Andrew W. Campbell

Funny how the lifespan of technology runs.  Twitter seems to have become a joke just as quickly as it became the absolute necessity.  Myspace fell to obsolescence long ago.  Just last year, Livejournal was my primary way of keeping in touch with friends in family back home while I was in London.  A lot of people already had Facebook accounts, and I posted updates and photos there as well as here, but since then nearly everyone I used to keep up with through Livejournal has migrated to Facebook.  I've even received baby announcements through it.

A blog is useful for it's own sake though, especially for an aspiring novelist who needs to keep the word pump primed.  As far as that goes, I found that Wordpress offers a more functional interface than Livejournal.  In fact, in just recent months, I've had difficulty getting posts to appear like I design them to.  I would work them up in both "rich text" and "html" and find strange differences in the actual posting.  That kind of frustration just isn't worth the work.  Meanwhile, Wordpress offers tools like word count and daily views tracking, which I really like, especially the word count. 

So, I've started a new blog there at http://gryphonquill.wordpress.com.   I plan to make it more literary and keep personal updates, photos, and "hey isn't this link funny?" bits for Facebook.  I'll keep this blog up for a while, no rush to pull anything down. I may as well keep it up, if for no other reason to direct people to From a Gryphon's Quill with this post.

It's been a great run with Livejournal.  I've made some great friends.  I've recorded some major life events, even before my UK trip.  There has been some drama too, some bitterness and miscommunication and even the occasional personal embarrassment, but I'm glad that I've had this blog.

Weekly Word Count

Day	Novel	Other
Mon, Dec 14	0	0
Tues, Dec 15	0	522
Wed, Dec 16	0	0
Thurs, Dec 17	0	892
Fri, Dec 18	0	0
Sat, Dec 19	0	1716
Sun, Dec 20	340	2143
TOTAL	340	5273

Novel Progress
Total Words: 59635 (+464)
Total Pages: 221 (+1)
Current Word: 32200 (+340)
Current Page:117 (+1)

It wasn't a great week for my concentration.  Santa central got a bit lively over here.  A few times I sat down to do some writing but got distracted.  So most of my writing was for letters and other things that I could shoot off without my full attention, writing that I didn't really work at.  Still, I feel like those are good to keep the pump primed.

Something spicy and rich to warm up these cold nights. Tom ka flavoring will probably require a trip to the Asian supermarket.

Ingredients

chicken (boneless, skinless, cut into bite-sized pieces)
2 cans coconut milk
tom ka flavor packet
1 lg onion
beansprouts
fresh cilantro
lime juice
salt

Instructions

Chop chicken. Cover with salt and lime juice. Set aside. Thinly slice onion and grill in large pot on medium heat until slightly caramelized.

Add chicken.  Cook and stir until all pink is cooked out. Add one can of coconut milk and bring to light boil. Add tom ka packet and stir until dissolved. Add bean sprouts second can of coconut milk. Chop cilantro. Add half to soup. Set half aside for topping.

Add one half to one can of water to soup until desired thickness and flavor intensity. Reduce heat. Serve over rice. Top soup with sprinkled cilantro.

Weekly Word Count

Day	Novel	Other
Sun, Dec 6	0	0
Mon, Dec 7	1570	1335
Tues, Dec 8	0	270
Wed, Dec 9	0	597
Thurs, Dec 10	0	287
Fri, Dec 11	819	0
Sat, Dec 12	0	478
TOTAL	2389	2967

Novel Progress
Total Words: 59171 (+501)
Total Pages: 220 (+8)
Current Word: 31860 (+819?)
Current Page:117 (+8)

Although I think I must have done the math wrong last week on Current Word, the general picture given is correct. Last week got mostly eaten by a job interview, Santa gigs, and the planning for those gigs. So far this week looks to be much more peaceful.

I've begun the chapter for the New Year's Eve party, which I feel a bit excited and nervous about. It's a big chapter. Lots goes on at any given party, and all three of the boys have their own issues going on, so I'm following three threads that interweave and overlap in a single chapter, while trying to give the feel of a big party with those odd little details that I have loved about the parties I've been a part of. Actually just writing that makes me more excited about getting to it.

