Rae Roy

In the passed couple of days I've: - edited chapter 2 of The Page & The Magician and sent the entire novel for review by a writing group friend. - attended the monthly Ottawa Independent Writers meeting where a couple of people read some of their work. - went to the Ottawa Geek Market , where a friend taught me how to play Carcassonne . Beginner's luck resulted in me taking the win. I dressed up as a Steampunk girl Ranma 1/2. - tried a new pho place called Thi Fusion . It was tasty and cheap ($9 for a decent sized bowl). The decor is also pretty nice. - played guitar. I played with CD tracks today from my one book and that was a lot of fun. Maybe someday I'll be able to play along with music from the bands I love. - worked on learning French though I'm not sure how much is sinking in. - continued work on my roller derby short story. - read more of The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper . I'm loving the story. - went to martial arts class, which left my arms feeling...

I revamped my whole schedule to get more things done. I'm studying French in the morning before work. I'm practicing guitar in the evening after dinner. I'm writing or editing for at least an hour each evening. I'm exercising for at least 30 minutes each day. I'm going to work a little earlier to give me the time to fit this stuff in. So all day today I was having an argument in my head about how a scene should be written in The Page & The Magician . Between that and Monday's impromptu pitching of the story, I took that as a sign that I need to begin editing. I now understand how people can hate editing their own work. Sometimes just trying to figure out what to do with it is difficult. I know my second chapter is plagued with telling instead of showing. I'm not sure if everything I wrote that is back story is necessary. Do I know how editing is going so far? Not a clue. It's practically my first time. I've rewritten a few times, but not really h...

Here's what I accomplished since last check-in: - I've started a short story involving roller derby and the supernatural. - I've sent my first chapter for The Page & The Magician out to my writing group in preparation for the next meeting. - I bought several Rayne Hall eBooks to help me with editing The Page & The Magician . - I'm nearly ready to file my taxes. I'm thankful I didn't rush as I was missing an RRSP slip and that has reduced the amount I'm to pay by quite a lot. - I've caught up on The Walking Dead. - I've visited the National Gallery of Canada . I don't really have anything else to say except taxes suck, hydro sucks, and snow sucks. Psst... It's supposed to be Spring now... Busy day tomorrow, so I'm off. Ciao, R~

I visited the National Gallery of Canada with a friend on Thursday evening. Thursdays after 5pm, access to the regular exhibits is free, so it's a great time to go. I've been reading a lot about art styles lately, though there is so much out there it could take me a lifetime to become any kind of aficionado. I have identified some things I enjoy though. I like art pieces that are primarily scenery with a small amount of human life in them. Breathtaking landscapes where a small girl is reading a book, for example. The scenery in these paintings is almost always filled with nature and has both dark and light elements. I especially like it when there is a beautiful, bright area in the background and the dark elements in the foreground seem to frame the light in the background. It's almost like they are saying that things might be dark right now, but just ahead something beautiful is waiting. These are my favourite types of pieces. Gustave Doré and Thomas Cole are good exampl...

I haven't done much of anything since Sunday other than work away at my finances. It's that time of year. I did send out my first chapter from The Page & The Magician tonight to my writing group. We're having an editing focused meeting in April, so I wanted them to have time to read it before then. I also did somewhat of a plan, or more of a list of all my book ideas and played around with fonts for the titles to capture the feel I want in the stories. I keep adding to the short story section. It seems most of my short story ideas are horror or horror mixed with something else like romance. I'm reading Hooked and solidifying what the Inciting Incident, Surface Problem, Story-Worthy Problem, etc is for The Page & The Magician . I guess I'm in a planning mode more than a writing mode right now. I'm also working away at some of my other objectives. I'm hoping to visit an art gallery soon. I have an early day tomorrow, so it's a short and sweet kin...

So... I've transferred all of my old roller derby blog posts into Scrivener. They amount to 56,000+ words, which is a good amount to work with as a start for a story. The old blog has been deleted. The next step for this item is to figure out what to do with the posts. Fiction or non-fiction? One genre or cross-genre? Keep some of the feel of a blog or make it more like a regular book? I'm also thinking of other outside-of-the-box ideas. I've been working on my sci-fi novel some. I need to figure out how to get the rest of it done, but I didn't really know about writing prompts and the like when I was originally writing it. I've decided the name has to change. I can't remember if I talked about doing that before or not. Anyway, I like the title Scion better than The Truth About Jacob . It's a more accurate reflection of the story and it sounds cooler in my head. There are other reasons for doing that, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. My ...

I've been sick this week, so that made me not want to do anything beyond watching TV. Judging by my acne and a slightly itchy spot on my belly, it's partly allergic reaction. I forgot some chips had milk and yeast in them. At least I realized before I ate the whole bag. It took a little bit for my body to react as it does often with food sensitivities, but I'm getting over it more quickly than I did a year ago, so my immune system is in much better shape. In previous years, my salivary glands would get blocked to the point that my ears would get infected and I'd need antibiotics, so I didn't hesitate to go to the clinic and have it looked at. The doctor told me I didn't need antibiotics as it wasn't bad enough and seemed to be clearing on its own. That is the first time that's happened. Yesterday I pretty much managed to heat food up, sleep, and watch tv. I was on auto-pilot for the microwave part. Well I got posts from October, November, and December 20...

A friend of mine has been featured on The Quilliad for her art. They will be publishing her art in an upcoming edition. If you haven't checked out her etsy page yet, you should. Aside from being a brilliant artist, Eden is also a great actress, singer, and human being. Congratulations, Eden!!! Below are some of Eden's works:

I haven't progressed in getting my old blog copied into Scrivener. I was behind in everything. I got the following done: - Test results for Celiac's [Negative] - Marked assignment 4 for peers in guitar - Watched week five's videos, did the quizzes, and started the assignment - Got a massage - Did dishes - Made banana bread in my bread machine - Attempted to make almond yogurt [FAIL] - Critiqued two stories for writers group On Saturday I had a massage. When I say that, people usually see images of pampering and relaxation in their minds. Massage isn't always like that. When you have to heal something or manage a condition, massage can be excruciating. I had a combination of deep tissue massage for my neck and shoulder area and TMJ massage. TMJ is where your jaw joint and muscles don't work the way they should. The joint may be damaged, you may clench your jaw, you may grind your teeth. I have TMJ and bruxism. A while back, I was talking to the dentist about braces b...

I meant to write this post Sunday as my ROW80 update, but I didn't make it. I finished the first draft of my book and it has been widely suggested by those with vastly more experience than I to postpone editing for a month and work on something else, so that's what I'm doing. I have a couple of other projects on the go, but the one I will focus on for a bit is on roller derby. I haven't decided what I will do with it. I could tell of my real life experiences in roller derby, or I could do a fiction piece drawing on my experiences. Both are intriguing to me. I think I may turn it into fiction, but include an introduction about my real life experience. Hopefully my writing group will help me figure out the approach to take. Maybe the only thing that matters is keeping it in my writing voice. Right now my goal is simply to get my old blog posts into Scrivener where I can play around with things. There's a year's worth of blog posts there. I usually wrote a post for...