A Writer's Paradise

Mer vs. the Word-a-Day Calendar

March's Battle

Didn't know:
pachydermatous - callous, insensitive
jackleg - characterized by unscrupulousness, dishonesty or lack of professional standards
alembic - something that refines or transmutes as if by distillation
ear candy - musical equivalent of eye candy (DUH)
colubrine - "like a snake"
palmy - marked by prosperity, flourishing

Six again.

Knew: serendipity, flout, phantasm, troglodyte, cachet, ineluctable, bastion, chapter and verse, glom, debonair, bona fides, syncretic, hare, lucrative, fulsome, cyberpunk, veritable, lodestone, execrable, rankle, oenophile, capricious, modicum, dollar diplomacy, nadir.

A good 17-day run, the 7th to the 23rd, phantasm to execrable.

To each their own taste...

M'ris has very apt thing to say about poetry today... her take on a the "line-breaks" school of poesie:

I had nothing to
Say, so I
Broke things up
So you would
Think I was deep. I hope
You sleep with me.
Or give me money. Either way.

I laughed a long time.

Mailing Woe

You know what's irritating? When the local everything-academic-and-office supply store doesn't sell envelopes big enough to mail your manuscript in.

This is a campus. I can't believe there aren't people who need big envelopes. 200+ page manuscripts are probably all the rage around here, with the sendings and the mailings.

Unless everyone just steals from their departments.

Oh, yeah. That's probably it.

Crap.

Notes to Myself

Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 10:22:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Merrie Fuller
To: Merrie Haskell

Cora reaches the point (in loving Zikor) where she just doesn't *want*
to love another person. Contrast with Pard, who fools herself into thinking she *can't*.

__________________________________________

Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 10:24:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Merrie Fuller
To: Merrie Haskell

Also, she *needs* to love Zikor in order to understand him and his
species.

__________________________________________

Not sure if these are very good notes. Hm.

Writing Week

I wrote. A lot.

Brook's Journey is finished. About half of it is in second-draft stage, and ready to move to third, polishing draft stage. The other half is still in first-draft stage, and will have to skip draft two to go directly to draft three, but there's nothing I can do about that, eh?

207 manuscript pages. Just a little thing, kinda cute and floppy in size, the way a middle-reader book should be. Don't know about the rest of it, though, except that it's not cute and floppy in any other ways. May be too serious. May be a LOT too serious. We'll see. The whole middle-reader thing was kind of a fluke, anyway; when it comes back, it may go on to become something else.

Kayla has agreed to read it. That might be the most nerve-wracking part. An actual 9-year-old critiquing a book meant for her age range. (Funny aside: "If it's as long as Anne of Green Gables, forget it!" "No, no. It's just longer than any of your Lemony Snicket books." "Oh. That's ok, then.")

It's in Julie's hands now. I'm going to start inputting Lisa's notes tonight, and write the synopsis.

It'll be ready to go on Friday.

Sometimes it's disturbing to find out what we're capable of.

Zounds

The site wanted to be down most of today, so no real writing update from me, as it's 10:53 and I'm struggling with the last chapter of Brook and fighting sleep all at the same time.

But yes, beyond my half-entry yesterday, the writing retreat was fabulous and refreshing, and productive. Two 4500 word days, and one 1200 word one. Not half bad.

In fact, almost all done.

Edited to add: finished at 11:54PM.

Lisa kindly read 2/3 of the work and gave me constructive criticism, in exactly the vein I needed (after all, no matter how necessary, instructing me to gut the work at this stage is not constructive).

More another time.

Flow

Very close to the end. Good retreat. Got through the worst attacks of being fraught with misery by having people shriek "miiiiiseryyyyyyyy" at me.

Love my lovely friends.

Brook's Journey may actually be... a reasonably good book.

Merely

Merely 1200 again last night. But I underestimated my wordcount, and as it turns out (less whatever I do tonight), I only need two 6,500 word days this weekend.

Noooo problem.

The plot clicks along. My broken out plot-conflict-tension sequences have found new ways of arranging themselves, finding new nooks and crannies to roost in rather than flying forward in straight lines--ie, some things have become foreshadowed, and others have become "found" instead of "contrived" in flavor.

I watched Elizabeth Bear's livejournal through the writing of Stratford Man, and now I think I understand the joy she felt every time she reported, "Hey! I know how to do this!"

Hey! I know how to do this!

Of course, it's still tempered by "Hey! I have no idea how to do this," but still.

