Carolyn's Blog

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Well, 70K+, but just barely. I hit my mess pages today. Massive adjustments necessary in order to bring them in line with previous changes, plus I had to come up with a whole new method of bringing about my possession scene. More yet to face. But considering I cut several pages I'm OK with being down only a few hundred words.

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Saturday, January 29, 2005

70K Plus a bit. So, that's good. Am still wading through my read-through and adding in my fixes from the big upheaval. I think everything's going well. But, I'm only at chapter 20 (meaning I haven't gotten to my read-through edits past chapter 20) and I know there are problem chapters coming up. I'm working hard to divorce myself from wanting to keep written words just because they're written. If they suck, they need to go. There. All better now.

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Thursday, January 27, 2005

68+K. I finally, finally, finally figured out how to crank up the stakes for my heroine. That's my stubborness once again showing the curse side (of course, the only reason I'm writing at all is I'm stubborn, that would be the blessing, right?) Anyway, I was blind but then I saw through my issues to a deceptively simple solution. Let's see, I worked on my kind of chilling villian interview to an all is copacetic resolution, revealed my heroine's awful predicament (may need to foreshadow this, we'll see) gave her a solution, only to have the villian get killed along with the solution and now everything's worse than it was. Donald Maass would be proud of me. Got a lot done tonight. But I'm up way, way too late. All ick on the job front.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Just over 67K. The read through helped a lot, even though it slowed me down a bit. But, I've solved a couple of issues and complexified things, which I always like. A minor character who appeared in the opening chapters turns out to be more than he seemed. Bumped him off just tonight and now my h/h are in deep trouble. I haven't even got through transferring all the read through work yet because it seemed dumb not to make all the fixes at once, which is slow going for the new stuff. Anyway. Up too late. Work sucks.

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Sunday, January 23, 2005

OK, just over 65K. Bunch of stuff demon-wise. First, late last night,I was sitting staring at a bit of dialogue between my h/h that just didn't work anymore because of my recent series of changes and I decided I couldn't face deleting so much (which is wrong, wrong wrong!) so instead I decided to do a paper read to see what kind of mess I had. So, there I am, in bed with all 250 pages printed and in the binder, red pen at the ready, and I'm reading chapter one sentence one, and suddenly, I realize that other bit belonged in a new chapter 1 that would get my h/h together from page one (solving yet another issue, that of the disappearing hero). Well, I tried to keep reading but that chapter was just sooo wrong. So, of course, I got out of bed, turned the computer on again and took my dialogue bit and stuck it in a new chapter one and fixed it up a bit, and darned if I wasn't right!

Way better. Big sigh of relief. Had to redo chaps 2-3 a bit, nothing terrifically major. Am continuing the paper read, and some places pretty much rock, a couple of sags, but not bad. I know where to fix. Every now and then I get these horrible flashes of utter panic that I won't have enough time to make this good, and since I've never had to write this fast, in fact, I don't know. But if I finish by end of February or so, I can send off to my agent and maybe a couple of trusted readers and get feedback early enough to actually fix everything. I hope.

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Thursday, January 20, 2005

Have hit my first snag with this book. In a sick sort of way, it's a relief, I think. First off, one chapter got in my master doc twice which I didn't notice until yesterday and then I ended up being negative words instead of plus a bunch. An artifact not grounded in reality, but it feels like when you think you have $10 in your wallet but actually you don't. Arrghhh!

Anyway, my head is spinning with adjustments and directions. Do I need to get rid of a demon? My hero isn't showing up until way too late. My new deadly bad demon is way more interesting than the hero (because at this point, the hero isn't in the dang part of the story I'm working on, that's why!) Arrghhh! I've been staring at the silly monitor all evening trying to figure out my straight line through to the solution. I always make things way too complicated. Instead of staring into space trying to think of what to write, I should have been notebooking. Sigh.

Did I mention I have a hideous cold?

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Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Well, today I was supposed to figure out how to deal with the kidnappees but instead I ended up figuring out a way better arc. It meant shifting around a bunch of chapters, deleting parts (OK a bunch) of some and swapping some the characteristics of my two bad boy demons, but this is much, much better, way more interesting. It adds a political subtext and makes my super bad demons much scarier. Plus I know how to deal with those pesky hostages, so except for the fact that I ended up only net 139 words, it's still true that exercise is good for you.

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Monday, January 17, 2005

62K. But then I got to thinking I didn't really have enough action, and besides, how in the heck am I going to expand on what I've got to the tune of 40K words? Anyway, it turns out I ended up making a reference to some kidnapped people, and either I have to delete it or send my h/h to rescue them, and so I decided on the latter, which, actually, I think will work quite well. I put in the set-up for that this evening, and I suppose tomorrow at the gym I'll figure out where and when to add the actual rescue attempt. Don't know yet if it will succeed. Haven't done even one paper read-through yet. Probably not till I hit 90K or so, I think. At least not until I add in the rescue stuff and see where that puts me.

