I've been doing something odd lately.  Something I don't often do.

Something that involves quality time on my own.

Something that probably isn't that productive, really.

If you guessed extreme crocheting in a deep-sea submarine, then you're only slightly wrong.  Although, honestly, sometimes I think it's more likely I'd be doing that than actually undertaking this activity.

It's writing.  I've been writing.  Actually writing.  More than this, I've been wanting to write and that is honestly something that hasn't happened much since university SUCKED MY WILL TO WRITE.

Last month, mostly thanks to LorF, I more than doubled my GYWO word count.  In fact, I think I might aim to do the same thing this month: double my word-count to date.  And I might actually be able to achieve it.

There are several things fuelling this sudden, inexplicable desire to write:

1. LorF
2. The freezing cold weather of freezing coldness
3. Google Documents

Yes, Google Documents.  For some reason.  I turned to Google Docs in desperation when my work decided to ban the upload of attachments to Gmail, as it's apparently the equivalent of worshipping the devil or something.  It kind of works, because it means I'm doing everything in Firefox.  So while this makes it easier to be distacted by the net when I'm writing, it conversely makes it easier to be distracted by writing when I'm on the net.

The logic behind this may not be entirely perfect, but I'm not going to question it too closely in case it gets scared and stops working as well as it currently is.

At present, I am writing LorF and I shall hereby furnish you with the first paragraph.  The episode has grown from a tiny seed of three words: Then Rowan sneezed.  Which has since been converted into present tense because... well, just because.

Then Rowan sneezes and I'm torn between saying “Bless you” and “What in the name of bloody hell did you do that for, you bloody idiot?”.  It’s a difficult choice and I hope never to be in a position where I have to make it ever again.

So I'm working on that.  At the moment, I am quietly confident about this episode's ability to confuse the hell out of everyone.  This makes me very happy indeed.

In other news, I have a couple of Dreamwidth invites which need to be distributed.  Please comment with your email if you'd like one and I shall send them your way.

When is a character a character and when is it, in fact, a chicken?  Watch this week's video to find out!



OK, I may have lied somewhat: it's entirely possible that the answer to my question is not found within the above video.

This week is our third writing week, as part of which we were required to discuss characters and character development.  I actually found it quite difficult, mostly because hash reality popped up and informed me that, hi, you don't think about character development at all.  My approach to it is all rather blasé - I just throw a bunch of people into a story and hope for the best.

Then get all cranky when some characters turn into jerks and others decide to take over the story when they were meant to stay discreetly in the background.

I mean, seriously, how difficult is it for characters to do as they're told?  They're essentially just words on a page... you'd think they'd have the decency to behave.  But no.  Oh no.  Instead, they insist on thinking they're alive in their own right and that they can boss me around.  That they can dictate the way the story should go, in defiance of all my plans.

The fact that they're usually always right is neither here nor there.

How does everyone else go about the business of developing characters?  Do you adopt a hope-for-the-best attitude like me, or do you go with something more practical and less prone to failure in interesting ways?

Also in news this week: I was awarded Best Juxtapostion in this week's best sentences at getyourwordsout.  (For those who aren't members of the comm and can't see the post, the sentence in question is: No more looking in the other direction and coughing in a genteel fashion in order to cover the unfortunate sound of bombs dropping.)  It's from last week's LorF.  Speaking of which, some LorFish characters are talking to me and I believe I should go off and pay attention to them.

The LorF revolution continues!  I know I already said that in my title, but I felt it bore repeating.  Viva!

It's such a lovely day outside, too; I should probably be out there in the backyard (while we still have it), sitting on the fresh green grass... and writing LorF.

First, however, I will have to dislodge the furry, cat-like thing that has seen fit to plant herself upon my lap.  Oh wait, she's just dislodged herself.  How very considerate of her.

LorF, my friends, continues unabated here.  It's in my every thought and every deed.  I eat, speak and breathe LorF.  And we have Plans.  None will escape said Plans.  So please, don't bother trying - you'll just wear yourself out and the LorF will find you anyway.

LorF even invaded my fivedotnerds video for this week.  Witness it for yourself:



I was wondering, though: would you non-LorFers like to know more about the whole business?  Do you have questions?  Such as, When are you going to shut up about this whole LorF thing?  If you do, please feel free to ask them.

It may turn out that I will have some for you in a few months' time...

OK, this could just be me being ridiculously lazy, but can I just shorten "LorF Revolution" to "LorFolution" and be done with it?

This shall be a week of LorF.  Thus I have decreed and thus it shall be.  This may, in some small degree, be inspired by spending the last two days with LorFers and by reading over the last few episodes I wrote for said project.

