Getting through February

Laura Highcove

I have 15k words on Blessings of the Nerial, though some of that was in trying to figure out which pov I was going to end up using on the story. Most of it was useful prose though. I like the idea of this story, but the world-building is giving me trouble. I believe I’m thinking about it too much at too early a stage though. I’m going to try and just push through for the rest of the week, and do whatever and tighten it up later. Either way, I got my goal.

My goals of writing four descriptions and doing some deep reading fell a bit more flat. I did post one description. (From the world of Blessings of the Nerial.) and I did some deep reading on the first chapter of Six of Crows by Leah Bardugo because I love how she introduces her two main characters in that book. No excuse, I just let them fall by the way-side.

I also worked on getting my short story, The Aesir-Vanir War promoted and out there. If you’re a member of my newsletter, you should already have part one in your inbox. If not, you can sign up to start getting it any time. I’m excited to get something new out into the universe, and something complete at that. Makes me wish I was a little better at writing short pieces.

By the end of this week I am planning on having The Huntsman back from its alpha read, at which point I’ll probably be diving head-first back into that. I’ve been a little encouraged by articles I’ve read that talk about how hard the second book in a series is to write, in general. Though most of them talk about doing it once you find an agent/have sold the first one and so then you’re under pressure. None of that for me yet, but I love this story and want to complete the trilogy. For now I’ll just be happy that I don’t yet have any kind of deadline besides those imposed on myself. I’m hoping that completing this series will just be a wonderful learning experience.

Anyway, I’ll be reading over the comments I get back, and likely doing some discussions with my hubby. What he says will have a large impact on what my next step with the story is, so I can’t really make a plan for that yet. It will be interesting for me to see, however, if my focus and feeling of purpose come back when I’m back to having that *one* story to work on. I’ve been feeling a little ‘all over the place’ since I stopped working on the Huntsman. Though it’s possible it’s also because it was February, which is just not a pleasant month in general. Yay for March!

Review: Black Panther

Laura Highcove

My Review of Black Panther

My summary: Latest and greatest Marvel superhero gets his own movie. Right, plot? Time for T’Challa to succeed his father as King of Wakanda, only he runs into some poignant questions about why they’ve been in hiding for so long, and what it has wrought.

Why I watched this movie: Cause it’s MCU.

What I knew going in: I knew the cast was mostly black, and that Wakanda is super awesome cause they made the Quinjets, and the CG looked sick. What? I didn’t really know much about Black Panther.

My response: Super amazing movie. It hit the points it needed to hit, it supported it’s theme like a beast, and it was full of amazing acting, lovable characters, and amazing CG. The plot wasn’t super twisty, but then most marvel movies aren’t.

Do I recommend this movie?: That would be a yes.

Gryffins: In Solid Form

Laura Highcove

This is the third of a trio of posts showing off my gryffin collection.

Gryffins as Figures

A whole bunch of gryffin figures I have found in various places.

A rather typical looking gryffin (front left), a humanoid gryffin with a hammer (front right), and why yes, that is a humanoid gryffin riding a gryffin (back), thank you for asking.

Ignoring the little gold guy in front who should’ve been in the other picture, these are all pre-painted miniatures from Dungeons and Dragons. Flying gryffin (front left), stalking gryffin (front right), and lady riding sideways flying gryffin (back).



This guy is from Warhammer. Before and after pictures. I did all the modding to make it as High Elf as possible myself.

And this is Klesk, the mini for a D&D character from a 4th ED One Piece Campaign. This mini was modded pretty hard by a friend and painted by me.

I also got Sonic Boom from Skylanders. And Gilda, who was a character in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series.

I spotted these guys …I forget where, and while they remind me a bit more of a shisa with wings, I decided they were close enough to go in my gryffin collection.

This guy I bought a million years ago in 2003. He was meant to sit on top of your monitor. Yeah, remember when monitors wern’t flat? I do.

Gryffins in Stone

One Otakon there was a booth in the dealer’s room that sold jewelry, along with animals carved out of gemstones. I only picked up one at the time and later regretted it since the store wasn’t online anywhere for me to pick up more. It wasn’t until years later that I found them sold on ebay, so over time I collected a number of them.

I am very particular about the shape of the head. Sometimes there are ones for sale with huge bulbous heads, and I leave those ones alone. And the strawberry quartz one just ended up being bigger than the others. I didn’t realize it until it came in the mail.

And yes, that is just one more chunk of my collection. (You’re starting to think I’m crazy aren’t you? /cackles) Next post will show the rest of them.

