November 28, 2005
aaaand back
Back home. Clothes unpacked. Cats mollified. Birthdays fêted. Notes made. Too tired tonight, but I have a direction to go. Going to hopefully get work done tomorrow on 23 and parts of 24.
Onward and inward.
- lucky me
i guessed the kind of man
you'd turn out to be
Posted by sdshaver at 12:35 AM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2005
on vacation
I'm off to California, where I will cook, reminisce, clean, and likely stay away from the keyboard and monitor that dominates all other aspects of my life.
Back Sunday.
- There are things that seem to pull us under
And there are things that drag us down
But there's a power
And a vital presence
That's lurking all around
Posted by sdshaver at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2005
chapter 23 (mostly done)
Looks like the steam will be in 23. 3,080 words, and I'm stopping there.
Missed my weekend target by...uh...1400 words? That sucks, but oh well. Night!
- my hand is on the trigger
i'm ready to ignite
tomorrow might not make it
but everything's all right
Posted by sdshaver at 12:56 AM | Comments (0)
November 20, 2005
chapter 22 (done)
First 1200 words for the day. Finished out 22. Moving on to 23.
But the cableguy should be coming soon, so I'll take myself upstairs, sketch out 23 and 24, and probably make lunch.
Very good idea of where the next 5 chapters are going. Whoot de whoo.
Posted by sdshaver at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)
chapter 22
2400 words into 22. Will return and finish it tomorrow.
The goal is 6,000 words again tomorrow (chapters 22, 23, and 24), assuming the cableguy doesn't string me along again.
Posted by sdshaver at 01:25 AM | Comments (0)
November 19, 2005
chapter 21
Book is now up to 82,348 words (up 4,000 from the last time I cracked her open). Off to brew a cup of tea, and then on to 22.
I need 2,000 words to hit my goal tonight, and I'm pretty sure I'll get 'em.
Swordfights ahoy! Also: Totally useless page of the current playlist! Amaze your friends!
- I'll pull you out of the chorus
and the first one's always free
Posted by sdshaver at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2005
Chapter 20
Added 1600 sparkly words to the book tonight. Got a late start, I'm afraid, due to being worried about a friend.
The book is currently hovering at around 78k words. I have 22k to go to finish it, and if I tighten this and that, I think I can do it. (And possibly put away at least half that this weekend.)
Tomorrow night, my character has two separate but important conversations with two men she probably thought she'd never see again. Thus starts my villain's attempt at being clever.
Posted by sdshaver at 01:20 AM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2005
chapter one is a bitch
<madness>
NO CHAPTER ONE NO I AM DONE WITH YOU AAAAGH.
</madness>
And now, back to your regularly scheduled blog!
OMG I WROTE MORE AAAGH!
Posted by sdshaver at 12:30 AM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2005
chapter 20 (new material! huzzah!)
Unfortunately, I have to be up way too early, so it's be a short night.
But I may be able to get in an hour or two of writing tomorrow morning. Finger-cross!
For the curious, my disposal company will only take two large pieces of trash a week. Which means for the next four weeks I will have to call my disposal company, haul out a couple large chunks of torn-up shed, and pray the garbage gods accept my offering.
Also, I got much further in the replotting last week than I thought. Good! Yay! I'm so smart! Team Rocket, blasting off at the speed of light!
Posted by sdshaver at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
chapter 16 (fix)
The survival scene has been fixed. This world's Death came to me. Drawing him was fun. He looks a bit like King Mob, but not.
Also? My badguy got to be bad. Poor, frozen Ria. (Frozen 'Rita?)
I made COPIOUS NOTES IN ALL CAPS on what to fix in the revisions. Themes that I need to make sure are carried throughout the rest of the story.
Now I'm back to the 20-30 hump! I need to plot this out, which will be tomorrow, most likely. Yay!
Posted by sdshaver at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2005
chapter 1 alternate (still chronic)
There's an episode of Chicago Hope where a woman with OCD has an overwhelming need to constantly cut her hair. In order to make her feel better, one of the doctors gives her a pair of plastic scissors -- she can't cut her hair, but she can go through the act of it, which makes her feel better.
Somewhere in the episode, she gets a hold of a real pair of scissors, and winds up bald and sobbing, much to the doctor's chagrin.
Chapter one has that power over me. I keep poking at and refining it and hoping it'll turn into something I'll be confident about, and every time I poke at it, the itch goes away. For a while.
Can't say I'm done with it, for to do so is to invite the subconscious to kick my ass. Suffice to say, I've beaten it up enough for now. Hopefully the next time I approach it I'll have a red pen in hand.
