I always like to think my post titles will be funny but apt, or random but clever, mostly they're just facts, in the unlikely event I ever need to backtrack and find a specific one.

Well, today was the first day of Kawaii Kon, one of the only regular conventions in this dang state. I have friends who go, and who apparently missed me last year, so despite not being 100% gung-ho to attend, I am spending some of my little bit of cash to go tomorrow, make the most of it, and hopefully come home with some swag and merchandise I can't get on a normal basis. And maybe enjoy hearing some voice actors talk about the trade, while I half entertain the idea of moving to Texas to join their ranks. Okay, more than half--I don't think I'd want to live in Texas, and I've never thought my voice sounded good on recordings or even over the phone.

But I will bring my sketchbook and a notebook, just in case it gets dull, or I want to takes notes on something particularly interesting.

Tomorrow is also the Celebrate Reading event at UH. Go here for info Published authors and poets will discuss their work and passion with high school and college students, and anyone else who wants to attend. It's free and I know fantasy author Kate Elliott is going to be one of the speakers. Go. I went last year and had a blast.

Lastly, with my plans, and the fact that I will be exhausted by the time I get home tomorrow, you probably won't see hide nor hair of me until Sunday afternoon at best. Play nice and have a great weekend everyone.

~Sabrina

Okay, so, as in geometry, there is a given. Every writer works differently. Given that, I do think it behooves writers to read a lot. Not necessarily the same genre they write, hopefully not just research, but in soem form or another, ingesting the words, the stories of others.

Last night, I was getting ready for bed, and reading a few pages in a fantasy novel by James Owen (lj coppervale), "Here, There Be Dragons." I only read about 2-4 pages, closed it at page 24 to finishgetting ready for bed, and I took a moment to think about how much had happened in those first two dozen pages. In my head, i started to list the big pieces of action and after just the first, had an idea on how to improve Hounds of the Fae.

I've known it needed work, much like its query I could see something wasn't right,, but didn't have a firm idea on how to fix it. Now I have at least one part. Get to the park faster, and see Din's death. It won't fix everything, but the risk will be more evident right off the bat, the reader will see the danger rather than just being told it's dangerous.

Like I said, not a magic bullet, but it's a start, and it'll make the first chapter or so stronger. Already I can feel the story whittling down into a sharper, clearer form in my head. Too much is going on in it that's unnecessary, I just need to go through a hard copy and start slicing.

[This is something I knew I had to do, and was going to do it after I did the same for Harry's Skin, but now I feel like I'm in the right place mentally to view the story more objectively. I was too close to it before.] <-- The one positive point about being unpublished is that I can allow myself the time to do this, and to wait for when I'm ready to work on something.

Also, I am toying with two new story/world ideas. Well, new to me. I'm going to try and let them percolate for a while, though.

I had set my alarm for 6:30 a.m. It's 16:15 now. 15 minutes ago I woke up to the loudest damn siren I ever ever. Two solid minutes of Hawaii's state emergency system siren. Lasty night, 8-something p.m. our time, there was an 8.8 earthquake in Chile. There is now a tsunami warning for our state. If it does hit, it could be taller than the islands themselves (which I can't even fathom) and will hit about 11:19 a.m. Which haven't had a tsunami so large and so real a threat since before my family moved here.

I...don't know what I should do about this. I don't know if my dad should drag some of us to the store, or if we should pack stuff just in case evacuation (even from central Oahu, where I live) becomes necessary. Right now, they're mostly concerned with the Big Island, who would get the first and worst of the hit. No Pahu shelters opened yet. We'll see.

So, if you don't see me around the internet for the rest of today, don't worry, because the internet may conk out, or everything will be fine and I'll continue about my scheduled day--going through old magazines with my sister and writing. But if it's days later, um well, that means we either had to go to an emergency shelter with no internet access, or you know, less good stuff happened. I will try to keep everyone updated. Hopefully I am worrying more than necessary and a few hours from now, we'll get the all clear.

Is it silly that with this kind of huge shit going down, I am wondering if I should still do the query letter contest? http://kortizzle.blogspot.com/2010/02/tired-of-form-rejections.html

Also happy day-before-my-birthdy to me?

ETA, 10 a.m.: Turning off the computer for a bit. I'll try to let you all know if anything serious occurs.

ETA2, 5 p.m.: The tsunami apparently officially ended three hours ago. The waves were there, but nothing at all serious. I actually left the house for a while, joining the usual weekend food shopping. By the time I came back everything was as a regular Saturday. But thank you, everyone, for the well wishes.

Boxes, full to the brim, and beyond, with books...are freakin' heavy.

