M.K. Wiseman's Blog, page 4

Starting a Rumble on Twitter

You’d think that, on a day such as February 4th, the big rivalry of the day online might involve a couple of major sports teams. (Hint: tackle, touchdown, “It’s good!” … or commercials, I suppose. Hey, man, however you swing today. It’s cool.) But, no. For me today, Twitter became the scene of a possible street fight between the Haired and Not-Haired of the Writing Community…

I refer, of course, to the #SlapheadedFantasyWriters of Twitter. Lovely gents who, while cordial and kind, had to agree with me that my hair excludes me from their ranks. This entertaining exchange throughout my snowed-in morning and afternoon has now led us to the brink of Major Conflict. There’s talk of car park shenanigans, a proper rumble between rival gangs. GIFs have been bandied. Laughs had.

In the end, I suppose it will amount to little more than words. I have dreams, of course. Grand ones involving movie rights, or even a comedic episode acted out in full on YouTube garnering a billion hits overnight. Perhaps a parody song, a la Fighting Trousers. I mean, hey, we’re all creative people. I’d settle for some trashy fan fic about this epic day! (You may consider this a call to arms, my fellow #BigHairyDealWriters!)

For all that social media can quickly become an empty hole of shouting over one another, this… this made my day. Thank you, Tweeps. Thank you.

(presented because you probably ought know what it is I get up to when I come down with a terrible case of Writer’s Block)

In which I somehow manage to put all my recent blog posts … on the wrong blog *sigh

So, I finally was able to break back into something you won’t find Anywhere Else after a months long hiatus of, apparently, putting up blog posts that were not only not on this site but (bonus!!) were being entered into a WordPress site that I locked down like Fort Knox.

Go, me!

So. That happened. Sorry, folks. Honestly, I don’t even think I’ll port over the missing posts. Got some thoughts on Star Wars and other misc meanderings. They likely won’t be missed.

Here’s a picture of a Tweet I made earlier today. You know, to tide you over until I can get my act together for realsies later today and put up actual content.

I repeat: Sigh.

 

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In hindsight, I could claim my fav gif as “actual footage of me discovering what it was I’d done with my blog posts and how to fix the issue!!!”

Becalmed.

So, I play this sailing simulator game. Keeps me with a bit ‘o access to the salt and spray while I currently am without access to a real life sailboat.

Been trying to circumnavigate the world–starting in Hawaii and heading East–for weeks now. The program allows for easy screen shots and so, for my own fun, I check in at various points and ‘log’ a picture for myself. Figured it might be an interesting record to have later. So far things have lapsed into “another day, another nautical mile,” fun for me but not much to say to the world about it.

Until today.

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The Margaritavich is becalmed.

I checked in and was surprised to see that my ship had a heading in a completely odd direction. And, to my shame, I must admit here that I tried to turn it, get things going again. Then I noticed the readings on the heads-up display:

Apparent wind: negligible. True wind: negligible.

Well, phooey.

Which got me actually blogging about my experience with this app. (Pretty funny when you consider that not going anywhere is what turned around, at long last, my desire to actually sound off on the experience of my digital circumnavigation story.)

For a few weeks now I’ve been stuck. Stuck on some edits for my second book of trilogy. And that frustration has been eating me alive. I’m not one who really ‘gets’ the concept of writer’s block. I always can work on something. Words come out. Even the wrong ones. But right now I’ve been becalmed in the writing seas and have only been able to stare at that flat empty horizon with hungry eyes. I’ve even imagined it looks much like the above pictures. Me, stuck on a little story boat, waiting for words to fill my sails and get me … somewhere. A pale empty sky meeting a pale flat sea. Not even seagulls wheeling about. I am alone, alone and hungry. And impatient.

I don’t even know if there is a solution. I am becalmed, after all. I can’t make the wind come.

Maybe it’s once I realize what is happening, take a look at my heads-up display, that I can settle in, realize I have what I need to survive this little journey and simply enjoy the sunshine beating down on me. Maybe I’ll get a good tan. Maybe I can take a break to go fishing.

Anyone know any good fishing apps?

No run. No fun.

And so, the run streak ends. Again.

Or, as my frustrated TweetRant just proclaimed: No run. No fun.

So what do you do when you can’t “do”? I put on pretty (or comfy) clothes. Maybe have a good cuppa. Light a few scented candles. Get some light housework done.  … … … Write a bit. *cue Rapunzel singing about waiting for her life to begin* Perhaps toss Tangled into the DVD player and make some hot air popcorn. Write some more.

I’ve often been asked — and wondered myself — why I don’t write characters who have the limitations that my health has imposed upon me. Address the issue in fiction. Maybe connect with a reader who is facing the same thing themselves…

For me, my reality is my reality. It’s not epic, or a neat fantasy element, or even all that worthy of depiction in a fictional setting. It simply is. Perhaps if the right story came along or the perfect character moment, I’d change my mind. Then I just might say: hey, this is something I can speak to and here’s how!

But until that time, it’d be a trick. It’d be a ‘check the box’ moment in my breadth of work. An agenda.

Fantasy is my escape.

Maybe what I do today is have one of my characters go on a nice, long, cleansing run…

Cvijeće Moje

Life is a funny thing.

My trilogy The Bookminder begins in what is now modern day Istria, Croatia. I chose the location for its particularly interesting history… and the fact that it is the heritage of one half of my family.

