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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Thanks to a friend

Smiley from millan.netAs a writer, I have become very self-critical of my own work. I start to not like what I'm writing and I think that's why I stopped a book last year. I start thinking that what I'm writing is utter garbage and nobody will ever read it. Because of this, I think it's very important to have somebody else who is willing to read your work as you're writing it. You need someone who will not give a fluffy review and say "it's very good". A little fluff is fine but they need to critique your work too so they should say "it's good but..." and give corrections or suggest what needs something and where.

That's where my friend, Michelle, comes in. Michelle, you have been very helpful to me and I wholeheartedly thank you for going over my book for me. I think without you, this current book would have been abandoned a second time. I also thank you for wanting to read more of it because it encourages me to write more. I'm also very thankful for the corrections that you've made even when I had proof read my book half a dozen times and still missed a few.

You're not afraid to suggest that sometime needs more (by the way, can you read the end of Chapter 8 again for me and let me know what you think?) and I thank you for that too. I hope I'm not driving you crazy with me sending you my new updates all the time but if I am, I know you'll let me know.

So, thank you for all you've done so far. You are a great friend and I really appreciate you helping me with this. Smiley from millan.net

P.S. Next chapter, Derek returns.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Weird Dreams

I had hoped I would dream last night and remember the dreams and I did. I have one image of flies. Many Many flies in my apartment, covering the windows and flying around. That's all there was of that dream. Odd..

Second dream had more to it. I was in a hallway with white walls, white floors and ceiling and there were many doors everywhere. It wasn't quite an apartment building but it was some sort of living facility. Some rooms were bedrooms, one was a store, another was a doctor's office, another was a sheriff's office, and many more rooms. I stepped out of my room and heard my neighbor crying, I went into her room and asked what was wrong and she said the doctor messed her up. She said he and his nurse drugged her and she passed out, she kept saying that what he did was wrong. I asked what did he do after she passed out and she started wailing. Another neighbor came in to comfort her and I told her to talk to the sheriff, she said she did but he didn't believe her.

The dream jumps to me standing in the doctor's office. I asked him what happened to the girl in the room next to me and he nodded to his nurse. Both the doctor and the nurse forced me into a chair and while the nurse held me, the doctor forced my mouth open and shoved pills in my mouth. The pills were the size of quarters and there were 3 or 4 of them. He held my mouth closed and started talking.

"Just give it a minute for the pills to dissolve. The pills are called D-9 and they are experimental. You wanted to know what happened so I'll show you." the doctor said. I passed out in the dream so I still didn't know what happened. when I woke up, I was in my room on my bed. I felt fine, but was pissed off. I opened the door and found the sheriff walking down the hallway. It was Jack Carter from the show Eureka. lol I said, "Jack, I need to talk to you. I want to file a complaint against the doctor. " I explained what happened and Jack listened but he said without evidence, he can't do anything. It would be my word against the doctor's.

After chatting with neighbors to try to come up with a plan, I figured out what to do. I took a camera and got into the room next to the doctor's office. There was a vent that was big enough for me to climb in and it connected to the doctor's office. I got in the vent and hid there for a while, waiting for the doctor to do something. I didn't have to wait long. i got pictures of him shoving this D-9 drug into a patient's mouth. suddenly the lights dimmed and stuff was lowered from the ceiling. Mini disco balls about 3 inches in diameter hanging everywhere from the ceiling, along with some odd brown things. I got a picture of that and the doctor heard the camera. I got out of there quickly and returned to my room. I went to print up the pictures but the only one that came out was the one showing the disco balls.

I ran to Jack's office and showed it to him but and after a lot of convincing, he walked down the office to talk to the doctor.

Unfortunately that's when I woke up. Just what was the doctor doing to his patients? What was this building I was living in? What was the deal with the disco balls? And who were these people? Jack Carter was the only one I recognized but that's normal for me. lol yea.. it was a weird dream

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Short Dream Stories

Last night, as I was drifting off to slumber land, I had a thought. Maybe I can turn my dreams into short stories to submit to magazines. Anybody who knows me knows I have some pretty vivid whacked out dreams. I even thought about which dream to choose first to turn into a short story.

Luckily, since I've written down and kept track of my dreams, it's easy to go through them and reread them and figure out which ones to try out. I thought that if I turn my dreams into short stories, I could start submitting them to publications to try to build a published reputation for myself.

If you'd like to go through and read a couple of dreams I posted on here, go to the right side of this blog. There is a section called Labels, just click on the word dream and it should take you to the dreams I put on here. In fact, I think I'll do that too, just to refresh my memory of which ones I put on here.

Edit: Ok, I didn't post as many dreams on here as I thought but the ones I did post still give you an idea of my type of dreams.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Is Laughter a good sign?

Tonight, I started reading the second book I started and read the first 83 pages. I remember I had stopped writing it because I thought it was crap. I didn't know where to take the next scene, didn't know where the book was going and just thought it sucked. It was end of May 2008 that I stopped writing it and I didn't pick it up again. I didn't even read any pages until tonight.

I found the 83 pages I had printed up and decided to read it. Now, besides some missing words and a couple of bad spelling mistakes, I actually enjoyed it. I didn't even want to put it down to write down what needed fixing. I laughed while reading my book but in a good way. I found the humor I had put in my book and it may just be reigniting that spark to continue with it.

I also found I had incorporated a friend into the book a bit and I don't know if she knows. Michelle, I'm talking about you.

So is it a good thing that a writer laughs at the things she writes? Will the public (if anybody ever reads this book) find the humor that I did?

Now, I must finish reading the pages I didn't print up and try to find the mistakes I found before. I need to find out what turned me off from continuing this book.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Genre for my book

Smiley from millan.net I need to figure out what genre my book is. Does it fall under Paranormal Romance or is it Fantasy? I know some people might say that it doesn't matter but it does. If I submit my book to a publisher who takes only Fantasy books and my book turns out to be Paranormal Romance, then that could be a problem.

Also, it seems that each genre has a different word count requirement. Right now, my book has almost 62,500 words. Word Count and books is a confusing subject. Some websites say that 75,000 is average. While others say that 90,000 is average. It seems that the best advice I've read is to find some books of the same genre and get an estimated word count from them.

That brings me back to finding out what genre my book is. Of course, I think an agent would help me figure that out but I'd like to know what genre my book is before I approach an agent. I don't want to look like some dolt who has no clue about anything. I would like to at least give the appearance of intelligence.
Smiley from millan.net

Maybe I need to find some sort of definitions of the genres. I think that would help. If you folks have any ideas, please let me know!