Also, why do I always think a task will take less time than it does, and specifically, that my books (filling two 6+ feet tall bookshelves) would've fit in the few boxes I had, which also only look big when they're empty? Silly me.

All that cleaning ~shakes head~, you'd never know to look at my room right now. I no longer have a floor. And I find even this amount of books (my dad and older sister have more--each, not combined) is damn near enough to keep me in Hawaii, because I can only imagine how expensive it would be to ship them should I ever move to the mainland.

So...yeah.

Long story short, Befana followed the three wise men, traveling to see this baby Jesus all the cool kids were talking about. But since she was old and traveling on foot, she couldn't keep up, so the caravan slowly moved out of sight. Unfortunately for her, she had no idea what the baby Jesus was supposed to look like (different from other newborns, more wrinkly, less?), so she took the gifts she'd brought, all she could afford--oranges, pastries and the like--and left one for each pair of children's shoes she saw at every doorstep.

Thus, in Italy, every January 6, children (or the young at heart) wake up to a few little treats in the morning.

And a wonderful Italian dinner in the evening, because that's how we roll. (Actually, we're doing a pork roast tonight, but there is homemade pizza for lunch, so it balances out.)

Happy Befania everyone.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.

And to those who don't, I hope you're enjoying the day off from work, and spending time with people whose company you enjoy, in a place you want to be.

heh. I'm watching an episode of Stargate: Universe that I recorded a week or two back. Eli, the prodigy who spent his days playing video games (the same actor who played Mark's boyfriend on Ugly Betty), is given the opportunity to place his consciousness in someone's body to visit his mom. But he can't tell her who he is (and of course, looks like the other guy).

So she opens the door and he introduces himself as "Phillip Fry."

heh. That's a nice Futurama moment there.


On a totally unrelated note: I went to see Couples Retreat with my sister and dad on his birthday, and saw one of those huge banner posters for the new Alice in Wonderland movie. It was the White Queen and I could swear it was Anne Hathaway. I was probably gonna see it anyway, but now I'm even more intrigued (although despite my love Johnny Depp, he still looks extra strange as the hatter).

ETA another unrelated note: Despite looking at my watch a couple times today, I totally forgot it was Friday the 13th. The day is still young, though. Maybe something extra good will happen before midnight.

I have seen some artists take Disney Princess coloring pages and apply a true painting technique to them (in at least two cases, they took fairly well-known paintings and used the colors as a basis/inspiration).

But here, Jeffrey Thomas takes the Disney Princesses and gives them an extra creepy twist that I love. My brain is already stewing with story ideas for a different kind of Sleeping Beauty.

url: http://jeftoonportfolio.blogspot.com/2009/02/twisted-princess.html


Thank you, Anna and Adri, for helping me get through the past few days. Thank you.

I mentioned to someone the bush which grows about ten feet from my window/sliding glass door. In the morning, it's full of yellow blooms, but as the day progresses, the flowers clse up and the birds arrive. Then I decided to hunt for pictures of the variety of birds.

[Some are taken from a google search, and I didn't really focus on the photopgraphers. I hope that won't be a problem. I just wanted to show anyone interested how many were out there on a regular day. Most photos are mine, taken a few months back.]

The only bird whowe identification I am uncertain of is the common waxbill. There are these tiny gray birds with orange beaks that are really prevalent--you could probably fit four in your hand--but I've never been able to find out without a doubt, what species they were. Waxbills seems closest in appearance.

[ETA: Goodness. Okay, my pictures are big, so I'm gonna put them all under an LJ cut, for teh sake of others. (Less time than resizing and resaving the bulk of them on myPhotobucket account.)]

( The photosCollapse )
There is the occasional black cat that comes by, and the other day I saw a gray one that I got into a staring match with, but the flash messed up the pictures I'd tried to take of it.

Anyhow, there's your Five Minutes with Nature, with Sabrina. :P Back to writing for me.

[And an adult white-eye and zebra dove just showed up.]

As far as I'm aware, I've never known any of my friends to be in an abusive relationship. I hope that means they've been lucky enough to not experience one, but this sort of thing still hits me.

I just wanted to share this, by Jim Hines. Why Doesn't She Just Leave?

I find Hines' posts on the subject informative and cognizant about his own shortcomings in terms of understanding. He doesn't claim to have all the answers, but shares his own experiences, his misguided assumptions, and how those assumptions were overturned.

Everybody keeps 'turning.' Seriously. It's been one of my pet peeve words. Not that I like to use it, but it keeps slipping in, unwanted. At least I like 'just.'

Meep.


