#scriptfrenzy Chat

by tag Posted on April 18, 2012

I know, I know, I haven’t been posting much about ScriptFrenzy. *sighs, shrugs* It’s been a very busy month for me so far.

So, basic update – I’ve got 74 pages, split between two graphic novel scripts: The Rowan Leaf (working title) and White Horses. I’ve told you about The Rowan Leaf – the basics at least – and the logline of White Horses is: Kathleen is an ordinary girl. So why is she seeing mythological creatures that tell her to “Be ready”?

But anyway, the point of this post is to tell you a bit about the ScriptFrenzy Twitter chat that went on today. I was reluctant to get into Twitter back last fall, when I finally did, but things like the chat that happened tonight might just change my mind. It was really fun – fast and frenzied (not a surprise, that last! ;)) – but definitely fun. All kinds of opinions and discussions going on. If you want to read it, check the “#scriptfrenzy” hashtag from midnight GMT (daylight savings time) to 1am GMT on Thurs. April 19 – go back or forward however many hours are appropriate. Currently trying to get past 1 hour ago on the Twitter website so I can save myself a copy of the chat to refer to when I need suggestions/prods. (The 74 pages were all written by the 10th; the 11th and 12th were really busy, and then I had a migraine-intensity headache from the 13th to yesterday.)

Anyway, going to bed within the next half hour, because I’ve got to be up around 7:30 to get going to the New Beginnings by 8:40 (the bus comes at about 8:55, but better to get to the bus stop early than late!). Will fill anyone interested in the details of what’s going on there later (possibly tomorrow).

‘Later, all!
😉 tag0

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World Autism Awareness Day

by tag Posted on April 2, 2012

Well, it’s a bit late in the day for this, but I’d still like to draw attention to the fact that today is World Autism Awareness Day.

Asperger’s Syndrome, which I have, is basically High Functioning Autism – the only difference in diagnosis involves an advanced vocabulary. I’ve been becoming more aware of the details of dealing with autism since I moved to Newfoundland in August, and as such, more aware of how it’s affected my life in a number of subtle and not-so-subtle ways. For instance, I can’t tolerate spice in my food, and get headaches from even the mildest sunlight: heightened senses – or, rather, problems with controlling sensory input – are one of the symptoms of autism.

The main website that deals with the World Autism Awareness Day is at Autism Speaks. You can also find some very basic information on the history of WAAD at Wikipedia. [Edited: Sat. April 20/13] Sorry, but I can no longer recommend Autism Speaks as being anything but bad for autistics. Please see posts on tagAught’s blog, especially “Autism Speaks, I Want to Say” for more details.

And it turns out April is Autism Awareness Month. So maybe I’ll find out more this month, as well as get some support. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please!

‘Later, all!
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Script Frenzy and Graphic Novels

by tag Posted on April 1, 2012

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve updated this! *shakes head* Going to try not to let it go this far again. *sighs*

Anyway, as you can probably tell from the userpic and the title of this post, I’ve gone and joined Script Frenzy – for the first time, I might add. I discovered that you don’t necessarily have to write a play/movie/television show for it; you can also write (a) graphic novel(s)! So, guess what I’m doing? *grins*

My working title for my graphic novel (of which I am 9-1/2 pages in, out of 100 necessary to win) is: The Rowan Leaf. My logline (which is the one paragraph or less summary) is as follows: Rowan is a medieval squire given immortality by the Fae. Now, in modern times, he must save them from an abductor who plans to drain their magic.

Here are the links!

My Script Frenzy page

My page count widget:

And, if you happen to feel like making a sponsorship donation for me to Script Frenzy, check out my Script Frenzy Fundraising page.

Got to go for dinner now!

Later, all!

😉 tag0

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“BiMonthly” Personal Update: Sat. Dec. 10/11

by tag Posted on December 11, 2011

(Okay, so it’s Sunday. It was still Saturday when I wrote this.)

Hey, all.

So… I have apologies to make to everyone. I am terribly sorry that I’ve ended up getting so far behind on my weekly updates. It’s just… well, first I was busy working on getting ready for NaNoWriMo, then November hit and suddenly my stress levels went through the roof. Fans, picture a Sentinel starting to come online without a Guide. That’s what it felt like. My senses were starting to overwhelm me (random note: “whelm” means to cover with water, according to the Scrabble dictionary), particularly sight and hearing, and particularly at work. I’ve been wearing my yellow sunglasses and a bright pink (Fighting Breast Cancer pink) visor to work every day, to try to control the headaches from the CRT screens and the fluorescent lighting. And the noise… don’t get me started. Over the past week and a half or so, I’ve been using an earplug in my left ear (I keep the phone headset on my right) at work. It helps somewhat, but….

