Draha mind map complete!

Now, obviously I can't post this large enough so that someone can actually read it, because if someone did, they may be able to write the whole series faster (and better) than I can!  But here it is, the screen shot of the entire Draha Adventures series.  I placed the most relevant details, such as characters, conflict, locations of important things, and resolution or cliffhanger, as well as very important characteristics of the settings of each book.  This is awesome, because I feel like I've really gotten some important work done on the story.  And hey - do you see that lovely long paragraph on the right side at the bottom?  That's the end of the entire series.  A fitting end - an exciting end.  An end I can't wait to write!  Now I need to finish that lovely outline for each of the books and then get writing!  My new goal is to have the first book ready to send out by this time next year.  I'll use 2009 to finish the outline, finish the first book and get all the research done so I can just get it ready and send it out in January of 2010.  Of course, if it's ready before that, I'll do it sooner, but I want to make sure it's perfect.

Disaster!

This is an absolute disaster. Not on the scale of world crisis or the horrible things on the news right now, but it is a personal disaster and I'm really unhappy about it.

I've spent the last two hours looking for a manuscript. It was my 2006 NaNo piece and this afternoon I decided to pull it up and see if I could do some work on it. It's been awhile since I've seen it, but I was sure it was on my computer, waiting for me.

It's not there. Not on my laptop, not on my external hard drive where I keep everything, not on various memory cards and not on a disc that I can find. I've checked several dozen discs this afternoon and I haven't found it yet. I still have a few to go, but I'm not positive. I found a couple of pieces of it from emails, when I emailed little chunks of the novel to myself so I could continue working on it. It's just little pieces, though. Only twelve pages total.

I'm so depressed. I really wanted to work on it tonight.

Inspiration

I haven't been reading enough in the past year or so. I know it's true and I know it's bad, but there just hasn't been time. I'm making time now. It appears that I'm getting sick, so I've spent the last two days in bed, reading. I took my nephew to see Twilight, and while I thought the movie could have been much, much better, it was entertaining and interesting enough for me to want to know more. So I bought the books and read all four of them in two days.

They're pretty good, really. There's a complex world with great history and all kinds of interesting rules and exceptions. To me, that's the sign of a story that was well thought-out. And it's good to experience how other writers handle world building when you are struggling to build your own world, so I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

So I've been reading a lot and I remembered why I love it so much. It's back to writing now, though - and I have some interesting ideas about a certain direction I want Draha to take.

dazed and confused

I'm not entirely sure what to think about a certain situation, so this is going to be a fairly incoherent post. I think I'm too old and have been around too long to ask this question, but there you go. You see... there's this guy. And I'm not sure how he feels about me. Geez, I feel like I'm 13 years old again! It's stupid, isn't it?

So yeah, I like a guy - or I think I could like him. I actually really love the "just getting to know each other" stage of a relationship, but it's so much easier if I know what they are thinking the relationship could become. It's possible he only wants to be friends. I've been down that road many, many times. Not that I would trade anything for my male friends - I have more of those than female friends, actually, and they are really great. But this guy - I think there could be more to it than that.

So there's the situation. It's exciting and fun and frustrating. All the things relationships should be, I guess!

Journaling: Rejection

Describe a time when you felt rejected.

Well, this one is easy. But I don't think I'll talk about the "ultimate rejection." I think I'd rather go somewhere else.

I packed the envelope so carefully, including only what they requested, nothing more and nothing less. I had worked on the contents of that envelope for nearly a year, although it was in my head longer than that. I was sending more than a query package, I was sending a dream. All my hopes were pinned on that one envelope. I sent it off with a quick prayer and a kiss for good luck - and then I waited.

About two months later, a letter came with the publisher's address on the outside. I was excited and freaked out - what would it say? The moment I opened the envelope, I saw the words, "regret to inform" and knew. It was the most devastating moment of my life, even after dealing with an ugly divorce only a few years before.

My first reaction was total depression. I cried for about an hour, holding the letter close to my chest, rocking back and forth on the couch, just crying. Then the rage came. I was furious that they rejected my work when they had published so much that I considered inferior to mine. I crumbled the letter into a ball and threw it across the room. I screamed at it. I left it on the floor in the corner for a few days. It took about that long for me to realize that this was a learning experience and that by receiving my first rejection letter, I was a REAL WRITER. All writers deal with rejection and you have to develop a pretty thick skin or you will eventually just give up. Since I don't want to give up, I decided to deal with the rejection and move on. It made me want to write more - and write better. Rejection doesn't have to be a negative experience. Sometimes it makes you spring into action.

UFO pictures - Dragon Scale Shawl

Above: The progress on the Dragon Scale Shawl.
Below: A closeup of the shawl to show the beading. The color is a little washed out in the closeup, it's closer to the color in the above picture.

UFO pictures - Log Cabin Blanket

Two squares down - a lot more to go! But see how pretty they are turning out?!