Haha. Got you. I’m not caught up. I did, however, have a superb day today and I have a treat for you fine ink splAters.

I know you’ve been suffering over the last month.

“Sure,” you’ve been thinking, “I’m so proud of Sarah for concentrating on her incredibly demanding schoolwork. But I’ve really missed hearing about her book. I even have a sneaking suspicion that she has been putting off working on it. I feel guilty for even thinking that she would neglect a project about which she feels so passionately, but excerpts have been in mighty short supply lately.

“Also,” you think, “despite the fact that she says it had to do with faeries, I have seen no evidence of that in the excerpts she has posted. Oh Sarah,” you cry to the heavens, “why don’t you post more pages of your lovely book so we, your loyal, charming, brilliant, good-looking, humble ink splAters can regain faith in you and praise your work for hours on end? Please!”

It was something along those lines, no? Well, here you go folks. Have a ball. Compliments go in the “comments” section.

C’s journey back through the trees was lonely and frustrating. After leaving the eerie sourceless light around the clearing she trudged, stomping, behind the blue twinkling body and buzzing blurred wings of Rose Isa. The tiny faerie named the trees that they passed, sometimes reaching out to one with her delicate little hands. C was amused when she noticed Rose call them not by their species, birch, elm, and pine, but instead by names like “Leafy Joe” and “Prickles.”

When C had once again climbed up to the Ridge, she remembered Dennis and the retreaters, Julian and the twins, and jumped when a shower of red and yellow-white sparks exploded in the sky. Time in Faerie must run strange, C thought, swearing that it should be approaching dawn, that the fireworks and celebration must be long-since spent.

She stared hard at the forest now below her, the place that held so many secrets and two people she loved. Rose Isa flew in a large loop of farewell and darted into the trees – a minuscule flame swallowed by an endless dark.

C started down the path back to her site, picking up speed with every step so that by the time she reached the tennis court it was by in a blink. She raced for the beach, toward the echoing bangs of the multicoloured explosions leaving smoky imprints on the sky.

There were a couple hundred people gathered around bonfires collectively oohing and ahhing at the pyrotechnical display. C pushed through strangers, ignoring their grunts of annoyance. She scanned the crowd impatiently, trying to search out Julian. He was Rainee’s best friend and C felt driven to tell him why she had disappeared, but when an appreciative cheer rumbled around her after a particularly spectacular combination of fireworks it occurred to C that no one noticed Rainee was missing. For everyone else, the last few hours hadn’t been one impossibility after another; it had simply been another summer evening by the beach.

Then she spotted them. The twins gazed hopefully at the sky, waiting for the next explosion. Mama D sat on a lawn chair with her hands folded peacefully over her stomach, her eyes blinking in the slow, heavy way that signalled exhaustion. Julian stood behind her chair with one hand resting on its back. He didn’t watch the sky but instead dissected the crowd. He kept returning to the collection of CASB retreaters clumped uncomfortably in the centre of the beach. C noticed Dennis searching through the mass of people with his eyes, a frown of annoyance or disappointment showing. Apparently her absence was noted.

Conscious of promises to him and the twins – conversations that seemed like memories from another life – C walked forward to stand between these two groups. She waited for Dennis to pick her out of the throng, and by watching his face morph from irritation to pleasure to alarm as he recognized her, she knew she must look a complete mess.

He began to move toward her, but she put a hand up to stop him, attempted a reassuring smile, signalled that would be back in a moment and carved out a path to Julian’s family around the bonfire. Dragging her feet a bit, she stumbled into a few people on her way.

Wanting more? All you have to do is ask. P.S., please excuse any grammatical errors. This excerpt is not yet edited.

ink splAt’s in-house writer,

inksplAt bookworm

Sarah E. Lund

I sat alone at the edge of the world and wondered, “What fool said this planet was round?”

Hello loyal, new, and other ink splAters. Excuse me in advance for liberal use of  vulgarities and descriptions of liquored escapades in this entry.

