Magnum Opus

Krispy and I are beholden unto those who offered their comments and congratulations, for which you've our thanks. Nor shall we neglect requests to gaze upon the wondrous beauty that is our physical book, self-published courtesy of CreateSpace, complete with glossy color cover, black and white interior on white paper, and that CreateSpace-assigned ISBN our dear Krispy is so jazzed about. As if I'm not jazzed about it myself ~♪♫♪. (Also, I'm to blame for not posting this sooner—the physical copy of our book currently resides with me. I'm just a lazy bum when it comes to taking and posting pictures.)

Alas, but at the time of completion, my computer suffered a tragic, inexplicable, and sudden death, and so I lacked the tools with which to create a cover worthy of our masterpiece. (No Photoshop makes for a sad, sad Alz, because it is her number one choice for drawing and photo-editing.) Fortunately, CreateSpace did offer a range of moderately customizable cover templates, and so with a bit of fiddling and fooling and sending images back and forth, Krispy and I were able to put together a more than halfway decent cover.



Krispy's sister is a marvelous photographer and we were able to pillage her collection of holiday-ish photos and abscond with them for our own nefarious uses.



And here's the back, complete with author blurb and portrait (thank goodness I had a suitable image I could dig up that showcased our good sides).



...and a closeup of our ISBN and barcode.



What can I say of CreateSpace's quality? This is the second book I've printed with them and the quality is very, very good. The first book I tried came back with a strange faded stripe that ran the width of the cover as if it the machine had messed up while printing, but since it was a free proof copy just like this one, I can't complain.

Fortunately, A Story of Very Questionable Origin came out beautifully--glossy cover, beautiful colors, looks quite professional. The black and white interiors are printed on white paper (they also have a cream option which allows for more pages becuase of the thinner consistency of the paper, but I chose white for ASoVQO because it looked great on the first book) and the text is clean. Illustrations are also printed clearly.

CreateSpace is also nice because you can order however many you want, with options to either sell privately just to yourself, or to actually list it on Amazon for a fee. I quite like what I've seen so far and would recommend CreateSpace as a great venue if you want something approaching professional quality, for the sheer joy of holding a physical object in your hot little hands, a labor of love, of blood and sweat and tears, is quite gratifying.
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June Gloom

It's June! Weirdly enough, it is gloomy and sometimes threatens rain despite it being this time of year. I don't like that it seems like winter when it's supposed to be summer. What's this got to do with writing? Other than it putting a cramp in my mood, nothing really. I'm just popping in for an update and to take care of some belated business.

Firstly, Alz and I finished the Holiday Cookie! Yay! She already went into it a bit in the earlier post below, but it's kind of awesome. No, it's really awesome! Why? Because we have an effing ISBN NUMBER!!! Alz, being the Word Monster that she is, won Nanowrimo last year, and the reward was a coupon for createspace, which does self-publishing projects. Since she didn't want the coupon to go to waste AND because we had written this monster of a cookie for a friend, we thought it'd be cool to actually GIVE IT TO HER TO READ in BOOK form. It arrived in the mail last week, and it's kind of amazing. Mostly, I am psyched we have AN ISBN NUMBER.

Now may also be a good time to say that the title we settled on was "A Story of Very Questionable Origin" because I'm...not that creative and mostly because the story (if it can be called that) takes place in my Story of Questionable Origin storyverse.

Also, we have a back-cover synopsis now too, which I will now provide for those of you who are morbidly curious as to what this "cookie" Alz keeps talking about is.

The House of the Fallen is having a holiday dinner party. Who shall they invite? Why, their friends of course! Lady Lucia intends to throw a soiree to be remembered, and to make it extra memorable the guest list includes Crimson Imperator Banscray, Royal Knight Sincère Vrai, Lady Ciel Vrai, and Scarlet Kestrel Firalaer Firenight Phoenix; at the behest of Lord Lucianus, so too are invited Death herself—Lady Soleil Morana—and her companions Irihi and Vikenti; and Lucia's son Lucifer will, of course, be dragging his dear friend Michael into the familial holiday fray. Cross-dimensional travel presents no obstacle when there is the promise of fine food, fine wine, and even finer company.

