in Life's name and for Life's sake

I for sure have homework I should be doing now -- like the reading I promised myself I'd finish today, so that I could spend tomorrow beginning work on the 8-10 page essay that's due for my romantics class on May 4th (I know, I know, that sounds like forever away, but this is probably the latest I've ever started thinking about an essay that long). In contrast, I have what I believe is a 6-8 page Milton essay due May 14th and I've already seen my Milton professor about it three or four times and have massive planning documents (this is also because I have a suspicion that Picciotto is turning me into an unwilling Miltonist). The paper might be shorter than that, actually.

I've basically been entirely ignoring Astronomy, but that's probably not a good idea, and probably my grade in the class is starting to reflect it. But I can't bring myself to think about H-R diagrams when the alternatives are so much more alluring.

This is just procrastinating. I should go now.

Oh. And I'm also still trying to write a screenplay for Script Frenzy this month, and I don't know why. I'm occasionally interested but most of the time it just feels like a chore. Currently, I'm trying to figure out how two of my characters fell in love, and I can't for the life of me recall. I feel like there was some scene, some revelation, some moment where the love was understood -- but I'm adapting a former NaNoWriMo novel into a screenplay with the added challenge of not looking back to the source text of the novel, and so I don't know exactly what's going on. Maybe I should stop trying it and stick to NaNoWriMo? Who knows.

I'm sure that some of you remember how I "sold" this year's NaNoWriMo novel in the livelongnmarry fandom auction to support gay marriage in California. I promised to write anenko a novel on whatever she wanted over the course of a year. During November, this turned into the "medieval fantasy cross-dressing farce" novel, which I'm sure I've explained to some of you.

Well, I finally sat down and began to edit the stuff I wrote during November, and I have posted the preface on gil_and_leah. I'll continue updating the novel here until I've finished it! It's not much right now, but give it a visit and tell me what you think!

There will be something more coherent than this when I *don't* have to run off to go tutor. But I just realized:

The story that I wrote for NaNoWriMo this year has main characters Gillian (who goes by Gil, which she says with a hard 'g') and Leah.

The story that I almost wrote was about a girl named Leia (after the Star Wars character) who has a best friend named Jill.

...so strange!

And of course the stories themselves are nothing alike.

What I really need right now is way more time than I have.

Between today and the end of November, I HAVE to:

1. Study for my bio midterm (by Tuesday)
2. Finish my novel--all 25,000 remaining words of it (by Friday)
3. Spend ridiculous amounts of time with family

Between today and the end of November, I OUGHT to:

1. Finish the bio paper (4 pages)
2. Finish the English paper (6 pages)
3. Finish the biblical poetry paper (15 pages!)

Between today and the end of November, I WILL:

1. Not sleep.
2. Not procrastinate.
3. Not have nearly as much fun at home as I ought to.

Where's Christmas when you need it?

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In other, slightly more positive and life-affirming news... So my computer was out for repairs -- AGAIN -- but I got an e-mail yesterday saying it had been delivered back fixed, so I went to the mail room to pick it up. When I looked in my mailbox, I found the package slip I was expecting, but also a letter with the return address as the Berkeley English Department. I figured it might have something to do with the fact that I declared the major at the beginning of the school year; I thought that maybe they were sending me some documentation or something.

Instead, I open it up to see this:

Dear Candace,

I am happy to inform you that you are a recipient of the English Department's James Phelan Scholarship for the academic year 2008-09. This scholarship is awarded to outstanding English majors selected by our faculty who consider your work in the English Department to be of an exceptionally high caliber.

The scholarship's only $700 but I could care less about the money -- it's the fact that this award, decided upon by the English Department faculty, went to me, a sophomore who just declared the major in August! My professors, the ones that I respect and admire, think I'm worth something. It's a really, really nice feeling.

-----------------------

Finally, because it looked so cool when Steph did it, here's my novel, Wordle-style:



And for last year's NaNo-novel, still in progress:

"Writers are a curious species; the writing life even more so. We tell ourselves stories, not the way regular people do, but with word-by-word effort. Dreams become insufficient. We're compelled to lock them down, polish them, hoard them on hard drives and paper. We dare to compare them to the work of others. Worst of all, after months and years of labor, we hand our most treasured fantasies to strangers. And wait."

