music for summertime & a little extra

2009

here's a look at what i've been listening to lately.  as far as i'm concerned, summer wouldn't be summer if it didn't have its own personal playlist.

when the link takes you through, be sure to click the one that says "click here to start download from sendspace" because other buttons are spam:
click here to download the free mix!  

bombay - el guincho

i could be dreaming - belle & sebastian

oh no! - marina and the diamonds

here comes your man -the pixies

kick you out - caesars

from a window seat - dawes

daffodils - charlene soraia

isjaki - sigur ros

what are you guys listening to this summer?

i've been putting photos and side projects on the back burner lately because i'm really pleased with how well things are going with the creative piece of fiction i am writing, and it's keeping me pretty busy.  i've hit the 20 page / 5,000 word mark, which is an early milestone, but an exciting one nonetheless.

and also:  today and tomorrow are the last 2 days to enter my giveaway!

word count: 5,194

on trying to write fiction

yesterday i decided to skip blogging because i successfully added over 1300 words (or about 5 pages double spaced 12p tmn) to the creative piece i am currently writing.  on the one hand that doesn't sound like a lot (one of my prouder moments in college was successfully cranking out a 15 page, 4500 word, A- paper on Cosmology in under 10 hours) but writing fiction goes a lot more slowly for me than academic writing.

on the whole i feel a lot more secure with this piece of fiction than i have with others before it.  i finally googled, "how to write a novel," only to determine that the path to doing it is both a lot harder and a lot easier than i had ever given it credit for being.  i definitely excel at writing characters, but, quite frankly, i always really sucked at developing a story arch.  i had it in my mind that if i fell in love with my characters hard enough, (which is a challenge since i really prefer to write about rather despicable, flawed people) they would eventually lead me to some grand adventure on their own.

but, at least at this point, i know where these characters are going and it's been a huge step forward for me.  and for just shy of 2200 words total there are already a lot of characters: andrea, grace, ruby, dylan, olivia, craig, steve, patrick, sam, "blondie."

i'm toying with the idea of signing off my future blog posts with the current word count of my, what-i-eventually-hope-makes-it-to-be-a-novel-someday.  to try and keep myself motivated and productive.

have any of you guys tried to write a piece of fiction over 50,000 words (who am i kidding, what about 20,000)?  how do you stay motivated / productive with the same creative piece?

word count:  2,154

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