Carolyn's Blog

Monday, April 30, 2007

Today is my birthday!

Picture courtesy of musingorchards.

Yes, indeed. I am another year better. And, since I am home from the day job working on getting my final project for my Master's all done, it's been a very nice day. First off, I got to sleep in, then I got a lot of writing done. I was right yesterday that my last chapter for Magellan's Witch wasn't the actual last chapter. I wrote/re-wrote that today, so now all the chapters are done and I'm going through chapters 19-25 getting them more up to speed. So, I think I might be able to call this thing done on Wednesday. Tomorrow I get signatures and go visit the grad dept to clear up a bit of ambiguity on my project defense. All should be good.

In birthday news, my sister bought me a cala lily, which I love and will plant outside my window, and some sparkling water, my favorite kind. I got a free smoothie at the smoothie place downtown (I got Protein Power), my son got something with too much sugar in it, and my sister got something or other and I used the rest of the gift card for them so 3 smoothies cost me 40 cents. Awesome, no? My son got me a scented soaps which I love. So nice in the shower. Then we came home and had birthday cake more or less for dinner.

This morning the dog rolled in something disgusting and so I was forced to give him a bath. He was not happy with me, but he forgave me.

Last night I finished reading Addicted by Zane. Somehow, and this is distressing to me, I had never heard of her. She writes erotica and apparently started out self-published and sold 250,000 (!!) on her own. Now she's with a major print publisher, as she should be. Zane is African-American. I found out about her from My Space, as she was often mentioned as a favorite author by others, at least some of whom I could see were persons of color. Addicted is written in a very deft, very culturally specific style. It's a far more complex story than most erotica, and I really, really enjoyed it. I'll be reading more of her.

Got to get the son to bed...

Labels: Graduate School, Magellan's Witch, reading

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Sunday, April 29, 2007

Weekend Report

I've been working on the last chapter most of the day. It's not done yet. At this point, I'm not even sure it's the last chapter anymore. I may need to continue it to another chapter. It's going well enough, I guess. I also worked on the requirements for the Master's final project. Very tedious, let me tell you. But the title page is done, copyright page, authorization page, and abstract, which took longer than I wanted, plus the acknowledgment. That makes all the parts done.

My new resolution is to stop stressing over whether Magellan's Witch is crossing some lines. I'm transgressing some genre rules and right now I just say too darn bad. There's going to be a HEA** because without that I'm not transgressing, I'm writing something that's not romance. This book is definitely romance, but some conventions I've just thrown out the window for now.

**Happily Ever After

Lastly, I'm listening to Paolo Nutini's These Streets and I'm just loving this album. Every once in a while his Scottish accent comes out and it's just awesomely sexy. Not to mention I've always had a fondness for being able to hear the voice and lyrics, too. The best part is the lyrics are quite nuanced so it's not painful to hear them more than once. Makes me wonder what his music will be like when he's actually got some maturity on him.

Here's a just a portion of a longer song (mindful that this portion is acoustic guitar, minor key and sung slowly, also that these particular lyrics are, for some reason, not in the liner notes, so if they're not accurate, that's my fault.)

a great sense of passing through
a great sense of passing through
a great sense of passing. . . . through
Oh, for once there was beauty
here for me
Under these wide Northern skies
I felt the green was blacker
And the blues darker still
My roots are lying deeper than I ever think they will
I know
Heartache and poesy under these Northern skies.
a great sense of passing through
a great sense of passing through
a great sense of ..... you

For me, that pause after the third passing is chilling. The images are gorgeous, and the final replacement of passing makes these lyrics reach meaning far beyond the words. Not to mention the use of the word poesy. Now, it's quite possible he's saying poetry but I listened several times and that's what I kept hearing.

In fact, consider this my latest sharing of poetry.

Back to work.

Labels: Magellan's Witch, Paolo Nutini, Poetry

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Saturday, April 28, 2007

Poetry and Progress

What's National Poetry Month without some Shakespeare? Here's Sonnet no. 146, which I had to memorize when I was in High School. I still know it and occasionally recite it to myself.