ETA: It's done. Beyond the issues I'm worried about, I am calling it done-done. And my next step is to email it to two readers, and start querying. I will not stress unless of my readers says there is a story-breaking plot hole. (I don't think my self-esteem can really handle that right now, but I'd rather know, if it's that bad, now before sending out fulls. My stomach is already in knots.)

ETA: Emails are sent. Time to veg for a little while, this review the various query drafts I've done (every time I got bored writing this thing near the end, or when I started editing it, I'd write a new version of the query letter, but maybe the last one is good enough, just need to reread it and maybe tweak it). Ugh, I am ready for a nap, frankly. It's ot today, even though it's been raining a bit.


Also, I scraped up one of my knees when I went on my walk this morning. The trees along my street have these seeds the size of small-ish grapes, and they dry and harden. If the home-owner for that stretch of sidewalk doesn't sweep them up, you end up walking on a layer of round seeds rather than cement sidewalk. The sidewalk gets jealous.

I actually was only half-walking on the seeds, and that foot slipped and went forward (think Scooby Doo, marbles on ground to trip and slip the villain), my other leg sort of stayed put, but my knee banged against the ground and skidded a few inches. I stopped myself with my hand on teh ground, so I ended looking as if I was proposing to the air. A bit of a scrape--red, and bruised, some scratches. And it hurts. But not deadly. And no blood! Evil Seeds totally lose against Villainous Roses. Good to know.

While I was shopping at the Wal-Mart up the street with my dad and two siblings, and then eating with my family at the Chinese restaurant, one girl in Waianae (Kapolei according to their website) was drowned in a pool, and a woman in her mid-twenties was being stabbed multiple times. The girl is dead, the woman at the hospital in serious condition.

These are the times that, even while I continue with my life and my editing, I find complaining about it kind of ridiculous.

Well, tropical depression.

It's slowed down to 35 mph, last I heard, and is still expected to go straight through Maui and Oa'hu (tonight/tomorrow morning for the latter, which happens to be me). On the one hand, it's weakening, which is good, on the other hand, it's slowing down, which is worrying my mom. She says it'll be around longer. I'm inclined to think it'll weaken and break apart even more once it hits land, but I don't really know.

There've been at least three hurricanes of concern in Hawai'i since I moved here--Felicia now, Iniki in '92 and one a handful of years back whose name I forget. Iniki got Kauai good, the second one had small damage--at my house we just had some small, toppled plants--from what I remember (it might've been worse in other areas). My homes have never been heavily affected because we lived near/in central O'ahu.

Right now the weather keeps shifting from cloudy and lightly raining, to bright and sunny with a slight breeze. Pretty normal Hawai'i summer. Frankly, it'll change like that just in seconds (like right now). ~shakes head~ And it's still hot in the house. meh.

And making progress in the editing. 89 from the end at the moment. I'm hoping to get through at least ten more pages today. I'm off!


eta: 5:02 pm

Felicia has "fizzled." According to local news, there are some sudden downpours on other parts of the islands, may be more rain to come. But that's it.

Not like I'm demanding anything. Just curious.

It's done, good gods it's done. Now as long as my printer continues to cooperate. ~knocks on wood~

I need sleep, so why am I hauling ass to campus. Oh yeah, 'cause I have to. bleh

Tommy Dorsey--"I'm Gettin' Sentimental Over You." Very cool, mellow. It's big band jazzy stuff.

Not great for all my moods, but certainly has its place. (There was a movie on one of those Lifetime stations that I caught once when there was nothing better on--Anything for Love I believe was the title. I wish I'd recorded it, because it had some of this nice, 1940s music.)

Thing is, this is from YouTube, which isn't bad, but when I'm trying to write and it's one of those days when I'm easily distracted, it's bad to have the internet window open for any reason. I like the free mp3 downloads I find from time to time.

Since the picture doesn't want to show up, here's what it says (genked from Chrys):

Q: What's your seduction style?

A: The Escape Artist

We don't know how you figured it out, but you've managed to keep your lovers close without despite your critical view of the world. Maybe you aren't cynical, just a little cautious, either way, you've managed to keep your head on your shoulders. You do have a little bit of misanthropy going on up in there, but hey, when you build your solar powered cabin in the woods everything will be fine.

It's very rare to meet someone so clever that isn't into taking advantasge of romantic or sensitive people. Your best seduction move: Be your honest and insightful self. A straight shooter (even a slightly damaged straight shooter) is a fine catch for anyone.

It's from the website http://www.seductiveshorts.com/#goods/quiz. (Sorry, I'm too tired to fiddle with linkage.)



