1. I will create my fantasy world setting, Olivine.
That screeched to a halt on… [consults notebook] March 16. Fundamental part of small and large-scale plot won’t work with my magic system after all. I did pick a world name after that, but actual real world-building WORK, that all stopped five months ago. (FIVE… MONTHS. AGO. OMG. -_-; )

2. I will complete the first draft of Book 1 by December 31, 2008.
I suppose that’s still technically possible; given the explanation of goal #1, seems unlikely at this point.

3. I will write a short story (science fiction) and submit to a contest or magazine.
Did not do. Got tangled up in technicalities over the contest I was considering (this was in May-June); project over-thought and for the moment, abandoned.

Goals are good and I’m not going to crumple up my 3×5 card, by any means, but I’m at a loss. I could say “life has buried me alive, YOU HAVE NO IDEA”, but I feel like I’ve said that a dozen times over the past few years and every time I’m having to REDEFINE the extremity of the statement. It’s like it grows by a magnitude with every use. (I’d better darn well never say it again!)

I haven’t posted because I really, honestly, truly have NOTHING I can say about ANYTHING, and I don’t know how long it’ll be before I think of post fodder. My readership has dropped, but there’s little I can do about it. I’m not very interesting right now. I’m the first to admit that.

I did another cluster over the weekend; I’m curious to see how further brainstorming fares with the themes I’ve written down. Getting some perspective on things I value in fiction, and some insight. I hope all of this can be worked into the stuff I want to write; maybe spark something that would lead back to the goals listed above.

I don’t know what else to do.

I was never one for vampires, Interview With A Vampire (despite Brad Pitt) gave me nightmares for a solid MONTH, and in general, it’s just not my thing. The story told in the Twilight Saga, however, was so much more than mere vampires; I can’t believe how much I liked it. The end was very satisfactory.

And what can I say? Twilight got me reading again; Eclipse and Breaking Dawn have my writing juices flowing a little. Despite everything going on (and wow, what a lot I can’t talk about here), I still feel a bit more creative than I have in recent memory. I’ll pick up where I left off — working on themes and things of importance to me, brainstorming, clustering — today or tomorrow. Work is starting to improve, and I need to catch up a bit. So I’m doing that, for now.

Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. told SCI FI Wire that fantastic space science fiction shows and movies are, in part, responsible for the lack of interest in real-life space exploration among young people.

“I blame the fantastic and unbelievable shows about space flight and rocket ships that are on today,” Aldrin said in an interview during an ice cream party held by the National Geographic Channel at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., this week. “All the shows where they beam people around and things like that have made young people think that that is what the space program should be doing. It’s not realistic.”

For the most part, I disagree with Mr. Aldrin. I do not think lack of realism is making kids less interested in the space program. I think lack of anything interesting happening, AT ALL, is making kids less interested in the space program. And it’s not just kids.

There’s a lot of talking, organizing, but nothing is really HAPPENING at NASA right now. Hence the commercial interest in the Google Lunar X Prize (in my opinion.) My LPI internship adviser is now the chief scientist for one of the X Prize teams, because he’s not waiting for NASA to get around to getting back to the Moon. There’s a lot of disgruntled scientists (I know, I saw them at the LPSC, in 2000 and 2003) who’ve been living on crumbs of hope, project to project, grant to grant, but how long can that really sustain you?

Since I turned my back on the scientific community, I’m going to write science fiction and go to the Moon whenever the heck I want. :P For whatever non-scientific flippant reason I want. And stay as long as I want.

So for once, for a change, I think Aldrin’s full of crap. Usually I’m pretty much on his side, he’s a great advocate for spaceflight… but people need more than realism. They need hope, dreams… things to inspire them. They need the bar set too high, to give them something to shoot for. They also need to see something happening, and if the space program can’t provide that, they’ll go elsewhere. And they will. And they are.

SERIES: Ah! Megami-sama, Angel Sanctuary, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura, Codename wa Sailor V, Full Moon wo Sagashite, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Magic Knight Rayearth, Shinshi Doumei Cross, Time Stranger Kyoko, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle.

Click here for the GIGANTIC LIST.

Work has been very much of the meh today; it’s not that anything in particular has gone so horribly wrong, but generally, what I’ve worked on today was unpleasant. Then again, maybe I’m the one that’s meh and unpleasant..? Doing a lot of internal adjusting, thinking and digesting today… yeah, it’s probably just me, not the work. Oh well.

Tomorrow will be better, I’m sure. And hey, the internet is faster now! :D

So I have scraps to work with, phrases, an occasional sentence, and lots and lots of single words. I’m still searching for meaning — maybe it’d be better to say I’m searching for what the words mean. (This is hard to describe, can you tell?) I’m building a dictionary for myself, of things that mean something to me. But having a dictionary does not a novel, a paragraph or even a sentence make; the words must be put in an order that gives meaning and says something to the reader. (Even if the reader is me.)

…and meanwhile, I’m still thinking….

I’m slowly finding my way to some story ideas and writing more frequently. Sorry for the huge lapse in posting, but I’m working on it….

For a month or more I’ve been in a severe funk, not writing, and not reading anything more than light manga or a short story. I haven’t been able to write as much as a regular blog entry — I posted thrice last week because, hey, I had a car wreck and a site launch, and those were things to talk about! Now, I’m back to being out of things to talk about.

As far as Serenitatis goes, the layout that came out was beautiful but extremely agonizing to execute. I’m starting afresh and hoping for something less painful to code up. Still aiming to revamp in the next month.

As far as Mistress Fortune goes (see last post), indeed, Tanemura-sensei is finishing it after three chapters and a side story in the summer Ribon Special magazine. She’s been going at it for the last 49 issues — over four years, and that’s ONLY Ribon Magazine; that doesn’t even count her side stories in nearly every special issue of Ribon printed. Clearly, she needs a break. I can’t say I blame her.

As far as life (and writing) goes, I’ve been taking notes on themes that draw me, stuff I like, stuff I should incorporate into my writing, and trying to figure out what it is I should write, what’s most important to me. I’m getting a lot of good things out of it; a few dismaying things…. I’m playing a lot of Animal Crossing. I’m crocheting; I made a netted shopping bag, and I’m about halfway through my afghan pattern. I’m taking a break from eBay sales and will be listing a bunch of stuff for direct-sale, probably on my LJ. I’m tired, it’s hot and muggy.

More soon, I hope.