A Classy Dame

Another Thursday, another sandwich at Afrah before I run off to a meeting.  And, inshallah, another blog post. I've taken to cramming what little writing I do lately into the small spaces between this and that. Which is okay, I guess. I keep thinking about getting another portable keyboard for my tablet so that I don't have to haul around my computer. The first keyboard didn't work out so well.  Maybe technology has improved since then. I saw one keyboard that didn't even really exist;  it was projected, like a hologram, onto whatever surface you happened to be sitting at. So you could type on anything from a table to Formica to a stuffed animal, as long as it was reasonably flat.   Now that was pretty cool.  But I'd settle for something that approaches regular keyboard size so I don't have to keep an eye on my fingers the whole time I'm typing.

Now before I get into the whole blog posty thing, I gotta report something I just found out today; Kameron Hurley has a new Nyx book coming out. It's called Apocalypse Nyx and it'll be out in July.  So if you haven't read the Bel Dame Apocrypha (and if you haven't, what's wrong with you?) go get yourself a copy of God's War and get busy. Heck, I might just go read them all again myself. In between the book I'm supposed to read for my book group and all the professoinal reading I'm not doing and blah blah blah.

Speaking of writing stuff (were we speaking of writing stuff?), what am I up to lately, anyway?  Um, honestly, not a lot.  I mean, I'm working on a thing, and I'm like over 100 pages and so on, but it just doesn't, you know, pop the way the increasingly-inacurately-named Mindbender trilogy did. (Of course, I also feel guilty for leaving Cameron standing in a cemetery, a strange man's hand on his shoulder, having just heard someone say, "Your Honor, a word please."  I know who it is and I know what the question is but damned if I know the answer, so there we are.  Kind of like the ringbearers staring down at Balin's tomb in Moria. And stop me before I subreference again.)  So I don't know if I should keep slogging away at it, or just chuck the whole thing and move on. I mean, I don't know if I can make something pop.  It might be that it just either does or it doesn't. Like having babies. Either they have hair or they don't, and either way it takes you nine months to find out.

So just about now I figure it can't possibly hurt to take a class.

Yeah. I get up at 4:30 and some nights I don't get home til 10; I drive all over the damn place; I work a job that can stretch to ridiculous hours; but sure, I can take a class. I can do two or three hours of homework a night.  Why not.  It's not like I need to sleep or anything.

Get this; the class is called "90 Days To Your Novel."

I've been reading the textbook for the class.  (Of course I'm reading the textbook. I don't have time to do all that other reading, but this textbook I can manage.) Not only do they honestly expect you to knock out a novel in 90 days, they expect you to outline it first.  You know.  Plotting.  Graphing.  Charting. Creating a narrative arc. Actually planning where you're going before you go there? Why, that's like--like buying maps at the gas station or charging the batteries in your GPS or something.  Who'd have ever thought?  Not me.  I usually just wing it and see what happens.  And--she hesitates, then goes on--maybe that's been the problem the whole time. 

So anyway, the class starts next Friday.  In the meantime I need to shovel off my desk, find some kind of program with which I can make digital flash cards (Joan may have found me one; thanks, Joan) and figure out how I can make my old computer fast enough to keep up.  Or else break down and buy a new computer, but I'm trying not to buy anything expensive until I get a new mattress.  Maybe I can get a used computer on Craigslist.  And while I'm at it maybe I can throw lots of money out my car windows and see if it's still there when I turn around. Cheers, all.