“The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before.”
Neil Gaiman

author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

actually writing blog


Status Check
Wed 2006-11-01 15:29:40 (single post)
  • 5,000 words (if poetry, lines) long
  • 1,056 words (if poetry, lines) long

Revision Status: "Putting Down Roots" will probably not hit the mail today. (And why is that, Niki?) Because the darn thing has almost completely rewritten itself in my head on a plot level. Like, where the virus comes from, and why the aliens are on Earth, and all that. The plot is twisting itself back into its original shape, but it's taking a lot of its recent developments with it, with the result that I'm not working on the... [counts on fingers] ...6th draft of this story so much as writing a new one with the same characters, climax, and ending. So I haven't gotten anywhere near completion since last blog post. Dammit. Working on that will take priority; I don't mind being a little behind on NaNoWriMo in the meantime.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo: Have reset the word count on "The Bookwyrm's Hoard"--those 7.5K or so came from summing together all the words from all the snippets I've drafted through the years, any of which I'll end up rewriting from memory this month if the novel still wants them in it. This morning, after the clock hit midnight and the calendar hit November, I broke the first thousand, but it was all very clumsy. I'm not entirely sure where the novel's going beyond the plot premises of Gwen taking over the bookstore and children vanishing into her books.

Last night's This morning's NaNoWriMo kick-off was very well attended, and the people who showed up all had a productive session. One of 'em even crossed the 2K mark. Then things devolved into mere socialization and cat stories until about 4 AM. It was fun. And I am paying the price today. But, having slept until about 3:00 PM, I think I'm recovered enough to get on with things. Like, rewriting short stories. And cleaning up in the kitchen.

Random Thoughts On The Workshop Experience
Mon 2006-10-30 02:24:35 (single post)
  • 5,000 words (if poetry, lines) long

Going way, way back to the Borderlands Press Writers' Boot Camp experience... why? Because I finally sat down with all 30+ copies of my story that the instructors and other students returned to me, and I read all their comments tonight. I'm sorta subconsciously compiling a coherent impression of What Needs Doing. Meanwhile, I have some Thoughts.

Thought the First: Names Are Important. If you, dear reader, should ever take part in a big group workshop in which you will be one among many commenting on a single story, please, for the love of Whomever You Hold Dear, put your effing name on your copy! Especially if you're one of the Instructors! It's not been so long that I can't still put a name to a face, and I can sorta put the tenor of a set of comments to the memory of a particular break-out session, but memory isn't infallible, and it would sure be nice to know who thought what.

[Note to self: Alternately, I could write the critiquer's name at the top of the copy when he or she hands it back to me. Y'know. Rather than, for example, having an attack of workshopping nerves, tucking it away face down under my notebook, and pretending it doesn't exist for the rest of the day.]

Thought the Second: Paper-clips don't work so good en masse. Acquisitions editors and slush readers famously despise the staple. Paper-clips come off and go back on easily, which staples do not do. But if you take 30+ copies of a 15-page story, all paper-clipped together, and put them in a stack and shove the stack in your bookbag to shlep around town, those paper-clips become very indiscriminate as to what paper they clip.

Thought the Third: There can be too much of a good thing. The way the Boot Camp was set up, there were four classrooms and four two-hour sessions throughout the Big Saturday. Each of the four instructors presided over a classroom, leading a critique session consisting of five or six students and their stories. Thus each student got critiqued by each instructor and, theoretically, each student. Unfortunately, the students were divided into sections such that some of us saw each other twice but others not at all, so we didn't actually get face-to-face critiques with every other student. But we were all supposed to read and critique everyone else's stories regardless--and, oddly enough, I don't feel like 30+ critiques gives me any better of a spectrum than the 5 or 6 I get from my fellow attendees at Melanie Tem's twice-monthly classes.

In fact, I'm starting to get confused. Five people thought the opening was too slow; two more thought it was perfect. One person was totally confused about the plot, another said maybe I was too subtle, another two said they liked the way the plot snuck up on them. Several people thought the space aliens were unnecessary, nothing more than a red herring intended to articially wedge the story into the science fiction genre; several other people thought the aliens were totally cool. Triangulation is a bitch.

Not that I'm really complaining. Like most writers, I consider every beta reader to be a blessing. (And the ones that said things like, "Your story made me sick to my stomach, but in a good way," really made my night! Yay!) But there is such thing as an embarrassment of riches. Stephen Wright once quipped, "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?" I'm currently trying to figure out where to put it all.

The issue of the four sessions is something I wish I'd put on my feedback questionaire at the end of the workshop. What I think Borderlands Press should have done was either only have us read the stories of students we'd share a session with (which is what Viable Paradise did), or else try to divide us into sections so that everyone got face-time with everyone. The usefulness of a particular comment is greatly amplified by remembering the student who brought it up in class and the brief discussion that led to. By the same token, a manuscript copy full of lots of underlining without further comment, no name, and no memory of how those underlined passages were discussed... I just don't know what to do with that.

