Update: 4/11/2010 我真的很高兴！！！！

First things first: 我真的很高兴! (I am very happy)

Why? Well I got into contact with my Chinese host family, and my Chinese wasn't so terrible that I couldn't understand them. I used a dictionary a heap, yes, but... they miss me! And I miss them, and everyone's all missing everyone else, and they're all lovely...

I just feels great that I was able to contact them, have a proper conversation with a minimum of misunderstandings, and that they still like me.

*runs through blog throwing happiness about.*

Secondly: nanowrimo is going well. Both my books are at the first turning point, which is great. Now I've just go to figure out where to go from there, but it'll come. I've got two random new characters in the steam punk novel - one that is entirely new, and is going to be a major character. I love it when things go well.

Viva la Revolution! Well, in colonial Australia, anyway.

I've also figured out how to fix a major plot issue in my other book (The Manda). I am tossing up whether to get to that now, or after november. It's probably going to be after.

But things are still percolating. I think I may be at the stage where I can start sending this thing (The Manda) out December/January. And then, if it doesn't get any bites, I can put it away in full knowledge that I have other things happening.

The only bleak note on the horizon is that the accommodation people at my university have not gotten back to me. Ahh well, you can't have it all in life.

Tomorrow, I am word warring with a fellow writer, who writes 5k a day without fail. I'm going to be slaughtered. But I may get more done then I was.

So all in all, a pretty good update. :D

Varrick Plan

Well, I finished plans for one book. The Sci-fi one that I was talking about earlier. It's very brief, not much in the way of how things are going to go or how anyone is going to solve a problem, but it's better than what I started with. It has a start, a middle and an end. It's going to be rather long. I also have a faint and not very happy feeling that after I write it once, I will have to add a heap of detail and thoughts. Then I get to edit and cut things out.
Going to take a while, I think.
This is good though. It's nice to think about something else other than: The Manda, and Varrick had a nice way of coming into my head. No plot, but characters pretty much full formed.
I also realised something else. A lot is going to happen, but the overarching story won't have any hidden mechanisms behind it - no grand conspiracies or anything like that.
However, I have characters that all have substantial things to hide, which should provide more than enough in the way of plot variation.
Now, I just get to write the thing. And edit my way through The Manda. I split it into four sections today - I plan on editing the four sections, one a week, and then send it round to whoever will look at it, and ask them to comment on where they think it's weird.
Then, I might as well send it to someone who, if they're insane enough, will publish it. One can only hope.
I have been slightly more productive, but I keep twaddling off to uselessly browse the internet or sleep, or do something else. I like the fact that I have two things going on at the moment. If I line edit for more than an hour, I start screaming. Being able to switch to the more creative side of things will be nice.
Tomorrow, before I go out, I will write. Some would argue that I should be studying Chinese, but I get a fair amount of study out of it simply by living here. And Chinese is not my favourite language in the world. It's just a language of necessity.
So, I plan to do something productive with my remaining two and a half weeks. Must concentrate...

Plans, plans, plans

Well. I get home in three weeks. Kind of weird, actually. My parents probably think I've forgotten about them, simply because there isn't that much to write emails about, and I keep thinking "well, I'll see them in 3 weeks."
I will write to them tommorow. That's plan number 1
Plan number two - stop swearing. It's a habit that is easy to pick up when no one understands you.
And then what to do with the next six months.
If I don't force myself, I will just waste all that time.
I have people reading: The Manda. I will get more people to read it.
Then I have tow other books. One is Sci-fi, pure and simple, but more the sort of Sci-fi I like than what my father reads, which involves lots of figthing and spaceships.
My book still involves a fair amount of fighting and spaceships, but focases on the relationship between three key people. That's what I'm most interested in. The fighting plays a large part in that, so I'm going to have to figure out how to write a space battle. Good luck to me. Hugo award winners, here I come.
Then there is another book. This one won't be plotted, not in the way the scifi one has already been. I'm not even sure how it's going to go.
All I have at the moment is a aborigional girl of 18 meeting a white australian boy by the sides of the river. What happened to get them there - has something to do with a book. His brother is somehow going to be involved with the girl. She doesn't even have a name yet.
I can write this book from the boys perspective. I would fall flat on my face from the girls perspectibve. As it is, I'm going to have enough trouble getting her right.
Something tells me I have to get her right. And the boy. I make him a stereotype and the whole point of it all will be lost.
Weird, isn't it, that I can go from young adult speculative to something that is firmly sci-fi, to something that has no magic, and what seems already to be a lot of themes.
That's what I want to do, in the next six months. I want to edit and finsh the Manda, so I can send it to someone. I want to write my sci-fi book (after reading a ton of sci-fi fiction. Not that I haven't before, but being 18, it's been decidely more young then what I'm aiming for)
And I want to finish the research for this book. at the moment all I have is a scene. I hope something grows from that, because I really want it to.
Motivation is what I lack. That or structure. So I have to do two things - come up with a structure, and then get motivation.
Sound simple. I will obviously also work. Not as much as I did previously - 40 hrs was too much when I was working at a nothing job. I admire those who put in the hours for their family's - maybe one day I'll do similar. But not while I have other options. 30 hrs sounds good, especially for a checkout chick job.
Please let this work. I want to achive something this year - something more than : I went to china.
Please

Antagonist found - please get back to me :p

Okay, firstly, an explanation. I came to the realisation just before I started this blog, that my main motivation for doing anything comes when people say I can't.
I don't get angry. Not in the way I suspect most people do anyway - I get that when I get frustrated with a brick wall of a person.
But when someone says I can't do something , I say, "damn you, just watch".
That was how I survived Japan, that was why I learnt so much more Japanese in Japan then I did Chinese in china. In Japan, someone was telling me I would never adjust. In China, they smile, say I'll be fine, and then lock me in a classroom with no teachers. That's more frustrating than antagonistic.
I just found the perfect antagonist to motivate me to write better. This person, who shall remain anonymous, just shredded the story I have re-written five times, and that has been a part of most of my life since I was 12.
When I say shredded, there is nothing wrong with that. He just didn't suggest anything worthwhile after the shredding. Or what he did, other people already had.
Of course, this is his opinion. He's entitled to it, I'm not going to argue with him about it. But I desperately had the urge to punch someone after reading what he wrote. After calming down, I realised this particular person was gold. If I can convince him to suggest how he would make my story better, then I would happily have him shred my story into confetti. That doesn't mean I'll necessarily listen to everything his says - I'm liable to ignore most of it. But because he doesn't actually like what I've written, he will be perfectly and totally honest. And for some of the things he hates, he might hate for more reason then it "just didn't work for him"
I learnt, both in Japan and in China that you can laugh at everything. My meimei (younger host sister) keeps asking me about why I'm laughing, because frankly, the things I laugh at aren't all that funny.
There is more than one type of laughter. And laughing - even if it is an angry laugh, a frustrated laugh, a "wtf" laugh, a resigned laugh - feels a hell of a lot better than any other reaction.
This guy made me laugh. Weirdest laughter ever - there was no physical reaction to any emotion in my chest. Normally, you get a tightening, or a feeling of dread, or as I did the other day, a stomach ache.
Turns out for me, anger shows itself physically more in its absence than anything else.
But I desperately hope this person finds my kowtowing email ( well not quite, I started off with something that could possibly be labelled arguing, depend how he takes it) good enough to get back in contact. I want him, so badly, to critique my piece. I want him as my antagonist, and thus my motivation, just because he would do such a bloody good job at it. I might not even hate him so much by the end of it :P