Tag: life

The Year 2020

Laura Highcove

The first journal entry of the new year! Things were crazy at the end of the last year. Crazy! And now I want to get back to a normal. Not the same normal as before, since that’s impossible with my new houseplants and YouTube channel, but a new normal that I can be happy with.

So basically I “forgot” about writing for about three months and even now I’m having a little trouble getting back into it. I can give you all the reasons why I think this is, but after I wrote that long tyraid, I did what I normally do in a situation like this. I created a list!

This list is all the things I need to do to basically finish the Storyteller trilogy.

*Smooth what I have written
*Write the rest of the Wizard, draft 0
*Alpha read
*Fix major plot point through two books
*Fix minor points through two books
*Beta read
*Fix any problems
*Two-three final passes

Man, it looks so easy when it’s just a list like that. But once I had that list, I went through and guesstimated how long each step would take.

So I currently have seven more chapters to smooth. I’m going to give myself one week for that. I think that’s pushing it a bit, but it might just force me to get it done and over with. It’s not important that it’s perfect yet. *Jan 13-19*

Then I need to write the rest of the wizard. So I think what I need to do is once I’ve smoothed it, I’ll do another one of those “outlines” where I go through and outline what I have, then get ideas of where I wanted to go and scenes I still need to write. And write a list of all the things I want to have happen. Including the ending. *Jan 20-26*

Then I need to write them. I’d like to give myself a month, do a Nanowrimo type deal. *Jan 27-Feb 23*

Then I’ll need to smooth, maybe two weeks. *Feb 24-Mar 8*

Then I send out the Wizard for alpha reading. Hopefully they can get it done in a month. *Mar 9 – Apr 5*

When I get it back, go through the list, then go through myself and write down everything! *Apr 6 30- Apr 19*
-scenes that still need to be written/finished
-plot holes
-details to be done
-medium things
-minor things
-naming crap

Then I need to fix these problems. This is going to be the hardest to figure out the time-line of. For right now I’m giving myself a month. This will likely change. I’ll reevaluate the time-line when I get to the step above. *Apr 20- May 17*

Beta read: See, again, if it can be done in a month. *May 18- Jun 14*

Fix any problems, make a final list: one week *Jun15- 21*

Two-three final passes: ~month min *Jun22- July19*

Whenever I do one of these schedules, I’m reminded about *why* it takes so long to write a book. There’s just so many steps and there’s only so fast you can go over this many words. Still, I now have my goal set up in front of me. When I finish it this time, I can finally play Kingdom Hearts 3. :p

Week 4 of April

Laura Highcove

Every once and a while, life happens. Well okay, you’re right, life is always happening, but now and again it really happens and you get swept up in just going because that’s all you have the time or energy for. That is the general explanation for the reason that I haven’t got much of anything done in the past month.

In a bit more detail: I had serious trouble with motivation on the Huntsman. Copper continued to lose weight. My new antidepressant suddenly made it so I could only get four hours of sleep at night and I had to deal with not sleeping and getting the medication changed. And I had a horse show and the practice and preparation for that.

As such, all of my writing goals fell by the wayside. I basically got next to nothing done. Luckily, despite the sleeping problems, the antidepressant was working and I didn’t fall into depression during this time. I simply decided I had to keep doing what needed to be done. (I did still get out my Newsletter, I was very proud.) And now that I’m on the other side of the horse show, and Copper has gained weight, and my sleep schedule is mostly under control, I was able to finally hit the reset button.

Because that’s the way I get back into the swing of my life when it’s gone off kilter, hitting the reset button. I basically had to let go of any lingering regrets about my lack of productivity (not easy) and just make a whole new plan. I joined up in Camp Nanowrimo for the encouragement of fellow writers that helped me push through finishing the draft of the Huntsman. I started working on a completely different story, to give myself a break from my Storyteller series. I wrote about six versions of this post that I was completely unhappy with before reaching the current version. I got my laundry done. (big deal after a horse show) And my hubby and I signed a design contract as the first step for finally getting our basement finished.

I went back and looked at the quotes that I put as the featured images for my writing journal posts, and I’ve noticed that a vast majority of them talk about doing things a bit or a step at a time, and just keeping that up as consistently as possible. I don’t choose those quotes at random, I look for something that speaks to me in the moment, so that’s just something at the heart of my outlook on life. And I think I’m okay with that.

My lack of achieving my goal does mean that I don’t get to play Kingdom Hearts 3 for a bit longer than I was expecting. My new goal is to reach my Camp Nanowrimo goal and see how far that gets me in my new story, and to get my April Newsletter out. Nothing huge, but for now, it’s enough.

