Category Archives: creative

crafty 2 Comments

Candle Redux

Just got done making a batch of Kahlua candles. Now the kitchen smells like coffee with a hint of chocolate. Mmm.

I really hate having multiple time-sensitive project ideas in my head, especially when I’m so under-motivated to actually *do* any of them. But… I’d really like to make a minor push for candle sales this holiday season. I have e-mail addresses for all of my former co-workers, and I know they like my candles, and I’d like to offer them some sort of deal — maybe a choice between free shipping and a tealight sampler pack or something.

Thing is, my candle website is horribly out of date, and needs a facelift and a new backend — um, that came out wrong. I mean, I need to redesign the site as well as make it database-driven instead of manually-updated. I need to photograph all the containers I have available, plus include other containers I can order online at a moment’s notice (these hex votives have been favorites of mine, for example).

That’s going to take some time, and I already have more vital things to tackle. Finding a job, retooling the LSM website (per the Board of Directors and Executive Director’s instructions), and NaNoWriMo, which isn’t so much an imperative as it is a personal goal/desire.

So, if I ultimately decide to do a sales push, and I don’t make time to get the website redone soon, it’ll have to be with some sort of catalog-style one-time thing. And I’ll have to hope that my former co-workers don’t get pissed at me for spamming them.

aikido, crafty, gaming, jobhunt 3 Comments

A Quickie

I pulled my groin in aikido on Saturday, while trying to roll. I’m getting annoyed with myself for not “getting” it yet. At least my leg seems to be on the fast track, and feels like it should be healed by Wednesday’s class. It really put a damper on the weekend’s other extra-curriculars, though.

This week, Monday through Thursday afternoons, I’m attending an outplacement workshop paid for by Sky/Huntington. I was dubious about its actual value, but it actually seems like it’s going to be helpful. Among some of the highlights will be resume-crafting, networking and job-searching, and negotiating a job offer. I’m actually looking forward to some of this… plus, it gets me out of the office for half a day.

Rob has requested another manly candle, to be picked up this week. In looking at my records, I realize I haven’t made any candles since February (which was the last time Rob requested a manly candle). Candle-making is definitely a seasonal thing for me, being that I don’t like to have the oven on in the summer, and my timing mojo gets thrown off if I melt candle wax in the microwave instead. Maybe I’ll have to ramp up the seasonal candle-making a little earlier this year, and be sure to give everyone at work a going-away candle with my name and URL on it. 🙂

Update, 11:45pm: Rob’s candle came out well. I used a blow dryer to even out the surface — I should have tried that long ago.

In other news, bumping up the difficulty in Civilization IV really makes a difference: from me beating all the computer players in Chieftain mode to me getting my ass kicked and barely making it to the end of the game with one city intact in Warlord mode. If it weren’t almost midnight (and if I weren’t gainfully employed and due at work at 8am), I’d start another game.

writing

Writer at Heart

Despite my assertion that I would get to bed early after a day of being exhausted for no good reason (except lack of sleep, I suppose), I’m still at my computer, twiddling with my “story.” Well, my most recent long and unfinished story, anyway. The one I worked on for NaNoWriMo 2005, I believe it was.

I’ve been listening to my backlogged episodes of I Should Be Writing, and have (unfortunately) started getting the writing bug again. I say this is unfortunate because I have a list of other creative and quasi-creative projects that are much higher on the priority list than fiction-writing. So, in lieu of getting wrapped up in my world of love-struck vampires (I really should read up and see how effing cheesy my premise is, compared to other valid plots within the genre), I went technical and decided to reformat the 16,000 words I have into standard manuscript format.

The last time I had touched my story was November 2, 2006 at 10:46pm. I’m sure I’d edited the wiki since then — jeez, maybe not. Only a few days later. Guess I really haven’t worked on this in quite a while. At any rate, going through and adding a pound sign in all the scene breaks allowed me to skim through the story and see things that jumped out either as ridiculous or as needing more detail.

My start of a manuscript was 35 pages before reformatting. Now, double-spaced in Courier font with one-inch margins, it’s 75 pages. I’m so used to seeing computer-generated type that looking at a layout that simulates the typewritten page seems odd and blocky.

Once I finish my laundry list of job-hunting-related and other website responsibilities, I have a good part of my story in my head, ready to go. I just need to type it out. And make it sound right. (Aye, there’s the rub.) I have my offline wiki “story bible” underway (thankfully — there’s a lot I can forget in a year), and I really, REALLY want to finish this story.

Remember, this is my second attempt at a potential novel or novella. My first “real” attempt at novel-length fiction is a good premise, but I’m afraid it’s going to need a complete rewrite, and I’m not even halfway through it yet, and I haven’t touched it in… *checks file* …wow. Almost three years. Main setting/plot points to that one: Matrix-esque Arthur-C-Clarkian headgear for direct information transfer, mobsters infiltrating the police, virtual crime and violence, a subplot of racism vs. cultural pride, and the requisite love interest. The trouble with that one is the setting, really. And all the crazy subplots. I want it to be something I would enjoy reading, but I don’t know how it all fits together yet. I want to jump into the future and read it and be entranced by the story, instead of having to figure out the story myself. You know?

One other thing I wanted to write here before I go crash out without making my lunch: I was listening to the Motivation to Move podcast the other day, and Scott Smith rattled off a quick but fascinating list of questions to ask yourself about a situation or decision you may be having trouble resolving. I thought these questions would also be great writing questions to determine character motivations and plot possibilities:

  1. What would happen if I did?
  2. What would happen if I didn’t?
  3. What wouldn’t happen if I did?
  4. What wouldn’t happen if I didn’t?

Seems bizarre and circular to just look at the questions, but think about what they really mean. You could use these for plot points, for character decisions, for all kinds of writing-related issues. Just wanted to throw those out there, so I’d remember them later.

And with that, my readers, I am going to sleep.

P.S. – Is it bad form to ask your First Reader to read your work-in-progress? I feel like I want feedback on where the story is going before it gets there, so I can rein it back and take it elsewhere if it’s getting dumb and cliché.