I'm back to reading my novel out loud into a tape recorder and then listening to it to see if it sounds alright and if there are any obvious gaps. I really like my guy character. He is such a hoot. He is so arrogant and full of himself. I modeled him after someone I knew from Texas, and I made a note that I have to change more details. I don't want that guy, if my novel ever gets published, to get mad that I took details of his personal life and gave them to my male character. You'd think he'd be flattered, but I can't take any chances.
My guy character has such a distinctive voice and speaking style compared to my female character. That was the fun part of writing this novel, writing in a guy's point of view. I have my doubts if the conversations I wrote between my guy character and his best friend are authentic, but it sounds really good even with me reading it out loud. I made a note that a conversation between two guys wouldn't be complete without some sports reference. How could I forget about men and their sports obsessions?
Other than that I think the only thing I need to be careful of is repeating myself and the usual, which is my worth thing, telling and not showing. I also made a note to myself to make sure I was revealing new information in this chapter and not repeating stuff from the first chapter. Although I kind of like the idea of repeating information but with a different spin each time, depending on what's happenning and who is speaking and to whom the character is speaking to.
Monday, August 28, 2006
I'm back to reading my novel out loud into a tape recorder and then listening to it to see if it sounds alright and if there are any obvious gaps. I really like my guy character. He is such a hoot. He is so arrogant and full of himself. I modeled him after someone I knew from Texas, and I made a note that I have to change more details. I don't want that guy, if my novel ever gets published, to get mad that I took details of his personal life and gave them to my male character. You'd think he'd be flattered, but I can't take any chances.
My guy character has such a distinctive voice and speaking style compared to my female character. That was the fun part of writing this novel, writing in a guy's point of view. I have my doubts if the conversations I wrote between my guy character and his best friend are authentic, but it sounds really good even with me reading it out loud. I made a note that a conversation between two guys wouldn't be complete without some sports reference. How could I forget about men and their sports obsessions?
Other than that I think the only thing I need to be careful of is repeating myself and the usual, which is my worth thing, telling and not showing. I also made a note to myself to make sure I was revealing new information in this chapter and not repeating stuff from the first chapter. Although I kind of like the idea of repeating information but with a different spin each time, depending on what's happenning and who is speaking and to whom the character is speaking to.
My guy character has such a distinctive voice and speaking style compared to my female character. That was the fun part of writing this novel, writing in a guy's point of view. I have my doubts if the conversations I wrote between my guy character and his best friend are authentic, but it sounds really good even with me reading it out loud. I made a note that a conversation between two guys wouldn't be complete without some sports reference. How could I forget about men and their sports obsessions?
Other than that I think the only thing I need to be careful of is repeating myself and the usual, which is my worth thing, telling and not showing. I also made a note to myself to make sure I was revealing new information in this chapter and not repeating stuff from the first chapter. Although I kind of like the idea of repeating information but with a different spin each time, depending on what's happenning and who is speaking and to whom the character is speaking to.
I took a friend and her friend who was visiting to Ikea last Saturday. I'd always wanted to see the newer Ikea in Palo Alto so we trekked down the peninsula instead of to Emeryville. I was really good last Saturday and only walked out with $20 worth of stuff. But the Ikea bug bit me big time and this Saturday I went to store again in Palo Alto just to check it out and ended up buying all kinds of stuff.
I bought this shelf thing for my hallway didn't like it where I thought it was going to go, and ended up putting it my bedroom where it has made an incredible difference to the room. That got me into a huge decorating kick on Sunday which led me to rearrange my closet and my drawers and get rid of a dresser. I've had that dresser for over 10 years so it's gotten alot of use. It didn't cost me much money, but it's lasted so I definitely got my money's worth. Now it is sadly falling apart and I've been wanting to get rid of it for awhile, and I finally took my chance. My closet actually looks a lot better I think and for whatever reason it feels like I have more room.
Now I want to throw out the desk that I have in my bedroom since I never use it. I think I've had that desk for a few years as well. It's not falling apart of anything, but I bought another desk when I was working at home and I don't need two desks.
I've decided to make my bedroom more of a bedroom and move all my paperwork stuff to where my work desk is. The only paperwork stuff I want to keep in my bedroom is my wriitng stuff because I write in bed alot and my financial papers. Everything else will go towards my designated office space. And Ikea is going to help me achieve this goal because I think, I"m not sure yet, I'm going to buy one of their larger shelvie things. It will be tall and have lots of room for files in baskets and book and all my other paperwork stuff.
But I'm not done yet. I need another cd tower thing to hold dvds and videos as I don't quite have a proper place for them, and because I took a bunch of kung fu videos from my dead uncle's collection. My aunt was going to throw them out so I took a bunch I'd never seen before.
And then I decided that the space in my hallway which I was trying to fill with the book case that's now in my bedroom, needs to have something there after all and I'm thinking it needs a bench with a cushion and a place for shoes. I heard some guy say in the Ikea store that the bench would be a great thing for his hallway so he could have somewhere to sit when he took off his shoes. And I'm like, you know, that's not a bad idea. I'm running out of shoe space anyway, so the shoes that use everyday could go in the shoe shelves, there are 8 of them, and I could have a place to sit or set things down in the hallway.
