Howard Gardner's Eight Types of Intelligence Test

I followed a link from Steph Burgis's blog this morning and took the an online personality test. It yields the same result as pretty much every other personality test I've taken:

Your result for Howard Gardner's Eight Types of Intelligence Test...

Logical

51% Logical, 35% Spatial, 45% Linguistic, 29% Intrapersonal, 27% Interpersonal, 16% Musical, 4% Bodily-Kinesthetic and 31% Naturalistic!

"This area has to do with logic, abstractions, inductive and deductive reasoning, and numbers. While it is often assumed that those with this intelligence naturally excel in mathematics, chess, computer programming, and other logical or numerical activities, a more accurate definition places emphasis less on traditional mathematical ability and more reasoning capabilities, abstract pattern recognition, scientific thinking and investigation, and the ability to perform complex calculations.

Careers which suit those with this intelligence include scientists, mathematicians, engineers, doctors and economists." (Wikipedia)

Take Howard Gardner's Eight Types of Intelligence Test at HelloQuizzy

*sigh* These tests always tell me I ought to be an engineer. Most of my father's side of the family are engineers, as is my husband. I know that I really don't want to be one.

Second Draft

I'm doing my second draft of this next LDS novel as a redraft, as opposed to a rewrite. Yes, this means typing out the whole thing again. Sometimes that's simply the fastest way to go to catch all of the continuity errors and get a feel for the pacing. So far, it's going well. I'm aiming to do about 3k words a day, and managed 4 today. I can get a lot more words in the second time around before I start to feel burnout. It doesn't require the same heavy lifting that forging through the material for the first time does.

However, I keep my previous draft on hand so that I can cut and paste in if I'd like. All that prose won't go to waste if any of it is better than what I'm doing now. At the pace I'm going, this project should be done by the end of the year. My biggest upcoming challenge is the break I'll need to take to write a short story due to my writer's group next month. Sometimes that knocks me out of my groove.

MileHiCon

This year's MileHiCon seemed very well attended and was a lot of fun. There were a couple of surprises in store for me, including a solo reading. Jeanne Allen was, unfortunately, unable to join me because her flight was delayed. So I read my entire story, Polar Shift, as it appears in Polaris: A Celebration of Polar Science and afterwards did a brief Q&A session. Several people came, which is very gratifying considering the fact that only two of my sold short stories are even out yet.

The other big surprise was a signing. I wasn't told beforehand that I had one, so I went rather underprepared, but that's okay. It makes for a really convenient excuse that no one came to buy any books. I got to sit next to Eric James Stone, a very talented short story author who is up and coming in the field, and Tim Powers stopped by and was very social. I'd never met him before. (If anyone has his official site, let me know.)

It was also great to see Carrie Vaughn, Mike Bateman, Warren Hammond, Mario Acevedo, James Van Pelt, Paolo Bacigalupi, Connie Willis, and many others I've no doubt left out on accident.

After getting home last night, I had some dinner, took my prenatal vitamin and went to bed (which while my insomnia's raging means I tried to sleep but sat around a lot and tried to bore myself). I did manage to doze, then woke up with a horrific stomach ache. My vitamins have done that to me before, but the seven hour delay was a first. I spent the rest of the night pacing and eating bland things to quiet my stomach down. I even had to call one of the other LDS Seminary teachers to take over this morning's class. Needless to say, I'm not feeling great at the moment, but I hope to be all recovered by tomorrow morning. The baby doesn't seem to mind. I can feel it moving like usual.

Election Protection

On Election Day I'll be volunteering for Election Protection, something I've done in the past. Perhaps it's because of this past experience that they've made me one of the lead attornies (not sure what entirely that title entails) for the county of Rio Arriba, which is in northern New Mexico. The organization's goal is simple enough, make sure the election runs smoothly and legally. Much of the work we did last time was prevent canvassing and campaign ads around polling stations, question voters on their way out to make sure their machines had worked properly and they hadn't faced any harrassment or been unduly confused, and assist disabled voters getting to the booths.

I really enjoy elections, whether the candidate I've backed wins or looses. Back before insomnia slammed the brakes on much of my life, I did a lot of volunteering in politics. I was a Congressional intern in the US Senate, a White House intern, and also a UK Parliament intern. And no, I have no sex scandals or any other silliness to report. I spent my time answering phones, stuffing envelopes, and couriering documents around, for the most part.

The best advice I ever got on voting was from a high school history teacher who said, "Always try to vote for someone, rather than against." His point was to use one's vote to work towards something, not against all the negatives. I guess this advice plus all my work with politicians has set my tolerance for voter negativity very low. There are no perfect candidates; there are always things to complain about. Why bother? Find something more constructive to do. If the world is really so bad, maybe it's time to run for office.

This election is quite exciting and I look forward to doing my part.

