What A Wonderful World

This morning my iPod alarm finally worked the way it was supposed to. For the first day in what will hopefully be a long string of days, I awoke at 6:45 to Louis Armstrong singing What A Wonderful World, followed by guided breathing meditation, followed by another round of What A Wonderful World.

It is a relaxing, positive way to start the day and I highly recommend it. I was more awake in the continuing morning, and felt better than usual throughout the day, with a few awesome bursts of creative inspiration. I may have even had less pain.

Suspense VS Predictability

How much foreshadowing is right?

I want to build suspense in my book and have a big twist at the end, but I started the book making it pretty clear that there's something up with the character that will have the twist.

I tend to worry when trying to make foreshadowing that the reader won't pick up on the subtle clues that are meant to increase their curiosity. However, I don't want to make it so obvious that the climax is... well, anticlimactic.

In my favorite old (1908) book, The Lure Of The Mask, there is a plot development that is pretty dang obvious. When the truth was revealed, rather than being shocked, I had the small but satisfying "I knew it" experience. Is it better to make the reader feel good about seeing what was coming or to give them the thrill of the Big Plot Twist?

Mortified.

Mortified is a really good word. It's a good word in general -- very colorful and strong. It's also a very good word -- perfect, in fact -- for how I'm feeling right now. My heart won't stop pounding and I'm nauseated and I wish I could just erase the last 24 hours from existence.
And no, I don't want to talk about it.

WTF, Snidely Whiplash?!

So, for some reason I was just thinking about what it would be like to be run over by a train. I think it started by my idly thinking about suicide. (No, I'm not suicidal, I just think about methods sometimes because I'm sick in the head I guess.) I was picturing lying down on the tracks, and would you put your head on a rail? Would the train slice right through you or would you die from being pushed/dragged along by the train? I imagined what it would look like to see a train coming right for your face. I imagined the mess. Then I remembered Dudley Do-Right from Rocky and Bullwinkle. The villain, Snidely Whiplash, is always compelled to tie women to train tracks. After picturing what would happen, I'm horrified by the thought of someone being murdered like that. And does Snidely like to wait and watch? What a sick bastard!

One of these days...

One of these days, I really have to unpack my books. It's just such a daunting task... exciting, but daunting. Maybe I'll do it after work tomorrow.
Yeah, yeah, "tomorrow"...

It's just, I'd rather write. Or read. Or write. XP
All of my time has been taken up with either writing or working or sleeping. I realized today at the end of my work day that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast the previous day. Oops.

And now I'm temporarily too sleepy to finish this post. :/

Working title!

So today with the prompting of my friend Aviel, I came up with a working title for my book!

Playing Games

Woo, this calls for more ice cream! I think I should take him out for sundaes at Back To Eden for the inspiration. ;D

Ice Cream Reward

Today I will reach 10k words in my book. I'm embarrassed to tell people this if they know how long I've been working on it, but you know what? I took a lot of breaks to deal with life, AND I proofread and edit the whole thing every day before I start writing again. So my first draft is going to be awesome. So nyah nyah.
You know what ELSE? This is my first real attempt at a whole novel, and I'm pretty sure this is already the longest thing I've ever written (business plan not included because that's no fun).
And lastly, I'm going to finish this. I know it.

So I'm having a hot fudge sundae to celebrate. :)