Endless journeys to airports followed by planes being delayed for several hours have only one perk and it's that you get to read for a big chunk of otherwise wasted time. On my way to the airport, I finished Hunting the Corrigan's Blood, a sci-fi novel by Holly Lisle and in the waiting lounge and plane, I finished Neil Gaiman's Stardust (the illustrated edition, featuring gorgeous Charles Vess artwork).
On Hunting the Corrigan's Blood:
I ordered Hunting the Corrigan's Blood because I had read a number of Lisle's free non-fiction essays on writing and editing fiction, as well as getting it published free of scam agents and vanity presses - available at her site - and I wanted to give her fiction a try. I picked Hunting the Corrigan's Blood because I'd read the first few pages of it online and Lisle named it as one of her favourite books, among the thiry or so she's written. And I liked it, a lot. It begins as pure sci-fi, with the two main characters searching for a stolen ship, the Corrigan's Blood, accross galaxies and Lisle does quite a good job of introducing a completely new world without too much info-dump. The story then acquired a creepy and exciting supernatural element to it, after a series of unexpected (at least to me, but I suck at solving mysteries) plottwists that grabbed me back into the story right when I had starting muttering WTFs to myself as I delved deeper and deeper into really not understanding what was happening. All together, a really good read and an especially good example of worldbuilding and world introducing for new sci-fi writers.
On a side note, I have also bought Holly Lisle's four 'Create Clinics' a while ago - Create a Plot, Character, Language and Culture Clinics - so I'll report on these after I've worked through them.
On Stardust:
Unsurprisingly, I loved Stardust - am currently falling fast in love with Gaiman's writing and the only question I'm left with is 'How did I know about this guy before?'. Your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, I saw the movie, loved it and was subsequently lent the book. I loved the fairytale-like feeling that came through every page and I'm still awed by Gaiman's prose. One thing I do love about his work is that he doesn't do things in halves. When people have to die, they die, ditto with having sex and swearing, despite the book being a fairytale. In fact, what I like is that his tale is not realisitic, but believable. I just hope one day I can be half of quarter of a tenth as good as he is at the fantastic, the eery, the creepy and the surreal all together. The lovely artwork by Charles Wess was also a fine, unexpected bonus!
Reading List:
Right now, I have with me:
- Coraline, Neil Gaiman
- Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett
- Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman
Waiting for me in London, I have:
- Temeraire, Naomi Novik
- Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
- Create A Plot, Character, Language and Culture Clinics, Holly Lisle
There are other things I know I want to read or re-read, but please do leave suggestions or recommendations on books I should read, whether they are sci-fi/fantasy or other genres, or even non-fiction.
Monday 21 December 2009
Writing - Kind of failing at it
Well, I had gotten off to a good start and had written for an hour on Days 1 and 2 of this Project. I could go into the reasons and excuses that I used to justify myself to myself for not writing on Days 3, 4 and 5 - including tiredness, heaps of cookies, snow and a long delayed plane, lack of batteries or a French/Brit converter plug (you'd think I had one of these by now, heh?) - but the result is still the same:
I was good for 2 days and lazy for 3, which I believe is actually not that bad compared to my usual ratio of Lazy vs Anything else.
Now, on the two days that I wrote this past week (let's call it Week 0), I did work on my space pirates novel, Stars Shine Brighter. I started up again, from scratch, with the idea to write on it regularly and finish it in 2010, preferably before June so I can order it on createspace.com, using my Nano winner voucher for free paperback copy.
I absolutely love this story and I have to say, felt so, so good on the two days that I wrote on it, and just now reading what I did on my last session again. I imagined it would be such a difficult trudge - and it is, when I have no idea what to write next - but for now, writing Stars Shine Brighter makes me happy and I'll try to cling to this idea when I feel uninspired.
I was good for 2 days and lazy for 3, which I believe is actually not that bad compared to my usual ratio of Lazy vs Anything else.
Now, on the two days that I wrote this past week (let's call it Week 0), I did work on my space pirates novel, Stars Shine Brighter. I started up again, from scratch, with the idea to write on it regularly and finish it in 2010, preferably before June so I can order it on createspace.com, using my Nano winner voucher for free paperback copy.
