The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

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Sommer Leigh
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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by Sommer Leigh » August 10th, 2012, 11:35 am

CharleeVale wrote:
Sommer Leigh wrote: We also went to the book store and I discovered an awesome book by Margaret Atwood I'd never heard of before, which is weird because I have several bookshelves dedicated to her works.
YOU LOVE HER TOO?

It doesn't really count as August (since it was the end of July) But I was on vacation so I didn't really get to squee all over the forums. I finished my draft! YAY! It now rests in Sanderling's capable hands. I'm hoping after I finish this draft of my thesis, that I can go back and revise it before the end of the year.

CV
I love her with all my heart and soul. I would give anything to meet her some day.

Congrats on finishing your draft!! That was very quick!
May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by CharleeVale » August 10th, 2012, 11:41 am

The idea occurred on March 7, I started writing on March 9.

So, March 9-July 27. Around 5 months, or 141 Days. I suppose that is pretty quick! Especially for me.

CV

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by Sommer Leigh » August 10th, 2012, 12:29 pm

I just posted the first 250 words and the first 5 pages for comment on the WriteOnCon boards. You guys are all welcome to check them out if you want. I'm nervous and excited.
May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by dios4vida » August 10th, 2012, 12:31 pm

Sommer Leigh wrote:Haha, you all who wondered if Margo and I were related? We're like six chromosomes shy of a doppleganger.

...

So spill, what are everyone's weekend goals?
I wouldn't say doppleganger, per se. More like Two Face's gorgeous lady friends (from Batman) - one's all sweet and cute, the other's evil but equally cute. I'll let y'all duke out who is which one. :)

As for my weekend, I'm just happy my husband isn't working. (Well, he isn't supposed to work. We'll see if that actually pans out or not.) It'll be his first weekend home since June, and we're both in desperate need of some down time to be home and together. If any of you are military spouses or otherwise don't get to see your significant other all the time, serious kudos to you. I don't know how you do it. Brian works late and goes in early and I miss him. If he had to leave for long periods of time, I'd go mad.

In happy writing news, Matt finished his edit on my most recent book. It's the first time another writer's ever read a whole story of mine. I haven't gotten the doc back yet but he said I did a good job and he was entertained. SQUEE!! It goes back to what you were saying, Sommer - you can't ever really believe your family 100% because, well, they're your family. I consider Matt my friend, sure, but since we've never actually met he's much more objective (and a great writer himself). If he liked it, it had to be pretty good. And since this is the manuscript I lamented loudly and obnoxiously over around here a few months ago, it's a double exciting, reassuring squee. :D
Brenda :)

Inspiration isn't about the muse. Inspiration is working until something clicks. ~Brandon Sanderson

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by Hillsy » August 10th, 2012, 9:05 pm

Sommer Leigh wrote:but I always worry my friends are being too nice.
Dude, you got it easy - hell I think I'm being too nice half the time and I'm the critical version of Simon Cowell with his pant rubbed liberally with DeepHeat.

I think there's a real issue with conferring with the public (and by public I mean anyone other than yourself and/or a significant other) in that a dump ton of people carry a LOT of baggage emotionally. And ok it may not send shockwaves through the DSM IV scale but we all tend to have shades of it lurking somewhere.

What I'm saying is - learning to judge of your own reaction is often better than learning to judge whatever it is you're reacting to. I'm slowly learning I react to anything the OPPOSITE to how the tone goes (positive reaction equals negativeity - negative feedback prompts belligerance). Reading and trying to learn about it, these reactions infer a level of self esteeem that ain't going to set the world alight (I'm constantly amazed how centred Margo appears on these forums - which given her choice in publishing route can only stand her in good stead). Now fore-armed with knowledge, does it make it any easier? Nope. But maybe down the line I'll learn to distrust my own reactions in favour of a more hollistic feeling conveyed by multiple viewpoints.

Perhaps these issues are, and will always be, insurmountable - but it's always a good idea to know thyself.....

Sorry - je suis drunk...

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by Claudie » August 12th, 2012, 10:34 am

Oh my gosh, I feel like I haven't been on in ages! Happy birthday Sommer and Margo!

I've been working a lot at my new job and just did a back-and-forth trip to Montreal for Sidekick's dad's wedding. It was super sweet because they've been together for some 25 years, already have children, etc. and I also got to meet Sidekick's uncle (from France). I'm touring them around Quebec City tonight, which will eat the only writing time I had.

