Negative reviews are an interesting thing. I don't get that many but it's funny how one negative review or PM can make you forget dozens of awesome, glowing reviews.

When I wrote the first draft of Some Rise By Sin, I wrote the story I always wanted to read. I pulled Alice and Jasper front and center and gave all of my favorite characters things to do. I meticulously thought out the powers and the conflict and the characters. And at the top of the document, in the header, I wrote "Take your time!" The story has a slower pace than my one-shots, true, but it is supposed to read like a novel. The action will pick up, but I have to get everyone and everything into place. I tend to be very detail oriented and I would never write like...Alice getting taken in chapter one, battle in chapter four. Unrealistic and just not my style.

Anyway, whatevs. I'm going to tell the story I want to tell.

OK, rant over.

I posted a new chapter of RBTL (finally!) but now I have to clean up the next few chapters of SRBS to send to the betas. At some point this weekend, I have to clean my house and do laundry. The clutter in this house is driving me nuts.

I made a decision to just cut back on the review replies and continue with RBTL whenever I can. I work for a huge corporation. I am the lead graphic designer/GUI developer for the websites team but we are all being impacted by the crazy economy. Because of that, work just takes precedence right now. I have strict deadlines to meet and if I don't meet them, I'll cost the company money and endanger my job. My writing time has been cut way back which means I either fill it with review replies, or I fill it with writing. For now, I choose writing. I hope everyone will understand.

So who is ready for spring? It's already getting warmer here (not that it was ever truly cold) and I kind of am dying for some hot weather and maybe a little rain.

OK, enough rambling...off to start laundry and clean up from breakfast!

This post won't be much in the way of excitement. As a matter of fact, here is just a random list of things I'm thinking about:

- Working on the long fic today while the rest of America watches the Superbowl. I took out the Bella and Edward POVs because they are the ones I always have to force myself to write. That means that this fic is all secondary characters all the time. Just the way I like it.

- Speaking of secondary characters, check out my sweet [title of show] icon. I went looking for icons that have something to do with writing and found some good [tos] stuff. [title of show] was the best play I saw on Broadway last year. It's closed now but if it ever has a revival or plays in your area, GO SEE IT. It is so inspirational and hilarious. My abs hurt when we left from laughing so hard.

- I am still behind on review replies and PMs but I will try to get caught up during The Office. Writing takes precedence currently.

- I have several outtakes from the long fic and I thought about collecting them to post on ffn in one collection but now I am thinking I will just post them here for you guys.

- This weekend, I powered through some of the Oscar nominees. I saw Happy Go Lucky, The Reader, and Encounters at the End of the World. I haven't been able to get my hands on all the documentaries yet (I'm dying to see Trouble the Water) but of the ones I have seen, it's a tight race. I give the edge to Encounters though. Even though I adored Man on Wire, Encounters was so original, such a beautiful look of the eccentric kind of person it takes to live and work in Antarctica. I nearly stopped Happy Go Lucky after about fifteen minutes but then I was just drawn it. Sally Hawkins was pretty genius in the lead role. I don't think it has a chance in the screenplay category, not against the likes of Wall-E and Milk but it was fun to watch. The Reader was another story entirely. I did not enjoy the movie. Kate Winslet was predictably great, and I think this may just be her year to finally win (although we should never count out Meryl Streep), but I kind of hated the movie. I have a lot more nominees to get through before the 22nd but I am determined to win our Oscar game this year. Determined!

- Work was crazy this week. Another deadline came out of no where and I worked seventeen hours on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, I had to drive down South for a funeral. It was exhausting. I feel better now but since next weekend is my birthday, things don't look to get any less exhausting anytime soon.

OK, enough stalling...back to writing.

I just caught up on review replies, emails, PMs, and posted a new chapter of RBTL. My eyes are tired but I am supposed to have the next chapter of the long fic off to the beta tonight so I will keep writing. Blerg.

I love interacting with the readers and reviewers but working on a complex story while maintaining my update schedule on RBTL is exhausting.

Anyway, crazy weekend this weekend. My freaking car broke down on Friday. I have to have it towed to the dealership tomorrow. I swear I'm seriously considering just buying a new one. Then I went home, posted a chapter, and watched Battlestar. It was crazy. It was so crazy that my adrenaline was pumping and it kept me from falling asleep.

This week I have deadlines and meetings and I think there's a baby shower somewhere in there and to top it all off, I have a guest visiting this week. I'm tired just thinking about it. Maybe I'll take Thursday off since it's the only day that I don't have meetings.

I think that when I finish the draft of this fic, I'm going to have to take a couple of weeks off of writing. It won't work but planning for it makes it easier to push through these times when I feel a little burned out.

So has anybody read any good books lately? I have a stack on the to be read pile but I'm looking for a good audio book for my commute.

I got a new project at work this week that has zapped my time. I am a graphic designer but I also wear a developer hat when I must. This week, I was called upon to create an application so I shut down Photoshop and started coding again. I can always feel the coding days acutely. My eyes hurt, my brain hurts, and oddly, I can never seem to put the work down.

Extra work means that I got behind on my writing. I intended to do more on RBTL this week but only was able to produce two hastily written chapters. I'm going to try to get a jump on chapters this weekend so I can get back to my usual three next week. But the rest of today is going to be devoted to the novel-length fic. I am determined to start posting in February so I have to really get to writing. I just made a big pot of coffee and a delicious soy cheese pizza and I'm going to get to it.

But first, when I was writing chapter 24 of RBTL, with the shifting POVs, I got to thinking about characters and what makes a good character. I make no apologies for the fact that I have issues with Bella. I don't really get her. I feel like she was well set-up early on and then toward the end of Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, everything I believed about the way she would act was changed.

I nearly always find the supporting characters more compelling. There is always a story left to tell, always moments we didn't see. I loved Alice immediately and that could also be some of my issue with Bella. She says she loves Alice and that she misses her when she's gone but she nearly constantly acts annoyed with her.

I think the best characters are the heroes of their own story. If you can get inside their head and see the path they are on and their motivations, then they are a good character. I always use Scorpius from Farscape as an example of a good character. He was a nasty villain made all the more nasty because from his point of view, everything he was doing was right and with purpose. He was the villain in John's story but the hero in his. That makes for some fascinating and complex story telling.

So I'm curious...what do you guys think makes a great character?