~Julie E. Czerneda, from her introduction to the 10th Anniversary Edition of her first novel, A Thousand Words for Stranger

I cannot agree more with this statement. My novel, for anyone interested, just underwent a 3,000-word digression about the creation of the world and the way that magic works, and the theological explanation of why it works this way (there are gods and goddesses involved--specifically, a god and a goddess, though I think they probably think of themselves as divinities instead of as gods). This was preceded by a 3,000-word theoretical discussion about the nature of magic, a "scientific" approach to its origin and a discussion of experiments to determine the difference in the texture of magic depending upon the part of the world you're in. I'm actually on track writing-wise.

The most annoying part of all this is that I've lost my voice, just when I have moderately interesting things to talk about.

The novel is NOT flowing. This is the hardest time I have ever had getting through the first ten thousand words. I'm stuck in the vicinity of 5k and have no real ambition to keep going on with this. Of course I have to and of course I will and of course it will eventually get good, or at least moderately decent, but right now I'm annoyed. (It doesn't help that my sister was visiting me for the entire weekend, so that half of what I've written so far was at the write-in Saturday morning from 12-2am, and I haven't had any real time to write since then.)

EDIT: I may have just realized that my story's main character is, in fact, NOT the story's main character! And that, in fact, her friend is the main character! And that, in fact, her friend is the one who should have been narrating the last 6,000 words!

I hate love hate love hate love hate November.

Well guys, this is it. Tomorrow night at midnight, I start noveling for the fourth year in a row. Tomorrow night at midnight, I embark upon another month of crazy writing speeds, missed sleep, unhealthy caffeine intake, bad tempers, missed classes, and absolutely horrendous prose.

The thing is, it's also a month of miracles. I feel like every word I write in November is a new epiphany, even if that epiphany is just that I'm okay writing things that I may not be in love with.

I've got a plot. I've got characters. I've got no title, no clue where I'm starting, and no idea how it's all going to resolve itself in 80,000 words. But I've also got a crack support team, three years of noveling experience, a great cause, and a dash of pure crazy. I can do this. Yeah, you heard me: I CAN DO THIS!

And I will. Just watch me.

That said -- I have a tendency to withdraw into a bit of a noveling cocoon during November. Don't be surprised if you do not hear from me, or if I never post on my livejournal. This year will be even worse than the last years, as I battle two paying jobs, my NaNoWriMo internship, being a Municipal Liaison, and 10,000 words more than last year on top of a full course schedule. I probably will disappear for a while. But after the cocoon of November I will emerge a more brightly-colored and refreshed (if initially a bit deflated) butterfly, ready once again to take on everything the world has to offer me.

November is coming.

I'm ready.

Are YOU?

So I posted this in the NaNoWriMo forums, but I figure that some of you lurking friends out in cyberspace might have ideas for me, too!

This November, what started out as a simple cross-dressing farce has turned into something approximating a serious commentary on gender roles. I'm actually writing it for someone who bid for it in the livelongnmarry fandom auction on LiveJournal to support marriage equality in California, and her only request was that it involve a woman cross-dressing as a man for some reason, serious or not-so-serious. In my story, the main character Gillian dresses as a man to pretend to be her best friend Leah's fiancee. This is because Leah is actually secretly engaged to a man who is off fighting in the War (something like the crusades), and needs a way to fend off the advances of an upper-level political type who's taken an interest in her. They end up being pulled into a great deal of court intrigue. Leah wants to discover what's happened to the man she's secretly engaged to, and Gillian gets in over her head in pretending to be a man...

But one important aspect of this world is that only men can use magic. At least, that's what everyone has always been told, and what all of the people in this small and isolated island nation believe. Gillian believes it, too, which makes passing as a man in this society even more difficult for her, because she has to find a way around using magic in situations where the average courtly male would be expected to. Well, eventually she gets into one of these situations and there's no way out, and somehow in her desperation, she is able to use magic! Turns out that it was just a big lie that women can't use magic, although I don't know when the lie was first told or if anyone alive in the present knows that it was a lie (they might believe it as true).

My question is -- has it always been like this? Or somewhere, way back when, did some group of magical women do something that caused the men to kill them off and instigate a ban on female magic use, a ban that then translated over the decades/centuries into a complete and insistent belief in the physical inability of women to use magic?

How did they manage the initial silencing of women who could use magic? How is it possible that the men of this nation wiped the potential of women using magic from the minds of everyone, men and women alike?

