In the mood

The writing mood has got a hold of me again :)

After watching loads of Fantasy and Sci-Fi DVDs for uncounted numbers of times, I really feel like writing again. I love writing and I never abandoned it in the last few months, only I have not worked on my "big" projects, only on small ones.
And I still love my stories too. I want to finish them. Especially Before and After and Ella.

What inspired this blog entry and the realisation that I need to write again, was that I stood in my kitchen and suddenly had a very vivid scene of Ella questioning people in my head. And with a bit of distance I now know what I want to do differently.

And I think what plays part in this too, is that I haven't read a book for quite some time. I tend to get influenced by a story/author and I feel that I have found back to myself (I thank my little projects and the people involved with them in a way)

Books I've read in 2009

Just for the records:

Original titles in brackets

- HdR: Die Gefährten (LotR: The Fellowship of the Ring)
- The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
- Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen
- The Blade Itself
- Der Hüter der Finsternis (The Lamplighter)
- 13 Little Blue Envelopes
- Twilight
- Uglies
- Pretties
- Specials
- New Moon
- Eclipse
- Breaking Dawn
- Die Hand des Teufels (The Hand of Devils)
- Die Sünde der Brüder (The Brotherhood of the Blade)
- Das Meer der Lügen (The Private Matter)
- Peeps
- The Last Days
- Der Wunschzettel (Be Careful What You Wish For)
- Märchenmond
- Die Chroniken von Narnia: Das Wunder von Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew)
- CvN: Der König von Narnia (CoN: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
- CvN: Der Ritt nach Narnia (CoN: The Horse and His Boy)
- Extras
- totgepflegt
- abgemurkst
- umgenietet
- All Quiet on the Orient Express
- Romeo&Juliet
- A Great and Terrible Beauty
- Rebel Angels
- The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
- Stardust
- The Sweet Far Thing
- Acadian Star
- A Caribbean Mystery
- The Walrus and the Carpenter
- Echo der Hoffnung (An Echo in the Bone)
- Thirteen reasons why

New cats

I'm a cat mama again :) While I don't paticularly like that expression (I'm not their mama), they are babies still, both 3 months old.

They are from a litter of cats that all look almost the same and my sister (who took the other two sisters) and me had a bit of a hard time to sort out who was who when I finally took mine home yesterday. :)
We know how to tell them apart, but if you don't see all four at the same time... :)

Both give me a "hard time" because I don't have enough hands and arms to cuddle both at the same time as much as they want to. :D

Laoghaire:

Meara:

Born of Hope

Only 11 days to go!! The new trailer looks awesome!

NaNoWriMo, Day 5

I would have needed to write 5000 words today (oh, yesterday, it's past midnight *gah*) to make up for the non-writing of the last two days.

Only, I mentioned I wouldn't have much time today either and right now I'm way too tired and uninspired to go on. At least I got 1725 words today, that leaves me with 4942 words tomorrow (instead of 6667).
That's the only positive thing right now (writing related)...

NaNoWriMo, Day 3

No words today. I thought I could get them in between two appointments but I didn't. But I have been thinking about what I could write, so that counts for something, doesn't it? :)

At least I have a bit of a scene in my head, so I know what will happen next.

Thing is, I don't think I'll write tomorrow either, I'm out and about all day. But - seeing as my godfather has a meeting in the evening - I might skip going to the cinema alone and write then. We'll see.
And depending on how awake I am tomorrow morning, I might write on the train :)

If not, 5000 words on Thursday when I don't have time either. Great :D

Book giveaway

Susan is celebrating her 500+ Twitter followers. Celebrate with her and have a chance to win a book!
(Who doesn't want to win a book??)

Contest can be found here.

NaNoWriMo, Day 2

1789 words today

Churned them out within about 1 hour, and I feel kinda mentally exhausted now, but good nonetheless. :)

NaNoWriMo, Day 1

1696 words today. Yahoo! :)

I must be crazy for doing this - and with a new project no less! - but I feel good about that one.
I don't have a working title yet (only again a main character that named herself :) ) and maybe I'll write a synopsys later.