This will make use of a lot of disjointed pieces that I scribbled during NaNoWriMo, and quilting those together will be some work. After this chapter though, I've got pretty smooth sailing with the next two, which are mostly written but just need editing. Also, they feature major developments for the boys that are just fun for me.

( Read more... )

Thanks to my sis for taking these.

Weekly Word Count

Day	Novel	Other
Sun, Nov 29	2367	824
Mon, Nov 30	2092	0
Tues, Dec 1	2182	1727
Wed, Dec 2	1633	2708
Thurs, Dec 3	1687	464
Fri, Dec 4	0	429
Sat, Dec 5	0	2627
TOTAL	9961	8779

Novel Progress
Total Words: 58670
Total Pages: 213 (+18)
Current Word: 31041
Current Page:109 (+37)

The end of NaNoWriMo has not dampened my writing verve. Actually, I think it just helped energize me to do the work that I've been needing to do. I went back to where I left off editing before, in what was then Chapter 4 but has since become Chapter 5 (I split a long Chapter 2), and started editing, writing, and re-writing with renewed furvor.

As of last Sunday, was on page 72 and there were a total of 195 pages in the novel (the older stuff plus NaNoWriMo). Since then I finished Chapter 5 and 6 (the last 5 pages of Chapter 6 aren't included in the count), fleshing out and tweaking a lot of the story. Most of Chapter 6 was all brand new writing, though inspired by some bits I previously edited out. In the process, I progressed ahead 37 pages -- which is 37 more pages ready to send to an agent -- and added a 18 pages to my total.

NaNoWriMo helped me push myself, and in the process I isolated a few things that help my productivity. For one, not every day is a writing day. I have to be able to rest my narrative voice or it starts to weaken. Also, I do not need to shut down all other writing in order to focus on the novel alone. This week I wrote nearly as much for gaming posts and blogging, but I did not allow these to be distractions from the novel. I parsed them out between the novel writing and used them as breaks. For the novel, I concentrate very carefully on word choices, dialog, and narrative flow. The non-novel writing is relaxed, almost free-writing. It's the equivalent of taking one more cool down lap around the track after a vigorous run.

My writing environment is also important, but it doesn't have to be as isolated as I had been thinking. I found I could get some good writing done at a loud and smokey bar, so my bedroom can serve just as well, even with some background noise from my family. What is important is lighting control -- that it be warm and indirect -- and although I hate to say it, that my desk and floor be somewhat tidy. Having to step around scattered laundry with scattered papers and odds-and-ends over my writing space seem to make it harder for me to focus.

Also, I have to make writing the first priority of the day. A lot of my time here, I have started my day by having breakfast and my morning coffee over The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. While there's nothing wrong with that in itself, I think I have a tendency to get too comfortable on the couch, which lends itself to channel surfing and unfocused thinking. I remember when I was finishing my masters thesis, I sat down in front of the computer first thing each morning. Even if I answered a few emails while having coffee, I think that got me off to the right start. Last week there was some days where I knocked out a page or two before fixing breakfast even.

Finally, I had to improve the comfortability of my seating. A writer just spends a lot of time on his ass, and like any office monkey knows, that can take its toll in the wrong chair. The one I've had here isn't really a desk chair. It looks like something Mom picked up from school. But I've added a cushion to the seat and thrown twice-folded-over towel over the back for a bit more support their. It's amazing what a change that makes.

So I'm optimistic about the work ahead, especially since the pace I went at last week felt very comfortable and I'm proud of the work I produced. If I continue in this way, then by the end of the month, I will have almost 300 total pages in the novel and be edited up to around 250. That leaves me in good shape to finish it off before the end of January and start seeking out "representation."

