Hello Red Car!

This is my new car (picture stolen off the internet, but mine does indeed have four doors and is indeed red). It's a 2005 Hyundai Accent. I think it is cute. I don't know how I feel about it other than that, since it is $265 a month I am not sure I can afford, seeing as I lack a job. This is the first new car I have ever bought, so I kind of felt like I was signing my life away and it was scary. Also, "old car" is sitting behind "new car" on the street with a tarp on him, and I feel absolutely awful, like I have betrayed a child, because I know I will have to sell "old car" for parts. But that isn't "new car's" fault. So yeah, I feel less joyful than people who buy their first new car apparently do.

But it is cute. And it is red.

The Strangeness

New Orleans is... strange. Yesterday I walked down to Jefferson and St. Charles, then down to Magazine, then up to Napoleon and back up to St. Charles. All the mailboxes that used to be on the corners are gone. So I pretty much walked an entire square of uptown and failed to mail my letters.

Some houses are untouched, and others completely caved in from the wind. Very weird how hit or miss the damage was. Magazine Street is mostly open. I haven't spent much time in the flooded areas. We got about a foot or two here... but all evidence of that is gone except for the contents of people's furnished basements on the sidewalk. There's work going on constantly.

The business hours take some getting used to: even Popeyes closes at 6 or 7. Subway was closed at 6 when we walked down the other day. If you don't want sit-down or pizza (note: we still have no fridge after 2 weeks so have pretty much exhausted these food options-- can't we just run in and grab a sandwich?) there's pretty much no choice. Now, personally, if I were a fast food restaurant, I would just forgo being open 8-5 in favor of being open AT DINNER when people want food. But what do I know?

My classes don't start until January 30th, so I am pretty aimless. I am going to look at cars this weekend (another weird thing: literally every other car has temp plates signifying its being brand new). I have resolved, since Mike does not understand how I graduated in English having only read one of Dickens' works, that this week I am going to read Dickens. I doubt very many people sit down and go, "I think this week I'll read Dickens," but I have always been a little weird like that. I've banged through Great Expectations today. It's surprisingly good!

Oh, and for all the people who told me I needed to see A Love Song For Bobby Long, you were right. Mike and I really liked the movie (writers! alcoholic writers! in New Orleans!) and also enjoyed picking out the various places, though we would like to add that they are actually not in walking distance of each other as the movie suggests. Recognized the Camellia Grill (word word), but they stuck a female waitress in and took the camellia pictures down off the walls. Heh! Still recognized it. I am glad we saw that movie here and not in Boston!

The air smells like flowers here, especially after the sun goes down, and the sky is purple-ish. It's hard to say just exactly what it is about New Orleans... but I will say that to spend all day reading Dickens and drinking coffee is somehow OK here, while in Boston I felt like I ought to have been doing something "useful." Oh, strange New Orleans...

Where We Live Now

Finally all moved in and have the internet back! Click here to see pictures of our newly consolidated, cleaned, and decorated apartment. We have so many books! :-)

Back in New Orleans

This will be a short post from CC's on Magazine... because we have no internet. We also have no hot water and no fridge. In fact, we arrived to find the old fridge still sitting where we left it with nasty meat juice staining the floor. Lovely. Hopefully the house will be all set today or tomorrow, and I will be back in touch. Will update soon with pics of the apartment.

It's 75 degrees here!!!

That "Other" Author Starting With T-O-L

So I sent out a short story to a science fiction mag, and I'm in the middle of preparing another, and I just had an absurdly premature brainwave that I needed to share (premature in that I have yet to sell a story). I was thinking about using another more pronounceable last name than mine, and another less generic first name than "Sarah," but in the end I couldn't be bothered to think up something, so I just stuck my actual name on the manuscripts. Then tonight I was like, "Aaahhh crap, I will be stuck on the bottom of the shelf if I have a book published and people will not want to bend down to check me out."

