Katherine Nabity's Blog, page 238

NaNo Progress Report #4

November is less National Novel Writing Month and more National Crappy First Draft Writing Month. NaCraDraWriMo. I think I like it.

I have 16,200 words left to write in 8 days. Most of my writing days this month have been 2000 word days, but I’ve not managed more than four 2000 words days in a row. After fumbling around, I do have some idea of where I’m going, kinda sorta. “Winning” NaNoWriMo isn’t impossible; it is unlikely.

Not much to say about this week. Couldn’t get anything going Monday. I finally got the boxes of my grandparent’s stuff that I packed when I was in Omaha. Spent the evening morose and manic, cleaning and putting stuff away. Recovered with a 3000 word day. Yesterday was too much of a holiday. I did get a few words written, but couldn’t muster the motivation to get much done before heading up to Mark & Tricia’s for Thanksgiving dinner.

Book # 34

Dark Water by Koji Suzuki, Glynne Walley (Translator)

I read the majority of this book on airplanes on the way back from Omaha. My return trip was strangely peppered with unusual events. Delay, further delay caused by an overhead bin that wouldn’t close, rush to make connecting flight in Denver, plane that had to turn around and re-land in Denver because the forward door wouldn’t close, deplane/replane. And as an undercurrent to it all I was reading uneasy stories about one of the things that disturbs me most: water.

The water imagery was one of the things that I found most unsettling about the film The Ring (2002). When I was writing up a Throwback Thursday entry for Suzuki’s Ring, it occurred to me that I had enjoyed the book, but hadn’t sought out any more of his fiction. A visit to PBS solved that with a book that firmly emphasized what I found deliciously creepy about the film and the book.

A thing that I’ve been paying attention to in my reading is how an author defines sense of place, or how the author wants the sense of place to be felt. Glen Hirshberg does a wonderful job of portraying numerous places, but there’s something to be said for the sustained world. Through out the stories in Dark Water the world, Suzuki’s Japan, is bright and clean and polished, but only on the surface. Below is rust and decay and ghosts of various sorts.

The collection has a wrap-around story of a woman and her granddaughter finding things at the beach. It is a foreboding set up. What things will be found? Generally, we’re led to believe that the things, the tales that follow, will be horrible. The first, “Floating Water,” is pretty grim and possibly the most traditional ghost story. Not all the ghosts in this book are the spirits of the undead. “Solitary Isle” is about ghosts of the past that manifest in real ways, as a child and a deserted artificial island. “Watercolors” uses the ghosts of past events to add depth to strange theatrical production.

Throughout there is a juxtaposition of the man made and the natural that begets a weird tension. I don’t know if that’s a particularly Japanese/Tokyo thing or if it’s something I feel being the product of sprawling, mostly land-locked cities. It feels to me that there is some worry that technology and progress have cheated nature, but nature will take her angry revenge in due time.  This is me talking from a place of little knowledge of Japanese literature. This is an observation and a hypothesis, not a full-blown theory.

Dark Water concludes in a gentle way, returning to Kayo and her granddaughter and the revelation of what Kayo considers to be the greatest treasure she’s found on the beach. It’s a comforting ending. A good woman lives a good life among all strangeness in this world.

Format: Trade Paperback

Procurement: PaperbackSwap

Bookmark: CVS coupon from its previous owner.

Time for Christmas Spirit!

I don’t have enough to do. This must be the case since I can’t seem to resist signing up for The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge!

As bitter as I am about Christmas decorations being sold next to my Hollowe’en decorations in October, I really do love Christmas. This will be the first Christmas back in Omaha since Eric & I moved to Arizona, so I’m going to start getting in the spirit this week. I’m also feeling the need to break out of my current reading box and will have quite a bit of time in airports and on planes in December.

This challenge is hosted by Michelle, The True Book Addict, @ The Christmas Spirit blog. There are several levels of participation, but I’m going to shoot for Mistletoe (read 2-4 books) with a little Fa La La La Films (watch a bunch or a few Christmas movies) thrown in. Of course, I can’t do this without being a little bit of a rebel. My reading list thus far:

Hanukkah Lights: Stories of the Season from NPR’s Annual Holiday Special
Upon A Midnight Clear by Ian Thomas Healy, a novella
Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s round up of spec-fic Christmas stories available free on the web.
Maybe The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore
Maybe Christmas Mischief by Mary Jo Putney, which is about as Christmas conventional as this list gets.

