Wed. Feb. 1, 2023: Hello, February!

image courtesy of tlparadis via pixabay.com

Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Waxing Moon

Grey and cold, turned to sunny and colder

Yesterday’s weather was all over the place. One minute it was snowing, then it was sunny, then there were flurries coming down in the sun. Pretty, though. We’re supposed to get a wave of absolutely brutal cold Thursday night into Saturday night, and they’ve advised people not to be out. I cancelled my weekend plans, although I still hope to get out Sunday for a big grocery shop.

There’s a tough love post over on Ink-Dipped Advice about how to follow your dreams, and a post over on today’s Process Muse about plots and subplots. Check them out when you have a minute.

I drafted another episode of Legerdemain and figured out the next few episodes (within the context of the larger outline). I did the social media rounds promoting Episode 55. I uploaded/scheduled the promotions for this week’s episodes of Angel Hunt and adjusted the graphic sizes on the Legerdemain episodes for the Instagram posts.

I did my errands: drop-off/pick up at the library; coffee, eggs, and bread at the grocery store; a bottle of wine. The people I encounter on this regular round of errands are really very nice, and I’m grateful.

I was feeling tired and grumpy, though, anyway, although I made sure not to take anything out on the people I encountered on my errands.

I put through the Chewy order for cat litter.

I attended the pre-launch live Q&A for Spoutible on Twitter (which is just weird to me, but whatever). Some of their policies are creating red flags for me. We’ll see. It’s supposed to launch today.

I honed and tweaked interview questions for an article and sent them off. I’m looking forward to this piece.

I created a new logo for The Process Muse. This one feels more like me. I’ve even updated it in the sidebar for this blog!

I started writing up the notes/scenes on the Urban Fantasy romance and hit an issue with the character names. The names that I’ve been using have meanings contrary to themes in the story (because who the fuck knows what the plot is at this point). But when I tried to change the names, I got stuck. So I guess the names are the names, at least for now. Again, trust the subconscious. It knows what it’s doing, even when the rest of me doesn’t. However, writing scenes when there’s no plot to hang it onto is difficult. I think I’ll add notes in parentheses about vaguely what should happen and then, the character interactions that are clear in my head, I can write as scenes.

A fantastic opportunity showed up on my desk in the afternoon, but I don’t know if I can put something together to take advantage of it by February 12^th. But it is totally in my wheelhouse and would be hella fun if I could pull it off. Plus lucrative. Plus good for my career.

Worked on contest entries yesterday afternoon and evening, since I didn’t have any script coverages. The cat litter order from Chewy should arrive today, and the Midnight City Tarot shipped and should be here by Friday.

The third episode of ANGEL HUNT drops today (the last free episode). I hope you enjoy it. I’ll be making the social media rounds today to promote that, to promote The Process Muse and Ink-Dipped Advice. I’ll also be doing the rounds to post the first of the #28Prompts (it will drop on Twitter at noon EST). I’m hoping I can upload them to Hive via the tablet, but who knows?

Tues. Jan. 31, 2023: Starting With More Snow

image courtesy of StockSnap via pixabay.com

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Waxing Moon

Snowy and cold

This won’t be as long as our usual Tuesday morning chat, because I just don’t have that much to say.

The month wrap up is over on the GDR site.

I wrote two book reviews on Friday morning, sent them in, invoiced, was paid, did a library run, came home. The weather was yucky. I had some scoring sheets and some pitches for coverage, that was it.

I have to say, these scoring sheets where the instructions are only to read the first page of the screenplay and score on that are teaching me a lot about how to open my own scripts.

I was done by mid-afternoon. My back hurt a lot, so I moved to the couch with the heating pad, and stayed there, reading for pleasure, pretty much all weekend. The weather was gray and icky.

Saturday’s reading was re-reading the 4^th book of my own GAMBIT COLONY project and what I have of the 5th, on which I wanted to figure out and rework a few bits. I made some notes and did an insert scene. It’s not traditionally viable, so I’ll have to pitch it to a small publisher, and I have to make sure I have all the ducks in the row for the series. There’s a lot that works in it, and there’s also a lot that pushes boundaries. And there are cuts that need to be made, or information integrated differently, in order to let the focus remain on the large and ever-growing ensemble.