Also, I don't have a concrete idea of how magic is used in this world. I know that everyone has a small ability for it -- no man is ungifted entirely (and of course none of the women are either, but they don't know that). I'm not too keen on wand-based magic -- or at least, not on the type that implies that magic is dependent more upon the implements one uses to construct it than the intellect/will of the individual. And besides, it would be suspicious if women suddenly weren't allowed to own wands. I think the first thing women would do would be to get wands anyway, by stealing the ones that belong to their brothers/fathers/lovers.

I know this is a lot of stuff...but any ideas about how the use of magic by women could be so extensively covered up, and why this might happen, would be great. Really, any comments about the premise or intent of the story would be much appreciated.

Because I should have been writing, but I wasn't.

What's the last thing you wrote?
...It's probably bad that I don't remember. I'm pretty sure that it was from The Printer's Daughter, my as-of-yet unfinished 2007 NaNovel.

Was it any good?
The fact that I can't remember it probably means that it wasn't. I've been planning two random stories that popped into my head, but I haven't really been writing on them (because I'm saving them up so I have options for NaNoWriMo 2008).

What's the first thing you ever wrote that you still have?
When I was four, I wrote a story about the cat who lived next door. His name was Frasier. It was illustrated and took up an entire front side of a piece of lined paper (each letter took up three lines, and there was a space between lines--the whole thing was possibly five sentences long). I spelled the cat's name "Frasher" because that made sense at the time. I still have this piece of paper, tucked away somewhere.

But if this question is more like, "what's the first thing you ever wrote that belonged to the time period when you were serious about being a writer?" then I'd have to admit to having several horrible first drafts of the first book of what was (and still is) intended as a fantasy trilogy, set alternately on Earth and on an earthlike planet called Azuria. These date from the beginning of seventh grade. In fact, I still have the handwritten first copies of those, too (in pencil, from my seventh grade writing portfolio). It was the first time I tried to write something that required worldbuilding and complex characters and was intended (eventually) for publication.

Write poetry?
Most definitely. Not as much as I write prose, and probably not as well. My goal with writing poetry is different from my goal with writing prose. Poetry is always much more personal, less about telling a story and more about capturing a specific feeling or atmosphere. My poetry doesn't usually have conflict or characters; it's more about ideas.

Angsty poetry?
Oh yes. Actually, not until recently (because, until recently, I had very little to angst about). Wait, I take that back--somewhere there exists an angsty poem I wrote in eighth grade about the boy I had a crush on then, in which I lamented that he never noticed me as more than a friend.

Most fun character you ever wrote?
Ooh, this is hard. Because it's a very different from asking who my favorite characters I've written are. I can't think of characters that are particularly "fun" to write, although I like Rhinn from my planned trilogy of fantasy novels a lot. Also, Mr. Robinson, a government agent in a sci-fi short story I wrote, is lots of fun because he's fantastically spy-like and knows everything. Also also, Ferdinand (aka Andy) from "The Free Way," because he starts out being so isolated and proper and ends up ruining an expensive Armani suit by frolicking through the garden in the pouring rain.

This is different from "fun," but a character I'm always really thrilled to write is Aleska from a short story called "Fire and Ice," because her view on everything is so unique and she's at such a crossroads in her life, and I love being inside her head as her world shatters and she pulls together the strength to rebuild it (does that sound a little sadistic?). When I wrote her story, everything just seemed so inevitable about it, like the ending was pulling me forward from the moment I started.

Most annoying character you ever wrote?
Charles Macaulay from "Predators and Editors" (even though I don't like the story much at all). My main character's little sister (I think her name's Megan) in the planned fantasy trilogy. Not sure I can think of others specifically.

Best plot you ever wrote?
It's hard for me to like the plots of my novels-in-progress, because they're not done yet. Also, for instance, I really like the plot for The Printer's Daughter, but seeing as how it's a mix between "Beauty and the Beast" and Jane Eyre, I don't feel quite like it's my plot.

I like a lot of my short story plots, but specifically "Fire and Ice" and "The Free Way."

Coolest plot twist you ever wrote?
ZOMG the mysterious master of the manor house is actually a werewolf!

How often do you get writer's block?
Not sure I believe in writer's block, just writer's laziness. But I get that all the time.

How do you fix it?
Write.

Do you type or write by hand?
Both. Usually, I plan by hand and write early drafts by hand (occasionally), but most of my final stuff and all of my editing is done on computer.

Do you save everything you write?
Yes, to the extent where my mother has given up asking me to get rid of old notes scribbled on the back of whatever was at hand and just asks me to organize them.