Sonnet 146
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Thrall to these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
    So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
    And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

In non-poetical news, I bought a new printer today. My HP LJ 4200 has, alas, been something of a disappointment. It no longer prints clean copies, even with brand new toner. A repair estimate is $600. Well, that doesn't make economic sense since I've already put $300 into a previous repair. So, now I have an HP LJ 3005dn (who on earth makes up these names?) which prints 35 pages per minutes (oh, I will bow down at your feet if this proves true!) and can do two-sided printing, which would be pretty handy, I think. There's a $150 rebate too, but we'll see if it actually comes. It holds a ream of paper. So, smooth sailing ahead for printing out the MA project, and considering how many books I have to write in a pretty short period of time, I'm looking forward to happy printing.

In writing news, well, I should be writing. I've started on the last chapter and then I'll go back to fixing the middle ones.

Labels: Magellan's Witch, Poetry

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Friday, April 27, 2007

Apologies to Michael Chabon, but this made my day

From Pub lunch. I adore Chabon's writing. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was a fantastic book. So, if he struggles and overwrites and needs to rework, then by golly, there's hope for me. I should be so talented, but still. I can't help thinking that the real writers, writers like Chabon, never overwrite or mis-assess their work or every go awry. I bet this book when it comes out will totally rock. I can't wait!

Editing Chabon
Today's WSJ looks at the editing process for Michael Chabon's forthcoming YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION. An on-sale date was set by the end of the 2005 until "his editor slammed on the brakes." Chabon says, "I shudder now when I think that I would have published the old draft." With guidance from Harper's Courtney Hodell, Chabon "spent about eight months reworking the entire book." She tells the Journal, "He's a writer of terrific extravagance in the language but great subtlety on the emotional side. A lot of what I was doing was coaxing him to come a little closer to the reader." Chabon admits, "I do overwrite. And this book needed a lot of chopping."

Labels: craft, Writers, writing

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Thursday, April 26, 2007

Just a Moment

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Ezra Pound

It's still National Poetry Month. And yeah, the more I read about Ezra Pound the more I disliked him as a person. His personal politics were distasteful to say the least. But, boy, could he write poetry. I love this poem. But I like H.D. better just on principle.

In non-poetic news, today has been a wash. I had to meet with my prof and didn't get home from that until 5:30. It was also my son's open house, so we left for that at 6:30 after I made him get his own soup for dinner while I answered an email from a high school student who's got some questions about writing and writers. Got home from the open house about 7:45. Get the kid to bed etc, and I'm only now sitting down to write. Or not. Because, of course, I'm doing this instead.

Tomorrow is Friday (yay!) and the beginning of my week off to finish the Master's degree project.

Labels: Poetry, Writers

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Wednesday, April 25, 2007

More poetry -- with a mystery at the end

Since it's still National Poetry Month, here's another favorite poem of mine. My Last Duchess by Robert Browning (1842). When I read this poem (for the Brit. Lit survey I took right before grad school) I immediately saw this poem as a nice compact lesson for fiction writers. My analysis of that below:

Ferrara
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my Lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace — all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but thanked
Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark" — and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

OK, so what do you think? Did the Duke murder his first wife? And what's going to happen to the next one? If you care about such things, Wikipedia has a pretty good article about the poem.

Browning never once mentions murder or evil intent, and yet the Duke is simply not a nice man. He chills your blood doesn't he?

When you're writing fiction, you need to do what Browning has done in this poem. Make the reader know someone is a murderer without actually telling. Well, yeah. If it were easy, we'd all be Robert Browning, right?

Labels: Poetry, writing craft

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Scandalous News

My news is that today Scandal sold to Berkley Books in a two book deal, so that's pretty awesome. Publication dates to be determined shortly. I'm guessing very late 2008.

I'm posting early because my son's science project is due Thursday and he's -- how shall I put this? Driving me nuts. I'd write a sentence of my own and he'd call me to ask a question or some read what he had so far. A worthy endeavor, don't get me wrong. And yet, I had to work hard not to just say he needed to try a little harder please. He proved himself a master of sentences which repeat and/or say nothing at all. With sufficient prodding and a refusal on my part to listen to whining, he somehow managed to actually write down what he did OK, back from a formatting interruption - another worthy question, he did need help, but arghh!. Anyway, now I have to get to work on Magellan's witch. Urk.

Labels: Scandal

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Monday, April 23, 2007

Ballast unloaded, Cap'n!