Then it hit me. AM I INSANE? I HAVE THE MOST PERFECT NAME EVER! I WILL BE RIGHT NEXT TO TOLKIEN! Like, right there.

Um, and then it hit me that I should be spending more time editing this and packing the car to drive to New Orleans tomorrow morning, instead of drooling over my future hypothetical shelf space, so bye.

Packing For New Orleans!

Packing for New Orleans! Packing for New Orleans! (Sorry, that's pretty much the content of this post.) Oh, and here is my new future abode, only a couple blocks from the house that kept trying to kill me. Wish us luck as we cram tons of stuff into a tiny sports car!

Free Publicity For the Fantasy Genre

I added this recommended books section to my website. I am tired of only being able to talk about the books I like with people on the internet. Yo, just because there is a picture of a wizard on the cover does not mean the writing is bad and the story is silly! You want real adventures in reading, the kind of stuff that definitely will not happen to you in your life? Why not try fantasy? Don't tell me it's lame and you will look like a dork. Go check out some of my party pics, and see if I look like a dork. (I may BE a dork, but it's not like they make us wear signs, you know.) Don't tell me it sucks. I once read three pages of a Tom Clancy book, only to throw it down and never pick it up again because he changed point of view (cringe) twice on ONE PAGE. I know the type of crap America is reading, OK?

Whatever. Go read the books I like. Why? Because I have good taste, and good grammar, and I say so. There's a start. Or hey, there are some children's books on my list. At least give them to your kids, so they don't grow up completely devoid of imagination.

Thoughts On Katrina Ignorance

So yesterday I wanted to get glasses, and didn't have my prescription with me. I did have my contact lens prescription and was informed that wasn't the same thing. Fine, whatever. But the conversation I had with the sales girl was slightly disturbing to me, though it took me a couple hours of thought to pinpoint why.

I said, "I have a current prescription, but the problem is I'm from New Orleans, and I'm not sure if they're open."
"Well, on Monday you can call them and have them fax it over," she said.
"No," I said. "I'm from New Orleans. It might, um, be destroyed?"
She finally figured it out. "Oh." Then she did apologize, but the whole situation was rather awkward. I just assumed she would know what I meant; she didn't.

I think it's just frustrating because a lot of people think Katrina is "over." They think everything's been fixed and is back to normal. I have heard of many other "exiles" who have experienced similar ignorance. People really believe things are normal there! I know that, when we arrive in 3 weeks, we will find that this is far from the case. Businesses are closed, basic services are not available, and the city is empty, even three months later. So pardon me for saying it, but I'm offended by people other places in the U.S. who assume New Orleans must be OK by now. What kind of people are we? We see 24 hour coverage of something awful, feel bad, send $50 to the Red Cross, feel absolved, and then turn off the news and promptly forget. The city of New Orleans itself is currently suffering from the exact same problem: an initial outpouring of good wishes, coupled with an utter lack of follow-up.

Why aren't more people upset about what's happening? Is it because, when Americans think of 9/11, they have an enemy they can picture? Does that make it easy for them to remember New York yet forget New Orleans? Why do we persist in wasting tax dollars in Iraq, while expressing stinginess toward Americans? And lord, I am really not trying to be a whiner here, but why is "easy" charity the only charity people are willing to offer?

I will try to give some examples of everyday Katrina frustration to explain what I mean. OK, so I go to the bank and they won't cash checks because I don't have an account. There is no Bank One/Chase here, so I have to mail my checks to a P.O. Box in Kentucky, which takes a week. "But our bank matched $1 million dollars in donations to Katrina refugees." Yes, good for you, but real refugees would be most helped out by the simple things, like for you to make me a money order so I can put down a deposit on an apartment. Or perhaps let me take out more than $200 per day from your ATM. We needed $2200 cash to get an apartment, and that process took DAYS, because no one was willing to cut us a break. Nor were people willing to rent to us on a 4 month lease. "No, sorry, can't sell you beer because you don't have a Massachusetts ID. But yeah, sorry about... uh, that. If there's anything else we can do..." "What? What is the point of a reference with a phone number that doesn't work? That's not a reference. What do you mean, you don't know where your landlord is? Who doesn't know where their landlord is?"