And Die Hard is a Christmas film, right? ;)

Join in the fun! The 2012 Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge runs from December 19th (today!) until January 6th (Twelfth Night).

NaNo Progress Report #3

My progress calendar has become quite colorful.



The beginning of a novel is the easy part. A nice “hooking” incident, introduce characters, introduce setting, introduce some problems that characters need to deal with. It’s an easy 15-20K words. In the case of this book, 15K. Since last Thursday, I’ve been floundering around a bit. I know where I want this story to end, but getting there is, well, a journey. Usually, I would have Eric read, we’d talk, he’d solve my plot problems. In this case, I’m stubbornly going it alone, at least until the end of November.

I had planned on taking last Saturday off due to fall frisbee league finals. I ended up not getting started until late Friday night and figured, Hey, I have Saturday as padding. I wrote the majority of “Friday”‘s 1200 words on Saturday morning, between midnight and 3am. On Sunday, I was feeling the aftereffects of Saturday. While I only played two games, they were probably the most painful ultimate I’ve played in a while. A weather system pushed through AZ on Fri-Sun and left me pretty achy. On Monday, I wrote 2400 words and was just a little behind my goal and right on the NaNoWriMo pace of 20K.

Then Tuesday and Wednesday happened. No one’s fault but my own. On Tuesday, EverQuest 2 launched their latest expansion and I partook. Wednesday, I spent taking care of the VOTS site. I finished up fall finals updates and set up registrations for New Year Fest and winter leagues. Some of that I’d been putting off a bit, but mostly it was the deluge of information that I was finally given in order to get things going. I wrote ZERO words on both days. I’d like to say I was giving my brain time to work through plot problems. That’s only slightly true.

I managed 2300 words Thursday and 2000 yesterday. The NaNo site says I need 1830 words per day to finish on time, so all hope is not lost. Trend I’ve noticed: While I’ve been doing most of my writing at night between 8pm-1am, I don’t pull a 2000+ number unless I get some done during the day. Getting 500 before noon, for example. Which I’m going to go do right now.

Huge Pile of Bloody Loot!

Book bloggers Steph, Danielle, Kim, and Kate hosted Bloggers Dressed in Blood. A simple idea: Have fellow bloggers link up posts about the spooky goodness we partook of during the month of October. The prize package included, from The Fake Steph, chocolates, fake bloody fingers, and a huge pile of books!

(plus Final Exam by A. Bates, Summer of Fear by Lois Duncan, and stack of R.L. Stein books)

And from Mercurial Musings, a shiny Kindle Touch!

One randomized roll later, I won this huge pile of loot! The books arrived last week and the Kindle yesterday. This is my first experience with a Kindle. I must say it’s a nice little piece of equipment. I’ll probably have a comparison post between it and my Sony in the near-ish future.

A great big Thank You to the awesome Dressed in Blood Bloggers! Even if I hadn’t won, I really enjoyed participating.

NaNo Progress Report #2

It’s been a decent first week.

I wrote 2000+ words on six of the eight days. The widget at right shows how many days I’ve written 1667, which is the daily NaNo standard for finishing by Nov. 30th. My standard is 1852, which gives me three days off during the month. I only fell beneath 1667 once, on Monday (1207 words).  I’ve been writing in the evening for the most part, but I could not get anything going on Monday and didn’t get started until 9pm. I stayed up and wrote Tuesday’s first 1000 after midnight. Considering that I had league on Tuesday night, I thought it would be my short day.

Current word count is 15,419. That’s slightly above today’s NaNo standard and 1250 behind my standard.

Story-wise, things are going alright. I’m at the end of the first part of the story. I’ll need to do a little research this afternoon about the next bit. I’ll probably flounder around a little until I puzzle out the details. Eric read a couple nights ago, but I made it clear that I didn’t really want to talk about the story. He’s held his comments to the positive aside from noting that it’s full of typos.

