21000 words of new fiction so far; seriously self?

[melannen]

Well, if everybody else is doing the "titles of your works in progress" meme:

In the recent projects/fiction folder (skipping the ones that are actually finished just not moved yet) we have:

dw-slowfire.txt (11kb)
vk-earrings.txt (18kb)
ul-lawdie.txt (1kb)
tg-tgswap.txt (16kb)
ul-resigh.txt (23kb)
dw-grinch.txt (5kb)
o-anna.txt (2kb)
dw-miskatonic.txt (4kb)
dw-dowagerduchess.txt (7kb)
st-spockuhura.txt (2kb)
bbc-paulian.txt (2kb)
dw-set theory.txt (2kb)
st-spockpigtails.txt (2kb)
o-gawn.txt (3kb)
tg-tgdw.txt (45kb)
bbc-angels.txt (6kb)
sh-maryrocks.txt (2kb)
go-easterstory.txt (2kb)
st-kstlk.txt (6kb)
sh-bow.txt (3kb)
st-t'kay.txt (2kb)
dw-handy.txt (8kb)
tg-secretgarage.txt (2kb)
o-princerupert.txt (2kb)
lv-earbudporn.txt (11kb)
hp-christmas.txt (6kb)

Then, on the desktop (which is, essentially, the fics I have started since the last time I said "screw my wips folder, I'll just write want I want to write!") I have:

yt-alki.txt (11kb)
df-bitch.txt (16kb)
df-onsen.txt (2kb)
df-tiger.txt (27kb)

If you want to know more about any of those, ask and I will babble about them!

But! That is not all! Okay, there are a bunch of wips that have been put in the non-recent folders even though I do still plan to finish them. Not listing them all here, because that just gets depressing. And there are some other fics which exist only on various anon memes because I commentboxed them.

And then there is all the stuff that goes in my commonplace books. I got in the habit of carrying a notebook in which to write things when I was in high school - yes, we were supposed to have binders and careful dividing up by subjects and class and whatever, I just had a notebook. In which I wrote things. In whatever order. After I left school and stopped carrying bookbag-sized bags, I switched to carrying smaller notebooks, but I still generally have a notebook or two which just contains whatever I feel requires writing down at the moment - everything from a few thousand words of fiction to a bit of long division. I started privately calling them "commonplace books" after I learned that my grandmother kept one - because they certainly aren't organized enough to be anything else.

Anyway, I have just about filled up the one I've been using recently, so I thought it might be fun to list out the contents in my more journal-y journal, for my own reference if nothing else! So here is the page-by-page contents of one of my paper notebooks, summarized but unfiltered, for y'all:

1. A freehanded map of the US, with states and state capitals labelled, from memory.
2. Another, slightly better, but unfinished attempt at the same thing.
3. The sentence 'A white-hot, flaming orb is suspended in the exact center of the circular room' (If anyone else knows where I was going with this, please tell me? It sounds interesting.)
4. Packing list for something that required 2 nights' clothing.
5-7. The booklet text for the John Sheppard mini-fanmix.
8. Blank but heavily water-damaged.
9. "It's ^was^ the first really nice day of spring - still a week or so until Beltane," which I think is the first version of the first line of dw-slowfire.txt :p
10. Packing list for Day 2 of con.txt 2010, upside down, in black Sharpie.

11. Todo list; list of things to look up on the internet from when I was without internet at uncle's house Christmas 2009; a long list of numbers between 15 and 28 which I think has something to do with the Dalekling pattern.
12-15. More notes on the Dalekling pattern.
16. Notes from the temp job last winter; attempts at freehand grimoire script; some sketches of tesseracts which I think were the start of an attempt to design a crochet TARDIS which is dimensionally transcendent and bigger on the inside.
17. To-do list; directions to training for last winter's job.
18. Blank but heavily water-damaged.
19. Blank but heavily water-damaged with marker from the other side bleeding through.
20. Crude stick figure and unusually enigmatic to-do list, written in black marker.

21. List of strange adjectives from 19th-century herbals
22. Blank.
23. To-do list; two temporal addition problems; crude doodle of Charlie Brooker being attacted by a tentacle monster.
24. Blank.
25. The number 16, circled.
26. (Upside down) Measurements, I believe my own: 5'4"; 33-28-38; shirt 36"; sleeve 23"x20"
27. (Upside down) List of things to look up for Madelyn Mack fic; billable hours calculation for last winter's temp job; the words "jo grant".
28. (Upside down) Notes on Why they shouldn't let me teach Sunday school.
29. Directions to dracolytch's place.
30. Blank.

