Yay?

Jan. 28th, 2012 05:13 pm
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (mfu: ik-stet)
I have a complete revised draft of The Goblin Emperor . . . 20,000 words over budget.

This is what one might call a mixed blessing.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: fennec)
I am declaring a moratorium: I may not start any more short stories until I've finished at least ONE of these eleven languishing stories:
The List )

Waterlog

Oct. 16th, 2008 09:01 pm
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (valkyries)
TIME: 20 min. (the length of Kris Delmhorst's lovely EP, Horses Swimming)
DISTANCE: 2.2 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 71 mi.
NOTES: Again, 6.5 mph or so, and no shin splints. This time, I have the leftovers of a 7 A.M. charley horse in my left calf, and at about minute 17, my right calf began making "Hey what about me?" noises. I don't know, I just live here.
SHIRE-RECKONING: In Buckland! Black Rider left behind. Two miles to Crickhollow.

FYI, I am groveling slogging working my way through the CEM of Corambis (has to be back in NY the 23rd; I'm on p. 147 of 751; you do the math because I don't want to). So there will be more Due South posts (and another Q&A), but it's not going to happen until after this manuscript is back out the door. (The radio was playing "I Will Survive" in the car yesterday, and oh god I know what she's talking about. I should've changed that stupid lock.)

...

Oct. 13th, 2008 02:02 pm
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
Why, yes, as it happens, the Corambis CEM* is sitting on my desk, due back in New York the twenty-third.

Why do you ask?

---
*Copy-Edited Maunscript
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (cats: nom de plume)
(There was no Project Valkyrie today, as the weather was just too fucking gross.)


What I haven't been posting about, obviously, is the revisions for Corambis that are due at the end of the month. I haven't been posting about them mostly because this is the part of the process that is difficult to articulate in a way that makes it interesting to people who haven't read the book yet. You know, when your writer-friend tells you, "I moved the chunk where Gilbert finds the pruning shears in the abandoned mental asylum from Chapter Four to Chapter Two, and OMG it makes the bit with Tabitha and the two ormolu swans in Chapter Three look like I meant to put it there all along!" And you smile and nod and metaphorically pat your writer-friend on the head and try to insert something that looks like a conversation into the conversation.

You know how it goes.

And maybe later, when the book is published and you read the bit with Tabitha and the two ormolu swans in Chapter Three and realize that, yes, of course the chunk with Gilbert and the pruning shears had to go in Chapter Two, maybe you call your friend up and go "OMG the pruning shears! You were so right!" and the two of you shriek and giggle like hyenas who have just found the most sumptuous elephant carcase of their lives.

Maybe.

But my point is, this kind of revising is neither particularly intelligible nor particularly interesting from the outside, and of course the sentence-level stuff even less so. So I'm not posting about it. Just trying to get it done.

I'm also not posting about this head cold, and believe you me, you're grateful for it.

back

Jun. 23rd, 2008 11:15 pm
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
I am back home after Fourth Street, which was exceedingly excellent. I will try to post more and better later (although with Corambis revisions due at the end of July, don't count on it), but for now I just want to remark that I listened to Peggy O'Neill's album, Love, Lust, and Frustration, on repeat all the way home, and it is awesome. If you like women blues singers, which I do.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: hippopotamus)
I now have 101 ms pages of continuous narrative of Corambis, or approximately 23,700 words. Most of this past week has been struggling with the effort to write transitions between salvaged bits of text, which, as writing tasks go, is about as fun as sticking your fingers in a pencil sharpener. And I've got some more of it still to do, but I figured breaking triple digits was worth an update.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: david bowie-summerdown)
Chapter 17: 10,218 words

Summerdown, thus far: 147,926 words

What remains is dénouement and the part where I end this entire four book monstrosity. And then I get to go back and fix everything that's currently broken and put in actual words everywhere I've got [blank].

It may be a Frankenstein's monster of a draft, but a draft I will have by August first.

You may, as [livejournal.com profile] jaylake says, continue shopping. No need to return to your homes.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: hippopotamus)
My big accomplishment for today is that I got them off the goddamn train.

2,118 words. About half of the second scene of the climax.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (Default)
(GUILDENSTERN: Ahem.
ROSENCRANTZ: I don't know how the next scene starts! Shut up!)



[livejournal.com profile] peake posted yesterday about this attempt to define a "slipstream canon." Or possibly I mean a "slipstream" "canon." Or, well, here. Have some quotation marks--""""""""--and punctuate as seems best to you.

for them as cares, click with the clickyness )


(ROSENCRANTZ: There! See? I'm writing. Satisfied now?
GUILDENSTERN: [reading over ROSENCRANTZ's shoulder] No.)
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: fennec-working)
525 words. AKA the first scene of the climax. Tomorrow I get into the meat of the thing.

Also a lot of stupid flash games.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: hippopotamus)
2,219 words

Chapter Sixteen: 6,869 words

Once again, my writerbrain has made sure that I'm the last one to be let in on the joke. Typical.

Summerdown: 137,708

37,000 words to go, give or take. I'm expecting this draft to come up short, which is actually good, because I already know there's about half to three quarters of a plot thread I'm going to have to go back and put in.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: david bowie-summerdown)
714 words.

Like being covered in BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.

(I can quote Eddie Izzard, even if Felix can't.)

On the other hand, tonight, for the first time, I feel like I actually can complete a draft of this book by August first. Which is a very encouraging thought.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: fennec)
2,120 words.

Lo, this is the chapter of exposition, in which everyone explains everything to everybody.



Found via I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?, these stunning photographs of a fox. (Yes, her human-friendliness is worrisome--as the photographer is clearly aware--but that doesn't detract from the photographs.)



There's a review of The Virtu over here.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: hippopotamus)
625 words

Between the Boring Health Problems and the Not Boring But Knotty Plot Problems, 625 is actually doing pretty well. I may have to smooth out this nuntius ex machina* on the second pass, but that's okay. Writing is not a performance art.

---
*messenger from the machine
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: david bowie-summerdown)
(1,240 words for today thus far)

Chapter 15: 11,300 words
Summerdown, thus far: 130,839
Approx. 44k to go

One more chapter of set up, then the climax, and then unknown quantities of denouement, some of which is still highly, um, theoretical.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: felix-M.S.R.S. Dropout)
2,132 words.

Where do Felix and Mildmay find these conversations?

o.O

ETA: on the other hand, this is--or should be--one of the great strengths of writing series fantasy. By the time you get to book three or four, your characters should know each other well enough that they can have conversations that deal with subjects other than Saving The World or Star-Crossed Angst.

... okay, yes, if I was writing The Wheel of Time, it would look COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: hippopotamus)
2,078 words

One step forward.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: hippopotamus)
1,421 words.

I cannot get the plot to move FORWARD. ARGH.
truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (writing: fennec)
3,186 words.

For once, that thing where you sleep on a problem actually worked. I woke up at 5:45 this morning (I think something in my dream woke me, because I thought it was the sound of a cat interfering with the wastebasket, and there was no such cat. A dream cat interfering with a dream wastebasket?) and couldn't get back to sleep. But I could get a start on the scene that was driving me nuts yesterday. I've been writing relatively steadily (for my values of "steadily," rather than, say, Bear's) ever since, and have now finished the scene.

Loud huzzahs.

Mean things: Everybody's worldview is now higgledy-piggledy.

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