Tonight I got to about the middle of chapter 14, having cut a fair amount from chapter 13 because I was thinking, isn't this over yet? So right before that point I deleted all the stuff after that point and got it to a chapter end, sorta. That put me about 200 words ahead for the night. So then I went and deleted my two ballast chapters, whose main purpose I think was to sit around in the word count whispering Hey, you might need us! And I did, for moral support. Until I did a little arithmetic and realized that with 13 chapters yet to slog through (more about that later) and adding at least 1000 words a night (well, yeah, except for tonight) I'd be at 93K before I even got around to writing the last chapter, and I have (setting aside the MA madness for a moment) at least 3-6 more rounds through this thing. So, I put them in the recycling in case I really do need some of those 3,400 words back. They're sitting there with the rest of the guests in the green room. Maybe they'll get back on the show. Who knows?

In the meantime, this book is unusual for me in that I am going through these chapters and it's torture to see all those flat emotions, missing detail, stuff and I just keep writing and fixing and fixing and fixing. I get all panicky about how sucky it all is and then the muse kicks in and things are off in some direction I wasn't thinking about on purpose. I just follow along, hoping the fingers hold out while I keep fixing stuff and dealing with the new stuff.

There have been a couple of sparks of life, so I have hope that as an MA project this will not reek too badly. But it will not, as I have represented to everyone, be the finished product.

All righty. My next goal is to get into bed before 10:00pm. I have 6 minutes.

Labels: editing, Magellan's Witch

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Update! Plus Other stuff

Delivery estimate: September 26, 2007

* 1 of: Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 5)
Sold by: Amazon.com

Well, just yay, of course. That's less time waiting.

Other stuff is mostly writer's angst about Magellan's Witch and my MA. Cue ominous music: Things That Need To Get Done. Dun dun dunnnnnn!

Back to work.

Labels: Magellan's Witch

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Sunday, April 22, 2007

pretend there are cymbols clashing

Yeah. I'm that annoying energizer bunny. I'm fixing up chapter 13 now. Had two cool things happen. I have 80K and a bit which is where I wanted to be by now. Turns out one of my characters is an oncologist. I knew he had a secret. So, by Friday, I hope to have fixed up the rest of 13 on through 26 or so. I think I have to call the project done by the 30th (in terms of the MA) so I can work on formatting it etc. Well, we'll see. I actually have no idea where things will stand by Friday. Wherever, I guess.

Usually, I've done a lot more read throughs than I have on this one so far. My changes have been so big, there's been no point. Many of my chapters are too long. I've chopped a few in half, but long chapters, for me, are an indication of a pacing problem. I still haven't written the last chapter. I definitely have to get around to that.

I didn't get quite as much done as I'd hoped because my son has a science project due Thursday and he has been procrastinating despite my nagging because he's just positive nothing will go wrong. He's doing a paper airplane flight test thing. Anyway this morning I had to deal with several tearful episodes as imagination hit reality. He was upset because he didn't like his data. Explanation about scientific process and not imposing one's expectations and hopes onto method in order to achieve the desired data.

Interesting observation: the tween brain appears to shut down when a parent starts talking about school work and the Right Way To Do Things. Just noticing, that's all. Eventually, he went off to fly paper airplanes and measure the distance traveled. Later, there was a mess in the living room. How, he wanted to know, was he supposed to clean up ALL those models that didn't work out? His brain shut off again, but it didn't get him out of cleaning up.

Ok, it's late. I'm off to bed.

Labels: Magellan's Witch

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Saturday, April 21, 2007

Just call me the garbage lady

Today I wrote pretty much all day. I fixed up to chapter 11 and then had to reorder, which meant pulling out the chapter outline and conforming that so I wouldn't mess up.** The fixing also included deleting a lot of garbage. I was going to knock off at 7:30 but it turned out I was only up 1600 words or so, so I went back to work and for a while there I was deleting more stuff. But then I had this totally awesome idea for my twins and that made the deleting easier. Anyway, now I'm up 2009 and my back hurts and my shoulders are sore because my dog and my cat insist on sharing my lap and I have to keep my legs together and my thighs straight so the dog doesn't slide off. This MUST be giving me awesome back muscles, right?

** For a long time, I used to give my chapters long descriptive names, but that got to be too much of a hassle because I was constantly having to fix my master document. I have a master document with the main formatting etc and I keep the individual chapters as sub documents. When I need to (like when I'm printing off the whole thing or need to know the total word count) I merge my chapters into the master document. And then, automagically, my chapters number themselves sequentially and the pagination of each chapter picks up from the last page of the previous one. So, I eventually took to naming my chapters 001. 002, etc. This does mean I have to be careful about inserting a chapter somewhere in the sequence, but I have a system that works for me. Maintaining my master document is now a total breeze. My chapter outline is also auto numbered by chapter, but with an internal reference to the actual chapter number. That makes it easy to do virtual moves of the chapters in the outline and lets me know that, say, chapter 16 needs to be renamed chapter 12, with 13-15 being renumbered accordingly. Believe it or not, this is a lot less error prone and much less work than my descriptive names for chapters (and yes, I also started those names with a number.) I spend a lot less time now fixing chapter order errors than I used to.