Rewrite in

I finished off a rewrite of my story, Magic's End, for The Leading Edge and emailed it. Both my friend Char and my husband were kind enough to proofread it for me. It's the shortest story I've ever written, only 2,000 words. There are many markets, though, especially for the young adult stories that I usually write, that would consider even this too long. They'll have word limits around 1,500. Rather a pain for me when my natural length is 7,000 and up.

MileHiCon

I just got my schedule for MileHiCon, and it looks like I'll be doing the following:

Friday, Oct. 24th

4:00pm reading with fellow author Jeanne Allen.

10:00pm Carrie and the Midnight Hour with Carrie Vaughn, Daniel Abraham, Mike Bateman, Paolo Bacigalupi, Warren Hammond, and then three writers I look forward to meeting. The schedule has only their first initials: J. Bigelow, M. Rotundo, E. Stone

Saturday, Oct 25th

10:00am Why do most SF films suck? With D. Curtis, M. D’Ambrosio, MT Fierce, C. Hightshoe, and M. Rotundo

4:00 Writing strong women without ticking off men with M. Bonham, C. Salas, J. Phillips, L. Reeve, J. Strickland

I highly recommend MileHiCon. It's one of the best little regional cons and I always enjoy my time there. This is the first year I'm on the programming.

Transition

I am definitely nearing the end of the first draft phase of this novel. Now I just need to drag myself through the transition to rewrite. It's still missing dozens of scenes, but as I slot these in, I need to start prettying it all up. The thing about first draft writing is that I let the continuity and other issues just slide. I find I can do this because I tend to write short novels. In fact, I feel I need to, I need to hold the entire story in my head and know each scene. If I didn't I'd never know whether or not I had a handle on the character progression and plot.

But it also means a lot of hard work getting every scene doing all it needs to do to move the plot forward and adequately develop character. Today I'm just going to leave it and edit my short story instead.

Char coming!

I just spoke with my friend Char, a little while ago, and learned she's coming up to visit me tomorrow. This makes me very happy. She's been gone all summer (something about spending time with her family or something frivolous like that), so it's been ages since she's come for one of her stays. I just need to get her bed all made up.

While she's up here I hope to get my rewrite of Magic's End done so I can resubmit it to The Leading Edge. Rewrites are near impossible to do without a proofreader. Most proofreaders come and go. It takes a lot of time, and I've been lucky to have a lot of people drop in and out of my life that are willing to put in that time for a while. That second pair of eyes and alternate perspective make a huge difference. Char's stayed on for a very long time, ever since we were roommates back in the day. Somehow, I haven't scared her off with bad writing, and I used to think that it was because she had this odd contradiction in her reading - the ability to recognize good prose and no aversion to bad prose whatsoever. However, I did manage to loan her a book that was bad enough that she despised it (I didn't write it), so never mind her not having an aversion to bad prose. She must just really like me or something.

The novel's at 44,000 words, for what it's worth (out of 60-70k). There's no way I'll keep all of them, as it's going to need some extensive rewriting. I set the second act in a different setting than the first and third, so I need to figure out how to balance the three out without the second act looking like this huge digression. I expect that the way I should do this is with rigorous plot interconnections, have the second act story arc reflected again and again in the third act, have the first and third act characters interacting with my main character as much as possible throughout the second act, that sort of thing. That's what I'll try first, at least.

Fan mail

Obviously, I don't get much of this, but I had two this weekend and that was really great. Many of the people who give me feedback on my work are people that I already know, so I tend to discount it because I know a lot of nice people. That isn't to say I don't appreciate it. I do very much, but I also realize that it doesn't necessarily mean I wrote anything that stands out in any particular way to them. They're just proud of me and being supportive.

But this weekend I actually had people looking to buy more copies of the book to give to people who don't know me at all. It's wonderful of people to do that, and some of the best fan mail to get. Then I know the person found it a worthwhile read. Requests for signed bookplates are also lovely, because it's the person letting me know they like the book enough to want to personalize it and keep it.

First draft versus rewrite

In writing, it's the rewriting that's real work for me (and for most, I would assume.) That's why on a rainy day like today when I'm really tired from not sleeping that I'm happy to still be in my first draft. I'm nearing the end of it though, so what I need to avoid is prolonging the first draft to put off the pain of editing and rewriting.

Every project that works develops its own internal magic. The parts come together and the plot gels almost inexplicably (after hours and hours of reworking). My fear is always that this coming together won't happen, that after I've churned out sixty or seventy thousand words, all I've got is a big long disjointed ramble and not something that pulls together as a novel I want to stand behind and get sold.

Anyway, that's the phase of this novel I'm in now. It will pass, but it will be painful pushing on from here to the end. Not that I'm actually complaining. This is, in the end of the day, the only job I've ever really wanted.

Signing

This is days late, but I've been busy and distracted. Last Saturday I signed books at Deseret Book in Albuquerque during the Priesthood Session of General Conference. During those two hours, the store holds Ladies Night. For non-LDS people, translation is: the guys all went to watch a broadcast in church and the women went out to the LDS bookstore.