Haven’t felt like reading/blogging at all. I did finish up Dark Water and should have a review of that next week. I’ll also have a run down of the huge pile of loot I won from the Bloggers Dressed in Blood blog hop. It’s epic. Today, we’re planning on seeing Skyfall. Tomorrow is ultimate frisbee league finals from 10am until 6pm-ish. Eric’s team looks good to go to semis, maybe finals. Even though it’s going to be “cold” tomorrow, I’ll probably end up playing, drinking, and socializing long enough to be exhausted by the time we get home. I have 0 words planned for tomorrow.

Throwback Thursday (11/08/12)

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books!

Noting that book blogging onften focuses on new releases, here’s how Throwback Thursday works:

Pick a book released more than 5 years ago.
Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it.
Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg

In honor of National Novel Writing Month, I’m going to feature four great writing books for Throwback Thursdays in November. The first up is probably the first book I ever read about writing.

Writing wasn’t the thing I came naturally to. I love science and, in high school, I moved from wanting to be a veterinarian to wanting to be a molecular biologist. In the meantime, I read a lot and made up the occasional story. By my freshman year in college, I knew I wanted to continue writing, but figured it could be a hobby. I managed to jam an advanced composition class into my filled-with-science-classes schedule and wrote a short story in the days between moving in the dorms and classes starting. (I also read Hamlet during those few days. My roommate didn’t believe that it wasn’t required for a class. Likewise, the first time my mom called my dorm room after dark and couldn’t reach me, I was at the library. I was hopeless from the beginning.)

That comp class was taught by a woman named Judy Levin. The core text was Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. The semester assignment was to write, long hand, one notebook page a day. The daily writings could be anything. Response to the text, a random musing, a poem, a story, a what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation. Anything. While I hadn’t ever journaled before, this was a ridiculously easy assignment for me.

Which brings me to Natalie Goldberg and Writing Done the Bones. The whole crux of this book is Goldberg’s philosophy of free writing. Free writing is the discipline of writing every day, for a certain amount of time about…anything. To just write. Some of it might be good, most of it will probably suck, but as a writer, you can take the good stuff and use it when you need it. Details  and themes emerge when you free write. Raw things from uncomfortable places. At best, free writing should loosen creativity. At worst, it’s psychotherapy on paper.

There’s good stuff for the non-writer too (although it might be debatable if Natalie Goldberg would consider anyone a non-writer). One of my very favorite quotes by Goldberg  is “In the midst of chaos, make one definite act.” Words I don’t live by often enough.

NaNoWriMo 2012 – Friday Report #1

So. NaNoWriMo.

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been in the position to start a new project in November. This project began as a remark made by Eric. I don’t remember exactly what the remark was, but it was along the lines of “David P. Abbott, the early 20th century Omaha magician, as private investigator.” The idea immediately caught with me. The project is currently tentatively titled One Ahead. I like One Ahead Without Leaving the Parlor, but that’s an entirely too long title and somewhat misleading.  While Abbott was known for only performing magic for his guests in his parlor, he’s obviously going to leave his home to fight corruption, crime, and deception.

I have the general outline of what story I’m going to tell and an idea for the first half-dozen scenes. Writing went well yesterday with a midnight start. I figure I’m going to have three days this month when I’m not going to get much or any writing done*; my daily word goal is 1852. The first third of a book is always the easiest bit, and I’m going to shoot for 2000 words/day for the first week. I did have to stop to do a little research. While I’m going to be a little fast and loose with factual details during this draft, I want to be in the ballpark. Subject of research? Restaurants and lunch counters in 1900 Omaha.

Nothing done yet today. Last night was league. Mike’s Hard Lemonades go down easy. It was an “early” night for me. This morning was spent setting up league finals stuff and answering emails. After lunch, it’s back to the word mines.

*Those being league finals on the 10th, Thanksgiving, and the day after Thanksgiving which will probably be spent with Arizona family.

R.I.P. Progress Report #8

The purpose of R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril VII is to enjoy books and movies/television that could be classified (by you) as: Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. Dark Fantasy. Gothic. Horror. Supernatural. Or anything sufficiently moody that shares a kinship with the above.

