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October 31, 2004

REVISIONS - ch. 9-18 biz-omb

The goal is to get through at least half the book this weekend for rewrites, and so far all signs point in favor of this happening.

We're going camping next weekend, and Chicago the weekend after. I promise after the book rewrites are done I will get back to actually going to aikido and cleaning my house and paying attention to my friends and cats. Honest.

In the meantime, I've begun writing down elements for 'Binder's world. I've pretty much decided that'll be the next book I write. Unlike Myr's, it'll be stand-alone. I hope.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:35 AM

October 29, 2004

REWRITES - ch. 9

Some changes in 7 and 8 led to changes in 9. With those fixed, ch. 9 has now been reprinted and is awaiting the Bloody Royal Treatment.

Hopelessly tired, and thinking that I'm going to burn lots of oil this weekend so I can get as much of the Monster done as possible. I just gotta sleep.

All that said, I finished reading two books this week. Take a Thief and Wolves of the Calla. Need to find someone who'll loan me Song of Susannah, though I may wait for revisions to be over. Or not. I benefit from good writing while I'm trying to make mine just as good.

Posted by sdshaver at 02:28 AM

October 28, 2004

REWRITES - ch. 7 and 8 - bleeding pages

And the award for the most heavily edited page of the night goes to....

Bleeeeeed!

Yes, all those red marks are corrections. (No, there isn't a bigger version.) But in case you're wondering why this process is slow...pages like that are why. (And large chunks of 7 and 8 had to be overhauled.)

My manuscript is bleeding.

Now that I know I have a ways to go before the anthology story is due, it's settled back into my head and is allowing me to work on the Monster instead. This is good. I want the story to percolate.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:11 AM

October 26, 2004

STORY and REWRITES - murple

Got up to Chapter Seven on rewrites. Then I sat down and let the story out for a little bit.

It's coming off as light-hearted. I did a read-through aloud of what I have done (ten pages so far) and rather enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, it is now nearly 3 AM, and I will once again be exhausted tomorrow even if I go to bed now. Such is my life.

Yarrr.

Posted by sdshaver at 02:49 AM

October 25, 2004

STORY - plot- and phonelines

No actual work on the book, as I am beating out a short story idea at the moment. I'm hoping to hear back from the editor and be told that the deadline is a good ways off so I can let the character develop in the cookpot in my head, but I know my luck.... :)

My phoneline died last night, much to my imagination's shock and confusion. Discovering at 11 PM that your phoneline is dead is an invitation to wonder if the killer is already in the house.

I also watched The Hours on Saturday. It was a film with great period sets, fine actors, and very little soul, and I was fine with that -- until I watched the commentary by the director and the author of the book it was based on, and then I wanted to fling things at the television. It was the romantic notion that Virginia Woolfe was "completing" her life with her suicide that truly made me roll my eyes in derision.

She was clinically depressed, probably bipolar. She killed herself, and turned up a bloated corpse in a river. Wonder why you didn't show us that image, hm?

The tragedy is people who've convinced themselves that it was a beautiful thing. I call bullshit on that, and so speak my peace on the subject.

Posted by sdshaver at 11:07 AM

October 23, 2004

REWRITES - burn, burn, burn

Amidst heavy email flurries I burned through that bitch Chapter Four. Huzzah!

I may be writing for an anthology. We'll see what we see. I have a bit of an idea, but I'm waiting to hear from the editor before I go forth with it.

Go write!

Posted by sdshaver at 01:27 AM

October 22, 2004

REWRITES - plotlines

I wrote about six pages of plotlines tonight, and revised Ch. 1 - 3 again in spots, taking care of a major speedbump. yay.

Assuming I can continue to shirk chores, I'll spend most of the weekend working on the monster.

Night.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:46 AM

October 21, 2004

REWRITES - (blarr)

I sat on my couch last night hand-editing things and hating one particular thing and ultimately came up with a solution (I hope).

That's really vague, I know.

Rewrites are going slow, sorry. There are a few key items that need to be dealt with, and unfortunately it's slow going.

Posted by sdshaver at 11:46 AM

October 20, 2004

REWRITES - ch. 2 and 3 - t-t-t-testing

Well, some not so major changes to 2, but some important clarifiers in 3, and more cabochons! (Say it with me: cabochon!)

Yes indeed. Cabochon.

Yes, Adam, my leg muscles are killing me. The 500 sword stroke workout, boys and girls. It builds character!

Even though I started this book a year ago, and the maps of my world were labeled even before then, the unfortunate truth is I happened to name one of the more important countries in my world "Giljad", and though I like the name I will change it. Else Roland of Gilead may show up at my house and ask me if I've remembered the face of my father lately. Or not, I haven't hit the last book yet, so for all I know he's rose fertilizer.

And ja, I know it's a word for a real place; this gives me further incentive to change it.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:53 AM

October 19, 2004

REWRITES - ch. 1 - applied

Applied the hand-written notes for Chapter One, so it's now in a "done" state. It seems chapters 1-3 are sorely in need of attention. Chapter 4 needed hardly any.

I think I'm going to go upstairs and read Wolves of the Calla. Night!

Posted by sdshaver at 01:12 AM

October 18, 2004

REWRITES - (too many to name)

Lots of filling in space and clarifying. Also hand-editing (on my couch, with a red pen, in the conservatory) the stuff I printed out last weekend. My list of things to clarify is shorter, but there are still three chapters with such headers as THIS ONE NEEDS MAJOR WORK. and WTF IS UP WITH THE TIMELINE IN THIS ONE? and PUT SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT HERE.

I think I like that last one best.

