I've been itching to post my triumphs. I've worked steadily since the computer problems over the weekend and feel closer to my goal than ever. Only problem with that, along with extreme sleep deprivation, is that I can't stand being in my own skin at my job. The brain has completely redirected itself to focus on writing.

With that said, here's what I've been up to.

RANSOM----
Reviewed, Edited, and Completed to my satisfaction:
Chapter 1 5,581 wds
Chapter 2 4,353 wds
Chapter 3 5,427 wds
Chapter 4 5,942 wds
Chapter 5 2,914 wds
Chapter 6 4,673 wds
Chapter 7 only partially done

I think I'm about half-way done and should end up around 60,000 wds.

I'll keep at it and keep you posted.

"Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines."
--Bill Bryson, author(1951- )

Woo hoo! Way to go, Kee!

I just cut several paragraphs out of my Term Paper, and it almost killed me to have to do it, but they were useless, so they had to go. I'm following the Kee rule of writing: slash and burn, Baby! But that means I still have exactly as many pages as when I started this morning. I think I will kill myself.

I LOVE the last two quotes posted.

I purposefully have waited to post until I have blocks of positive info to pass along. Right now I have re-read the first 81 pages. They seem, with some ruthless slashing and a few minor tweaks, to be right where I want them.

From that I was feeling kinda cocky and thought I'd prepare an email query to an agent that I think will be a good fit for me. But trying to condense the book into a 250 word synopsis has pointed out to me that I have forgotten exactly what happens after page 81. oops.

So back to the mines. But with a happy face, not grumpy. The end is in sight.

GOAL: (Don't laugh because I have the weird feeling it will happen) By next Friday, all re-reading done, all slashing done, all tweaks done, synopsis done, email query ready to send.

SLEEPING: Minimal to none.

EATING: Enough to keep me from passing out.

HOUSEWORK: I just stocked up on paper plates and plastic cups.

POSTING: Will check in when I need a boost.

In Kee's honor:
"Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn't, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence." -Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)

John turned off the computer before I could post a quote yesterday, but that was all I had.
Damned samurai-level Sudoku! But I managed to get it right this morning (on about the *cough* fifth try), so now it is onward and upward!

Although the last bit of Late Night Radio is tantalizingly close, I realize that I just can't do it right now. My brain is spread perilously thin as it is, so I am taking my piles of writing notebooks and folders and putting them away until July 29, the day after classes are over. Then I will pull them back out and work feverishly on finishing and polishing LNR.

But until then, I'll be writing on my paper, translating homework assignments, and studying for 2 exams. I'll keep you posted here of my progress on those things.

It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one.
-Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)

Back on track....

While trying to assume a former career-due to monetary needs and the need to eat-I discovered one very important thing about myself. I was born to write. More than that. I was meant to be a writer.

That said...I'm quitting my job. Easy enough to say right now since said boss is out of the country on a three week European vacation. I'd love to include in one of his "Fax Updates" that, by the way, your bills are paid, your deposits are made, and I quit. But rest assured on said return that I will be leaving his employ.

Let's just leave the matter as one big life lesson and enough material to keep me writing for years.

But ....the point of all that is to get across that I can't go back to my former life and I don't want to. Monetary concerns aside, I really can't live like that anymore. I like how writing everyday makes me feel. I like it too much to give it up again. So I've got three weeks to get to a point where I am submitting FINISHED work.

I will be ruthless in editing. I will be unstoppable with the keyboard. And I will probably have to hire a housekeeper to keep us from living in filth. But oh well.

Watch my smoke. And smell my stinky feet.

No Relation
6-14 words #1824
Total chapters 3 1/2
Total words 12, 565

Ransom
Not sure on specifics. Cutting anything that slows me down.

"Learn to write well, or not to write at all."
--John Dryden (1631-1700), Essay on Satire

"If you take the hyphen seriously, you will surely go mad."
--Oxford University Press

One of my teachers was out sick today, so I spent all that extra time working and working and working on my Term Paper until my body called out for cookies. So I took a break and ate a cookie on the way to my next class. (Hey, I ate half my body weight in fruit today, so I deserve a cookie to wash down all that healthy.) But the work work work paid off. I have most of a page typed up, which I have to remember to print out to take with me tomorrow for more work^3, because I can hardly even follow all the handwritten pages of crossings-out, cross-references, and lines from here to there.

