Fast Fiction

Okay, part of my new year will be an increase in my overall consistency. Whatever that means. (Maybe it means I’ll be less lumpy?)

But for the time being, I’m going to start listing here places where I “write out” since my Los Angeles friends may find it of interest.

Here’s the first and my most often patronized:

The Coffee Table
2930 Rowena Ave (between Hyperion & Glendale Blvd.)
Los Angeles, CA 90039-2042
Located in Silverlake, around the corner from Trader Joe’s

Hours - Open 7 AM til 11 PM - back patio closes at 9 PM

Prices - drip coffee $1.60 (50 cent refills) - served in real cups - fancy drinks start at $2.50. Decent but limited tea selection (Numi). Pastries, desserts & full menu, $8.00 average for entrees. Great garlic mashed potatoes.

Ambiance - lighting is decent, tables are roomy but it’s often crowded, especially in the late afternoon as lots of people seem to camp there for hours, no music but sometimes the other conversations can be loud (really more distracting since sometimes they’re interesting)

Connection - decent access to plugs, sometimes you have to wait for a primo table. If you like sitting outside, they’re ample access to power on the back patio (at every table). I advise bringing an extension cord so you can tap into someone else’s plug. If you’re a smoker, the front patio is nice, much nicer than most and heated. Also, this place seems to be a cell phone dead zone for Cingular service (though AT&T & Nextel work there)

Parking - 25 cents an hour, but can’t plug the meter for more than 2 hours at a pop. Usually easy to find a spot, except at peak hours, but then again, if you can’t find a spot on the street, you’re not likely to find a table either.

Of note - this section of Silverlake is up-and-coming. There are some cool shops around and if you’re willing to walk, down by the intersection of Glendale and Rowena, there’s a cool new shop called Clover that sells clothing and housewares

It’s been a few weeks and I’ve been quiet.

I can’t say it’s because I’ve been all typed out or anything.

I’m looking forward to reading other novels as we start NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month - which takes more than a month).

This is what I think about NaNovels. I think, by and large, they are fantastically readable things. I know everyone thinks that a novel written in a month can’t be good. And if you think about it like a real novel, a novel that’s been crafted and edited and proofed, then no, it’s not going to meet those standards. But I’ve found them to be logical enough. The writing from moment to moment is good and the writers come up with very inventive things. Yes, there are long passages that have nothing to do with the plot or the characters. Mine has entirely too much shrugging and quipping in it. (According to the Word AutoSummarize feature.)

But I love the journey. That you go into a NaNovel expecting one thing (probably things similar to what the writer expected) and you end up somewhere rather different. They’re indulgent and refreshing. Probably more honest and less manipulative than a polished novel.

I’m going to go print one out now. If you have a NaNovel that you’d like me to read, please send me an email. I’d love to take a look at it and I can give very gentle first comments. (Or I can be brutal, if that’s what you’re looking for.)

Well, I’ve meandered myself into a wholly unsatisfying but final ending. I’ve killed off two of the five main characters. Destroyed The Russian Watercolor Plates.

It is done. For now.

As I like to say, I’ve ruined a perfectly viable idea for a novel this month.

There’s always rewriting. Or better yet, there’s always starting over.

You can read it in its entirety over there. Just click on The Russian Watercolors. And I’ve also posted my status spreadsheet, too. Though I can’t figure who finds a spreadsheet of someone’s word count interesting. Oh, me!

Final tally today - 9,504 words today. I’m going to go have some leftover turkey and watch a DVD!

I did my 10K yesterday and I’ve now hit 50K and verfied my novel. I’m going to keep writing until I finish the damn thing. But I wanted to come over here and change out my participant icon to the loverly winner one!

I’m not going to post much here, except to say that it’s midnight and I’ve written some 8,700 words so far today and I’m still going. I might finish this evening, I might just hit 50K and go to bed or I might just go to bed. Hard to tell at the moment. What I do know is that I will finish before tomorrow night at midnight.

Yup.

I didn’t write much today.

Well, pretty much not at all.

I did other stuff.

Appetizers
Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Tortilla Crisps with a Fresh Fruit Salsa of Strawberries, Kiwi and Apples
Goat Cheese with Deep Fried Shallots and a Sun Dried Tomato Tampenade on a Whole Wheat Baguette
Blue Cheese and Onion Crisped Crackers with Fresh Pears and Grapes

Dinner
Turkey rubbed with Sage, Olive Oil, Garlic and Rosemary
Whole Wheat Sage Dessing with Pecans, Leeks, Celery and Onions
Shallot and White Wine Turkey Gravy
Wasabi Mashed Potatoes
Baked Yams served with Spiced Brown Sugar Butter
Romaine Salad with Tomatoes and Balsamic Vinagrette Dressing
Green Beans with Shallots and Almonds
Horseradish and Cranberry Sauce
Cranberry and Mango Salsa with Pine Nuts

Dessert
Fresh Baked Apple Pie with Candied Ginger
Pecan Pie
    both served ala mode with Mashti Malone’s Cardamon Ice Cream and Raspberry Sorbet

I guess I got a little optomistic there. Which I think is usually okay, but there’s a rule somewhere that says that you’re not supposed to share that with the universe.

I’ve got a really great excuse for not writing for the rest of the week - it involves a trip to Chinatown, some strangeness and then a call to 911 and a visit from the paramedics. Though I likely won’t let it deter me from my goal (damn supportive people in my life being damn supportive!). Mom is staying the rest of the week with me, and other relatives are already in town or winging their way here. This cuts into available writing time severely, and I’m quite exhausted as it is and it’s only Tuesday.