I looked through my notes yesterday (it's really only a mail folder where I put all those e-mails with ideas I used to send myself from work) and found notes to a story that I still very much like. Only not the circumstances I originally thought this to happen in (after WW 2). So I thought a bit, and a bit more and came to the decision that since I love fantasy/science fiction and always wanted to write a book in one of those genres (I started one book for each way back, but nevergot around to much with) I could place the story in a fantasy/AU universe. So there. I'm quite happy with this at the moment. And I really hope and pray that I will see this through this time :) I have quite a few ideas already, and I'm sure I'll be able to pull off the 50,000 words. Probably very crappy 50,000 words, but words no less. I have all the time to edit later and even to decide to not do anything with it. But maybe I'll like it well enough at the end of the month that I will give the story a chance.


Total word count: 1696

New blog

No, not mine.

But four writers friends of mine joined together. So GO CHECK IT OUT! :) All the World's Our Page

And they are even giving books away already!

Cologne - done

What fun times!

Meeting Christina and seeing McFly for the first time. Incredible! :D

See some vids here and tons of others when you search Youtube :)

Back again and going ;)

After my midlife crisis at the age of 26... No it wasn't really that bad :) but I was really upset that after half a year of being unemployed, and making searching for a new job my job, my efforts showed no results.
I knew the day would come soon (yesterday) when I was officially unemployed and that was something I had tried to avoid.
So after coming back from Poland (my stay there being the trigger in some ways) I sat down and thought a bit about my life. How I want to approach people and what I'm willing to take from people from now on. What I expect from a new job and where I'm willing to compromise or not. What other areas of employment could make me happy (like not only the commercial one). What I could do for myself to feel better, what is important to me.
So after thinking about all that and more I came to some conclusions.

This is a writer's blog and what has all of the above do do with writing? I think that the changes and progress I'm about to make in my life will affect my writing as well. No, I don't think so, I know. Everything in your life affects your writing.
First I thought I'd start with something completely new, get rid of old "weight". But that's stupid. I love my WIPs and my characters. Some of them have been with me for some years. I think I "just" need to find a new way for them and me to guide them through their story.
I won't commit myself like saying "today I'll write this and that and tomorrow that much" but I promised myself I'd go back to work :)

So, wish me luck and patience and good ideas :)

Poland - done

I'm baaaaack. And I had such a great, inspiring and lovely time! I thoroughly enjoyed myself :)

If you want to see some pictures (if you haven't already seen them on Facebook) go here.
Questions are welcome :)

I'll be away

I don't know if anyone is interested in this (probably not *lol*), but if you ever need to know, these are the dates when I'm on holiday, as planned so far (and this is for me as well, to keep track *g*)

1 to 15 August: 3rd CCN Youth Conference, Krzyżowa, Poland

probably calendar week 37: Dorian Gray premiere, London, UK

14 to 16 September: Cologne, Germany (McFly concert on the 15th)

27 to 30 November: London, UK (New Moon and sight-seeing)

Jen hosts a contest

I won't enter, because there's no Barnes & Noble anywhere near here, but this should be fun (for any of you) anyhow :)

http://jenniferhendren.blogspot.com/2009/07/contest.html

ETA: Now I DID enter :)

Writing Marathon, Day 2

For today I have planned the following:

- translating and typing what I wrote yesterday CHECK
- writing at least three hours, 2000-4000 words
- reading in the sun for about 2 hours in the afternoon CHECK

The rest that was originally scheduled for today can wait :)


ETA: 927 new words today. I can do much better. *grumble* On the plus side, I received very nice praise for what I wrote yesterday :)

Writing Marathon, Day 1

Another marathon on BaWC.

I won't be able to be as fiercly dedicated as Jen suggests, as I do have a life outside of writing (No! Really? Would you have thought that? *g* ) that just this week demands my attention as well.

