Evening, Cantina. Hope everyone had a nice Sunday! All that I have to say will get said in response to the multiquote, so allow me to use this space to share this
One Man "Into the Woods" Medly video instead. I thought it was purty good, and when I showed it to my mom, she actually applauded at the end.
And also I found this cute thing with cats and books, and what could be better than that?
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/pets/advice/a21742/cats-who-read/
Two people were betas last year. This makes you honour-bound not to join in the guessing thread, but does mean you get to read a lot of the stories before the thread even opens. They were really helpful, and as a participant it was great knowing that you could approach someone and they wouldn't refuse to read, or you weren't hanging about waiting for someone to respond in the 'I need a reader' thread. Most of us couldn't approach people we normally would because they might have been writing for us and couldn't reciprocate.
Honestly, you write these things in such a rush, you don't want a 'professional' edit. You want someone to tell you that the MC had an unexplained sex-change in the middle of act 2, and now Michael is Michaela because you were typing so fast and didn't spot when you swapped from 'he' to 'she'. And the person who dropped the tranquiliser gun when the door sprang back in their face somehow managed to shoot the vampire chicken four paragraphs later because you forgot they dropped it (that actually happened to me two years ago). Simple stuff, forget professional, just stop me from making an idiot of myself.
Thanks for the clarification. I'll keep this in mind when I make my final decision. While this information makes me slightly more tempted to volunteer as a beta, it occurred to me as soon as I posted that SSFFSSS (*counts letters* *shrugs*) will be happening at the same time as me trying to make my goal of finishing my retelling by the end on the year sooo...I dunno. We'll see.
Also, good thoughts for your friend EFB. I hope she's ok.
Thank you. My friend was at church today and she was fine. She said she
was in Paris at the time of the attack, but she wasn't anywhere near the attack itself. She and her husband had wanted to see the Eiffel Tower one more time before they left, but after the attack happened they were like, "Forget that! We're leaving NOW!" and they caught first flight back to the U.S on Saturday morning. She said the airport back here at home was swarming with reporters who wanted to talk to the passengers since that plane literally was the first one to come back from Paris since the attack, but my friend and her husband just said, "Nope, not talking to you. It took two hours just to get through airport security and we're not waiting any longer to go home."
Don't let that detail stall you, make something up in the short run. Or, it could be gesture-based, so you only have to vaguely describe some movement of the hands.
I'm in the same boat with my current novel! I think I'm just going to avoid using words at all for the spell
Sooo, I was thinking about this during my ride home from church, generally staring out the window and lamenting my predicament, and I realized that I might be trying too hard on the scene with the spell in it. In fact, as much as I like it, I think I might not need the scene at all, and I should try starting my story somewhere else.
I usually like to show more than tell, hence the reason I had this scene, a short prologue of sorts, in the first place. I know some people hate prologues, but I've read plenty of books with them, and I've never had a problem with them. But in the case of this story, I think it will be best to "kill my darlings" by deleting the prologue, and just drop bits of the information I was going to have in it in strategic places through the rest of the story instead. This means I'm essentially starting the story all over again. *excessively dramatic, slightly annoyed sigh*
BTW: score one for me over Novella Dude. I did my research and got my terminology and period language right (more or less, first draft, after all). That puts me ahead in points. Yes, I'm being petty about it. No, I don't intend to stop. What's the fun of being a grown up if you can't act childish every once in a while?
ETA: I have no feeling in my fingers. They're too darned cold! Did my shopping run this afternoon, and have spent all evening chopping, portioning, freezing, and otherwise prepping foodstuffs for storage. Chopping up cold veggies makes my fingers feel both pruney AND frostbitten.
Have you tried fingerless gloves? I made myself a pair with
this free pattern and they are the best thing EVAH when my hands are cold but I still have stuff to do that requires my fingers, like typing. I'm wearing them right now.
I love it when the world starts coming together without any effort from you. Things just start falling into place.
I love that too.
Cantina, I am floundering. (geddit)
*groan*
ETA: My writing desk is an old computer desk and the top is cold. It's horrid to use on a cold day as it just sucks all teh warmth right out of my fingers. I am going to buy / make a tablecloth, because this is ridiculous.
See my response to Junely about the fingerless gloves.
