(no subject)
Okay, that temp job didn't last as long as I had hoped. The agency had predicted 2-5 weeks. It ended up lasting 12 days. It was decent money (and it should be for 56 hours a week), but it was a bit rough not having a day off. In any case, it was good to get out of the house again. And more interestingly, it got me over my dread of getting another supervisor job. Watching the other supervisors reminded me how mind-numbingly easy it is. And socializing reminded me of how easily I can make friends in that environment.
So the temp agency is working to get me interviews for the US Census, either a supervisor position or some analyst position. That doesn't start for awhile though, so I will have to find something else in the meantime.
And I haven't been writing. My friend Elizabeth has been going over the chapters I have written (which for the record are chapters 1-5, 7-11) and doing edits. I got back her edits on Chapter 1, and they were quite good. She pointed out where I could say more with less, make changes for better flow, remove redundant sentences (the inevitable result of revision), as well as questioning some of my word choices. Hopefully as the edits continue, she'll have suggestions on changing or rearranging scenes and the broader direction of the story and character development. But as I've said before, it's prose that I struggle with most.
I'm also very bored. I don't do anything all day. This must change. I really need to unplug from the internet long enough to get some real work done, but I'm like some little ADD freak who can't stop compulsively checking Facebook, Livejournal, Gmail, and ESPN. I swear, do I really think something is going to change from when I last checked 5 minutes ago?
I cancelled DirecTV, and I've been downloading TV shows. I just finished season 1 of True Blood and started on season 2 last night. I already have seen the last 4 episodes of season 2, so I'm hoping that doesn't ruin the first 8 episodes too much. Then I'll watch Deadwood and Hung. I have the first seasons of those as well. And Firefly has been waiting for me on Hulu for months, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Bookwise, I'm reading Daniel Abraham's A Betrayal in Winter. His prose is gorgeous, and characters are impressive. The plot pacing is a bit slow, though that seems to be his style more than a flaw. It's good to read different kinds of fantasy to remind me that my book doesn't have to fit in a specific mold. Sometimes I worry that it isn't as action oriented as say a Brandon Sanderson or Robert Jordan type novel. But I don't write action. It doesn't really appeal to me. The question for me is, can I get away with a slower pace with only average prose? I think that's easier to pull off when, like Abraham, you have exquisite prose that makes your toes curl as you read it.
I told a friend of mine recently that I felt for a novel to be successful, it had to do at least one thing exceptionally. It could be character, plot, prose, theme, action, whatever. If everything is average and one thing is exceptional, the novel works. Right now, I'm feeling that there's no one exceptional thing about what I'm writing. But I shouldn't be too harsh with myself. It is only a first novel, after all. No one comes from the womb fully formed.
So the temp agency is working to get me interviews for the US Census, either a supervisor position or some analyst position. That doesn't start for awhile though, so I will have to find something else in the meantime.
And I haven't been writing. My friend Elizabeth has been going over the chapters I have written (which for the record are chapters 1-5, 7-11) and doing edits. I got back her edits on Chapter 1, and they were quite good. She pointed out where I could say more with less, make changes for better flow, remove redundant sentences (the inevitable result of revision), as well as questioning some of my word choices. Hopefully as the edits continue, she'll have suggestions on changing or rearranging scenes and the broader direction of the story and character development. But as I've said before, it's prose that I struggle with most.
I'm also very bored. I don't do anything all day. This must change. I really need to unplug from the internet long enough to get some real work done, but I'm like some little ADD freak who can't stop compulsively checking Facebook, Livejournal, Gmail, and ESPN. I swear, do I really think something is going to change from when I last checked 5 minutes ago?
I cancelled DirecTV, and I've been downloading TV shows. I just finished season 1 of True Blood and started on season 2 last night. I already have seen the last 4 episodes of season 2, so I'm hoping that doesn't ruin the first 8 episodes too much. Then I'll watch Deadwood and Hung. I have the first seasons of those as well. And Firefly has been waiting for me on Hulu for months, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Bookwise, I'm reading Daniel Abraham's A Betrayal in Winter. His prose is gorgeous, and characters are impressive. The plot pacing is a bit slow, though that seems to be his style more than a flaw. It's good to read different kinds of fantasy to remind me that my book doesn't have to fit in a specific mold. Sometimes I worry that it isn't as action oriented as say a Brandon Sanderson or Robert Jordan type novel. But I don't write action. It doesn't really appeal to me. The question for me is, can I get away with a slower pace with only average prose? I think that's easier to pull off when, like Abraham, you have exquisite prose that makes your toes curl as you read it.
I told a friend of mine recently that I felt for a novel to be successful, it had to do at least one thing exceptionally. It could be character, plot, prose, theme, action, whatever. If everything is average and one thing is exceptional, the novel works. Right now, I'm feeling that there's no one exceptional thing about what I'm writing. But I shouldn't be too harsh with myself. It is only a first novel, after all. No one comes from the womb fully formed.