Okay then, guess I should do some of that studying stuff. I finished the paper and the novella, but I still have my Old English final on Tuesday. I don't know whether I should cancel the plans for tomorrow, since the rain is slightly insane. Also today disappeared. It's 4 pm, and it barely feels like noon. I haven't even started studying Old English yet.

Totally missed Blog Like it's the End of the World 2008.

I was even close. Alas.

That's what I get for avoiding my computer for a month.

Oh well.

2009.

I don't want to go to work and I have too much homewrk to do.

But I am wearing my awesome malachite ring.

even better than valentine's day, the countdown begins. two weeks.

hee

I don't know what it is with me today. I started off feeling better health-wise than I have since Thursday, then it was a generally good day. But now I'm feeling annoyed. Maybe that's not the right word (of course, curse of this writer, the right word always escapes me when I'm looking for it), but I'm ending my day less than satisfied with it. I suppose I know why: I've tons of reading to do for Tuesday and despite making some progress with my homework, I haven't gotten to any of the reading; I've spent a portion of the day reading short stories by other students in class and suffering from the 'I don't know why I bother writing, I suck, their stories are so much better' disease, and feeling like I should just not bother, who am I kidding myself; spending hours on the computer today with Harry's Skin open and not a single word typed on it; feeling utterly unproductive today despite the work I did get done and the fact that I should have spent as much time resting as possible because I can't afford a day off work or school; plus a couple of others that I'd rather not go into.

One of those moods that seems so sily when typed out and listed, but which i can't ignore either. It's tied very strongly (for me) right now, to the desire to punch someone in the arm so they'll listen to me. Not that I would. I rarely get so physical. I guess it's just that warring aspect of writing people mention sometime, that you need unending ego in order to face and work past all the rejection, but a dejecting tendency to edit yourself to death. I am currently battling the latter. I'm okay with being my own worst critic, if I could just...nevermind. It was started to veer into the childish.

Returning to the practical--

Harry's Skin has been in my head for a while, I'm teasing out the plot (I'd rather have the image of teasing an animal out from a burrow or hiding place, but the first image to pop into mind was that of a blonde lady from the 80 with the poofy fried permed hair teasing up until it bore almost no resemblance to hair. Oy). But I still don't know what the thing in the basement is, and I still need to figure out how Michael and Harry go about searching for her in the first place. How to get on her trail...

Also, despite the crappiness that is the short story that is clearly not short (I couldn't figure out how to wrap it up nicely in the word limit, even going over it, and it still needs additional details for even one person to say 'I like it.' Period), I like this character and I want to see where I can go with her, so I really do need to figure out what some of creature can be formerly human, dead, but not a vampire or a zombie. I'll do some research, but right now I'm leaning towards creating something new, or reinventing a word to suit that definition.

Life would be so much nicer if money would just come to me and I could spend all my time, by myself, writing. That's my fantasy. Silence whenever I want it. And music blasting as loud as I like.

Good-bye Robert Jordan.

Robert Jordan
James Oliver Rigney
October 1948-September 16, 2007

Where I heard it--Whatever--John Scalzi.

Scalzi's Link to the notice on Jordan's blog--Dragonmount

There's also a post on Making Light, the Nielsen Hayden site.

My sympathies and condolences.

Links to where I came across the news (Jennifer Jackson's blog) and her subsequent link to the NY Times obituary of Madeleine L'Engle, who died of natural causes at the age of 88 this past Thursday.

I...have no more words than that. When I thought of writing, hers was one of the names that came to my mind, years before I even thought of wanting to become a writer for life.

rest in peace

chugging pasta to get to the bus on time.

up too late reading for class.

up early for class work.

still not done with today's readings.


head go 'splodey now.

This stupid commercial for Yaz. They're at a party and this chick is going on and on about Yaz, giving the whole medical schpiel about it to her group of friends. Then saying, "I didn't go to medical school for nothing," like that's going to make up for boring them out of their minds of what could be one of those 'happening' parties I've heard so much about.

Blah.

So I leave for work in an hour and have just started editing chapter 12. Group tonight, I get out of work at 5, get home by say 5:30 on the long end (I'm tired, it takes 10-15 minutes to get there, but after standing for 6 hours straight, I'm a little slower coming home), so if I don't finish it now, I have to rush through the last editing and print it out.

I hope it's a short chapter, that makes the editing go faster, and it means I might be able to bring the whole chapter without people bitching about the length. Do they forget how much it costs for me to make copies of all this?

I work from 11-5 until Saturday, when it's 10-4, so I'll finally learn then how to open the store. Work's oay, the people generally seem nice. I took a passport photo that didn't suck and wasn't blurry.

And I'm gone.