Of course, this is the House of the Fallen. And what happens here stays here…

…or does it?

Secondly, the very sweet (despite her curious desire to bottle people) Danyelle at Carpe Mousa and Myth-takes awarded our blog with this very lovely award! She's so nice! I'm still so flattered, I don't know what to do with myself! So yay! Thanks!!! (And excuse me for taking so long to post this up!)



Oh also, HAPPY (June) BIRTHDAY to the cyber-twins Merc and David! And that's all for now! Read More......

Cookie Completion

Let this post stand as a testament to determination, literacy, contrivances, plot devices, randomness, creampuffs, and above all else, unmitigated genius—for last night, on the 27th of May of the year 2009, Krispy and I completed our first long term collaboration.

The Christmas Cookie is complete. It is baked. It is fragrant and delicious. There are further cosmetic plans for it currently underway, but the text itself stands alone as a monumental effort some six months in the making.

Final word count is ~105,000 words. It can be done. 80,000 is average novel length. We can do it. We did it. We are amazing. Yes, I am stroking our egos madly, but mostly I am impressed that we pulled so much off in such a short time span.

Collaboration works! It really, really does. I think that I'd been attempting to write this solo, it would have petered off any number of times, and gone in fits and starts, and eventually it would have trailed off while I moved on to something else and only came back a year later to work on another couple of pages before prancing off again. But the creative madness that ensued in playing page ping-pong with someone else served as sufficient motivational force to keep us writing on a regular basis, I think.

This is probably the most writing I've ever gotten out of Krispy on such a consistently regular day-to-day basis. Thank you, Krispy, and congratulations. KEEP IT UP. ♥♥♥ Read More......

Character Chats

So recently through the wonders of the internet (Twitter-hopping in this case), I made the acquaintance of the lovely Danyelle (aka Windsong) at Carpe Mousa. A few weeks ago, she started a fun exercise titled Character Chats, in which a prompt is posted for characters to respond to.

I tried one out this last week and my entry was one of the ones chosen to my surprise and delight! :) The prompt was about Obligations and Duty. So if you're interested in meeting one of my favorite angels or just joining in on the fun, pop on over to this Character Chat post at Carpe Mousa and check out the other entry from Yunaleska - about a princess who must make hard choices - while you're at it. Read More......

Slow-Baking

So our Holiday Cookie has been slow-baking in Krispy's oven for a while now. Amazingly enough, we managed an amazing three-four months of cookie-ing back and forth nearly everyday! This unprecedented streak of sheer genius produced a whopping 155 pages of dinnertime story—97,603 words so far. That's nearly 2x as much as Nanowrimo demands! To our dearly beloved friend to whom this cookie is dedicated: You shall be amazed when you read your severely belated Christmas present in its entirety.

Alas, but we have slowed down during April. Krispy has Real Life and I am supposed to be doing Real Life things too, soon. The ball is in her park though and though progress has been slow, it is being made. (Plus she's been working on other exciting writing! Which she has yet to share with me, be it added. *cough cough*) I think we both needed a break—breatherspace!—time to reflect and recuperate and rejuvenate, and at any rate, I think our cookie needs only a bit more time in the oven before it's ready to come out and cool while sending out delicious wafts of sweetness.

And—

Damn if Krispy hasn't posted just as I was writing this post! And more or less on the same topic. With some of the same terms and wording! Clearly we're on the same sort of wavelength.

Well, having read Krispy's post now, most of my random maunderings are redundant as she's already stated them so delightfully well down below. GO, KRISPY, GO!

