Skip to content

Posts tagged writing

The Devil of Westhope-Fairview

The Devil of Westhope-Fairview published on No Comments on The Devil of Westhope-Fairview

DWFcover2small
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

NaNoWriMo is coming published on No Comments on NaNoWriMo is coming

2013-Participant-Facebook-Cover

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

Levi Levi commercial published on No Comments on 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

Little rhymes published on No Comments on 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
I have to share it because I used the word eschewed.

Chronicles of Plastic Deer | Swoon Reads

Chronicles of Plastic Deer | Swoon Reads published on No Comments on Chronicles of Plastic Deer | Swoon Reads

swoon

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 covers published on No Comments on New covers

Peachtreecoversmall

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

Camp NaNoWriMo published on No Comments on 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

Time and Project Management Strategies for Librarians published on No Comments on Time and Project Management Strategies for Librarians

timeandprojectmanagementIt’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

Excerpt of Penelope Sea and Ocean End published on No Comments on 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.

Continue reading Excerpt of Penelope Sea and Ocean End

“Guerilla Open Access Manifesto”

“Guerilla Open Access Manifesto” published on No Comments on “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

National Novel Writing Month Spring Writing Marathon published on No Comments on 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

New Story: “Peachtree” on the Bean published on No Comments on 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

Cinema Somnambulist: Vampire Cheese published on No Comments on Cinema Somnambulist: Vampire Cheese

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

Little River Love Story | The LeEMS Bean published on No Comments on 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.

So what do you think?

So what do you think? published on No Comments on So what do you think?

Whenever I’ve been sitting at my desk I keep reading the first page or two of a fiction I had started a few years ago.  I really really like it – like in a, it’s impossible that I wrote this kind of way.  I’m so distracted by that stack of paper (printed for editing and refreshing so I will finish it), that I’m going to put some of it up here.  Here, a few paragraphs from the beginning of 800 square miles:

I was born George Allen Pasternack to middle class parents in what used to be a factory town in Ohio.  That’s how people begin their life stories, right?  I grew up at a normal pace, I went to school, I dated; I was poised to accept my nice clean Rockwellian future.  You get, from the past tense, that nothing ended up the way I had originally envisioned it?  What would be the beginning of my independent adult life and I’m concocting my autobiography to my mirror image.  Reflections of myself are all the faces I’ve seen for a few months now.  There are other people here, trying to live like they were used to, but we avoid each other.  Looking at each other means we have to face up to the fact (no pun intended) that something is changing within us.

Our town is one of many that have been quarantined in order to halt the progression of whatever we have among people further away from the impact site.  We don’t get doctors, other than the ones that already lived among us, and we don’t get information.  Most people stay in their houses all day watching TV programs that have been played over and over again by the only TV station we have left.  We’ve been relieved of the responsibilities of work for the most part.  We take turns doing the few jobs that require an insider, like keeping the library open and manning the grocery store for the days when we aren’t getting shipments from hazmat suited government truck drivers.  We keep the shades drawn and move about in shadows.  Our aversion to the sight of each other and ourselves is a little extreme, I think, considering how little our appearances have changed, but the changes make us different, and its hard to be afraid of something alien to you when its you that is alien.

Compared to some other people in town, I have it pretty great.  I live alone.  I can look at myself or not, and there is no one else in the house to remind me if I don’t want to think about it.  There is no one whose heart will break when I avoid them in the hallway on the way to the bathroom; no one to ruin my escapist moments and propel me into insanity.  Sometimes I wonder why we are fed so well and sometimes provided with more TV shows on disc to keep us amused and distracted.  It would be better to die in riots of hungry chaos then to spiral slowly through this darkness without knowing the only bits of information that I want to know most.  What’s happening to me?

Continue reading So what do you think?

Primary Sidebar