Still! I managed to finish Part 3, which means I'm 75% in of this latest draft completion. Half of august is gone and I haven't started writing Part 4 though (planned it out in dtails, at least) which makes me sad. I'm not sure I'll manage to finish it before school starts. And boy, when school starts, I will be busy. You guys might remember the epic student strike we had last winter? Well, I have to finish my winter semester from Aug. 26th to end-September. Most people then start their Fall Semester on Oct 1st. Because I'm finishing my program and starting one that hasn't been affected by the strike, however, my Fall Semester begins on Sept 4th. So for an entire month, I'm doing double duty at school. FUN TIMES. I am so glad I already did most of my winter schoolwork despite the strike. Nevertheless, I expect little writing time before October comes by.

Brenda -- you get used to not seeing the Significant Other all the time. Then one day he moves close by and you can't understand how you managed it. ;)

Charlee - congratz on the first draft! :)
"I do not think there is any thrill [...] like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything." -- Nikola Tesla

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by trixie » August 12th, 2012, 12:17 pm

Catching up, here.

Margo, I'm glad you were able to pull yourself out of the headspace and start writing again. High fives to the real people who sent fan mail. And if you ever need help with the haters, I'm your girl. *takes out earrings and cracks knuckles* Also, happy belated birthday! :)

Brenda, tell Brian I say hi. I hope you guys enjoy the weekend!

Sommer, I'll head over to your WoC stuff in a moment. But I wanted to tell you that I'm proud of you for submitting to total strangers. I realized I'd rather hear strangers tell me my work needs work instead of you guys. When I get around to sharing with you all, I want to make damn sure it's as good as it can be.

I kicked off Birthday Week (Huzzah, leos!) with too much beer and not enough sleep while partying away at Irish Fair. It's always a great time, but it means writing hasn't happened yet. I hope to come back to it this afternoon.

One final thing: Everyone's good thoughts paid off. I agreed to terms with my new boss on Friday. At this point, we just need the University red tape patrol to do their part, but it looks like I will be starting a new job in the middle of September. It's going to be SO BUSY and I'm worried about how I'll get my words done for NaNo this year. On the other hand, I've always liked a challenge. :)

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by LurkingVirologist » August 12th, 2012, 6:05 pm

-15K, which puts me at almost exactly 140K. Conversations have been clipped, descriptions foreshortened, redundancies removed, darlings murdered with reckless abandon...I'm starting to feel like Dexter, with my poor WiP plastic-wrapped to the cutting table.

Still, it's mostly a good feeling :twisted: . I'm going to get down into at least the high 130s before I start querying. I know that's still a bit of a door-stopper, but for some reason 13X seems so much shorter than 140. We'll see.
"Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic." -Carl Sagan

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by JohnDurvin » August 12th, 2012, 11:41 pm

A while back, I was hit by a bizarre setback--I'm writing my first fantasy novel, and I somehow managed to name three of my major characters after major characters in some famous fantasy novels (two from the Conan series and one from "Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser"). Then the other day I was digging in the cheap book bin at a thrift store and found some old fantasy novel...whose protagonist had the same name as ANOTHER of my characters. I really don't know how I managed to do this.
Everybody loves using things as other things, right? Check out my blog at the Cromulent Bricoleur and see one hipster's approach to recycling, upcycling, and alterna-cycling (which is a word I just made up).

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by Sommer Leigh » August 13th, 2012, 9:21 am

JohnDurvin wrote:A while back, I was hit by a bizarre setback--I'm writing my first fantasy novel, and I somehow managed to name three of my major characters after major characters in some famous fantasy novels (two from the Conan series and one from "Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser"). Then the other day I was digging in the cheap book bin at a thrift store and found some old fantasy novel...whose protagonist had the same name as ANOTHER of my characters. I really don't know how I managed to do this.
The name thing? Not a big deal. Unless the fantasy name is like, 20 letters and contains 3 apostrophes, then sure, that might look weird that you're using the exact same name, but otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it. I remember when I had been writing my zombie YA novel and the main character was named Zoe. About five months after I'd started writing, the XBox zombie series LEFT 4 DEAD came out and the main character's name was Zoey. I had like a breakdown over it, but eventually got over it. There are TONS of names that get repeated over and over again across genres. Unless the character is VERY well known (e.g. Harry Potter, Legolas, etc), you shouldn't have a problem.
May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by trixie » August 29th, 2012, 11:06 am

Hey, gang! How's August coming along for everyone?

