Category: Writing

Release

It’s been a month since nano 2011 ended, and I finally got to [start] posting Ghost in the Machine. I’d hoped to post at least twice a week, but it doesn’t seem to be feasible, since it took me these four weeks to polish up the first five chapters. Very rough four weeks, if I may be honest; I went through several waves of depression over this work and even considered giving it up, but now that I’ve started posting, there’s no turning back.

Happy new year, dear friends. This gift was a bit slow in the making, but that’s because you deserve no less than the best I can do.

Postpartum Depression

Smehur gave birth to Ghost in the Machine which quickly turned out to be a child with special needs. And while Smehur loves its offspring very much, for Smehur has wanted to tell this story since day one, Smehur is starting to feel the weight of its own numerous inadequacies.

Continue reading Postpartum Depression

NaNo is over… and I made it!

There were many moments when I thought I didn’t have it in me. But I kept at it… and I made it! I finished the rough draft for “Ghost in the Machine” at about 63000 words yesterday evening. It’s been an amazing month. I’m almost sad that it’s over.

A quick run-down: “Ghost in the Machine” is a Mass Effect AU in which Nihlus doesn’t die on Eden Prime. It came out comfortably T-rated, and I hope, quite plausible. Summary & excerpt here!

Not going to lie: more than a few chapters are crap, because I had to force myself to write things I didn’t want to write in order to get to those I did want to write, and since I started out with nothing but the broadest idea possible, I had to make plans as I went. There was no time to go back and fix things, even after I’ve gotten deep into the mindset and started generating fix-ideas like crazy. But the closer I was to the end, the less cringing I had to do.

So now I need to rip it apart edit, a lot, make some additions, make some decisions… like, do I want to write a sequel, eventually? And then I’ll post on FFN, hoping it will be as fun for others to read as it’s been for me to write.

NaNoWriMo: Yeah, I’m Nuts.

You don’t know what NaNoWriMo is? The horror!

NaNoWriMo (I’ll be caalling it “nano” from now on) is short for “National Novel Writing Month” and it’s a really simple, really nutty notion: you sign up for it and try to write a short novel (50000 words) during November. There are no verification systems in place; you could copy paste lorem ipsum until you reached the target word count and the site would list you as one of the “winners” so it all comes down to what the challenge can do for you, not the other way around.

Continue reading NaNoWriMo: Yeah, I’m Nuts.