Romance Novel weblog by Carolyn Jewel
Carolyn Jewel Romance Author

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What's it like to be a fiction writer? Read on. (Writer's Diary Archives)

Writer's Diary

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Meet my friend Mr. Delete Key

Xia is just over 93K, but I'm not getting out the fork yet. I've finished my read back and fixed a lot of typos and other general clunkiness. I've started searching through the MS for words ending in LY. Most of them meet my good friend Mr. Delete Key.

DELETE


Since I wanted to blog tonight I ended that at Chapter 17. Will finish that tomorrow, I hope. Then I have at least one chapter that needs some work. Then I guess a read through on paper and then I'll be pretty much out of time.

Sigh

Today I got my State tax refund and a royalty statement for A Darker Crimson which had an unexpectedly large check in it. Nowhere near enough to buy a MacBook Air, but it will finish paying for my son's braces.

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Sunday, March 23, 2008

I'm baaack!

Back from visiting my brother and his wife in Santa Barbara. We had a great time, even though I did, sadly, lose my camera somewhere in the SB mountains. Rats. So I do not have any great photos of breathtaking views, although we saw many such views and I'm sure at least some of my pictures were great.

Other than that, I cut a chapter of Xia. Sigh And got up to about chapter 8 or 9 I think on a read through. Which considering that I was doing family visiting stuff, isn't too bad. Most of that got done in the car on the way there or the way back.

Had to give the Fudgester a bath when I got home. He'd rolled in something v. smelly. Of the not so recently dead variety. He has forgiven me, I think.

I'm in full freak out mode and tired. Back to work.

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Monday, March 10, 2008

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

That was me today. Rowr! Chapters 12 and 13 completely turned upside down and backwards. I made a trash file for the first time with this puppy. As Xia would say, Boo hoo, you effing witch. You did what had to be done. So f*ck that. or something a lot like that anyway. He's out somewhere up to no good, or I'd ask him.

Still, I'm only in the hole a thousand words. More R&S tomorrow though.

To bed for me.

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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Literary Twister

Last night, this morning at the gym and during various downtimes of the day, I've been mulling over this particular scene that Just Wasn't Working the way it needed to. It involves Xia giving Alexandrine a substance that affects people with magic. Originally, he did it to prove to her she has magic. But the new! Alexandrine already knows that. Obviously, that original scene needed a re-write. While notebooking at the gym, I settled on her taking the pill by accident. I recognized the idea was a wee bit lame, but I thought if I meditated on it some more, I'd see my way to the solution. I am not at my best at 5:00 a.m.

So I sat down to do the work this evening and I was in there with the machete getting things conformed etc and at last I get to the substance scene at the end of chapter 6. How is she going to take this pill?

She's not. It turns out, as I was writing, that, as a former teen runaway (which was previously established) she had issues with drugs and does not take any drugs ever anymore. Color me surprised! But this revelation ended up being a major development in their relationship. Oh! Oh! I get it! Neat-o.

But now I had a chapter 7 of substance-induced events that needed a new home. And I knew the perfect place for it. Between chapters 13 and 14. The beginning of 14 got spliced onto the top of chapter 7 which was renumbered as Chapter 13 (with 8-13 becoming 7-12) Are you following me here? and then about-to-be 13 and 14 were temporarily combined so I could look for the best chapter ending. Found it. Chopped it. And Voila as they say in France. Chapters 7 and 14 were spliced and split and became 13 and 14. It's a bit messy yet but tomorrow I will smooth that out into a scene that has my heroine who is afraid of backsliding on drugs facing the ABSOLUTE NECESSITY of taking a drug that humans with magic routinely abuse... See? Much more at stake.

It's like that game Twister. Only with words and paragraphs and my characters and story instead of people.

This sounds like a horror show, I know. I suspect it is, but that's how it's been for all my books so far. I have an advanced case of esprit d'escalier only since these great ideas have to do with a novel which takes a while to put together, I can actually go back with the perfect bon mot and nobody will ever know I didn't think of it until way late.

I have to do this kind of slice and dice very quickly because I often need to have 3 or 4 chapters all in my head as I reassemble and sort out the bits and put the left overs in the right places, and I don't want to forget who's going where. If I go too slow or think too much every thing just goes to heck. It's scary because in the middle every thing's a bit fat mess, and I get in there and muck about and then it's all better. Usually. To be honest, sometimes it's not and I have to start over. But this one feels good.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Sigh

Didn't get much done today. At least not yet. Stuff going on etc that's distracting me a bit. I struggled with Xia today so I decided to start reading from the beginning in order to get a check on where I am with this. Are things hanging together? Are there small tweaks doing big things? Stuff like that. The answer seems to be yes, more or less. So, back to it. Sigh

But Xia ia gratifyingly bad in the opening chapter, and I fixed it starting out more boring than it should have. Hopefully I fixed it enough. I have 15 chapters so far. I hope to exceed 30K today. That would be good.

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

YesSSSSS!!

Fork

Photo by
Amodiovalerio Verde

Scandal is done. Since I cried at several chapters, I'm happy.

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Monday, December 10, 2007

Down to the Wire

Today I hit 95,066 words so I'm golden tonight. I'm up to chapter 23 in the final read through. I fixed my two trouble spots and it rocks completely. Put a bit more on the line in a couple chapters tonight. Tomorrow, I'm pushing on.

Tonight, I'm going to bed.

