Mary Sisson's Blog, page 52

This again

One of the things that's been happening that's been preventing the writing is that I've been traveling A LOT over the past year or so.

There's been a few reasons for this. One is that I never did travel very much before, because I was a freelancer and travel meant I had to both pay for the trip and forgo earned income, so it was extremely expensive. The other thing is that my family was scattered all over the country, so what travel I did was to see family, not to go on some adventure.

We're more consolidated now, but because I've taken on a bigger role in the family's financial management, I've still had to travel quite a bit for family--and not fun trips, but ones undertaken to ensure that taxes are paid properly and the like. You know: Meet with lawyer. Meet with bank. Search in file cabinet for documents. Meet with lawyer....

I started to really resent this, and as a result I booked a bunch of fun travel. Everything I'd ever wanted to do, but couldn't before! Carpe diem! YOLO, dude!! I went to Hawaii! And London! I rode the Coast Starlight train all the way from Seattle to Los Angeles!

That was all great, but...lately when I see these things on my calendar, my reaction has been "Not ANOTHER one!" I realize that this is the very definition of a Rich Person Problem, but it's been very frustrating to me to not be making progress with the writing, and these trips really fracture my focus (especially when they are followed up by persistent sinus infections).

So, I have another trip coming up soon (with family, but it's supposed to be a fun trip, not a work trip), but then I should have no trips at least until the holiday season. I still want to travel, of course--I want to see the world! Whee!--but I need to find a better balance and try to schedule trips around the writing.

Creating a monster when you can't draw

As I said, I'm working on redoing the fantasy novel cover. My original idea was this:

The idea being that 1. there is a dragon, and 2. the dragon is taking over, which is A Bad Thing.

The notion was to convey these ideas by making the cover like the video game Snake. But the book has nothing to do with video games in general or Snake in particular, so I think that cover will send the wrong message.

I still like the idea, though. I just need the dragon on the cover not to look like a video game--in other words, I need a dragon that looks a lot more realistic.

That's a problem, because I still can't draw.

I can use Gimp, however, and I feel like I do pretty well with modifying photographs. So, the White Spider legs on the cover of Trials are modified pictures of ferns that I took on a walk, and the cover of Tribulations features what was once a cup of tea.

I also feel like fantasy/sci-fi creatures need to be a bit uncanny, so it helps to use something far from what you're making--hence the reliance on ferns to make the White Spider legs, instead of using pictures of fuzzy sea life or the like. So while the dragon's body will still be snakelike, I didn't want to use a picture of a lizard or something as my basis for the dragon's head.

Instead, I used a picture that I took of a cute kitten.

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I'm not going to blog the whole process, but even at this early point the kitten looks a lot more menacing.

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There's a lot left to do, of course, but I think you can see how just a few changes can make something look much more eerie and fantastical.

Progress report

OK, I'm feeling pretty crappy actually, but I got together the images I need to do the kind of cover I'm thinking of when I feel better. So that's something.

Thank you, germs. Thank you so much

I realized what's happening last night--the bugs that were skulking around from my last sinus infection are trying to stage a comeback after the shot and all the antihistamines I had to take with it. (Antihistamines actually make your sinuses a better home for germs, which makes it tough if you, like me, tend to assume that congestion is the result of allergies and should be treated with them.)

I think what I'm going to do is work on the cover for the fantasy novel. I'm too run down to write (this has been wreaking havoc with my sleep schedule as well), but I feel like I should get something done....

In a haze....

I had my allergy shot this week, so I've been a little woozy (I'm using a different antihistamine because I want to use it up--we'll see if I don't break and return to the old stuff, because this stuff doesn't work as well and has worse side effects). Hopefully tomorrow I'll be 100% again.

Progress report

1,000 words! Yay!

Also I found a character sheet! I had written up one by hand after I couldn't find mine, but it wasn't on the computer. But it turns out that the copy editor who did Trust wrote up a style sheet that included a character sheet. Double yay!

 

Progress report

1,860 words! Whoo!

I'm filling in the chapters that I skipped over last time.

Coming back to life

So, that blew, but it's pretty much over, and I'm catching up on everything that had to go on the back burner because I either wasn't here or was drowning in snot (I'm also looking into ways of preventing sinus infections when I fly, because that keeps happening and it really sucks).

In the meantime enjoy this Wall Street Journal article characterizing creative process as mental illness! Symptoms include:

1. Creating fictional characters

2. Creating storylines for them

3. Preferring creative work over working in retail

I am in huge trouble.

Glarb

I was traveling, but now I'm back, and I actually plotted out some stuff while I was traveling, but then when I got here I was feeling kind of crappy I thought because of jet lag, plus it's the height of allergy season.

But I was wrong.

Sinus infection. Fuck.

Progress report

1,050 words--I jumped ahead for a bit because, you know, I felt like it. And as you may have noticed, things have gotten a little hectic for me (May is going to have some hiccups), so I figured I should write what I can write quickly, then go back and fill in later.