oops, I did it *again*!

Forgot to post... or wanted to post, but got so waylaid and weighed down by 'stuff' that when it came to it I just didn't have the psychological energy to communicate...

Ack, 'stuff'... so much of it at the moment, and at just the wrong time. I want to be pushing ahead with Buddies, and striking while the iron is hot with one or two other projects/ideas, but always these complications of various sorts get in the way and take huge chunks of my time and mental pep. My brain has never been the kind that can multi task and compartmentalise, so if there's crap in there to do with one thing, it knacks up just about everything else as well. I just seem to be in one of those phases where everything seems to come with extra complications... something must be in retrograde or whatnot... I can't think of any other explanation.

I want to write, and when I do get a clear run, and find my writing heart, I can see inklings of ways to make Buddies work. But then a whole bunch of other 'stuff' will pile on in and I'm muddled again... eg. this morning, got a bill from an email service that's been cancelled, so have to sort that out. Then, upgraded Omnidrive and it stopped working and stalled my computer... nice. Great upgrade there. Not. Oh, and a zillion other things too... Got a new accounts program, and though I'm sure it'll be fun to use and work well when I'm used to it, it's gonna require time to learn and adjust to... [Thanks, you gits at Quicken for discontinuing your program in the UK... I'm sure I'm not the only one you've right royally f***ed up!!! I hate you bastards!]

And I need to develop some more book ideas. My agent would like to see a couple of more proposals from me, based on some v. flimsy ideas I sent to her a while back. But nothing exists of them but a paragraph or two, and suddenly I need to build two whole 'worlds' and completely rewire one of the plots to make it romantic, and give the other one a whole other, non romantic plot and conflict to make it viable.... Waahhh!!!!!!!!! Me brain hurts! I'm having enough trouble with Buddies... Think I'm really, really gonna have to finish the first draft of that before I launch into these other things... I really don't know how writers who juggle several projects at once, at different stages of development, do it! I've only room, really, for one set of story people in my head at once... otherwise it gets like a scene from Heironymous Bosch in there [many apologies for the spelling of that famous artist's name, I'm just wildly guessing...]

And I haven't done my static cycling yet, either! And I say again... Waahhh!!!!

--
Telly: some crap about cooking
Chocolate: Tesco Belgian Milk
Mood: hysterically aggravated and frustrated by 'stuff'
Writing: wot be that, I ask?
Reading: annoying post
RSI: so so

oops, I missed a day...

Sorry about that, folks... I meant to post. But it just didn't happen due to a combination of lots of web work to do, and not feeling too fab, due to a mild migraine... pah! And fretting, I suppose, about Buddies, which I still don't feel at all confident about, despite my supposed breakthrough thingoid.

I just have this feeling it should be darker, edgier, more innovative or summink... And it's not. It's just the usual PDC style, with a bit of vampirism thrown in... and thrown in v. haphazardly because I don't ****ing well know what I'm doing! It still feels like a mess and a hodge podge and even though I sort of start to like it while I'm working on it, I dislike it intensely when I'm not. It veers between between being a plotless wonder, and something that has far too much backstory and whatnot to ever work as short 25K piece... I suppose I got over confident, with IllMet having come together so well and fitted nicely into the wordlength, not really needing much backstory at all... I was spoilt with that one, which really wrote itself in places... and I just assumed I could do the same thing with this one-liner idea I had for a vamp book! Silly me!

Am going to have to stop now as Tilly has just arrived and is attacking me in order to encourage me to feed him! I may return later...

I made another purty thing!

Ah hah! Is this the sound of a breakthrough?

Despite getting slightly embroiled in 'stuff' again today, I've been working on Buddies Don't Bite again today, and I think I might just have made a breakthrough... sort of...

I managed to put my finger on what the main problem with it was/is. Which is that in the first version, the heroine was a moron! Not surprising, really, as most of my heroines are based on aspects of me... They're almost guaranteed to be flakey, childish, self-centred nitwits with enormous chips on their shoulders! Fortunately, though, with these fictional me's it's possible to edit them and make them finer and more likable... even if it's a bit late now to change the woeful character traits of 'the real thing'! LOL

In BDB, Teresa started out as a whingeing wimp, but now she's becoming more philosophical, and wry, and self aware... Which I'm liking. She feels more 'right'... and now I think I've got to tweak [ooeerr missis] Zack a bit too, and bring him more into line with the new feel of the book.

And yes, revising and reading this afternoon, it felt much more like a 'Buddies Don't Bite' book. It's not a laugh out loud funny thing, but I think there's a very subtly humorous tone that might fit with that title. I think I may stick with it for the time being, but give myself permission to change it if I feel I need to...
--
Telly: Phantom of the Opera - movie
Chocolate: various
Mood: better
Writing: editing Buddies
Reading: Thunderball
RSI: slightly sore, not too bad

funny business...

Now, this vamp thing I'm supposed to be writing was in my mind first as a 'funny' vamp story... sort of lots of cute humour, not exactly Buffy style, but definitely a bit of a bloodsucking giggle. Needless to say, though, the best laid plans of mice and third rate authors never run true to course, and as I'm attempting to write it [hah!] it just doesn't seem to be turning out cute and funny at all... well, not very. [not that very much of it *is* turning out... this has got to be the slowest and most agonising production of mine so far!]

Thing is, I can't be funny to order. If I try to be funny, it comes out frivolous at best and clunky at worst [I've recently been told this... so it's the actual truth...] I *can* be funny, on occasion, but only when I'm completely not thinking about it and I'm in touch with my inner comedienne on a subconscious level. Otherwise, embarrassing, embarrassing, embarrassing...

