I was doing some pretty hefty updating of my pc today (only cos I wanted to upgrade to IE7 and found I didn't even have XP Service Pack 2 and about a squillion updates - eek!) so while that was happening (and is still happening because after I got back from having dinner with the ex and started up the pc again there were another squillion updates) I began to sort through the pile of paperwork/magazines/stuff that always seems to accumulate and gets shoved from one spot to another over a period of time.

I found an exercise book in the pile and flicked through it, only to find the most precious bunch of notes any writer could ever wish to have. I remember exactly when I wrote this down - it was one of the first workshops I did through QWC here in Cairns - and how I wish I'd not buried it.

The notes are on the structure of a storyline and I'm going to share them with you before I type them up as a checklist for myself both as a writer and as an editor.

Here goes:

1. Story opens with the balance of relationships that currently exist and existed before the story begins.

2. An event happens that upsets that balance.

3. The Central Character (CC) emerges from this event.

4. CC must try to right the balance, formulate a plan to fix the situation.

5. Obstacles must be presented that prevent the CC from restoring the balance. This is where we learn about character and human nature.

6. Complications come into it now - elements that change the direction irrevocably and take the story to a whole new level.

7. The CC has a crisis of faith and needs to re-think the dilemma.

8. The climax.

9. The resolution which gives us a glimpse of the new balance at the end of the story.

As soon as I read all this today I applied each of those points to the novel that is slowly being rewritten and realised that the re-worked plot fits every point (does happy dance).

As I said, I'm going to write these up as a checklist for myself, and thank myself daily for finding and not throwing out the exercise book!

I seem to be getting back into the writing frame of mind - I did a crit today for the first time in ages in CritMonsters. It had been so long that phillberrie wondered "who was that masked dragon!"

Heheheee, the dragon is back in town!

I'm not talking zips or buttons. I'm not talking relationships. I'm talking movies.

Remember a couple of years ago (I'm sure I posted an entry *somewhere* about this) when I was in Brisbane for Conjure and my feral roomie destroyed the plot of the Bollywood movie I was watching on the Sunday night when it only had a half hour to go and I pretty well knew what was going to happen but I WANTED TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED and she told me in great detail what would happen and I never spoke to her again...........?

Well, last night SBS repeated the movie. And I watched every last minute of it, from go to whoa!

So I got to see the beginning (which I'd missed previously), the bit in the middle which I'd already seen, and then the ending which turned out much like I expected (anyone for curried Romeo and Juliet?) but still brought a tear to my eye and the anticipation of a Monday spent curled under my desk at work catching up on my sleep.

Why do they show these long movies so late at night???

But I am happy that I have now seen that movie in its entirety and no longer have to wonder what really happened at the end.

by the writing bug, at long last.

Yesterday was a good day. The writing bug finally stopped by and gave me a good hard bite - I wrote a couple of thousand words of the novel after exporting it from yWriter (sorry halspacejock - while I think your software is great it just doesn't suit the way I write) and went to bed feeling satisfied with the day.

I think if the cat hadn't decided to curl up in my armpit at 3am I would have slept right through the night - a first for me for a very long while.

Housework will get done when it gets done - this writer is back in action!

Now that the man has moved out completely (apart from one small cabinet) it's time to think about redecorating and making this house truly mine.

Well, as much mine as the bank will allow. Actually, they only own 43.66% at this precise moment which is a pretty good ratio really.

eneit and I spent part of my visit over Christmas/New Year discussing colour schemes and 'interesting bits' with the result that she is making me a frieze template to use in certain rooms (and I must remember to send off for the celtic knotwork one I found on the net) and I was fairly certain about the feature wall colour and the colour for the other walls/woodwork.

But then I started thinking about how much the plum colour I'd chosen (I have a cardigan which is the colour I was thinking of and I found a paint that matches - have the colour chip here in front of me) has in the way of red tones and how I'd be fairly restricted with other shades (ie in bedding etc) because I really like the lilac tones (ie blue tones) more.

So today I thought to myself: Self, go find a really stunning fabric for the swags and match the paint to that! So I did. Found a gorgeous fabric, bought a sample, found a matching paint colour, then came home to realise that not only does the gorgeous fabric not go well with my loungesuite, it also doesn't go too well with the floor tiles (they're a marbly kind of pattern with dark almost-plum but barely there swirls).

Dammit!

Option 1: Keep looking for a stunning fabric that goes with the plum colour (there are tiny plum patches on the loungesuite) and forget lavender/lilac.

Option 2: Go with the stunning fabric I found today and get my loungesuite recovered and all floor tiles replaced. No, I don't think so either!

Option 3: Open my eyes. I have a glittery butterfly on a clip attached to my desk lamp. I just took it off and held it against the paint chip. It tones. It works. It's a lighter shade of the plum (the paint chip's name is actually Carnival Red!) All I need to do is remember to take the butterfly with me when I'm searching for the fabric for the swags, and for new bedding.

Isn't redecorating fun??? NOT!

Describe me with...