I absolutely love this story and I have to say, felt so, so good on the two days that I wrote on it, and just now reading what I did on my last session again. I imagined it would be such a difficult trudge - and it is, when I have no idea what to write next - but for now, writing Stars Shine Brighter makes me happy and I'll try to cling to this idea when I feel uninspired.
Wednesday 16 December 2009
Writing - The First Step
Ahah, I did it. I Sat Down And Wrote. For an hour.
The kind of pathetic part is that I had to unplug the internet for an hour, but I guess whatever does the trick is okay for me.
I started my Daily Hour of Writing by an exercise from my cool Writer's Toolbox (containing a booklet and several cool prompting tools, by Jamie Cat Callan). It's got adorable prompts on wooden sticks, much like the Stick Novels that the Nanorilla crowd will remember.
You draw a First Sentence stick, write for a few minutes, then draw a Non Sequitur stick, write a bit more, then draw a Last Straw stick and finish up your writing.
I had:
- 'I like hats.' That's what Donald said the day before he killed Sally.
- 'There you go, making up lies again.' That's what they told me.
- the time Fred went to the car wash and never came back
I got a little over 600 words with these and it was fun, I'll definitely do it again if I feel blocked.
Then I actually started on the novel and wrote 200 words of Stars Shine Brighter. It's one of the characters walking into a grubby diner to meet the others. It's not much but it's a start.
Tadaaaah.
The kind of pathetic part is that I had to unplug the internet for an hour, but I guess whatever does the trick is okay for me.
I started my Daily Hour of Writing by an exercise from my cool Writer's Toolbox (containing a booklet and several cool prompting tools, by Jamie Cat Callan). It's got adorable prompts on wooden sticks, much like the Stick Novels that the Nanorilla crowd will remember.
You draw a First Sentence stick, write for a few minutes, then draw a Non Sequitur stick, write a bit more, then draw a Last Straw stick and finish up your writing.
I had:
- 'I like hats.' That's what Donald said the day before he killed Sally.
- 'There you go, making up lies again.' That's what they told me.
- the time Fred went to the car wash and never came back
I got a little over 600 words with these and it was fun, I'll definitely do it again if I feel blocked.
Then I actually started on the novel and wrote 200 words of Stars Shine Brighter. It's one of the characters walking into a grubby diner to meet the others. It's not much but it's a start.
Tadaaaah.
Why is this called Project Cromulent anyway?
Because I quite like cromulent, as a word and as a phenomenon, if I may use so bold a term.
Here's a brief history and definition of the word:
Cromulent is one of two fictional words introduced in series seven The Simpsons episode Lisa the Iconoclast - the other word was the verb 'to embiggen'. The writers were asked to make up two words that sounded like they were real English word and that's how they created cromulent and embiggen. The Springfield motto is 'A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.' and a teacher comments that they'd never heard the word 'embiggen' before moving to Springfield. Another teacher replies: 'I don't know why ; it's a perfectly cromulent word.' So embiggen means to make bigger and cromulent means valid, fine or acceptable.
I said earlier that I know my faults and, well, one of them is that I tend to think well of myself. Which is why I like the idea that my blog is by name, a valid, fine or acceptable attempt at embiggening the quality of my writing. It also ties in nicely with the idea of reading as a way to learn new words (real ones!) Plus, I like the sound of the word, the way it was created and the way it has come to life. My inner linguistics geek is fascinated by the idea that both words are now listed in some dictionaries!
Finally, I have to say that I was first introduced to them by my significant other, who is made of evil and delights in teaching me fake words and false pronunciations for real words for the sole purpose of confusing me. 'But I assure you, sweetie, you've been pronouncing vinegar wrong all along!' This is me doing some word reclaiming here, hah!
Too many exclamation marks, it's time to write.
Here's a brief history and definition of the word:
Cromulent is one of two fictional words introduced in series seven The Simpsons episode Lisa the Iconoclast - the other word was the verb 'to embiggen'. The writers were asked to make up two words that sounded like they were real English word and that's how they created cromulent and embiggen. The Springfield motto is 'A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.' and a teacher comments that they'd never heard the word 'embiggen' before moving to Springfield. Another teacher replies: 'I don't know why ; it's a perfectly cromulent word.' So embiggen means to make bigger and cromulent means valid, fine or acceptable.