In other writing news, F&SF has been holding onto "Souls on a String" for more than a week. It's not quite enough of a happening to get the rejectomancy coins out, but I find it interesting. Don't think I've had to wait longer than 9 days before, and we're working on 11 here. Probably just means it got lost in the mail. Bah. Stupid hopes. You go squish now.

Contrived

Brook is blind for the next eight chapters.

(sigh)

I hope no one finds the plot too disingenous or contrived, but hell, that's always been my stumbling block while plotting. "Someone is going to think this is contrived, roll their eyes, and not enjoy it." I think this may be why gaming is detrimental to the writing process. My writing process, anyway.

Only 1500 words last night. Not good. I'd argue that they were a hard 1500 words, and that's true, but I only stopped because I was falling asleep at my computer. I could have gone to get tea or something, but I gave in and slept instead.

We also had a nice thunderstorm, and Merlin let me hold him for almost ten minutes--contentedly.

I'm trying to figure out my next step. I'm not writing nearly as quickly as I need to be to meet this ridiculous deadline. I have high hopes for this weekend--I only need two 8k days right now, and that's not counting what I might do tonight or Friday night. And I've had 8k days at the cottage* before, with my peeps around.

I also need to get this read, so I think on Friday I'll print out whatever I have done and see who's willing to read for me whilst at said cottage. Julie has already volunteered--maybe Lisa or Eric will fall prey to my fluttering lashes and entreating tone. And whatever bribery I can come up with. Perhaps chocolate-covered almonds.

* "The Cottage": Many folks in Michigan have a place they go to Up North that they call The Cottage. Sometimes it's a slowing disintegrating cabin in the middle of frickin' B.F.E., where you go to get drunk and THEN shoot at deer. Other times, it's a Lake Michigan beach house that sleeps 22 and has its own marina. Ya jes never know.

from Weaver's Michigan Accent Pronunciation Guide

Cottage in the familial lexicon while I was growing up meant my aunt's house on the Cedar River, a cold, fast-running trout-stream. At first it was a trailer-type thing, but later became a house, which in turn became a really cool house, all surrounded by cedar forest. Activities at the cottage usually involve endless days at the local swimming hole and/or tubing down the river over and over and over, and maybe going to visit the Aunt's Amish neighbors to buy eggs, or picking berries on another neighbor's 40-acre deer preserve--bucolic, rural things of a nearly Luddite nature.

Cottage in Dann's family lexicon is, always was, and always will be a hundred-year-old house built on the very edge of Gun Lake where much boating and swimming ensues. It has a much more urbanized/country-club feel to it, aided by the fact that there are something like 4 different boating experiences to choose from and the constant drone of jet-skis all weekend. Also, the TV, which is never off, whereas the TV at the other cottage is just so much furniture.

Cottage in my personal lexicon has come to mean Dann's cottage, and since my aunt now lives all year in her cottage, it has become an un-cottage, and now I call it the River. I'd prefer, in fact, to just call them the River and the Lake respectively, but I'm not that consistent.

Write Club Report

Did I update you on the Write Club changes? Eric officially joined us for our weekly event, thus now making Shakespeare's Minions and Write Club identical in roster.

Additionally, we're going to take a brief spring retreat (I think under the name of the new umbrella group of the Feral Writers--like it matters. There are four of us, and three names, and maybe, just maybe, we like to collect names).

But, we are kicking around the idea of doing on-line crits for one another for Minions, thus eliminating the need for the ramp-up and cool-down of face-to-face critiques. We first have to figure out how, and then have to figure out if it works. But if it does work... who knows.

I was unable to behave myself last night until 9:30 or so, and distracted everyone from their... uhm, work? I distracted some people from their Zuma. But I finally settled in and wrote about 1200 words before we left, and another 1200 or so when I got home, thus making me think, once again, "Hey, this is doable." Which is a pretty amazing conclusion to draw from 2400 words. Double that, and I may have had a point.

I plan to do that tonight, though. Double it, I mean. Tonight, I will plow over all distractions, and Get On With It. It helps that the climax of the book is coming and everything between here and then will go fast.

Or maybe I'm fooling myself.

P.S. I decided I not only need to finish my Regency, but write the Roman/Regency thing as well. Clearly, I have unresolved Regency angst. My favorite romance genre cannot be allowed to continue wallowing in the unrepentant badness that has flooded it of late.

That said, I found another Joan Wolf Regency the other day, which has me all excited. I swore I wasn't going to pick up another romance for Quite Some Time, but I'm going to make an exception in this case.

Surprise!

Well, Dark Moon Rising accepted four poems for their April 2004 issue. Color me flummoxed. And also completely out of submittable poetry.