I have to say, R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril VII has been great. I don’t comment much, but I’ve visited and added many new blogs. It’s been a joy to celebrate the dark genres with you all!

Mockingbird Lane (2012) – Reruns of The Addams Family and The Munsters were pretty influential to me. My love of the spooky/kooky comes from them. Barry Sonnenfeld’s The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993) were spot-on reboots, capturing the macabre nature of the Addamses. The 1998 The Munsters Today didn’t work as well. The Munsters, despite their quirks, were a 60s family on a 60s sit-com. The Munsters Today needed to update both, but didn’t. I was dubious when another reboot was announced. With Jerry O’Connell as Herman? And…Eddie Izzard as Grandpa? I was heartened by the involvement of Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me) and Bryan Singer (X-Men, Apt Pupil), but then sort of forgot about the series. Until it showed up on Hulu’s front page.

Mockingbird Lane is not The Munsters. There’s no way you could do the goofy, innocent comedy that was the fish-out-of-water family living at 1313 Mockingbird Lane in the 2010s. Instead, this is a lush, macabre, funny family drama. Herman and Grandpa don’t get along and disagree on how to raise Eddie, whom Herman fears is more Munster than Herman is. Lily is, of course, caught in the middle between her father and her husband. Eddie is going through some changes, many exacerbated by moving to a new neighborhood and a new school, and  poor Marilyn is the black sheep of the family. Despite their differences, they’re all reliant on one another. Especially when Marilyn needs to do the “day” work and Herman needs the occasional new body part that Grandpa can, uh, obtain and install.

There are nods to the original show, especially in the decoration of the house and Marilyn’s very blonde, very fifties outfits, but the series isn’t afraid to move past the original. It’s certainly more graphic with Herman’s awake and very open-hearted surgeries and a scene where the just-out-of-coffin Lily is dressed by a host of spiders (winning the EWW! award from me). The acting is good. Eddie Izzard makes it feel like this version of Grandpa was written just for him. Jerry O’Connell is utterly sincere and a tad sappy as Herman, but he is the heart of the show. If he didn’t care, we wouldn’t either.

This show hasn’t been greenlit by NBC. The pilot reportedly cost $10 million and NBC is understandably unsure about it. If I had never been a fan of the original, how would I feel about a horror/comedy/drama about two vampires, a Frankenstein’s monster, a pubescent werewolf, and a girl living in suburbia? The pilot is open-ended and characters like Lily and Marilyn don’t get much of a story. Honestly, I’m not even sure where the story might go. But it would be an awfully fun ride.

If you’re in the US, you can watch Mockingbird Lane on Hulu.

Since it’s October, this post is also a part of Blogger Dressed in Blood!

It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? (10/29/12)

It’s the last three days of October. Where did the month go? NaNoWriMo looms large and this blog is going on semi hiatus during November. I have intentions of keeping up with reviews, Throwback Thursday (featuring writing-aspected books), and maybe writing a Friday writing summary. This is The Writerly Reader after all. If you’re joining the NaNo insanity in November, you can find me on the NaNo site as Katen.

This Week I’m Reading:

Since I’m endeavoring to write a historical fiction about him, the next three days and probably the next couple of weeks with be filled with

[image error] David P. Abbott’s Collected Works*

as curated by me via Google Books.

Behind the Scenes with the Mediums
The history of a strange case
The marvelous creations of Joseffy
Several other bits of minutia culled from magazines of the time.

Plus, some more history of Omaha, NE. Omaha is my hometown, as well as Abbott’s, and it’s amusing to me how much history is lost on the young. When I was a kid, I couldn’t have given two figs about the history of anywhere including my place of birth. It was all dates and names. It’s only now that I’m interested in the stories, the best parts of history.

*There is a two-volume set of Abbott’s notes and writings entitled House of Mystery The Magic Science of David P. Abbott,edited and expanded by Teller and Todd Karr. It’s $100. A little too steep of a price for me at this stage of the game.
The Usual:

Aside from Poetic Edda & two chapters of A Clash of Kings, I’m probably not going to worry too much about keeping with poems and short stories. On average, I’ve hit my goals with shorter works.