Wednesday 1 September 2010

AIMLESS BURBLING

I'm just going to admit it straight up - I have no idea what to blog about today. I am drifting about my house like the lost wraith of an abandoned milkmaid (I don't know why a milkmaid, okay? shut up), making weebling noises under my breath and sighing long, melancholy sighs.

Why?

Turns out that despite my good intentions, it's not so easy to get to work on Book Two of your two book series if you have no idea whether it will ACTUALLY BE Book Two of a two book series, or if it might turn out to only be the second part of the book you thought you just finished. Confused yet? I am. Mrrghh.

So anyway, I decided to put the second book/part of FrostFire aside for a bit. I don't want to spend weeks working on a brilliant opening to a new book if it's all going to get deleted because there is no new book. But that means I have nothing to do. And I...don't do so well with the forced inactivity, kids. It turns me into the b*tsh*t crazy lady. If you thought I was the b*tsh*t crazy lady before? Yeah, no. That was me being normal.

I read seven books over the weekend, and now there's nothing left on my TBR pile that I really want to dive into. Celebrity MasterChef being finished, there's nothing on TV that I want to see (MasterChef rules, all right? Shut up). I did make an effort to be productive. I printed out an unfinished manuscript I was working on a few years ago, before Shadows on the Moon. Anyone who used to check the writing journal on my website (a short-lived and ill-fated idea on my part) may recall that I was working on a book I fondly referred to as the giant killer clockwork praying mantis death robot book. It's cool, and I think I'm definitely going to finish it, but there's nearly 70,000 words of it and I can already see that it needs a LOT of work. Is it wise to plunge into this when FrostFire isn't finished yet? Probably not.

I've been for two long walks in the countryside, but I do that every day anyway. I baked, and now I'm going to have to palm several pounds of baked goods off on family and friends. I did some sketching, but I'm really out of practise and it's not fun if everything turns out kind of looking like a donkey, especially if you were trying to draw one of your own characters (it can happen to any artist, all right? Shut up). Much more of the sighing and the weebling and my dog is going to run away, folks. The cats are already hiding under the bed.

I may be waiting another week or two or three before I get any feedback on FrostFire. I CANNOT WAIT THAT LONG doing nothing without losing it and going completely nuts. And like I said, if you thought I was nuts before? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Give me suggestions. What should I do to take my mind off the writing that I want to do but can't? What books should I read that I haven't already (most of my recent reads are on my GoodReads page)? What hobby should I try out? What film or TV show, anime, manga, funny singing yak clip on YouTube should I check out? Or, failing that, what blog post topic would you like me to write on?

I NEED HELP, YOU GUYS! DO NOT FAIL ME!

6 comments:

Alex Mullarky said...

You should read Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn... that's the most recent book I read and loved. I don't know if you already did this before I started following your blog, but my suggestion would be a post on character creation maybe? It's always interesting to see how people create characters before writing them :D

Zoë Marriott said...

Thank you! Mistress of Rome and character building. I can to that! *Runs off to write blog post for Friday*

Nattasha said...

Well i'm reading the Goddess of Partholon series by PC Cast the first one is Divine by Mistake. Oh there is an autobiography (I don't usually like them but this one is good) called A Piece of Cake by Cupcake brown, The Prophecy of the Gems by Flavia Bujor. You could continue with your Mantis Book. Movies: Saving Private Ryan, X-Men, Amazing Grace, Howls moving castle or Little women? Hobbies: not so sure usually I just play with Skye (my dog), Jig-saw puzzles? And blogs I haven't a clue about but I like the idea of Character Creation, or what about, what actors would you like to portray the characters in your books if they were ever turned into movies?

Zoë Marriott said...

Thank you, thank you! *Scribbles busily*

Unknown said...

Your blog is fantastic!!! I have to be honest, I've never heard of any of your stories... but I'm disappointed because they all sound FANTASTIC! I'm a huge fantasy nut, so you bet your butt I'm running to amazon.com and adding them to my list!!

I currently reading You Wish by Mandy Hubbard, Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins, Firelight by Sophie Jordan, A B*tch Named Karma (just to name a few!!!)

For blogs I love learning about how you come about your characters, their names, if you do collages, create playlists, how you come about names. Fun writing things!!

Oh and when I don't know what to do, a bath, a good book, a journal and brownies bring my writing back to life! OH and trash TV on ABC Family.

Zoë Marriott said...

Oh, thank you. I've just visited yours and it looks really interesting too. I'm in awe of how many projects you're working on! And you've given me a great list of books to look into as well, thanks.

Character building seems to be a really popular topic, so I think I'm going to do a real bumper post on that, (possibly even including artwork) on Friday.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions!

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