[Note in the interest of accuracy: According to fellow student William D. Zeranski, who is a meticulous record-keeper to be trusted in these matters, there were Twenty-Two Students. So my constant reference to "30+ copies" is probably an exaggeration. So, OK, I got 20+ copies. Still! My point stands, dammit!]

Thought the Fourth: My, That's A Well-Vacuumed Cat. My procrastination tendencies are TEH SUXX0R. However, my high score in Worldwinner's version of hard-level Luxor since the addition of the 5-minute time limit is now somewhere around 192K. I will totally rock the competition ladder. Ph34r my l337 ski11z.

...And that's all I got. It's 3:18 AM in Boulder. I have the IHOP to walk home from and a lot to think about on the way. Tomorrow and Tuesday I will be trying to put those thoughts to work. And Wednesday I'll have this sucker in the mail.

I iz graduamated!
Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-SNOW.
Tue 2006-10-17 16:22:47 (single post)
  • 59,193 words (if poetry, lines) long
  • 128.50 hrs. revised
  • 5,000 words (if poetry, lines) long

Hurrah! In addition to being a newly minted Viable Paradise graduate, I have also survived the journey home. All the trains were hyper-fast this time around, so I ended up puttering around stations a lot (when I wasn't hiking around downtown Chicago). And I got home just in time to catch the winter's first snow on the valley floor.

Me, during the ride home: "Wow, look at all those low-lying gray clouds over the mountains. Think it might snow today?"

John: "Maybe."

Me, some 4 hours later: "Definitely."

I have mixed feelings about coming home to snow. I was pretty much done with appreciating the mystic beauty of snow since March '00. Since then my attitude ranges between tedium ("Oh, Gods, more snow") and guilt ("Don't bad-mouth it, we need the moisture"). But at least I wasn't somewhere warm like Maui or New Orleans this time, for the climate contrast to really rub in that vacation is over. New England was pretty blustery; the instructors, particulary Jim Macdonald and Teresa, were commenting on this being the coldest VP yet.

So I have a lot of work to do this week. I have the final (for now) StyleCareer.com eGuide to complete and turn in; I have comments on The Drowning Boy to compile and compost; and I have a revision of "Putting Down Roots" that really has to happen, like, now. MacAllister has threatened me with dire abuses should I fail to send a copy to Ellen Datlow by November. And Mac knows her stuff. Do not cross that lady.

But right now I am enjoying being back in my own house, napping in my own bed, and having a long, guilt-free soak in the bathtub. Work can happen later on tonight. Thththbbbp.

In Maui. Not On Fire.
Sat 2006-09-02 19:37:31 (single post)
  • 5,000 words (if poetry, lines) long
  • 1,900 words (if poetry, lines) long

John and I are on Maui. To be precise, we're in the town of Ka'anapali, just north along the shore from Lahaina. To get here, you follow highway 30 (the Honoapi'ilani Highway) clockwise around the south shore from the bay. This can be complicated if, for instance, the mountain is on fire. We arrived at Kaluhui Airport at 6:30 PM yesterday afternoon to find the highway had been closed; we had dinner and then found the highway had been reopened--partially; and we sat in a taxi in traffic for 3 hours before checking into the Westin Ka'anapali Ocean Villas at, depending on which of us two you ask, 12:30 or 1:00 AM.

Someone on the radio said of the fire, "They're saying it looks like you're on the big island watching the lava come down the mountain." It did. The entire edge of mountain was glowing with flames and embers. Burning trees looked like being lit up for Christmas. We got a nice long look at the devastation, waiting in traffic to reach the partially blocked stretch of Hwy 30.

So it will probably surprise no one that I did not, in fact, finish and submit a rewrite of "Snowflakes". I meant to finish the rewrite on the plane and then submit it from the hotel, but the story needs a lot more work than I had time to give it, and I wasn't up for anything this morning other than staggering to the bed and falling unconscious.

The freelance gig did get completed, though, so that's good.

Right now, all John and I have planned is sunrise on Mt. Haleakala tomorrow morning and a luau Monday night. I intend to get rewrites of "Snowflakes" and the soon-to-be-renamed "Putting Down Roots" while I'm here, as well as do some read-throughs and critiques I've promised. Which should be very easily accomplished, as we don't plan to overstuff our week on Maui with stress and events.

Vacation rocks. So long as the rock isn't on fire.

From da front... (click: 141 kb)
From da side... (click: 129 kb)
I Distract You With Socks Again
Sat 2006-08-26 09:30:44 (single post)
  • 1,900 words (if poetry, lines) long
  • 5,000 words (if poetry, lines) long

Look! They're finished! The "Margaritaville Parrot Knee Socks" are finished! And they fit, and they stay up, and they look awesome.

