My Friday Thing. Chapter 1, disclaimer:

Okay, just so we’re clear, this story is being posted a chapter at a time every Friday – this novel is being put here because it CANNOT be offered up for publication, dig? It has no First Rights left. That’s because when I wrote this 10 years ago, I put it on a web fiction site. It’s been read, it’s been downloaded, it’s a done deal. And I say this for the benefit of any young writers out there thinking this is a really cool thing to do with their debut novels.

Don’t. If you’ve written something good enough for publication, don’t show it to the world like this! I’m doing so because this novel is not good enough for publication – it served a fantastic purpose for me at the time, and I’ll forever think fondly of it because of that. But I will never post original, never-before-seen, intended for sending to an agent fiction on the blog.

And again, I’m just doing this for the helluvit. I don’t expect comments or replies or anything, so no worries. It might be fun for some to see where I was as a writer 10 years ago. It might be fun for some to read this and think “Damn, she really does suck!” And it might be fun for some to while away the minutes in the bathroom. And if it’s no fun for you, I’ll trunicate each post like this *crosses fingers that this works* Oh, and one more thing – there are 22 chapters. You won’t see The End until April 24th!

Continue reading “Friday Chapter #1”

By the prickling of my thumbs,

Castle Debacle hast this way come!

Err, well – it’s here.

And my Friday Thing is coming. It’s coming! Get off my back!!  *ahem* It’s coming.

Not to be confused with “the Friday thing”.

Here’s where I make excuses for what’s going to happen every Friday on this bloggie here, so all my peeps won’t judge me as harshly as they have every right to. This is where I go on and on about how I started writing so long ago, before anything like ‘rules’ and ‘cliches-to-avoid’ became a part of my vocabulary.

In this post I explain how green I was, even a mere 10 years ago, as to the publishing world and my own burgeoning talents. (this is also where I confess that I can’t spell burgeoning, and Spell Check offered up bludgeoning). I’m not sure which is more apropos. This is all called: Making Excuses 😀

Okay, so what’s this all leading up to, you ask?

Well, Lori made me do it. But we can blame Pete, since he wasn’t even in the room when Lori made me agree to do it.

And to hear Lori tell the story, she’ll say it might have been her idea but all she had to do after that was sit back and chuckle at me as I came up with twenty-six and one half reasons not to do it when what I was really saying was “Sure, heck, I’d love to – just help me talk myself into it.”

“Just tell us, for cryin’ out loud!”

Fine. Whatever.

Back in the days of my youth (ten years ago, or something) the fiction I was writing in my very first ever attempts to write original fiction and show it to people, was put out on the interwebbies for download. Now, understand, I was never paid for it. See, I figured back then no one would ever pay to read a novel that wasn’t available for purchase at Barnes & Noble! And they’d sure as hell never pay to read anything I wrote. I mean lord, I was a nobody, completely lacking in talent and credits.

So what I did was allow this novel to be downloaded for free. And that suited me at the time. After all, I was doing what made me happy – writing original fiction, whiling away the days entertaining myself and discovering this true love and passion for storytelling.

Then the emails started rolling in. I was watching my numbers grow – seeing how often the novel was being downloaded – and it surprised me greatly. A website that tracks fiction posted on the ‘net for reader download listed me, then I won some awards from them – all meaningless in the real world. Then the – what I like to call fan mail – started coming in.

It still comes in, actually, to this day, from people who somehow wind up with a copy of the file that some friend emailed them. I don’t mind it, mind you – this is a novel that can’t be published and never would have made the cut anyway. But that mail was surprising me.

Nearly everyone was asking if I had published books out, because they would pay to read more of my work.

Well first you could have knocked me over with a light, wispy-like thing that birds use to attain flight. Second, I was doing the ol’ head-desk after that, on account of the fact that they hadn’t paid to read me. And yes, it occurs to me they were lying, but we all like to be lied to now and again.

“Get to the POINT, for the love of poodles!”

Okay, okay. Sheesh. What I’m trying to impart here is that, starting this Friday if I can get my shitzu together, I’m going to take this big huge epic opus thing (it’s 240,993 words – I shitz you not) and post it, one chapter at a time, every Friday. It’s been so long since I’ve looked this novel over, I kept forgetting – and was telling people incorrectly – how long it was. I thought it was a 240k epic that I’d whittled down to a more manageable 190k.

Nope. It was a 320k Warts and Peas that I whittled down to 240,993.

