Sometimes it's interesting to compare your different projects, no? I definitely see a few odd similarities. For example, why are all my short stories in first person pov at the moment, but my various novels-in-progress are in third?

Here's a sampling.

"The Snow Leopard"
We find their cave paintings still, and the images are always the same: the snow leopard, his teeth bared to the torchlight, picks out one from among the huddled crowd, while the others stand by and cover their eyes. 

"My First Pair of Red Gloves"
I bought a new pair of brown leather gloves each week--the same style and shade, of course--but it was never soon enough for me. 

THE GATES OF HORN AND IVORY (Cora Book 1)
Cora's nemesis, Selara, stood in the doorway with a wicked smile on her face.

SILK
Ray worked at the toll booth five days a week from three to ten, which is to say, he sat in the cash-only lane booth, eating Fritos, drumming his fingers on the counter, and listening to Led Zeppelin, in between accepting dollar bills and small collections of coins from surly vacationers. 
--

Care to share your own?

-London (with a real post to follow... promise :) )

Hello all,
FYI I'm keeping my short story listed in my memories under "short story" or "black pond," as a freebie, in case any of you are interested in reading it later on. 
In other news, I finally got my beach vacation! A real vacation, not a fake one. I have the sunburn to prove it, too. My lovely boyfriend and I ate lots of things, sat in little coffee shops, went on boat rides, went on a very long and pointless walk in an attempt to find a pretty place to walk, etc. We even spent a night drinking champagne and watching Harry Potter, lol.  It was very, very, very nice, but now I'm back, with an alarming realization: I'm starting my summer internship next week! That means packing, moving, unpacking, working, then packing, moving, and unpacking again. During this time I hope to finish revising Cora Book 1 and start the submissions process. You may still find me at summerwrite2, because, even though I'm not officially joining in the fun (insanity?), I will be working on Cora Book 2 and will need word wars in a serious way. Apart from that, I will be scarce.  

Cheers,

London

Hello all! Well, I'm done with my semester and very happy about it. Revising book one and getting in a lot of non-law-school reading. (Finally read Uglies! Yay!). I also wrote a short story for a a contest over at merry_fates. It's rated PG-13 and is an emo little fairy tale about puberty and other such things. The prompt is this lovely painting, Princess Tuvstarr by John Bauer. Comments & questions most welcome. :)


The Black Pond


I don't know why it has to be in the freaking buff. That's one of my main problems with witches: the constant nudity.

I tried to cover myself with my hair--long hair is one of the benefits to being Appointed as a female--but it wasn't working.

"Tuvstarr," intoned my aunt, Dagny. "Tomorrow is your day of the Poj. It is the day you become a woman. The day you become a leader among our people. Are you ready, child?"

I muttered the standard reply: "I'm ready, Wise Earth Mother," blah blah blah. I shifted in the stone chair. My naked butt was starting to go numb. I could have ignored that—I could have ignored all of it—if I were telling the truth to old Dagny. If I were ready to become a woman the very next day, all of this would be fine. I would be happy. Most people, as far as I could tell, were happy about their poj.

Aunt Dagny picked up the ceremonial knife and held it in front of her face. "Tuvstarr, tonight you must cleanse yourself, in preparation for your sacred journey."

I watched her warily as she advanced on me with the knife. (  . . .  )

In case any of you live under a rock, like me, I thought I'd share a couple of diversions that have been keeping me sane while I work on seemingly endless papers, mock trials, and exams. Yeah, probably everyone has known about both of these since "all your base are belong to us."  But, like I said, just in case...

1. If you haven't seen Twilight the Musical yet, watch it! Watch it now! The first episode is pretty slow, but the second is hilarious. I adore their take on Edward, especially his hair and his angry drawing.   Fear not, Twilight fans: While it is a parody, it is a gentle one. It's also surprisingly faithful to the text. I can't wait for the next episode, so in the meantime I have been obsessively checking their blog.