No pay, but it's poetry. I never once expected to get paid for poetry. I only submitted them because they (the poems) looked sad and lonely, to see all their prose siblings running off to the big game.

Well, that's the last time I'll be suckered by that ploy! Especially since I'm not producing poetry anymore.

The poems in question are "Descent," "Of," "Otherwhere" and "The Work of Time."

Writing Week

Goals accomplished: none
Reason: idiocy
Excuse: I thought I should/could get Brook's Journey together for the Ursula Nordstrom contest.

I've not yet decided I can't.

50% of the book is in reasonable order. I edited my previous efforts into a coherent whole, and came up with a plot and wrote about 2k more than I started with, though I probably wrote 10k and cut 8k.

50% of the book is not yet done.

There are 9 weeknights, 2 full weekend days at the cottage, 8 lunch-hours and a half-day of vacation in which to finish.

Don't laugh!

If I'm truly impoverished for time, Julie volunteered to man the printers for me: I'm to use the internet magic delivery system and send her the final product, assuming I leave her a big envelope and enough postage.

Which would give me two nights in a hotel room, a few hours at the airport and possibly more time than that to work on it.

(The book is not allowed to come on the vacation. That's just impossible. That would lead to fights on the honeymoon, because it would make me cranky.)

So, that would be it, my writing goal for this week and next week.

Don't worry, I've already asked myself what the hell I'm thinking. What I'm thinking is, if nothing else, I'll have a solid base to start from in June, when I get rejected, and no cause to kick myself for not even trying.

Book: The First Five Pages

The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman (18) (re-read)

I couldn't really remember reading this, so I thought I'd have another go. I mean, it sounds like it's going to have really good advice, right?

It has some good advice, some middling and some that's just plain bad.

I'm going to say this is a book for freshman and pre-freshman writers. Much of the good advice is straight out of Elements of Style. It's advice you need to hear, and I suppose if you don't know enough to say, "I'm going to sit down with Elements of Style, and I won't get up again until it owns me," then this is a good place to start.

However, the book-saidism heresy was extolled herein. Something like, "Use other words than said. But be careful. Especially if you're a novice."

That's not useful advice for anyone. There are few people humble enough to admit they're a novice.

Additionally, the examples were so contrived that it was hard to learn anything from them.

I don't know. I think the guiding principles were valuable, but frequently fell apart in the detailed explanation and discussion of said principles. I wanted more. I wanted well-thought-out depth. I wanted Forest for the Trees-level analysis.

(Forest for the Trees--I'm not sure what all the messages in that book actually were. But one message came out and smacked me: "You'll never write unless you sit down and write." The message was so strongly sent that I actually put the book down and wrote. I never did pick it back up again, because I'm still driven by what she said, somewhere around chapter 3. I'm saving the rest of that book for a truly bad spell.)

Book: A Secret History

A Secret History : The Book Of Ash, #1 by Mary Gentle (17)

It was good. I think, as long as it was, I was expecting more (more what?). Maybe more character development? I thought, perhaps there would be a point where I loved Ash as much as I'd love a Vorkosigan. Not quite.

It read really fast, though, and I think "With 3 more books, who knows who I'll love?"

I appreciated the realism that there was, since it made the fantastical something else. The faux scholarship got in the way on occasion. Yes, yes, histories are lost. Students of history know this. But, no, no, there's other evidence. We'd know if every major city-state in Italy burned to the ground in the 15th c. We don't think that happened, do we? So, trying to pin this into the realm of lost history brought me out of the book a few times. Which is too bad, because I think that she could have slid the Visigothic invasion right between my ribs, with a tiny bit more circumspection. Alas.

But who knows. Maybe she'll pull it off in books 2-4.

Write Like the Wind... Write Through the Wind

Scribble, scribble, scribble.

I cut more than I wrote yesterday. The defecit makes me shaky. (By some definitions of shaky.) Fortunately, I had Julie for moral support--we went to Borders to escape March Madness at home, and wrote (while making fun of our fellow cafe dwellers, or maybe we just did that afterwards--young braggart and young appeaser on a first date, living up to their social models in an unattractive way--really, I'd expect better of the children of Ann Arbor).

From 2 until about 6:30. Phew. Then, came home and wrote some more. Until about 11. And there was about an hour of writing before 2.

The weather has been blustery and very March-like all weekend.

Perhaps that's the wind I mean in the title.

Perhaps it's something else. Dann has been gorging on inappropriate foodstuff all through the tourney. Enough said.

