Pirate Name

I haven't been updating because I have been covering for Deb at work while she's on jury duty. I can't remember if we've talked about the fact that we work at the same place. We do. That's how we met. So I've been extra busy this week, which is fine. She did the right thing by serving. What it means is I just found out about the pirate names. Mine is:

Dread Pirate Rackham

Like the famous Dread Pirate Roberts, you have a keen head for how to make a profit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

I sort of like it.

Prompt of the Week

Listen to Neil, writing down any words or phrases that 'speak to you'. Then pick one as the start to your writing.

Unexpected Results

On Monday I thought that I would be lucky to get through 25 pages of revisions. I am well past that already. What happened? I wish I knew. I just seemed to get in the zone, and things started to flow. Fingers crossed that it continues. I'm always afraid that once I realize the writing is easy, it won't be any more.

Have you been able to identify what can put you in the zone? Or is it something different every time?

Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries

Deb asked me last week if I'd read Stardust yet. She loaned the book to me a while back. I had to admit that it's still sitting on the nightstand. I've been so focused on mysteries that I haven't picked up anything else. "That's what I thought," she said and handed me an interesting blue book titled, Murder Mysteries. When I opened it, I discovered that it's a comic book based on a Neil Gaiman short story. I think my lip curled at that point. "It's a quick read. Just try it." Deb can be pushy when she wants.

I read Murder Mysteries and was so impressed I finally picked up Stardust. I'm still impressed. I don't know if I have the time to tackle anything longer right now, but I will read more Neil Gaiman stories. Maybe I'll pick up a copy of one of his short story collections.

Author Self-Reference

Around page 75 of The Body in the Library, a young boy tells the chief inspector that he enjoys reading murder mysteries. The boy collects autographs of famous authors and starts listing them. One is Agatha Christie. While it made me smile, it broke the illusion and threw me out of the story for a second. I know other authors have done the same thing--Dante comes to mind, but that was part of the structure of The Divine Comedy.

How does an author do it successfully? Is the cleverness of an author referencing themselves worth the chance that the reader will be thrown out of the book and not pick it up again? Would it be easier if you were less well known?

Weekly Goals Check-in

My goal for the week was to finish marking up the beginning of HM and type it up. I did the marking, but not the typing. However, I did figure out a plausible way for the guys to figure out who did it and how to tighten the timeline to add more tension. Good stuff, so I'm not going to beat myself up over not typing the changes yet.

For this week, I'm going to start the retype, making both the timeline and subplot (marks) changes. As this will take longer than just adding the mark-ups, I will be very happy with twenty-five revised pages.

Prompt of the Week

Pick a historical character. Now pick a fictional character. Put them together in a story.

Process Improvement

A few years ago I worked at MCI/Worldcom. Back before The Big Layoff of 2002. I was part of group whose responsibility was to improve processes. Specifically invoicing processes, but we also were asked to help with many other kinds of processes.

Shane's very funny, and amazingly accurate, post did save a lot of time and effort for Deb and me. So, I will agree to write one article and see not only how much time it takes, but what impact it has on my other writing. Then I'll decide if I want to become a columnist.

Thanks for cutting to the chase, Shane! And for a good laugh yesterday.

Decisions

The other night at the rogue gathering, Deb asked me if I'd take over her column in the Pikes Peak Writers NewsMag. That's a nice offer, I am honored, but it's also something else to fill up time. I already have work, research, jewelry and the actual writing.

The column is called The Writer's Life and is about different issues a writer faces. Similar to what we talk about on our blogs. She said I could write about anything I want. They only publish every other month, so it might not be too time consuming.

I'll think about it.

Goals

Last months my goals were to write 25 pages of HM, finish the 1st Christie book and 2 more. And stay in the better place.

I have stayed in a better place and finished the first Christie book. I also started reading the 2nd one. And I came up with a couple cool subplots to enrich HM so I've been marking up the start to incorporate them before I go on.

Using Ali's weekly goal plan, this week I'd like to finish marking up the first bit and get it typed up. Doable, as Deb says.

Prompt of the Week

Start with this sentence: Two guys come in with guns.