I've been listening to a lot of James Blunt as I finish up. I really love the emotion of his music. Plus sometimes he uses a bad word or two and it's really kind of nice knowing the work wasn't sanitized for consumption. I have three of his CD's now and when I have the money I'll be on a quest for everything else he's done. I can sing along to the music and get myself in a good mood for writing. Which is pretty much the whole point. Yet another artist discovered from MySpace. But not from his profile. From someone else's profile music. So, let's see. Someone has a song of his playing on their profile. Carolyn hears it, and now owns three of his CD's plus an Amazon download of a single he did on some other album. So, why do artists delete their songs from MySpace profiles?

What else? Killer headache. But I can't get sick so I won't. That's it. At my son's soccer practice the temp was 53 with about an hour to go and by the end it was 44. Yeah, people who live with real weather are wondering why I'm complaining about a heat wave but for here, that's just darned cold. I was thinking about putting on my socks.

OK, off to bed.

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Sunday, December 09, 2007

Still working...

I fell asleep this afternoon. I feel a lot better for the nap, but it kinda put a crimp in the reading. I went grocery shopping early today so as to get it out of the way and have my afternoon clear, but a bunch of stuff kept coming up. I washed hundreds (and I do mean hundreds) of box elder beetles off the outside of the sliding glass door in my room. After that murderous spree, I admitted I had a couple of rough patches to fix in Scandal and then went and fixed them. I hope. And no I was NOT procrastinating or anything like that. Sheesh! Like I'd ever do that. I just didn't want to stare at all those bugs any more. I didn't. Would you? I wish the peacocks were still here. They ate a lot of box elder beetles.

I had to make two batches of cookies tonight, one for the Darling Child and his lunches for the week, the other for the Cookie Parade at work. Not, as I was hoping, an event where you dress up as your favorite cookie, but one where you bring them to work for every one to enjoy. Can you say good bye diet? I can. Rats.

Anyway, I'm going to read more and hope I find out that I've fixed the problem chapters.

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Saturday, December 08, 2007

Making Progress!

Today I got through all my action items for Scandal. Yay! By the time I was ready to print out the MS for a final read through I was up to 94K. I'm doing the read through now, and it's going pretty well so far. Nothing major. So far.

I'm posting early because I promised my son months ago that we'd see the Golden Compass when it came out. The movie's out now. We're just waiting for my sister to get here, since she gets off early enough on Saturdays that she can come with us. Then we're off to the movie.

At the moment, I'm really tired. Don't know why but I am.

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Friday, December 07, 2007

Closing in

I think I'm just about done with Scandal. No fork quite yet, but I finished having it read to me. I have a list of action items, going through the MS for phrases I think I've repeated or overused, some continuity etc. There's only 8 things on the list. I'll get through that in the mornning, then print it off and start reading.

At the gym in the AM, I've started blocking out the next paranormal. That's been fun. Sort of.

OK, off to sleep.

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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Catching up

Looks like my (very) brief post from yesterday got munched. Oh. Well. It went like this: Working on Scandal. Back to it.

That is still a true statement. I'm having it read back to me. Catching a lot of pesky typos and fixing a lot of continuity stuff. I have this habit of (need to?) moving stuff around, and then I forget where things are and either don't delete or don't conform enough to the new (for now) home. There's a lot of that in this one. To quote my favorite TV show ever (::Adrian Paul::) Highlander: There can be only one. Meaning, typically, your characters can only meet for the first time once, not once in each of 5 to 6 chapters. Sheesh. Looks bad, you know? So I'm fixing that.

The best part is that little things are getting settled and elicited. Things that make a story resonate. Which is better than if it sucks. Back to work.

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Saturday, December 01, 2007

Typing Typing Typing

Keep those doggies typing
Raw Nerves!
Fix it up
Cut the crap
Add some in
Edit more!
Raw Nerves!


That's me. Working on Scandal. I'm writing a new chapter right now. But I finally got to a spot where I wasn't fixing the crap out of, er, crap and was just fixing typos and polishing, which was SUCH a relief. Then I got to a spot where I realized I needed a new chapter, just to add a certain element of suspense that was missing. But I thought of a good one and after this post I'll be back to it.

What else? In all of November, I think we had exactly 1 day of rain. It's cold (for here) and when I went out this morning to snap some pics, I had to wear shoes instead of my sandals. Geez! My cat Jake finally got tired of trying to push me off my chair and is now back to sleeping on the printer.

Random Pics from this morning:
The first Snowbells of the Winter

Snowbells, a small white flower with green dots at the ends of the petals.

Leaves Frozen under the Ice in a BirdBath
Leaves Frozen In the Birdbath

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Sunday, November 25, 2007

where does the time go?

I actually have the answer. Time flies because it's a hurry to join all your lost socks. They put on a great party, you see. And whenever time seems like it's slowing down? That's what happens when someone discards all their onesie-socks. The time-space continuum flexes when the missing socks are returned to the poor fool. Inevitably some other schmuck gets stuck in one of the creases. For him, or her, time inexplicably slows. This is most noticeable at the dentist's office or fifteen minutes before it's time to go home from someplace boring. Mostly we don't notice. But it happens, I assure you.

What, you never read A Wrinkle in Time? I'm sure that was in there.

Working on Scandal. Not looking forward to going back to the day job.

And sorry, despite the tag, this post has nothing to do with Navy SEALs. I just wish it did because that would be better than just about anything, including fixing that wretched chapter 8. Plus, you know, why not think about Navy SEALs now and again? I'm sure it's good for me.

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Sunday, November 18, 2007

The weekend's ended. Rats.

