tea berry-blue

tea has a question for any of those of you who feel up to answering it.

let's imagine a world where there is a nuclear holocaust that pretty much wipes out civilization as we know it.

now, a few people who do not have knowledge of technology survive. say, kids or something.

sound good.

fast forward one thousand years or so. assume that the people now populating the earth had found remnants of machinery, etc., from the "old world."

assuming that they don't have any great technology to build things, no plastics, etc, what everyday items from the modern world would be duplicable?

what social mechanisms would you expect to have carried over intact?

thanks for your reply.

rosie dear, this is for you:


i'm in the middle of writing. i think i have some good ideas right now of what needs to be rewritten. one scene is actually better the way it is, i think, than what i had planned on rewriting. we'll see.

i'm sure all this talking about my book must be ghastly boring for all y'alls who haven't read a snit of it (that is almost all of you). sorry! but it's what's controlling my life right now.

rosie dear, this is for you:


i'm in the middle of writing. i think i have some good ideas right now of what needs to be rewritten. one scene is actually better the way it is, i think, than what i had planned on rewriting. we'll see.

i'm sure all this talking about my book must be ghastly boring for all y'alls who haven't read a snit of it (that is almost all of you). sorry! but it's what's controlling my life right now.

i feel like i've been neglecting everyone on lj lately. sorry if that's meant you. i've been neglecting my own lj. the book is taking over my life; it's going through massive revisions and if i ever resurface, y'all will be the first to know.

the characters i'm writing are changing a lot. mikey questioned a part of the plot that is very important to me but that he just mentioned throwing out as if it were any other bit of plot. i realized my story had no plot, just character-building after character-building. i didn't have a solid ending in mind.

i'm trying to rework that now. a character who was a well-written stereotype is becoming a poorly-written human; he's turning into someone much more real, someone who doesn't seem like another girly-teen-fantasy trope, but who i don't know how to write. so he's getting cut a lot. whole conversations he had have been laid waste by apple-x.

and i'm afraid it's becoming a treatise on gun control. i hope not. i don't really think so, but i fear it.

it's hard to change a book. it's easier to hit the delete key and make scenes go away than it is to write new scenes and figure out where to insert them. some things work magically. i wrote in a snippet of a dream description and then jumped to the next page, and the way the character is behaving already matched the dream i'd given her. talk about serendipity.

it's late. i need to sleep. i need to write. so many things.

sigh

oh! my work computer is not rebooting! mucho problemo. i am running disk first aid on it right now and hopefully that will work, but is frustratingo. i hope it is not a major major blowout.

stupid crashy mac. it wasn't misbehaving or anything. this is how i know misanthropy loves me. misanthropy has many problems but will not die on me because it loves me. this computer, whose name is lekikcher, was not warning me that it even had a tummyache. it is only 14 mos old. and it is being a BIG crybaby now.

i am on my little pc. it looks like lekikcher will be repaired.

mikey read a bunch of my book and he didn't think it sucked. that is a step in the right direction. he had a couple good ideas too. he was very critical of my attempting to take on the dumb stereotypes of the entire genre but other than that he was so far helpful and supportive. i don't think the book is much his taste which makes it difficult. he does like my dialogue.

i guess that is one thing i am good at, writing dialogue. i can't write description very well,apparently. i think it goes to show that i spent most of my life writing plays and screenplays, where the descriptions are in parentheses and very straightforward and maybe not so exciting, and the dialogue is very strong and propels the story.

i think it will be interesting to write a series where every book is about a different character. & i mean not just from a different POV-- i mean each book takes place in a different country, and most of the protagonists never meet from one book to the next. but they're about the same world and how different people cope with the same issues. i wonder if that is something people will be interested in reading.

my 'pooter is about fixed. i will go now, i guess.

oh! my work computer is not rebooting! mucho problemo. i am running disk first aid on it right now and hopefully that will work, but is frustratingo. i hope it is not a major major blowout.

stupid crashy mac. it wasn't misbehaving or anything. this is how i know misanthropy loves me. misanthropy has many problems but will not die on me because it loves me. this computer, whose name is lekikcher, was not warning me that it even had a tummyache. it is only 14 mos old. and it is being a BIG crybaby now.

i am on my little pc. it looks like lekikcher will be repaired.

mikey read a bunch of my book and he didn't think it sucked. that is a step in the right direction. he had a couple good ideas too. he was very critical of my attempting to take on the dumb stereotypes of the entire genre but other than that he was so far helpful and supportive. i don't think the book is much his taste which makes it difficult. he does like my dialogue.

i guess that is one thing i am good at, writing dialogue. i can't write description very well,apparently. i think it goes to show that i spent most of my life writing plays and screenplays, where the descriptions are in parentheses and very straightforward and maybe not so exciting, and the dialogue is very strong and propels the story.

i think it will be interesting to write a series where every book is about a different character. & i mean not just from a different POV-- i mean each book takes place in a different country, and most of the protagonists never meet from one book to the next. but they're about the same world and how different people cope with the same issues. i wonder if that is something people will be interested in reading.

my 'pooter is about fixed. i will go now, i guess.

yelp.

mikey is reading my book. i haven't written very much lately; i've been editing like crazy but it stillfeels like insubstantial work.

i am very nervous about mikey reading it. i'm afraid he's going to think it's lame-o and contrived. i fear this because he normally has good taste and he is more discerning than i am. i tend to be a bit more forgiving of stories if they appeal to me overall than he is.

oh well. he is a good editor and that is what i need right now.

ARGH! is BAD! i wrote the scene i have been wanting to write since i started and NOW BLOCK! big BLOCK! i don't like what i wrote last night.

something happens in the story that changes the dynamic between two very strong characters and i don't know how to write them in this way. it is difficult.

maybe i will go back to the beginning and start my revision.

*sigh*

ARGH! is BAD! i wrote the scene i have been wanting to write since i started and NOW BLOCK! big BLOCK! i don't like what i wrote last night.

something happens in the story that changes the dynamic between two very strong characters and i don't know how to write them in this way. it is difficult.

maybe i will go back to the beginning and start my revision.

*sigh*

OVER 200 PAGES!!

it is official.

201 pages
49,834 words
223,475 characters, no spaces
276,853 characters, with spaces
1391 paragraphs
3840 lines.

*bows*