We’ll start off with my disgustingly shameful “progress” with my Project. Ugh. I haven’t been writing. Went from two pages a day to more like two pages a week which is… disappointing. I’ve banned myself from Harry Potter until I reach over 100 pages as a result. Suggestions of other punishments for my laxity are encouraged. But wait! Before you tell me to cut out the letter A from all my conversations, steal my cat, or force me to watch Saturday’s football game again *shudder*, I will present my excus- I mean, legitimate reasons.

Reason number one: Work

I was scheduled more than full time for the last pay period, leaving me scant writing hours.

Reason number two: SYTYCD

Dancing finales took up a couple evenings; catching up on the episodes I missed took a couple more. SYTYCD is vital for a happy life.

Reason number three: Family Badity

We got some bad news in my family in the last couple of weeks. An upsetting diagnosis sent me into a fundraising fury and fantastical worlds got left by the wayside. Darn reality, shoving its way back into my summer.

Reason number four: Greyness

It’s so gross outside. Every day. All. The. Time. What does this have to do with my book, you ask? Well, technically nothing. But a generally perky demeanor can only provide enough energy for dealing with crowds of sullen book buyers; a flash of sunshine is necessary to encourage creative industriousness.

If, after reading all my completely reasonable explanations of what kept me from writing, you are still inclined to dish out punishment, please make suggestions below.

Now on to what I actually wanted to blog about. YaaaaaaaaaaY!!

My Cabin Weekend

(cue dramatic, majestic, sweeping, triumphant, “we won the battle against all odds and will now loot the houses and have our way with the women, even though you won’t see that part” music)

I’ll admit it. I was fuggin’ nervous. After the amazing trip to New Iceland, August had collapsed into a heap of soggy frustration. It was an ominous prequel to what was to be the wondrous culmination of summer escapades. The crew (Idina, Lea, JT, Ken Jennings, Joel) were coming out to my cottage. I was going to be hostessing. I was freaking out.

Leading up to my test of hostessing prowess I had turned the weekend with the six (sometimes seven) of us into a more casual event, allowing people to show up as they were able and leave as they were forced. With plans falling apart and facing the prospect of my giant leap into party-giving being a failure because no one would show up or stay, JT and I invited a bunch of board-game-loving friends along (Cisely, the real C, Belu, and Bree among them). Far from having an empty party headquarters, at one point we expected to have to provide sustenance and sleeping quarters for 16 people. One extreme to the other. At any given moment I was on the verge of hyperventilating (OK, so I’m exaggerating a bit, just go with it).

While making plans, and even during the weekend, I had an ideal situation worked out in my mind. The actual weekend did not resemble at all what I had envisioned. It was better. Leaps and bounds better. I could never have designed this weekend to make me any happier than I am right now, thinking back on it. (Well, maybe something involving a hose and a left shoe could have slipped in there, right Danny?).

The event wasn’t so much three days as two separate weekends. And JT, Ken Jennings, and I did start to call them “weekend one” and “weekend two” on the way home to differentiate. I’ll keep that up here.

Weekend One: Long Live the Six

On Friday I worked until five. Cisely had bowed out of the weekend, and the real C was stranded in a ditch near her cabin (unharmed but forced to opt out as well), so JT, Ken Jennings, and I drove out together. We got there just before Idina, Lea, and Joel. Enough time to turn on the oven for the pizza and start unloading the food. And then the power went out. Great. Perfect beginning.

It came on within a half hour, and, luckily, worked flawlessly for the rest of the weekend. The six of us went for a midnight swim, played Twister, drank, and abused the karaoke machine (making liberal use of the six new CDs I bought for it. What an investment). We crashed at a fairly reasonable hour.

Saturday morning  involved JT and I having our first real test of cooking ability. He fried bacon like a pro while my pancake making was… lacking. I think it could have been worse. As mistakes go, accidentally pouring half the package of chocolate chips into the mix isn’t the worst thing that could have happened.