So, need to rethink the tone of Buddies Don't Bite... And I'm wondering if a change of title might help... BDB suggests the lighthearted approach... maybe I need something just a tad more angsty? It's not going to be a total doom and gloom jobbie, and there may even be some wit and irony if I can get with the programme, but I've definitely got to go back and look at things again...

Any suggestions for a title? It's about a girl whose friend is a vampire, but she doesn't know it! But when they get to be more than friends, the truth sprouts fangs...

In other news, I've wasted most of the day again... on stuff. Fiddling with my Google Calendar and with Omnidrive, and uploading a new and extremely pink 'look' for my PortiaDaCosta.com web site. I really don't know what the hell got into me with the latter... I've gone pink crazy, what with my MySpace too... It's not as if I'm particularly the pink and feminine type, as anyone who's met me will attest... Just one of yet another of my current mental aberrations, I think... I'm probably just going completely dotty in my old age!

--
Telly: new LOCI... swoon... thanks Eliza!!!
Chocolate: Lindt and one of those green triangle things
Mood: fed up with own procrastination
Writing: not a f***ing thing today... again...
Reading: Thunderball - Ian Fleming... slowly, but at least I'm reading something!
RSI: bit sore...

my name is Wendy and I'm a writing avoider

I haven't done a bloody thing at my WIP for a week! Isn't that terrible? And it wouldn't be so bad if I had something else to show for it... but I don't really have all that much. I did some web work for clients, which was productive, and so much more fun now I have Dreamweaver on my lappie, and I did finally start work on bringing my '06 accounts up to date [agh, working on the old PC is a nightmare now... much more RSI from that than there is from dear old lappie!] but not a lot other than that, apart from fashioning a few home made book banners with newly installed Photoshop... oh, and of course, my MySpace redesign [out of necessity] and time spent exploring and refinding as many of my old friends as I can [again, out of necessity]. All that has disconnected me from writing, big style...

And I'm not sure today will be all that great for a big new productivity push either. Himself has some domestic reorganisation in mind, and yours truly will have to be involved in that whether she likes it or not... and once I've spent any length of time lugging around boxes, books, papers etc etc, writing is the last thing I feel like doing! Lying around watching the telly... or just vegetating like a zombie will be all I'm fit for...

But tomorrow... ah, tomorrow... I will do better!

Famous last words... ;)

look wot I made!

Isn't it pweddy?

Click on it to find out more....

In news other than me going bonkers!

Gawd, what a strange day yesterday... and this morning, a bit, too. So many things to be wrangled with... Enjoyed working on some websites though, now that I have Dreamweaver on the lappie... Makes things so much easier and faster! So that's something... But some of the other stuff.... eek!

Some progress on the MySpace front. Have already got nearly 100 friends... people seem very glad to get me back, and I'm pleased with my pretty new design!

Portia's MySpace

In other news... some very, very good news that I've been meaning to post for a few days!

Two bloggers have named me amongst their top reading finds for 2006!

One is Regency Author and Blogger Janet Mullany, posting at the Risky Regencies Blog and the other is reader and reviewer Rosario posting in her Reading Journal... To say I'm thrilled by these mentions is putting it mildly! I'm all of a flutter with excitement!

[And many thanks to Alison Kent for pointing me in the direction of the last one...]

I also discovered I'd got a couple of trackbacks from the excerpt from Continuum I just posted! One is from author Anais Nohant, who is a great friend of mine from MySpace and wonderfully supportive of my writing, and another is from Kevin Steel, a Canadian writer whose name I've inadvertently given to the hero of Continuum! I was most surprised to read Kevin's blogpost, but I found it really entertaining... He says he's not going to read Continuum, but I hope that he'll relent and give it a try some day... His namesake does have a lot of fun!!!

Aaaagghh!

Agh! I was going to write today... but it's just turned into one of those days... with stuff... endless stuff to sort out!

Bloody good job I'm not on any deadlines... sigh...

a bit of Continuum....

There's a new excerpt over at Portia's Prose... It's from CONTINUUM, my current release in the UK, which will be rereleased in America on 6th February...

First time with Kevin...

Do let me know what you think... and if you're a Kevin Bacon fan... well... the name isn't a coincidence! :)

bollocking, follocking hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As if I haven't enough to do... my bloody MySpace profile disappeared off the face of the earth overnight, taking my carefully nurtured fold of nearly four hundred lovely friends with it! To say I'm vexed is putting it mildly... and on a day when I had a pile of jobs I ought to be doing, plus a lot of irritation on other scores too, I've had to spend hours setting up a new profile!

Now it's not looking too bad, apart from one quirk that won't fix no matter what I do... and I've even got a small, gathering band of returned friends, bless their kindly hearts, but it's not the useful social network it was before... It'll take time to build it up again, and it'll just have to be a v. gradual process, but if you're on MySpace, and would like to be my friend, why not pop along and give me the old 'add'...

Portia Da Costa's Myspace

I would post a ton of other stuff and ranting, but it's mid afternoon, and I've gotta get something else, other than bleedin' MySpace tweaking done now, so I'll leave it for the time being...

--
Telly: Steal This Movie
Chocolate: lots!
Mood: vile
Writing: you jest
Reading: myspace profile tutorials and crap
RSI: not too bad

thanks for the memory...

Well, it seems to be working again... Blogger that is...

Anyway, am v. pleased with my technical prowess today, even if I haven't done any writing as yet. My one gig module of RAM arrived this morning, and I was able to install it myself, without need for calling on the services of 'a man'! Am most chuffed about this, and have been able to install Dreamweaver now, on my lappie, which is going to speed up web updating for both my clients and me...

In fact I've finally managed to update my main website...