A while back, one of you caring people asked what I was up to these days.

Things you might have noticed:

I haven’t been updating my WMC fic as regularly. Or anything else on here.

I haven’t been ranting about work, so, therefore, I clearly don’t have a job. If I did have a job, trust me, I’d be ranting. I have yet to have been employed somewhere that I only had good things to say.

Now, aren’t those two things incongruous? After all, if I’m not working shouldn’t I be able to produce fic like a flash-fiction machine, churning out words like a stenographer with, you know, her own thoughts? You would think. But actually, being forced into the daily grind is like fertilizer to my fic writing. This analogy works in all kinds of different ways. Being chained to an office makes my fic flourish, but due only to the fact that I am mired in shit all day long.

In an office, writing fan fic is easier for me than writing most other things. It’s generally shorter and a little easier to think up amidst distraction, since the characterizations are already there and all I have to do is stick them in an apartment together, or a hotel room, or throw a bucket of emotional pain on them and try to remain true to their voices. (Anyone wishing a job on me right now is no longer my friend.)

Amidst noise and interruption, I have difficulty creating new things, getting in touch with my own thoughts. I have found that I can write screenplays with some degree of success while on the clock, but I have yet to master really focused writing, novel-writing for instance, while co-workers are yapping nearby and someone is trying to talk me into entering some numbers into a spreadsheet for them so that they can get more time on the internet.

And right now, I have some novel writing to do. (Sorry it’s not the sequel to Bleeding Through Kingdoms. Not yet.) It’s another idea I’ve had for some time that’s been marinating. At first, I thought it would be a screenplay, because an awesome movie it would indeed make. But I can’t do exactly what I want to do with it in screenplay form. Not that I wouldn’t love to see it both ways.

What I’ve learned about myself is this. When it comes to writing a novel, I need a kind of absolute focus that is beyond normal. I wrote Bleeding Through Kingdoms in about a month. (Just the first draft… obviously.) During that month, I got up everyday, ran on a treadmill for an hour to clear my head and thought about my book. I took a swim and thought about my book. I made coffee and showered, thinking about my book. Then I sat down at the computer and I didn’t get up again until I had finished a chapter. Sometimes I was done by the time Shawna got home from work. Sometimes I had to stay up after she’d already gone to bed to finish. But I was singularly focused. You could safely say I didn’t have a single thought outside of what Cinderella was going to do next for an entire month.

I am going to try to be a little more realistic this time. I have another virtual season episode to write after all, and I do want to keep updating my WMC fics. But if it takes more time than it should, and it has, I apologize for the wait. I am also still doing things that come with a move, putting together furniture, etc. (Not to mention the ant invasion that has taken place in our apartment over the last two days. It’s nasty and has put me on high alert.)

But, for the sake of your further understanding, here is a typical Riley schedule when she gets up in the morning without a place to go.

Sometime before 8 a.m. (but usually after 7 a.m.) - Riley drags her ass out of bed and curses her caffeine-addiction as she beelines for the coffee pot.

As soon as the first mug is filled with pleasing java - Riley sits her butt down on the couch and hunches over her laptop.

One of two things happens at this point. Either ideas start flowing out of her as if she were a volcano and coffee the catalyst - OR - she stares blankly at the screen, wondering if she will ever have another idea again.

If the ideas start flowing, and are really coming strong, Riley may sit there, her back turning to a pain-filled lump, as she refuses to move (other than when natural bodily functions demand it and cursing the entire way) until she has gotten every idea out. Occasionally, Riley’s back demands she get up from her happy ass and do something to stretch it out, and, therefore, occasionally Riley does her exercises in the middle of writing like a good girl.

If ideas aren’t on the agenda, Riley wrinkles her nose, sighing that it never causes anything cool to happen like on Bewitched, and either tries to switch to an idea that is coming more freely (Yay! Fic!) or realizes there are things in the apartment that need done. Due to the ant invasion, I spent half of yesterday on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom floors. (Ah, the good life.)

So, there you have it. This is the excitement that is Riley while writing a novel. I know. It’s all very glamorous. I believe Biography has scheduled a piece on me next week.