Today was a very busy day. I slept later than I wanted to but given my typical sleep deficit, it's probably a good thing. The Darling Child spent the night at his uncle's house (that would be Uncle Geography for readers of this blog) so I worked all morning but wasn't as productive as I hoped. Then I had to go shopping and then make cookies because today was the DC's end of League Play party, and I said I'd make cookies. Then I had to call the uncle to bring the DC home, and off to the party. And, the party was pretty fun, there were parents this year who like to talk about literature! One of the parents had met Michael Chabon. Whoa. Golly, I love talking about books so for once I wasn't standing around feeling like a dork. The kids had a good time, they ran around outside and when it was too dark to see they came in all sweaty and hot and ready for cake.

When we came home I got some good work done, though.

Now I just get to buckle down and polish and hopefully have time to send it out for outside reading.

What else? Nothing. I have to go to work tomorrow and that's always kind of depressing, especially when I wish I had 10K more words than I do. Although, come to think of it, I always wish that. And the words I have I've beginning to suspect are quality. Let's hope.

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Saturday, November 17, 2007

In Which Things Get a Little Better

Tonight, I wrote my ending chapter. It needs a little work, but it's there where yesterday there was nothing. I also made back the word count I lost from cutting the two sucky chapters yesterday. Yay for me. I have one or two more chapters that I know need some work. I hope to get that done tomorrow. And then I'll have a crappy draft. But, as every writer knows, crap can be fixed.

In other news, my brother was supposed to come over to give my son a man-to-man talk that would reinforce The Talk that I've had with him about S. E. X. I consider this especially important now that girls have discovered him. So, pretend for a minute, that this girl who is interested in my son and who my son is (supposedly) just friends with has a name that sounds like the capital of a country. This is true. Pretend that it's Paris. Her name isn't Paris, but pretend. My brother's conversation with my son went like this:

Uncle: Hey, I hear you really like France.
Son: Yeeahhh. Why?
Uncle: I hear one city in particular is your favorite.
Son: What?
Uncle: Yeah, it's the capital of France. Paris.
Son: (whispering to self) I gotta talk to my mom.


I am not kidding. I was in the kitchen at the time, and I overhead it and while I may not have the exact words, this is pretty darn close. I did not ask my brother to talk to my son about geography. We have an enormous map of the world on the wall in the hallway. My son and I often stand in front of that map and talk about geography. He's actually very good at geography.

The conversation should have gone like this:


Uncle: Never have sex. But if you do, use a condom. You know what a condom is, right?
Son: Yeeahhh. Why?
Uncle: Do you know how to use one?
Son: Umm.
Uncle: [Manly talk that women never hear, but that conveys respect for women and mastery over the use of birth control.]
Son: Thank you. But I'm going to listen to my mom and never have sex.


Geography. Oh, for crying out loud.

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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Progress Report -- Panic with a Chance of Hysteria

Things are developing as I edit like crazy. Trying to combine a read-through with regular editing. At least I get a lot done during soccer practice. It's not been cold at all lately, so I'm OK sitting in the back seat with the laptop. Very few distractions.

Any hoo - I need titles for the novel formerly known as Magellan's Witch. Fiends. Mages. Witches. They all hate each other. People fall in love anyway. Warlord Fiend. Witch who can't use her magic. They shouldn't get together but they do. Any and all suggestions appreciated.

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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Eve of All Hallow's Eve...

I've always wanted to write that. And today is my big chance!

All righty. Got that out of my system. I'm exhausted. It's been a long day and for some reason I didn't sleep all that well last night. Sigh.. I worked on Scandal at the gym and right as I was in the midst of a huge reorg of material involving musical chapters and parts flying all over, my 45 minutes was up. I actually sat on the bike a few more minutes, dripping sweat all over the pages as I worked, but then realized I'd need twenty more at least to get through that so hosed down the bike and went to stretch out and do push ups and sits up before I showered. Sigh. Hopefully I can make some sense of it tonight.

I got a delightful email today from someone who read The Spare in Dutch! That was exciting. I'm so glad she emailed to let me know. Wish I knew what the cover looked like...

OK, off to work on Scandal and go to bed early I think, on this, the Eve of All Hallow's Eve.

Boo.

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

World's most boring post title removed from this space

Moving right along. I went to the gym while my son was at soccer practice, then home etc. I exceeded my minimum tonight because last night I kept waking up to find myself dreaming about Scandal and that resulted in a proper ending for last night's chapter and a new chapter today. Mulled it over during the mental downtime of the day and then while I was waiting for practice to be over notebooked it a bit which meant I was prepared to write tonight.

I'm still kind of freaked that Scandal seems to be going well at the moment. I have to decide now if I go over earlier chapters and get them conformed to its new emotional tenor. I'm trying to avoid saying gravitas again, but I think that's the right word. I think that's the right thing to do because that way when I get to the back chapters I'll know exactly where they're headed and will have undoubtedly (Patti O'Shea, close your eyes now!!) ripped out, reordered and rewritten a good deal of the front two thirds.

Oh, boy. Ripping to shreds. I can hardly wait.

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Tuesday, October 02, 2007

I'm getting nervous

Scandal is going well and that's making me nervous. I wrote more than my minimum tonight but had to delete half an older chapter, so I'm only ahead a couple hundred words tonight. I have a bit over 60,000 words and that's typically critical mass. Now there's much more editing and a lot less first draft writing.

I've nailed down the gravitas of the book which is good. It means I can start editing with that in mind. I imagine over the next month, I'll be moaning and groaning about the pain of it all, but right now, I'm feeling OK about things and that makes me nervous. Tonight's chapter went especially well.