Packing List Update

So, I've settled on my reading choices for while in Britain. Now I need airplane books (at least one for coming and one for going) and books for New York. While I plan to be enthralled by my nephew for most of the New York legs, I'm not stupid. I'll need at least one book for either leg.

You thought I was done agonizing, didn't you?

I'm wavering. There's the Garth Nix trilogy, which is now all in paperback--but do I want to re-read 2 books, just to get to the 3rd?

And yet, Nix would be a pretty safe bet, especially since it's easier going, and that's really what you need when there are distractions: easier going.

Kay's Fionavar Tapestry comes to mind, too, though I'd have to buy book 3. I've never read the trilogy, but have heard good things.

And Archangel Protocol.

And Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, because it's long, and there's nothing quite like a Victorian novel once it gets going.

It's like betting on horses. They all look good, but you just don't know which ones are going to be ready for the track.

I am about halfway through the first Ash book, and so far I like it more than Lisa did, but less than Marissa did. But that's ok; it's the first half. I'm liking it enough that picking up the omnibus volume in England sounds like a good plan, even if I don't run out of books while there.

I am planning lots of nights reading, curled against my husband and smothered in eiderdowns. Some might be dubious about this form of honeymooning. Some might wonder why we don't just go to pubs instead, to while away the evenings. Fortunately, I don't much listen to those some.

Rain. Spring. Progress.

It rained hard in the night. We have the swamp in the backyard to prove it. I'm glad that (so far) that Michigan didn't pull the classic snow-on-the-first-day-of-Spring joke. Rain is perfectly acceptable. The thunderstorm was very nice, in fact.

I wrote about 2k on Brook last night, edited another 3k v. carefully, and skipped editing another 7k. I'm not displeased with this progress. While I do need to concentrate on adding more to the manuscript, and quickly, I think this rate of speed could very well work.

I know, intellectually, that writing books for younger readers is not easier. In fact, I spent many moments floundering for a 4th grade way of saying "diplomatically expressionless" last night. Trying to let the sophistication stay in the plotting, the emotion and not show through in the words, without sounding contrived or dumbed-down--yes. That's hard work. But it's work I think I can do.

But it feels easier anyway. The path through story is more linear. The sub-plots aren't as convoluted. I can go for the easier emotions, not because I think children feel less or anything idiotic like that, but because they don't (I didn't) spend as much time telling themselves how they should feel. Adults, maybe, tell them how they should feel, but I have managed to summon up my 12-year-old frustrations with adults just fine.

Seventeen Thousand

Dwinn is my hero; he talked me through a significant plot point for Brook's Journey tonight.

Why'd he do that, you ask?

Because I had this brief, wild thought that this contest would be the perfect thing for Brook.

The thought is looking even wilder, now, but at the same time, I have managed to plot out a tight 40-50k middle-reader book, 17k of which is already written. (The other 23k of Brook that already exists quite clearly goes in the next book.)

Yes, with a deadline of April 15th, I'm probably fooling myself into thinking I can write the rest and polish it enough to enter this contest. Not to mention that I'll be in Scotland from April 2nd on, and the logistics of polishing a novel and then emailing it back to the States for some sucker to print and mail for me is just close enough to impossible... so my actual deadline would be April 2nd.

This would, of course, be a contest that requires the whole manuscript. First three chapters and synopsis? That'd be something. But this, this probably is impossible.

So, of course I'm going to try.

I was gonna win the Nebula, but I fell asleep.

Phoo.

Sleep overtook me, and I didn't write a jot last night. In fact, fell asleep with my contacts in, and the laundry un-put-away.

Phoo.

Really, really, really want to finish this story.

But apparently I just wanted to sleep more.

When I knew...

Marissa said: I still am interested in hearing about when people knew they, too, could be a writer, or in people who are not sure they can, because my life is not like that and hasn't been.

I've always known I could be. And thus intended to be.

Always, in this case, only extends back to really falling in love with reading, because I don't think I had a very formed consciousness prior to that.

My mom wrote, and was locally published in a college lit mag when I was 6. I think it made the necessary impression.

But...

Att the beginning of Little House on the Prairie--my first non-Dr. Seuss, non-Little Golden Book--there's a sentence that says something like, "A long time ago, when your grandparents were little..." or something ridiculous like that. I remember thinking "Awfully presumptious, to think you know how old my grandparents are, lady." (Not in those exact words.) I remember also thinking, how could she know who was actually reading her books?

That's really when I knew.

Guest Bloggers

I asked a couple people if they wanted to guest blog while I'm gone on vacation, but I mostly got confused stares.

