Too bad I’m still sick, but today has definitely cheered me up.

I received an invitation to go see Serenity with some friends tonight. My cold is the only thing keeping me from going. It kills me that I won’t get to see it opening night, but I’ll go next week and tell myself opening week is about as good. Thing 1 had a spare ticket and asked me at the last minute to come see it, so I did. It was good!

A local radio station wants to interview me for National Novel Writing Month. We’ll see what comes of that. My new co-ML is already doing her job, planning our big events for us. Our halfway event will be announced on another local radio station as part of a bigger event thanks to her. (She’s all about publicitiy.)

Three different people commented on recent posts at EducationNiche. Very encouraging thank you notes, really. I feel like I’m really starting to exist in the blogging world. (Of course, that also means I have three responses that need to be typed up tonight.)

One person wrote a very gracious review on Lost Innocence. I think they wanted to let me know what they thought, but wanted to do it anonymously. I now have the anonymous reviewing capability reset. The review was kind and pointed out some of the things I wanted people to notice about that story. (Of course, it also put Lost Innocence ahead of The Ceremony of Dolls in readings. This bothers me, but it really is to be expected.) Fair warning- Both pieces are set in the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom. Kind of funny story in how both came into being. I might share that one day, if I haven’t already.

I’ve been working on pieces to go to a local breast cancer awareness fundraising event over the past day or so. Today, I was offered a chance to donate some pieces to another event. I really must get the website up and pretty if I’m going to insist on making people aware of my jewlery’s existence!

NaNoWriMo…the Niche Blogs…Writing…Jewelry… Yep, I think that pretty much hits every area of my life. And something happy in every single one of them today! That makes today a Good Day!

Firstly, I’d like to say how annoying it is to discover that people have stolen names that you worked very hard to come up with, and then build web sites and/or businesses around them. It’s not flattering in the least. It just says you were too lame to come up with something on your own. I wish bad karma on each of you.

That out of the way, I’ve been sick all week (still am, actually) and have been dodging any and all writing responsibilities. This week’s writing project? Nope, haven’t touched it (and it’s due in a couple of weeks). The manga script? Still sitting at the end of the first chapter (at least, I have a storyboard…sort of…now). NaNoWriMo planning? Really hasn’t happened outside of a fever-inspired wild idea that everyone likes a lot.

This week’s writing project is giving me no end of grief anyway. Right now, the piece is full of licensed information and just doesn’t feel real. Unfortunately, no other option has presented itself yet. I’m going to end up writing and editing this thing with my back against the wall at the last moment. It does seem to be my modus operandi.

The manga script is going fine. Last weekend, just before I got sick, I started working out a storyboard of sorts. It’s actually more of an outline, but it was enough to encourage me. The manga now looks like it will span at least ten chapters, possibly more depending how story arcs play out.

During my manga script research (I swear, there needs to be a book/web site just on writing these scripts!), however, I came across this great article on whether or not comic book characters should age. I wrestled with this over the summer while writing fan fiction. The fandom I was writing for has had its characters locked in an ageless time warp for nine years. You know the age of most of the characters, but have no idea how much time has actually been covered by the manga/anime. The one character I needed an age on, however, doesn’t have a current age. You know that he was sixteen when the last major event in his life happened, but there’s no telling how long ago that was. Quite annoying.

Personally, I like the idea of generational superheroes. I’m not comfortable with the Superman of my childhood trying to save the world from my grown-up world’s troubles.

I’ve also been toying with this NaNo plot problem all week. For a while, I briefly flirted with the idea of novelizing the manga I’m trying to write (which is actually how the storyboard came into existence). I didn’t really like the idea. I’ve been thinking for several months now about writing something in a cyberpunk vein, but my background in cyberpunk is only strong enough for me to look at something and say whether or not it’s cyberpunk.

Apparently, my subconscious is really hooked on this sci-fi/archaeology blend idea. I love both space and archaeology. The novel I’m currently working on is archaeology. One of my favorite movies is a lovely sci-fi/archaeology blend (Stargate, in case you’re curious). It’s not completely out of the question. The reason I say my subconscious is married to this train of thought is becuase the past couple of days have seen a couple of interesting articles show up in my Bloglines account.

Really, I ought to wait until I’m feeling better to start attacking any of my writing projects, but i hate sitting here doing nothing but reading and playing sudoku!

When I was in school, we were taught to always write with the assumption that the reader knew nothing about what we were writing about. It was expected in our essays and our exams.

As a result, I’ve always sought to write with as many clarifications as I see fit. It’s just how I was trained.

I recently started teaching writing at work, and today was fun. I was working with a little boy who was in the process of revising his essay. I had been told by the teacher who had worked with him in his previous hour that he needed to flesh out a few more details in the essay.

It didn’t take me long to see what she meant. I told him to pretend that I as his audience knew nothing about his topic. It did actually help sharpen up some of his language. By the time it was all over, my other writing student and I were in gales of laughter as the boy tried to revise his essay to paint a better picture. (At one point, the other writing student drew a piucture of what the boy was describing so he could see why I kept asking for more details.)

I started wondering after I got home tonight if I really do that anymore. So often, it seems like I’m just writing to be done with whatever I’m writing. That’s just stupid. I love to write. I’ve been writing for as long as anyone can remember. I continue to write, and to take on more writing challenges, because I enjoy it so much. The dance of the pencil across the paper. Watching words appear almost magically. Rereading old pieces, disbelieving that the author’s voice is my own.

I really ought to take this as a wake-up call to be more mindful in my writing endeavors, to keep them pleasurable instead of a chore.