Have I mentioned the weather yet? No? Well then, surprise! It was grey, windy, and raining. I think that in a couple years I will still remember how much fun I had this weekend, but I won’t remember how terrible it was outside, which is saying something.

We watched Arthur and Babar, and I realised that my friends are probably right, my vocabulary was bolstered by that elephant family. On how many shows do you hear the word “eschew” casually tossed out?

Some Boggle, and maybe Cranium later, we realised that if there are any Password replacement packs available somewhere we need them. I’m sure we’ve done every list in that box once, some of them twice. We defied the rain a bit and played in the gazebo, demolishing the vegetable plate in the process (with few Broccoli Challenges to put up with. “Broccoli Challenge” is an event that Ken Jennings and JT take part in whenever there is raw broccoli nearby. They each grab comparable sized stalks and eat them whilst exclaiming how utterly gross uncooked broccoli is. There really is no winner.)

The inevitable Mario Kart/Tennis/Golf tourneys were broken up with some Diddy Kong Racing, thankfully. It gets awfully tiring losing the Mario games over and over again, and at no one else’s cabin had my personal favorite N64 game ever been an option. I rocked a few races of Diddy Kong Racing, happily reacquainting myself with the strategy and shortcuts that came from hours of playing against my sister on similarly rainy days in our childhood. It was nice. For me.

Weekend One ended before dinner on Saturday with Idina, Lea, and Joel taking off just after Andreas and Jeanine (new to the blog and, pretty much, to my life) arrived.

I will post this and finish “Weekend Two” soon.

Large love sent by post with three stamps,

inksplAt bookworm

I guess “popular demand” isn’t completely accurate. More like “a couple people mentioned the blog which gave me some hope that they might be interested in a new post”.

AJ told me that I shouldpost another excerpt of my story, which is probably the nicest thing someone has said without overtly attempting to compliment me in a very long time. Bonus points for him. Super-mega bonus points with cake if he ever chooses to comment *coughhintcough*.

Bree’s boyfriend, Belu (though he doesn’t live in a tent), made a couple teasing jokes referencing the blog. Big hugs and love to him, stealing wireless from a hotel room in one province or another.

So about my writing…

As I think I said before, in week two I was unsuccessful in keeping up with my quota. I went three days without makeup, which, strangely, caused me to go on a makeup purchasing frenzy. I am now colourful eyeshadow crazy. A day in which I can’t put lime green or purple on my eyes is a day wasted. What an unexpected consequence of my consequence…

Week three was slightly more successful. I fell behind, but managed to catch up with an impressive 5.5 pages in 3.5 hours earlier this week. I am still allowed to eat chocolate, but since my parents have deserted the house for two weeks to relax at the cabin, there aren’t many chocolate options around. It’s a tainted victory.

My major challenge this week has been to focus on this book. For the first time, or at least more than ever, I’ve been having ideas for other novels and stories, and part of me would much rather play around with them than stick with my faeries. I’m sure I’ll find my groove in this book again, and then my Project won’t seem like as much of a burden as it does right now. Hopefully.

I only got a page or two written last weekend. Seven of us (me, JT, Ken Jennings, Idina, Joel[Idina's boyfriend], Lea, and Ian) were out at Idina’s cabin and it was an absolutely brilliant time. Friends, Minnie, sleep, food, henna, balloons, Ryan the mini-donut hottie, the beach, tennis, sun, board games, football, dancing, bonfires, and ’80’s power ballads made it a weekend to remember, but not of particular productivity.

I thought I had it in me to finish up this recap of the last little bit of my life in writing land, but I’m tired. Excerpt tomorrow.

With giant sleepy yawns and a slow blink, goodnight ink splAters.

inksplAt bookworm

I did it! I caught up on my pages! Harry Potter Day will be a coordinated footwear day after all.

Sure, it did take the majority of a sick day - if I hadn’t been completely ill, there is no way I would have been able to catch up - but they’re done. Eight pages in one day. I will not let myself get that behind ever again.

