody remind me how to upload pictures? I seem to have forgotten...
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:06 pm
Rat Faqs Most of you probably haven't had rats, and even if you had, you may not know the terminology for them. This is a quick guide for anything you'll need to know here: General:Rats: Fuzzy rodents that are not mice. Mice are small, rats are much bigger. Rats have bodies that tend to be at least 5 inches long when they are mature. Mice have a body two, maybe three inches long, with a head width the size of a penny. Rat's heads are more like a quarter. Pinky: Baby rat. Kitten: Baby rat, older than a pinky. I could be referring to a real kitten, though. Puppy: Baby rat, older than a pinky. I could be referring to a real puppy, though. Breeds/types:Hooded: Pattern of fur coloration where a color dominates the head, shoulders of a rat, sometimes with blotches going down the spine, with the rest of the body being white. Dumbo: Rats with ears set lower on their face, sticking out to the side, usually very big and adorable looking. Tailless: You should know this one. razz Hairless: Again, a given. They are cute, though. Black Eye: A rat with black eyes. Pink Eye: A rat with pink eyes. Odd Eye: A rat with one pink eye and one black eye. Ruby Eye: A rat with eyes that appear dark in the shadows, but bright red (more red than pink) in the light. Agouti: Fur coloration. Basically brown. But there are three colors on the individual hair. Dark at the base, and it gets lighter the further up the strand of hair. I'll add more later, maybe.
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:59 pm
Hello Tilly biggrin .
I'm interesting in publishing. I'm not ready to edit seriously- I only sort of spruced up two scenes to show my editor (who is MERCILESS, btw. I love her so!)
I upload all of my pictures to www.photobucket.com and paste in the img code links it generates. It does batch uploads now~!
Soda free life is awesome. I might have some in a cocktail now and then, but I feel much less jittery and compulsive without having to have soda!
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:43 am
saint_savin Hello Tilly biggrin . I'm interesting in publishing. I'm not ready to edit seriously- I only sort of spruced up two scenes to show my editor (who is MERCILESS, btw. I love her so!) I upload all of my pictures to www.photobucket.com and paste in the img code links it generates. It does batch uploads now~! Soda free life is awesome. I might have some in a cocktail now and then, but I feel much less jittery and compulsive without having to have soda! Merciless editors are the best! My brother is my merciless editor. I trust him completely because he's the pickiest and rudest person I know. XD Thank you for your help! It's hard to live soda-free when your mother takes you out to a movie theater and gets popcorn (which you're allowing yourself to have) and you have to share a drink with your soda-loving brothers. XD But I suppose I've had some improvements in my health, so it's all worth it.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:58 am
June 17th, 2008
Yesterday I stayed up till eleven working on my book and I finished off chapter 12. I'm really excited because it turned out great. It was exciting with lots and lots of conflict!
Speaking of conflict, I'd like to point out a blog article by chick-lit/genre/YA agent Kristin Nelson about the difference between an event and a conflict.
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2006/06/conflict-is-not-lifetime-movie.html
Good stuff here. And here's another one:
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2007/05/got-conflict.html
So yeah. I've been working with the conflict in my book to really bring it out. I think it's going well.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:34 pm
You're very welcome biggrin .
Hmm, perhaps if you could manage to tote water around? Can be awkward and heavy, but a bullet thermos of ice cold water (or tea or coffee) is a joyous thing indeed. Especially if you can get one of those classy bullet thermoses with the lids that turn into cups.
Very glad to hear your project is going well!
I saw the title of the article there and I had to go read it. ROFL! I use 'bad Lifetime movie" to describe many aspects of crappiness in fiction XD. They've made so many, sometimes it's hard to single out an aspect.
I really love her analogy with the ants. I think I've met some people who would do well to read her blog...