2. Next, everyone really has heard of the Eye of Argon, right? Somehow I found out about this glorious little gem only a few months ago. May I just say, it has improved my quality of life tremendously. I was reading an article about purple prose the other day and (while looking for my favorite example of [published] purple prose to show to my boyfriend--involving a lot of tropical birds) I stumbled across the MST3k version of the Eye (by a fan, not the show). This... seriously... this is *the funniest thing I have ever read.* I fell off my exercise ball. I cried. I threw up a little. Go forth & read it, as long as you are not in public.*

Now that I've brightened your day, I'm going back to studying. Only 5 1/2 more days, and then I'm done! :D


London



* We here in New England do not approve of showing merriment in public.

Not only do I need to write a paper and study for a final exam, but I was, as you may have noticed, sort of in the middle of a YA fantasy trilogy. Well, despite this, my brain has decided to plague me with not one, not two, but FIVE new novel ideas. They are clamoring around in there like a bunch of freaking Pomeranians.
That's right. Pomeranians. You know, like this:  


Only louder, and there's five of them.

My brain wants me to write:

• a sci-fi dystopia
• a gothic horror/romance
• a very strange sort of...er...series of vignettes, I guess? Whatever it is, it's extremely insistent.
• a novel based on a short story I've mentioned a couple times on this blog (which is why I should not write short stories... they all want to become novels)
• and a very silly time travel novel, because, you know, why not?

Three of these are based on dreams that I've had, and the other two are just... random. Random, I tell you.

That is all.


London

Sadly, my fake vacation plans did not work out well. I dropped a dresser drawer on my foot the day after I wrote my last post. I was basically couch-ridden (?) for three days. It was so hard to stand I couldn't even put my fake tanner on. *sigh*  Life is unfair.

In other, happier news, today I heard back about a very nice scholarship that I applied for, to help me with my 3L year. I submitted the application earlier this month, and I have made the first cut, hooray! Now I have to go in for an interview-type thing. I hope my nasty swollen foot is more aesthetically pleasing by then, because I'm going to go hog wild trying to look presentable for this interview. That's right... Not only will I change out of my penguin pajamas, I will put on shoes that are not sneakers, and, maybe, like... a skirt. With a button down. I could even wear my suit. (I do own a suit. It's a rite of passage for law students everywhere. As is immediately molding it to our bodies with fear-induced sweat.)

In even happier news.... uh... okay, I don't have any. But if you need cheering up, I suggest pandas.

That is all.

London

Well, it's my spring break. Sadly I am, as usual, too broke to go on vacation, and even sadly-er, I have to write a difficult and frequently infuriating paper about Liberia* over break, in addition to my usual pile of homework.
To console myself, I have bought:

• self-tanner lotion for body
• sparkly bronze face powder
• coconut body spray

Which I am combining with:

• coconut and passionfruit rum
• salsa music
• possibly more glitter

And here's why. As you have probably gleaned from my last post, I'm getting a little tired of wintry new england. It snowed, sleeted, hailed, and rained yesterday.  The end of all this nonsense is not as in sight as I would wish it to be. I'm also tired of the perpetual new england fasion, which is, for those of you who were unaware, permanently looking as though you're about to go for a trot around the paddock on your dappled grey: long hair in a ponytail, riding boots, leggings, a short pea coat, gloves, etc. It's a nice look, but I'm getting bored of it. I went to undergrad in Florida, and I still miss wild tacky colors, sundresses, bangles and flipflops. Anyway, in a nutshell, since I've moved back up north, I usually look like this:



Which is great and all**, but I'd love to be more along the lines of this, if only for a week or two:



Doesn't her tiny fake pool look awesome?

Off to get more glitter.... who's with me?

London



* It's supposed to be about the legal system in Liberia. But recently the Minister of Justice in Liberia decided to *copyright* the Liberian legal code and sell it for $5,000 a pop. The American Bar Association wants to rectify this by putting the laws online, but, sadly, to post Liberian laws online, you must get permission from.... you guessed it! The Minister of Justice.
** I actually adore Angelica Houston (and Morticia, for that matter).

Last week, while I was working on an infernally difficult case for clinic¹, I started another short story. It takes place in part on the subway, because that’s where I was spending a lot of my time, commuting from the law school to the downtown clinic office.