Also, I have a really cool idea for another historical which I'd like to put in the hopper for next up. The interesting thing is that now that, apparently, I can write at this pace, it seems I really can do two books a year and, more to the point, ought to do so.

Have been reading Maass's "The Career Novelist" and it's giving me the willies. I would rather have my head in the sand about some of these harsh realities. However, my agent was more than right to recommend this book. One thing that bugs me though is his tendency to make not-very-nice remarks about "trashy" novels which, more often than not seem aimed at romance. Sorry, but there are so Romance novels that are beautifully written AND take on "scope". But alas, it's quite true that there are many that are not. But, I ask you, so what? The point is to follow the advice about writing a great story each and every time, and do it often enough to keep your books in print. Hey, no problem! Right.

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Sunday, January 16, 2005

Am at 59K as of yesterday. I should be able to make 60K today. Right now, though, it doesn't feel gritty the way I want it to, plus I'm worrying I need more action. I've been reading MaryJanice Davidson (boy, would I like to be funny like that) and I think it bled into certain scenes. Oops. The spiders have been busy in the garden outside my door and with the weird, cold morning light reflecting off long strands of spider silk, in places, the air looks like it's shimmering. Very strange. But I should be writing, not staring out the window. Back to possession sex.

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Thursday, January 13, 2005

Up to 54K. Am getting worried that parts already suck. Am telling myself that's OK. I'm basically going straight through the chapters, fixing, fixing fixing. Sometimes getting myself into trouble. Am wrestling with chapter 16 right now. Ended up chopping it into 2 chapters. Right now, the heroine feels pretty OK, but she might be irritating, I don't know. The hero is starting to fade a bit. However, at the moment, everything is in her POV and I'm waiting to hear if it's OK to use more than one POV. It would be nice if I could. I guess we'll see. I didn't hit my target yesterday because I was too tired to even think. I kept falling asleep. Better today because I went to bed early last night. Need to go to bed now.

Also, still waiting to hear on The Rake. I hate waiting.

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Sunday, January 09, 2005

I didn't realize I'd gone so long without posting. Busy, I guess. I hit 50K on Crimson City today, which was my very agressive goal for the week. I'm not writing anything new now (don't need to!) but am editing the previous stuff. So, preliminarily, I'd say things look pretty good. I much prefer editing.

I am getting anxious about The Rake. Sigh. I'm going to bed "early" tonight so I can read Mary Janice Davidison's latest.

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Monday, January 03, 2005

Got a lot done today. I've not gone back to do much editing so far. Some, but not much, practically none. 38K plus. So, things seem to be going well. No despair (yet) because I haven't looked back. Anyway,today, I got a long letter from my agent about career planning. Yay! I cannot tell you how good it feels to have some who believes in me and then goes on to make an honest assessment of my writing. I need to make my heroines as rich in reality as my heros. Yup. A bunch of other stuff, too.

At any rate, I'm getting antsy about going back to enrich CC. I'm just about at the point where I need to leave the final chapter or two to write later. I have 25 chapters, most of them far too short, known weaknesses etc, but I'm actually fairly happy with plot. So, I must be doing something wrong, eh? But, it's late and I have to go to work tomorrow. Ick. I hate 5am.

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Sunday, January 02, 2005

So, doing OK. Hit my goal of 10K words this week. Today I felt like I was really struggling, at an impasse once I got through the several scenes I had stacked up. (What happens next!!) So then, there I was sitting there thinking that it would be pretty cool if I could have some kind of kinky possession thing going on and so, I said why the heck not, and the thing is, as I was writing that, some Issues came up that I totally didn't expect but was exactly right for how things stand right now. Vamp hero throws a monkey wrench into the heroine's deal and as a result, she has to face her absolute worst fear in order to save the world. Which is the way it's supposed to work. Right now, I feel like a real writer.

Anyway, I have tomorrow off, so I get to take my son to school and work at writing. So, I really, really have to get to bed now. Except I am not the least bit tired because I've been staying up until 1 and 2 a.m. the whole long weekend. sigh. My preferred schedule: 10am to 2am.

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Saturday, January 01, 2005

Happy New Year! Normally, I would be at some chichi exciting fun-filled party, but I'm on deadline. Today I babysat my niece, read all about Sumerian religion,language and names and cleaned cat hair out of my keyboard. And I ate cookies. Trying to hit my minimum today. I'm about 300 words shy. Back to it.

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