I ended up taking a week off work, doctor’s note included, at the end of November to the beginning of December, because my stress level was so high (taking sick days off work due to headaches and nausea, most of which could be put down to stress, and the rest of which could be put down to my senses, which contributed to the stress). It helped a huge amount, though my stress level still isn’t down where I’d like it to be. So, thanks to my lovely training supervisor (who is no longer my supervisor, except in a general sense during the late nights – I got moved to a new team at the beginning of December), I met with the scheduler, and I’ve cut back to 4 days a week, starting today – Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday – with slightly reduced hours and generally ending my shift at midnight (on the weekdays) or before 11 (on the weekends). (Except on the weekend after Christmas, which is bound to be busy – but given I’ve actually got Christmas Eve and Christmas off, I am not going to complain about that.)

On a lighter, better note, Imber is improving by leaps and bounds! She regularly comes up to the main floor of the house – she’s even been known to do so when I’m sleeping in my room – and while she still growls and snarls at Thor, the two of them spent last night in an uneasy truce (punctuated occasionally by said growls and snarls) on my bed. In fact, she is up here in the living room, where I’m typing this out, draped over my forearms asking for scritches, and generally making it hard to write. (Scratch that – Dad just came up, and made a remark, “Look at that baby!” and Imber rolled forward onto the arm of the chair. She doesn’t mind the other animals – except Thor – seeing her lying on her back, but Dad is a different matter. Not that she dislikes him, she’s just wary of someone so tall.)

So, back to the somewhat gloomy, but getting hopeful stuff: We’re looking to get me a local psychologist (though I’ve still got Dr. Garling on consult for a bit, in case it doesn’t work out) and I’ve got an appointment just before Christmas at the START Clinic, recommended to me by my Aspie friend (whom I’ve only seen once this past month! *pouts*), which will hopefully lead to a semi-rapid official diagnosis of Asperger’s. (The alternative is waiting 1-2 years to see a qualified psychiatrist, then waiting more time for the team to be assembled to render the diagnosis….) I’m also seeing an occupational therapist who has a very good method for working on getting me to focus on dealing with feeling unwell, and who is trying to get a consult with a specialist in sensory over-stimulation. (No guarantees on that one, but it’s worth a try!) Hoping the combination of these factors will get things resolved with reasonable rapidity – or at least get things on the road to being resolved. Dealing with mental health is, unfortunately, a years-long process.

Family news is, unfortunately, not as good. A few of you already know this (my family, namely), but my “adopted” aunt Gloria was admitted to hospital on Monday. She’s been fighting cancer (uterine and stomach, I believe) for several years, and it’s gotten fairly bad. They don’t think that she’ll live to see Christmas. She’s going to be going into Palliative Care as soon as there’s a bed free. Mom flew down to Toronto on Thursday, staying with Daphne’s friend, to see her, and is currently on her flight back here.

Hm. What other good news do I have to break the gloom?

Well, Daphne’s got her audiology hours finished, is waiting impatiently on the Praxis scores (they were supposed to be up last week), and has only her final anatomy exam, on Tuesday, to complete her anatomy course. She’s got paying work for the rest of the time she’s here in St. John’s, at least. I’ve had two interviews for more clerical type jobs (one with RONA, one with the Canadian Red Cross), and continue to send out resumes. Even with the problems I’ve been having, I’ve been able to continue to enjoy Scrabble Wednesdays, and this past week spent Tuesday evening (before and during making dinner) making cookies for the group. They were much appreciated by the family, at least, as well as the one member of the Scrabble group who decided to start nibbling before I had to leave at 12:30, and I found even the burnt ones quite addictive.

A wonderful link from my aunt:
Man With Autism Absolutely Stuns an Entire Crowd

Also, a Happy Belated Birthday to .

Thanks for your patience and continuing friendship, everyone.

‘Later, all!
😉 tag0

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Halfway Mark…. #NaNoBlog

by tag Posted on November 21, 2011

I know I promised regular blogging posts throughout NaNoWriMo 2011. Unfortunately, I’ve been having trouble with this NaNo year. Between my work hours (not good – 5pm to 1:30am), the weather, and a few other things starting to creep up on me, I’ve not had a great month so far. In fact, it got to the point where this morning (well, yesterday morning really, it’s currently just after 2am here) I was worried that this would be the first NaNoWriMo I wouldn’t win. Not a happy thought (the fact that I can win NaNoWriMo keeps me going during the blahs of November, which I need, desperately…).