The protagonist, whose name is Katie, has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and some phobias, and possibly a few other things. In the story proper, we learn that she has a phobia of cars, but she also loathes germs, thanks to the OCD, which makes commuting extremely difficult for her. She’s also a lawyer²--a trusts and estates lawyer, which makes her attention to detail a Good Thing(tm).

I have read a lot of blog posts from fantasy/sci-fi novelists discussing the portrayal of disabilities in our genre. I agree that it is troubling to include physically disabled characters in our fiction *only* when we give that character some kind of special, magical trait/ability to “make up” for his or her disability. It seems much better to portray the character with a physical disability managing his disability in his daily life and living his life as his personality dictates, just like people do in the real world. He does *not* need magical powers to make him a “whole” person. Nor does he need them to defeat Ye Olde Evil-Doer.

My character, Katie, got me thinking. I know how I feel about writing about characters with physical disabilities. But I don’t know how this should translate (if at all) to writing about characters with psychological conditions. So, in Katie’s case, am I being a hypocrite by showing how my character benefits from her condition in her work (to the extent that she does)? Her condition certainly bleeds into her personality; and I am showing how she suffers because of her condition, too, as well as how she tries to cope with it. It is not giving her superpowers.

But writing about her still makes me sort of nervous. I’m not a psychologist by any stretch of the imagination. More to the point, I don’t have OCD. I don’t want to offend people who have OCD³ or who have loved ones with it. I am fascinated by psychology, think about it all the time, and try to understand the human mind. But my understanding of it is not perfect. Not even close.

Here’s the thing, though. Even though I don’t have OCD, I *really* relate to the condition. This character, Katie, is more like me than any of the other characters I have ever written.⁴ Even though she has OCD. For that matter, even though she is 40 and I’m 24, or even though she is a partner at a trusts and estates law firm, while I am a law student with aspirations to public service, and so on. We’re different, but if I met her in real life, I would feel like I understood her. Like we would “get” each other.

The conundrum reminds me of the controversial post from a few months back by E. Bear (matociquala ), although she was talking about the Other in sci-fi/fantasy in general, with a focus on race. If I relate to Katie, am I still writing about the Other, even though she has a psychological condition that I do not have? I can’t tell where the process of character-building turns into writing about the Other, especially where psychological conditions are concerned.

For that matter, now that I look at it, it seems like a lot of my characters could be diagnosed with some kind of psychological condition, if they had access to modern psychology. From compulsively stealing to severe depression, my characters are a troubled lot. If I tried to break the usual mold of my writing, consequently, I’d end up writing about someone relentlessly happy and suburbia-normal. (Now *that* sounds like the Other to me. :) )⁵

What do you lot think? Do you see commonalities in your characters? Do you write about the Other? What aspect of the Other do you write about? Where do psychological conditions fall into this mix?

--London

Edited to fix some wonky formatting... apologies... :)


..................................................

1. Since finished. Don’t worry.
2. My very first lawyer character.
3. Now, don’t get me wrong... you’re always going to offend somebody with your writing, even if you write about bougainvillea or bouillabaisse. But I am of the school of thought that you should offend *intentionally*--in the sense that you should know what you are saying (on the various levels through which it can be interpreted, not just the most obvious one to you) and you should believe what you’re saying, too. If I don’t know very much about mental illness, how can I know what I’m writing about on all these levels, and be certain that I believe in it? You see my conundrum. :)
4. Except maybe one, Ressy, who is from my Cora novels. Ressy opens up another can of worms for me as a writer. More on that some other time.
5. Frequent readers will notice that I have actually already done this, when I accidentally wrote a short story that was completely realist (no fantasy! wtf?!), from a man’s pov, and set in modern-day America. I broke my mold in every way with that story (except for the geeky obsession with ancient languages), and that includes writing about a relatively normal, well-adjusted guy. But I’ll admit it, even *he* wasn’t suburbia-normal. More like city-normal. Someday I’ll get around to writing about suburbia, promise....

I started book two of the Cora series today. I love the thrill of starting a new project. It's scary and exciting and daunting and awesome. :)

Weirdly enough, I finally came up with a title for this book today, too. Good thing, because I am now stressing about the title of the first book. I've been thinking about how to revise book one, and whether to connect the title to the plot more or leave it alone... or just change the title. Sigh.