I shall just add in my two cents. In my writing program, professors have encouraged me to take a break from writing for a while—told me to sit back and not write anything at all for a couple of weeks, except perhaps in a journal. They said it might help give me perspective and time to get re-energized and re-enthused about the material. They said that I just need to power over and through that (writers') block and then I would see the shining light at the end of the clear path beyond.

What I did not tell them was that I was not writing furiously every free hour of everyday like they seem to think I was doing—I work spastically, either in little fits and starts and drabbles, or enormous quantities of unexpected text all at once. (Cookie, mind you, is an exception for some reason. I think the energy of collaboration and the momentum cookie had gained over the weeks helped a lot. A lot.) Probably I should practice writing in a more regular manner, but, well, years of attempting to do so have only gotten me this far so far. Probably I just need more discipline.

At any rate, being in this so-magical writing program, I've learned several things:

1.) Nobody has the same process of writing.

2.) What works for one person might not work for another.

2a.) This includes everything from plotting a novel to actually writing to environment to, well, everything.

3.) Nevertheless, it's a good idea to try all suggestions to see if they work for you.

4.) But if they don't work, then they don't work. Don't force it.

5.) And don't let people force you into it either. This includes professors.

6.) This black sesame-flavored soymilk drink they sell down at the café in little cartons is actually pretty good.

Now seeing as Krispy is being so diligent as to post, bask in free time, and write, I can't let myself not compare to her and damn straight that's a double negative! I'm going to make good on what free time I've got right now and write too! Read More......

Krispy prefers not to get Burnt

Wow, it's been a while since the last post. I apologize since I was the one who specifically promised this wasn't going to be a once-a-month update sort of deal. Real Life has been throwing its fair share of curves at me of late, and sadly, much of my writing has spluttered to a halt (like my studying for certain dreaded standardized tests), which actually brings me to the topic of this post.

Getting burnt out.

We've all been there, whether it was working on a project until you never ever wanted to look at another keyboard again or cramming for finals during that one excruciating week between you and glorious, glorious summer. We come out of these situations, usually, exhausted and possibly zombified. I know I'm not exactly the brightest crayon in the box after a grueling all-nighter or three.

The stress is there in Real Life, Unreal Life, and yes, even in Imaginary Life. And lately, it's been all over, up and down, and inside outside everywhere in mine, and my confidence and my writing have been affected by it. After a particularly trying week or two, I came to realize as I started new habits and reassessed some things that I was burnt out in an encompassing, general way. I was too tired to write. I couldn't concentrate on studying. My kankles made a nasty reappearance, apparently an indication of my physical exhaustion.

In response, my brain (and muse) checked out and went on a break. What essentially started out as my bad habit of procrastination (eh, don't feel like writing tonight) turned out to be just what I needed. A break.

Yes, we have priorities and responsibilities. Yes, we make time for writing/working/sleeping/sports/exercising/watching-tv/etc. if those things are important to us. Yes, we shouldn't just drop a project because things are not going our way. But it's also okay to take time for ourselves, to take a step back and breathe. Man is not machine, and it is possible to work oneself into an early grave (see President Polk).

More importantly, taking a break lets your mind and body rejuvenate. It lets you take another look at things - see the forest and not just the trees, if you will - and rethink the situation. It also helps you cope with the stresses and writers' blocks of life.

The wise Ms. Inkblot had a post a while back about the importance of having fun, where she makes the point that letting go isn't just great for writing, it's great in general. It's essential for not getting burnt out.

Perhaps one of the best things I learned from my meditation class at Cal was "unstructured free-time." My instructor emphasized the importance of giving ourselves time in the day to do whatever we wanted, to have fun, to relax. She told us to write it into our schedules, to willfully set aside that time for unstructured free time.

So, why don't you pencil into your planners some unstructured free time for yourselves. I'm going to go bask in the present moment, and then I'm going to write. Read More......

Stories within Stories within Stories within...

