The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[MillieDynamite]

I've been in a funk since my editor told me my version of Jekyll and Hyde doesn't work. First-person alternating between them doesn't work. The reader knows too much from the get-go. Even though they know the story backward and forward, nothing in how I wrote it worked to drive the story. Third person might be the way to go, but I'm not sure I want to rewrite the 7400 words already finished. I have trashcaned it yet, but it's probably something I've already devoted too much time to as a vanity project.

 

[Duleigh]

I'm not sure I want to rewrite the 7400 words already finished

Yeah, if they're not something you are married to it's best to dump it... but don't throw it away!!!!! (Yes that's five)
Save everything because you can use the core ideas later.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Yes, I've got other tribute stories I need to continue anyway. I've been away from Written In Blood far to long. The Countess Drago is calling me again. I hear her whispering in my head, and soon, I must yield to her!

Yeah, if they're not something you are married to it's best to dump it... but don't throw it away!!!!! (Yes that's five)
Save everything because you can use the core ideas later.

 

[Duleigh]

GOOD MORNING! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, our stories are coming together.

Did the earth move for anyone yesterday? I lived on the other side of New York State and we only had one tremor while I was there, it caused a slight crack in the plaster of the dining room and my dad would point it out saying it was from the "Great Quake of '68"

 

[Rustyoznail]

Don't you hate it when you're on a long drive with the family - ie seven hours from one side of the state to the other and have basically composed not one, but two stories in your head only to have them evaporate because you had to sleep.

 

[Duleigh]

Don't you hate it when you're on a long drive with the family - ie seven hours from one side of the state to the other and have basically composed not one, but two stories in your head only to have them evaporate because you had to sleep.

"Honey, quick, write this down!"

"Write what down?"

*Glances back at the kids in the rear seat listening to every word.* "Uh... dozen eggs, loaf of bread, cheese, tomatoes..." and there goes another story...

 

[MrPixel]

Sort of stuck on a story; the second half of a two-parter. Like nearly all stories in the Barstow series, I try to introduce new things for the troupe to get in trouble with.

This time the core is about an "industrial" beauty pageant, a throwback to 1960s attitudes towards women and beauty: "Miss Concrete Mixer" or something like that, with incentive money in the form of scholarships. New characters are a mom and two daughters, mom being a former beauty queen and model herself. She knows "the system" includes sexual favors, and essentially pimps her daughters for favorable standings in the multi-contest "circuit".

I'm troubled by the prostitution angle and a bit of incest working its way into the story. But I have 20K words invested, and am loathe to scrap the work. I don't need to resolve it any time soon as there are two interim stories ready to go, one for the "office sex" challenge in a couple of weeks. So I have time to dwell on possibly unwinding the squicks.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

"Honey, quick, write this down!"

"Write what down?"

*Glances back at the kids in the rear seat listening to every word.* "Uh... dozen eggs, loaf of bread, cheese, tomatoes..." and there goes another story...

A fair few of my stories have been written on such trips, when the spouse is driving. In between the road humps, roundabouts, and being called upon to be a satnav when Google's got into a tizz with an accident or roadworks.

And just because the spouse likes using the KumquatNav. He gets random facts about the local area as well as a much nicer user interface (insert your own jokes here).

I've even mastered saying "Recalculating..." in a slightly huffy voice.

 

[Duleigh]

A fair few of my stories have been written on such trips, when the spouse is driving. In between the road humps, roundabouts, and being called upon to be a satnav when Google's got into a tizz with an accident or roadworks.

And just because the spouse likes using the KumquatNav. He gets random facts about the local area as well as a much nicer user interface (insert your own jokes here).

I've even mastered saying "Recalculating..." in a slightly huffy voice.

Mrs. D lost her job as the official navigator. On long trips she would often have Google Maps, Waze and some other apple navigational oddity running at the same time causing confusion or chaos. Or (worst) she would have an alternative plan and we'd end up at some vineyard located 200 miles from nowhere sipping an organic form of kerosene while she and my sister invent adjectives to describe the foul liquid.

I now just run Google maps and use my earbuds and nod while she says, "You should have turned back there!"

