7 posts tagged “first”
I am alive.
Remarkable, huh?
Same-Sex marriage legal (cross fingers that it will continue) and Obama getting the nomination? Obviously, I was shocked into silence. Good shock. But silent shock. So woohoo and all that. What an understatement.
...560 pages? Well, the answer is definitely not two. But I digress.
On Sunday after a sedate Easter dinner with kids and family, Rain and I were going to print out a copy of my novel so that I could finally have Tabby do the first complete read through. I don't know what we were thinking. Obviously we weren't. It was late and we were both tired. So after a couple chapters were printed, this was the conversation:
Her: Wait, how many pages is this again?
Me: ...560.
Her: And each page is 50 cents. Alright, what's half of 560?
Me:....Oh shit. A lot.
Her:Yeah.
Me: Cancel! Cancel! Cancel!
Her: I'm cancelling! I'm cancelling!
Yeah so moral of the story? Do not print out a copy of your novel at Kinko's. That will be a several hundred dollar print. Yeah. No. So instead we came home and used up both our almost-full black ink cartridge and color cartridge. And we had to buy a new cartridge in the morning to finish printing the last seven chapters. You'd think a full ink cartridge would go further than that, wouldn't you? Apparently, it really only has about 350 pages worth of ink in it. I suppose under normal circumstances, that's more than enough. In ours, not quite.
Though we did not end up printing at Kinko's, we were still considering binding it at Kinko's. The lady assured us that they could bind anything up to two inches thick. We ask how many pages is in that. She ended up telling us the 560 pages would definitely be less than that.
Uh, no.
Quickly into the printing, we realized this was not so. In the end, it was about 3 1/2 inches thick. Quite impressive weight. In the family, threatening to hit someone upside the head with my novel is now a very gruesome threat. Though it appears impressive, I know quite well length means nothing to the quality of a piece. So, I was very nervous about the first full read-through my novel was about to get.
Usually, there are people reading along with my writing. Though I do not post my original work on the internet, I do have several great friends who are kind enough to be my test-readers. But family life has been so chaotic that writing was something I did on my own time and really didn't try to bother people with. At least until the end. By the time I finished it, I had read over this thing so many times, I was sure that I had lost perspective for the sheer amount of times I have reread this thing. To ensure that my style remained consistant and the voice was strong, every time I spent more than three or four days away from writing, I'd reread the entire thing, editing along the way. I know exactly what is happening, what has happened, and what is about to happen, from seeing one or two sentences off of any page.
I was very nervous for this first reading. There were several points that I thought might be questioned. I worried the length meant I didn't do well with pacing. I was trying to be as critical on myself as possible, hoping that it'd help when I was having to accept criticism. As my fellow writers know, criticism is a terrible blessing. We know we need it. We know it'll make us stronger. And we know we're going to hate it. Like I said in the previous post, I expect to be told where I suck, to become upset, for it to be insisted, and for me to slowly come to accept the advice.
But when Tabby finally read through it....I was surprised that she seemed to enjoy it. In the end, her feedback was extremely positive. Though she did warn that it might not exactly be an easy sell since there isn't really a conventional relationship in the whole thing. I knew this. I hate the fact that conventional means sellable but I also understand it. Still, I was shocked with how little criticism I received for it. Especially since I know Tabby has no problem telling me when she thinks something needs to be changed or needs to be removed. She will tell me when she thinks I've done something stupid. I even know the tone of voice she uses while doing so. The fact she hasn't...I'm not quite sure what to think of that. Obviously, she's only the first test-reader but I'm very pleased to have such good feedback after all the amount of work I put in this. For about a year and a half, I have been slaving over this. Writing, editing, reworking, plotting, constructing backgrounds and dates, studying....I put a hell of a lot of work into making this the best possible thing I can produce at this point. I know that a writer is always developing and that should I walk away from this for three months and come back, I'll still want to edit it to perfect the phrase with what I've learned during that period of time. Still, I'm happy with the end product.
Is it perfect?
No.
Is it sellable as a first novel?
There's some doubts.
Am I happy with the story and its intricacy?
Yes.
Am I proud of this accomplishment?
Twenty-Seven chapters. 560 pages. A year and a half of hard work and something that accomplished my original goal despite life's constant insanity? Hell yeah.
When has your first impression of someone turned out to be completely wrong?
Submitted by Mana'olana.
Blasphemous and I have laughed many times about the fact that we never really hit it off until Senior year of high school. By that point, we'd been going to school together since Freshman year in a dinky school, really. I don't know why we didn't hit it off. I think she intimidated me for some reason. (Maybe the over 6 feet tall and could easily kick my ass thing?) I don't know why she didn't like me. Maybe I was intimidating too? Or maybe snobbish? Or annoying? So which was it, K? Thank eru we got over whatever that was. See Video.
Snape's Girl and I didn't get close until Senior year of HS either. But I think that was because my first impression of her was that she was very into her studies. One of those girls that was REALLY deep in school work. In that case, I don't think my first impression was wrong. It's just that a really awesome person was beneath that.
Then there's Rain On Your Skin who I thought was just fabulous from moment one. You can see how that turned out.
Wow can one's first impressions be wrong.
*Ducks and Runs*
I saw these with my gma when she was teaching me how to make Zwiebach. Oh, here's a pic some of the ones I made:
Not bad for my first attempt. We took half of what I made (50 in all) home and they were all gone the next day.
Here's the funny vid though:
I especially find the down-the-top thing hilarious. Even though I don't believe that's a bride in that scene. I think that's a girl at her Quinceanera. Which makes what he does even worse. I hope it's just a moment where he's completely not thinking like that and is simply trying to retrieve the body of christ from the clutches of her earthly bosom....
EDIT: I take it back. I now see there is a guy to her side. It's a bride. Thank god. But why wasn't her soon-to-be hubby helping? The idea of the Quinceanera thing was kind of freaking me out there for a second. .. . However, while checking my spelling of Quinceanera, I found this rather interesting site for it. I always was the tiny bit jealous of my friends who had one.
Show us a fool.
Well, I could've taken the easy answer and given some political figure but . . . I'm not. Instead, I'm going to place fictional characters that were just Fools in my opinion for different reasons:
Maybe I could've liked her if her ship wasn't sailing in Remus/Sirius waters. However, you gotta admit that she does act foolishly.
I just hated Liam and Renee. They were both such bad characters. And as you can see, they were somewhat modeled after Matrix and they had all the bad things of that movie and none of the good. The first season had such promise! But once they got rid of Boone and changed the scope of the Taelons . . . Earth:Final Conflict was never the same. Going from, "wow, this is good stuff!" to "Gah! Gag me with a spoon! I must get this taste out of my mouth! And vomit is preferrable."
This guy's problem actually wasn't that he was bad. In fact, he was very well done. But considering he was a baddie from Babylon 5, is that surprising? He just did some really foolish things as a man. Really, there are only a couple of main characters that I still cannot stand to watch and are worthy of . . .well, a bad star trek ep. That would be Dr. Franklin (who is RIP and thus I cannot really rip on him anymore) and Jeffrey Sinclair.
Dear God, I cannot stand this actor! Every ep I much watch of him makes me want to scream:
He's everything I hate about 80's male-centered lead roles all tied up in a 90's character. Really, I thank god on a regular basis that they kicked his ass out after the first season.
Duh.
Yeah, I don't find him so absolutely annoying now that I'm older. But still, foolish.
I pity the fool who liked him in the fifth book.
If you thought I was going to say Remus Lupin, you were insane. No, I'm talking about whoever the fool is that thought having his face hair grow out of his nostrils was a good look. WTF? Seriously.