Review: Blade Runner 2049

Laura Highcove

My Review of Blade Runner 2049

My summary: A dystopian future where replicants (built humans) are retired by Blade Runners in order to keep the population under control.

Why I watched this movie: It was new and rather shiny. I liked the idea of it.

What I knew going in: Andriods being hunted down an killed.

My response: I actually watched the first Blade Runner first. It was pretty terrible. Pacing was rather horrible and I spent much of the movie wondering what what happening and having to put together some sort of idea on my own. Blade Runner 2049 was much better, while the pacing did still drag in places, the plot was actually cohesive, understandable, and actually quite enjoyable.

Do I recommend this movie?: Yes, and you don’t necessarily have to see the original Blade Runner in order to understand what’s going on. You’ll probably miss a few subtle things, (some location shots for sure) but they sufficiently explain what you need to know from ‘before’.

New Timesheet Questions

Laura Highcove

Week before last I finished taking notes on the Huntsman. I organized what I had, wrote a bunch of new scenes (and rewrote old ones) based on what my notes had told me. I then realized I was still stuck. The idea that I had for the end of the story is just not coming together the way I want. So I did a quick cleaning and sent it to my husband for an alpha read so he has a better idea of the story to help with a plan. (He’s much better at outlines than I am.)

Since that is off my plate for now while the hubby reads it, I started working more on my Blessings of the Nerial story. I once again ran into the problem of being a discovery writer who now knows enough craft that I keep trying to put the plot together as I write. And right now I have no idea if it’s helping, or just stifling my writing. I talked out some of the ideas with my hubby and realized how little of my ideas are actually solid (ie, I can explain them successfully to someone else). It’s possible that it’s always like this at the beginning of a story and I’ve just never been aware of it before. I’m still on ‘vague feelings’ and ‘this is how it would look in a movie’ stage of writing. And who knows, it’s possible this story won’t stick at all. (It’s only at 13k words, so I’m not all that deep yet) But I’m going to keep working on it until I get the Huntsman back, barring anything else unforseen.

At the end of last week, I also noticed how little I had on my timesheet related to ‘reading’. I did finish my mushroom book, which is counted as ‘research’, but that’s all I had in the past month and a half. I think part of the problem is that counting ‘reading’ time toward ‘work’ time feels like cheating, since I enjoy it so much. Like yesterday I ready Dennard’s new Witchlands novella, Sightwitch. I put down the two hours it took on my timesheet and I feel weird about it.

And yet, I feel like I haven’t been reading much of anything because I’ve been so focused on getting the hours I want for my timesheet. I do want to work on doing more in depth reading, but in order to have fodder for that, it means I need to have read the story in the first place. Obviously this is just a timesheet I keep for myself and there are no right or wrong answers. We’ll see how the data pans out in the next month or so.

I also am working on making my descriptions more descriptive. My descriptions tend to come out rather …well like I’m writing code. (I have a BS in computer science.) It’s certainly a weakness of mine, so I’ve been looking for good examples in books I’ve read and trying to see how I can improve.

Goals for the next two weeks: Keep working on Blessings of the Nerial. I’d like another 7k words. I finally think I’m starting to get a handle on Eira’s (main character) personality. Write four descriptions that I’ll post on facebook and get some feedback. Spend at least two hours on some sort of deep-reading or analyzing. Man, I am being super specific this week. We’ll see how that goes.

Review: The Shape of Water

Laura Highcove

My Review of The Shape of Water

My summary: A mute janitor at meets and falls in love with a captured fish man.

Why I watched this movie: My friends suggested we go see it because it was playing at the Lyric (a local historical movie theater) and because one of those friends lurves Guillermo del Toro.

What I knew going in: Well I knew the summary, and that it was directed by Guillermo del Toro, and that it was rated R. You know, all the important things.

My response: This was a really beautiful movie. While I didn’t get a bunch of the references that were undoubtedly meant to be gotten by the old movies shown, the aesthetic of the movie was just lovely. The story was touching and realistic feeling. And for once the R rating wasn’t because of gratuitous violence. (I mean there was some, but not a lot.) It was more for the nudity and sex, which in all cases was handled well and fit with the story. It, to me, had the feel of being created by someone who knows their craft, and it made me excited for the book I will write one day with a similar level of mastery.

Do I recommend this movie?: Yes. There’s a reason it’s up for Best Picture.

