1.

I'm doing Summer Camp with Karen Mahoney.

My goals are:

At some point, I need to start my Sooper Sekrit Projekt with Nadia Lee. We are sacrificing blood, sweat and time, in order to achieve World Domination. Stay tuned.

June:
Finish Hurricane Forever. About another 20-30k.

July:
Ignore Hurricane Forever.

Pretty sure this will be the most difficult one, but this is the most important goal for July. If I don't complete the others, I guess I'll have had my first real writing vacation in I-don't-know-when.

Write a short story, maybe 10k.
Fiddle with my would-be magnum opus.

August:
Write a synopsis for something. I don't care what, so long it's not Hurricane Forever or my would-be magnum opus. I just want to have something for my underbrain to chew over whilst I revise Hurricane Forever.

You can sign up until June 8th.

2.

I'm at 31k, or so.

A little stuck, but we'll get there.

1.

I've updated my synopsis some. Re-worked some key points.

I think the storyline could work as things stand, but I'm sure things will change.

2.

I've just hit the 20k mark, which is a nice little milestone.

In terms of plot, I'm just about hit the meat of the book. Which will be nice because I haven't gotten this far before with a first draft. Which is a more significant milestone, if you ask me.

3.

It's May. I need to contemplate The Year of Starts again. Thinking of starting Rhoda Morley, unless I get my act together enough to find a decent pair of scissors in this house to cut the fabric for Metta Putfarckens.

I hardly stitched last month. I doubt this month will be much better.

4.

The war of being is not going so well.

Sometimes I wish I could take out a piece of my psyche, swap it out for a better, less dented version made of titanium that will not rust or corrode and is sturdy enough to take a few hits.

1.

I rather think I've been neglecting this blog for too long.

But I did try to return to the UK, got stuck in Dubai and decided to return to Singapore, so I do sort of have an excuse.

2.

Dubai is an inspiration.

It is what I imagine a charter city that's run out of money would look like.

Certainly, it does not meet the definition of a charter city. But the point of a charter city is that build it, and they will come.

They came, they saw, they left.

3.

I ran into a stop for most of the last week.

But it's kick-started again.

The first time in my life that my synopsis has actually helped me.

1.

The novel formerly known as TLOL is now officially Hurricane Forever.

Because I think I'm funny.

2.

Thinking about allegories in my work.

They never used to exist, but now I see them left and right.

I think that will probably be the topic of my next Monday post. This week's one was pretty crappy and I apologize for that.

3.

Hurricane Forever is going surprisingly well. My current process (well, my current planned process anyway) is to write the novel and add comments to the synopsis as I go along to fix things.

So far so good.

Previously, all the clay was just random lumps. This time it's like I put the clay into the mold, popped it out, and am now reshaping it a bit.

1.

This post is brought to you by ScribeFire for Firefox. As opposed to Windows Live Writer.

I do miss the many keyboard shortcuts that WLW had though. Like Ctrl+Shift+C to open up categories, and the ability to have it remember links, so when I mention Nadia, for instance, it'll link to her website automatically.

Especially since most of them don't work.

2.

In my attempts to procrastinate all things synopsis/studying, I have switched my choice of browsers from Chrome to Firefox and have decided to delete Opera completely from my laptop's consciousness.

This is followed by me jazzing it up, with Echofon -- I really want something that has Reply All and immediate shortening of URL and ability to change views with a keyboard shortcut -- and Scribefire, to be followed by something for an RSS Aggregator and something I can use for Gmail when I can't connect with Outlook.

3.

I'm also currently contemplating putting an end to my attempts to finish my synopsis as it is clearly going nowhere.

But I think I'm going to see whether I can dig up one of those list things for the Three Act Structure, which asks you stuff like inciting event, climax, etc.

This I'll input into Excel, with each of those items on the left column, and Acts I, II and III across. Because in every Act, those items ought to link up somehow.

1.

I just want this damn synopsis to be done.

I can’t remember if I tried this before or not, with TLOL, but I’m pretty sure I have.

I am nearly at the end.

That’s what’s making it so frustrating.

2.

Thinking about how I’ll start over. Probably not with WriteWayPro which has been crashing lately and irritating me and breaking my flow when I have one.

And you know how it is with Murphy. It only crashes when I’m in the flow.

I may have to start calling WriteWayPro Murphy, at this rate.

Bah.

1.

I have achieved a new title for TLOL.

*hugs it to herself*

It’s probably not as cool as I think it is, but I’ll let myself believe it for a little longer.

2.

Writing the synopsis has helped me think a bit more about everything that I want inside it.

More importantly, how it all coalesces – writerly moment about pretty word here! – together.

That’s more important than the pieces, IMHO.

3.

And that’s it for today because I’m already well on my way to RSI.

1.

Watched 2012 flying into Dubai.

I never really understand why people consider ruthlessness to be such a bad thing.

I’m very tired of movies with simplistic plots. ‘nuff said.

2.

I am writing a synopsis for TLOL.

Which still needs a new title.