And, it's not like I have a high number of readers right now, and most of them know me personally, and won't stop reading because I go on vacation for two weeks.

And I might be able to update now and again from Scotland...

But I'd still like to not have a blank slate while I'm gone. I'm still thinking.

Phew

Short story mugging last night.

I knew what I wanted to write about--thematically. I had a feeling, and it needed out. So I sat down, just to see what would happen.

Imagine my suprise when, 3 hours and 3500 words later, that there was actually a story there. I ended up retelling "East of the Sun, West of the Moon." Five hundred, maybe a thousand words more, and it's done. There's a bit with some dragon-slaying, which is how far afield I've gone from the original story concept.

Right now, I love it. I would cuddle it to me in dark nights and whisper sweet nothings to it.

Don't know how it's going to go when we have our first quarrel, though.

Writing Week

Boy, have I lost points with myself, and failed to do the weekly update for two weeks now. A whole fortnight.

I did make a weak effort at a report.... but, well: weak.

Per my goal of 3 weeks ago: I did finish plotting Conquest, but have not moved beyond scene 5. I'm not quite sure what the issue is. Maybe I need to figure out what the issue is.

Maybe I just need to write.

I also finished "Souls on a String," and have rewritten it and polished it, and am ready to send it out and get its first rejection.

"Her Kaleidoscope Eyes" and "Ill-boded Blade" both came back, and I fully know that KE is a very middling story, and am ready to try less-paying markets. "Blade," well, I still have faith in that one, but I'm well aware that it's too short. I could probably quadruple it in size and have something real on my hands. Should I? Don't know. Will think on it. I'm reluctant to do so in case I ruined the story. As it currently is, it has the requisite beginning, middle and end--so what if it's only 775 words? The rest could be interesting, though I can't quite imagine what else would happen after Unferth goes home to tell his mom his brother is dead. (You always have to tell your mom.)

So, goals this week:

1) rewrite and send out 1 more story from the rewrite pile
2) some meaningful production on Conquest

The latter goal is inspired by a recent comment from Eric that he's still waiting to find out more. Flattering. And motivating as well.

:putter:

Update on the weekend? It's a noble idea, but my weekends are frequently so different than my weekday life that it just doesn't occur to me.

My writing update will come later, but this weekend was about cleaning and low-level socializing, the kind that comes without a price (no "stayed up too late" type hangovers, no performance anxiety).

So, here I am, just sort of waiting until it's time to go to Britain. Yep. Just waiting.

Dreaming.

Our planned route.

Did spend a fair amount of time this weekend trying to get my husband to buy new pants. You've never seen such a raggedy assortment of pants in your life. There may be one pair without dangling threads off the cuffs or holes elsewhere, but they would be inappropriate to vacation anyway.

Now, how to convince him that I'm not trying to change him, just his pants?

Packing List

In between agonizing over the correct number of pants to take on a 13-day journey through Britain (with 2 days added on to either end to visit the nephewling in New York, which does complicate the matter slightly), I'm agonizing about books.

The current book packing list is:
Jane and the Wool House Stephanie Barron
Shirley Charlotte Bronte
The Peshawar Lancers SM Stirling *
Good Omens Gaiman and Pratchet *
Fires of the Faithful and Turning the Storm by Naomi Kritzer *
Cross-stitch and Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon **

* I think Dann will read these, too
** rereads

Now, for the methodology:

I read the first Jane Austen mystery by Barron on the bus from Bath to Glastonbury. It was perfect, in that atmosphere; actual Austen would have been at odds with jouncing around on a bus, but faux Austen was perfect. Only a few of this series that I've read in America have been as good, and either Barron is an author who's only good every other book, or it's about atmosphere. I did like Jane and the Stillroom Maid quite well, but I read that in France, where the atmosphere also worked. You know. The Devonshires were friends with Marie Antoinette. Yeah, I'm grasping.

As for the Bronte, I never could read Wuthering Heights (from cover to cover, I mean; yes, I did write a term paper on it, Mrs. Gobel-I-hope-you're-not-reading-this)... until I got to Haworth. I've told this story to a few people, but here goes again: the day I went to Haworth, it was kind of dark and gloomy, and I spent a lot of time on the train and then on a bus, and then I slogged all around Haworth, quite lost, getting more and more depressed because the town was so dark and narrow--

And then, quite suddenly, I came to an open space overlooking the dales, and the sun broke from cover and everything was flooded with light. I teared up.

