Skip to main content

In Process -- June 2014



First Draft
“Limering”. Around 67,000 words. I discovered about a week ago what happened during the big mystery at the heart of the story, so I’ll be able to end it eventually.

Editing
“Wind/Water/Salt”. I’d like to say I got fed up and just finished the second draft, but alas that didn’t happen. I think for July I will just finish the damn thing. There are about 110 pages to go, so that's reasonable. Let's just say July won't end until this draft is done! 

What happens is I go along, and I find something big that needs changing -- a character needs to be somewhere else than where I have her, and this has impacts across various chapters until things right themselves and I have a few clean sections. In order to make this stuff work, I have to gut some chapters, and then I just write these dreadful one- or two-sentence fillers. "Her hands were still in shackles. He had the tools lying around, and so he cut them off." And move along. But I have managed to cut a few thousand words out, which is good. Though I feel like a slave to the 3-POV organizing principle I started with. 

Scott Westerfield had an essay up on the NaNoWriMo website about revising, and how this is a great chance to outline (or re-outline) your novel, and that’s what I’ve been doing, so I guess I might be going about this the right way. 




Connecting
--
Circulating
--
Knitting

“Kaffeklatsch” (self-designed).  Finished the second sleeve so I could use the DPNs on a sock. I never started that sock. I am a couple of inches from done this garment. 

“Ceremonial Armour” (Kaffe Fassett, knit from a photo). So, I started the first sleeve, but then after two inches I ripped most of it out and ordered more yarn. I didn’t have the right color to finish this project. I’ve knitted back to about where I was before with the new yarn, and it looks much better now.
“St. Anthony’s Ribbon” (self-designed). I decided the reason I never work on this is that it’s not working, so I ripped out to the first row and added more stitches to the cuff. This sucked, because the sleeve was up to the elbow (8/13 done). But it was too tight and I would never have worn the wretched thing that way, so I guess it’s all for the good. Sometimes the reason I don’t work on something is that my subconscious knows it’s not going to work, and I started this in December, and it really hadn’t progressed. I’ve got 5/13 of the sleeve done again now.

I had intended to sew a skirt and a dress and start another dress (too ambitious, perhaps) but then the boy had the incident with the police, and I had to make him something to carry his arrows in instead. So, I did a leather-working project that took many, many hours, and then worked a bit on the skirt. 
 

Popular posts from this blog

Best TW feedback ever

Over at the dayjob, SMEs are feverishly trying to get documents back to me all marked up, in preparation for the release that's supposed to happen the week I'm back from VP. Today's best comment: Unfortunately not true. SMEs, they're so cute.

What I read: August 2023

"The Absolute Book" by Elizabeth Knox. I got it for Christmas. It was delightful, even if maybe some stuff wasn't explained completely. Or maybe that's part of why it was delightful.  "Crucial conversations" By Joseph Grenny and three other old white men. Another office book club selection. The word "candor" comes up a lot. I really resented this book.  LHC #220: "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt. There was a girl at my previous company who wanted to have an office book club, and she had this book on her desk for months and months. I can totally understand this. I found portions crazy stressful to read. Like, I would be skipping ahead to see how much more in the section, could I get through it, pacing around, etc. I wanted to know how it ended, sure, but I was having weird stress dreams and stuff. If it wasn't a library book I might not have finished it at all. It was such a relief when Boris showed up again and something happened. I di

What I read: March, 2010

"The Man from St. Petersburg" Ken Follett. Oh. My. God. I read it because we had two copies lying around. Ick. This book made me feel dirty. I made some negative comment about this book to my sister, who repled "I've read every book he's ever written." I think she's mad at me now. This book was all tell, no show. There was no tension. The sex was funny. It reminded me of my dad's novel. It seemed well-researched, from what I can tell. When my friend said that of my karate-zombie novel, I took it as damning with faint praise, so there you go. There was no female character with whom I could identify. Or male character, for that matter. I don't need a woman to be a role model. I really strongly disliked this book. "Wanderlust" Rebecca Solnit. I'd come across her name in a discussion of the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, and came across this when I was looking for her other book on the TPL website. As walking is an integral part o