It's the little things that make your everyday life the way it was before that are compromised. Those things are important. OK, now imagine my daily red-tape-related annoyances on a large scale. The scale of a city. We don't want empty sympathy-- we want a country that values genuine help over sentiment and spin. We just want to be able to live our lives the way we lived them before.

Sorry about the rant. Go read this editorial in the New York Times. And don't be ignorant.

This is pissed-off Sarah. She looks pissed-off, doesn't she? Pissed-off Sarah demands levees (among other things). Have a nice day.

Musings on My Brown SLU Hoodie

Having noticed that postings on this blog have become extremely nerdy as of late, I now offer for your reading pleasure something completely different: A list of Reasons Why I Love My Brown SLU Hoodie.
1. It is soft, especially the cuffs.
2. It keeps me warm on Boston days. Brrrr.
3. It's scarlet and brown! The blood and the mud, baby!
4. If you wear it with the hood up, you too can give off that Obi-Wan Kenobi vibe.
5. When you spill coffee and other substances on it, you don't have to wash it right away... cause it's brown! Yeah!
6. It doubles as a disguise. Because it is baggy. And brown.
7. Sense of history. It has been to two Snow Bowls, the Hoot Owl, and many sporting events. It has climbed mountains, and spent hours at the Pub. It has been hungover on Sundays. Ohhh yes, it has been hungover.
8. All the coolest people have one.

In Case You Were Wondering...

Exactly how much of a novel is 59,500 words, which is what I've got? I put it in manuscript format (Courier, 12 pt, double spaced, 1 inch margins) and it's 270 pages. And of course, it's still not finished. But I am taking a couple days off now, so I can look at the thing with fresh perspective and figure out what order I want all the scenes in and make sure the stuff I speed-wrote is OK. But I have (almost) written my first novel!

I won!

Oh for the love of...

Don't you hate it when people with no sense of humor have to ruin things for everyone else? The Christmas train display in Lakeside was complete with blue tarps, debris, itty bitty fridges outside, and National Guard graffiti on the little houses. My stuff got junked in Hurricane Katrina too, but I think it's clever and cute. Apparently some lame people protested and it was removed.

The story even made CNN.

Last Day of NaNoWriMo

And I have 4,800 words left to write. I took several days off for Thanksgiving, and wasted time yesterday by making a lovely banner for my novel, because everyone else's on the NaNo forums looked so cool. So here I am racing to get this done by midnight, or hopefully, by the end of the afternoon. I have even deprived myself of the new Harry Potter movie till I finish. Wish me luck... here goes!

I managed to write my easy 1,667 words per day during the first two weeks. But in the end, didn't we all know it was going to get done Larrystyle, which means twitching with caffeine and with frequent breaks for trashy television and beers, utterly at the last minute? Yes. I think we did.

I'm a Purple Twi'lek! I'm a Purple Twi'lek!

Guilty as charged of being a Star Wars super-nerd. For my second KOTOR playthrough, I decided I didn't like any of the female heads, so I turned to the internet, found this mod, and needed to have it. My new character is a soldier named Xhena Mekkai. Duru Antilles was wickedly cool, and so cute, but was she a dark side purple twi'lek? I think not.

I have reached the height of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic coolness. (Unless that's an oxymoron.)

DCDS Excerpt #4

Because Still Life With Soup Can hates fascist pricks but loves novels, I decided to post another excerpt. I am currently at 33,200 words with eight days to go. The usual caveats about first draft, no spellcheck, etc. will apply.

***Click here for excerpt***

Edited to add that this morning Duru Antilles saved the galaxy! Go Duru! You were so adorable at your Republic awards ceremony, when you looked up at the sky and then the Star Wars theme started to play. (Imagine my horror when I started a new game, and Duru's head made a cameo appearance on the Jedi who gets killed on the Endar Spire in the first 5 minutes. Oh no they didn't!)