The thing is, I'm constantly moving chapters around. I'm sure there are writers out there who don't have to do this, but I do. I try to write my stories front to back, but stuff always happens in the middle that changes everything and events need to move around chronologically to accommodate a better story arc.

Now I'm going to bed.

Labels: craft, Magellan's Witch, writing

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Friday, April 20, 2007

Almost tomorrow

I'm still working on Magellan's Witch, but I'll have to knock off soon or else fall asleep over the keyboard. I'm fixing bit of a mess in this chapter. It's going well enough, considering it's mess fixing and more to do of it tomorrow.

I've listened to all my new music. I am now a total MySpace convert because I found about about Paolo Nutini from someone's MySpace music. He's a 19 year old Scot, totally gorgeous and an amazing talent.

Back to work.

Labels: Magellan's Witch, Paolo Nutini

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Gasping to the finish line.

Oh, yes. It's Friday. It's been a long and heck-ish week. Ick. I have two complaints, in no particular order:

• Hard plastic wrap around electronic gizmos -- that stuff makes me hate the product before I get it out of the box


• The shrink wrap and plastic tape on CD cases. -- I hate the music company before I even listen to the cd

Now I'm home, it's the weekend, I have new music to listen to, and I have to get cracking on the writing. Off to it

Oh, this morning at the gym I blocked out the ending for Magellan's Witch, which was kind of a relief.

Last thing, I think. Last night I finished reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series to my son. I'm in awe. Here's an interesting quote from Pullman's website: I thought it would be hard to find an audience for this story....

All I can say is that some books make a mark on you for life, and this series has done that for me and my son. I am grateful to have read this to him. The series is profoundly great, and belongs in the canon.

Labels: Magellan's Witch, Philip Pullman

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Thursday, April 19, 2007

Son, I totally agree

My son ended up with more homework than usual (he says) and it was not done when I picked him up from school. Consequently, he is now in the kitchen moaning and whining: This is torture! This is taking forEVER! Owwwhhh.

And I'm sitting here at the computer, working on Magellan's Witch, thinking, This is torture! This is taking forEVER! Owwwhhh.

Back to work.

Labels: Magellan's Witch

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Some Poetry

In honor of National Poetry Month (I think it is, anyway) Here's one of my favorite poems, by H.D.

Sea Violet

The white violet
is scented on its stalk,
the sea-violet
fragile as agate,
lies fronting all the wind
among the torn shells
on the sand-bank.

The greater blue violets
flutter on the hill,
but who would change for these
who would change for these
one root of the white sort?

Violet
your grasp is frail
on the edge of the sand-hill,
but you catch the light--
frost, a star edges with its fire.

I'd never even heard of H.D. before grad school, and I'm glad I was introduced to her poetry. Her fiction, not so much, but her poetry, yes. She was a compatriot, lover, friend of Ezra Pound, who was responsible for giving her the intials H.D. (Her name was Hilda Dolittle.) Sea Violet is my favorite of hers, I think. I love the language and the image and the emotion of this poem.

Labels: Poetry

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ohmygoshwheredoesthetimego?

I'm frantically working to get my sh&t done by May 4th. The day job is taking up too much of my real life right now. Argh! I'm taking the last day of April (my birthday) and May 1-4 as vacation so I can get things polished and formatted correctly. Carolyn the web hound is ignoring just about all her email and barely paying attention to MySpace (where I continue to find really neat friends who like to talk about books.) I'm testy and tired. I dropped off my Master's introduction for my professor to read -- she wanted to see a draft -- precis whatever it is and all I could think during the drive there and back and the really brisk walk to Nichols Hall and back, was that I could be writing... Then it was, do I stop and buy my son Fish and Chips for dinner or find something at home to cook when I already made him have frozen chimichanga's (well, yeah, he cooked them first) last night. Right, F&C it is.