Monday, I said last night, you and I are going to sort out some priorities in my life.  Shortly after saying this, I realised I'd be needing focus to join the party at some point, as I'd probably be needing to direct towards some of said priorities in the near future.  And yet, LorF's already a priority, even before I've reached the pivotal point of actually listing some.  Or any.  Why?

Because it's writing.

Because I'm doing this whole GYWO thing and it would be kinda nice if my word count moved to five digits soon.

Because it's awesomely fun.

Because it's a project shared with likewise awesomely fun people.

Because, because, because.

In aid of that, this week's fivedotnerds video will be dedicated to LorF.  But before that, I shall be inflicting upon you some of my favourite recent passages and lines from my own LorF with you here.

For those of you who have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL THIS LORF THING IS, here's a precis of sorts: it's a collaborative writing project, shared by over twenty writers (although based around a core of seven).  We asked the question: if your country was invaded and taken over by a powerful, foreign force, would you choose to live under their rule or to fight for your freedom?  Essentially, life or freedom?  Or, for the sake of laziness, LorF.  We choose a character and write their story.  Sometimes, they cross over.  There's so much information and history and characters and events and locations that we need a wiki to hold it all together.

We have fun.  We blow things up.  We write cliffhangers.  We create irritating mysteries around our characters.  It's incredibly fun.

Unfortunately, things like study and full-time work like to get in the way of it, so it's fallen off a bit lately.  I intend to pick my bit up again.

In aid of this, I read over some of my recent entries last night and just wanted to share some of my favourite pieces with you all.

First we have what I guess I'll the one-liners:

The air was hot; full of smoke and yet empty at the same time.  Oxygen was busily writing notes to the postman and preparing to be absent for a little while.

I find a friend in darkness, says my mind, which is just great. Darkness, I feel like saying. It’s been so long.  What have you been up to?

But I don’t, because I can see how some people might construe that as the early signs of madness.

I love my brain.  I don't know what I'd do if I found out it was lying to me.

“I just suck at lighting fires,” I mutter.

Rowan says nothing to this.  After all, proof of this is sitting behind us, not burning brightly.

So, you're fleeing from a bushfire and you go to someone's aid... you're going to stall by irritating the guy nominally in charge, right?

Rowan’s coughs died to strangled splutters as we reached the body.  It was a man, his clothing covered in a fine dusting of ash.

“Roll him over,” Rowan said.

“What if his back’s broken?” I asked.  “Or his neck?  Shouldn’t we...”

“Shouldn’t we what?” Rowan demanded.  “Call triple 0?  Get the flying doctors in?  Do you think they’d reach us before the front does?”

“Gods you’re tetchy today.”

“Tetchy?  Who are you calling tetchy?”

“And now you’re just stalling for time.”

I shouldn’t do this, but I just can’t help it.  It’s so funny to prod at him this way.  One day he’s going to explode and I’ll either be laughing ’til my sides ache or regretting it dearly.

“Ryn.”

“Yes?”

“Please...  Let’s just roll him over before he dies of frustration.”

And sometimes, you drop massive, great big, neon-arrow-pointing-here hints that are subsequently overlooked completely:

“Why don’t you go to your parents’ place?  I thought you said AIRO told you it was still legally theirs.”

“They did.”  After several months or so, at least.  Never do anything quickly when you can drag it out as long as possible: that’s the AIRO motto.

“So?  I’m sure your parents would appreciate someone looking after it for them.”

“That’s why I came home in the first place,” I said.  The idea of my parents’ home, that they’d worked so hard on, being left vulnerable and open to those grasping bastards... How could I not go back for that?

Wait, that’s not quite right.  For a minute or so, I feel as though I’m sitting right next to a skittish memory that will startle and vanish if I move too quickly.  If I just turn slowly, like this...

I think my favourite episode to date is Don't You Know I Hate Him?.  I pretty much love all of it, but I'm just going to share the intro:

I really hate him.  I hate him more than sleeping in a tent.  I hate him more than eating the icky gristly bits of meat.  I hate him more than anything and the worst bit is that I know exactly why.

Because he reminds me of how lazy I am; how cowardly I can be about stupid things like spiders crawling over me at night or having to find the loo in the pitch-dark; how pampered my life really was before, although I never truly appreciated it.

And he has no right to do that, with his pointy black hair and his good aim with a rifle.  Curse him.

So he can drive the ute really quickly along ridiculously dangerous roads without killing anyone.  So what?  So he can keep his head when everything else is falling apart.  Well, what’s so great about that, Rowan bloody Connell?

“Hey.”

So he can sneak up on me and scare the living daylights out of me.  Is that anything to be proud of?  “Argh!”

“What are you doing out here, Ryn?”

“Sulking.”

“Oh good.  For a minute there, I was worried you were doing something un-productive.”

