Life in a Northern Town

I'm keeping it simple this time. In 2012 I hereby resolve to:

• Revise the novel and start submitting it to agents.
• Start updating at least one (1) of my various Kismet projects as a webcomic (there are three of them that I'm currently working on - "Sun-Cutter", "Eidolon", and another of the short "Kismet City Limits" comics; whichever gets a good backlog of pages first is the one that gets the green light)
• Write another novel
• Get the Hunter's Moon book together
• Get the Freebird book together

*crosses fingers*

Incidentally, comments are turned off on this and the last post because I'm trying to cut down my Internet time. But happy New Year, everyone! I hope I'll be a little more active on this journal in 2012.

Projects? Projects! I have projects!

• I'm currently working on the second draft of an urban fantasy novel (two more in the series are already plotted out). I really think I might be able to get an agent to take a look at this one. I'll talk more about it soon, but I'm always kind of weird and superstitious when I'm working on a novel, as if saying anything about it will torpedo my ability to finish it. And I'm very much in "cling to the novel tightly" mode rather than "tell the world about it" mode right now. But soon?

• I'm working on Kismet again! The problem is ... er. I'd probably get a lot farther if I could settle down and work on just one Kismet story, but that doesn't seem to be what's happening.

The process went like this: first, I did a few more pages of Sun-Cutter, but I couldn't really get into it. Eventually I came to the conclusion that the reason why my enthusiasm is flagging isn't anything inherent in the story itself (which I quite like) but more that it's not dealing with my favorite set of characters (Fleetwood, et al). So I figured that I'd shelve it for a little while -- not forever -- and switch to a different story to get my Kismet enthusiasm back. So I switched to Kismet: Eidolon, which would have been the next project after Sun-Cutter anyway -- it picks up almost immediately where Hunter's Moon leaves off. I completed a few pages of that, and started to run into a wall caused by having plotted it out back sometime around 2001-2002. Things have changed since then! Most importantly, I've changed, and the plot that I had envisioned in 2002 no longer really works for me. (This doesn't mean the story is dead, by any means, just that some of the gender stuff in the story as originally plotted seems a bit icky to me now, and I'd like to fix it.)

So then I went, hmm. Perhaps I need to just shelve the long stories completely for a while, and do some of the shorter Kismet stories which have been rattling around in my brain for years. That way, I can get a good grasp on the characters and character dynamics, since I haven't worked with them in any great depth since I finished HM back in 2006. I started working on Memories of Snow, a story I've had in mind for ages that takes place some 13 years before the present day, with young Frank, Fleetwood and Colette. Now I have a few pages of that finished and ... here we are. *g* I was hoping to get this one done and ready to post in time for Christmas, since it takes place around Christmastime, but I have a lot of things to do between now and then, so I can't promise anything. Early 2012 is probably more realistic.

Kismet is a priority right now, though, so between the three projects currently underway, I'm bound and determined to get at least ONE Kismet series up and running in 2012.

(I know, we've all heard that before.)

• I've been involved with Torn World for a few months now - a shared-world fiction & art project spearheaded by ellenmillion. I've contributed some art (not a whole lot) and have been serving on the canon board (copy-editing, canon-editing and approving new stories/art) ... though admittedly I have been slacking somewhat kind of a lot lately, and need to get myself back in gear. Still, there is something really heady about being involved with a group of people all pulling together on a creative project, the same sort of free-floating creative energy that I get from being involved in fandom. And I'm having fun.

Mmmm ... and that's pretty much it, I think! How are all of you?

Um ... hi. *blows dust off journal* I haven't forgotten about this thing, I swear! And to prove it, here's my year-end roundup and goals for 2011. (Previous years' roundups and goals can be found at the year-end roundup tag). As usual, I'll first check in with last year's goals, and see how I did.

( How am I doing? )

Back soon with 2011's goals!

In lieu of actual, interesting, insightful content, which I seem to utterly fail at generating lately, I bring you this awesome bit of snark regarding the perennial requests that artists and designers get to "draw me this complicated thing for free!":

http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p.html

My short story The Dragon of Gettysburg appears in this month's dragon-themed issue of EMG-zine. (Due to violent/gory content, you'll need to register on the 'zine's website and then set "View Questionable Content" to "true" in order to read it.) "The Dragon of Gettysburg" is about 1000 words and, as well as being a stand-alone story, is also backstory for a character in the novel that I'm currently working on.

A teaser snippet, with a bit of the aforementioned gore:

( Snippet from 'The Dragon of Gettysburg' )

I also have a story called "Those Who Favor Fire" in the erotic e-anthology Like a Mask Removed: Volume 2 (superhero/supervillain-themed adult fiction). There's a list of places to buy it in the link, including Amazon (Kindle) and Fictionwise (multiple e-formats). (Notice that there are two books and my story is in the second volume, the supervillain one, with the red-and-black cover. The blue cover is the first volume and not the one with my story in it. Not that I'm trying to discourage anyone from buying the other one, of course!)

