Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
--William Shakespeare, Henry IV part I, Act III scene i
There. Just sent a submission draft of Chill to agent, editor, and agent's adorable flunky. The freaking thing is officially off my desk until revision notes come back.
I can't remember when I was this glad to see the back of a book. And I'm really not sure it's any good, but at least it's done.
And I am officially out of work until the revision letter for The Sea thy Mistress gets here. (I was actually kind of hoping I might see it in the first half of this month, but such is not to be.) Basically, right now I'm waiting for Tor and the Maass agency to get the contracts for the next two Iskryne books sorted, and I'm waiting for three or four people to pay me for work done last year, and I'm waiting for the editorial letter for TStM to arrive so I can fix it and return it and hopefully get paid, and then even more hopefully secure a new contract with Tor, and I'm waiting for the revision letter on Chill so I can fix that and return it and also get paid.
So, um. We're a bit on lean times around here until some of this money comes in.
HOWEVER, I did just find out that future-roomate Alisa and I got the apartment we applied for, so I have a place to live! Yay!
So now I make chicken masaman curry and gibber for a while. And--despite being slightly broke--I might just maybe go buy myself a cheap bottle of scotch as my official book-finishing present, because I think I will have scotch and chocolate for dessert tonight, in celebration.
Which means nothing to do for the rest of the week except packing and doing my part of getting "Lucky Day" ready to go live on Sunday.
Thank God. I think it's time for a little post-novel ennui around here, and I still have the last level of Auditorium to beat, by God.
State of the Honeydew, 2009
Revise Chill
Revise The Sea thy Mistress
Revise One-Eyed Jack and The Suicide King
Write either An Apprentice to Elves or A Reckoning of Men (with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
truepenny) (or at least get healthily started on it.)
Shadow Unit S3
Write Grail
Revise the blind cave mermaid story
Revise "The Horrid Glory of its Wings"
Write "Smile" (Bone Garden) (started)
Write "On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera."
- Mood:
nostalgic - Music:Neko Case - Hold On, Hold On (Album Version)
txanne, Auditorium. Something beautiful and pointless: the loveliest and simplest flash game since Boomshine.
- Mood:
enthralled - Music:plink plink plink plinky
And the best part is? I started in Brazil. And I still pwned Madagascar.
Who's the hemmorhagic parasite who's a sex machine to all the chicks?
Yeah. I can dig it.
- Mood:
genocidal - Music:"This woman is not on our side."
Red hollyhocks:
100.0, 0xe7, 9, 9, 22.0, 0.9, 1.1, 1.1, 10.2, 20.6, 1.1, 1, 0.1, 0.0, 0.1, 0.0, 1.1, 0.1, 0.1, -0.6, 0x5037f7, 0xff003f, 5.0, 6.8, 6, 5, 0.1, 0.3
( more behind cut )
And, the culmination of my breeding program, the Goth Dahlias:
Goth dahlia of sorts:
40.5, 0x5b2e97, 9, 9, 41.0, 0.6, 1.1, 1.3, 75.5, 46.6, 1.2, 4, 0.2, 0.2, 0.1, 0.1, 1.3, 0.1, 0.1, -0.5, 0x6c87b5, 0x1e1768, 5.0, 9.0, 7, 10, 0.3, 0.8
Ghost dahlia
75.6, 0x574b90, 7, 9, 35.1, 0.4, 1.2, 1.2, 37.8, 33.0, 1.1, 4, 0.1, 0.1, 0.0, 0.1, 1.3, 0.1, -0.1, -0.0, 0x5d8372, 0x795e7f, 5.0, 10.8, 7, 9, 0.3, 0.4
Dark blue color mutation goth dahlia
98.2, 0x59249f, 8, 7, 26.6, 0.7, 1.1, 1.2, 17.4, 3.1, 1.2, 3, 0.2, 0.0, 0.1, 0.3, 1.0, 0.1, 0.2, -0.5, 0x5d75c3, 0x68, 5.0, 15.2, 7, 9, 0.2, 0.8
And the final, perfected:
Goth dahlia (a black dahlia, even)
40.5, 0x5b2e97, 9, 9, 41.0, 0.6, 1.1, 1.3, 75.5, 46.6, 1.2, 4, 0.2, 0.2, 0.1, 0.1, 1.3, 0.1, 0.1, -0.5, 0x6c87b5, 0x8, 5.0, 9.0, 7, 10, 0.3, 0.8
- Music:Doves - Last Broadcast
502 words on Chill tonight, and still kind of groping my way forwards. Scene-setting, picking up with old characters where we left them off. Groping our way. Two thousand words is probably enough for chapter one, and I have found a Killer Closing Line, though I think perhaps the scene it ends could use more cowbell and possibly even a little roller derby.
It's nice to be working.
And if it wants to come slow, well, let it. It can come slow. We have time yet. Man, where did I leave my mojo? There is no flow: there is only picking over stones, looking for nuggets of story and fiddling them around until, perhaps, they turn up a shiny facet or flash of color. Panning for narrative.
But I'm not hating the work, though I don't feel like it has an engine in it yet.
Not hating the work kind of feels like a triumph right now, which--I keep reminding myself--is good enough for now. I'm still spending way too much time fussing at it rather than writing it--part of the problem with not having the engine yet is that I'm not feeling the pull of the story, so I tend to go in and fuss with each sentence kind of excessively. And you know, it's not like I'm not going to be over this book twenty more times. If I write a bad sentence, it's not the end of the world.
But as long as the story isn't pushing to get out, the editor gets very very picky.