The re-reading was very handy, because it reminded me of three interesting things:

1. Rowan plays the piano.  Who knew?  Well, apparently I used to.


2. I have a red herring and I like it.


3. It's only when Ryn cries "I can't!" that Andy recognises her voice.  I have no idea why this is the case, but I think I'd like to work it out.

Of course, there are one or two other things planned for the week, but provided there is LorF in it, it shall be good.

If you're not a LorF reader and you'd like to be, please talk to us about it.  We need to make sure you're real before we subject you to our horrendous intiation ceremony.  You know the saying: What happens in LorF club...

First, before I get to the true point of this post, I would like to glare meaningfully at Vista.

*does so*

I do not like its overwhelming need to cache fail. Yes, you did decide to take away my wireless internet access for five minutes (for no good reason, I'd like to add). Yes, I was logged into msn at the time. But hey, the internet came back, so you can stop living in the past and LET ME LOG BACK IN.

Now that this unpleasantness is behind us, let's move on.

As promised, I abandoned the world of the internet for Canberra from the twenty-ninth of December until the fourth of January. 'Twas splendid. I met rigel_7 and emerald85 at Melbourne airport at an insanely early hour of the morning. After very little sleep, I might add. The bad thing about constantly staying up 'til one and two am is that it can be difficult to feel sleepy at midnight... even when you know you should really get more than five hours' sleep before going away.

And we were away on a jet plane to Canberra, where we were met by Dr. crazedturkey and got to play tetris with our luggage and her car boot again. Splendid fun! We headed off to ambush flippyfrog at her work and then meet the_kaytinator and bathmat for pancakes at Pancake Parlour. To which restaurant we are apparently not to return, according to the good bathmat. And rightly so, too, considering they simultaneously put up their prices and reduced their serving sizes.

But huzzah, for the LorFers were together again for the first time in a year! Much fun was had, along with many card games and so much cheating. So very much. You'd think flippyfrog would learn, but no. We could deal her as many cards as we liked for uno and she would never count them.

Flit: *fanning out cards* How many cards are we meant to have?
Me: *looking completely innocent, despite having dealt at least eleven cards to the Flitness* How many do you have?
Rigel: *attempting to stifle laughter*

Later...

Flit: *fans out eleven cards again, completely oblivious*

We quickly learnt never to leave the room whilst cards were being dealt, lest you end up with all of your good cards mysterioulsy kidnapped, leaving you with a hand full of rubbish.

Here, have some photographic proof that I was in Canberra:

That would be me in the bright pink, for some reason. I'm well and truly over my pink phase... and yet I'm still wearing the cursed colour. Only the one time, I swear!

(There's a rigel_7 in black next to me and in the front are emerald85, the_kaytinator, bathmat and flippfrog.)

ETA: Further proof! This one comes with a bonus parliament house in the background, just to prove it really was Canberra.



Many of us boarded the failboat in Canberra. Barely ten minutes would go by without a chorus of "FAILBOAT!" being directed at an unfortunate one of us. Often accompanied by singing. Actually, a great deal of things are accompanied by singing when we're together.

The main reason we were there was for the new years eve party, of course, since flippyfrog and emerald85 are insisting on leaving us in the belief that Europe will be more interesting than hanging around here. Poor, deluded ones. And the good crazedturkey is off to be a doctor in the middle of nowhere on top of that... so we had to say goodbye to them. It was a splendid party, accompanied by sneezing dogs and lots of beetles.

Random scene:
All: Waaah, it's only ten o' clock!
All LorFers except the good doctor: *dance like loons*
Em: *squishes a beetle while in bare feet*
All: *continue to dance like loons... whilst keeping a look-out for beetles*
Five minutes: *pass*
Time: *is now half past eleven*
Me: Well that went too quickly.

And the seven days went just as quickly. It seemed like we'd only just arrived and all of a sudden we were packing up and rigel_7 was kneeling bodily on her suitcase to squish it shut again. Fun was had by all, many museums and interesting places were visited and far too much time was spent crawling in and out of crazedturkey's adorable little car. You couldn't ask for more, really.

I really am.  But I’m also writing this entry.  Huzzah for multi-tasking!

Or prevaricating.

:D

Today, I wish to discuss writing, with reference to a particular story.  Last year, I started a serial called Holly Hughes.  If you follow that link, you’ll find it’s that most rare of serials: the serial with only one instalment.  Some might even say that renders it ineligible for the classification "serial"... and they’d be right.  I had great plans to update the story regularly and they all fell through, no doubt having a great time with all of those other, lost good intentions of mine who are living it up somewhere with plenty of company.

