Carolyn's Blog

Monday, February 28, 2005

Well, it turns out I had one more chapter to delete plus some additional drek, so I've done that and have 76K+ On the bright side, the truly sucky stuff is now gone. And, also, I figured out another thing to kind of up the stakes and that means another chapter and I've been trying all night to get to it, but "stuff" keeps intervening. Some my fault (like doing this blog entry) others not. Also, I need another vampire POV chapter before my new dark demon chapter which means I have to think of something. Which I guess I will. All still ick on the work front.

(0) comments

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Strange thing. Today I cut two chapters and a good deal of miscellaneous drek. One of the chapters was particuarly hard to cut, but it had to go. I did a read through yesterday which proved that those chapters had to go, but by and large I'm not displeased with where I'm at. So, anyway, I've got most of my edits in (plus the deleted chapters deleted) and I'm only down 300 or so words. 79K. So there's that.

(0) comments

Friday, February 25, 2005

Mental milestone reached. No, not insanity. 80K! Also cheered to realize that when I reordered and split off some chapters etc, I forgot to add the last chapter to the master doc. Of course it's a really really short chapter, but still, couple, three hundred words. Things seem OK. It's the weekend. I don't have to work this weekend plus, I didn't get laid off. Yet. Nobody did. Yet.

(0) comments

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Kind of the same old-same old. I deleted a bunch of dreck but managed to end up 74 words ahead. I have added the new chapter about the deal that ends with the assassination. I dithered about it yesterday because I didn't want to have to delete all that dreck. But today I was brave and did it. Consequently, tomorrow morning (more accurately, this morning) will be hideous. I see much caffeine in my future. Son fell at school and has two ugly scrapes. I think tomorrow he'll be really sore. At least this time no one fell on him and he didn't break his nose.

(0) comments

Monday, February 21, 2005

78+ a bit. Same thing as yesterday. Cut some dreck, fixed problem chapters, and managed to come out a few hundred words ahead. I'm feeling panicky, but I just need to keep plugging away. I've brought chapters 1-16 or so in line with the plot/character changes from a couple weeks ago, so I should be able to do the same to chapters 17 or so through 35, right? Jeez! It's late. I have to get up in the morning. I have to shop for food because there is none. I got us burritos for dinner because pickels just didn't seem like a great food choice for my son. Panick. I need to figure out the html to make that word change colors and shake in its little boots.

(0) comments

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Well, I'm still fighting with my WIP, but in a different spot. I have sworn to fix this one particular part tonight. I will but I want to digress. See next paragraph.

My personal opinion: If you are a published author, you should not publicly engage in reviewing/critiquing the books of other authors writing in your genre. This includes remarks on email lists, by the way, particularly ones that can be googled. Even if you sincerely believe the book is the worst thing you ever read, why risk having that opinion be interpreted as trashing a competitor's work? Oh, maybe that's what it is. (Anyone reading between the lines here?) Publish a book and of course an author opens herself to comments from the public, kind and unkind. But if you are an author posting reviews and commentary on the merits of books in the very same genre in which you write, how is that not a conflict of interest?

(1) comments

77+ I spent much of my writing time today feeling like I was making a bigger and bigger hash of things. Finally, I gave up and deleted half an entire chapter. Sigh. I moved stuff around, moved stuff some more. How did I manage to move things so dreadfully wrong yesterday? I wrote part of a new chapter then deleted that, too, because it sucked. And then I moved some stuff to another chapter which made it nearly 20 pages - waaay too long, so I found a good spot and cut that chapter in half, making, in effect, the chapter I previously wrote and then deleted. Except this one was better.

So then just about when I wanted to go sit in a corner and cry (someone asked how things were going, and since I was in the kitchen working a crossword, crosswords being something critically important, and I'd already cleaned the shower this morning, I said "fine", but at the time it was a BIG FAT LIE) I got through the mess (after huge chapter deletion, 1100 words!!!) I actually ended up plus 500 some.

Sigh.

(0) comments

Thursday, February 17, 2005

76K+ so I suppose I've made back about half or so of the drek I've cut, but right now mostly I have a big fat mess. I was at the gym the other dsay faithfully exercising, working on how to fix my mess and I had it all worked out. Honest. Then when I came home and had time to work, darned if this really minor character, didn't even have a name, didn't up and turn out to be a much more important character. The particular scene worked a lot better, so now I'm following through on that. Which is OK, I guess. Only stuff isn't in the right place.