The "Shiro" theme from Wolf's Rain is effective music for this stage of writing.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:20 AM

October 16, 2004

REWRITES - ch. 1 - flower crown

Chapter one rewritten, hopefully well and good and final this time. First three chapters are going to get double secret critical examinations this weekend.

I should start doing read-throughs this Monday.

Yeah, I read my book aloud to myself so that I can check the grammar and flow of the story. It's also a good way to catch dropped words or (something I'm famous for) metathesis. Awake/away is a popular one for me. I actually turned one of these into a part of the story, which is either clever or stupid. We'll see.

The cats are being bastards. It must be time to go to bed.

Posted by sdshaver at 03:19 AM

October 14, 2004

REWRITES - gentlemen, it is my duty

It's funny how much more quickly you get through your exercise routine if you're imagining the next stage of your rewrite needs.

More and more rewrites.

I think I know how to start the next book, too. Well, shit.

Posted by sdshaver at 12:05 PM

October 13, 2004

REWRITES - downer

More rewrites. I'm sort of worried now that the book really ends on a bit of a downer. Dunno if there's anything I can do about that. It's not the EVERYONE IS DEAD AND EVIL HAS PREVAILED HA HA HA sort of downer, it's more the OH SHIT ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES sort of downer. My personal ethics must be showing.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to. The book has stopped knocking around in my head, so I must be doing something right (write).

Posted by sdshaver at 01:27 PM

October 11, 2004

REWRITES - blackened page

I want to leave the book alone for a week so I can let it settle in my head, but there's so much to fix I can't seem to. The fabric of the story changed over the year, and it shows. Same yarn, different pattern.

Wolves of the Calla is pretty good so far. Almost enough for me to get my mind off SoS, but not quite.

I did nothing on Sunday but go from the bed to the computer to the shower to the computer to the dinner to the computer to the bed. I was really only awake eleven hours, but I was so exhausted I slept right through my alarm until nine today. BLARGH.

Posted by sdshaver at 11:13 AM

October 10, 2004

...holy shit

It's 5:24 AM.

Final wordcount for first draft manuscript: 133,487 words. I may not have to add all those Erim bits after all, since 133k is quite a respectable word count.

To quote Kaiji: Holy shit.

Gotta go collapse now. Or cry. I can't decide which.

Holy shit.

HOLY SHIT.

Posted by sdshaver at 05:26 AM

October 09, 2004

ch. 42 - visions and portents

Ch. 41 is done. Foreshadow! Foreshadow! Time to wind down in 42, 43, and (maybe) a 44 (though I think it's only two more chapters).

Couldn't think of a more perfect song than "heropsychodreamer" for this chapter. Oh Ed K., your lyrics are so wacky!

Can you believe first draft is almost finished? I can't. :P

Night.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:09 AM

October 08, 2004

ch. 41 - slurp

Heh heh heh.

I really hope that scene passes muster when I do rewrites.

Heh heh heh.

Aaaanyway. Um. I wrote a little. Yup! One more scene for ch. 41, and then mostly epilogue. Aieeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Posted by sdshaver at 12:40 AM

October 07, 2004

ch. 41 - one big cell

Oh Anthrax, you enliven my dull little playlist so.

Uuuuh. Yeah. Wrote half of Ch. 41. Ungggggh. Almost complete. I sketched out a scene that will tie up the last villainous thread, and then we have some finale stuff and first draft is done, done, done.

Lingering out there on the fringe is the fear that this thing will never sell, but we'll see, won't we?

Also finished watching Prétear. So girly. So very, very girly. So very Fushigi Yuugi light; Fushigi Yuugi is still the grand champ of super-animated-Japanese-fantasy-romantic-soap-opera in my book. If I ever wrote a fantasy romance novel, it would have to involve one girl with eight boyishly handsome bodyguards and at least a half dozen love triangles. Just watch me.

I gotta sleep, sleep, sleeeep.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:47 AM

October 06, 2004

ch. 40 - persistence of time

Chapter forty -- DONE. One last thing in 41, and resolution will come in 42 and 43. OMG WTF LOL.

I'm on a mini-deadline at work, so of course I'm writing like crazy. Of course! It will be over by this weekend, insh'Allah.

In other news, I dusted off an Anthrax album from the early 90s and have enjoyed it quite a bit.

And chances are some governments will be promptly eyeballing my website after this post ("Allah" and "Anthrax" within two sentences of each other -- go me!). Honest, guys, I'm just a white-bred single chick in Missouri, never done no one no harm.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:37 AM

October 04, 2004

ch. 39 - even the stars are ill at ease

Well, there ends Chapter 39. And no, the book as a whole is not done. It would be done if I'd used the original thread of idea, but I like the new one, so nyah. It'll need tightening in final draft, but that's why this is a rough.

Chapter 40 tomorrow night. Things are again snowballing. And then we really will see the end of this thing. For now. I figure I have three chapters left, and since they're more or less written (in my head), this should take less than a week (insh'Allah).

Nighty night.

Posted by sdshaver at 01:23 AM

October 03, 2004

ch. 36/38 - adding in erim

Now that Erim has informed me of his situation, it's up to me to fill in the blanks. His story has always been there, but Myr and Kaiji are so loud he gets put on the backburner. Which is too bad, cuz every now and then he says something neat, like:

If it can't hurt, it ain't got the power to help.

Well, it sounded neat to me.

I am over halfway through Wizard and Glass. I finally got to see Shaun of the Dead, and enjoyed it immensely. And I was pretty much a lazy bastard today because my car decided to crap out on me. Ah well.

Posted by sdshaver at 12:28 AM