Yeah, it even embarasses me. 😀

What do I expect to accomplish by doing this? Um . . . to have something I can call my Friday thing? I dunno. Why not, I guess. I don’t expect anyone to read it, I don’t expect comments – so don’t worry there. I don’t expect feedback. I will never ask you if you’ve been reading it, and I won’t sit around chewing my nails at having just shown how badly I can write when I’m not trying!  I really don’t expect anything. Like I said, I wrote this novel 10 years ago when I was still very green and stupid. And I already know this novel has fans, for whatever reasons, so I’m secure in the knowledge that – in its current form – it was able to entertain.

In fact that’s the only reason I praise this novel with a happy little sigh of satisfaction. It was the novel that made me understand how much fun writing can be, and it proved to my little pea brain that I actually can entertain with my words.

And I love that feeling.

God, I love that feeling.

Have I mentioned how I can obsess?

I can obsess. Over the stupidest things, like how this blog looks.  One template is wider, but has no banner. Another has space for a banner, but keeps doing stupid tiling things. Another has great width, nice colors, no banner.

GGGAAAAHHH!!!  Okay, I’m going to keep playing all day – till I either get this right or faint trying.  As much as I love the black, can you really see yourselves reading a huge LONG post in this color?

That I haven’t really written a regular type post in this new blog. Other than the quickie about George, my new pen. All these little ditties I’ve been *ahem* singing don’t show me how pretty the margin width is on this blog, which is one of the big reasons I moved from Booger to WordPress (no, not just to frustrate you, Ed).

It also occurs to me that I’d best see if these margins really are wide enough for what Lori talked me in to doing every Friday.  We’ve come up with a grand way for me to embarass myself and, potentially, prove to my peers what a hack I am 😀  But I’m too tired right now to explain, so I’ll do that tomorrow.  I wrote words tonight, and myne azz is tired.

<> I’m tired.

And I have to go to work in the morning. I don’t have to on Thursday, though, but that’s not a happy day. So I’ll try to enjoy a long Wednesday night writing session that I can at least partially sleep off Thursday, then begin the weekly embarassment on Friday.

Which – I’d like to point out – has nothing to do with the “other” surprise awaiting all of you.  *nudge nudge, wink wink*

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

Of the big write they called ‘Tea Debacle’

The write, it is said, never gives up her dead

When the days of November end early

With a load of word counts many thousand times more

Than the Great Tea Debacle weighed empty.

That good book and true was a bone to be chewed

When the Teas of November came early.

The tea was the pride of Castle Debacle side

Coming back from some blog in Wisconsin

As the big contests go, it was bigger than most

With a crew and three captains well seasoned

Concluding some words with a bunch of plot turns

When they left fully writing till winter.

And later that night when the ship’s bell rang

Could it be the new breeze they’d been teasin’?

The words in the wires made a tattle-tale sound

And the graph she broke over the railing

And every one knew, as the captains did too,

T’was the witch of Debacle come stealin’.

The dawn came late and The End had to wait

When the Castle Debacle came slashin’.

When December came they were bloggin’ in rain

In the face of the befuddled crewmen.

When January came, the old cook came on deck sayin’.

Fellas, it’s too rough to plug in.

At the dawn of New Year a main hatchway caved in, he said

Fellas, it’s been good t’read ya

The captains wired in they had writers come in

And the good ship and crew was in peril.

And later that night with PC lights outta sight

Came the wreck of the Good SS Penman.

Does any one know where the love of Plot goes

When the PC’s turn pages to labor?

The readers all say they’d have made Shipwreck Bay

If they’d fifty more pages behind her.

They might just cramp up or they might write it down;

May end up tearing paper to pieces.

And all that remains are the words and the names

Of the novels and plots and teas steeping.

The Debacle rolls, and the good writer sings

In the rooms of her hand-written mansion.

Old Castle she steeps like a young man’s tea dreams;

The PCs are keyboards for sportsmen.

And farther below our new Castle you’ll know

Takes in what the word counts will send her,

And the roller balls go as the writers all know

With the Teas of November remembered.

In a musty old hall Castle minions they prayed,

In the Penmanship Writer’s new Castle.

The church bell chimed and rang out word-count lines

For each man on the good SS Penman.

The legend lives on from the Debacle on down

Of the big ship they call ‘SS Penman’.

The Debacle, they said, never gives up her dead

When the Teas of November come early!

Now is the winter of our incontinence

Made glorious tragedy by this last 5 days of Debacle;

And all the despairs that lour’d upon our nerves

In the deep bosom of our Depends buried.