This passage doesn't fit anymore at the place I had it before, so I'm afraid I have to cut it. I do like it a lot though, so I thought I'd share it here:

Holy crap, how do people do this NaNoWriMo thing? 50,000 words is a bear, at that speed anyway. It's an intense pace to keep up. Eventually, I just ran out of steam, struggling for content that I could push out quickly, and I think that was to my detriment. I ended up focusing on speed over quality, brushing over plot points that I really should have thought through more carefully.

Also, whose idea was it to write a novel in a month that features Thanksgiving? You lose a week right there, or at least I did, with the preparations and the thing itself and the recovery from the thing itself. Why not have it in February, some quiet dark month with little distraction, or January, kicking things off with a New Year's resolution to finally finish that novel you've always meant to.

One of my professors at Royal Holloway, Susannah Jones, didn't think much of NaNoWriMo. She said it just couldn't be done. Yes, you can write something substantial in that time, but what you got really wouldn't be a novel. I don't think it was that the wordcount would be too small, but that she sees the art of crafting a novel as more than just spewing out words to reach a certain length. She made a point of saying that the real trick of writing was in the editing, taking the care to shape the story and the language that produces it.

After about 3 weeks of work, I came out of November with just over 14,000 words (around 50 pages), and although some of that is stuff I know I'm going to have to toss or completely re-write, it was good for me to look ahead to where the novel is going and get a sense of the completed whole, rather than sit comfortably back with the pages that I've edited and polished so far.

The real benefit of NaNoWriMo was giving me a reason to really focus on writing and make it a priority, and I've been riding that momentum for the past few days. Since Thanksgiving, I have treated the novel like I did my masters thesis, getting to it first thing after waking. Today I even knocked out a page before preparing my morning beverage. The writing has been easier too. Maybe going out on the limb of writing scenes so far ahead has helped me see where to take the scenes I wrote so long ago, as well as appreciate the grounding that exposition provides.

What I need to do is continue to edit last year's material and work in the NaNoWriMo pages. Putting the two together put my total page count at 195. I had left off editing at page 72, and since Sunday I have edited my way up to page 93 (4 pages so far this morning), increasing the total page count up to 199 (53,625 words). I believe that if I continue in this manner, writing at least 5 days a week, I stand a good chance of having a completed first draft by Dec 27, the one-year anniversary of my return to North Carolina. That would be a very good feeling.

Words so far: 9331 (37 pages)
Words to go: 40669 (163 pages)

Days of writing: 9
Days without writing : 5
Avg words/day: 1037 (productive days) / 667 (total days)

Most productive day: 2054 (8 pages)

Don't see how I can meet the 50,000 word goal, but the productivity has been great.

The Nightsound Show is a veritable cornucopia of local and independent music, literature, philosophy, spirituality, culture, comedy, and politics. It is a magazine for your ears, fueled by your submissions. And in this open forum we will delve into the unknown and the mundane with as much geeky and entertaining over-analysis as unpretentiously as possible.

Episode 154: Evil Moose Sounds
To download, click HERE.

In this episode:

• What's Chris's Halloween costume?
• Real ghost stories from people on the street.
• Quoth the Parrot, "Shut Up Bitch"
• Is Halloween about racism?
• Community Badass: Cindy Higgins, psychic and medium
• Flashback: Hugh's ghost story from Ghostsound 2008
• Roy tells about being a part of a church that communicates with spirits
• "The Birds" a poem by Preston Bounds
• The Nightsound Studios Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP)

Featuring music from:

• "Mumbo Jumbo" by Davis Coen
• "My Brain Created a Thing" by Stranger Spirits
• "Lady in the Mountain" by Sarah Goss
• "Just Like Bruce Campbell Did" by Joe Hero
• "March of Nothing" by The Stolypins
• "15 Bones" by Berkeley Grimball
• "Spirit" by Greg Taylor
• "On My Way" by Emil McGloin
• "Reptiliana" by Jessica Hiltabidle
• "Witching Hour" by Red Collar
• "Lights On" by Rachel Kiel
• "Gothcake" by Sam Ortallono
• "Sunshine" by The Pneurotics
• "Ghost of Norma Jean" by the Steep Canyon Rangers
• "Ballade Theme" by Chris Wimberley

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