Category Archives: Writing

Orchestrated Update

New words today: 2,225
Total word count, Orchestrated: 19,188

So yeah. First challenge/crisis thing has just finished. My protagonist is curiously tired and not as upset about it as I thought she’d be. Aftermath to follow tomorrow or Friday, whenever I next get the chance to write. (Tomorrow is my day with the car and so is filled with errands and stuff, so I’m not scheduling writing in; if it happens, great.)

I’ve had a weird day. It’s been grey out, I can’t find the right kind of music that I want to listen to (this would be much easier of I could figure it out to begin with), and I’ve spent a lot of the day wandering around aimlessly. Read the first chapter of The Graveyard Book. Reread Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Wrote over two thousand words, apparently. Tried to figure out dinner and failed.

I did manage to eat lunch, though, which has to count for something.

Orchestra tonight. Wish I was more enthusiastic about it. I do have new rosin to try, a long story which I haven’t written about either yesterday or today… I’ll get around to it.

Orchestrated Update

New words today: 2,317
Total word count, Orchestrated: 16,963

Oh, the best friend is concerned about the protagonist and is willing to call her on it. So she does have something to do other than be useful post-first crisis. Who’d have known?

I like it when characters do things I didn’t plan for them to do. Helps develop depth that I can mine later.

Orchestrated Update

New words today: 4,035
Total word count, Orchestrated: 14,646

You see? This is what I can do when I walk away from the Internet-enabled desktop and work on the borrowed iBook in the living room.

Worked some plot-advancement stuff, character stuff, something like five new scenes, and OMG bang there we are at the next major plot upset that forces the protagonist to prepare for battle.

I feel really, really good. And I swear I just opened the file thinking, All I have to do is five hundred words. Five hundred words now, maybe five hundred words later, and that will be a thousand, and that’s good for the day. Except two hours and a half later, there are four thousand new words, and eep.

Ye gods. Things are a quarter of the way along. Where’s a word meter? I need a word meter for this entry.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
14,646 / 60,000
(24.4%)

Oh, Bother

I should have just curled up in my reading chair and played Guitar Hero on the DS this afternoon for the amount of work-stuff I’ve actually accomplished.

I don’t have much memory of the day, really. I know I chatted with Ceri about books via e-mail. I know I answered the phone a few times, and both people who know me and complete strangers answered my “Hello?” with “Wow, do you have a cold?” The stranger from the bank cheerfully signed off our brief conversation with “And I hope you get better soon!”

I have made more typing errors today than any other day I have been alive, I am absolutely certain. I have spent as much time fixing errors as typing stuff in the first place.

At least I started dinner. I’m doing a pork tenderloin in the slow cooker, in a homemade barbecue-ish sauce consisting of tomato paste, vinegar, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce, plus an onion and a teaspoon-size blob of Montreal steak rub. (And on this topic, I cannot believe how many recipes for slow cooker barbecue pork consisted of “put pork in slow cooker, cover with a bottle of your favourite BBQ sauce.” Come on, people — that should be illegal.) I’d love to have it with brown rice but I think we’re out. It’ll have to be white rice. Grr.

Also? Despite my ears being blocked, the whine of the computer tower is driving me crazy. If only I could have it hidden in the closet or something, or in another room entirely.

Bah. And the boys will be home any minute, too. I think today just needs to be written off.

On the bright side, I tidied up my writing desk, and I’m loving this cool, clear weather. Hello, fall!

The Joys of Being Sick

My ears have just spontaneously (I assume) unblocked, thank the gods. I hate being sick, and my body has arrived at the achy body/chills/headache stage of the Game of Ill. All three of us are sick. The boy seems to be the one who’s operating at the best level of efficiency; HRH and I have been dragging ourselves through the week.

I wrote the boy’s 39 month post early last week, saved it, and evidently forgot to publish it. I’ve just done that; it’s here. Annoying as all heck, because for once I finally did it on time.

I am at the ‘I suck at writing’ stage of the book, too. Why do I do this? No one is ever going to want to buy it. Doesn’t something else have to be happening, something important? What’s the point of telling a story if it doesn’t examine something deep and philosophical and life-changing? And I suspect that it might be better told as a first-person narrative. I’m going to stick to the third person until I’m absolutely convinced it would be better in the first, though. This is just my inner critic trying to stop me from getting anything done.

I have zero energy. Stupid achy cold. This is what I used to feel like all the time. I’m so grateful that the fibro was diagnosed and that I’m taking something for it now. How did I operate like this for weeks at a go?

Orchestrated Update

New words today: 2,003
Total word count, Orchestrated: 9,393

Hello, pages and words. I love you.

Two new scenes, and my two protagonists have met and shared info and are now friends. Good. I may even have given a decent sense of who the new character is.

And speaking of orchestra, it’s the first rehearsal of the 2008-2009 chamber orchestra season tonight! I, of course, do not yet have my cello back from the shop, but someone is lending me one for the night. I’m very excited about going back because I miss playing (and not having a cello within reach for the past two weeks has driven me crazy), and also because we’ll meet our first guest conductor and get our music for the concert in late November.

Now I’m going to go get myself a drink, read some more Anathem and enjoy the language, and think about what to make for dinner. (I made sun oven-dried tomatoes with sea salt, herbs, and olive oil yesterday; maybe I’ll do something with them and some chicken. If I don’t eat the tomatoes right out of the container, that is.) Basically I intend to enjoy the fact that I have the next two hours to myself before the boys come home. Maybe I’ll have a nice, warm bath. Hmm; that thought has much merit. I also have a couple of sweaters to mend, as they seem to have developed holes during their summer sojourn in a drawer. I suspect that the bath will win out, though.

Workshop Wibbling, By Me

Once upon a time when I prepared lectures/workshops, it went something like this:

1. Oh my gosh! I’m not going to know what to say at all!

2. I know, I’ll outline it extensively in point form.

3. That can’t possibly be enough to fill ninety minutes. I’ll add more.

4. Oh no, we’re going overtime! I’ll try to squeeze the last trillion bits of info into the following five minutes.

Now it’s more like this:

1. Oh my gosh! I’m not going to know what to say at all!

2. I know; I’ll put handy book extracts on a couple of pieces of paper.

3. Oh my gosh! There are TEN PIECES OF PAPER! With wall to wall type on them! This will never work!

4. I will reduce it to point form. Even if I think I won’t remember what to say.

5. I’ll bet this would take an hour and a half to cover. I should cut more out.

6. I AM GUTTING MY LECTURE! This will never work!

7. Maybe I should aim for a half-hour lecture, then it will actually fit into an hour.

8. I cannot possibly choose what to leave out!

9. Oh, fine. I’ll cut those three pages.

10. This will never fit into an hour.

11. I give up. I’ll use these two pieces of paper, and we’ll just go where it takes us.

12. I should probably print this out…

Note: I am currently around step seven and step four. Yes, at the same time.

ETA: I give up; I’m printing what I’ve got. I need to highlight things and write little notes in by hand to properly satisfy my need to make changes. Also? Eleven pages. Oy. The last two are just-in-case-we-have-time. But we won’t. I’m becoming a lot more comfortable with what I’ve got down, which is good too; I think that’s what I was most concerned about going into this. You know, the whole ‘I handed in the book and all the info promptly fell out of my head’ syndrome that pops up every time I finish a manuscript? That. I’m much better now, though, because I’ve been talking through what I see on the monitor. (I’m sure this completely reassures you.)