so much for progress

since my last post, work has been bananas, and not the tasty kind, either. i have had absolutely no time to write, until this morning when a couple of servers went down. they *just* went back up, so i expect to be grinding away the rest of the day and next week. yeehaw.

meantime, in case you didn't see this all over the bloody internet the last week, there is a fabulous fun little toy out there called wordle. you take any text you want (i saw bible samples just now) and play with the words in a pretty little word cloud. for writers, it's a great way to see what you're really focusing on--in case you didn't know--and possibly, suggestions for a thesaurus.

for me, it's a way to share the stories i've been writing, but not give away too much other than potential themes. in other words, it's a way to be lazy with my blog content. so here you go.

a few words on words

remember how i sort of mentioned i've started a new story? at that point, i'd written 292 words. i've been so busy, it's been hard to get out much else until yesterday, when things seemed to have slowed a bit. and between now and then i've written another 2397 words, putting me at 2689 words in around 6 hours.

that may not sound like a lot, but considering the snail's pace of my other book, this is lightning fast. it helps that i don't have to research much; i am borrowing history from several people i know, but mostly pilfering my own life to come up with a sordid bit of fiction. and yes i'm changing tons of details, protecting the not so innocent.

another oddity, for me, is stumbling into using first person instead of third (i did vs. heather did), and wow...first person is powerful, when you're talking about something painful. the emotional weight of one scene made me a little nauseous; i had to stop a couple times. i suppose that bodes well for it grabbing a reader's interest...

meantime i'm dredging up memories (mine and borrowed), and it's making me feel weird about the next time i see my parents. min says, maybe this is your way of dealing with some of your past. maybe it is. i can tell it's good to do so, but damn is it intense.

pretty-random

craziness at work makes for a dull blog, and very little creative writing, which makes me a sad monkey. but in the interests of giving YOU fodder, here's a couple highlights from the last week:

• get thee to a punnery
  
• post-rapture help and - my favorite - letters and advice on procuring a post-rapture bible
  
• how to make your AA woman happy
  
• and finally, a new story-related picture:
  
  

is this for the story i'm over 16,000 words into? of course not.

just a little prick

as promised, here is where you can find my little ficlets for june. i have two bits published, 'History Lesson' and 'Southern Discomfort'.

incidentally, 'History Lesson' was inspired after seeing some old, creepy, and strangely beautiful photographs. check it out if you like, but warning, it involves photos of the deceased.