"Charlotte, I understand." Murmured, like a prayer. It's kinda cheesy, invoking a dead writer, but it was a true moment, nonetheless.

In fact, the banner pic on Writer's Paradise is from about ten minutes after that moment, when I popped out my camera and just started snapping, trying to capture the moment. Didn't work so well, but I'm glad I have the pictures just the same.

Anyway, even though I invoked Charlotte's name, it was Wuthering Heights that sucked me in. I'm hoping the same magic will spur me through Shirley.

The Stirling and Good Omens are just books I've been meaning to read; the Kiplingesque nature of the Stirling and the Britishness of Good Omens are meant to be atmospheric. The Kritzer has been sitting on the to-read shelf for a month or so, and I'm kind of salivating over those, but I've put them off because I knew I'd be traveling soon. And the Gabaldon--again, atmospheric. I'd intended to read them before I left, but while I'm there will be fine as well.

I'm not sure it's enough. I have plenty of material on the unread shelf, but there's pressure to take stuff that appeals to my traveling companion, too. Marissa seems so geeked about the Mary Gentle series that I want to try it, too; the description is compelling, the atmosphere would be appropriate enough (and it would be appropriate: I read faux Scottish histories in France, I can read faux French histories in Scotland). But the last two books don't appear to be available new, so it would be a small ordeal.

The intense academic study over which books is due to my second England trip, where I did not bring enough to read by half. In fact, I only brought 2 books, I think, one of them Wuthering Heights, the other by Amanda Quick. You can guess how the Quick went. I devoured WH, and look, day 3, nothing to read. Smooth.

In Winchester, I found only one bookstore, with almost no fiction section--certainly no YA or SF. The added burden on selection was that I neither wanted to haul a lot of books nor spend crazily. I ended up with Orlando by Woolf, and couldn't get into it.

After that, though, Dwinn and Julie showed up. We found second-hand bookstores as well as better-stocked regular shops. I read a lengthy historical about the conquest, uninspiringly entitled The Conquest. Right place, right time: in the middle of it, we stopped in at Battle. Mostly, D&J entertained me and kept me busier than I'd kept myself, so I spent less time gobbling books.

For my trip to France, I swore to be prepared. I brought something like ten or fifteen books, knowing that half-way through the trip, we would be staying with an American family desperate for English language material. I stocked up at the ten-cent shelf in the library. I spent my graduation gift-cards. The plan was to leave half the books with the Carefoots, but it ended up being most of them; the only thing I hadn't read by the time we reached their house was the aforementioned Jane and the Stillroom Maid and a Peter Whimsy mystery. I had finished Sharon Shinn's Summers at Castle Auburn before we left Paris, and AS Byatt's Possession before we reached Provence. The rest flowed past like water.

Afterwards, we scoured the second-hand shops in Tours, looking for English paperbacks, because new ones were well over ten bucks. From this adventure I read some stuff I never would have read, like a book by David Baldacci, and Sleeping with the Enemy, and some Sir Walter Scott (and not his best work, by a long shot; the very academic intro to the book was dubious: "why are you reading this, and not Ivanhoe or Waverly, anyway?") We wanted to trade books at the obvious trade-friendly hotel, but the lady running the breakfast room didn't approve our balance of trade. ("Look, I know we're only leaving Red Gauntlet and Sleeping with the Enemy, but we need more than two books. We're going crazy.") I ended up sneaking Nora Roberts out of the breakfast room in my pants.

Of course, the balance is that I know I read about 3 books a week on each of these vacations; but for the burdens of not being able to get one's hands on things more compelling than Redgauntlet, it would have been 5 or 6. I probably do have enough, given that I've held off purchasing the latest Harry Potter in order to get a British copy; I could easily re-read that whole series while there. (I did buy my first HP in England, but foolishly shipped it home unread. I'd smite myself if I knew how.)

Does my paranoic preparation make sense, now? Vacation is when I eat books, and seem to stumble over the worst book karma.

Progress Report

I did manage to enter all my edits for "Souls on a String" on paper, and the story holds together much better than I was expecting. Now, just to enter them all electronically.

I've also written not-so-many words for By Right of Conquest, but I did catalogue the book today at work! We're training ourselves on the new library management system, and I got to make a brief cataloguing record for anything I wanted, and Merrie Haskell's By Right of Conquest exists in the practice database for a few months. Publication date: 2007. Well, that's certainly a goal.

Oh, well. I'm up over 6k words, which is nearly the length of the original short story that wouldn't be a short story, so I kind of feel good about that. Maybe I can run past that this weekend. Another goal. Something more realistic. I like it.