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Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:56 am
saint_savin You're very welcome biggrin . Hmm, perhaps if you could manage to tote water around? Can be awkward and heavy, but a bullet thermos of ice cold water (or tea or coffee) is a joyous thing indeed. Especially if you can get one of those classy bullet thermoses with the lids that turn into cups. Very glad to hear your project is going well! I saw the title of the article there and I had to go read it. ROFL! I use 'bad Lifetime movie" to describe many aspects of crappiness in fiction XD. They've made so many, sometimes it's hard to single out an aspect. I really love her analogy with the ants. I think I've met some people who would do well to read her blog... Ooo, that thermos idea is brilliant! I think I'll try that! biggrin Her example was just hilarious, too. It really did include the character's lifetime story... xD I read through it really quickly yesterday because I was searching for the second one, and I'd never seen that one before, and I didn't really make the connection. I was probably too sleepy, or the summer has zombified me. But now I get how it's a lifetime story! I love her blogs. I think she's a better writer than I am, and she's an agent... xD And 'the ants' is a good analogy. In one case they're a minor annoyance. In the other... I'm really glad I'm not that man...or that man's wife. xD Or any of those people, come to think of it.
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Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 9:07 am
9:56 AM
June 18, 2008
Blah! I feel terrible. I just went to the dentist and (he did an excellent job, but) my jaw hurts. I'm never opening my mouth again. And he filled a bunch of cavities, and so now my teeth feel strange.
On top of that I had a really horrible dream that Pippen, my rat, was dying. I love him so much, he's so cute... it was an awful dream.
Oh yeah, and on top of all THAT, I only got a few paragraphs of chapter 13 done.
But I know exactly what I'm going to do! Once I'm finished with all my internet usage (heh heh heh) I'm going to go sit on my bed, work on my book, and let Pippen run around.
The cutest thing about Pippen is when I'm on the bed with him, he runs around like crazy and gets into everything, and climbs all over me. He especially loves to give me kisses on my face, but I usually don't let him because it's hard to concentrate on story writing when your rat is in your face.
Anyway, when I leave the bed, however, he'll sit at the very edge, look around at everyone as they walk by, and he won't do anything else until somebody comes and keeps him company. He's so sweet, and so lonely. Recently his cage-companion (and one of his 22, and one of Gooboo's 11, children) Jupiter, just died. Even with his last breath when he was too weak to even eat a Yogie, Jupiter would come give me kisses.
I'd had Jupiter since he was a baby, so I was really close to the little guy. He was the only one of the rats who would play wrestle with my hand. The others seem to know I'm not a rat.
Anyway, enough of this sad-talk. In fact, enough of any talk.
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Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 9:22 am
10:18
June 18 2008
Allright, here's some writing/editing stuff.
There are approximately 22 chapters that need revision in my book, 12 of which I have finished. The last 10 chapters are going to be significantly longer, I imagine, because I'm not even halfway through the plot-line yet and I'm more than halfway done with the chapter count.
Still, I think doing this by chapter is inspiring. I take one chapter at a time and open up a brand new word document in my editing section and I get started with that. It works great because when I type the last word in the chapter, I feel much more accomplished because it means I have to take a break and organize the next chapter. It's sort of a reward that gives me time to think, "wow... I just finished this chapter."
Anyway, I'll be back later to post my progress. Hopefully I'll have something to report.
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Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 9:21 pm
I've always felt there was only so much angst one could pour into a single character. When the synopsis alone goes too far it's hilarious! XD
Ouchie! Hope you got something tasty and cold to sip while your jaw was hurty. And I'm really sorry about Jupiter. That's a beautiful name and it sounds like it went to a beautiful rat.
(I was actually thinking that if I ended up with a male dog, Jupiter would be a potential name.)
It's good you put all of the chapters in their own files. I left all of mine in one and oh, I killed the spell-checker crying .