Finishing the Race

Laura Highcove

So I just finished NaNoWriMo on Tuesday. With where I am in my writing life, finishing NaNo is really sort of a given, at the same time it is great to look back over the month and be proud of all the words and ideas that have poured out over the month. Of course I also have a lot of questions about what the heck this story is still going to do, or how it’s going to fit together. Still, forward is forward.

Still anticipatory about ending this trilogy. But that’s to be expected right?

I think I’m going to take a few weeks and organize in general, my life and my writing. I’m still feeling off since Nickel died, and I figure that’s normal since my normal has shifted. Plus we just got a new kitten, so that’s another shift. Lots of traveling for the holidays (past and future), the house is a bit of a disaster, there are presents to buy for Christmas, and normal demands of the season (fricking cold).

So no pressure on myself for a while. Plans in the future involve smoothing the Huntsman and then what I have written for the Wizard. Hopefully that will give me more insight and ideas. I’ll make a more solid plan sometime soon. Goal from where I’m sitting now …I’d like to have beta readers for Huntsman in …six months? That will be pushing it a bit with how rough some of the rough draft is, but we’ll see. It also depends on how the Wizard develops (or doesn’t) in that time.

But one thing I am oh-so super excited about is that I have been keeping track, well as best I can, of the amount of time I spend on my writer job in an excel spreadsheet. It started out because I was curious how much time I was spending, and then continued on as a way for me to motivate myself when I was slacking, and give myself a rest when I had worked enough. I started in January of this year, which only *feels* like a million years ago. As such, I am coming up on a year’s worth of data to look at. It’s so beautiful and organized. /dreamy eyes

Vacation Time!

Laura Highcove

So Otakon is this weekend (I am writing this post on Friday morning in order to still have something to post on Sunday) and so this week was a little wonky. I got plenty of notes done over the past weekend but not nearly as much as I could have. I feel that in the future I should be able to pound out notes in a draft in only slightly longer than it takes to actually read the story.

I am in the final fight scene right now, which is actually not as much of a total mess as I thought it was. The choreography of the fight needs a lot of work, but the A, B, C of what happens is pretty together.

After Otakon I am hanging out in Maryland (at my mother-in-law’s) for an extra three days (otherwise I would be spending Tuesday driving home to Southwest Virginia and Thursday taking the train to New York City for the Writer’s Digest conference.) which is just unnecessary travel. It will also give me three days of a no plans vacation in which I will finish out my notes and start in on my outline. (And maybe read some of Words of Radiance, the next #Branderson book in my queue.)

Which means that Writer’s Digest is imminent! I am a little package of nervous excitement. I am glad that I am able to take the train up and stay in the hotel with Anel (a writing buddy) so I won’t be all alone in the city. Btw, if you’re going to Writer’s Digest, drop me an email or a facebook message so I know to look for you.

So next week I may post twice! Once with what writing stuff I get done on my ‘vacation’, and another with the details of my experience at Writer’s Digest. Stay tuned!

Plants

Laura Highcove

So I went to PA this weekend with my mom for a cousin’s wedding. Whenever I see my mother, a few things happen. First, she is much more religious than I, reminding me of my not quite as intense relationship with God. Second, I am reminded where I got my love and knowledge of plants, animals and music.

We’ll save the religious implications of this weekend for a later post, hopefully delaying the wide eyes stares and scoffs of disbelief that that post will bring. In any case, my mother does not have a green thumb, but she does have plants. Whenever we travel, she will always ask for clippings of plants friends have, or seeds, in order to attempt to bring them home and cultivate them. I inherited this “not green thumb, but loves plants” and as such, I generally get just as excited about grabbing random clippings of plant matter, while attempting to keep them from going into too much shock from not only being moved, but going through drastic changes in temperature.

Plant 1) Aloe vera: A common plant that you’ve probably heard of, I am a huge fan of this plant because of the smooth beauty of the leaves. I also remember the aloe plant that was kept in the window of Richmond Comix (my first real comic book style ‘hangout’) that must’ve been nearly a foot or two tall, and would bloom every now and again. I’ve attempted to have them in the past, and I’m pretty sure I drowned them each time. I’m at it again with a plant from my aunt. It had some wide, ungangly leaves that were bent several times in transport, but I’m hoping it will survive.

Plant 2) Nightblooming cereus: A plant I’d never heard of until now, it’s an odd plant that only blooms at night, but the flowers are so beautiful that many keep it anyway, and then stay up to enjoy the blooms. We got a cutting of this from my mom’s Aunt Joy (My great aunt?) unrooted, so we had to keep the end wrapped in a wet paper towel. It’s supposedly easy to root, and right now it’s sitting in a cup of water at home waiting for some roots to grow before getting a pot of its own.

