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April 30, 2004

the morning dew

Found a way out of my painted corner, and so ends Chapter Twenty. It's a short chapter, but it's meant to be.

It would also technically be the end of Part One if I were dividing this puppy into parts, but I'm not.

And alas, this really is only the halfway point. I did a rough count, and I'm at 50k words. Halfway. I would guess that there's about three chapters worth of material that need to be written into the first part to make up for some story changes that have happened en route.

Longest chapter so far was four, with nine being a close second.

Most amusing note was the one I left at the top of thirteen: HOLY CRAP THIS NEEDS A LOT OF WORK.

I am so, so tired. Night.

Posted by sdshaver at 02:22 AM

April 29, 2004

jackals in my hands

Awake, because twenty is one of those chapters I have been waiting to write for, oh, five years.

And it's half-wrote now. So everyone can rejoice. And I think I can sleep.

Nineteen done, Twenty is halfway. How am I gonna get Myr out of that wall? Crap.

Painting myself into corners in Missouri,

Steph

Posted by sdshaver at 01:58 AM

April 28, 2004

mockingboyd

My writer's almanac informs me that today is the birthday of Harper Lee, who wrote one of my favorite books I don't own -- To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus, my little ADHD monkey-cat, is named so because of that book.

The really remarkable thing about Harper Lee is that she only ever wrote that one book. Just that one. There's got to be a story there.

This entry today is due to me actually continuing writing after I said I was done for the night, but after I closed Word I was too tired to then open up a browser and make note of it. So Nineteen is pretty much done, I just need to "tie the bow", so to speak, to end the chapter.

Also, I think I have an idea for a Kitsu short story starting in my head.

I get to describe a necropolis in Twenty! Wheee!

Posted by sdshaver at 11:41 AM

finder 2

Chiseled out another page in nineteen. Chase chase chase....

Picked up a graphical novel called Finder -- which, despite its name and a character named "Emma", bears no relation to the Emma Bull novel of the same name -- and was rather surprised at how good it was. The art grows from page one, and sometimes it's stronger than others, but it's very well written and nicely executed. I look forward to picking up the next few volumes.

Also, I very much so like Jaeger. He is the epitome of the smiling bastard. Nice.

Anyway, as much I want to continue writing until the hunter and the hunted get to Red Walls, I really need sleep.

Oh, and I also appear to have thwarted teenage villainy last night. It was a rather stupid thing -- and the villain still managed to get away with $100 -- but there ya go.

I think I'll do it differently if the opportunity arises again.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:10 AM

April 26, 2004

conviction

One of the goals of the writing of this story is to present characters who are not good, are not evil, who fuck up and regret their actions, and sometimes try to fix them, and sometimes just pretend they didn't happen and hope they go away. Really, it's all about my life up to this point. :P

Anyway, I spent tonight watching Monster House (wherein the contractors thoroughly messed up a perfectly good home) and writing little stream of consciousness notes to myself. Most of them were coming from Lock, but some were from Sudja. It was very enlightening.

And with that, Chapter Nineteen has two more pages, Eighteen had a few rewrites, and I'll be back-filling things in later chapters.

Everyone should arrive at the necropolis by the end of this chapter.

Plus, I made fantastic oatmeal raisin cookies. Just sayin'.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:00 AM

April 23, 2004

my mundane

Aaaaand I am now done with Chapter Eighteen (for now). A surprising bit of "day in the life" came up, which I kind of like. I also got a fine chunk of Chapter Nineteen done, plus some revisions on Seventeen because Kaiji was turning into a regular Sherlock, and I didn't like that.

Work is work and creative and fun and fantastic. Play is play and my next testing is two months or less away. If I go to Spain, I'm not getting any time off between now and then. If I don't, I'm taking time off to clean my house, garden, and generally relax.

Yes...I consider mundane chores relaxing. When your everyday job includes building worlds, spells, and consulting with Death, and your extracurricular tasks range from throwing people (and being thrown) and conversations with non-existant entities, gardening suddenly becomes ruthlessly strange and unusual.

That cat's giving me the Eye. Time to sleep. Gym tomorrow. Go me!

