High Class Put-Downs

 Research, Writing  13 Responses »
May 142012
 

May Challenge Update!

As I blogged about before, I am participating in a May Writing Challenge over at the Bransforums. It is not to late to take part! Go throw your hat in!

So far my time looks like this:

5/1: 3876
5/2: 1002
5/3: 3771
5/4: 1005
5/5: 3720
5/6: 3110
5/7: 0 (I know. I KNOW. *sob* I cleaned the basement instead.)
5/8: 0 (too many people at my house last night)
5/9: 1042
5/10: 0 (although I did write blog posts for next week. That doesn’t count though.)
5/11: 648
5/12: 7879

May Total: 26,053

Remember my goal is 70,000 words, which I’m still hoping to make. I get a lot of writing done on the weekends because I’ve been packing all my stuff up and heading off to the coffee shop for 6-8 hours at a time to just work. Not having anywhere to go sort of forces work out of me, and I work really, really, really fast. Also, I’m drinking my weight in Moroccan Mint tea and skinny white mocha lattes. I’ve even been coming in enough that I’ve gotten over my territorial need to sit in the same seat every time. Which is good, because every time I lost my seat I spent the entire time plotting extreme revenge upon the interloper. So, you know, this is healthier in the long run.

(Don’t tell, but I’ve also been watching a lot of Community episodes. Thank god they are only 21 minutes long. I wander around now humming “Troy and Abed in the MOOORRRRRNNNINGGGGG.”)

How are you doing with your May goals?

 

I’m going to leave you with some High Class Put-Downs, which I swear to God I stumbled on when I was doing research. For once in my life, I was not procrastinating when I found this little corner of the interwebs.

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
-Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
-William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
-Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”
-Paul Keating

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”
-Jack E. Leonard

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
-Mark Twain

National Novel Writing MAY Challenge

 Writing  4 Responses »
May 102012
 

Over at the Bransforums we are running a National Novel Writing MAY Challenge, which has nothing to do with NaNoWriMo, though it was inspired by it. This month’s challenge is to set 3 goals for yourself and work on them with the same intensity you might work at your job. Most everyone has word count goals, but there are also a lot of research and editing goals too.

You don’t have to be a member of the Bransforums to participate, but if you’re not a member, well, why not? We’re great fun!

This doesn’t just extend to writers, either. I’m looking at you, blog friends. What 3 things do you want to accomplish for the month of May? Pick three things, any three things. Share them in the comments so that I can become your new, most annoying personal assistant who follows you around going, “SHOULDN’T YOU BE WORKING, MISSY? TURN OFF TUMBLR THIS INSTANT.”

In my fantasies, I’m wearing pointy glasses and holding a ruler. Clearly I missed my calling as a scary librarian.

 

My writing/non-writing related goals for May:

  1. Finish 70,000 words. (I’ve already written a little more than 16,000)
  2. Run Every Week.
  3. READ SOMETHING FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. I haven’t read anything in a while. *shame*

Armed with a Raygun

 Blogging  9 Responses »
May 092011
 

cc: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinkerbots/

The rumors are true. Nathan has given me the presitgious job of sheriff deputy wizard moderator over at the Forums alongside Bryan Russell. I’m very excited, though I don’t think it’ll change what I do very much.

That is, except now I have the license to kill…spambots. Which is why I now come to work every day armed with a raygun. TAKE THAT. No one messes with a superhero.

Also, there are a lot more buttons and things to click on in my forum view now that I have this job. Lots of buttons. I’m afraid I’m going to click on something accidentally all the time. All I can say is – thank god there is no “DELETE FORUM” button because with my luck I’d end up tripping over a cat, crashing into my laptop, and accidentally setting off the self destruct button.

Such is my life.

I realize I sound pretty calm about this, but only because I’ve had a good several days to deal with it. When I got the original email, my brain melted. It took me at least a minute before I opened it up and still I was sure it would end up being spam. And after I read it? I ran from the kitchen to the living room to the kitchen to the living room screaming and dancing and dancing and dancing (because my kitchen makes an awesome impromptu discotheque). I was a little worried that when I responded it would be in all caps.

Wicked & Tricksy launched today on the theme of community. In light of my new position at the forums, I have a lot to talk about on the topic of community.

I think the topic of community leads really nicely into talking about audiences and who you are writing your blog for. So the rest of this week will feature…

Tuesday I’ll discuss answering the question, “What is your blog focus/who are you writing for?”

Wednesday we’ll take that a step further and discuss how to find your readers. This is a HUGE topic, so we’ll just be hitting on some key points here, but you’ll see this topic come up again and again in the future.

Thursday we’re going to talk about The Lonely Factor , specifically, how do you get through those early months when you have no followers and no commenters. How do you keep going? Do you keep going?

Friday we’ll wrap up with a fun discussion and video called “9 People’s Favorite Things” that will tie the whole week together.

I think it’ll be a very interesting and thought provoking week. Please bring your ideas and tips and tricks concerning audiences and community and share!