Do you ever go back to an old idea long after you abandoned it?
Very big yes. I'm still planning to someday write the fantasy trilogy that I began to plan out in fifth grade. Granted, I guess I've never abandoned it, but it's been on sabbatical for a long time. I have worked on it occasionally, in bouts of seriousness, but never gotten more than 40,000 words into the first book of the trilogy, with really minimal planning for what happens next. I do have a whole lot of worldbuilding for this place, though, and that more than anything tells me that I'll be coming back. I know too much about how things work on Azuria to abandon it. Also, Holly and Jasen, my main characters, were the first characters I really invested with my whole heart. I can't leave their story untold.

What's your favorite thing that you've written?
Favorite completed thing? "Fire and Ice," no question. Favorite incomplete thing? I have no idea. Since I've been working most seriously with The Printer's Daughter recently, it's close to the top of the list, at least for specific portions which I absolutely adore.

What's everyone else's favorite thing that you've written?
Depends on who you mean by "everyone else." Most people who've read "Fire and Ice" like it, but my dad likes the stories I've written for workshops at Berkeley best, since they're realistic. I don't actually think that "Flour Girl" or "Dead White Women" are all that bad--I surprised myself in writing them and liking them, and I suppose that other people probably like them too.

Do you ever show people your work?
Yes. Frankly, I wish that I had more readers to help me work on things!

Who's your favorite constructive critic?
Depends on the day. Sometimes, it's my dad, because he's not afraid to be honest with me and he holds me to very high standards. But at the same time, sometimes his criticism boils down to "Why did you insert a werewolf into what would have otherwise been a perfectly good real-life story?" and on those days I have to stay away from him, because it hurts still to know that that's what he thinks. The only other person who regularly reads and critiques my work is Rebecca, and she is also very good at keeping me honest. She laughs me out of bad ideas and talks me through the good ones.

Did you ever write a novel?
I don't think I can answer "yes" to this, because while I have begun no fewer than four separate novels, I have yet to complete a single one. I don't think I get to answer "yes" until I have a complete first draft. But I suppose it's not lying to answer "almost."

Have you ever written fantasy, sci-fi, or horror?
Yes, much to my father's shame and my delight.

Ever written romance or teen angsty drama?
The first real original fiction romance that I've written in an prolonged form is The Printer's Daughter, though most of my stories end up having romantic pairings that will work themselves out in the future, even if not during the timeline of the story.

However, long before this I was writing romance fanfiction, because while I am not an insane shipper, I am a shipper nonetheless, and one of the major draws of fanfiction is the ability to construct an alternate or extended saga in which the romance works out the way it's obviously supposed to.

What's one genre you have never written, and probably never will?
Horror. I don't think I'm good enough to write a really smart thriller, and horror seems like a cheaper version of that genre (thriller but without the smarts) and I don't want to write that.

How many writing projects are you working on right now?
Three is probably a safe number. The Printer's Daughter is the big one, but there's also two ideas kicking around in my head and jostling for the spot as my 2008 NaNovel. One's about a normal highschooler who finds out that her best friend's a wizard, and the other is an anti-Twilight manifesto presenting itself as a cross between Rent and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Do you want to write for a living?
Yes.

Have you ever written something for a magazine or newspaper?
Erm...not really.

Have you ever won an award for your writing?
Probably? Nothing big enough that I remember.

Ever written something in script or play format?
Yes, for Script Frenzy.

What is your favorite word?
Eloquent, juxtaposition, coalesce

Do you ever write based on yourself?
Yes. I think all of my characters are facets of myself, or mirror images of me--but somehow or other, they start with a part of me, whether it's one that I am in tune with or one that I'm trying to run away from.

Which of your characters most resembles you?
Well, Holly and Jasen were written as splinters of my personality, very deliberately--Holly comes very close to self-insertion. But after her, Noelle is very close.

Where do you get ideas for your characters?
People I know. People I am, or could be, or desperately don't want to be, or wish I was. Anyone I feel some strong emotion for, be it pity or desire or camaraderie or pain.

Do you ever write based on your dreams?
Yes.

Do you prefer happy endings, sad endings, or cliff-hangers?
I'd rather read a happy ending, or at least a fulfilling one, as long as it fits with the tone of the work. If the happy ending still comes as a result of great sacrifice and pain, I'm okay with it. It's happy endings no one has to work for that piss me off. Same goes for tragic endings that just seem to happen for no particular reason or with no significance. I mostly write happy endings, or at least uplifting ones, but I really admire people who can write sad stories that I keep reading.