Tree is leaving for Burning Man today. I gave the socks to her yesterday after finally grafting off the last cuff, sewing in the elastic, and basting on the bows. They really aren't graduation presents anymore. They're "My First Burning Man" presents. Tree will be the envy of the playa.

And now I can proceed to my Handknit Bikini Experiment.

Of course I can't just blog about knitting. That's not Actually Writing. Besides, these so-called "thumbnails" (click for full-sized, high-quality JPEGs) are too big for such a short blog entry. They'll hang down and stomp all over my blog entry about Nice Surprises. So, without further ado, Other Stuff that Isn't Knitting.

More Freelance Deadlines! Got another StyleCareer eGuide to complete for August 31. What is this one about? Wouldn't you like to know!

Short Story Revisions! I have two to do. As I've said, "Putting Down Roots" needs to be rewritten and submitted ASAP. However, between freelance gigs and knitting, life continues to happen. So I've slated it for the first week of September, which is A) after the eGuide deadline, and B) to take place in Hawaii. Not that John and I don't plan on doing Hawaii things while being in Hawaii, of course. But I do have a tendency to treat vacations as writing workshops, even when they aren't actual formal writing workshops. This is a good thing.

The other short story needing revision is "Snowflakes." Yeah, that still. I may have mentioned earlier that the webzine Firefox News publishes fiction? Yes. Themed fiction. For $.01/word up to $100. Submission guidelines are this-a-way. The current submission period calls for stories appropriate to the theme "It's the End of the World As We Know It," which is obviously perfect. Well, obviously to those who have read it (Critique Circle) or heard me read it (Borderlands Boot Camp Summer '06, Nancy Kilpatrick's Self-Editing Workshop at World Horror '06). Yes, it's not usually best practice to submit first to a lower-paying market, but in the case of synchronicity I will make an exception. Deadline: September 1.

Next: How I will manage to do 3000 words per day on the freelance gig and spend at least an hour a day on revising a short story until it's ready, every day until August 31. Hint: With much difficulty, stress, and pulling out of eyelashes.

But! Socks! So there.

Bloggity Continueth (with thoughts of revisions ahead)
Sat 2006-08-12 16:58:24 (single post)
  • 5,000 words (if poetry, lines) long

Wearing my Metroblogging hat and back-filling my New Orleans visit, I've gotten as far as... Day 1 of the Habitat work week. But in my defense, it's a long damn post. So there. I think the rest of them will be somewhat shorter, having gotten some of the "how ESTHFH works" stuff out of the way.

[back of hand to forehead, eyes rolled heavenward] On I slog.

Meanwhile, rather than getting stuck in the past, I have put up a post at Denver Metblogs celebrating the annual corn harvest in Longmont. The recipe is tried and true as of early this afternoon, so if you are not averse to dairy products or foods with a high glycemic index (SugarBusters need not apply), have at it and enjoy.

Meanmeanwhile (is that a word?), thoughts are straying towards the inevitable revision of the soon-to-be-retitled "Putting Down Roots". As usual, I'm squeamish about reading all those comments everyone wrote in the margins. I don't think that ever gets any easier; pushing the fear aside and reading the critiques anyway, it only becomes habitual, not easy. But I can't put it off. A golden opportunity for an editorial audience opened up for me at the writing workshop, and I can neither run the risk of letting it go stale or submitting anything less than the best this story can be.

Some thoughts to incorporate in the revision, culled at random from my memory of the past weekend:

  • People don't talk to bananas, at least not in a serious horror/SF story; and
  • People don't go from worrying that their spouse might be deathly ill to pressuring said spouse for sex in the space of a paragraph; and
  • If a character is going to be more ignorant than the reader, he needs a good excuse; and finally
  • If you're going to have aliens in a story, you'd better damn well mean it.
But about all that... more later.
Only Partially Shredded
Sat 2006-08-05 18:19:36 (single post)
  • 5,000 words (if poetry, lines) long

Today has been interesting. It has certainly not been an unqualified win for Ego, so, y'know, that's good. It's been a little inconsistent, sure. The first instructor told me I was writing the wrong story entirely, and that the things in the background should be in the foreground, and that there wasn't any drama. The second praised the story to the high heavens and told me I should send it to Editor X and tell 'er that he sent me. I suspect that the story's rewrite needs are somewhere in between.

Note to self: All characters have favorite music, favorite food, and things they do with their days. It's probably worthwhile to let these things show, at least a little.

Tonight: reading aloud! Like karaoke but more literary! w00t!

