mischievousprogress notes for 21 March 2005
Carnival
New Words: 0
Total Words: 17,305
Pages: 81
Reason for stopping: Well, it seems to be time for some heavy-duty brainwork. Also time for my traditional reshuffling of the first hundred pages. (This always happens
Mammalian Assistance: Mebd is on my notebook and Paladin is sprawled where I am sure to run him over with my chair.
Stimulants: seltzer. Just about to go make tea now. Mmm, tea.
Exercise: I suspect there will be walking today. Walking! And maybe much easier yoga than yesterday; I tried my third-hardest dvd, and got through it, except for the headstands. (I didn't do headstands when I five, people.) But it kicked my butt. So. Maybe the second-easiest one today.
(I have six; "fingernail-chewing boring," "easy," "moderate," "challenging," "tough," and "death by ujjayi.")
Mail:
chance88088 pointed this out to me: "This Tragic Glass" made the Tiptree long list. This is my silly grin. This is my silly grin on crack. (conga-rats also to the Estimable Mr. Barzak, who is a Good Egg. (I'm sure others on the list are too, but I don't know them and the yare unlikely to be reading this space.) (It's all about the nepotism.))Tyop du jour: n/a
Darling du jour: n/a
Books in progress: Ed Sanders, Tales of Beatnik Glory; Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver (and about to go read more of the latter.)
Interesting research fact of the day: He's a red-eared slider. Of course he's of the devil.
Other writing-related work: lots and lots of handwritten notes and self-questioning. I can tell the book's done that thing they do, where I've got enough on paper that my brain has started picking through the implications and expanding on them, and I'm going to have to do that go-back-and-reshuffle. Which tweaks the guiltmonkey, because hey, I am not writing four pages a day omgtheworldwillendrainsoffireandtheRedSo
This happens every book, and every book, I somehow manage to forget that it happens and convince myself, blithely, that this will be the one I'll write right through. This time, for sure!
But I have 80 pages, and I suspect by the time I'm done reshuffling and growing this bit, it'll be more like 100-120 pages, which is a fourth to a fifth of the book (depending on how long it gets), which is, indeed, a good place for the First Big Explosion.
There are writers who like writing things, and writers who like finishing things. I am, in general, a writer who likes finishing things, but I'm trying to train myself to enjoy the process more, because, dude, I'm going to be doing this for the next fifty years, with a little bit of luck. So it would probably be wise to enjoy it. One can't run on adrenaline all the time.
(Now I want a Bullwinkle icon. "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" "RAWR!" Love that show.)
This, despite the fact that I suspect this book will take all year to write (it has that scary, taking-up-lots-of-backbrain-space feel to it) and I'm still on vacation, technically, until I sell something.
Darn brain. Darn guiltmonkeys.