Posted by sdshaver at 01:07 AM

April 15, 2004

threads that are golden

Certain events conspired against letting me get work done on the book this week. Taxes. City of Heroes beta. My cats setting off my security alarm twice in one day.

But I wrote a little bit -- more of the chase sequence -- and I may ponder editing this portion heavily in the final version, but for now it's kind of fun. I don't think I've ever written a chase sequence before. It should not go on much longer, though. Chases should be short, in my opinion.

At any rate, I got some writing down. Now I must sleep. Nah-night.

Posted by sdshaver at 11:51 PM

April 12, 2004

cold, hard dawn

Some more work on eighteen done, three pages from completion. I'm writing a chase scene. Whee!

I expect by the end of nineteen another significant event will be occuring in Myr's life, and that'll be fun.

You know what's not fun, though? Trying to auger your laundry drain. ARGH. Stupid cats. Stupid cat toys. Doh!

Bed.

Posted by sdshaver at 12:58 AM

April 09, 2004

you want to travel with him

Chapter Seveteen done (for now).

There was a period of time between 1998 and 2000 where it felt like every time I reconciled with one death, another would strike.

I lost two friends (Suz and Karen) in the last year and a half. They were one-of-a-kind, inspiring souls. They knew my name, I knew theirs, we shared dinner, we shared stories. Karen introduced me to spider rolls. I still own some of Suz's gardening implements and have envy for her gardening skills. And....

I came to a realization at some point that when you have a lot of friends, you have to accept that losing them comes hand in hand with cherishing them. I didn't want to lose Suz or Karen or Nora or Roger or Marion or my grandfather. But never having known them would have been a worse tragedy.

If ever I had a reason to rail against Death, Nora's passing was it. But it also woke me up. It put me in a position to realize I was allowing myself to be used, and it got me out of that place.

So Seventeen is done. And tonight's class was awesome (thanks, Mort) and moody as I am, I am going to bed. Night.

Posted by sdshaver at 11:29 PM

April 06, 2004

actually....

This is 24 hours late. I did two pages in seventeen last night, but forgot to blog.

I'm realizing I have a lot of work to do insofar as making some of the characters unique. Characterization is one of those things I love, but in the process of telling the story some of the individuality of each of the people in my story has been lost. I know I poked his good name with a stick in my last entry, and the author in question may not be my kind of storyteller, but his characters (the male ones, at least) are all individuals. Rand is Rand. Wolfboy is Wolfboy. And Mat is a bastard (and I love him). And I think part of his commercial success is owed to that ability (lots of authors have a similar spooky characterization talent: Misty Lackey, Lois Bujold, Tim Powers, Steven Brust, Neil Gaiman, and every other author in existence whose works I like).

Speaking of Matts -- Matt Groening has a theory. He designs his characters so that if you saw them in silhouette, without color linework, you would know which character you're looking at. The literary equivalent exists, but I haven't nailed it. Yet.

So it's something I'm mulling right now, and something I'll probably deal with for the rest of the book and in rewrites. Which, the way things are going, should be early summer.

Woof.

Posted by sdshaver at 12:48 AM

April 02, 2004

sooner rather than later

Partly through chapter seventeen. Pondering finishing the book in fewer chapters than I initially plotted. I may be able to finish it in 13 chapters; we'll see. I don't want to chop short anything that should not be, but it might be better for the story if I don't stretch it out past its tensile strength (R-*cough*-t*cough*J-*cough*-n).

I never thought I'd get this far. It's truly weird and fun. The last year has been a study in getting my shit together, something I don't know I would have done without the encouragement and ass-kicking of several friends, and one person in particular (you know who you are). Good times.

What do I do with all these people who are absolutely convinced I'm going to have a novel published someday, and what did I do to earn them as friends and family? Maybe I was a chocolate lab in a past life. Mmm. Chocolate.

I was unable to make it to class tonight, which I am bummed about, but we had some last minute stuff come up at work and I had to do it. I made up for it with a burger and garlic-roasted potatoes and an excellent red wine leftover from last week's wine party and Melissa's. Go go gadget alcohol!

Posted by sdshaver at 01:52 AM