throw another bear in the canoe

Figured out, last night and this morning, both why I've been plateauing and why Worldwired keeps feeling a bit flat to me. It's because I've been concentrating on the three complex external storylines to the point where the various threads of the internal arcs have gotten shuffled aside, dropped, or insufficiently reinforced. They're all *there,* at least. They're just there in skeletal form.

Well, that's what drafts two and three are for, right? I'm actually looking forward to rewriting this darned thing, because there's a lot of threads in here in that I want to see teased brighter and made poignant. The heart is there. It's just not shining through yet the way I want it to.

The book is starting to flow again, though. I know, because Jenny's assaulting me with shiny little paragraphs of narrative and dialogue while I'm driving to work in the morning and can't write anything down. She's vindictive, that one. She finds ways to get even.

Still, the ideas I'm having for rewrite give me lattitude to show more of the cool SFnal idea underlying the book, and its application, instead of just sneaking up on it.

My idea process has nothing to do with originality. I'm a total magpie when it comes to people, circumstances, situations, not unlike old Will; I find a bunch of weird things that glitter, and arrange them around a theme in a hopefully aesthetically pleasing fashion, and add a plot and some characters, wallah! The literary equivalent of trash art.

But the worldwire is one of my few real actual no kidding sfnal ideas, so I'm just pleased as punch to get to play with it a bit more.

So cpolk and leahbobet and I kind of double-dog-dared each other to go after these ridiculous writing goals today. And it worked.

They both wrote over 4500 words, because they are young and crazy.

I didn't do quite that well. But I still serously kicked some ass. If I do say so myself.

Worldwired

Words today: 3,639
Words total: 71435
Manuscript page: 291 of 301 (I wrote five pages on the wrong end of the book. Apparently, there comes a point about two-thirds of the way through each book where I have to write the ending before I can write any more of the middle. Oddly enough, that worked for the whole trilogy, in this case, because I wrote the epilogue to the third book when I was halfway done with the second book.)
Reason for stopping: Time to go swimming and then relax. For once, not end of scene, because I knew the first paragraph of the next scene after I finished the last one, so I wrote it.
Stimulants: rose congou and Fresca
Mammalian assistance: Marlowe and Ollie on various visits. Paladin sleeping on my chair's rollers.
Exercise: Just about to throw on my swimsuit and go to the pool.
Note cards obliterated: 2; 27 remaining
Pages to go: estimated 120 (let's see how I do!)

2 note cards

I covet this shirt.