Plus, I usually name my chapters starting with a 00n and a descriptive name and this time around, I'm just doing numbers because when I re-order everything,I don't have to redo the master doc every time. But I also can't stare at my list of descriptive names figuring out what else should change cause the numbers only don't tell me what's happening in the chapter. So, the jury's still out on that one. I can stare at my outline but that's about it. Anyway, some panic setting in. I hope I can get a lot done this coming weekend.

(2) comments

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Well, I deleted the drek chapters. It had to be done, but it still hurt. 73K. And then I started a read through and realized I had to move some chapters around because, once again, I had too much stuff going on all over the place. So I've moved the chapters, but, of course they have to be fixed now to fit better in their new place, but it's just a big fat mess right now. Ick. And then I also decided that my opening chapters were a bit diffuse, character wise and that I really ought to bring my spy demon more fully into stuff, which is good, except that's also a pretty significant bit of rewriting. A big improvement and all that. Gotta do it, etc.

So, here's the thing. Most of the above thoughts kind of flashed into my head some time ago but did I do anything right then? No. Why not? I do not yet have a satisfactory answer.

Also, still no news about The Rake and the word seems to be no one is buying historicals anymore so that means I get to sit around and stew about that. Sigh.

(0) comments

Friday, February 11, 2005

77+ Still haven't deleted the drek chapters, although there is one fewer of them since I found a use for most of one of them. Came out slightly, very slightly ahead on that, which is good considering I deleted a whole lot. But then just life kind of intervened and the next day I didn't get anything done. Nothing. 0. Nada. Tonight I split a big chapter and wrote a new part for most of it.

So, I have Monday off (school and day care holiday) but I have a book signing tomorrow so the afternoon's shot writing-wise and Sunday I have to go do this Server Reg hack because some vendor actually wrote an application that requires a registry edit to reduce and redirect the application logging. How stupid is that? You can't make a registry change during production hours, and plus, way worse, you can't delete the log (that grows out of control) without stopping all services on the box! Freaking idiots. I should send them a bill for my weekend time. Oops. Sorry. So, anyway, Sunday morning, I am busy and will not be able to write. I suppose that my son would like to see me at some point.

And I won't even go into the horrible things I've hearing about the publishing industry and how historicals are going down the tubes. Oops. Well, that's what I heard, insider info.

Sigh

(0) comments

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

76+ but it's still all a lie since I haven't yet deleted all the cr*%* ahem! stuff that was mostly eliminated by the rework. I keep hoping I'll find a use for bits and pieces. Maybe. I moved a chapter around today, half of it went toward the beginning where I think it works well. Freaking a bit because last week was a slow week writing wise. Illness, etc. Still, I've figured out more of my hero and know what he's up to so that will be there for the stuff from his pov. Some interesting stuff came out today.

(0) comments

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Well, yesterday I ended up doing something that kept me busy until 3:30 this morning, so I didn't get much done on the writing. Today, I did a read through and I'm pretty OK up to chap 23 after which most of what I have is junk for reasons previously mentioned. Really, I just need to figure out what to do about this place where my h/h get together after being apart for a bit. Got to know that before proceeding. And since I am tired (see lack of sleep alluded to above) I am going to go to bed now and notebook until I fall asleep. In about 20 min, I think. The usual Sunday eve. blah. However, I now have to dig and make up for a fairly slack last week. Ick. Did not watch the Superbowl. Should have, it would have been more productive that sitting about making up reasons not to look at my computer screen. (I'll just read this article, I'll just sweep the floor, work a crossword, read a 3 day old paper, etc.)

(0) comments

Friday, February 04, 2005

74K but it's a mirage because now that I've made my big adjustment and moved some stuff around, there are least 20 pages that now have nothing to do with my story. On the bright side, it's possible some of the new stuff is pretty good. Sigh.

Also, I'd kind of like to get started on the next Regency set because I really like my idea.

(0) comments

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Things going well. Up too late last night. It's a yes to h and h pov which means lots of really cool stuff. Am writing some hero chapters now, going well, must go back to it. My goal is to be done with a draft by end of February. That will give me March and April for editing and revision and getting it to others (agent, editor??? and some trusted readers). I wish it didn't take so long to get to a story that's exactly what you want. Sigh

posted by Carolyn @ 2/02/2005 10:10:00 PM Permalink

(0) comments

Twitter Updates

follow me on Twitter