Borderlands Press Done Kicked It Off
Fri 2006-08-04 20:15:27 (single post)
  • 5,000 words (if poetry, lines) long

Well, I'm here. I'm sitting at a desk in an apartment in a family dormatory building on Towson University campus in the state of Maryland. If that isn't enough prepositional phrases for you, you can add "after the big Borderlands Press Writers' Boot Camp kick-off." And now I am about to drop.

I mean, it's not that they've begun to work our asses off yet. It's that I got very little sleep last night, which has been a theme all through my second week in New Orleans, when all of a sudden I had the time, energy, and unmitigated panic with which to address my fast approaching deadlines...

and I'm flying American Airlines, who have to make every freakin' flight go through the huge pain in my ass that is the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, regardless of actual geography...

and the Baltimore airport is strewn with detours so that I gotta walk half a mile in one direction to get my luggage and half a mile in the other direction to get on the Super Shuttle...

and every Sheraton desk clerk within phoning distance has to put me on hold for five minutes before they can take the fifteen seconds to give me the next phone number...

and I have with me a collection of very high quality full-leaf, muslin-bagged tea and no implement suitable for boiling water in. Not ideal!

Tomorrow, presumably after I get a good night's sleep, my ass will be entirely worked off. Instructors/authors Doug Clegg, F. Paul Wilson, Tom Tessier, and Tom Monteleone spent much of tonight's kick-off meeting telling us, in the general, why all our stories pretty much sucked. I expect tomorrow in our small-group 1-instructor 2-hour sessions they will tell each of us about the suckage in the excrutiating specific. Fellow workshop members have been telling me that they liked my story very much, which makes me glow and gives me warm fuzzies, but in no way tempts me to think that I'll be exempt from having my story get ripped to utter shreds by the professionals.

It's a good thing. Whatever's left after the shredding will be the kernel of what "Putting Down Roots" really wants to be. And that's why I'm here.

Weekend Check-In
Sat 2006-06-03 06:25:34 (single post)
  • 5,000 words (if poetry, lines) long

Yo. OK, so, the story is now down to with 50 words of 5000 words. Which means I'm allowed to say "about 5000 words" and send it in. Which I did Thursday evening. Ms. Last minute, that's me. The first 1200 words were really easy to cut, what with pointless mental meanderings and obnoxious repetitions and the plot holes that were more verbose than the sealant used to plug them. The last 300, now, those were damn hard.

Last weekend was pretty action-packed, between movies and concerts and 10K races. OK, well, one of each. But still. One of each is plenty. Saw X-Men 3 and the Cars/Blondie Road Rage tour, my opinions of both of which you can read over at my latest blogging gig. Did my fourth Bolder BOULDER in 1:30:30, my best time yet by about 4 minutes (yes, I suck), and my bodily reaction is somewhere between "ankles and knees no longer sore" and "toenails not quite fallen off yet."

On for this weekend: Pretty much everything I've been yammering on about for the last few weeks. Working my way through The Golden Bridle and maybe getting "Snowflakes" closer to ready to submit somewhere. Kicking finished stories off the couch and back out into the world. Logging some five thousand words or so on the current work-for-hire assignment. Y'know. Writing and stuff.

In other news, I hear the AbsoluteWrite forums are this close to resurrected. (This link goes, not to AW itself, but to a post at the temporary forums telling us to please not try to visit AW because all the server's resources are needed just to install and heal up the database that the greatly dishonorable web-host-of-a-million-contradicting-stories, JC Hosting, gave the gang a 24-hour window* of access to (after sitting on it without sufficient explanation for nine freakin' days). Rejoice and hold your breath.

*24 hours was what the gang were told yesterday in the wee hours of the morning; today the story has already changed to say that the May 22 shut-down was an automatic bandwidth overage suspension, which counter is reset automatically on June 1, so that there is no shutter on their access window. Like I said, a million contradictory stories. It's like these people have never heard of screen capture.

My Threats Have No Teeth
Sun 2006-05-28 23:25:27 (single post)
  • 6,708 words (if poetry, lines) long

Of course I can't submit my story as-is. The maximum word count for the workshop is five thousand words! Durh.

Spent an hour's walk ruminating on the Big Things What Need Changing. Ended up at Amante on North Broadway, where I handwrote the beginnings of a new draft over a yummy little espresso version of that classic drink, Irish Coffee.

I will have no trouble bringing this story down to under 5,000 words. It's got a lot of crap in it that does absolutely nothing to serve the story.

I'll see how much of the new type-in I can do tomorrow morning between waking up at 6 and stumbling outside at 8:40ish to join the NB wave at the Bolder Boulder starting line. Then I'll see how much I can get done after I get back before I collapse into the sleep of the non-runner who nevertheless jog/walks 10K once a year and inexplicably gets the urge to walk rather long distances the night before doing so.

If you see me, wave!

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