...just one single word. Leave it in my comments section. Be anonymous if you choose, it won't be screened. Then post this original message on your journal and see how many strange and interesting things people say about you

What Barbara Holten Means

You are full of energy. You are spirited and boisterous. You are bold and daring. You are willing to do some pretty outrageous things. Your high energy sometimes gets you in trouble. You can have a pretty bad temper at times. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something. You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense. You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun. You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out. Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia. Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person. You are well rounded, with a complete perspective on life. You are solid and dependable. You are loyal, and people can count on you. At times, you can be a bit too serious. You tend to put too much pressure on yourself. You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is. You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life. You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home. You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people. You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts. You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.

Yeah, that's me *grin*

In 1952 (the year you were born)

Harry Truman is president of the US Elizabeth II becomes Queen of England after the death of her father, George VI First explosion of a hydrogen device takes place at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Christine Jorgensen becomes the first medically and legally certified transsexual US troops complete their pull-out from Japan Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected President of the US Sister Theresa becomes Mother Theresa and begins her charity work in Calcutta Rick James, Douglas Adams, and Liam Neeson are born New York Yankees win the World Series Detroit Lions win the NFL championship Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup Charlotte's Web by E.B. White is published

Oh yeah, born the same year as Douglas Adams and Liam Neeson - what more could a girl want?

Just now I received a message from eneit as follows:

are these your pics? http://msgrpics.net/?msn=tropical_dm@hotmail.com

which she didn't actually send, but was sent by the virus it contains which is a very nasty piece of work. It looks at your contact list and sends the virus to everyone on the list whether your currently chatting with them or not.

Thankfully I realised that it was dodgy when it came up with the File Open/Save dialog box and saw it was an MS-DOS Application.

Whoa! No way is that coming on my computer!

kesalemma has also issued a warning so fingers xx'd those of you on our combined flist will be alert and not get clobbered.

There is a site you can go to which I checked out for info on how to remove the virus if you do unfortunately get clobbered - http://www.anetforums.com/posts.aspx?ThreadIndex=1563

It's an interesting word... grunt. Very versatile.

It can be a sound, deep, guttural and visceral.

But it can also be used in other ways, which is why I started thinking about it in more depth.

I was talking with my sister about buying (in my case)/upgrading (in her case) a notebook computer and how we both want one that has some serious grunt (she's an ISP, I'm an editor/proofreader/writer).

Then there's my car - it has 2L of grunt under the bonnet. Yes, it goes nice and fast when I need it to.

Then today one of the engineers at work was filling out the forms for setting up a new project in the project management system and I pointed out that he should put his name as project leader, and he said "No, it's not me, I'm just one of the grunts working on the project."

Like I said... it's a very versatile word.

If anyone has any other uses for it, I'd love to know their ideas.

What color is your soul painted? Blue Your soul is painted the color blue, which embodies the characteristics of peace, patience, understanding, health, tranquility, protection, spiritual awareness, unity, harmony, calmness, coolness, confidence, dependability, loyalty, idealism, tackiness, and wisdom. Blue is the color of the element Water, and is symbolic of the ocean, sleep, twilight, and the sky. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

Guess this explains why I like the Moody Blues so much *grin*

The creative ones, that is.

I've been rather preoccupied with other matters in the last few weeks so my intention of keeping November free from editing projects to devote to writing kinda went astray.... until around 1am Friday morning when I woke up with a story idea pounding on the back of my forehead demanding to be thought about.

1am..... you gotta be kidding! My brain is incapable of coherent thought at that hour of the day (plenty of incoherent thought about what is happening in my life at the moment, but important stuff? Nah!) so I hauled myself out of bed, staggered down to my workroom and grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled down the idea, then went back to bed.

At the sensible hour of 7am I took a look at the piece of paper and discovered that even though I hadn't been wearing my reading glasses I had written coherent words that even I could understand *grin*

The story is now on its way, around 1000 words. It's a ten-episode thing - a survivor story where people vote off songs from a particular CD until only one is left standing. And then we move on to the next CD this band released. Yeah, okay, it is a Moody Blues thing but it's fun and so far the stories have been very interesting. The first paragraph of mine is gonna knock everyone's socks off! I shall say no more.... *nudge nudge wink wink*

But it felt so good to be writing again. Fingers xx'd by the end of this week I will have the freedom to write in the evenings and I'll be able to get back on track with the various projects I've put on hold.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention - my second AntipodeanSF story is now online at www.antisf.com - Things that make you go mmmmmmm. And apparently sales of Mangoes on Fire are doing quite well *yay*. I'm off to Yungaburra next Sunday for a launch up there at the local booksellers - should be fun!

Phew!

Finally, I'm back in the cyber world. It's been a very frustrating few days not being able to check things online at the press of a key or click of a mouse.

Apparently I ranted at Telstra with sufficient tone of growl today because when Tony got home at around 5pm the connection was back up, yet I was told only 15 mins later that we would be reconnected by the 12th!

I don't care - I has internet again!