Plant 3) Angel’s Trumpet: People call it a tree, but it’s actually a large shrub, the boyfriend turned husband that was living in Poppie’s house grew one of these in the basement. It was nearly 6 feet tall, and had recently dried up and come back to life (he doesn’t live there anymore, so it’s probably a bit neglected), and had six or seven beautiful orange/peach blossoms. My mother watered it while we were there, and when we came back later that day they had suddenly begun smelling amazing. I managed to find a tiny little sprout, and after detaching it from the main shrub, found it had a nice sized root of its own, so I put it in a little container and brought it with me, in hopes that it will grow up big and strong.

Plant 4) Christmas cactus: Another common one. While at the Home Depot to get soil and some new pots, I came across a collection of plants being sold at discount after Christmas. I picked up one and decided to bring it home because I’ve always wanted one.

New information: I have failed at plants many times in the past. I moved to Rockville with three or four, only to have the shock of moving zap them all. (including the spider plant, which is usually impossible to kill.) I decided this time I would learn everything I could in order to give these plants the best chance at survival possible. (There’s only so much you can do if they just die from the shock.)

So this is when I learned that I probably killed my old aloe vera by overwatering. (It’s a cactus type plant, and usually goes dormant in winter months.) I also learned Angel’s Trumpet are usually hardy (though toxic, I’ll have to watch out when we get a cat.) but they can lose all their leaves before growing when they’re being rooted, as mine is. I also learned that the aloe and christmas cactus like well draining soil, while the trumpet likes moist soil, so I got different types of soil for the different plants.

I also found out after the fact that repotting also causes a good amount of stress, as such I will be watching them all very closely for the next few days in hopes that I haven’t already killed them all. Updates to come later.

Sad girl in snow

Laura Highcove

So I went to school for computer science, but along the way picked up a business minor, as such I had to take at least one marketing class. Directly because of this, I often can step back and pick apart advertisements, and figure out what audience a commercial is aimed at, how it’s aimed, and that sort of thing.

Point of fact, everyone knows and loves the Geiko commercials. Some of them are totally random, put out there simply to remind people of their name in tandom with good (clean) humor. But many of their commercials also say “why”. They save people money, they have good service, they have a high approval rating, it’s easy to switch and here’s how, etc. They’re just good commercials in general. (As a totally random note, State Farm is now apparently trying the humor angle as well, and has failed in my opinion, but I digress.)

However, this morning I heard a commercial on the radio. I forget the name of the company, but in this case I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. It’s pretty much a male voice, over some emotional music talking to you, the audience, about how you often think of winter as a fun time to go out and play in the snow, but then shifts gears into talking about how some people don’t have heat, and sit shivering in their homes throughout the winter. Complete with clip of a little girl saying, “Mommy, I’m cold.” Then goes on to say that this company (an oil company of some sort?) wants to help, and all you have to do is call such and such number, and they will give you all they help they can in keeping you warm this winter.

It elicited an emotional response from me. And so I figured the commercial had done its job. It was aimed to make people aware of the plight of people without enough hea…wait a minute. Sure, at the beginning, it was aimed at “me”, (“Me” being people with enough money for heat throughout the winter, only suffering when my mother started menopause.) but somewhere after the little girl talking, it suddenly shifted to be talking to “them”. (“Them” being the people without enough money for heat.) The end of the commercial is, indeed, telling those without enough heat to call such and such a number for help staying warm, and at that point, I realized I no longer had any idea to whom this commercial was aimed, or what the actual point of it was.

When it started, I thought it was one of those commercials that would bring up a sense of duty, protectiveness, or even pity in the general populace, and then ask you to donate money or something of that nature to the company so they can help. The tone of voice, the music, and especially the clip of the girl all seemed to drift toward that end.

But the actual message itself in the second half was talking to those without heat, telling them to call to get help; and that this company would help these people by donating so many barrels of oil toward this end. (They gave a monitary figure in the millions.)

So, of course, as I’m driving down the road, my mind is putting together the fact that the commercial makes sense, if you think about the nature of companies in the United States, King of Capitalism. The entire message was aimed at “me”. It was saying basically, “Hey, we’re going to make you feel emotional, and then show you what fabulously wonderful people we are, by offering to do whatever we can to help these poor unfortunatepeopleheresourphonenumber.

Now I can say they failed in the fact that I don’t remember the name of the company at all. (Though possibly this is because I was too busy being confused about the nature of the commercial.) However, for those people who don’t have my particular background, I’m quite positive this commercial did what it was put out there to do, accepting, as I have, the fact that people in this country are very susceptible to even the most obvious of “buy my stuff!” commercials.