Alright, so let’s talk about the elephant in the room first. I think you and I can both agree that last Sunday’s offering, Chapter 11, was not the greatest thing ever. I don’t think it was terrible, but I definitely wasn’t thrilled with it.
Here’s my problem: I don’t write in a linear fashion. I never have. I have a vague outline, with scenes I foresee happening listed, and when I feel inspired I check the outline, grab a scene and write it. The phone call where Maddie learns that Bill is dead and Jack is still in the hospital? That was the first scene I wrote for this book. It’s hard for me to write this way, moving steadily in a this-then this-then this fashion, because that’s just not how my mind works. So I’m going to stumble, and last week was definitely a stumble. If and when this is finished, and I format it into a cohesive e-book, odds are that Chapter 11 will be cut, or reworked completely. So think of it as a peek at crap you’d never see otherwise. A cut scene! There we go. That’s what it was.
(Of course, cut scene or not, I’m stuck with what’s there, and unfortunately Maddie now thinks Vinnie is an effing lunatic. Getting them into bed should be fun. Also, why in the hell did I give everybody –ie/-y names? Maddie, Vinnie, Jessie, Chrissy, Holly. AHHH.)
Another thing that’s an issue for me is that I write everything long-hand. Everything. Eventually it gets typed up and printed (twice, once to edit and once for a final draft), but before that it goes into a marble notebook. I’m addicted to them.
I suspect I am the only reason these still exist.
This is how I end up with chapters that are relatively short – something that is 3 pages typed is more like 9 pages hand-written, so I find myself icing my wrist, then typing it up, only to realize that it’s not much when it’s converted. So if you find yourself thinking “Jesus Liz, that chapter was fast, THANKS FOR NOTHING”, please just take a moment to shed a tear for my right hand, which is at this point threatening to find itself a new goddamn place to live.
Enough about that. Let’s talk about cool stuff I found! Like this fantastic marble-notebook necklace, from etsy artist IMCreations, made on recycled Scrabble tiles. That’s so awesome I can’t even stand it.
Seriously, this lady is my new BFF. She’ll find out soon.
I also found an adorable little typewriter necklace at ModCloth (which, I believe I have already stated, is doing its best to bankrupt me with their crap). I have fond memories of banging away on my mother’s typewriter, in the days before computers were a thing and you had to be careful what you were typing because typewriters did not fuck around with backspace, son. You could go back, of course, and type over whatever you’d typed the first time, but good luck figuring out what the hell the end product you wanted there was. Some typewriters had a key that let you throw up the equivalent of white-out over whatever you were trying to delete; I’ve used those, and it was never perfect. They were a pain in the ass, really, but I loved my mom’s, and I love that necklace.
PS: ModCloth also has quotation mark earrings, because of course they do. They’re a little big for my taste, but cute. (And no, I don’t work for ModCloth, although for god sake maybe I should.)
I came across IdealBookshelf this week, and guys, this is such a cool idea: you can have a painting or print done of your favorite books, and the artist does them up like a bookshelf, uh, shelf, which you can then hang. The prices are crazy high, but I think it’s pretty neat. They have prints available of pre-selected books too (like a Harry Potter set, or just Science Fiction).
If you’re in the market for art, and you’re weird like me, you might like the Periodic Table of TypeFaces.
Forget everything else; this right here is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
Y’all, I haven’t read shit, other than TWoP recaps, Cracked articles and mail-order catalogues, all while hiding from my children in my cold garage. Do better than me, is all I can say today.
'Til Death Do Us (A)Part: Love (and Sex) In the Zombie Apocalypse 
Hey, I love short chapters, no complaints here!
I used to always love buying fresh new notebooks with the best of intentions, but these days, I do practically everything in MS Word. I think the last time I actually wrote fiction on a piece of paper was during Hurricane Sandy….