Despite my panic, I think Magellan's Witch is going reasonably well. I'm now going through front to back and editing the hell out of everything. I'm at 74K and working on chapter 6 tonight I think. I have no ending and am hoping by the time I get to the end I'll have one.

My last bit of news is that I should have news on Scandal shortly. Nothing I can talk about yet, but good things it seems. We'll see.

Labels: Graduate School, Magellan's Witch, Scandal

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Sunday, April 15, 2007

Is Academia Coming Around?

Here's a really interesting article about Nora Roberts. The last two paragraphs are especially interesting. This academic actually read one of Nora's books, and his analysis is fascinating. Worth the read.

Labels: romance genre, Writinng

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Saturday, April 14, 2007

The end is near!

Today I finished a really solid draft of the introduction for my Master's project. Yay. Now I can concentrate on Magellan's Witch and getting that in decent shape. I'll need a few days to get the formatting right and there's forms to be filled out etc, but soon I will be done. I can see the finish line!

Labels: Graduate School

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Morning Report

Right now I'm sitting at Starbucks doing my day job project. At this exact moment, I'm waiting for files to finish transferring. This weekend I intend to have my Master's precis all done. So, last night I worked on it. It's supposed to be 10-20 pages, right now I have 9 sop length is going to be an issue. I'm going to have to cut massively by the time I'm done.

Interesting thing though, I had to look through Magellan's Witch for some things and I can see where I need to revise the front part to match some recent changes, and where I've diluted the impact by addressing the same subject in different parts of the same chapter. I seem to do this a lot. I'll need be fixing that... Back to work.

Labels: day job, Magellan's Witch

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Thursday, April 12, 2007

Late Again

I'm at 71K for Magellan's Witch. I've made a little adjustment (that needs to be rolled throughout the pages) that gives the title some added meaning, which I always like. I've reordered a chapter or two, got myself into and out of a corner or two (again) and realized that my hero is a bit more twisted than I thought. I was going to print the thing off tonight, but then I saw where a chapter needed to be moved, and then I deleted enough words to put me below 70K and since I didn't want to be in the negatives for the night I decided to fix just enough to smooth out the chapter and at least get back to 70K. I made it to 71+ but now it's late again.

Right now, my big worry is that when I do read it through it'll be a disaster. And I only have 20 days to get it into decent shape. Before tonight I was stressing over the lack of chemistry between my hero and heroine, so I notebooked that at the gym and decided maybe I'd have them get together a lot sooner, but for a different reason. Which is what I wrote tonight, and I think it came out pretty good. I felt like they were realistically hot together.

This weekend, I have to work Sunday, hopefully only in the morning, but still that's hours not writing. And I want to complete the precis this weekend, which I think means no fiction writing this weekend. Stressing. Yes. Definitely.

Labels: Graduate School, Magellan's Witch

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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

In Which Carolyn Writes Herself out of a Corner

69K words for Magellan's Witch. I almost gave up for the night about 45 minutes ago. I was fixing more stuff and getting my hero in those scenes he needed to be in and then I wrote myself into a corner. I'd moved a bunch of stuff around so I was only addressing a certain subject in one place instead of more than one, I consolidated characters etc, and then for a while things were a big awful mess. The choreography was all wrong and people were standing around awkwardly, either too close to or too far from wherever they needed to be, and the tension was going pfft and then, even worse, I realized that if I were my hero and heroine (which in a way I am) I'd just get the heck out of Dodge. And I tell you it's not a fun feeling when you realize you have all your key characters together in a scene that's supposed to be tense only there's no reason on earth to believe these people would ever be in the same room with each other without pulling knives. In my own immortal words, uh oh.

I just wanted to say Carolyn you hopeless hack, stop here for now and fix it tomorrow. In fact, I did say that.

But I kept going and fixed my staging and set problem and all of a sudden my antagonist was doing some really unexpected creepy stuff and it totally worked. He came up with the reason why they should even be in the same room, let alone talking and lying and establishing agendas and the like. Neat. And what a relief, I might add.

Labels: editing, Magellan's Witch, Pantsing

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Monday, April 09, 2007

Ah, my little dumpling . . . Yes!

Tonight I tackled chicken and dumplings again and success! I pulled out the old Betty Crocker book, followed the dumpling instructions almost faithfully, and winged it on the chicken. (Good gosh, two puns in the same day!**) Ah, yes, I ended up with light yummy dumplings. And the dumpling lore is this: Do not cook them in the water. You set the dough on TOP of the meat which is in a frying pan with boiling whatever but has enough meat in it that the dumplings will not fall into the water. 10 minutes boiling no cover, then 10 more covered with a domed cover.