Have you ever written anything based on an artwork you've seen?
No, but I have written things based off of music I've listened to.

Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?
Nope. Even in the editing, I'm rather loose with grammar. I think it should be a reflection of the way a thing is being said or thought or intended, and we rarely think in proper grammar.

Ever write something entirely in chatspeak?
No.

Does music help you write?
No, not really. It usually just distracts me. I only use wordless music when writing, and then only as a way of drowning out something even more distracting (such as people talking loudly).

Are people surprised and confused when they find out you write well?
I like how this question presupposes that people will find out that I write well. I don't think I've surprised anyone with my fiction yet, or if I have, they haven't told me about it. But I have had a string of teachers and professors rather gratifyingly surprised by the quality of my essays.

Quote something you've written.
I don't have access to very much on this computer, but here's a few lines from a freewrite that I am in love with. "He" is Jasen and "she" is Holly (from the long-planned fantasy trilogy):

After the end, they go on. He's still the best friend she's ever had, maybe the only one, and she wouldn't trade that for anything in the world. She knows it in her heart and in her soul. People around her talk about what they'd do for their friends, and she knows she'd do it all and more--she knows that she has done it. She's given her life for him, and though it hasn't been taken, that's only a matter of luck, a simple miracle.

Everyone says it's more than friendship. She brushes that aside as best she can. "What's more than friendship?" she asks the doubters. "What's purer, truer, longer?" Frienship is safe because everything else ends.

Her heart has two settings--"don't care" and "forever"--and it's obvious which one is his. But how she gives it to him is her choice, and so she decides anew every morning, every afternoon, and every night that they're forever friends, and nothing else. There is nothing else that they need.

Questions from the Clarion application.  The only things other than the stories that they plan to read.  (Just so we're clear, these are rough, freewriting answers.)

Describe highest education (school, dates, degree)
-graduated Mission Viejo High School in June 2007
-currently enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley (August 2007-present)

Describe your writing habits. (What exactly do they mean by this?  I'm honestly not sure.)
When things like school and work don't interfere, I write every day.  Not always on the same project, but I make sure I've written something.  When I fall in love with a project, I pursue it intensely.  I've done National Novel Writing Month three times and it's taught me how to write every day, unfailingly, and then go back to edit later.  I write best when I've got a deadline in sight and a group of supportive friends and fellow writers to cheer me on.  This doesn't mean that I need deadlines to write, or to think about writing, but there's something about the figure of a deadline--especially one shared by other friends and writers--that entices my ideas to coalesce in ways I never would have dreamed possible.  I think a lot before beginning a story.  I do research about any aspect that I don't have personal knowledge about.  I really like to get to know my characters, and they're usually where a story starts for me.  With short fiction I'm pretty good at planning things, but I also don't like to stick to tightly to plots when something better shows up.  I usually write with a laptop but I carry a journal and a pen with me in every purse I own and you'll never find me without the ability to write.  When I'm blocked on my laptop, I banish myself to someplace with nothing but pen and paper and just write.

What do you hope to accomplish through Clarion?
I hope to strengthen my prose style while working specifically within the genres--fantasy and science fiction--that I enjoy the most.  College creative writing courses, from my limited experience, tend to focus on "literary fiction," disdaining other forms, and as such I have not had many opportunities to hone my craft specific to these genres.  I also hope to find a supportive community of writers interested in similar topics who will be able to give better criticism of my works than those who are not acquainted with sci-fi and fantasy.  (Also, let's be honest, I hope to learn how to get something published--how to write something so damn good that a publisher can't say no--except I'm almost positive that such a thing can't be taught.)  As far as craft goes, I'd specifcally like to work on telling more compact stories; even my short stories tend to be long and rambling, and that's something I'd like to work on.

List professional writers or Clarion graduates you know.
(I actually like this list very much.  I'm rather proud of it.  I just want to know what they plan to do with it!)
Julie E. Czerneda
Vikram Chandra
Melanie Abrams
Matt Miller

*sigh* I'm not even sure how I want to answer these, or how much space I get to answer them in!  Time will tell, I suppose...I know things will work out, and I shouldn't stress over this crap nearly as much as I ought to stress about my stories.  Because if I wow them with a story, it won't matter if my writing habits involve setting fire to the bedsheets, they'll want me.  And I oh so very much want them to want me.