You know what? I’m really starting to enjoy this book-writing thing.

This will be a shorter post, just an update so you too can revel in my triumph, but a couple of life details must be noted.

1)  I’m off to the Islendingadagurinn on the long weekend. It’s official. Hotel room booked and everything. This will be a glorious half-party half-research weekend where I can hopefully visit Snorri and Snaebjorn, learn a little more about Icelandic elves, and eat a lot of good food. This trip is mostly thanks to Mum and DoubleO who are bravely trusting me with a car, and JT who somehow doesn’t think I’m completely mad for going to talk about elves with strangers. It will also be the first time JT and I go away anywhere just the two of us. The Islendingadagurinn, how romantic.

2)  I finally got the courage to send this blog around to a selection of friends who have shown interest in my Project and/or will likely not laugh at my attempt to document my life under deadline. If this is your first time reading ink splAt, welcome! And you should probably start from the beginning…

That’s all for now ink splAt-ers. I will now go bask in the glow of a day on which Harry Potter is released in some form.

Live long and prosper,

inksplAt bookworm

P.S. Here’s an excerpt from my work today. Severely unedited.

“I just slept in; it’s no big deal,” she said. She didn’t particularly like the idea of enlightening him on everything that had transpired with Rainee in front of the rest of the students.

Dennis was about to comment on this when a black BMW sedan rumbled up the gravel road. All the students stared intently at the car. C, especially, was willing the doors to open. Buck Stanton was like a rock star to her. She had followed his political career since she was old enough to understand how the electoral process worked, and had always been in awe of his progressive views. Before going green was trendy, he had been elected to city council on an environmentally-friendly platform. In his federal campaigns, environmental issues had always been an integral part of his promises to constituents.

His policy was not the only reason that C admired him. He was at once eloquent and out-spoken, blunt and ingratiating, and his genuine, charismatic smile had an old-Hollywood gentleman quality that made businesspeople and elderly ladies trust him and young men want to emulate him. The grey streaks in his hair, his sun-browned skin, and the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth gave him the look of an aging western sheriff. This was a striking image that had, fortunately for him, increased his charm. According to the pundits, it was only a matter of time before he was promoted to Leader of his party to make a run for Prime Minister.

The door opened and he swept out of the car, smiling and greeting Philip Eastwood warmly. He was shorter than C had imagined, though she quickly amended that observation with the thought that height is virtually impossible to get an accurate impression of from television. Mostly he was exactly as she had seen him in press clippings and on the news, and she was feeling positively giddy at the thought of talking to him. Dennis was mocking her under his breath, suggesting she get Stanton to sign something for her. She ignored him. For the first time, she was determined to be noticed above the other students.

It’s July 6, which means there are three days to go until I have to submit what I’ve written so far to my writer’s circle (though technically I suppose we’re a triangle).  In the past two weeks I’ve written twelve new pages, which I feel is an accomplishment. That is, I felt it was an accomplishment until I realised, in the last three minutes or so, that my twelve pages took me fourteen days to write.

  ~ interlude while I try out the new MSN search engine, which performs admirably but not, perhaps, better than any other search engine in helping me find out how many days until my deadline: March 1 ~

Alright. Well. There are 238 days until I must have this novel (150-200 pages of it) completed. In this moment, 238 days does not seem like a very long time.

I had planned to have the majority of the novel completed through the summer. According to jarusa.com/daysuntil.htm - which I’m going to trust regardless of the fact that I have no idea what “jarusa” means, and even less if the actual name is “Jar USA” - I only have 57 days until September 1 [read: First Day Of School].

Math time…

If I wrote 12 pages in 14 days, I’m working at approximately 86% capacity, assuming that my capacity is one page per day which sounds a little weak to me but I’ll disregard that for the time being.

Working at the same speed, in 57 days I will have likely completed around 49 pages. Bringing my total up to 79. Which, if I can divide by two (and I can, the calculator beside me will vouch for it) means that my summer output just barely qualifies as “the majority” of my novel, and then only if I write the bare minimum of total pages.