I'm sure that there's some specific literary term for stories that contain stories/narratives that contain narratives, but despite my long literary history, I have mostly failed at term-retention except for "hubris" which was one of my every English teachers' favorite words since freshman year of high school.

Anyway, in our Holiday Cookie, Krispy and I have boldly set forth to accomplish exactly that! No, not hubris, of which I'm sure I've plenty and probably Krispy has a healthy portion because we both lead tragic, tragic lives that incite fear and loathing in many and hey, every hero needs a tragic flaw—nay, but stories within stories! The Holiday Cookie has become the nesting ground for separate little tales contained within the larger narrative.

Why? Because I bullied Krispy into doing so. Our characters are finally at the dinner table and dinnertime conversation has drifted towards tale-telling. Also, it's a midwinter feast, and the grand tradition of Christmastime/wintertime ghost stories is a long and celebrated one—although, well, there haven't been any ghosts in the stories so far. Except for Krispy's, which had zombies. Zombies count.

One Thousand and One Arabian Nights is, of course, the most iconic example of stories within stories. Some crazy-nut of a king discovers that his wife is a bitch unfaithful and has her put to death, and then decides that he's going to marry a new virgin every day and have her put to death the next morning. Ah, the benefits of kinghood. This goes on for an unspecified but very loooong time, until eventually the daughter of one of the king's closest advisors decides to volunteer her pretty neck for the chopping block.

Nay, says her father, who loves her and incidentally does not relish the prospect of her imminent decapitation.

But Scheherazade is as clever as she is pretty! She has a plan! And so her father reluctantly yields to her will and she marries the king. That night she tells the king a fascinating story—but when the sun rises, like Battlestar Galactica, 24, and Heroes, Scheherazade ends the story on a cliffhanger, and the king decides to put off her execution until the next morning so he can hear the rest of the story. This gives her ample opportunity to continue weaving the tail of each tale into the next tale, until lo and behold, 1001 nights have passed and the king decides his earlier decision to execute his wives the morning after is bunk, and he keeps Scheherazade as his queen and they live happily ever after. Hooray.

Alice in Wonderland is a slightly different example more along the lines of what Krispy and I are doing. The novel is a novel, not a story collection with an initial story acting as a frame for the individual tales within; in Alice, the little mad tales of the Wonderland folk tend to be incidental rather than integral to the main narrative.

I know I've read quite a few other stories which incorporated further stories within their structure but for the life of me I cannot remember authors or titles except for Jane Yolen, who wrote at least two such short stories: "The Five Points of Roguery" and "Dream Weaver."

The first story contains the three much shorter and fairly clever anecdotal stories regarding the titular five points of roguery, including "One: The Eye," "Two: The Hand," "Three: The Voice," and the framing story which contains the other two points. The frame is essential for the final punch line.

The second story contains a blind dream-weaving woman who, for a coin, weaves visions and stories for passersby. The stories she weaves are fairytales and folktales ranging from humorous to dark to touching. In order, they are "Brother Hart," "Man of Rock, Man of Stone," "The Tree's Wife," "The Cat Bride," "The Boy Who Sang for Death," "Princess Heart O'Stone," and "The Pot Child." In this case, the frame is a little less essential compared to the other story; the individual tales can stand alone fairly well. The frame, however, pitches the stories in a deliberate context and allows for commentary and insight via the characters who receive the woven dreams. I daresay the stories are richer for the framework around them.

In the Holiday Cookie, well, the stories (there are four of them so far, each told by a different character, although two of them are actually the same story, just from different points of view) are nonessential. They don't have to be there, I suppose. Krispy and I started this whole shebang with a pretty basic premise—what happens if we throw all these people together for a dinner party?—and have been exploring and exploiting the situation for all that we're worth. Our stories within stories serve two basic functions: dinnertime conversation and personal entertainment.

Actually, the entire Cookie is for personal entertainment, ours and others'.

Upon such fragile sheets are monstrosities of literary confection half-baked. Read More......