Gryffins: In Books and Video Games

Laura Highcove

So in putting together a post containing my gryffin collection I made a discovery. My gryffin collection is large, and so I decided to create a few different posts to show it off, rather than trying to stuff everything into one post. So this is the first post of three.

Gryffins in Books

I mentioned last week that one of the things that started me on my love of gryffins was the Mercedes Lackey series starting with The Black Gryphon. This was one of the first fantasy series I ever read. I don’t remember if I picked up this series because of the gryphons, or if it was just a happy accident.

I also mentioned the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce, which doesn’t feature griffins in the entire series, but does have the main character Kel take care of a griffin kit for a while before it’s parents come to take it back. This series I read because I loved the Lioness Quartet and it just happened to have griffins in it.

I have also picked up a few series because they feature gryffins:

The Fallen Moon series I wasn’t super thrilled with. It started out good, but I think in trying make both the protagonist and antagonist human, the author ended up making neither all that likable and I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to be rooting for by the end.

The Gryffin Mage series was a unique take on griffin mythology, where they were creatures of pure magic born out of fire (I think) and while they could think and speak, the author was successful in getting across their unique way of being.

And I have also run into them in other books quite by accident.

This gryffin pops up in the first volume of Magic Knight Rayearth (it’s a manga) where a wizard summons one for them to ride around on a bit.

And also in the book, the Copper Promise by Jen Williams where gryffins are featured as a plot point later in the book. (It’s not a spoiler.) No picture of this one because there’s no picture of a gryffin.

Gryffins in Video Games

Gryphons existed within the World of Warcraft MMORPG that was crazy popular many years ago. I was actually a hardcore raider for a number of years. Anyway, gryphons are used by the humans of the alliance for their flight paths. Ie, you would talk to a flight master and a gryphon would pop out and fly you to your destination. If members of the other faction try to kill the flight master, the second picture is what would happen.


In the expansions, gryphons became mounts you could buy and use to fly yourself around. I count this as part of my collection because I did “acquire” all of the different types of gryphon mounts you could have and technically they still exist on my account even if I don’t play anymore. The first picture are two versions of the slower gryphon mounts, and the second picture is the faster armored version.


If you’re interested in seeing the other versions, here’s a link. I don’t have the High Priest’s Lightsworn Seeker (Though now that I see it, I’m rather regretful. My main was a priest.) or the two grand mounts. Those all came out after I stopped playing.

So there’s all my gryffins for this installment. More coming soon.

Review: The Fifth Season

Laura Highcove

My Review of The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

My summary: In a world where some people (called oroenes) can control the earth but are reviled for it, we follow three characters: A child, shunned by her parents and sent to the Fulcrum to learn to control her powers. A young woman is sent by the Fulcrum to train under a more powerful orogene. And a middle aged woman whose youngest child has just been killed by her husband who found out that child had the reviled power and then ran off with their daughter, just as the world has been split apart bringing a devastating Fifth Season.

Why I picked up this book: I’ve heard tons of great things about it, including it winning a Hugo. I’ve had several friends who throughly enjoyed it.

What I knew going in: Very little. I actually didn’t even read the back-cover copy. I bought it based on reputation alone.

My response: Overall I liked it, however it left much less of an impression than I was expecting. The biggest thing that stuck with me was the voice, which I liked so much I wish I could emulate it. Much of the book is written in second person, which also took a little getting used to. I very much like the ‘magic’ system and the feel of the world. Everything came very neatly and satisfyingly together in the end. The best thing I can say about it, however, is that it is very well written.

Will I pick up the next book?: I bought the trilogy together. I’m working very slowly through the second book because I’m not sure how attached I am to the actual characters. I think I’m more interested in seeing what the setting and the mysteries are going to do next. Unlike Rothfuss’ Name of the Wind series, however, I care enough about the characters to keep going. I just don’t have any overwhelming urge to sit down with it.

Celebrating My Victories

Laura Highcove 2 Comments

This week, more on my new timesheets, because that is data and I love messing with data. I am really liking the effect the timesheet is having. It pushes me to do more work when I need to, but is also a way for me to sit down and say: “Okay, I’ve worked on my novel for two hours today, so no I don’t need to work on it more now.”

The other effect is that it lets me, definitively, see how long it takes me to do certain tasks. I find when writing new stuff, I tend to work better in half hour increments. When smoothing or revising, I can more easily work for up to an hour (or more).