Shit.

Alright, well I’ll step it up a bit. Hell, what did that year of deadlines, breakdowns, projects, and no sleep teach me, if it wasn’t to write well, and quickly? I can write at least a page a day. Actually, I bet I can write two pages per day, every day for the next 57.

Mmm. There it is. The slight  increase in heart rate, the sinking dread, the buzz of excitement, the sorting and filing of excuses in the back of my mind. The symptoms, in short, that only a Project can induce.

Note the capital P and the bolding. A project is any sort of assignment or task one is given (yes “one” not “you”, we’re getting technical here and a certain Voice tells me to use it when I want to sound more informed. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on this point, and try it out, though secretly I still think it’s a sure sign of trying too hard…). It can be any level of difficulty, and really encompasses anything from teaching a friend the best way to illegally download music to giving one’s workspace a thorough cleaning.

A Project, however, is a different entity. It is borne out of obsession, passion, boredom or a ignorant disregard for what is healthy, good, typical, or wise. It frequently, though not exclusively, involves an artistic output. Most importantly, it should have a high likelihood of failure.

The best Projects give one access to intangible prizes. These include things like bragging rights, or being characterized as “one of those people who ____ ” (which may not sound wonderful right now, but how many times have you wanted to be one of those people who makes their own clothes, trains for a marathon, takes flying lessons, writes a book in 57 days, et cetra?).

My project has morphed into a Project, except that it is missing a key element… consequences. What happens if I don’t write 14 pages per week until September 1?

This would be a good time to get audience suggestions… that is, if anyone actually read this blog.

Let’s come back to that.

This week was:

Canada’s 142nd Birthday

My anniversary with JT (well, sort of. We celebrate twice a year -  the day we met and the day we became “a couple”. Sickeningly cheesy and lame, I know, but that’s us); and

The first time I’ve ever driven to the cabin (no injuries to us or any of the eight deer we saw on the way…not even to that idiotic one that decided to run in front of the car at night on the highway just to test my driving nerves and prowess. Luckily I can  handle the car with James Bond-like cool aloofness when it comes to deer-related incidents).

I’m sort of curious if next week will top it.

Signing off,

inksplAt bookworm

P.S. You might notice I discovered bolding this week. I knew it was there before, of course, it just never seemed like such a good idea. I promise next post I’ll try and take it easy.

I am writing a novel.

Not on here, of course. Blogging is a poor way to write a complete, fictional story, and it is a particularly poor place to write MY novel, which has to be handed in, all 150-200 projected pages of it, in March of 2010.

I am getting a grade on my novel. Though, to be honest, it’s a grade that takes effort more than content into account, so presumably I could seem very tortured and hard-done-by while creating predictable boring crap and do just as well as if I struggled over an “original” idea that I am convinced is brilliant and that I genuinely care about. Since I am putting the effort in, I might as well write something I love, and then if my grade is…less than ideal, I can feel victimized and misunderstood, like any mediocre artist that believes she is great.

My novel is tentatively classified as young adult fantasy, but I’m not too concerned with the label. That is simply the box I built for my then-shaky plot idea, to sell it to the academic panel that approved this project.

The main character is female, seventeen, smart, and independent (proud, disdainful, and a bit cold, on the negative side). She is named after a beautiful young woman I work with, but for privacy’s sake I’ll refer to them as “C” (literary) and “the real C” (corporeal) in inksplAt. So C is named after the real C, but other than smarts and brown hair these two are hugely different.

The plot is… well I’m not quite ready to divulge the details. What you really need to know is that it involves faeries. And politics. And history (or as much history as any prairie girl in North America can wrangle up).

At this point, I have roughly 20 pages of plot-thickening fun. A very pale man with a very loud voice, a garish comforter, and an unconventional bookstore layout have helped to set the scene for C’s adventure.

Intrigued? I hope so.

Yours,

inksplAt bookworm