What do you guys think? How close should a title be to the story? Do readers prefer the "aha! that's what the title means" moment, or is it better to use a title as an analogy that they can take or leave?


London

Have I mentioned how much I adore Zoe Keating? She is a very unusual cellist. She uses looping while she plays the cello in order to sound like a crazy fantastic techno orchestra all by herself. Very much worth checking out.

That is all.

London

I needed a little extra motivation to get up early and do my homework this morning, so I decided to read the business news for a few minutes. I like getting all riled up first thing on a Monday morning, and we all know how much there is to get riled up about these days.

But then I found this, which is making me grim, as opposed to riled: Interest Rate Drop Has Dire Results for Legal Aid. Apparently legal aid societies across the country -- including the ones in my own city -- are even worse off than I had thought. :That means some of the poorest people in our country won't be able to get help with the most basic services: like keeping their house from being foreclosed on (even if only while they find someplace else to go), making sure they have heat in this terrible 5 degree weather, getting unemployment benefits after being laid off, and so on.

Since I'm in a clinic I am basically working for a legal aid society this year (for free of course). I have been resisting taking on a new case because I'm feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work I have to do for journal and my classes and everything else. But that's really a poor excuse. Sorry, me, but it is. I have the ability to relieve my local legal aid society of a small piece of its heavy burden and help protect individuals belonging to some of our most vulnerable populations. If I do a good job on a housing case, I can make the difference between a warm, safe home for my future client, and homelessness. Worrying about my paper for journal really should not come into this equation. 

It's too easy to forget the importance of looking after one another when times get tough like this.

I finished my novel! Hooray! Strangely enough it came in at 89,900 words (I had predicted 90,000).

First I finished all of the revisions I needed to do, and then I wrote three chapters (and expanded on a few others), which means I ended up writing about 10,000 words this week.** Glorious! It was a great feeling to finally type THE END!!1!!!!.

Of course we'll see how high my spirits are after I show it to a few people. Hah. (Speaking of which, I could use some beta readers if anyone out there is interested/knows somebody!)  But for now, I'm going to bask in my sense of accomplishment... and eat more Christmas cookies.

Happy holidays all!

London


** I promise I wasn't entirely antisocial over the holidays, though. No more so than usual. ;)

I'm doing my part to help out our sagging publishing industry. Here's a list of what I'm getting my sister for her birthday (Dec. 6):

• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• Devilish by Maureen Johnson
• Lament by Maggie Stiefvater

And probably a few other books and some other stuff. :) My sister and I, as this list makes obvious, have the same taste in books. But unlike me she does not obsessively follow writers' and agents' and publishers' blogs, so she relies on me to clue her in to awesome new books. And I do. I love doing it. I wish I know more people that liked fantasy so I could go on excited tangents about books to them and buy them books for every possible occasion. Alas, I do not.

In case you're wondering, at the top of my own wishlist at the moment there is: The Hunger Games and How to Ditch Your Fairy.

Want. So. Bad.

I will be done with exams, papers, and hearings (for now) as of next Wednesday Dec. 10. I can't wait to make a bookstore/library run and catch up on more of the fiction I have been drooling over lately.  Incidentally, speaking of winter break, remember how I posted all these writing goals last time? While I was supposed to be writing a really, really awful paper, I accidentally completed a bunch of my revision goals. Nothing like having important work to do to make revision seem like fun.


Back to work,

London

The next three weeks are going to be insanely busy for me. I have to outline my paper on the Roma, outline for Evidence (and study for the final), write a paper for my Professional (Ir)responsibility class, and do a whole bunch of tedious stuff for clinic. Actual casework is still too new to be tedious for me, and too important, but we tend to do a lot of "mock" stuff (=pretend), like mock negotiations and so on. I have a hard time motivating myself to do those, even though I do understand why they are important.