In cooking news, my son is going to be making chocolate mousse for family and his French class. And then crepes and ratatouille for us. My brother who has been a pastry chef for a fancy restaurant sent us instructions and gotchas that included warnings like if the chocolate isn't cool enough, it will seize up... I have no idea what that means. Turn into a lump in the pan? He advised us to practice, so tonight I helped the DC make chocolate mousse using cheap chocolate. We'll use the good stuff for when he's practiced enough. I don't think the chocolate seized up. We'll know tomorrow. I'm up first, so we agreed I get the first taste.

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Thursday, September 20, 2007

That Old Panicky Feeling

Yesterday was my son's Jr. High Open House so that's what I was doing last night. I didn't get much writing done. Maybe three hundred words, and then it was really just too late. I don't want to get behind on my sleep. With soccer season on, I don't think I have any weekends for quite some time during which I can sleep in.

This morning I went to the gym and while I biked I notebooked and mapped out the ending for Scandal. I have that blocked out in my chapter outline and now I'm working my way there. I want to be done by Nov. 15 so I have a month to edit and polish. Meanwhile I have some chapters to fix, and one that is currently homeless, but soon won't be.

Back to work.

Oh, and I guess one last thing. People want to live their lives and be happy and avoid conflict and unpleasantness. But there are events that must not be left unremarked and wrongs that cannot be met with silence or inaction. It's not enough to think someone else will surely be more eloquent or is better placed to act. Quite probably that's true. But the point isn't to wait for someone else's eloquence or the action. The point is to add your voice somehow so that your silence doesn't add itself to evil. Forget eloquence. Act if you can, but speak out. So I'm speaking out.

It really makes me just spitting mad when people say or do things that insult, demean or denigrate another race or gender and then remark, with all seriousness, that gee, they didn't mean it that way. Don't you get that it was a joke? You know, like those white kids in Jenna, Louisiana thought those nooses were a joke. Or the adults who actually said people are overreacting to a prank. Well, it wasn't a joke to the black kids. Right now the legal system in LA is failing all of us. A felony charge? Those nooses were powerful symbols of hate. And quite frankly, if the people of Jenna are really the non-rascists they claim to be, why the hell were they glaring from their porches (as was reported) instead of marching? That's another symbol and I understand it loud and clear. And that's just something I can't let go unremarked.

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Saturday, September 15, 2007

Rats.

So, I was writing along, in between bouts of emailing, turning on the laptop and getting stuff updated etc. (where by etc is meant anything not writing-related) and things were going well. Until it turned out I had to delete all of Chapter 18, which was the most recent chapter, and substitute a different chapter that needed to be conformed to its new home. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad I did it. No sense keeping a chapter that turns out not to be pulling its weight. And, I like the way this section is now coming along.

More soccer tomorrow morning, so I need to get to bed, down 900 and something words. Coulda been worse.

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exhaustion

This morning I was soccer Mom. When we got home from his game, I futzed around a bit, answered emails etc, and then took a nap and fell fast, fast asleep. Not one of those lovely afternoon naps in which the mind is working for you, but a deep, dark completely comatose sleep. I'm still groggy from that. But I'm working on Scandal, in fits. This whole book is getting worked on in fits. I keep worrying that it's too vanilla Regency and I'm worried that it's boring.

The thing is, I have to have enough written to know in my bones what the deal is with the story and the two characters. But I'm not there yet, and so here I am in the painful writing stage. Sigh. Which I hate. I'd much rather be editing a substantially complete book. At the moment, I have just short of 50,000 words, which is not quite critical mass for me. Almost, but not quite. 70K is about where the story is essentially done, the other 20-30K comes from editing and polishing. But I'm not there. Wahhhh! I'd rather clean my desk than do this. OK, I'll stop complaining and go back to work.

My son is off with a friend tonight for a bit, so I don't have to cook dinner. It'd be cool to hit my minimum early and read or relax or something. Which isn't going to happen if I'm blogging. Rats.

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Sunday, September 09, 2007

Weekends are never long enough, are they?

My brother's wedding was really lovely. My son was very handsome in his white shirt and dress pants. I even managed a few pictures of him. The drive up north was winding, but gorgeous. The coast in this part of California is rugged. The wedding was at a house with a back yard (where the ceremony was) that looked directly over the ocean. North Of Gualala There was a beach within sight of the house full of Sea Lions. Their barking was a constant background noise. Later, I grabbed a pair of binocs and got a closer look at them. Got home about five, made dinner and then everyone went to bed early, including me. My brother will probably be mad if he reads this (I don't think he does, most of the family pays very little attention to my writing) but this time he married the right woman. They're wonderful together.


Here's a picture of the Darling Child in Full Pout Mode. He didn't want to leave and the chair was comfy, too. Those are not the dressy clothes, by the way. My Son in Full Pout Mode


Turns out my son's Saturday soccer game that he was supposed to miss because of the wedding got canceled. Today's game went very well. They won 4-0 and looked like a much different team than before. Then we went to Art In The Park where Balou, the ceramacist/potter gave my son a gorgeous pottery mask. He's getting quite a collection of her work. She was telling everyone that he's her oldest customer. We've been seeing her every year now for 6 years. It's really wonderful for him. We had a great time. Then home, and then I had to go shopping.

My dog fell in the pond. One part of it is so covered with duckweed I think he thought it was solid. Fortunately, I was there to pull him out. I'm not sure he could have gotten out on his own. He's quite traumatized over it. Me too, actually.

At last, though, I got to work on Scandal. I finished re-ordering the chapters and wrote a new one. But I'm still behind. Now I have to go to bed.

Last night I finished Lisa Gardner's Survivor's Club. It was really good.

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Saturday, July 28, 2007

Is it possible??

that Magellan's Witch is done?