A lot of people know that I’ve been performing with a Croatian folk ensemble since I was 8 years old.

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(Me and my sister in Chicago for our first CFU Festival. I was 9 at this point.)

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(Sis and I again. 2002 concert.)           +             (A little love for my brač.)

Needless to say, I’ve lived and breathed the culture for a fair portion of my life.

 

Now for the strange coincidence that led to this post.

The Bookminder takes place in the late 17th century, and so I needed (read: wanted) a song that was time and place appropriate. Music being so important to me–and important within Croatian culture–I simply had to get a song into the book. Cvijeće Moje itself dose not make direct appearance in the text, the version in the novel being a derivation (in English) meant to aid the reader rather than distract. But the heart of it is there.

Last week, I was helping my sister with some song lyrics — we each have a 4″ binder of the songs we played while in ‘the group’ (MCT) — and found myself staring at the sheet music and lyrics for Cvijeće Moje.

“What? We PLAYED this one?????”

Yes. Yes we did. In 1998, apparently. (Funnily enough, my fingers still know how to play it even if my brain has forgotten both the words and the fact that we even did this song!)

 

So. That happened.

 

 

 

 

[image error]Still playing!

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Second verse, same as the first…

Another day, another month even . . . and another run streak.

You’ll note I was curiously quiet about my last attempt.

Marking Time: Birthdays, Dates, and other

Funny that on a week I began my run streak (and don’t ask how that’s going) I should end it with celebrating the birthday of one of my wizards from The Bookminder.

Yes, I know the birthdates of all my main characters.

Nagarath’s birthday is August 5th.  Anisthe’s is August 25th.  Liara: June 6.  And Amsalla (whom you, gentle reader, have not yet met) is a winter gal with December 29th.

Back in the era in which this story takes place, we didn’t have Facebook nagging us to celebrate and spread well-wishing. People didn’t have cake and confetti streamers and wear fun hats. They, quite possibly, did not even note the passing of another year, simply growing into their advancing age unremarked.

But the dates still stand. The importance is attached–for me, at least–in that it means they were born, they lived, and they died. Made up characters they might be, but the birthday is an anchor. Setting a day is to set a point of reference from which their lives develop. Anisthe isn’t just six years older than Nagarath, he celebrates his birthday in the same month, was born under the same summer sun and grew into hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting at much the same time of year. He saw his first snow at the same age; skipped a stone in the same season.

Parity and difference. Winter and summer. Like and so very different they could have been born on different planets.

And maybe it’s all as made up as the rest. Maybe it’s all just a story in my head. But it’s a story nonetheless.

And in celebration of that, I’m saying Happy Birthday, Nagarath. Happy Birthday, Anisthe.

(And what’s a birthday without presents? Follow the link to my Goodreads Giveaway and try for 1 of 5 signed copies. Good luck and happy reading!)

Run

Day one of a run streak attempt.

I actually don’t even have a goal number in mind as I start this. I guess I was more focussed on starting on the first day of the month in order to help me really count upwards to this unknown imaginary super high number.

Maybe I’m just sick of counting to a goal number. I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo for the summer. I had a great word goal, one that would top off the draft of my current WIP that’s been just hanging on and hanging on for months, never finishing, never quite filling in. Turns out that, after I locked in the #, I raced towards the end of the month only to find that the estimate I gave myself for Mystery Project’s End was a good 7,000+ words too many! Whoops.

So. I got my WIP locked in. Woot woot!

But I failed NaNo. Again.

But enough about that, I’m talking about running today. And I’m guessing the real reason for my not putting a 30 day, 50 day, 100 day goal out there in front of me is because of the risks of a limit. What if I hit my X Day streak goal and simply take a day off to reward myself? That one day (knowing me and my on again off again running history) would become two, become three, become four plus a pint of custard . . . Conversely, what if I set a goal I consider reasonable (and much more in keeping with my NaNo comparison) and fail. What if I (as I tend to do after about 2 weeks of casual running) get injured? Not Injured injured, of course. But the sore knee, shoe-rubbing-a-hot-spot on the heel, gosh gee my heart doesn’t Feel like running today because of a weather front coming through and changing the pressure in the air type of thing that kills a streak stone dead. What if I start a streak and stop the streak and want to start again? And then don’t.

What if . . . what if . . . what if . . . like this blog, I find other things to do, find the sound of my own voice, my shoes slapping against the pavement mile after mile, day after day, week after week, starts to grate on my nerves. What if, like most of what I say when I am not writing pure fictional prose, I go nowhere, stuck on a treadmill, just pumping out the miles “doing it just to do it”?

Or. I could go running. Like I did today.

And it felt goooood.

See you tomorrow, sweaty shoes, see you tomorrow.

Hiatus / Pardon our dust.

Good day. Deepest apologies but the team of MDOPFGIASA are currently on long holiday whilst the author sorts through the mess that comes of writing "by the seat of one's pants." Penning quickly and posting with no second glances leads to such annoyances as typos (among other issues) and I shall be working to clean up the story before I proceed further. Never you fear, the team will return in

#31: The Beginning of QUIP

p { font-family:American Typewriter; text-indent: 0.5in } Pandemonium broke out, each member of MDOPFGIASA doing their best to drown out his fellow man. In the end, it was a knocking on the door of Professor Perrigordon's warehouse that saved them all from black eyes equal to that which Mr. Smyth currently sported. “It's QUIP.” Vincent managed to sneak one last comment into the