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Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:06 pm
saint_savin I've always felt there was only so much angst one could pour into a single character. When the synopsis alone goes too far it's hilarious! XD Ouchie! Hope you got something tasty and cold to sip while your jaw was hurty. And I'm really sorry about Jupiter. That's a beautiful name and it sounds like it went to a beautiful rat. (I was actually thinking that if I ended up with a male dog, Jupiter would be a potential name.) It's good you put all of the chapters in their own files. I left all of mine in one and oh, I killed the spell-checker crying . Yesh, indeed. Actually, now I'm a little curious to see what the book is like! XD Ahh, yes, I've got delicious orange juice. Very good, very good. Yes, I've always loved the name Jupiter. He was beautiful to me. I always call my rats 'my beauties'. Jupey got his father's silver-speckled black fur on his head, and his mom's fur patterns. I always recommend the name Jupiter. Actually, one of the things that makes me extra-sad is that now I can't call a rat Jupiter ever again. I could call a fish or a cat Jupiter, but I'd rather not use the name again. But it's so pretty it's tempting. Poor spell-checker! lol Ahh yes. I remember once pasting a story I wrote in a non-spellchecking program into a Microsoft Word document. That was 3 years ago and I still haven't finished fixing the spelling errors.
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Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:23 pm
11:06 PM
June 19, 2008
I didn't get on and post my progress yesterday like I said, mostly because I didn't have anything to post. Today, however, I wrote an all-new scene into my book totalling 1,300 words. I still have one more never-before-seen scene to write and then I can get back to rewriting. razz I'm sort of relieved. Writing is harder, I think.
Today I walked to the library (it's about an hour long walk there, and an hour back) and got the first two Harry Potter books. I haven't read them in probably more than a year now, so I thought I'd do that. Sometimes it's nice to go back to when the HP books were simple and fun children's stories.
My list of books to read over the summer is getting ever bigger. Topped with editing, reading my friends books, and all the other things I do, I'm going to have a nice busy summer. At least my brain won't be rotting from my lack of school.
I recently had a realization with my writing style, and I can't even explain it. It's terrible. But I was always worried about this part of my style before because I thought it meant my book would read really immaturely. See, I write completely ridiculous scenes, but I write them in such a way that it is one-hundred percent believable. For instance, I'll have a character who's a well-known gentlemen behave like a spoild child, and it will seem perfectly logical. The only problem is that if you stop to think about it, why would the man behave such a stupid way? He could get what he wants much easier by just ordering it or whatever, but instead he throws a fit.
So, I worried that people would claim that I don't understand the world and that's how I write about it in a way that makes it seem logical.
And then I just decided that it's my writing style. I don't want to always write about what's logical, because sometimes what's logical doesn't make for an entertaining story. So screw that.
Maybe this is something all writers do. I donno. I'm having a tough time explaining what I mean. Just my book sounds like every scene is sort of making fun of what's going on in the way it's described, but not by exaggerating it like a satire.
And then I realize that this is sort of how I live my life. I sit in classrooms at school and I randomly start grinning at stuff nobody else thinks is funny because it's so subtle and I think it's hilarious.
So I decided to stop worrying that people would think I was an idiot, and instead congratulated myself on having a unique voice and point of view.
Hooray.
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Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:35 am
11:28
June 21, 2008
Yesterday at around 10:00pm I was approached by one of my friends. She told me she had something important to tell me and she'd tried to come by earlier but I wasn't there.
Then she told me that my old science partner and friend had died.
All I could do was stare at her, so shocked that something like that could ever happen. A boy I knew who was my age is dead. He's dead.
Even now, more than 12 hours later, I still can't believe that he's not breathing, talking, playing video games, IMing his friends, or doing any of the things he normally did.
I can not believe that he's actually, truly dead.
It's a feeling unlike anything I've felt before. I've heard of teenagers in my area dying, and I've had family members die, but it was always different for some reason. With family we worry every day that they'll die because they're so close to us, and we know that strangers die every day, but with friends and good acquaintances you don't expect them to die. It's not right for them to die.
I'm not sure exactly how he died, only that it had something to do with a seizure and that he was sleeping before he had it.
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Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:01 pm
_(^RVRGIYR^$!!!
1,300 new words on a non Nano day? Awesome sauce! High five!
Let me tell you something quick. I glanced at your profile the other evening and did this O_O!!!!
I honestly thought you were in college. Holy everloving CRAP! How'd you get so literate so fast?
Style is... not something you can always see yourself. I didn't believe I had one until my editor told me she could pick me out of a sample of a hundred writers. And then I had her explain how to me in gruesome detail.
I'm very sorry about your friend. *huggles*
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