Today, I did a read through on the computer and did not make a single major change and very few moderate ones. I did change the POV of one chapter, which I will take a look at tomorrow, but honestly, I'm at the point now where I'm likely to make things worse instead of better.

I think.

That's what it seems like now.

But all my trouble spots of late, that pesky chapter 10, the vexing chapter 17, both I just read right through with bated breath...

Is it time for the fork? I'm going to sleep on it. We'll see.

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Friday, July 27, 2007

Working away

The good news is I can email Magellan's Witch to my editor. The bad news is it has to be in Word format. arghh!! Word is just so awful. I'm going to spend July 31 trying to get the darn thing to work. Stuff that is an absolute breeze in Word Perfect is a nightmare in Word. Oh well. I think it's coming along. I got through this last round of edits without ripping anything to shreds. I have my list of Action Items to go through now. These are issues, details and plot points that feel like they're dangling unresolved or unaddressed. I got through two of those tonight and have 3-4 more to deal with tomorrow. I'm not going to row tomorrow, I'll do the make up class on August 4 instead. I'm hoping to push through an entire read through tomorrow. But only if I get to bed pretty soon.

In other news, um, is there any?

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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

I'm a Sculptor (Pronounced Artiste)

So, last night as I was reading chapters 16-18 I was bored. Yuck. So I cut a bunch of stuff and had a sort of a glimmer of an idea but wasn't sure what to do about it. Today I cut even more. A sea of red ink, I tell you. Took the Darling Child to soccer practice and since they had a scrimmage tacked on, I had extra time at the OTHER Starbucks, although just to be safe I ordered hot mint tea. While there, I cut all but 3 pages of chapter 18. Fortunately, Chp 17 was kind of long so I did my find a good chapter ending trick and stuck the rest of chapter 18 onto it, then around page 7 started looking for a place that had high tension. Found it on page 8. All the rest went into a new and improved Chapter 18. Then I re-read what I had starting from chapter 16 and it was good. Darn good.

Yes, today I was a sculptor in that I carved away all the hooptedoodle and left only the good parts and then brought other parts into better relief, with a sort of chiaroscuro effect. Only on paper. The 3D shadows and art part happens in your head.

Now I'm home, I have a dirty rotten headache, but the DC has been fed, the laundry is started and I've printed out the new chapters 16-18 and can only pray they hold up they way they did when I was reading them on the laptop. I used to get all depressed about cutting crap, but today, not at all. The crap needs to go, and fast. So it was really easy and painless to do.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

On the bright side

My changes from yesterday seem to be pretty awesome. After two days of writing and rewriting chapter 10, I made it to chapter 11 and couldn't stop. I had to read chapter 12. Thank goodness. Hopefully nothing else major. That would be nice.

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Sunday, July 22, 2007

Harry Potter (No Spoilers)

I finished last night about 12:30 (or would that be this morning?). It was exciting the entire time. I loved it. I cried, smiled and gasped. I'll write more later when the book has been out longer.

Back to work on Magellan's Witch, which I think may just have come together. In the nick of time, too. We'll see. I'm starting another read-through now.

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Thursday, July 19, 2007

Progress Report

Well, so far so good. I got the last round of changes in and have started rereading from the middle forward. Nothing major to fix yet and I'm up to chapter 28. So, we'll see.

I've been working hard to avoid spoilers to Harry Potter 7. So far so good on that, too. Discussions abound in the house about what we think will happen.

Off to work.

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Monday, July 16, 2007

Eye been workin' on the Man-u-script

Well, you're supposed to read the post title to the tune of I've been Working on the Railroad. Pretend, OK?

Went to see Harry Potter 5 last night. I was mentally broke from working all day. Great movie! Loved it. A lot. Got to bed at 11:00 pm. Urk.

No soccer practice for the kidlet this week, so I thought, great! I'll get home, abandon all my parental duties and get all my changes from the weekend into the computer and I can resend to one of my readers who just started and will much appreciate having the better middle version. But then at 7:30 I remembered I had to go the soccer board meeting (that's my volunteer job) and I couldn't blow it off because the team gets fined $25.00 if there's no rep at the Board Meeting. Got home from that about 9:00pm, worked for an hour and ended up sending off the revised 1-23. I'll finish up tomorrow.

Sigh.

I had to stop at 23 because the new 24 needs more of an overhaul, and I didn't want to start that this late at night. I have to get enough sleep --- Crud. It's 10:48 pm. Rats. 4:30 is early. I'm off to bed.

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Saturday, July 14, 2007

Still editing

Well, I had to fix another couple chapters. Sigh. By fix I mean eviscerate. I chopped out four pages at least. Possibly more. I'm not sure right now. I'm working on it between sentences of this blog. Still, any time you take out the boring stuff and improve what's left, that's reason to celebrate. I just wish it were June 14th instead of Bastille Day. (Vive la France!) Oh well. Off to do more work.

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Thursday, July 12, 2007

More Editing

So, I got to chapter 17 of Magellan's Witch before I had to really massively rewrite chapters 17 and 18. I've been fixing a lot of stuff. Sigh. The problem was shut up stupid nagging voice those chapters where my hero and heroine weren't together enough. I thought I'd fixed those, but I didn't shut up fix them quite enough. So today I was right, wasn't I? Shut up. You should have listened to me.

Actually, stupid nagging voice, I did listen. It just took a few days to know I needed to listen even harder. I need you, but you're really irritating to the right brain side of me.

Left turn people. I'm off to see if I need to make an even sharper left.