I was at the point where I challenged myself on Friday to make 25K by today (Sunday) at midnight. (We’re supposed to have reached 33,334 words if we’re on schedule with the daily word count goal.)

So, I was in that sort of state until about 2:40pm this (Sunday) afternoon. Then it occurred to me that at least part of the problem I was having was with the setting of my story. It wasn’t working, and it was leaving my story rather bland and boring, even considering the confrontation with the redcap that Alan had. (And killing off Alan’s partner and potential girlfriend via said redcap.) I kind of shrugged, and went, “Okay, I’m going to change the setting. What I’ve written so far will still count for my word count, but I’ve got to change it.”

Less than 1-2/3 hours and about 3,750 words later, I was pretty sure that was a good part of the problem. *grins wryly at everyone* As I mentioned on Twitter, with this change, I seem to be back to my fairly steady 500 words/20 minutes flow (when I can write for more than 15 minutes at a time). Between what I got done before work (*points at aforementioned word count, plus 370 that I got in this morning*) and what I got done during my breaks and “lunch” at work, guess what goal I made?

Yeah, you got it. I hit 25,001 words total just at the end of my last break, at about 11:30 tonight (Sunday). Such a relief.

My next goal is to get to about 33,000 by Tuesday night (which will be my first night meeting the St. John’s NaNos, because of my work schedule). I’m rather looking forward to it. And if I keep at the rate I’m going, I may even reach the daily word count goal by Wednesday or Thursday! *crosses fingers* I’m getting there, finally. No more days of no writing! Down with bland scenes! Lead on to excitement!

(No, there will be no zombie ninja pirates. Sorry, fellow NaNos. But there are vampires and werewolves… sort of….)

Anyway, off to get some sleep, and then: More Writing!

‘Later, all!

😉 tag0

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WAMUN: Medical Genetics Talk with Dr. Jane Green

by tag Posted on November 16, 2011

Tonight, WAMUN (the Women’s Association Memorial University of Newfoundland) presented a talk by Dr. Jane Green on Medical Genetic Research.

I was lucky enough that I sat at the same table as Dr. Green for the potluck dinner. We had a nice discussion about “The Immortal Life of Henriette” (a true story about the cancer cells of an African-American woman that have provided us with a lot of information about cellular genetics, but at the same time is an ethically thorny issue because the family didn’t know about this), genetics in general, and the state of genetics in 1965, when she got her Masters, as well as details of a trip she made up to Labrador in the mid-1980s with a few other doctors, and the talk she’d given on genetic diseases at noon for GPs all over the province. (Apparently Wednesday at noon there’s a teleconference for GPs all over the province about a variety of different issues; last week it was prostate cancer, next week it’s conjunctivitis….)

The talk afterwards was really interesting, and ended up going on for quite a while (from 8-9:15/9:30). It was mainly focused on how the population of Newfoundland, with their isolated outports, large families, and so on, were able to help with quite a few genetic diseases. HNPCC – Lynch Disease – (genetic colon/endomitrial cancer), two variations of genetic breast cancer, ARVA (something right ventricular arteriomyelopathy) – sudden early cardiac arrests, Addison’s Disease – adrenal insufficiency, and juvenile macular degeneration (Starsgard(?) disease) were the ones she concentrated on telling us about. It was really, really interesting. She’s a really good speaker, and there were definitely interesting questions at the end.

The focus was on genetic diseases that have one gene mutation that is what affects them; at the moment, there isn’t enough information about the human genome to look at the ones that are affected by a whole host of genes. But she explained the basics of how molecular genetics analysis works (not the process, but the results), and how in 35 years we went from not knowing much about genes and how they work, to mapping the human genome, and in ten years, how we’ve gone from mapping the human genome to being able to identify mutations in genes that create genetic diseases.

She also pointed out that companies like “23 and Me” are, at the moment, not of huge use. Sure, they can provide you with a genetic readout/map of your genome… but they don’t provide the bioinformatics information that lets you know what are just common variations (like hair colour, etc.), and what are potentially rare – thus possibly genetic disease – variations.

She talked about how they distinguish genetic cancers from familial cancers (familial being it happens in your family, with a few people, and genetic tending towards early onset, large numbers of people in the family having it or related cancers, and multiple instances of cancers), and both of those from general population cancers (the low risk, aging population ones). In general (at least in the US), the incidences of colorectal cancers are: Genetic: 3-5%, Familial: 10-30%, and population: 65-75%. In Newfoundland, I believe she mentioned that familial is at 40%, and I think she said genetic was 5-10%.