So I plan to write an hour, do the stuff that needs to be done for an hour, write an hour... Rinse and repeat.

I'll be working on that love story. Ideally I'll get about 4 hours of writing, 2000-4000 words, 2 hours of reading in the sunshine and some new ideas today.


ETA: Got 2 hours 20 minutes writing time and 1863 words.
Snip here

Progress

523 new words.

Not bad considering I wrote them between midnight and 1am this night because I could't sleep :)

Flowers

I think the most rewarding thing to take photos of are flowers, as they are always beautiful.

I did quite a few shots lately, so here's a link instead of posting the pics. Enjoy! :)

Two snippets

of the silly love story ;)

„Cassie, ich glaube der Besuch ist für dich.“
Und ich glaubte mich trifft der Schlag. Ich konnte fühlen wie mir die Kinnlade runter klappte; was mir noch nie passiert war.
Mein Besucher kam mit ausgestreckter Hand auf mich zu.
„Hey, mein Name ist Joel.“
Joel-ich-bin-der-heißeste-Kerl-auf-diesem-Planeten-Whittacker. Hier im Büro!
Ich schaffte es endlich meinen Mund zu zuklappen und von meinem Stuhl aufzustehen.


"Cassie, I think this visitor is for you."
And I think I just got the shock of my life. I could feel my jaw drop; something that had never happened to me before.
My visitor approached with his hand outstretched.
"Hey, my name is Joel."
Joel-I-am-the-hottest-guy-on-earth-Whittacker. Here in this office!
I finally managed to shut my mouth and stand up from my chair.

-----

Ich hatte fast die ganze Nacht kein Auge zu machen können, hatte dann verschlafen und weder Zeit gehabt, mir zu Hause einen Tee zu kochen, noch, mir unterwegs einen zu besorgen. Und jetzt war auch noch dieser dämliche Wasserkocher kaputt!
Ich war ohne meine morgendliche Dosis Tee genauso unausstehlich, wie Miller ohne seinen Kaffee. Und Miller war wirklich ein Stinkstiefel.
Frustriert ließ ich mich auf meinen Stuhl fallen als vor mir plötzlich ein Becher materialisierte.
"Guten Morgen."
Ich ließ mich weder davon ablenken, dass Joel zu früh dran war, noch, dass seine Haare ziemlich sexy verwuschelt waren, sondern griff mir den Becher und atmete tief ein. Earl Grey!
"Mein Held!"
Ich tauchte lange genug aus meinem Tee-High auf um zu bemerken was ich gesagt hatte und zu wem und rot zu werden, bevor ich einen großen Schluck nahm um diese Peinlichkeit zu überspielen. Um mir dann prompt die Zunge zu verbrennen.
Davis rettete mich, in dem sie an meinem Schreibtisch vorbeistolperte und "Oh mein Gott, bist du nicht Joel Whittacker?" hervorstieß.


I had gotten close to no sleep the whole night, had then overslept and neither had had time to make myself some tea at home nor to stop for one on my way to work. And now this stupid kettle was broken!
Without my morning dose of tea I was as insufferable as Miler without his coffee. And Miller really was a grumbler.
Frustrated I let myself fall onto my chair, when suddenly a cup materialised in front of me.
"Good morning."
I didn't let myself be distracted by the fact that Joel was too early, nor that his hair was tousled sexily, but grabbed for the cup and inhaled deeply. Earl Grey!
"My hero!"
I surfaced long enough from my tea-high to notice what I said and to whom and to blush before I took a big mouthful of tea to cover my embarrassment. Only to promptly burn my tongue.
Davis saved me by stumbling past my desk and stuttering "Oh my gosh, aren't you Joel Whittacker?".

My characters usually come with full names, and Joel was Joel from the start. But I had to think of a surname for him. Those who know me and share my Ben Barnes obsession, will recognise the name. I have watched Easy Virtue one too many times in the last few weeks ;)