Tag Archives: birthdays

Wide open

Posted on by Sherri
5

Today is my husband’s birthday, the big Four-One. I’ll have the kids make him some pictures before he gets home from work, but otherwise we won’t do anything, which is the way he likes it. I’ll let him choose a football card on eBay for his present. He’d rather pick it himself, anyway. Hm, maybe I could make him his favorite dinner…

Yesterday I finished typing my scenes into yWriter, and today I’ll print the list to figure out where the new material needs to go. I’ve never been an organizing writer and had put myself in the “seat of the pants” category, however, I think I’ve found the circumstance when using a system can help me. It’s long since I pants-seated the original vision, and I have piles of scenes which need cohesion and a majorly-revised plot full of holes. I tried the notecard method, but it didn’t work for me then. Writing the long synopsis at the request of an editor broke things loose for me, allowed me to fix the plot problems, and gave me a direction. Next time I won’t wait so long before writing a long outline, and I won’t turn my nose up at organizational tools. I will no longer put myself in a category, neither pantser nor outliner, because labels are so limiting! Damn it!

Another thing I need to do is read some new books. The f/sf section of my library has old stuff plus each book carries the deadly air freshener molecule, so that’s out. I’m poor, so I can get just a few books off the bargain table, maybe. I thought about getting into one of those book-trading rings, but they’d smell like all the houses they were in before. I’m going to just open my mind to possibilities and see what comes up. One of the most limiting things I do to myself is to assume I know all my options, which makes me blind to others. My vision is wide open.

How I spend my good-eye time

Posted on by Sherri
7

This day has an adversarial feel. I don’t mind arguing with people, but I’d rather not. Unfortunately, if my hunch is right, I won’t have any choice about it. It might just be the lingering feeling of a dream I had. Can’t remember exactly what it was about.

My dreams the past few days have included a lot of elements from this game I’m playing–Metroid Prime. Super Metroid was my favorite a long, long time ago, back before I had babies and still had time to play video games. I love how it has action, but it’s not all action, you also have to figure out puzzles with clues from made-up lore in the ruins of a civilization. Right up my alley. In Super Metroid all those years ago, I remember playing the whole game with this character in a space suit, then after I won, Samus took off the helmet and…Samus was a girl. What? A girl? AWESOME! That’s right, girls play games, too. Girls like to kick butt. But at the time it really shook things up. Now, of course, it’s no secret Samus is a girl. The game is awesome, even if Samus were a boy, but it’s even awesomer to have a girl character to identify with. It makes me think I could walk through lava if I only had Varia suit. I could blast strange creatures on another planet, if I just had an arm cannon.

I’m actually playing the game too much. My eyes can’t take that 1st person, 3D view for very long. Especially since most of my work is done on computer, so there’s another 8 hours a day of looking at a screen. When I first took this editing job, I wasn’t sure how it would affect my own writing. I figured it would be a good distraction, as well as teaching me more about the business side of publishing. I worried that I might edit instead of writing my own stuff, but then I found it beneficial to have some other things to rotate through. But true to form, I’ve let the editing completely take over my own writing, and my good-eye time. I’m a serial obsesser, but I am learning how to calm the obsession. The editing job has been good for me.

Yesterday was the Little Bubba’s birthday, so we had the family over for a party. It rained literally all weekend, in fact is still raining, but it didn’t affect the party at all. One nice surprise was my step-son coming for the party. His birthday was on Saturday (20 years old, yikes!), but he rarely visits even for birthdays, so it was nice having him. I hope he starts visiting more often.