Like I said, really interesting, and very informative. One of the last slides she showed us was of the variety of genetic diseases that had been identified throughout Newfoundland (and a few in Labrador) which included the ones mentioned above, ocular albinism, hemophilia (in Newfoundland and Labrador), myotonic dystrophy (in Labrador), MEN-1, BBS, and several others.

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Quick Update and Imber

by tag Posted on November 11, 2011

Hey, everyone.

First of all, sorry about going silent the last couple of weeks. I’m afraid that they haven’t been the best (last week I was at home Thursday and Friday with nasty migraine and feeling sick), and I couldn’t really think of much to say. I hope I’m getting things back on track now (certainly working on doing that with work and my NaNo novel)… but that’s not entirely why I’m writing.

As you might guess, looking at the subject line, I’m writing about Imber. My adorable, lovable, so brave kitten.

Who came upstairs – to the kitchen – to meet me when I came home from work tonight.

I was stunned. It’s still something of an effort to get Imber to come up to the den (1/2 level above my bedroom and unfinished “living room”); to get her upstairs to the main level, I’ve been carrying her every afternoon. (We have to go past other cats and Sancho, you see.)

Well, I get in this evening, and I come over to the door from the hall to the kitchen, glance downstairs to see that Dad’s still working… and Imber’s looking up at me from the bottom of the stairs. I crouched down and beckoned for her to come up, and lo and behold… that’s exactly what she did! She even came onto the kitchen floor from the stairs and over to me, so I lifted her up and cuddled her for a minute. Then I put her down on the kitchen table, she got down, and headed downstairs. But it’s a breakthrough! She’s never come up on her own before!

And it means a lot personally as well. She misses me when I’m gone, and waits impatiently for me to get back. She’s been mewing when I get in since about two weeks ago, when I had a call that lasted until 2:15 so was about 45 minutes late getting home. The next night, Imber was crying for me as soon as she heard the key in the lock.

Well, I’ve got to work on winding down now, but I wanted to let you all know that I’m not dead, and to share the marvelous news about Imber. I’m bouncing about it, and how I’m going to get to sleep tonight I don’t know….

‘Later, all!
😉 tag0

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November 1st Is Now Over #NaNoBlog

by tag Posted on November 2, 2011

And now the first day of November, of NaNoWriMo 2011, is over. *heaves happy sigh*

Okay, I didn’t quite make it to 2K words… but I did make it to over 1.7K, which is better than the word target for the day. And tomorrow’s another day. And I’ve started to really get into my characters’ heads – that was, I must admit, something I was a bit worried about. The prologue was easy. Getting into their heads, on the other hand, has been harder.

But, as I said, I’ve made it past the target for the first day, which is a good start to things. If stuff goes as well as it has in the past, I should be at over 4K words by the end of today. *looks forward to it*

And I dragged my supervisor into NaNo as well – I’m really hoping she’s going to enjoy it. I’m certainly looking forward to chatting to her (when we get a chance at work) about what our characters are doing, and bemoaning the fraught sailing through the seas of our imaginations….

Yes, I like the Viking analogy NaNo creator Chris Baty came up with. It’s fun to play with. 😉 Not to mention that the alfar might just show up in Wild Hunt as well… I’ve got the Celtic fae, why not the Nordic?

One question I might be interested in delving into: is it spelled “Seleighe” or “Seelie”? I’ve always thought “Seelie” was the anglicization from the Scots or Irish Gaelic. Thoughts, anyone?

Talk to you soon!
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November Begins! #NaNoBlog

by tag Posted on November 1, 2011

And so, the start of another wild and wacky November. (The Wild Hunt Rides!) Yay!

I already have the first 213 words – the prologue – of my story written. Wrote it as soon as I came home from work and petted Imber. (She feels that I need to have my priorities straight, and given she can walk all over my writing, I tend to listen. She lets me have plenty of writing time in exchange.)

So, as usual, I intend to continue blogging throughout the month, letting you know the milestones I hit and my weekly achievements. (My “until last week” regular Friday updates might end up even further on the backburner this month, I’m afraid. A consequence of the grand adventure that is NaNoWriMo: Eater of Souls.)

So, prepare for the extremes of adventure by getting out that Viking helmet, pulling on your novelling gear, and getting all those colourful gel pens lined up just right! The journey awaits!

tag’s NaNoWriMo Page

Forward, March!

See you in the wilds of the imagination!

😉 tag0

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