I said earlier that I know my faults and, well, one of them is that I tend to think well of myself. Which is why I like the idea that my blog is by name, a valid, fine or acceptable attempt at embiggening the quality of my writing. It also ties in nicely with the idea of reading as a way to learn new words (real ones!) Plus, I like the sound of the word, the way it was created and the way it has come to life. My inner linguistics geek is fascinated by the idea that both words are now listed in some dictionaries!
Finally, I have to say that I was first introduced to them by my significant other, who is made of evil and delights in teaching me fake words and false pronunciations for real words for the sole purpose of confusing me. 'But I assure you, sweetie, you've been pronouncing vinegar wrong all along!' This is me doing some word reclaiming here, hah!
Too many exclamation marks, it's time to write.
Project Cromulent Official Launching Post
Hello and welcome to my new blog, Project Cromulent!
My name is Claire, I'm a 22-year-old French girl living in London and I want to be a writer.
It sounds deliciously cliché: just your average bat-shit insane leftist French girl, blogging from underneath two layers of blankets because her house is too cold, acknowledging to the world that, yes, she wants to write stories, have them published and see them in glorious paperback form, on a shelf or several across the verse. And be given tons of awards because she's awesome. But, as says my housemate, if there's one thing I'm kind of good at, it's knowing my own faults.
And what I know is that I'm lazy. Quite a bit so. Enough so that my twittername is @lazyclaire.
This explains why, since I started writing a little over a year ago, I haven't had a lot of practise in my craft. I have started three novels, all of them written mostly during a Nanowrimo-type month (Nov. 08, July 09 and Nov. 09) and haven't done much editing or re-writing on them at all.
My other 'problem', even though I don't actually consider it as such, is that I want to write in English and I'm not a native speaker. I have an idea that is mainly because I'm a stubborn and confrontational in-the-way type of person who likes to make life difficult for herself. Although I do know other non-native speakers who write in English, so I'm not alone out there.
This blog is to help me with both issues by way of guilt. You, faithful reader, are going to help me by way of guilting me into getting better.
My writing will only get better if I practise it by writing and reading and my English will only get better if I practise it by reading and writing. Also, I'm a good enough girls, the fairies might show up during the night and write my novel for me! Or not.
Anyway, on this blog I will post about 1/ my writing goals, habits, self-imposed deadlines or schedules, etc... in my attempts to make a habit of writing regularly and 2/ the books that I read and what I get out of them, language-wise, genre-wise, writing-wise. I will also keep a reading list that I will invite readers to contribute to.
Now, I'll plug the blog on twitter and unplug the wifi for an hour to write. Reports on reading and writing to come later tonight!
My name is Claire, I'm a 22-year-old French girl living in London and I want to be a writer.
It sounds deliciously cliché: just your average bat-shit insane leftist French girl, blogging from underneath two layers of blankets because her house is too cold, acknowledging to the world that, yes, she wants to write stories, have them published and see them in glorious paperback form, on a shelf or several across the verse. And be given tons of awards because she's awesome. But, as says my housemate, if there's one thing I'm kind of good at, it's knowing my own faults.
And what I know is that I'm lazy. Quite a bit so. Enough so that my twittername is @lazyclaire.
This explains why, since I started writing a little over a year ago, I haven't had a lot of practise in my craft. I have started three novels, all of them written mostly during a Nanowrimo-type month (Nov. 08, July 09 and Nov. 09) and haven't done much editing or re-writing on them at all.
My other 'problem', even though I don't actually consider it as such, is that I want to write in English and I'm not a native speaker. I have an idea that is mainly because I'm a stubborn and confrontational in-the-way type of person who likes to make life difficult for herself. Although I do know other non-native speakers who write in English, so I'm not alone out there.
This blog is to help me with both issues by way of guilt. You, faithful reader, are going to help me by way of guilting me into getting better.
My writing will only get better if I practise it by writing and reading and my English will only get better if I practise it by reading and writing. Also, I'm a good enough girls, the fairies might show up during the night and write my novel for me! Or not.
Anyway, on this blog I will post about 1/ my writing goals, habits, self-imposed deadlines or schedules, etc... in my attempts to make a habit of writing regularly and 2/ the books that I read and what I get out of them, language-wise, genre-wise, writing-wise. I will also keep a reading list that I will invite readers to contribute to.
Now, I'll plug the blog on twitter and unplug the wifi for an hour to write. Reports on reading and writing to come later tonight!
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