** See previous post.

67+ K for Magellan's Witch.

I have an issue to deal with. I think I have too many characters right now and I'm going to have to do the authorial version of a Vulcan mind meld on somebody I know who!! -- Shut up -- and combine some characters. But I haven't sussed out the exact roles those parts are playing, so I'm not sure how to most effectively combine them. The thing I don't want to admit right now is that Mr. Zorro stripes may actually be taking the place of my hero in these last scenes I've been working on. That damn little voice is shouting at me so loud that I can't think. Something isn't right. Hero and heroine cannot be separated for this many pivotal scenes. Listen to me! Lookit, I'll notebook it at the gym tomorrow and get some clarity OK? So will you just shut up, now? No. That's not my job. I'm going to haunt you in your dreams and all those moments when you lose track of an important conversation or in the shower or whatever. Maybe the stairs. Right. Thanks. A writer must be eternally vigilant.

Or maybe just nuts.

Labels: Magellan's Witch, writing, Writting. freaking writing

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Early Bird

Shipping estimate for these items: October 2, 2007
Delivery estimate: October 3, 2007
1 "Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 5)"
J.R. Ward; Paperback; $7.99

OK, that post title is such an incredible pun. Cuz, you know, right, that JR Ward started out as Nicole Bird?

But that still misses the point, which is that I have to wait until OCTOBER!! for my Vishous fix. October 3rd is a Wednesday. I'll have to take Thursday off to recover from the sleep deprivation.

All righty, back to the salt mines for me.

Labels: Black Dagger Brotherhood, writing

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Sunday, April 08, 2007

My e is nearly gone!

I've had my keyboard a fairly long time. And, I've been lucky not to spill any water on it. Which means that certain letters are fading to nonexistence. E, A, S and Backspace. R, T, N, H and M are looking a little faint, too. A couple of the arrow keys. Just noticing.

In writing news, my long weekend was not quite as productive as I'd hoped since I woke up Saturday feeling pretty awful. Sore throat, etc. This, of course, explains my falling asleep the previous Thursday. My body was fighting something off. Rats. So I mostly stayed in bed and read the new Laurel K. Hamilton Danse Macabre in between sleeping. The dog and all three cats cuddled up for some fever action and to be honest, it was OK for feeling crappy. I was comfy enough and it wasn't a hideous illness.

I was better by late evening and did get some stuff done. And today was Easter so we did the family and friends things. Still, I have 66,449 words for Magellan's Witch, and all that came while conforming the last few chapters I have. Some good stuff came out of it. At this point, I pretty much don't use my chapter outline except rarely. Instead, I switch to keeping a list of Action Items, so I can remember details I need to change or develop. In one scene, my heroine is wearing a sweater, but not much further on, in the same time setting, I changed the sweater to a shirt. So I need to remember to change that.

Tomorrow it's back to work. Sigh. Next week, the Master's precis has to be done, so I'll need to pull some more time for that. Time is looking like a precious commodity right now. I'll into the beginning meat of it now and it's going well enough. Boy, do I just want to be done with this. Really.

Labels: Graduate School, Magellan's Witch

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Friday, April 06, 2007

Reporting in as Ordered

Today was a day off the day job. Things didn't go exactly as planned. When do they ever? I slept late, probably a good thing, considering. Took the laptop with me to go get my car serviced. I got a fair amount done while I was waiting. Then an errand or two and home to discover my brother had dropped off my two nieces and my nephew. Sigh. That blew the morning. We made cookies which was fun, then they went outside to play and I got some work done. But at 1:00pm my son called from school. He's been away at a school camp for the week. I went to pick him up. I let him off at the corner of the driveway because his cousins where there playing in the dirt. This at least allowed me to get his dirty clothes piled up and ready to wash. Get re-acquainted time etc. He had a blast and dirty hair, too. He went off to play with his cousins.

Then my brother came to pick up his kids and my son collapsed on the couch, fried in just about all senses of the work, and then I started to get some serious work done. Break for dinner, then back to work. At one point I was over 64K, but then I hit the spots where I had to do some deep cutting to bring things into alignment with recent changes. The good news is that I ended up a couple hundred words ahead of yesterday which means I wrote a lot to replace the stuff I cut.