*bounce*

Blasted internet service provider - service? BAH!

I haven't had internet access since Friday morning - I'm at work right now, the tail end of my lunch break - and for some reason no responses to my previous posts are coming through to my email!

Luckily I can also check my email accounts from work - last month we had no access for nearly two weeks so I set everything up on my work pc.

So if you send me an email or look for me on Messenger and I don't seem to be there very much, please be patient.

I'll be changing ISPs very shortly!

No, I didn't think so *grin*.

I've been flat out like a lizard drinking since my trip to Brisbane to see WotW - still feel the slightest twinge of disappointment that I didn't get to meet THE MAN, but then I console myself that I did meet Jeff Wayne, and did some serious retail therapy in the factory outlet stores, which makes me think about the factory outlet MALL being constructed out of the shopping centre close to where I work which they hope will be fully functional in April next year. Boy will the bank account get seriously dented then!

Work-wise things have been very busy - I'm so booked up with editing this month that I've actually taken a couple of days off my day-job this week, and will take a couple off next week as well, just to make sure I meet the authors' deadlines. That's the great thing about where I work - as long as I don't take time off when things are busy (and we have a reasonably stable cycle of quiet-busy throughout each month) the boss is okay with me disappearing for a day or two.

I just finished reading the second book in Kylie Chan's trilogy - Red Phoenix and I didn't want to smack Emma (the main character) once! In the first book I kept wanting to whack her upside the head because she was always shouting and yelling and losing the plot every two minutes, but now she's settled down considerably. I'll definitely be buying the third book. I am totally intrigued to know how it turns out.

Sadly, the little satellite bookstore in my local shopping centre is closing down. Mind you, their parent closed down four months ago (it was in the shopping mall that's being redeveloped for factory outlets) so you'd think they would have moved all their stock etc into the satellite just to keep going, but no. All they did was send over the shelving so it looked more like a proper bookstore. And now they're closing because they're not making enough money! Where's the logic in that? There's a young lass from Minnesota works there and we've been chatting quite a lot because nearly every Saturday for the last couple of months I've been browsing their "5 for $20 or $5 each" stand outside the shop and finding some real gems.

However, last Saturday I was in the other shopping centre I frequent - Stockland Earlville - where I also buy my books and noticed that there are now FOUR sections along the wall for SciFi/Fantasy - WOO HOO! Everything else is being squeezed to the back of the store - great stuff!

My writing has been at a standstill because of all this editing work but I've decided to keep November an editing-free-zone so I can concentrate on the novel and some shorts I'm planning on submitting to an anthology.

Speaking of anthologies - the Tropical Writers anthology 'Mangoes on Fire' is launching on November 3 - I've put a bit of a blurb on my website for it. Click on the image of the book cover on the home page: www.tropicaldragon.com.au

So, that's what I've been up to for the last month.

1. Composer
2. Special Effects Technician
3. Casting Director
4. Comedian
5. Musician
6. Magician
7. Makeup Artist
8. Auditor
9. Certified Public Accountant
10. Legal Secretary

Editor came in at number 18, and writer at number 34!!!!

I've been a legal secretary, for three hellish years. All the others have me chuckling - the first seven all in the entertainment industry - hmm, maybe that's how I could have gotten to meet........ (see another post)

Interesting batch of responses.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/

Trying to picture 136trillion brontosauruses nose to tail and failing miserably.

A friend sent me this list and I just had to share:

FOR LEXOPHILES (LOVERS OF WORDS):

1. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

2. A will is a dead giveaway.

3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

4. A backward poet writes inverse.

5. In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

6. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

7. If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.

10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

11. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

12. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.

13. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

14. Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.

15. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

16. A calendar's days are numbered.

17. A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.

18. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

19. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

20. A plateau is a high form of flattery.

21. The short fortune teller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.

22. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

23. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

24. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

25. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

26. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

27. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

28. Acupuncture: a jab well done.

29. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

Note: No trees were killed in the sending of this message, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

I was surfing the net trying to find my local paper's site and came across this inside an informational site about Cairns and FNQ.

So, for any non-Aussie readers of my journal - here's what all us orstryleans are saying about you *wink*

http://www.cairnsweb.com.au/guide/generalinfo/speakingaussie.htm

eneit did point out to me though that there are some missing, one of which I had never heard of so it might be one that's unique to the part of Oz she lives in *shrugs*.

And now you can give back as good as you get (known as sledging - a great aussie tradition as the english cricketers well know).

Actually, not lost it but finished it as best as I could get it and now waiting for eneit and phillberrie to let me know how big my plot holes are while I wait for......

my first assignment as a brand new freelance editor for Sid Harta Publishers!

They approached me last week, discussions were emailed back and forth and fingers xx'd I might have something by the end of the week. So I am going to be a very busy little dragon and will have to schedule specific time for my own writing *drags huge planner up off floor and affixes to wall* which, with a definite plot outline should be much quicker now.

And now hubby has deposited two utterly scrumptious looking hotdogs in front of me, so I'm off......