Book: Spindle's End

Spindle's End by Robin McKinley (16) (re-read)

I kind of know why I "forgot" this book. This book, sadly, is forgettable.

I don't mean that it's not worth reading. I don't mean it's bad, or even mediocre. It's actually quite good. But I'm not quite sure where McKinley's head was when she wrote this. It wasn't in the place that produced Sunshine, nor the place that produced The Blue Sword or... well, all of the rest of them, except, maybe, perhaps Outlaws of Sherwood.

Possibly, just possibly it's that she didn't stay in one character's head. The first half of the book was ostensibly from Katriona's viewpoint, and the second half was ostensibly from Rosie's. But most of the book is omniscient, and so broadly so that it's very hard to get involved. Didn't fall in love with Narl, not the way I did with Constantine or Corlath. Didn't want to be either Katriona or Rosie, not the way I did with... well, you get the point.

Of course, if this is McKinley's worst book, she really has nothing to be ashamed of. And I've read all the rest of her books, and it is, and she doesn't. It's just... well, I should have realized why I couldn't remember this book, before I picked it up again.

Book: The Kestrel

The Kestrel by Lloyd Alexander (15) (re-read)

A richer, more complex book than the first one, and the one that hooked me lo these many years ago. (Was I nine? Ten? Twelve? Certainly no older than that. Probably no younger.) I remember, at the time, finding Theo to be a very romantic hero, even in the midst of realizing he was not a hero. But I've always been attracted to the tormented souls.

I could wish for more. More depth, more characterization, more complexity. But that's just greed. It is what it is. It's very good as it is. Almost as thrilling as it was more than a decade ago (almost two decades!).

Research and Spring

The grass didn't all go brown over the winter, which just means that the snow fell before the cold killed it. It's not emerald green, but for a Michigander, it's green enough.

(I am reminded of growing up in North Carolina, looking out and seeing how bleah and horribly dreary winter was, and then having my aunt come visit from Michigan and just go into ecstasies. "The grass is so beautiful! So lush! So green! Oh, is that a dandelion?" Yeah. Dandelions in November and February. Winter in North Carolina was a joke.)

Right now, there's a pretty, patterned dusting of snow on the green grass, looking almost fractal in nature.

Signs of spring. You just have to know how to see them.

Writing and the usual blathering behind the cut-tag.

I could not settle down for writing last night, so I researched instead. I read about a quarter of La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada--A Cultural History by Peter N. Moogk. Am growing attached to the mid 1600's for my Crisis Point in my alternate history (in which the settlement of the New World is brought to a screeching halt).

This book has some good stuff in it, including early population reports, good descriptions of the fur trade (see, if I halt the settlement of the New World in 1650, Detroit will never become important; Mackinac will remain the portal between Montreal and the interior), and other tidbits. In thumbing through it, I think I may have to read another quarter of it; I only skimmed famly dynamics and magic/religion last night. Of course, if I'm at the point of reading half of it, it's no longer enough to just take notes from the library copy; I'm going to need to buy a copy and just keep it on my shelf.

This is the path to too many books, you know. This is how it happens.

I printed off 4 of the 5 stories I need to rewrite (I don't know that it's easier to edit from paper, but I believe you have to go over the story on paper at least once before you can consider it rewritten). It made a healthy stack of pages. Sometimes I amaze myself with my output. Only sometimes, though.

Sometimes I also amaze myself with my willingness to dance with the self-justification monkey. He's a friendly monkey, of course, but when other people see you dance with him, they get disgusted. Right now, we are doing the "Can't Write X Until after my Vacation!" Waltz. That's because I have 2 stories steeping in my head, both of which take place in Britain--specifically, in places I am going to visit in Britain in just 20-some short days. So, the monkey assures me that I can work on these stories in Britain, I don't have to do them now. Even though I've already been to these places, it will be much easier when they're fresh in my mind...

Stupid monkey.

This week's revelation is that I'm making my short stories too complicated. Stop with the fripperies, Fuller. Just tell the story.

So noted.

At least you can't hear my accent.

How to talk like a Michigander.

Naturally, I find something that celebrates my accent just when I decided that I need to rub it out.

(The terminology section is the true gem: make sure to read the definitions of "the big lake" and "the cottage.")

I have these memories of being asked to say "oil" in the 4th grade. "Oyl!" the kids all laughed, mimicking me. Of course, I felt like I had the high road: oil clearly begins with an o, not the a of "awhl" that my Southern classmates used.

