I spent a night this week clearing out and organizing my stationary. I’m still not totally happy with it (it’s in three different containers/locations), but at least I know what’s where. More importantly, I am now prepared to spend the month writing letters. Marianne Kirby’s post To Get A Letter, Send A Letter; Where To Find A Pen Pal | xoJane reminded me that I have/had a pen pal of sorts and just maybe I could revive our relationship. It also got me thinking that I see a lot less of my friends than I used to and would like to, and that I love receiving mail that isn’t junk and bills, and that it would be nice to give a little of that joy to others. Maybe even I’ll get some in return. Yeah, so I’m writing letters this month and I’m not going to stop when the month is over. What are you doing? I’m also gonna try out some of the letter exchange web sites Marianne mentioned.
Posts tagged writing
The Devil of Westhope-Fairview
I am not doing my best at writing today, so I made a cover for my Nanowrimo novel instead. I present: The Devil of Westhope-Fairview.
Westhope and Fairview were each very small towns in the same valley in Wyoming, recently relocated so that the valley could serve as a water reservoir. To save money and labor the two towns were combined into one not far from the shores of the reservoir. All of the townsfolk are settling into their new, factory shiny, homes, and the local government is gearing up for an election season to trim the duplication of town officials.
Charley Albright, formerly of Fairview, thinks one of the mayoral candidates, the Westhope attorney Hilary Beedle, is the antichrist. Charley has made it his mission to stop Beedle at all costs, to save the town and all the world.
NaNoWriMo is coming
And I am all set for it. I’m ready and waiting. I know what I’m going to write: a novel idea I had brewing but didn’t allow myself to do much more than jot down ideas ’cause I had too many other stories to finish. It is The Devil of Westhope-Fairview, and it’s going to be awesome! Come write with me in November.
Levi Levi commercial
Okay, so I made a commercial for Levi Levi Chapter One. And I am only hesitant and a little embarrassed because I don’t hear my recorded voice very often.
I am also planning on making a commercial for Chronicles of Plastic Deer, because that’s what people do now a days–make commercials for books and all. And because no one has read it yet and it’s my responsibility as the writer and web master to advertize. And because I had all these drawings of the characters and nothing to do with them…
Little rhymes
Hey, I found this thing I did in my Evernote:
Solomon Schmidt was a solemn little boy
With a compulsive obsession for mathematics lessons
He eschewed any game and denied any toy
In favor of savoring divisors of seven
With a compulsive obsession for mathematics lessons
He eschewed any game and denied any toy
In favor of savoring divisors of seven
I have to share it because I used the word eschewed.
Chronicles of Plastic Deer | Swoon Reads
My homage to the teen romances of my youth, Chronicles of Plastic Deer, is now on Swoon Reads. Swoon Reads is new publisher site to harvest crowd rating and feedback on a book in order to determine whether or not it should be published. So…kind of like a publisher’s own fiction board.
It solves two problems of mine: not know where to put the full text of my book and getting involved in a community of like minded creators (which I’ve been told I need to do).
New covers
New story/book covers have been added for “Peachtree” and Intervening Variable. I’m working on Intervening Variable now in the hopes of finishing it once and for all. Next on the list was my sci-fi 800 Square Miles. Is it bad that I have already begun brainstorming for two new novels besides?
Now that moving is done, perhaps I can knock out some old writing in order to pull out something new for November NaNoWriMo. How have I been doing at camp, you ask? Horrible, so far. I guess it was really too soon to jump into a month long creative commitment when I still had boxes and clean-out projects to tackle.
Camp NaNoWriMo
How could I miss this? No, scratch that, I have been too checked out to make a decent attempt at November’s NaNoWriMo to have paid attention to another opportunity to write together/separately with a host of like-minded story tellers, even if I do love it. For two years now, I have missed this and I will miss it no more!
I will go to Camp NaNoWriMo and I will write in July. And it is not daunting, you lot, ’cause each writer gets to choose her own word limit, and you can work on a preexisting project if you want.
And you can commiserate with me at my profile: http://www.campnanowrimo.org/campers/leems. Only I don’t know if I’m going to try something new or finish something old. I should probably finish something old, but which one: Intervening Variable or 800 Square Miles? And how many words should I shoot for? 800 Square Miles could probably use another 50,000 since the first 50,000 left the action smack in the middle of my idea.