As is typical of me when I'm extremely busy with law-related things, I have been thinking a lot about my book. I am so close to finishing Book One of my Cora series/trilogy (who knows, dear god, who knows). I have several revisions to make, a few scenes to add here and there, and about two or three chapters to write at the end of the novel. But I don't think any of these things will take that long. It's all clear in my mind now. I've been doing some (rather last minute, really) plotting and world-building, and I think it's all concrete enough where I should be able to write the scenes without worrying about the plot/world as much as I usually do.

That's my primary goal, then.  (I mean, apart from Christmas shopping, working extra hours, and writing my Roma paper. Lol.)  But I've also been thinking a lot about the next two-three books. My worldbuilding so far is only enough to get me through Book One, because I tend to worldbuild as I write (which is a terrible idea, btw). But now that's slowing down my ability to plot the next few books as well as I would like. I have started filling out Patricia C. Wrede's Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions, which are strangely fun and so far quite helpful. I normally never write down my worldbuilding ideas--which means they tend to change a lot. I definitely need to fix that before I start writing the next books, or I will be kicking myself later on. (For that matter, I should write down notes about my characters, too, at some point. I never do that, either. I only ever write down my plots, such as they are--usually only a few pages. For the moment, it doesn't matter much because I can see all of my characters vividly in my mind--but I have *so* many characters in this series I'm worried that could change very soon.)

Finally, I was thinking I should submit some of my short stories. I definitely have some phobias about sharing my work, calling my work "finished", etc. It never feels finished to me. But writing, like all art, is meant to be shared, as much as I enjoy doing it for my own sake.

Well, anyway, here's my list of goals for winter break. 

• Finish Book One. 
  • Revisions (especially chapters 1, 7, and 8).
  • Add a few more scenes (especially new chapter 9).
  • Write final 2-4 chapters.
• Fill out more of Wrede's Worldbuilding Qs.
• Submit a short story or two.

Anyone else working on their writing goals at the moment?
Back to my mock landlord-tenant negotiation now.

Cheers,
London

OMG YAY!

I never thought it would actually happen. I am in shock. Good shock. Wonderful shock.

Rock on, America!

Ahah, now this is why I came to law school.

( Gushing about how much I love writing papers )

In other happy news, last night my best friend, her boyfriend, and one of their friends came over for Halloween.  I was glad they came especially because my boyfriend is out of town this weekend and I didn't want to spend Halloween all alone. :( We walked around the city and made fun of all the ridiculous (and ridiculously slutty*) costumes, went bar-hopping, did some dancing, and had a lot of fun putting on  makeup.
I didn't want to spend money on a costume, so I dug through my closet and decided to create a samurai outfit. I wore silk tibetan pants and a short silk bathrobe with bell sleeves, and I put my hair up in an extremely silly-looking topknot. I also made a samurai sword out of:

1. a cereal box
2. card stock
3. rubber cement
4. lots and lots of scotch tape
5. a chopstick (for structural support)
6. black electrical tape (for the hilt)
7. aluminum foil (matte side up, for the blade)

London


ETA: Good luck to everyone starting NaNoWriMo today!! I'm jealous. :P



* That's what you get when you live near a college campus.

Normally I like my law school reading. But today I have to read dozens of pages about rape shield laws, which are good laws, and very important, don't get me wrong... but as you might imagine I have a really hard time reading about rape for hours on end. :(

On a lighter note (hmm), Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book comes out today. *I want.* omg. I don't want to sit here and read my unrelentingly depressing homework, I want to read a dark and twisted (and illustrated!) YA novel by one of my fave authors. >pout<

Speaking of things I'd rather be doing... I decided that buying ink for my stupid old printer is so expensive I'm better off buying a new printer entirely. I think I'm going to get one with a scanner & copier built in. That way, I can scan in some of my artwork, which would be fun. I really like the picture I drew of the main character in my novel, Cora... I actually sketched it one night after I'd come home from the bars... and in my somewhat, ahem, less inhibited state, I captured her expression perfectly... if I do say so myself... and, since she's my character, I do. I suppose you could say this would be the silver lining to getting no interviews: then I can afford to buy a printer sooner rather than later. Hah. Well, either way, hopefully I'll get one soon enough so I will be able to share even more random crap with LJ. Exciting, right?

And now, alas, I must go back to work.

-London