It also lets me see what other things I did over the course of a week that I might forget I had done, like these past two weeks I went though my blog and re-jiggered the categories and tags. I now have:

Journal: Mostly talking about the writing I’ve been doing, but some of what’s going on in my life in general.
Blog posts: Which are posts that are meant to be more informational or topic focused than ‘what I’ve been doing’.
Reviews: Because I realized I really like doing reviews and talking about why I did or didn’t like particular media (tv shows, movies, books, and video games).
World of Warcraft: For all my old world of warcraft kill posts that I just can’t bring myself to delete.

It took some time, but it now means things are much neater, and that makes my heart happy.

Also, two great things happened this past week. First was that I reached the point in Huntsman where I *usually* bang my head against it, think nothing can be done, and become sad for several days. But this time I remembered my process after only one day, and went back to the beginning to smooth for a while. (I am also taking notes on the things I still need to do.) I am proud that I was actually able to look at my resistance and realize what it meant. It’s all part of getting comfortable with my process.

The second was that I got depressed (okay the depressed part wasn’t great) but I *realized* that I was depressed and gave myself the day off instead of beating myself up over the fact that I didn’t feel like working on the Huntsman. Instead I read more in my mushroom book (research for a potential story) and spent almost three hours writing the first drafts and taking pictures for the gryffin posts I have coming up. And those were both productive and fun.

So it was two wins in the “self-awareness” category and I am celebrating that fact. I didn’t try to force myself to feel the way I thought I should, I just listened to what I needed and worked from there and ended up more productive for it.

Added Feb 07: I totally forgot to make myself a writing goal. On Jan 21 my goal was to finish removing a character from the Huntsman and smooth to the end. Since then I got about halfway in, then went back to the beginning for another smoothing pass during which time I started taking notes on what I don’t like, or that needs to be fixed in each scene until I now reached the place where the book basically breaks down completely.

Plan for the next two weeks is now this: Finish off taking notes on the whole story (Wed), move the scenes around to try and make the story more whole (Thurs), write the new scenes I put in my notes as needing to write. (Sat/Sun).

Then the next week is another, heavy duty, smoothing pass. I’ll reevaluate where I am over the weekend and include my new plan in the next journal entry.

Review: The Last Jedi

Laura Highcove

This review has spoilers. It’s been a month since I saw the movie, but I never got around to putting up this review, so we’re probably outside the time when I need to warn about spoilers, but here it is all the same.

I loved this movie. I thought it was entertaining and well-written. Did it have problems? Sure, but I walked out of the theater excited about what I had seen. The resistance is on the run from the First Order. I was not expecting that to be the plot of the entire movie like it was, but it ended up working out.

Rae is off doing her own thing, trying to get Luke on board, learning about the force, and in general having a surprising (but not that surprising) amount of skill considering her lack of training. In fact, I was really happy with how they had her basically get completely duped by prune head (I am bad with names.), due to her lack of training.

And Rae’s brush with the ‘dark side’ on the island really lead me to believe that maybe we would get off this stupid ‘light side’ ‘dark side’ crap and realize that the force should be balanced in a single person as opposed to there having to be a good person and a bad person to balance them out. I bet that would piss off the die-hard star wars fans though.

Finn gallivanted off with our new character, Rose, sewing the seeds of hope back into the minds of tiny children. This ended up being the only thing the two of them accomplished considering everything else they did turned out to not matter.

Poe got a character arc. Which is good, because he seemed rather ancillary for the first movie. I’m happy with the lessons he learned, even though they basically came out of Purple-hair straight up not telling Poe what the plan was. There could be the argument that she was trying to teach him a lesson after Leia demoted him for being reckless, and not just that if she had told him, everyone would’ve sat around on their hands waiting for the plan (ie, not telling him was just a plot device).

Someone who had seen the movie before-hand told me there was some humor in it that was completely unexpected for a Star Wars movie. It certainly caught me by surprise, but by half-way through the movie I realized that all of the comedy was completely necessary or else the movie would’ve been crushed by it’s own weight. This is Star Wars, the emotions and expectations for it are high. I feel if they’d tried to play it straight, it would’ve become a parody of itself.

And I like how well this movie played with expectations. From expecting Finn, Rose, and Poe to be successful, to the Codebreaker betrayer, as well as the connection between Rae and Kylo. And every time another bad thing happened, whatever popped up to save them had been foreshadowed well beforehand.

And oh man, taking a ship to warp speed through a fleet. Even the anime-style-see-this-shot-from-three-angles did not ruin the majesty of that.

Overall score: 5/5 because not only did I enjoy it, it blew my mind and inspired my own writing.