We'll see if I wind up bald and sobbing.
- you had time to waste
and I'm not sorry
such a basket case
hide the cutlery
Posted by sdshaver at 01:04 AM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2005
nuts
How, exactly, do you know when you have the right hook?
I don't know that. And trying to find it is driving me nuts.
There's always a new anxiety to discover. Before, it was YOU WILL NEVER FINISH A BOOK. Now it's YOU WILL NEVER BE CLEVER ENOUGH TO HOOK AN EDITOR.
Charming.
I guess I ought to read more first lines of first-time novelists, and then have a little confidence in my storytelling abilities.
But it's still going to drive me nuts.
Posted by sdshaver at 06:04 PM | Comments (0)
ch. 1 and 2
lots of notes, minor brushing up, rearranging of this and that, i'm on to other stuff tomorrow night, and i'll revisit this when i revise and i'm very tired so i am GOING TO BED.
k. night.
p.s. camping was good but i realized where i totally screwed up my survival stuff but that's what i get for having hardcore campers for friends yeaarrrrgh! k. bye.
Posted by sdshaver at 01:06 AM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2005
chapter 1 alternate (chronic)
My chronic worry about the chapter one hook leapt on me again, and I rewrote the first five pages of chapter one with a much more active scene.
I probably need to re-read my EMT handbook to make sure I didn't just kill some guy, though. Yes. That sort of active.
Anyway, this will have only minor ripple effects throughout the rest of the story, and I'll be back to 20 as soon as I fix that. Since I'm still sorting out what the hell is going on, though, that's not such a bad thing.
Posted by sdshaver at 01:48 AM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2005
untangling the skein
Four pages of free-writing later, I still haven't untangled the skein. And I'm very tired, so I'm going to sleep on it.
Long week ahead, in more ways than one.
Posted by sdshaver at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2005
chapter 20
What's that? No entry for 19? yeah, I was working on it too late and I forgot. It was done, suffice to say.
Twenty is proving to be in need of pretty much a total rewrite, which is depressing, but necessary. Actually, having seen how little is salvageable, I'm just going to have to take a cue from other, more successful writers and write out a line-per-scene as to what the hell I'm supposed to accomplish in the next three chapters.
Ngh. Math hard.
You know what else is hard? Discovering my writing stride. I suspect, though, that this is why I keep coming back to writing. If it wasn't complex, I doubt I'd ever want to commit my life to it.
Posted by sdshaver at 04:11 AM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2005
chapter 18
I gave in to temptation.
Same deal as 17. Trimmed it down, corrected a major way-too-much-stuff problem. Story is flowing much better now.
Course, I also just remembered that Lowe's is coming tomorrow morning to exchange my tub. Yee ha. 7 A.M. Steph is always fun for the whole family.
Anyway. Bed for real this time. Night.
Posted by sdshaver at 02:08 AM | Comments (0)
chapter 17
Rewrote over half of 17 to fix a defies-my-suspension-of-disbelief problem. Also trimmed down 17 to a tidy 10 pages. Go me!
I want to start 18, but I know if I do I'll be here till 2 AM again. I may give in to the temptation anyway. The chapter call is much stronger than the call to get up early and exercise, I'm afraid.
Posted by sdshaver at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2005
not funny ha-ha
You know what's funny? When I realize the next day after editing a chapter that this is, in fact, a critical moment in my character's cognizance of WTF is Going On, and I pretty much glossed it over like it was nothing.
Go back. Redo.
Yes, yes. Next time, I let the outline sit for a month before I write the book.
An obnoxious Russian blue is demanding my lap. Two years later, he has yet to realize that the keyboard shelf takes precedence over him.
Posted by sdshaver at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
...and 18
STEPH, GO TO BED.
GOING!
Posted by sdshaver at 02:47 AM | Comments (0)
ch. 17 (re-edit)
More blah blah blah excised and tightened.
Like Lay's potato chips, I can't seem to edit just one.
But I gotta sleep, so....
Posted by sdshaver at 02:24 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2005
chapters 13-16
How much do I love Stephen Colbert? Let me count the ways.
Ahem. 13-16 lightly edited. Closing in on new material, but I'm taking a short break for teavee and to do some much-needed database work for the dojo. Back later.
Posted by sdshaver at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
edits, 10, 11, 12
Aw yeah. Look at that. Progress, baby.
I'll probably blaze through 13-20. Little edits for a bit. Maybe even possible I'll finish this thing this month (November).
Posted by sdshaver at 12:51 AM | Comments (0)