I was thinking of an armoire because I need more hanging space, but I don't know. My friend whom I took to Ikea last week now thinks she could use an armoire, and I told her I was thinking of buying one as well.
So I think from now until the end of the year, I will be on a huge Ikea spending binge trying to bring some order into my apartment.
I bought this shelf thing for my hallway didn't like it where I thought it was going to go, and ended up putting it my bedroom where it has made an incredible difference to the room. That got me into a huge decorating kick on Sunday which led me to rearrange my closet and my drawers and get rid of a dresser. I've had that dresser for over 10 years so it's gotten alot of use. It didn't cost me much money, but it's lasted so I definitely got my money's worth. Now it is sadly falling apart and I've been wanting to get rid of it for awhile, and I finally took my chance. My closet actually looks a lot better I think and for whatever reason it feels like I have more room.
Now I want to throw out the desk that I have in my bedroom since I never use it. I think I've had that desk for a few years as well. It's not falling apart of anything, but I bought another desk when I was working at home and I don't need two desks.
I've decided to make my bedroom more of a bedroom and move all my paperwork stuff to where my work desk is. The only paperwork stuff I want to keep in my bedroom is my wriitng stuff because I write in bed alot and my financial papers. Everything else will go towards my designated office space. And Ikea is going to help me achieve this goal because I think, I"m not sure yet, I'm going to buy one of their larger shelvie things. It will be tall and have lots of room for files in baskets and book and all my other paperwork stuff.
But I'm not done yet. I need another cd tower thing to hold dvds and videos as I don't quite have a proper place for them, and because I took a bunch of kung fu videos from my dead uncle's collection. My aunt was going to throw them out so I took a bunch I'd never seen before.
And then I decided that the space in my hallway which I was trying to fill with the book case that's now in my bedroom, needs to have something there after all and I'm thinking it needs a bench with a cushion and a place for shoes. I heard some guy say in the Ikea store that the bench would be a great thing for his hallway so he could have somewhere to sit when he took off his shoes. And I'm like, you know, that's not a bad idea. I'm running out of shoe space anyway, so the shoes that use everyday could go in the shoe shelves, there are 8 of them, and I could have a place to sit or set things down in the hallway.
I was thinking of an armoire because I need more hanging space, but I don't know. My friend whom I took to Ikea last week now thinks she could use an armoire, and I told her I was thinking of buying one as well.
So I think from now until the end of the year, I will be on a huge Ikea spending binge trying to bring some order into my apartment.
I think I am going to go through withdrawals now that the only show I watched regularly on tv, "The 4400", has ended for the season. Thank god it's been renewed for a fourth season. The writing is brilliant plot wise because it's all twisty and turny and how they end things really make sense. I might not like them but the payoff makes sense to me. To have to be thinking that far ahead all the time seems unimaginable.
I wonder if JK Rowling did the same thing with the Harry Potter series, where she had to think that far ahead to have things pay off. In the first screenplay I wrote, reviewers said I paid things off well and answered questions that they had in the screenplay. I didn't do it deliberately though, it just kind of happened that way. But a 110 page screen play is easy compared to a seven-book series for three seasons of a 13-episode show.
I wonder if JK Rowling did the same thing with the Harry Potter series, where she had to think that far ahead to have things pay off. In the first screenplay I wrote, reviewers said I paid things off well and answered questions that they had in the screenplay. I didn't do it deliberately though, it just kind of happened that way. But a 110 page screen play is easy compared to a seven-book series for three seasons of a 13-episode show.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Conferences are so disorienting. My health care conference was at the Omni Hotel on Montgomery and Calfornia and was only for 1.5 days, and I didn't think it would be a big deal to attend. But it really was. You're in an enclosed environment for that time period, so you're participating in your normal world which means coming back is like so weird. I didn't travel to the conference, I took the train to work like I normally do, but it does feel like I've been away for a couple of days. It's a very, very strange feeling.
I do like conferences though because they do feed you very well. We had breakfast, lunch and dinner at The Waterfront Restaurant on the first day, and then breakfast and lunch at the half day. The food at the Omni Hotel was very good and I was surprised how good the food was at the Waterfront. There was also a constant stream of snacks and drinks, and the hotel even had a basket of Power bars, Luna Bars, and Cliff Bars for snacks and Numi teas. Talk about a swanky hotel. They were were real cloth towels to dry your hands in the bathroom along with nice smelling soap and lotion. And they must have drained a whole quarry of marble because it was everywhere in the hotel.
I do like conferences though because they do feed you very well. We had breakfast, lunch and dinner at The Waterfront Restaurant on the first day, and then breakfast and lunch at the half day. The food at the Omni Hotel was very good and I was surprised how good the food was at the Waterfront. There was also a constant stream of snacks and drinks, and the hotel even had a basket of Power bars, Luna Bars, and Cliff Bars for snacks and Numi teas. Talk about a swanky hotel. They were were real cloth towels to dry your hands in the bathroom along with nice smelling soap and lotion. And they must have drained a whole quarry of marble because it was everywhere in the hotel.
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