nalo's blog

Fishing for UFOs on a hillside somewhere in San Francisco this evening.

My novel-in-progress Donkey is at 24,889 words, which is about 1/4 of the way through.  I've been working almost exclusively on one particular scene, but what I really want to do is rough out all the scenes until I have a first draft.  Problem is, I don't exactly know yet what happens in the novel.  Today I began brainstorming some of that.

I've been battling fibromyalgia fatigue the past few days.  I don't have the prescription medication with me that  helps to keep my energy up, and I won't be able to get it while I'm out of the country.  Vexing to be slowed down at precisely the time when I need to be speeding up.  On the plus side, the weather here was absolutely gorgeous over the past few days.  It was warm enough for shorts and t-shirts.  Wonderdread and I went exploring a creek bed one morning.  My still camera also takes short video, so I'll see whether I can upload the one I took of sunlight playing on the water.  It was beautiful.

Geoff Ryman and Ellen Klages
Variety Children’s Charity
The Variety Preview Room
582 Market St. @ Montgomery
1st floor of The Hobart Bldg.
San Francisco, California
Doors Open 6:00pm
Readings start 7:00pm

Being on the road is being good for my writing in some ways, and difficult in others. I'm somewhat at a remove from the daily demands of life, which makes it easier to carve out writing time. But this brain of mine gets very easily thrown off track. When we move from one location to another, as we're doing every month to two months, it's days before I can bring my concentration to bear again. At the moment, novel-in-progress Donkey is at 22,685 words, which is about 5,000 words behind where I need it to be if I'm to keep to the deadline I've set. And I haven't looked at Blackheart Man since November 4 or so. Nevertheless, I'm pleased that I'm almost 1/4 of the way to a completed first draft of Donkey. I'm writing random scenes as they catch my fancy. When I have enough of them, I'll be able to see whether and how they fit together. And a chance comment someone made last night has me toying with a nifty new idea that I may be able to use in Donkey, or perhaps in a short story.

One aspect of life on the road is being more difficult than we'd planned for it to be. I've been waiting for a number of institutions, in some cases since last June, to pay me for freelance work I've done for them. As a result, my current contribution to our expenses is close to nil. I won't go into the litany of woes and setbacks the tardiness of those institutions is causing, because dwelling on it disheartens me beyond belief. Instead, some of the good stuff: people are looking out for us; we're seeing some beautiful parts of the world; we're in each others' company and loving it; we're seeing old friends and making new ones; we're working and making art again, and recovering functionality bit by bit, despite it all. So there.

Apologies for the short notice. I still tire easily. Anyway, I'm one of the readers tonight at Writers With Drinks. The evening's theme is "Writers In Drag: writers read works they've written outside their normal genres!" The details:

Austin Grossman (Soon I Will Be Invincible) reads fantasy


Stephen Elliott (Happy Baby) reads something TBA


Annalee Newitz (io9.com) reads science fiction


Michelle Tea (Rose Of No Man's Land) reads cyberpunk


Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl In The Ring) reads something TBA


Jaime Cortez (Sexile) reads something TBA


All proceeds benefit the Center for Sex and Culture.


At The Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco CA, from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM, doors open at 7 PM.

Not only did Nnedimma Okorafor win the Soyinka Prize for Literature for her first novel Zahrah the Windseeker, she was presented it by the great man himself. How cool is that?

...perhaps I'll see some of you tonight at Humboldt State University.

I recently posted about a freeform crochet project I'd begun with a ball of twine from a dollar store. Last you saw it, it looked like this:

Well, I finished it tonight, and here's what the completed piece looks like:

Since I'm going to be on the road for the next 16 months or so, I want as much as possible to use the materials at hand when I make something. I stuffed the doll by cutting up a t-shirt from my luggage that had gotten stained and pilled. Her hair is more twine, crocheted into lengths and combined with the leftover yarn from a fuzzy hat that I made last month. Her face is a circle cut from the remaining t-shirt fabric, embroidered with sewing thread I had on hand. Her breasts are dollar store brass shank buttons for jeans.

More pics:

No, Blackheart Man is not finished, but it is progressing.  I've teased out some plot points and world-building that are making me happy.

And today I returned to Donkey (working title), another novel that'll be due soon at Grand Central Publishing, formerly Warner Books. Though I've already written a few scenes for it, my idea for this book is still kinda sketchy. Yesterday I made a list of some of the scenes I want to write, and while doing so, came up with a plot twist that will mess nicely with my protagonist's head, as well as raise the stakes in the story. Today, I chose one of the scenes and just wrote, no plan, no self-editing. You know, I don't think I've ever done that before? When I checked my word count a few minutes ago, I'd written 2,058 words for the day. If you follow my blog, you know how difficult it usually is for me to write that much prose in a day. Storywise the scene in progress is a mess, but my protagonist is beginning to develop a voice and some intriguing characteristics, and her surroundings and life are beginning to feel more fleshed out than they have so far. I've developed a few new characters out of today's writing, and her relationship with her uncle has just become even more fascinating, based on some advice I decided he'd given her.

DONKEY: approximately 19,000 words total to date.

Today's word count: 2,058 words.