But in the late afternoon/evening, I switched over to reading for pleasure, and basically read all day Sunday.

There were some books that I started and went back in the return stack for the library after a few chapters because they just didn’t do it for me. But I read LAST TRAIN TO MEMPHIS by Elizabeth Peters (another Vicky Bliss), Lana Harper’s BACK IN A SPELL (which is really good), and AN UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS by M.E. Hilliard, which I think I’ve read before, but it was a pleasure to re-read (and order the next books in the series), and an early book by an author whose work I’ve read a lot of under various names; this one was a little on the cutesy side for me.

I should have dived into the books on Malta’s history for the Heist Romance screenplay. I did look through the travel guides and watched some local videos, and decide where I’m putting some of the key scenes, though. I should have worked on contest entries.

But I was in pain and feeling grumpy and unsettled, so I didn’t. I did, early on Saturday morning, dash out to get more ink. Getting in and out of the car was hard. But it had to be done.

Monday I had to get up and actually function, so I did some prep for Imbolcc, blogged, worked on Process Muse posts, and took the car in for inspection in the morning – new-to-me place, in and out in 12 minutes, which is less time than it took to drive there. But I’m all set until next year.

I only had a stack of scoring sheets to do in the script coverage, so I did that, and started working ahead on the Process Muse posts.

I have an idea tickling at the back of my brain. I thought it was going to be historical alt-fantasy or epic fantasy, but the characters have decided it is urban fantasy romance, so that’s what it will be. If I ever figure it out. Because some key scenes basically dropped into my head, and I have the story with the emotional arcs for the two protagonists, but not the plot. So I’ll make notes on the scenes (or maybe write them, there are not many of them), and let it percolate on the back burner of my brain to see if a plot evolves. All of last night’s dreams were in the world of that story, and through those characters’ experiences (rather than me being myself in one of my Dreamscapes), so there’s obviously something in there my subconscious believes is viable.

I ordered the Midnight City Pocket Tarot and am very excited to get it. The artwork is based on NYC locations, so it will have a resonance for me.

Soup class was fun – we did mulligatawny soup, and it was great. I missed the last couple of weeks of class, and missed the camaraderie, as well as the skills I’m learning. Once the food is created, everyone just hangs out and chats, and it’s fun. The best of Zoom (and makes Charlotte so happy).

I did a reading with the Spirit Allies Oracle deck, which came in the Goddess Provisions box a couple of months back. I don’t know why I’m surprised when it’s so accurate. It’s a terrific deck, by the way.

Anthony Lemke talked about a book he read that he really loved. It’s been on my TBR list for awhile, but I’m moving it up, because he’s never steered me wrong when it comes to books or good work!

We had a little snow overnight, maybe just over an inch. We have an ice warning out, and it’s kind of flurrying. I’ll wait until mid-day to do my library-grocery-liquor store run. I need more coffee. And I have to put in a Chewy order for cat litter.

The cats have adjusted to the whole not-being-fed-until-coffee. But the second the coffeemaker starts (it’s set for a specific time the night before) and the smell wafts through the house, all of them are making demands that I Get Up and Feed Them. It’s kind of hilarious.

I need to get my act together and focus today. There’s writing to do, interview questions to create and send off, contest entries to read, a book to start reading for review. No scripts in the queue, at least so far. I’m not in terrible shape this pay period, but I’m under what I hoped, and I’m very, very frustrated at the pressure to “double volume” when there aren’t enough scripts at a decent rate in the queue. So I need to add in other options.

#28Prompts starts tomorrow. I hope you have fun with it. I had fun coming up with the prompts. It will drop on Twitter at noon EST every day, and on the other social media channels (where I can’t schedule ahead of time) whenever I can get on them.

The next episode of Legerdemain drops today. I hope you enjoy it. Be well, my friends.