31. Notes from fingerprinting class + doodles of whorls
32. "Born to Run" "Run Up Walls"
33. Unidentified phone number; to-do list; directions to two unknown places
34. To-do list for Con.txt 2010 + directions to con hotel
35. Notes for "What Is Slash" panel, con.txt 2010.
36. Blank.
27. Notes for "Fanmixes & Mash-ups" panel, con.txt 2010.
28. Directions to Pennsic War
29. List of panels to definitely attend at con.txt 2010. Five possible songs for an asexuality mix tape.
30. Blank.

31. Notes for "Procrastinators' Party" panel, con.txt 2010
32. Blank
33. Notes for "Lolitics" panel, con.txt 2010
34-36 Blank
37. Notes for things to add to Copyright notes, con.txt 2010; directions to a restaurant near the con hotel.
38. Directions to meeting place re: census job; itnerary and preliminary packing list for first 2010 Boston visit.
29. Blank
30. Final packing list for Boston visit.

31. Menus for Pennsic 2010
32-36. Packing lists for Pennsic 2010
37. To-do list before leaving, Pennisc 2010
38. Shopping list for Pennisc 2010; directions to the international grocery store
39-40. More Pennsic packing lists (I was having fun, okay?)

41. Ages and birthdays of the Appenall princesses (Huh. I have never even attempted to explain Appenall on this journal. Someday I should do that, considering I've been spending a fair amount of dream-time there for the past 15 years or so;) packing and to-do list for the halfway-through-Pennsic pit stop.
42-43. Notes for go-easterstory.txt.
44. Notes for the Sarah Jane/Maria ace romance story where Maria is trying to figure out her sexuality. Doodles of small cute animals. "Gideon, Jaffa, Merlin, Apocalypse."
45. Directions to... somewhere.
46. Time & directions to a meeting; some long multiplication, a large contoured surface.
47. Blank
48. The Major Arcana, Appenall variant deck: the Fool, the Sorceror, the Empress, the Church, the Emperor, the Priest, Love, the Chariot, the Tower, Justice, Temperance, Strength, Treachery, Luck, Death, Time, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Devil, Righteousness, Victory
49. The titles of 5 traditional Christian hymns and some largely impenetrable one-word notes.
50. Notes from the 2010 Homeless Resource Day

51. Blank.
52. More notes from Homeless Resource Day
53. Notes for Pennsic tower build
54-56. Preliminary workshops schedule for Pennsic 2010
57-60. Workflow draft for Pennisc tower build

61. Sketch of crenellation designs for Pennsic tower build
62. More Dalekling pattern scribbles
63. Notes (taken by stellar_dust) on distinguishing marks of antique glassware from my grandfather's estate
64. Complete list of food at Grandfather's potluck funeral luncheon
65. Blank
66. List of early spring wildflowers to write up for common_nature
67. List of upcoming events in 2010; doodles including a dancing girl in fingerless gloves legwarmers and facepaint, a tesseract, and a blivet.
68. To-do list. Here, I'll copy it out in full as a sample (though this one's unusually light on the RL grownup stuff): write up Deadnettle for c_n; tiny blue fuzzies; k's'tlk; trans characters; pocket telephone;; otra mixen; materiality/top gear; *; gavotte; php;; put books away/review; ; jerkin; photos; poetry; ; fix computer; top gear; star wars crap; roller skate blind; screenwipy, yhbw, botw; syndicate; pull thete(?); post art.
69. Schematic map ef the High Plain villages (based on the Kabalist tree-of-life) for 2010 NaNo novel, including time and distance calculations along various routes, pythagorean theorem invoked repeatedly.
70. (Upside down) Notes on How the Grinch Stole Christmas

71. Christmas shopping list, 2010
72. Directions to a BRIDGE political activism event.
73. Notes for a journal post on "Basic population dynamics and demographics for worldbuilders, fictional and otherwise"
74. To-do list; notes from BRIDGE event; doodles of bugs wearing hats
75. Preliminary BRIDGE meeting and event schedule through Aug 2011
76. Notes for "A Day in the Life of Father Forthill"
77. Notes for post about Noir fiction and gender
78. Notes for writing samples for job application; sketch of the cute CASA organizer who comes to the BRIDGE meetings.
79. To-do list; notes from BRIDGE meeting; notes for Rhiow ace manifesto; spink doodles
80. Notes from different BRIDGE meeting; list of 'towns' in my county

81-82. Notes from one-on-one meeting with state delegate; more notes for aDitLoFF.
83. More detailed notes to Pennsic War, alternate route.
84. Very short shopping list; mileage calculations for Pennsic War route
85. To-do list, this one heavier on the serious business (find folders; apply jobs; send e-mails; work on Trigger Star)
86. Directions from Pennsic War to home.
87-91. Blank

92. "Barney Frank/Ron Paul; Miss Alabama;" notes on published Sherlock Holmes fanfic; "There's some oil on the band on the leg on the bird on the boom on the slick on the plume on the leak on the valve on the cap on the hole in the bottom of the sea"
93. Multiplication of some sort.
94-95. Notes on "Worldbuilding" panel, Farscape 2010
96. Notes on "Why not go pro?" panel, Farscape 2010
97. Notes on copyright panel, Farscape 2010
98. Notes for "A historical, cultural, and scientific guidebook to sights of interest along the Baltimore City light rail line."