But in the 6th grade, I stood in the front of the class to point out the parts of a plant. "Petal, stem, root," I said.

A firestorm of laughter. "The what?"

"The root," I said. Pronounced like "rut."

Turns out, they say the oo's in root like the oo's in boo in the South.

I don't mind the vowel hijinx. At least, not the o's. I can live with saying rut instead of root and ruff instead of roof.

But the next time I hear my voice coming out of my nose instead of my mouth, I may just bash my head against the wall. It's gaht to stahp.

Pffffffft.

So... you know how I outlined all of By Right of Conquest a week or 2 ago, and presumably started Writing A Novel?

Well, I did, though I haven't gotten beyond word 4,040, which is where I was last week.

What I've done instead is, after feeling like I got the hang of this novel outlining thing, was outline about three other novels.

It's a sickness! It's got to stop!

I outlined all the continuing plot threads from Conquest for Possession and Discovery. And then, instead of outlining, say, Midsummer properly, or any of the Brook books, I went ahead and outlined my Gwyn notes into novel structure. You know. Gwyn. A forerunner of Mythos. Gwyn, who was never supposed to have a novel, just be a background character. But what do you know? It's there if I want to write it, someday. If, for example, I lost my outlining ability, I'd still be able to write one more novel.

If, that is, I ever finished one.

Things I did finish... the Regency/Roman story. It weighs in at a hefty 6,790 words, about 2,000 over the Arabella limit. Funny thing is, I like it. That's disconcerting, you know? I'm used to hating things when they're done, especially when they take this many sittings.

Actually, I'm not sure I like the story, but I like Marcus and Penelope and I like them getting together. It's impetuous, like a romance should be.

In fact, since it's a short story, it's so impetuous--and I had such a hard time putting a lid on it--that I think, perhaps, it's really a novel. Shhhh. The story is fairly simple; the world-building, however, would really texturize the story, in a way that I think people (or I) might like to read.

In other words, I have hit the Golden Ratio with this one. Only, the Golden Ratio of story-telling is more like "write the story you want to read."

After watching Underworld this weekend, I both want to shelve "Urbane Renewal" or make it much shorter and less about what it was going to be about. Can't decide. Do I actually have anything to say about vampires that hasn't been said a thousand times before? Yes. But it's about 1 sentence long. Can't build much of a story on 1 sentence, and before you say "what about flash?" I mean, a story. My sentence is a story. You should congratulate me. It's been a long time coming, learning what a story actually is.

In point of fact, any stories I've told up 'til very recently were only accidentally told.

(Which may be why I should have been a mainstream writer. Haha.)

(sigh)

I've given up on writing an entertaining blog.

I've given up on writing an informative blog. (That is, full of information people might want.)

Mostly, I've got an accurate blog.

The Ancient Greeks had a word for my predicament. We still use it in the modern day, albeit spelled slightly different: "Alas"

It's a good word.

Write Watchers

http://www.shadowshapes.net/blog/archives/000924.html

A points system for writing. If you get enough points at the end of the year, you can have a big cookie. In addition to all the cookies you have anyway, I'm sure.

I love it. :)

Report

By Right of Conquest: 4040 words since Friday
Other items of business--short stories.
1) Untitled Romans and Regency bit (partly outlined; perhaps half-finished)
2) Ready to rewrite: "Souls on a String" and "Subletter"
3) Not yet ready to rewrite: "Paradise" and "Bound by Spells"
4) Hoping to start "Majuscule"
5) Will do: 3k more words on Conquest by end of week (really, hoping to do 6k, ultimately doing 10k weeks, but let's be real)

Mer vs. the Word-a-Day Calendar

February's Battle

Didn't know:

cacography - bad spelling or handwriting
bloviate- to speak or write verbosely or windily
indefeasible - not capable of being annulled, voided or undone
raddled - broken-down, worn
adjuvant - auxiliary; OR assisting in the prevention, amelioration or cure of disease
myrmidon - loyal follower

Improved over last month. Of course, it's a shorter month.

I should have known cacography (I knew kakistocracy, after all). I sort of knew raddled, adjuvant and indefeasible, but I was slightly off in my definition; and as for myrmidon, file that under "words I used to know."

Words that did not kick me in the gut: utile, probity, minuscule, verbose, gibe, paragon, non sequitur, alacrity, stymie, homage, trepidation, enigmatic, utopia, Babbitt, propinquity, distaff, jurisprudence, laconic, ennui, white elephant, denegation, hoary, and aphorism.

My best run was merely 9-words, from gibe to Utopia, beginning on the 7th.