Hello, everyone! Welcome to the final week of August. I hope y’all had a good week.
My week went fairly well. I did a good bit of writing, a good bit of reading, and also a good bit of other things. Not to mention, DragonCon is happening next week, so I’ve been finishing up final preparations for that.
So, I know I mentioned last week, that I was hoping to finish typing up the written portion of the side novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2012. I did make a good bit of progress with it, but I haven’t finished yet. As it turns out, there are several elements that have changed sufficiently over the course of the last nine years that I’m trying to at least do some streamlining. While it isn’t necessarily taking that much longer (since I’m still limiting the changes to things I can fix relatively quickly), there have been a few spots where I figure some extra pondering might be useful. It also helps that this process is helping me solidify certain elements of the world and its people.
To be honest, at least part of what is making this go slower than I expected is that this novel was almost entirely pansted (aka- “written by the seat of one’s pants”). The only thing I knew when I started the project was that the main character was an archer (a fact I’m fairly certain only comes in to play for the first quarter of the book, if I recall). While I admit that there is something fantastic about writing without a plan, revising said work is not exactly ideal… There are definitely reasons I have become a planster (half planner, half pantser), from fairly early in my current series. Not the least of which is that now that I have developed a pretty decent system for what I need, I definitely prefer my methods, particularly for crafting a sequential series (a series that is more of a “Hero’s Journey” type rather than a “Further Adventures of” type).
As for reading, I have been making progress on Redwall by Brian Jacques, and The Elements Bond by DK Holmberg. I am definitely planning to finish both of those before I head out for DragonCon next week, but we will see how that goes. I also read a couple volumes of Tite Kubo’s Bleach (namely, Volumes 41 and 42). That series definitely does some interesting things. It’s one I started reading a few years back, and every so often I’ll read a volume or two. I believe there are 74 volumes for that series, and then there is an anime that ran for quite a while. I do happen to have all of those available to me, so that certainly makes it easier to pick up when the mood strikes.
As for my latest crafty project, I have been practicing digital sketching. The tablet and computer are definitely different from using a pencil and a sketchpad, but so far, I think things are going well. I heard about a site called Pixabay, which has a database of images that can be used as references (some pictures require payment for rights, but there are a lot of free pictures, too). I know I was able to find a lot of really cool animal pictures, like hawks, wolves, and tigers. Currently, I’m using a picture of a person as practice for doing digital portraits. I kind of figure that would be a good first step to eventually drawing my characters. And it helps me get used to using the drawing tablet, so it’s a win-win.
So, for this week, my plan is to continue typing up the side story and possibly write a bit more of Book 9. I’m planning to continue reading both Redwall and The Elements Bond, and all things considered, I’ll probably pick up another volume or two of Bleach. I recently learned of an elemental series by Mercedes Lackey, and I should receive the first book later this week, so I’m looking forward to that. I also plan to finish my current sketch, depending on how quickly I can get the hang of the tablet (so far, portraits seem to take a different kind of finesse than the landscapes I have done before… also, I’m relatively new to sketching, but we all have to start somewhere). Other than that, I will probably start putting together my list of things to pack for DragonCon next week.
(For anyone who wants to see what DragonCon is about, you can find the site here. I know that at the very least they are selling year-long streaming memberships for $10, but I don’t know much about how they have the streaming stuff set up.)
I think that is everything I have for this update. As always, thanks for reading!
~ Theresa
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