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Tuesday, July 10, 2007

I'm not In Dallas

No RWA conference for me this year. Nope. I have my nose to the grindstone, working hard on polishing Magellan's Witch. I'm up to chapter 14 and so far no disasters, rewrites or deletions. I've corrected a few continuity issues, caught another typo or two and am generally continuing to deepen and improve.

In Other Writing news, I was saddened to hear of the death of Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. Her website hasn't been updated with the news yet, but take a minute to visit the site of a literary pioneer. Thank you, Ms. Woodiwiss. We'll miss you.

Other news includes upcoming books I'm itching to read. Harry Potter 7, of course. We had a lively discussion over dinner tonight about who we thought is the character mostly likely to die. My son said Snape or Hermione. I said, what if it's Hagrid? Others thought perhaps Harry. -- If it is, I can see the book flying to the wall right now.

But, the book I can hardly wait to read is J.R. Ward's next Black Dagger Brotherhood book, Lover Unbound. Michelle Buonfiglio over at B(u)y The Book is reading an ARC right now. Waahhh! I want an ARC too! I have the email from Amazon assuring me my copy is coming. It better be here September 25th! Sigh. Vishous.Sigh.

All righty. Back to work.

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Sunday, July 08, 2007

Sunday Bliss - More or Less

At last! I got through the rest of Magellan's Witch. The read-back caught a lot of typos I probably never would have found on my own. I hit some boring patches and either deleted them or fixed them -- I hope. I deleted a chapter, split another in two and changed the POV (point of view) on one of them. This morning I added in the stuff to support my Fantastic Solution To A Nagging Issue. I have about 92,000 words. Which is about where I tend to up up no matter what, give or take a couple thousand. So, now this thing goes out to readers. My wonderful printer that does duplex (on my gosh, I am SO IN LOVE with this feature!!!) saved me a couple hundred sheets of paper when I printed it out for my neighbor who's a journalist. And how I'm going to get it into Word (can I just say YUCK! here?) and email it to my agent and a writer acquaintance. We'll see if I get feedback in time, since RWA is right in the middle of this. Rats.

OK, so what do I think about this book? I'm so close it's hard to say. I'm pretty sure the first 10 chapters totally rock and I'm hoping my work of the last two weeks has gotten the rest to match. I crossed some lines in this book, to which I say, so freaking what? That's just how this book had to be. My heroine has multiple encounters with characters who are not the hero and I'll also just put it out there that sometimes the hero is present during those encounters, and he's not just sitting around on his hands either. And, there's some inter species shape shifting stuff, too.

I have three more weeks to work on this. I'll start another read-through tomorrow sometime.

What else? I'm going to relax for what's left of the day. I've done the shopping and I'm going to read and surf the net and maybe play around on MySpace.

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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

The Joy of Sleeping

It's a holiday today (Happy Birthday USA!) and I slept until 10:30 am. Whoa. Guess I was exhausted. I feel rested right now. There are various festivities today and a child to entertain and spend time with. We're going to the movies and then he has a party (I'll be working!) and then fireworks at my brother's.

Day before yesterday I deleted a boring chapter from Magellan's Witch and rewrote the boring beginning of another. As I was in bed trying to keep my eyes open while I was reading a book about Structure and Plot, this great idea popped into my head about what my heroine had done. It solves quite a few issues for me. So I had to notebook that because I was so tired I was afraid if I didn't I'd fall asleep and forget. The read through continues, but slowly because I've had to stop and fix several things.

Anyhoo, off to celebrate and spend time with family.

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Sunday, July 01, 2007

Reporting In

I've been having Magellan's Witch read back to me (using Text Aloud). It's a great way to catch typos, repetition of subject matter, words, phrases and other awkwardness and just plain boring parts. When it's working, you can feel it. While I'm listening, I have my file open so I can fix things right away. I've got one spot I need to go over and fix up a bit, and last night I added a kind of unexpected bit. I'll have to have that chapter reread today. And I swapped the order of two chapters. I'm pretty sure things are coming together. Back to work.

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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

freaking, freaking, maybe not, freaking

So here it's pretty much the end of June. Magellan's Witch is due August 1. I seem to be spending most of my time massively rewriting. Sigh. Right now I'm going through some comments and addressing those-- if I haven't already deleted or re-written the chapter -- and last night as I was reading this one particular chapter which even when I wrote it I knew was pushing things, I thought to myself, hey, this is good! This is actually fascinating. So for the first time ever I went to bed thinking maybe I don't have a total disaster on my hands.

OK, moment over. Back to freaking. Um, yeah. Definitely that.

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Sunday, June 24, 2007

Not a Sleep over but a Wake-Over

Today is my son's birthday. He's 12. Ohmygoshhowdidthathappen? Last night he had a sleep over, which, in point of fact, was actually a wake-over since I got up at 4:00am to tell them to go to bed, please. But others in the household reported variously that said boys were up at 5:00am and having waffles at 5:30am. I got up at 10:00 am and the boys were sprawled on the couches in pretzel-like positions. I woke them at 11:20 because we were going to the Fair. Between 10:00 and 11:20 or so I worked on editing Magellan's Witch.

To the Fair we went. At 12, they can run around on their own without constant supervision. And, as I discovered, there was no need to worry about losing contact with them as they phoned me whenever they ran out of money. They knew the location of the ATM's, too. Imagine that. I got a free massage and a $10.00 airbrushed tattoo of a dragon. It'll wash off in a few days. I now know that when I get my real tattoo, I will not get black as my skin is too pale, and will get something perhaps a square inch or less in size. So, we were all fried about 4:00pm and the various 12 year olds went home with parents etc.