Garden Fascism Update!

Just now I received the following reply to my complaint, in which the Garden calls my description of events "erroneous" and "vehemently denies" my allegations (I, um, didn't really think I was making any, but OK).

Extremely defensive legal language? Check.
Form letter? Check.
Refusal to address my actual points? Check.

Geez. I didn't even get a pity apology at the bottom of the page.

My favorite part is that we were thrown out for "disruptive behavior." Literally, no joke, we were sitting calmly in our seats at the intermission talking to our friends, when two guards arrived out of nowhere and told us we needed to come with them NOW. I'm not denying I threw a fit in the concourse on the way out-- I sure as hell did, a loud one. But the kicking out had definitely already occurred at that point, so libertarian-protest-Sarah decided not to go quietly. She's obstinate like that. And I'm sure I was extremely disruptive standing against a wall by the men's restrooms the first time they tried to throw me out.


The verdict is in, folks: The customer is always wrong in Boston.

"They're Trying to Kill Us!"

So we have this theory that Boston is trying to kill us. I think it's a well-founded theory. First, there is the fact that no one in our lot can park, evidenced by the fact that Mike's (brand new) car has been hit four times in the last month. These people are too rude to even leave a "I'm Sorry" post-it. I mean, geez. We have assigned spots. WE KNOW IT WAS YOU. Second, let us not forget Saturday's incident at the Bruins game. Even leaving out the fact that we got kicked out for no reason, what the hell is up with the arena doors? It wasn't even like Mike hit it that hard; he just assumed it was one of those gravity controlled doors that closed slowly. Which it was not, and it closed on his face. I'm sorry, you just do not expect that in a public place. Third, for the second night in a row we couldn't sleep, and the following conversation took place at 5:30 AM:

M: Sweetie?
S: I'm awake.
M: Me too. I can't sleep on my right side because of the tetanus shot.
S: Aww. I can't sleep because I'm still composing nasty letters in my head. (Thumping and crashing sounds outside in the parking lot.)
M: They're... trying... to kill us.
S: Could the trash BE any louder?
M: Do you think it could take less than half an hour? What the hell are they doing out there?
S: Farting around.
M: You think? You think they're just standing out there farting?
S: (Rolls around in hysterics.) Sorry, it's just the mental image, the trash men stalking around our lot in parkas, farting. It's not that funny. Wow, probably 'cause it's 5:30 AM. I think they're trying to kill us.

Memo to Boston: We're onto you now.

Fuck Boston. Fuck the Bruins.

Excuse the language. I can't find the will to write about it again, so I will just link the first draft of the nasty letter I spent all morning composing. I have to go make lunch for my boyfriend who has four stitches in his face. I have never been dragged kicking and screaming through a concourse before. It was actually pretty fun. And Mike's blood is all over their floor. Oh, they'll remember us.

We hate Boston. Here is why.

And, go Sabres.

Standing at the Top of the Mountain

Halfway through the month, and I've written 25,057 words. It's strangely exhilarating, hitting the halfway point. This is the top of the mountain. It's all downhill from here. Oh, novel. I despair of you. I would be rid of you, frivolous novel. But we're nicely on our way now, aren't we?

The Devil Made Me Do It

I went shopping for boots today at Lord & Taylor. I was looking for a nice dark brown (I wear brown more than black) heeled boot, maybe a buckle, toes not too chunky and not too pointy. There was a table of boots on sale. And then, behind it, I saw it..... THE shoe.

I had to have it.

It was gold, it was velvet, it was Victorian-looking. It was the kind of shoe you buy a whole new outfit to go with. It was not the kind of shoe you can talk yourself out of. It belonged on my foot. Since staring at it in my apartment (on my foot-- I bought the boots too, I'm not that impractical) is giving me pleasure, I didn't want to deprive everyone else. I. LOVE. THIS. SHOE. And it is mine. All mine.