My friend, Char, came along, which was wonderful of her. She sat with me at the table, and it's always nice to have someone. Signings are usually lonely affairs, unless you're famous (and I'm not). The staff of the store were very gracious and we moved about half the stock they'd laid out on the table. For a signing, that is doing very well indeed. Contrary to many people's misperceptions, signings rarely sell a lot of books. For the most part, they are a revenue loser for a bookstore because the cost of advertising the signing is usually much more than they can hope to earn back during the signing.

And contrary to another popular misconception, signings usually aren't a big part of "living the dream" of being a professional author. Perhaps they are for some authors who crave fan contact, but if you like attention, you rarely get it at a signing table. In fact, it can be quite isolating if you're not prepared. I always make sure to have something else to do or someone else to talk to. People do not shower you with adoration. There are a lot of polite people who are very cordial. There are a many weird people who say odd things like, "Did you write the book yourself?" (I guess part of the mythos surrounding writing careers is that book packaging is the norm, meaning you have an idea and there's an industry of people who write it for you. Um... there isn't.) There's the occasional aspiring writer asking for advice (which I'm always happy to give.) And then there are many odd people who don't recognise a signing table. I had one woman grab one of my bookplates as scratch paper, ask what it was, then pop her eyes in surprise when she said, "Oh, did you write this book?" I'm not really sure what other reason any person would have for sitting at a table stacked with a bunch of copies of a book, but whatever. Once in a blue moon, when you're just starting out, a fan shows up.

I'm always happy to do signings or readings, though. Deseret Book was very smart to combine this one with another, revenue earning event. I hope the store did well that night.

Laptop died

I was writing on it just last night, but when I got up to do something and came back, it was dead as a doornail. My husband tested the power cord, and it's delivering current, so it's not that. I tried starting it with only the power cord and not the battery, no dice. So it's something more complicated than that.

Fortunately I backup my work often (all right, that's awful grammar there, sorry), so I didn't lose much, only about 2k words. It's annoying, but not the end of the world. I also have my desktop computer, so it isn't as if this is a real hardship. One thing about being married to a nerd. He's got 2 work laptops and an Ee PC, and in the room I'm sitting in there is a server and another desktop besides the one I'm writing on. All I've really lost is the luxury of writing wherever I feel like it, and even that I could get back if I swipe his Ee PC during the day (which I might do).

And for once I had a laptop last a regular laptop lifespan! This one made it nearly four years. We'll take it apart tonight to see if there's an easy fix.

The moral of the story, back up your work! I do it by emailing to myself. I've got a gmail account I use exclusively for that (though there are other, more sophisticated ways of doing this too). This way I can access it anywhere there is internet.

Back again, finally

I think I'm ready to stay home for a while now. We got back yesterday and I need to get writing. Sadly, this last weekend was so whirlwind that I didn't get any work on my novel done, and this day has been so insane that I'm just now sitting down to it.

That's all right. I'll do my best to get going again on this novel and work my way back up to cruising speed. Breaks can knock me out of my groove, but they usually leave me feeling more able to write for longer and do more edits. Even if my body hasn't rested, I guess my muse has.

Meanwhile I'm just now getting fat enough that I've had to abandon a lot of my regular clothes, but I'm not really fat enough for maternity wear. My wardrobe is just really limited. No one who doesn't know me well can see that I'm showing, but I definitely notice. That, and my feet get tired a little more easily, what with the extra weight I'm carrying. I've gained about 15 pounds.

Home, briefly

I'm home from Ling's wedding, but about to dash off again out of town. During the time I was gone, The Leading Edge got back to me with rewrite notes on a story, that I still hope to sell to them, and Niteblade sent their contract for a the story I did sell to them.

I also got a request for my manuscript from an agent while gone, so today I did a last spellcheck before sending it. Those are always nervewracking as you think to yourself, "This is it. It's got to be the best you can make it." I'm always paranoid that there's a typo right on the first page (there was on the first LDS novel I sold, and I went over that stupid thing so many times!!!)

After spellchecking, I went back to writing my next LDS novel - which I'd like to stay rolling on. It's easy to get knocked out of the groove, and I don't want that to happen. It's about half its word count, which means absolutely nothing because I rip out and rewrite and rearrange a lot, so sometimes after a good day's work, the word count will be less than it was when I began. This one is in three sections that I need to patch together, with big breaks in between. Working from beginning to end is just not my thing, I guess.

At this same time I'm blocking out a rewrite of the story for Leading Edge. It's a very short story, so editing these is a delicate business. One of my writer's group mates refers to it as trying to stuff a cat into a Coke bottle without breaking bones, an all to descriptive image.

Oh, and I also got the news that my story Coyote Discovers Mars, which appeared in Coyote Wild, received an honorable mention in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Definitely good news! (Thanks YBF&H editors!)