 

[NotWise]

Breakfast was sausage and cornbread with maple syrup.

My wife became unaccustomed to riding shotgun while I was teaching daughters to drive. She became such a bad passenger that I just let her drive. I navigate, should that be called for.

We drove on one trip from Montgomery, Al to Panama City Beach, FL, then up to Cashiers, NC. There was a nail-biting stretch of road through the Blue Ridge to Highlands that switched back and forth across the NC-Georgia state line. It was a state road that had one number in NC and another in Georgia, and Google Maps announced the change every time we crossed the state line.

I turned the damned thing off. It wasn't like we were going to get lost on a mountain road with no access.

 

[MrPixel]

Sort of stuck on a story; the second half of a two-parter.

You know, thinking out loud solved the problem. In the hour-and-a-half since wringing my hands I wrote a emotionally satisfying conclusion. A few touch-ups, of course, but those stories can wait for May, and then I have a sports story all ready to go for that particular challenge in June.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Mrs. D lost her job as the official navigator. On long trips she would often have Google Maps, Waze and some other apple navigational oddity running at the same time causing confusion or chaos. Or (worst) she would have an alternative plan and we'd end up at some vineyard located 200 miles from nowhere sipping an organic form of kerosene while she and my sister invent adjectives to describe the foul liquid.

I now just run Google maps and use my earbuds and nod while she says, "You should have turned back there!"

Ah, I can navigate pretty much anywhere if it's real and 2D (glares at Myst V and Edinburgh, though I've got the hang of the latter...) People look at me and ask for directions, and usually if I've been in the city for more than a day I can assist. I didn't get a driving licence until my mid-20s so my late teens involved a lot of navigation with maps as the drivers realised I was competent.

Had a TomTom stolen some years ago and never replaced as Google was just as good by then, but recently it's really struggled with new road layouts or no left turn signs, as well as predicting times or realising that you're going to hit roadworks at rush hour. And often it sends you down private roads in the New Forest (great for avoiding the A338, as long as you meet a forester who will unlock a gate at the other end for you). Or in France, along roads that turn out to be ski trails - one of the more scary moments of my life. Bloke was driving at under 10mph, so escaping the mountain trail with huge cliff next to it took forever.

My dad finally got a satnav a couple years ago and wishes he'd got it a decade earlier so he could ignore my mother's terrible directions more easily.

 

[Duleigh]

When we lived in Colorado the Mrs and I thought nothing of cruising the mountains every chance we got. We'd cruise up 285 to Cuomo, then take the Boreas pass road through the mountains to Breckenridge, then up to Frisco and have lunch there, then back 70 to Georgetown then over Guanella Pass Road to Grant on 85 and have dinner at the giant hot dog near Baily then home in Centennial at the time. Moving to Brighton caused us to move our Sunday drive further north.

 

[MrPixel]

Mrs. D lost her job as the official navigator. ...

Yeah. Sorta the same thing here. She was getting to the point of, "Oh. That was your turn." Sheesh. However, we're all about paper maps, specifically DeLorme book maps. The "big picture" a printed map offers trumps the little tiny phone screens and even the in-dash systems. Even when the book maps are 15-20 years old, they offer a better sense of where you are and where you're going.

Plus... I am extremely jaded about electronic maps 'cuz I was on the inside in the beginning. I wrote a mapping app for the Palm Pilot in 1999, and built my own map database from various government sources. These are the same sources that were the starting points for the biggies like Garmin, Tom-Tom, Google, and so on.

I admit using the iPhone for address-based guidance in the "last mile", but on the road the paper prevails.

 

[Duleigh]

Yeah. Sorta the same thing here. She was getting to the point of, "Oh. That was your turn." Sheesh. However, we're all about paper maps, specifically DeLorme book maps. The "big picture" a printed map offers trumps the little tiny phone screens and even the in-dash systems. Even when the book maps are 15-20 years old, they offer a better sense of where you are and where you're going.