"Those Who Favor Fire" is about 3000 words long and features original superhero/supervillain characters (i.e. not specific ones from the Marvel or DC universes). A teaser snippet:

( Snippet from 'Those Who Favor Fire' (basically work-safe, though the story itself decidedly is not) )

I discovered a new store today: Home Grown Market. It's in that little strip-mall district on the corner of Airport and University, behind the strip mall with Quizno's and Subway. They carry locally grown meat and produce, sort of like the farmer's market but year-round. I picked up a fresh head of locally greenhouse-grown lettuce (FRESH PRODUCE, oh my gawd *noms*), some hamburger and a pint of Mat Maid ice cream. The meat prices are - understandably - more expensive than the cheap meat at Fred Meyer, but about comparable to their better-quality meat, it looks like.

Also, the trees on the drive into Fairbanks are starting to noticeably green up on the south-facing exposure above Chena Hot Springs Road. Isn't this really early for that? It's also raining right now, our first rain of the year (mmm, rain-smell), and that ought to bring out the green even more. Whee, spring!

If the theme of this novel-in-progress is loss, and moving forward after tragedy, is it too heavy-handed to name the town Farewell?

Probably.

Maybe Fairwell would be a little less obvious?

Lucky the fossil-hunting dog did himself proud today.

For those who don't know, our house is built on several acres of old mining tailings, which consist of gravel and rock dredged up from what used to be a dry riverbed covered with swamp muck. The gravel is full of partially mineralized Ice Age mammal bones, teeth, antlers, etc. Apparently to the dogs, they still smell like bones, and Lucky in particular is fond of hunting for them when we're out on walkies. (He does look a bit depressed when I ask him to hand them over, though.) Because of the dredging operations in this area, most of the bones have been broken to bits, and it's rare to find intact ones. The best ones he's found so far have been several intact bison horns, but this was pretty good:

( Check it! )

After some Googling and staring at large animal skeletons for a while, I decided it's probably a bison metacarpal - here's a bison skeleton and here's a closeup of the metacarpals that looks, if not exactly then at least quite similar to this bone. It's too thick and stumpy to belong to a deer or horse.

I was reading a blog post this morning that utterly encapsulates why I think copyright law is completely broken and why, as a creator, it scares the crap out of me: sometimes the status quo strikes back.

Basically, DiMartino and Konietzko don't own the series. They don't own the characters, they don't own the storyline, they don't own the character designs, they don't own jack. It was work for hire, and the proof is in the fact that Nickelodeon has the copyright (and the trademark) all over the place.

Furthermore, on the Tokyopop version, it at least lists DiMartino and Konietzko as creators. None of the rest even mention them at all -- and now we're onto the comicified version of the movie, which has whots-his-face's name plastered there at the top... and again, no mention of DiMartino and Konietzko.

Now, I haven't actually seen the Avatar series (though I really do want to fix that, because people tell me it's awesome!). But from all I've heard, the creators are incredibly invested in it, and the world-building is lush and gorgeous.

But, thanks to our fantastically broken copyright laws, the people who created and wrote it, who've poured their blood, sweat and tears into it, don't own it -- they have no say in what happens to it, they can't take the characters and make a sequel or spin-off, it isn't theirs.

( More nattering about copyright )

I keep meaning to write something in here, but really, it's just life, life and more life.

We had a wonderful time earlier this month visiting my husband's grandparents in Florida. His Grandma passed away a few days later; as much as it hurts to know that, I'm very glad that we were able to see her first.

We're starting to see tiny glimmerings of spring. There are patches of bare ground showing on the banks along the driveway. It's light 'til after 9 p.m. now ... a small taste of things to come. We had some depressingly chilly weather right after we got back from Florida -- nothing sucks the anticipation right out of spring like going from 70-degree weather to 0-degree weather. But Weather Underground claims it's supposed to get above freezing during the day for the upcoming week. Well, it has to warm up eventually.

I got my approval notice from the graduation office, so after seven more weeks of school, I'll have my long-deferred BA. I haven't decided yet if I want to take classes in the fall. Technically I'll have my degree, but I still get free tuition courtesy of Orion, and there are still a number of courses that look interesting. Maybe I'll just take one, to keep my hand in. As frustrated as I've occasionally gotten with some of the classes I've taken, I'm loving the feeling of learning new things and being exposed to new ideas. On the other hand, taking a year off to work on creative projects is awfully appealing ...

Speaking of creative matters, I think I might revise my creative targets to be more goal-oriented than word-count-oriented, because while yes, I've been pretty much keeping up with my word count goals (which is awesome!) I'm not really finishing anything. The word count/page count measure of progress works quite well to get from start to finish on a large project such as a novel, but otherwise, I think I might do better to focus more on finishing things (say, a short story a week) rather than trying to hit an arbitrary word count, which seems to result in me trying to make the target by writing bits and pieces all over the place. And I'm worried that it's becoming actively counterproductive when I'm working on short things -- well, okay, let's take this week: I've still got 3000 words (or so) to make my week's goals, so rather than picking up a short story that might just need a round of revisions and 500 words to finish, I'll try to find something, ANYTHING on which I can write 3000 words, even if I don't end up getting anywhere. That's not productive. It just means that I end up with dozens of half-finished projects that aren't ever going to be finished without hefty revisions ... revisions I'm not inclined to make because they don't count towards my word count goals. Yeaahhhhh.

So I guess my general plan from here to the end of the semester is to try to finish something short each week; then after the semester's over, I'll get a novel underway and go back to focusing on word counts. That sounds good.