I survived WriteOn Con and TOTALLY burned myself out as a result. I retreated from the internet for a while and just let my brain settle down.

And then, the strangest thing happened... an idea popped into my head. I watered the seed daily, gave it room to grow, and nurtured it while it was still just a tiny little story plant fighting for some real space in my brain. Over the past 2 weeks, I finally gave it all the mental space I could and have a pretty detailed outline for a brand new story. Wheeee! In order to round out some details like setting/description, I have 4 books and 2 DVCDs coming my way from my local library.

(For reals: I HEART my local library. If I could hug it, I would.)

So, the challenge now is to decide if I bang out this story idea in Sept/Oct and then do something totally different in Nov for NaNo, or if I shelve this idea until then and spend the next 2 months on any of the other projects I have going.

I might be interested in a 40K Sept NaNo push, if anyone else is!!!

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by Sommer Leigh » August 29th, 2012, 12:10 pm

Trixie!

Aside from my web-phobia and politics-phobia, I'm doing ok. LOTS of writing has happened :-) I've finished about 27,000 words this summer so far in the superhero novel and I'm almost at the 3/4ths point. I'm running a little long, maybe 5,000 words, but what's new? I'm working to edit down Chapter 29 right now from its gluttonous 3600 words, which among the 2000-2500 word chapters its like this lumbering monster gorging itself on adjectives.

Also! I signed up for a 2K run in september.

I think we could totally do a word count challenge in september.
May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by trixie » August 29th, 2012, 12:21 pm

A 2K or a 5K? Either way--awesome! Keep going! How's your foot feeling, BTW?

I hear you on the web-phobia. Well, I guess if I understand what you're saying, that is. I just can't bring myself to pull up my blog, or worse, my Google Reader. It takes a lot of energy to run around and cultivate relationships through blogging. That's not to say it's been a waste of time, quite the contrary! I just feel lacking in energy or false enthusiasm. I have my Bransforum peeps here or on Twitter that I can talk to. That's good for me for now. However, I do want to make another NaNoWriMo guest blog series, so I suppose I should get working on that sooner rather than later...

Anyway...

Yeah, I could do a Sept word count challenge! And then that will leave me with October to pull together a story plan for November. Eep! Look, Ma--I'm a writer!

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by Sommer Leigh » August 29th, 2012, 12:51 pm

It's just 2 miles. It's actually part of the 10K Corporate Cup Run, but I'm not ready for a 10K yet. They offer a 2 mile run course, so I'm going to do that instead.
May the word counts be ever in your favor. http://www.sommerleigh.com
Be nice, or I get out the Tesla cannon.

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Re: The Coffee Shop - AUGUST

Post by dios4vida » August 29th, 2012, 2:55 pm

trixie wrote:Hey, gang! How's August coming along for everyone?
August has been one of those months that doesn't look productive but really is. My word count is miserable 5Kish - maybe - but I've gotten the entire third act (of four) of my WIP planned out! I'm not usually a plotter but since I studied Larry Brooks' book and Brandon Sanderson's lectures I found that planning a little bit ahead works wonders for me. So I have the next 1/4 of my book planned out and I am so stinkin' proud of how it's turning out. The twists I've got aren't just cool, they're completely set up even though I hadn't planned that far ahead at the time. It's like magic and a total high for me. :)

Today I'm down with a sore throat and voiceless, which sucks, but as soon as I'm better I'm planning to get to writing this act out. I can't wait.

And I hit a jackpot at my local bookstore last week and got a crapload of (hopefully) awesome books - Brent Weeks, Guy Gavriel Kay, Barb Hendee, Rick Riordan, R. Scott Bakker, Patrick Rothfuss, Neil Gaiman. I'm so stoked I can't possibly express it.

Yay to everyone who's made August a great writing month!! <shakes pom poms weakly, coughs, lays back down under her quilt>
Brenda :)

Inspiration isn't about the muse. Inspiration is working until something clicks. ~Brandon Sanderson

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