Plus... I am extremely jaded about electronic maps 'cuz I was on the inside in the beginning. I wrote a mapping app for the Palm Pilot in 1999, and built my own map database from various government sources. These are the same sources that were the starting points for the biggies like Garmin, Tom-Tom, Google, and so on.

I admit using the iPhone for address-based guidance in the "last mile", but on the road the paper prevails.

I get too involved with paper maps. I'll be looking through all the wonderful roads through the black hills in South Dakota and my wife will be demanding, "We're supposed to be going to Daytona Beach!"

Ooops.

 

[NotWise]

There are some nice drives in the Black Hills.

The wind is blowing. It started yesterday and blew all night, and now it's supposed to blow all day. It will probably pick up the dust this afternoon. That all makes it hard to get anything done outside.

I think I'll write. That's such a novel thing for me to do these days.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I've been in a funk since my editor told me my version of Jekyll and Hyde doesn't work. First-person alternating between them doesn't work. The reader knows too much from the get-go. Even though they know the story backward and forward, nothing in how I wrote it worked to drive the story. Third person might be the way to go, but I'm not sure I want to rewrite the 7400 words already finished. I have trashcaned it yet, but it's probably something I've already devoted too much time to as a vanity project.

The original is all first person with some long letters (other people's first person), so I don't see why it wouldn't. I'd be happy to take a look.

 

[Handley_Page]

I've been in a funk since my editor told me my version of Jekyll and Hyde doesn't work. First-person alternating between them doesn't work. The reader knows too much from the get-go. Even though they know the story backward and forward, nothing in how I wrote it worked to drive the story. Third person might be the way to go, but I'm not sure I want to rewrite the 7400 words already finished. I have trashcaned it yet, but it's probably something I've already devoted too much time to as a vanity project.

care to send me the text please?

 

[orangecurious]

whoop whoop... i have written 2 lines of a new story. TWO WHOLE LINES!

no idea where it goes from there.

Might need more coffee

 

[Duleigh]

whoop whoop... i have written 2 lines of a new story. TWO WHOLE LINES!

no idea where it goes from there.

Might need more coffee

That's a good start, don't loose the momentum!

 

[NotWise]

whoop whoop... i have written 2 lines of a new story. TWO WHOLE LINES!

no idea where it goes from there.

Might need more coffee

I wrote THREE WHOLE PARAGRAPHS before I went to the hardware store. Now you have a low bar to beat.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

whoop whoop... i have written 2 lines of a new story. TWO WHOLE LINES!

no idea where it goes from there.

Might need more coffee

I've written a paragraph of 3 different stories. And a wee plan of how to complete one of them, which has had about 8k words for over a year, but I couldn't figure out how to get two stoical repressed characters together.

Time for one small coincidence, then a dose of help from their friends, I think. Worked for Shakespeare, right? As did the dick jokes...

 

[NotWise]

The predawn glow is brighter than it was yesterday--oh yeah, no clouds today. It's supposed to be calm and sunny all day, so I'm lining the chores up on my list. There'll be some time on the roof, some time in the garden, some time in the yard...

If I start now I can get some time with coffee and fiction.

 

[Duleigh]

Yesterday was sunny but chilly, today is going to be awesome, at 9:00 AM it was already up to 65, ten degrees higher than yesterday's high.

Slept in until 8:45 - a record for me. It must have been the hot tub, I was in the hot tub watching the stars for ages last night, that really really helps with the screwed up back and hips. I was so relaxed I almost slept through my evening episode of Archer.

Breakfast is sweet rolls and left over jelly beans and the coffee is on

 

[MrPixel]

I just realized I have four stories ready to go, having completed the fourth yesterday. They're ~10K words each and all in the Barstow series I keep talking about, so they are components of a serial where each has to be dribbled out in sequence to keep the timeline. Two are for authors' challenges, so that particular calendar is not helping my cause, timing-wise.

Plus there's a fifth I uploaded yesterday biding its time in the approval queue. No wonder C is on my case about spending so much time staring at a computer screen, ignoring things like household chores, car maintenance, finishing taxes, the dog,... uh... her. Oops.

"Hi. I'm Pix, and I am a writer."
"Hi, Pix!"