...and fin. I must have only torn one page out of that whole notebook! It is apparently still 1/5 blank pages, but considering how scattered they are, yep, I think it's retirement time. (I do save these though! For, like, future historians. Or something.)

And yes, this system of note-taking works best for me. It's organized by when it happened, and what else was going on at the same time, and by tactile sense, and that really does seem to make it easier for me to find things than any more 'rational' system. ...as long as I remember that I wrote it down. And which notebook I wrote it down in.

Comments

[sophia_sol]

Oh, I LOVE that you use a commonplace book! That's awesome. I actually do something similar, with always having a small notebook on my person. Though I've never thought to call it a commonplace book, which it TOTALLY IS. Dude. (also, my current one is just about full up, and I need a new one, and I can't find a notebook of the right size! It is very frustrating)

[melannen]

What size do you use? I usually go for anything that's between a standard trade hardcover & standard paperback size, because anything smaller I lose track of, and anything larger I leave lying around someplace... (mostly because all my bags and pockets are already sized to fit a novel or two.)

I have one notebook - which was given to me for a class in college, which is really frustrating, because I made a fancy reusable cover for it, and I have never again been able to find a notebook that size. (It's almost, but not quite, the size of the smallest Moleskines.)

[sophia_sol]

Mine is standard paperback size, because that's the size that fits perfectly in my purse (yes, I totally sewed my purse to be specifically book-sized. *grin*). Any larger and it wouldn't fit, and any smaller and it would get jumbled up with the other contents instead of standing firm as a barrier between the jumbles of contents... Also, it needs to be spiral-bound so I can stick a pen into its spine. I THINK I AM TOO PICKY.

I love that you made a fancy reusable cover! And it is a terrible shame that you haven't been able to use it since!

[melannen]

Yeah, unfortunately most of the ones I'm finding cheap lately (at least the spiral-bound ones) seem to be just slightly larger than a paperback. Which is annoying when you have everything sized for paperback! Though I don't require spiral-bound because I will just clip the pen onto the cover or over the spine anyway.

[stellar_dust]

3 reminds me of one of the temples in Achaea, but I have no idea why you would be writing that down in a recent notebook!

Also, all the water damage tells me you should be glad you have a rite-in-the-rain one now. d-:

[melannen]

It also reminds me of a scene in one of the YW books, but I have no idea where I'd have been taking it in that case. Or it might be something SGA-related, given what was next in the book...

I think most of the water damage is from being in bags with leaking bottles!

[zlabya]

Where would I start?


Re: stories--"spockpigtails" and "earbudporn"...where would I find those?

Your commonplace-book contents... I wish I had the time to write down my ideas like that. Pity is, they mostly come while commuting (1 hour minimum each way...)

[melannen]

Well, right now you would only find them in my head and on my laptop. :P 'Spockpigtails' comes out of a discussion I had involving people who didn't understand that Spock and McCoy's relationship on Star Trek:TOS was all about McCoy pulling his pigtails. So I decided to give him literal pigtails. He goes on some kind of Vulcan religious retreat for several months - this would be in the run-up to the first movie - where he can't cut his hair. So he comes back to the Enterprise in the middle of a crisis with long hair that he just braids to get it out of the way. And after he realizes that McCoy can't resist pulling the pigtails/dipping them in inkwells (culture stain, medical dye, flourescent orange coolant, etc., in the absence of inkwells) he delays cutting his hair short again. Until Kirk gets tired of having to supervise them and tells him to just ask Spock to the dance already. (It's Lt. Riley's birthday next week, see, which means a dance in the bowling alley, and I love that that's more or less canon.)

"earbudporn" is Leverage fic - the Leverage team have miniature two-way earbuds they wear that give them basically fake!telepathy when narratively convenient. I decided this was an excuse for teamfic!phonesex. It mostly lacks plot. :D And is waiting for me to catch up on watching Leverage.

I have a friend who bought himself a mini!voice recorder to use as a memorandum book while driving...