Then I picked up a cake for my son's party with family and went home. My present to him, besides the Fair, was to take down his share of the garbage. This is a big deal on account of the garbage needs to go down to the bottom of the driveway. See the Driveway Torture post for more.

He was asleep on the couch at 8:30pm but when I woke him to to say perhaps he should go to bed, he refused. It's summer and he just can't bring himself to go to bed early. By which I mean, being in his bed. Crashing on the couch is completely involuntary and doesn't count.

I've been working on editing Magellan's Witch since I got back. Some progress is made. At least so far it's editing, not massive rewriting. I'm going to go to bed a bit early tonight,as I am tired from all the walking at the Fair and the rowing and the summer heat.

One big fat ick for Monday.

But, for once I feel like I got some good away time. I feel mentally refreshed. Which store of freshness I will need in order to get this book into shape. It's going to have to go to other readers in whatever shape it's in by, say, mid week. Urk.

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Saturday, June 23, 2007

Bleary Eyed Writer

I've been trying to get all my paper edits into the computer and things were going OK for a while. I got through a fairly rough patch blah blah edit cut etc.I have maybe 30 pages to go. But my gosh. I have some major fixing and no inspiration at the moment. This morning I had my first rowing lesson. It was really fun. Can't wait for more. I got home and started working and found myself falling asleep in my chair since I had to get up early for the rowing instead of sleeping in to catch up from the work week deficit. I could have pushed through, but this nagging little voice I am NOT a nag! Yes, you are. kept saying, Carolyn, you can't keep writing chapters without the hero and heroine both in them. Shut up, I'm fixing this just fine without your help, thank you very much. No you're not. So I took a nap when my eyes drooped closed for the bazillionth time and just when I was in the nirvanah of napdom the phone rang. So now I'm awake. Carolyn, go rewrite those chapters with your hero in them. Just do it, OK? All right all right! Sheesh.

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Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Nudge Nudge Wink Wink

Boy, did I need to read this interview with Lemony Snickett:

Since that time, I sort of love it when things are going badly because I know that means that soon things will go well. I just stay at my desk, and I say, "There's no shame in writing crap," knowing that it's good for the brain because meanwhile, in some corner, something is getting nudged. And I've used that strategy ever since.


It's a good interview, too.

Back to work. Editing crap.

Say n'more.

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Sunday, June 17, 2007

Driveway Torture

Rats. It's Sunday and I need it to be Saturday or for Monday to be a holiday. Nice father's day. Yesterday I told myself that if I got through the rest of the manuscript read through, I could take the evening off to read. Which I did. I finished off Chuck Pfarrer's Warrior Soul which is a memoir of a Navy SEAL. Good book. I really enjoyed it. Apparently, nobody in D.C. has learned anything since Beirut in the 80's or Iran-Contra. That was kind of depressing.

Worked today. One of my brothers came over and played poker with my son. I think one of them is rich now. Then I had to go shopping and today, shopping included shoes and shirts. My sandals are falling apart and one pair of my work shoes is worn through. Also, I needed new running shoes. The sole of my current pair is now separating from the shoe. I also needed summer shirts. I believe I've mentioned I despise shopping. Yuck. But mission accomplished. Then grocery shopping. Then had to make cookies for lunches tomorrow. Not mine. I am on a cookie free diet. (Rats!)

I've changed up my work out on account of a couple weeks ago as I was heading back to the house after taking down the garbage I was dying jogging up the driveway. The driveway is roughly a quarter mile uphill (depending on your point of view, I guess, it was uphill for me at the time.) I should have been able to jog up the freaking driveway without dying. I was wearing my sandals, at the time, but still. So, now 2 days a week instead of going to the gym I run up and down the driveway for 45 minutes. Torture. Horrors. Sweat. Then one day I cycle for 45 because I'm not able to add a third day of driveway torture yet and the other two I do free weights and resistance training. I added in 10 push ups between every set, and am happy to report I'm up to 12 push ups between sets. The good news is my arms are getting some cuts and by the third morning of running I was still dying but at a slightly faster speed. Really slightly. Next weekend I start the rowing so that should help, too. All of which is my way of explaining that I really did need new running shoes. And, lucky me! The Nike outlet carries Men's size 6, which is the size of running shoe that fits me best. Before grad school, I could do 100 push-ups and run a mile in 7:30, which I thought was pretty sad since in college I ran 5:30's. Now I'm in the double digits for roughly a mile. Of course, 45 minutes of driveway torture is something like 3 or 3.5 miles. Maybe grad school wasn't all good for me.

I figure if SEALs can do what they so, I can run up and down the driveway for 45 minutes and do a few measly push ups. I hope to swap out the cycling day for more driveway torture but right now I need that for recovery so I don't get (too) sore. See, reading is good for you!

In comparison, writing is --- well, a completely different kind of torture. Which I've been doing all weekend. And will be doing more shortly.

Tomorrow morning, driveway torture. Yay. Not.

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Friday, June 15, 2007

What Publishers can learn from my Cat

This quote is from Publishers Lunch:
There is a slow but steady worldwide decline in the sales of printed products, roughly matched by growth in sales of electronic media, and gravity is reasserting itself in the UK trade. In 2006, it became clear that book publishers should probably expect medium and long-term sales stagnation and decline in their printed products, just as newspaper publishers do.