As I was sitting in the study hall working working working, my Term Paper advisor waylaid me. He had someone scheduled to come talk to him about her paper right after that, so he asked me to go ahead and come by as second in line (instead of waiting for his office hour tomorrow). So now he knows that I have sorted out more that should have gone in my original sorry-ass outline, and that I am more or less on the right track. Of course, I'll still have to look him up next week, and send on anything I complete between now and then, but I don't want this paper looming over me for weeks on end, so I am going to work during every spare moment while I am still on a roll.

When I needed a brain break (just before the call of the cookies), I tried to write on the Godred story, and I came up with three horrifically awful starting sentences that I will be burning in offering to the writing gods later. Oh, well.

I managed to complete a 3-paragraph translation for class and get it turned in this morning. Progress! Of sorts.

Between classes I sat in the library and wrestled with my Term Paper. I love that library, because there's a section where there are 3 tables lined up end to end between each of the stacks, so I could spread out all my papers and dictionaries and pencil case. I like to be able to see everything at once. I think I'll be able to make my self-imposed schedule for Wednesday. Go me!

Except for the part where I got totally frustrated trying to translate *one measly sentence* that I wanted to quote in my paper. I looked in several dictionaries (mono- and bi-lingual) and thesauri (including my beloved Roget's and the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, the Hummer limo of the dictionary world), and I came up with nothing. I got home and looked in my ratty old German-English dictionary (the one I had to hole-punch and put in binders because the binding had come off), and poof! Exactly what I was looking for. *grumble, grumble*

"I am still studying verbs and the mystery of how they connect nouns. I am more suspicious of adjectives than at any other time in my born days."
--Carl Sandburg

I have been completely useless writing-wise for the last 2 days. John finally pointed out that I don't have to let myself be paralyzed by the work ahead of me for the semester. I just need to come up with a schedule. Why didn't I think of that? You know I am a list-making fool, so that was just what I needed to get the ball rolling.

I didn't actually make a complete, detailed schedule, but I did come up with a do-able amount to take to my advisor's office hour on Wednesday. And that spurred some notes on the back of the outline I sent him.

I even sat down and wrote out almost a page of notes on the section I want to insert into Late Night Radio. I haven't quite figured out the new character's voice, not even his name, but I can see more where he's coming from, so it is just a matter of time.

I'm trying to spiff the place up around here, so check out the new links to the left. There'll be more when I have time (or when I need a break from the paper).

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.
-Giorgos Seferis, writer, diplomat, Nobel laureate (1900-1971)

I finally put words to paper. It was only the roughest sort of outline, and incomplete, to boot, but I have words that relate to my Term Paper. AND I emailed them to my advisor. Who knows what he will say to them, but it is a start.

Since I got that far, and John needed to work on the computer last night, I gave myself the evening off. I tried to work on some creative writing, but it just wasn't there. Sadly, it was like trying to eject a bone from my throat. There is nothing creative or interesting about that.

But once I finish some photo-loading and blog-posting, I am getting back to work on the TP. (hee! TP!)

Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
--Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

There has been a parting of the ways over the translation project, so that is no longer hanging over my head.

I tried to work on Late Night Radio, but it just wasn't coming together. I know what I want to stick in there, but it hasn't really taken shape in my head yet as a conversation. *poke*

If you happen to have a copy of my Godred story, feel free to deep-6 it. I have the feeling that it is going to be my project story, where I work on it forever trying out different things. Sort of like a sewing project where you rip it apart and put it back together 5 times before giving up on it, or realizing that the skills you learned in the process would be better used on something new. The idea doesn't pain me too much, but who knows? What started out as a dish-towel may end up as an evening gown.

Paper status report: chugging along, but still reading. I hope to have an outline done today.

Bits and pieces of other writing projects have been flitting into my brain, but I haven't taken the time to jot them down. I may regret that later, but for now I have to concentrate on the paper. urgh.

Neil Gaiman on writing:
"This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it's done. It's that easy, and that hard."

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning,and took out a comma. in the afternoon I put it back again.
--Oscar Wilde

In lieu of real content, I will post quotes about writing, one a day until I have something else to say.

"Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you'rea writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, withoutpity, and destroy most of it."
-Colette, writer (1873-1954)