Now are our brows bound with sweat and worry;

Our bruised fingers cramped up for keystrokes;

Our panicked cries changed to meager weeping,

Our hopes and dreams to dreadful wails.

Grim-visaged competition hath creased our wrinkled brows;

And now, instead of mounting tea kettle to stove

To praise the souls of feverish novelizations,

We whimper quietly in the pot of our chamber

To the mournful teasing of a loon.

But I, that am well shaped for sportive tricks,

And self-banned from the AW looking-glass;

 I, that am steadfastly writing forward, for want of victory’s majesty

To type in the face of a wanton ambling novel;

I, that am curtail’d of this word count proportion,

Cheated of tea by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before The End

Into this breathing novel, scarce half completed,

And that so lamely and unreadable

That dogs laugh at me as I write by them;

Why, I, in this weak piping tea of Debacle,

Have found delight to pass away the word count,

And have managed to spy my glory in the sun

And improve upon my past deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a winner,

To entertain these fair well-written days,

I am determined to prove a victory

And rejoice in the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, storytellings dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,

To set my novel on high, like a king

In fierce devotion to my newfound rage:

And if the Debacle be as true and just

As I am subtle, genuine and learned,

This day should the Debacle highly be held up,

As a prophecy, which shall hold fast

For evermore disciplined the writer shall be.

Write, thoughts, down to The End: here

Castle Debacle comes.

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving – even you, Cath, you crazy foriegner you! 😀  It was a day to look back at our lives and give thanks for all the things we cherish, all the things that make our lives what they are.  It’s also a time to cherish the people in our lives – our families and friends. Even our pets, and the security of our homes and dreaded day jobs!

I’m thankful for a plethora of things that a lot of people don’t even understand, except all of you will.  I’m Thankful for having found AW – even if it gives me fits and I have to run from it screaming now and again 😀  I’m Thankful for all the wonderful friends I’ve made there, and for the courage and information I discovered that has propelled me to finally take my own writing seriously.  I’m Thankful for having learned what is real about publishing, and for having never found the underbelly (PA) before learning the truth first.

<>I’m thankful for The Great Tea Debacle and what is coming from it – what it has done for my discipline and the production of novels I fully intend to take advantage of thanks to it.  And for another tidbit you all will learn of come December :D<>

<>I’ve never written so religeously before. Never taken WRITE DAILY that seriously until now.  And I had completely forgotten about my Happy Place. Where I can sit for hours and watch the words flow from me with gleeful writerly abandon.  I have The Great Tea Debacle to thank for that. I have Pete and Lori to thank for that.

And I’m a Happpy Writer who’s ever so very Thankful for it all.  And that’s as mushy as I’ll get, because I have to go WRITE!

So my sister takes me out pen shopping on Saturday, right after the pair of us went to a rock show and spent loads on slabs – but that’s another story. Anyhoodle, after buying slabs, we went for coffee and a snack so I wouldn’t have low blood sugar and do one of my famous flip-outs when I get low blood sugar, wherein I get tired, grumpy, angry, toss a fit and go home empty handed.

<> So after Starbucks,  we head to Staples, only to find they have no  good pens that you can try before you buy.  So we leave there and drive to Office Depot (no, our town has no fun stationary pen store)  Well they had lovely pens and when I asked to try some out, the nice lady brought us a pad of paper, unlocked the case, and we had at it !

Boy did we have at it. I tried them all.  Thin ones, thick ones, rollers, gels, everything they had.  I knwe the pen had to be thick, but I was finding some of them hard to hold. The thin ones were right out. But there was this one that was perfect – thick barrel, but also thick at the end, where my fingers held on – and that made all the difference in the world !  Suddenly I could relax my hand and watch the pen flow over the paper.

It’s a roller ball, too, so that helped.  And it’s lovely.  In fact, there it is:

Ain’t she purdy?  I’m going to practice with it in December. Lori calls it George.  Then, in January, I’m going to put it to GOOD use.

You’ll all see soon enough.

Soon enough, my pretties 😀

Yes, this is a test post, and since Blogger isn’t working right today, I’m using this to post my handwriting sample. I hope. If I can do this right.

 So lemme see . . . this would be a sample of my handwriting when I’m trying very hard to be legible. Below that is my sister’s writing (yes, I went blank on how to spell whether and she merely followed what I wrote) but she wasn’t even trying. She was half asleep on the couch, watching TV thinking about going to bed, and I shoved this notebook under her nose and told her to write what I wrote – then quickly explained why.

 When she DOES try, it’s friggin’ gorgeous.  I hate her.