Anyone who checks out the A-list bloggers of the Tech Altiverse (I just made up that word since the Uber-Geeks do, in fact, inhabit an alternate universe: see e.g., Tech Crunch, Guy Kawasaki or Robert Scoble) knows that the geekish are rolling their eyes at newspapers for not understanding what's happening to their business model. For the most part, the Uber-Geeks are right. Newspapers moan about Craigslist taking their revenue without making the leap to gee, maybe readers want want ads that work like Craigslist so we better do that! It took me about 2 minutes, maybe three, to post my old printer on Craigslist and within 2 minutes, I kid you not, I had a taker. Could I have done that, as easily or as quickly on any newspaper want-ad site? No. Do I go to newspaper websites that are behind a pay wall? No, I do not. I go get my website news somewhere else, and by the way, view someone else's ads when I do. Lest you think that there's no money in Google's ad-sense, I've seen creditable reports (but not proof) that many of the the A-listers make a few thousand a month in ad sense revenue. (A-list bloggers have hundreds of thousands of impressions, not a few hundred. For comparison's sake Miss Snark, despite her avid fans, would not have been considered an A-lister, though before her retirement from blogging, I was starting to think she might get there.)

The cat analogy is coming up, by the way.

Have people become news averse? No. They're just consuming it in places where it's convenient for them. But I still look through 2 print newspapers at home, too.

So here's the cat analogy. My cat Jake loves to sleep on my printer. My brand-new printer! So I keep it covered with two thin-ish kitchen towels. The other day I thought, hey, I'm going to cover the printer with this much bigger and vastly thicker cloth! The printer will be even more impervious to cat hair and Jake will be comfier, too!

That's not what happened.

Jake refused to sleep on the printer. Instead, my big, fluffy 15 pound cat decided to sleep in the space where I put my manuscript binder when I am transferring paper edits to the computer. At first, I thought, man, this is just so inconvenient to have him trying to sleep on my MS! We spent a couple of days irritated with each other about that. And then I removed the big cloth from the printer and Jake got up on the printer and went to sleep on the two thin cloths.

Oh. There was no abandonment of cat-napping behavior, merely a displacement of its location.

See where I'm going with this? If this publisher is right, the medium is changing. But the need for stories people want to read is not.

So authors have no need to panic. Publishers do, if they don't wake up to the translocation.

In writing news, I've deleted two chapters from Magellan's Witch. But things are getting better.

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Sunday, June 10, 2007

Behinder yet

Sigh.

I was stuck at Starbucks until 12:00. Got some work done, not much, and not much of it very cheerful work. Rats. Then I went to my nephew's birthday party and was there until three. At one point I went back to the car and got my binder and very rudely did some editing. Honestly. When do people think I get all this done? Anyway, we left at 3:00 which was just in time for me to remember my son had soccer practice and I hadn't done any grocery shopping. So, got home, he changed and we were off. Only the field was being used and I drove my son and two other boys to the alternate location and got lost. My town has an old Jr. High of a certain name and a new Jr. High of the exact same name. I went to the old one only to realize then that everyone must have been talking about the new one. Sigh. I have never been to the new one and don't know the address. But we managed to find it. Then I had to get groceries. I was able to get in half an hour of editing. Now I'm off to do more.

Sigh.

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Monday, June 04, 2007

Monday Again

But not for much longer eh? As my neighbors to the north might say. I'm doing another paper read through of Magellan's Witch. I'm up to chapter 5 and I'm not massively redoing anything. Yet. Lot's of polishing and layering. I have this draft out for an early read. I need to get back to work.

What else? The sale of Scandal is totally official now. It just posted to Publisher's Lunch. Yipee!

Tired, but what's new?

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Saturday, June 02, 2007

Weekend Report

Working. That's what I'm doing. I woke up this morning with a notion for Magellan's Witch that involves a new chapter. I'm writing it now. My son and I went kyaking for the first time. They were having a free water sports day on the Petaluma River so we went and kayaked. Fun! But what I want to do is row. So I'm going to pony up the bucks for the Rowing for Beginners class and do that. Now that I'm home I'm back at work on the new chapter.

What else? Seems like there ought to be something interesting, but, gosh, I guess not. Here's a random picture:
Golden Rose

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Saturday, May 26, 2007

The Saturday Evening Post

I got a lot of work done on Magellan's Witch today. I think I got the middle messiness fixed, plus I was looking at this one particular chapter that I realized was headed in a truly awkward direction what with my having materially changed the preceding chapters, plus added a whole new one a while back, and after trying for a bit to fix it as it was, had no success whatever until I told myself that, really, what they were doing made no sense. (Try and say that without taking a breath!) So I changed it around so that it did make sense and it was much, much better. As in, well, to be honest, now it makes sense. Nuff said, huh? Anyhoo, so now I think I can proceed with more paper read through and tomorrow start another fresh.

Meanwhile, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 tonight. Very entertaining. Just when I thought it was going to start dragging something funny and unexpected would happen. Good movie. Jonnny Depp was wonderful and so was Keith Richards.

To bed.

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Monday, May 14, 2007

Monday for sure

I should have known when I woke up exhausted and decided to skip the gym that I wasn't well. But I got my extra hour of sleep and went to work. 2 hours later I came come. The really good news is our Koi are parents. Four of them between 1.5 and 2 inches long. We know it's the Koi and not the goldfish because the babies look like the Koi: Orange, black and white. One of them is mostly orange. A while back they were doing a lot of breaching the water. I think they were "flirting." Sometimes I'd hear the splash from my room (the koi pond is right outside my sliding glass door) or I'd look just in time and see them pretending they were whales. Anyway, big excitement here today.

I got some work done today despite the foggy brain. I decided to work on my missing chapter. I picked a good spot and started and after a bit I went If this keeps up, Carolyn, this will be boring. So I stared out the window for a while and then got back to work and now my antagonist is with my heroine and there's some stuff going down. And I've got