Thus, the good news is I did what I intended, which was conform the story, which I did. Along with a couple of surprises that I enoyed, moreo or less. Tomorrow, I'll get that completed and then probably print it out and see where I stand. But, at 63K, I can't be adding too many (if any at all) plot points. The rest of the 25K or so is going to come from editing and layering.

I just hope this doesn't suck. I can't tell yet.

Labels: editing, Magellan's Witch

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Thursday, April 05, 2007

About Yesterday . . .

At 4:30 yesterday afternoon I sat down at my computer, put on the headphones so I could listen to some music and opened up Magellan's Witch to get cracking. I woke up at 6:00 pm.

Uh-oh.

I tried to write, but yesterday was not a gym day (I'm doing a different workout on Mondays and Wednesdays in which my hands are not free for notebooking) so I had no clear idea what to do. I gave up about 6:30 and worked on the intro to the final project for my Master's. It went OK, but not great. I went to bed at 8:30 and tried notebooking for about five minutes. I stopped because I was basically brain dead. I went to sleep feeling like my whole story totally sucked and worse, with so much written already, there wasn't anyway to start over. Rats.

Cue New Day After 8 Hours of Sleep. . .



I got to the gym about 5:00 a.m. and was stretching out before the actual sweaty part starts and Bling! The entire solution to my issues of yesterday came into my head. Seriously. Exactly like that. So I notebooked that, and some awesome notions and tonight I'll be making those adjustments. I have tomorrow off, so hopefully I can get all that done before the weekend.

Labels: creative process, Magellan's Witch, Sleep

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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Still alive

62,157 as of tonight for Magellan's Witch. Yesterday I was happily typing away at something not exactly writing related (except the typing part) thinking I had the whole evening uninterrupted, when suddenly I remembered I was supposed to go to my son's soccer parent meeting at 7:00 and it was 6:42. Uh-oh. So I made two copies of his birth certificate and dashed out of the house and found the meeting place at about 6:59. Totally cool. And then -- imagine this from the board member reps blah blah yadda blah soccer blah blah de blah de blah de blah money blah Only way more boring even than that. At one point I actually got out my notebook and started writing because it was either that or poke myself with a stick or something. There was a weirdly cool painting on the wall that looked like a cross between a white Zorro and a skinny Sioux Indian, where the guy had these cool stripe things on his face, so I decided my new character (who turned out to have a twin sister) has cool stripes on his face. Inspiration is inspiration folks.

When I got home (at last -- the interesting part from the coach and trainer lasted about 5 minutes) I went back and gave the new guy stripes and then tonight when I was finishing up that scene and getting going on the stuff that comes after, the stripes turned out to be something neato. Everyone did stuff exactly the opposite of what I notebooked this morning at the gym.

What else? I have Friday off. Yay! Because I had to work most of the weekend and stay late Monday - which explains why I was lollygagging Monday and forgot about the meeting until the nick of time.

But now I'm going to bed and maybe have time to finish Tess Garritson's Vanish.

Labels: inspiration, Magellan's Witch

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Sunday, April 01, 2007

Afternoon Post and Stuff

Yesterday I got a lot done. I had to make up for the day job sucking up all of Friday, so on Saturday I had to do double the minimum. I did, plus some. I had to get up at 5:30 on Saturday so I could make sure all my day job stuff got done. It did. So, I was awake (sort of) to get an early start on the writing. Knocked off at 1:00 to make sure my son has everything he needs for his week away. Then my brother was up from Santa Barbara, but I ignored him until after I was done writing. Got a little more writing done last night so now I'm up to 57K words. And two unexpected things happened.

First I realized after I met with my prof on Thursday that what I thought was the middle of my book is, in fact, the end. Not the last chapter, but stuff that happens at the end, and the stuff that I was going to have happen afterward in fact belonged in the middle. So I took care of that yesterday and moved some other stuff around. Then I wrote the first of the two new chapters which I think came out well. Next up, the second of the new chapters which started out boring as hell. Oops. They're heading north to a country retreat where some stuff will happen. (I swear!) Now, I know enough now that I need to stop when it's boring and start over, so I did and turns out that at the country retreat there is a woman taking care of a man who was formerly vital and powerful but has been messed up totally by the antagonist. Anyway, it was fun to meet these people and start seeing how they're going to help me pick up the themes running through my story.

What else? Well, stuff, of course. Doh.

Labels: Magellan's Witch

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