Skip to main content

What's Up Wednesday: CP's and New Projects

It's Wednesday again. What's up, everyone?

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AANi4N9ThhI3raT-jRP1BdfNz3YokalmVsyx38RbZAeBIu-K1OsVXl3yO56MV1i4bW9buT54k2wwbdqTgujFG5qychVg7yWrNSuhyphenhyphen1MYhiUIyEM13F9tfjzCYES154Qf-Pk9ZdMqBCzi/s320/ButtonLargeNoBorder.jpg
 My writing goals for the week:

- Do 2 Examiner reviews (0/2)

- Keep working on Contracted
- Resist the temptation to further edit The Book
- Transfer my longhand pages of The Other Book to the computer version.
 
This is a bit less ambitious than last week's goals, thankfully. I've also met last week's goal of "write 5 pages on another project" with Contracted. Hooray!

What I'm Reading

I'm reading The Ear, the Eye, and The Arm by Nancy Farmer, an MG science fiction novel set in a future Zimbabwe. I LOVE it. I'm also still working through After the Snow, which I also love. However, I didn't feel as strongly about The Reformed Vampire Support Group, and I'll probably review that this week. It was one of those books where I felt betrayed by the ending. It had so much promise to both be hilarious and explore moral and existential problems...and it fell a bit short on both counts. I didn't hate it, but I wouldn't read it again and I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

What I'm Writing

I have a critique partner looking at The Book now -- hooray! Now that I have the insight of a new pair of eyes, I'm sorely tempted to start editing again according to her notes. I shouldn't, though. She's critiquing the WIP I have now -- not the WIP I have after sneakily editing ahead and then giving her more pages. Also, I need time to think and plan the next edit. It's a relief to take a break from my WIP. I need the insight that time and distance offer.

In the meantime, I've picked up Contracted again. You know how when you're on a roll and you're afraid to stop and lose the momentum, so you just keep going faster and faster? That's how it is right now. I hope it stays that way. Contracted is a long story about assassins, arranged marriage, and evil stepmothers -- a bit of an adult Red Riding Hood spin-off but with more gruesome death. No wonder I'm having fun!

What Else I've Been Up To

The family I babysit for has the most depressed-looking rescue dog ever. He is very sweet and friendly and tolerant of small children, but still scared to death of everything. Today, he decided he liked me. I was trying to lure him outside with some treats so that he could do his business in the yard, but he was afraid to come all the way down the stairs. So I finally scooped him up and put him outside. Apparently that meant that I had asserted my Alpha-ness, because he followed at my heels whenever I walked around or played tag with the kids. He even came when I called. Then when we went in, he didn't flee up the stairs. He stayed downstairs with me and the mom. Yay! This baffles me, because I've never been a dog person and a dog has never liked me before. But it's cute.

What Inspires Me Right Now

Last week it was Lindsey Stirling. She always inspires me, but this week it's The Piano Guys. This video will blow your mind.


Comments

  1. I'm so glad you had such a good dog experience! We're dog-sitting right now and these big guys are so friendly and wonderful - it's been TOO LONG since I've had a dog and I miss it.

    Sounds like you have some awesome goals for the week! Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It' funny, you know? Normally I am ambivalent at best towards other people's dogs. I might like to have a dog myself in the future, but I'm more of a cat person. This dog is really nice and sweet, though. He looks so sad all the time that it's really adorable when he starts to actually have fun and warm up to you. :)

      Good luck to you too!

      Delete
  2. Contracted sounds amazing! You had me at assassins and adult Red Riding Hood.

    It is cute that the dog follows you around now. Maybe he'll start coming out of his shell and stop being so scared of everything.

    Good luck with writing/meeting your goals this week! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am definitely guilty of WIP favoritism. At the moment, Contracted is my favorite.

      The owners say that the dog is getting a little better every day. :) He was a rescue dog, had to switch shelters many times, ended up in a low-quality shelter where they eventually found him, and who knows what his previous owners did in the past. I think it is quite likely that he was abused by his old owners, considering how timid and submissive he is. That's such a shame. He's such a sweet dog. It's impossible to get annoyed with him even though he sometimes poops on the floor because he is literally too timid to scratch at the back door when he needs to go outside. :(

      Delete
  3. I love the Piano Guys, but I haven't heard as much of their music as I should. LOVE that song!!
    Taking a break is good, although it's different for every story. That's great that you can work on different projects and still stay occupied while taking a breather on a different WIP. Good luck with your writing this week!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Moonlight" is one of my favorite pieces by them. :)

      Taking a break has let me think about some things I could change based on my CP's notes. I'm not sure whether I'll jump back into editing or wait for the whole MS to be critiqued.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Comments make me happy, so leave lots! :) I will usually reply to each one, so click Notify Me to read my replies.

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hemlock Grove, ep. 1 and 2

Hello! I'm back from my blogging hiatus. I've been on a horror kick lately, and most recently, I watched the first two episodes of Netflix's Hemlock Grove. I'm a bit late to this series, but for what it's worth, here's my review. I have some...issues.  Pacing It's based on a novel, and you can tell. Once the show introduces something that might be interesting or lead to tension and conflict, it snatches it away like a precious plot-gem that it doesn't want you to see. There is way too much exposition and filler. The plot hangs together pretty well, but not much really happens. Case in point, it should not have taken two whole episodes to find out Main Character is a werewolf. Especially since everyone seems clued into this fact and accepts it as truth -- except the viewers. Then suddenly Rich Boy is asking if he can watch the transformation like it's understood that Poor Kid Main Character is a werewolf. No warning, no lead-up, nothing.

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow by Faïza Guène, a YA Book By A Young Author

Review time! Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow is a young adult novel by a young adult, so I was very interested to read it. There's also a #MuslimShelfSpace tag going around, and this review is a nod to that. The idea is that there's been a lot of stereotypes and anti-Muslim sentiment spread around, so buying and boosting books about and by Muslims can help educate people and break down harmful stereotypes.  The author is French with an Algerian background, and  Guène  wrote Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow when she was in her late teens. Although the novel is not autobiographical, she shares many things with its main character. Doria, like her creator, is the child of immigrants and lives in poor suburban housing projects.   Guène   wrote that she realized girls like herself weren't really represented in books, and felt that Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow was a way to tell the stories of people in the suburbs who are ignored by the elites of French literature. Plot: Life Sucks, Until It Doesn

King Arthur Sucks.

I wrote a review of The Greenstone Grail by Amanda Hemingway , in which I applauded the book for being the first Arthurian adaptation I had read that I didn't despise. I mean, how could I? Despite the book's other problems, it had aliens riding motherfucking dragons!!! Aliens! Dragons! Parallel universes!  After reading my review, one of my friends asked me why I hate Arthurian legend so much.  Well.  Perhaps one of the reasons I liked The Greenstone Grail 's take on the Holy Grail myth was because it was so different.  Most Arthurian adaptations fall along the same lines. It's the same damn story told almost the same damn way all the time. But  The Greenstone Grail took place in modern times, borrowing from the Holy Grail and Arthurian myths without making it so central to the plot that there was no room for other stuff like imagination.  Say whatever else you want about this book ( and believe me, I did ), it had imagination. Its main character can dimension-