Also, via pecunium, a somewhat addictive flash game that allows you to play with floral evolution. Seed
Chaz should actually be a little browner than that (in the original, he is) but he's suffering jpeg bleaching, poor dear. Even file compression protocols fall prey to the Caucasian Assumption (or possibly this image was taken midwinter.). Which, I guess, is better than vitiligo.
- Mood:
cheerful
stwish, through the offices of the Recovering Hippie Underground Railroad, has sent north (1) one banjo as my official early 36th birthday present. Somebody tell skzbrust.Apparently the theory is that I will be less terrifying with a banjo than with a guitar? I'm really not too sure about this. (
cristalia and stillsostrange can now vouch for what a lousy guitar player I am.)In any case, I have to leave in an hour to retrieve the alleged musical instrument from an old family friend, who will no doubt have many embarrassing stories of when I was in diapers.
But I did write 1006 words today, and it's only another 59.8 miles to Rivendell.
In other news, the latest installation of Bears Examining is up for the fall issue of Subterranean. And you can play the virtual glass armonica here, if you hate your cats. And I got my contributor's copy of the latest issue of Fictitious Force and also my copy of YBSF # whatever it is. Wooo!
For
stillsostrange, Jill Sobule covers "Don't Let Us Get Sick," which I can't remember if I got through coffeeem or the_red_shoes.- Mood:
touched
I accidentally got the crocodile addicted to Thorazine first time through.
Ooops.
- Mood:
amused - Music:that bizarre little jingle.
- Mood:
addicted - Music:Jethro Tull--Fallen on Hard Times
I've decided that today is a day for drinking chamomile tea and not going outside. Also, a big chunk of plot dropped into my head this morning, but I was having restless fits and couldn't concentrate to write, so, ah, I played a lot of Dinomite and then played guitar for an hour or so. Slowly but surely, I am transitioning from "Somebody who owns a guitar" to "The world's most feeble guitar player."
It makes me feel accomplished. (I'm trying to learn Bflat now. It doesn't seem like it should be that hard, but it really kicks my butt.)
Carnival reviewed at Sequential Tart! Hah, found it. *sack dances.*
All right. I'm going to play some more mindless computer games and figure out what the next scene is, because unfortunately the big chunk of book that my brain gave is macro level rather than micro level.
I should explain that, shouldn't I?
Okay. When I write something, I am thinking about it on ~6 levels. There is the big-picture narrative level, what I call "the story." This is the stuff that goes in the synopsis, or the stuff you list when somebody says "Well, what's your book about?" Then there is the actual scene by scene progression of action, the "plot." This is the questions raised and answered along the way. Forward motion. Tension. That.
Then there is the thematic level--the "argument." This is the thing your 9th grade English teacher asked you essay questions about.
Then there is the "work," which is what the scene accomplishes in terms of the structure of the book. In other words, "This is the scene that introduces character X to character Y, and establishes their relationship." "This is the scene in which Character Z's minor triumph becomes a major setback."
That's four, right?
Five is the character arc--what each scene does in terms of illuminating who the characters are and how they are growing or failing to grow.
Six is the Cool Shit. This is for worldbuilding or throwing in shiny setpieces just because you happen to think of the shiny setpiece. OTOH, once you think of the shiny setpiece, it needs to start doing some of the other five things, too, or soon you have a bloated and repetitious series of volumes about which your readers cry "Seven hundred pages and nothing happened!"
And if you can get a scene doing five or six things?
That's narrative momentum, baby, as long as the prose is up to it.
Is this how you should work? I dunno, Probably not. But it works for me.
Anyway, right now I have the first thing and the third thing, for the rest of the book. And bits and pieces of the other four.
Unfortunately, I need more bits and pieces of NEXT scene, so I can write it. (The worst is when I know the work a scene should be doing, and can't figure out any of the other things that could cause that work to happen. Hate that. Hate it.)
- Mood:
recumbent - Music:Me mutilating Cher songs. (Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves, if you must know.)
Progress notes for 18 January 2007
dust
New Words: 870
Total Words: 29023
Words for the Year: 30530
Pages: 142
Deadline: Sometime in June or July, I'm guessing
Reason for stopping: quota
Stimulants: peach tea, leftover scallops
Exercise: 3.5 miles ski machine and walking yesterday, for a total of 8.5 miles. I am in the hills over Hobbiton!
Songs mutilated: I didn't practice Wednesday. I suck.
Mammalian assistance: n/a
Mail: no mail.
Today's words Word don't know: errantry
Words I'm surprised Word do know: villainously
Darling du Jour: The most immediately obvious thing in the unmapped passage was... bats.
Mean Things: onion marmalade. (What? I *like* onion marmalade!); dead guy in her hed.
Tyop du Jour: n/a
Jury-rigging: I may get to the mad old hermit tomorrow. Every quest needs a mad old hermit.
There's always one more quirk in the character: Rien hates crying. Did I mention that before?
Other writing-related work: I'm doing the world's most confrontational email interview. It's kind of entertaining. Enlightening, even.
Books in progress: Phyllis Ann Karr, The Arthurian Companion; Gustav Davidson, A Dictionary of Angels including the fallen angels; J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
The Internet is full of Things: NUN LANDER!
The glamour!: girl scout cookies apparently contain something that converts into pure crankonium in my blood stream. Aren't I a little old to be developing a sensitivity to cheap chocolate?
- Mood:
listless - Music:Fatboy Slim - Trash Dot Com
You too can participate in a deconstructive sensibility.
Drop-Kick The Faint!
- Location:ironical
- Mood:
oi! oi! - Music:The Faint - Glass Danse
- Mood:
lethargic - Music:Marilyn Manson - Disposable Teens
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- it's a great life, if you don't weaken
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