But, I was feeling like I’d written myself into a corner there for a while, and I think talking about it with my mother may have solved some of it. So, if all goes well, I will write a bit this evening after everyone’s gone to bed. But I’m not going to say that I’m optomistic. I have learned that much.

It’s the twentieth. Two thirds of the way through the month and finally, today is the way the whole thing was supposed to go. I worked in the morning from home, I went into the office for a while, then on my way home I stopped at a coffee house (PsychoBabble again) and sat there for about an hour and got myself 2,566 plot advancing words.

That’s what I thought I’d do this month. A little work at home, a little work at work and a little work on the novel on the way in between the two.

But I guess the real point is that I’m on track and the plot is moving and the words are flowing free and easy.

Sorry, illness abounds this weekend. Though I didn’t come down with this flu-thing myself, it certainly causes a sleepless night or two when there are others in the house with it.

The good news is that I got some stuff done this weekend. You’ll see that I’ve crested the thirty thousand mark today. The most amazing thing about my 5K day is that it only took me two and a half hours to do it. That’s a whopping 2,100 word per hour average. Sometimes those ding-dang words just pour out of me. Mostly because I don’t have time to milk them.

Saturday I wrote for two hours up at Bean Town in Sierra Madre and ran into two other wrimos. Then Saturday evening I was back at Silverlake’s own The Coffee Table for three hours. I didn’t get much writing done there, my battery crapped out and I forgot my power cable. Last night I sat at the dining table and squeezed out a scant 1,000 words before bed.

Today I wrote at Espresso Mi Cultura in Hollywood on Hollywood for an hour before rehearsal and at PsychoBabble on Vermont in Los Feliz for another hour after.

The story is getting bogged down in NaNoNess, and the fact is, I’ve got plenty of story left for the last twenty thousand words and I can just let go and stop typing Bureau of Printing and Engraving all of the time. Call it BEP or something. Or just the Bureau.

All files are updated here now, so you can read the glorious hundred page (space and a half) tome-in-progress or check out my stats in the cybelestatus.xls file. Do, please, understand that the file that you read here is rough, very, very rough. I’ve not proofed it in the slightest and I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve noticed some typos, especially when it comes to homophones. I do know the difference between “know” and “no” and “knew” and “new”. I just hear things in my head and transcribe them. Sometimes I catch it as I go, sometimes I don’t.

I’m getting really jazzed about things because it practically writes itself. If I can just do 1,500 words in an hour, I can probably do a little work in the evenings this week without losing steam on my other projects.

I went to the doctor this afternoon. This is what the MRI results were:

    “The medial meniscus demonstrates degenerative signal of the posterior horn. There is mild irregularity of the inferior margin which is due to degeneration.”

But it wasn’t all bad news, I spent a good two hours at the Silverlake Coffee Company on Glendale Blvd. A very good two hours. I blasted out 3,366 very nice, coherent words. My total is actually coming up to an acceptable level.

I promised myself I couldn’t leave the coffee house until I hit twenty thousand words, and I did just that.

I celebrated with some ice cream after dinner and installing the new network card on my laptop. Yay for networking!

I was supposed to have a database meeting this morning. I got up early and did lots of data entry to get ready for it, but about fifteen minutes before, it was cancelled. No matter, I had back-up plans, which was a rehearsal for one of my plays. I went. And I felt so good afterwards I headed off to The Coffee Table in Silverlake for a little lunch and writing. I was there for scarcely and hour and I got over a thousand words in (along with a full meal).

Buoyed by this, I went home and bought plane tickets for the holidays and then headed out to another coffee house, The Silverlake Coffee Company. I’d not been there since they opened, which was probably about six years ago. Most notably it’s across the street from Rockaway Records. Which for me is a very dangerous place to be. I did not go across the street, I did not spend endless hours sampling new and old music. Instead, I sat there with my little lappie for an hour and a half and logged almost three thousand words! I had a lemon bar.

So, tonight, I watch TV and fold laundry. I’m not exactly on track with the word count at the moment, but I know now that I can have 4K days that only take about three or four hours and that’s not entirely unworkable. I think I’m going to plan for three 4K days a week and the rest to be 2K days. So, by next Monday, that’ll put me at 36K - well within the new goal of getting to 50K by the 23rd. Whee!

I think I’m ready to get back on track with the novel. I am going to ignore reality and have another Bureau of Printing and Engraving in the United States of my novel and it will be located in San Francisco. No editing involved, in fact, I may add some words that explain this previously unknown BEP facility (maybe it’s top secret, who knows?).

Onward. I’m off to CyberJava in Hollywood for some cafe-styled writin’ before rehearsal.

This morning I started typing away on my little novel (which is still considered little at 10 plus words) and I decided to check the Internet for a little fact or two to help me with a scene I’m working on.

Problem is, I’ve had this nagging feeling in the back of my head about the setting of my novel and the fact that I’m taking on a fact based layer - with the counterfieting. I decided to set the book in San Francisco, because they have a mint there. Little did I know that there is a difference between a Mint and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. Turns out there are only two locations in the United States that print currency. Washington, DC and Houston, TX. Neither of those, you’ll notice, are San Francisco.

So, I’m stuck. What do I do? Do I go back and edit to reset the whole damn thing in Washington, DC (which I know rather well, at least the museums). Or do I just continue on pretending that there is a Bureau of Printing and Engraving in San Francisco.

I’m very, very tempted to go back and edit. I’m thinking it wouldn’t take more than an hour or two. But I always think things will take less time than they do.

Oh, sigh.

Good Heavens! I couldn’t resist.

I thought it kind of went with the theme of my novel. Founding fathers are on dollar bills ... right?

I didn’t write.