And give! Camp NaNoWriMo is another opportunity to support the good work of the Office of Letters and Light, encouraging creativity in young and old.
Time and Project Management Strategies for Librarians
It’s still not available for purchase, but see there? In the Amazon preview? There I am at chapter four! In: Time and Project Management Strategies for Librarians: Carol Smallwood, Jason Kuhl, Lisa Fraser: 9780810890527: Amazon.com: Books.
Excerpt of Penelope Sea and Ocean End
I’ve talked about it, and I have constantly deflected questions and nagging from a friend who thinks it is good and I ‘need to get off my butt and edit it already.’ Penelope Sea and Ocean End is the first book I ever wrote. It’s not even 20,000 words – which is hilarious in light of my NaNoWriMo endeavors.
Well, I can finally say that I have edited it. Just finished. And I have tackled all the things about it that I didn’t like and that had kept me from editing for so long because I thought it was going to be difficult. Silly me.
I want to say ‘project done.’ It feels good. I get to cross something off a list now and go on to finish another unfinished manuscript.
I’ve also been given the order to shop it around to publishers, so I guess I’m going to try that. If I should fail, you can be assured that I’ll just end up posting the entirety right here, like I do with my comic submissions. Until that day, I’ll give you Chapter One.
PENELOPE SEA AND OCEAN END
Chapter 1
Penelope Sea sat alone at the end of a lunch table in the cafeteria of her new elementary school. She hadn’t made any friends yet. She didn’t want to make new friends She wanted to be with her old friends, in her old school, in her old town. All the children here looked at her funny, and the food that the pink-haired lunch lady served didn’t taste right. Although she had only been enrolled in Dolphin Elementary for one week, Penelope decided she definitely did not like it here.
The only thing Penelope did like about having moved towns, moved houses, and moved schools was her very own personal house key. She wore it on a shiny silver chain around her neck. Penelope was only eight. She thought she was special because after school she got to stay at home while her parents worked.
“Guerilla Open Access Manifesto”
If you are in academia you are probably at least aware of the growing Open Access movement. I think of it basically as Creative Commons for scholars, and this doesn’t really mesh well with the pre-existing publishing model that scholars and academics have been using for ages. The Internet Archive has full text of the “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto”. It’s short and sweet and strong and well thought.
"Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves."
National Novel Writing Month Spring Writing Marathon
I’ve trumpeted National Novel Writing Month a ton on this here blog. I have enjoyed every year I have participated. Not only have they created an environment of encouragement and commiseration for people who may have never ventured into writing otherwise (my Mother), but they do great things to encourage youth to write as well! We all have stories and NaNoWriMo helps us tell them.
Ok, that was way thoughtful and somber – point is Yay! I don’t have to wait for November to embrace that feeling again. For the first time ever there will be a National Novel Writing Month Spring Writing Marathon on April 13th. Your marathon can be editing, writing fresh, continuing a story, anything. Just pledge what you can, ’cause you want to support the awesome stuff NaNoWriMo does, and then hunker down on the 13th and write write write! I did and will.
New Story: “Peachtree” on the Bean
Another story that I had been sitting on is up on the Bean, only not completely sitting. I printed up some copies of “Peachtree” one year for Christmas and bound them and made cloth covers and gave them away. I didn’t manage to make one for my own shelves, though. I’ll have to fix that. So now ya’ll can read it too. “Peachtree” is a story about another town in Ocean End. Have you noticed a theme by now? After writing Penelope Sea and Ocean End, I got to thinking about the environment, and I got to reading more Carl Sandburg, and then I got to writing about the non Penelope Sea bits of Ocean End. I should probably write more. I might even just do that.
Cinema Somnambulist: Vampire Cheese
That wife that Richard of DM is talking about is me. Yes, I am that LeEtta, and I wrote an article for doomedmoviethon, that Richard just talked about on the Cinema Somnambulist, and it is: Vampire Cheese Board.
Little River Love Story | The LeEMS Bean
Here is a valentine’s gift for you. I write stories. I know I talked about it before, but I haven’t really shared any of them. And I am testing a new post-type thingy on the Bean. Here is Little River Love Story on The LeEMS Bean. Only terribly influenced by Carl Sandberg’s Rutabaga Stories, and sitting around in my computer for years. Hope you enjoy.