Over a year went by without any noticable updates at all until I received a review for the story last week.  This was beneficial in many ways, firstly because it reminded me the story actually existed.  Secondly because it reminded me that I quite liked the story and it could be fun to continue with it.  The only down side is that I appear to have forgotten a great deal of the plans I had for it.  Oh, I have notes.  Indeed I do.  I have a lovely list of characters, with some suggested scenes for the story in which they appear.  These notes comprise a grand two pages... if I change my page layout from A4 to letter.  I was positive I had more than that, but alas, it’s not the case.  (Or maybe I did and they ran off to party with all of my lost good intentions...)

So instead of the sheafs of helpful notes and future scenes I anticipated uncovering, I have a bare handful of notes written in an imaginative sort of creative short-hand that I foolishly expected myself to understand over a year later.

My favourite of these cryptic and terribly unhelpful notes would have to be this one:

An unholy army marches by, under Holly’s gaze.  (Themesong: Warriors from Lord of the Dance.)

Because, yes, I can definitely see an unholy army marching by to that song... but why the hell is there an unholy army in the story in the first place?  And why would Holly be watching said unholy army, marching by complete with unlikely musical accompaniment?

It was at this point that I began to suspect I'd be making up a lot of this story all over again.

I want to, though - I really want to.  Most of 2007 was spent in editing or in scrawling nonsense stories in a notebook; it'd be lovely to just sit down and write again.  I didn't mind that at all - I love editing and the nonsense stories were fun to write.  Yet it feels as though I've been away from any serious writing for a long time.  And Holly Hughes would be a great way to get back into that.  The main character has a lot of promise and there's a balance of humour and seriousness in the narrative that I quite enjoy.  The fact that the vast majority of my notes consists of a list of characters is encouraging, too.  Usually, my stories are very plot-driven; a story driven by characters would make a lovely change.  And they're such fascinating characters, too!  I can't wait to have a chance to write them.

I probably won't have much of a chance until after the fourth of January, though, because I'll be too busy having the time of my life with my fellow LorFers as of tomorrow morning!  If I were to say I were looking forward to this with a moderate amount of interest, then I'd be lying through my teeth.  I CANNOT WAIT!

*counts down the hours*

Before I go, I'd like to wish everyone a fantastic new year.  I hope 2008 is good to us all.

Make sure you take sunscreen to Anglesea, they said.

Bindi even gave me her blue goop of sunscreen treatment, just in case I was fried to a crisp.

I took a beach towel, Summery clothes, a hat.  For the love of lamentation, I took a hat!

Of course, it rained and was overcast and miserable and the only use I had for my beach towel was to wrap my bath towel in it on the way home.  I might add that the sun came out in a lovely blue sky for our trip home.  Just splendid.

Luckily, I didn’t mind the miserable weather too much as I was too busy having a fantastic time with six other LorFers in a beach house in Anglesea.  Our time in Canberra earlier this year already proved that we could spend a lot of time in close proximity with each other without restorting to any sort of violence and it was lovely to have this proven again.  And if we only lived in the same state, things would be a lot easier.  As it was, I enjoyed four days of card-playing, fangirling, prankmonkeying and plotting with (in alphabetical order), bathmat, crazedturkey, emerald85, flippyfrog, rigel_7 and the_kaytinator.  They’re all nuts.  In a good way.

I’m convinced the bed I was sleeping in sloped to one side.  You couldn’t tell just from looking at it, but it certainly felt it when I was lying in it, trying to sleep while desperately hoping for some half-decent weather the next day.

At one stage, I was shot in the head with a party-popper gun.  It was a very confusing experience.  One minute, I was sitting there with everyone else, watching Pride and Prejudice; the next, I was suddenly showered in sparkly stuff with a strange pain on my forehead and ringing in my ears.  Once I’d worked out what had happened, I found it hilarious and spent a lot of rather enjoyable minutes teasing the perpetrator, crazedturkey about it.  And as the_kaytinator said, it was quite difficult, because everyone wanted to laugh but they didn’t know if I’d actually been hurt or not.

On the second-last day, I suggested a trip to Erksine Falls which I almost thought was doomed from the outset.  It wasn’t raining... until we got out onto the Great Ocean Road.  We were able to spend an enjoyable ten minutes or so, laughing at the stationary line of traffic headed in the opposite direction.  Of course, we realised we’d be in the same predicament upon our return, so we figured we’d better laugh and mock while we still could.

The rain got heavier.

Then there was some mist thrown in for good measure.

And when we reached the turn-off for Erskine Falls, it had been blocked - or so it appeared.  We eventually worked out that the people directing traffic for the Falls Festival down the road had put markers in a really stupid place, leaving us to believe we weren’t able to visit the falls.  But we were and I have the photographs to prove it!

( The stairs to the look-out )

( Erskine Falls )

( The River )

And, at no extra cost, ( Cliffs at Airey’s Inlet )

All in all, it was a splendid trip and even though we missed new year’s by fifteen minutes (due to a slow clock), we didn’t mind at all.  Now we just need to wait for another six months until we can meet up again.