At Long Last, The Feast Is Here!

OK, all that stuff I mentioned below? I didn't do ANY of it today. Zero. Nothing. I looked up at 5:00 and was like, "Wha-huh? What the hell happened?" Because at 11:45 this morning the buzzer rang. I ran downstairs and there was a man holding a manilla package that could only be... The Feast! Yes! So I came back upstairs and put it on the table, thinking, "Well, since I started NaNo I haven't actually thought about it in weeks." Read the prologue. Not too interesting. Got up, put on makeup and shoes, gathered my wallet and purse to go run errands. Then thought, OK, I'll just browse through one chapter.

Right.

In Which Sarah Writes a Novel and Buys Shoes

That is exactly what I plan to do today. Write a novel (not the whole thing, perhaps a good 2,000 words of it) and buy shoes. Shoes are becoming a problem. I have 3 pairs of donated sneakers, several pairs of my own heels that I brought from New Orleans (the lack of coverage on which makes my feet a bit chilly now that it is 45 degrees), and a pair of clunky high-heeled loafers I bought in 1999. What I really need is a nice slick pair of boots. With heels. Similar to the two pairs that met their unfortunate death by mold in September... only nicer. With this goal in mind, I am taking my $100 Lord and Taylor gift certificate downtown on the T and searching for boots. Hopefully this afternoon. But I may get distracted.

Writing is going well. I'm on pace. Some days I get behind, but I've been good about forcing myself to catch up. Yesterday I wrote in Starbucks for three hours. My word processor tells me I am 31% done. And neither my villain nor my spaceport have names. (I keep putting a _____ in until I can think of something good. Keep being bothered by the fact that I think I have this written down in a sheaf of papers from high school under the bed at home. What if I make up a new name and the one from high school is better? I couldn't do that!)

I had a minor monetary freakout last night at 1 AM, but I'm over it. Tuition + lack of car = $0 for Sarah. But I'm sure it will all work out.

And my copy of A Feast For Crows has shipped! According to USPS tracking, the Feast was in Springfield, MA yesterday... will it be here today? I wonder...

Oy...Can I Watch TV Now?

Still on pace to finish my novel by November 30th. But now, I present an Action-Packed Excerpt! This is what I wrote today. (Please excuse any errors, since I am writing in the form of .txt files and have no spell/grammar check. But don't let that dissuade you from reading; not to brag, but my spelling and grammar are generally impeccable.)

*** Click here for excerpt ***

Word Count: 5005

After three days of NaNoWriMo, I am exactly on target with where my word count needs to be. I think I like where the story is going. I'm adapting the short story I posted partially on here last month. It's interesting to see what the characters do. Normally I'm pretty skeptical about writers who say that. I tend to roll my eyes when someone says something like, "My characters aren't doing what I want! Oh no!" Because, hello, you wrote them. So, yes, you can force them to do exactly what you want.

But I'm finding that mine are shifting slightly in the writing, and I do like what's come up. I think I've got enough room in my plot to let them change around a bit. If I'm stuck, I just put two characters on a dark street, walking on their way to somewhere, and write dialogue. If you write fast enough, and don't bother with actions or modifiers for now, a lot of really spontaneous stuff will come out, similar to a real conversation.

However, tomorrow I have to write a real paper for grad school. Yawn!

Writing and Coffee! Coffee and Writing!

National Novel Writing Month has officially begun! I ended up writing 250 words at midnight, then falling asleep. But I'm ready to start working now. I've got laptop, coffee, and music. I've been practicing a writing schedule during the month of October (which dissolved upon the advent of The Game, oops), so it shouldn't be too hard. Perhaps if I am really good, I will be able to avoid the lure of The Game. I did yesterday. There's hope. Off to write today's 1,500 words now! (But first, figure out how to put a counter on my blog because it's more fun to fiddle with things like that than to actually write... or at least more distracting.)