Category Archives: Writing

IMFC Update

Total word count, Il Maestro e le Figlie di Coro: 16,054
Total words today: 2,667

All I wanted to do today was sleep. It’s a good thing I had summarised in a single paragraph one of the events I wanted to occur at some point, because I defaulted to writing that event today. And it produced ten pages of interesting interaction and development, and the potential for repercussions, emotional and otherwise.

I’m currently struggling with point of view — sometimes the narrative wants to follow someone who isn’t a main character, which shouldn’t happen. I’ve got a limited omniscient narrator that focuses on a single character, which can make things difficult if the event I’m writing about is centered on someone else. It creates the need for reporting off-stage action, which is hard to write and keep interesting.

Off to pick up the boy, now. And no writing tonight! This story’s been driving my brain too hard, and as a result I’ve been getting to bed late because I’ve been setting down the bones of the story before it vanishes.

Release

I’m about to move the herbal and pregnancy books off the reference shelf within arm’s reach of my desk, where I keep the books I need at a moment’s notice during whatever project I’m currently writing. This is somewhat of a ritual, because it’s a sign of me finally completely releasing whatever’s been eating my brain for the past however many months.

The books that will be staying there are the ones at the far end, the ones on swans and mills and late medieval technology. And the ones I will add this afternoon are the ones on Vivaldi and music and Baroque-era life, for this new novella which is now threatening to turn into a full-length YA historical novel, one that may well have publication potential when I’m done and it’s been revised.

Once the initial furious output on this story calms down, I’m looking forward to being able to go back and forth between it and Swan Sister. And early in the new year I’d like to go back to rewriting the Pandora book, too, and finally writing the end now that I’ve figured it out.

Best-Laid Plans

I wasn’t going to write today; the boy was home all day, we had a playdate with Julia and Arthur (lots of fun, hurrah!), and I fully intended to go to bed with a book after dinner…

… but my brain had other ideas. So the novella now stands at 13,389 words, which means I wrote 2,215 more words than I intended to write tonight. Plus I have laid foundation for something interesting that will happen later on, and firmed up two other interesting things that will also happen later. There has been much development all around.

Now I will go make a warm cup of herbal tea, and go to bed with that book I meant to curl up with an hour and a half ago.

Thanks

I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who dug Vivaldi recordings out of their collections and lent them to me unasked. I now have over six hours’ worth of Vivaldi music, which is perfect for my current writing soundtrack.

Anyone have any Geminani? (Kidding. I’m kidding!) (Although now it would be interesting to find out if anyone has some, just for trivia’s sake.)

In Summary

Today was a dull, gloomy, very rainy day. And I ignored it all, and wrote all day long instead. The novella now stands at total of 11,174 words, which means 4,193 new words today (whee! — not that this is going to happen often). I encountered an interesting development in the form of passive-aggressive insistence from a character whom I had intended to be an old, dour, stubborn obstacle somewhere down the line insinuating herself into the storyline as a young, charming, sympathetic woman. I shall have to make the obstacle the board of governors instead.

I went to orchestra tonight feeling not as bad I generally have been feeling because I managed to get some practice in today, and it showed when I played the Beethoven. Unfortunately, I ignored the other pieces in favour of the Beethoven symphony because it’s what needed the most work, and that showed too, particularly because we played them last and my right hand has been stiff all day, so I kept fumbling the bow as well as missing fingering. Although I console myself with the fact that twice tonight, the Beethoven was so good that my throat closed up and I had to fight back a feeling of being swept away by the music.

Our principle cellist is test-driving a new cello, and she let me try it at break. Oh, it was so gentle on the fingers. I’ve been told by luthiers that my cello is remarkably easy to play, but it requires pounding and sawing in comparison to this one, which was incredibly soft and gave almost no resistance at all to fingers or bow. It felt as if it was cooperating in the creation of sound, as opposed to being played. I played a band solo on it, and some of the new sequences from the latest song we’ve been working on, and it was… well, I keep saying it over and over, so there’s no point in belabouring it: My cello was stiff in comparison. Although it made me despair somewhat, I’m glad I had the chance to play it because now I know how good a cello can be, and that’s the kind of thing I can look for when I eventually get to a point where I can seriously shop for an upgrade.

And from the file marked “Eep”, I realised tonight that we only have one more regular rehearsal before the concert date. I’m not quite sure when that happened. Possibly when the last half of October got eaten by my book deadline.

Helpful You Are Not

Dear Word:

Please stop autocorrecting the word “planing” to “planning” in my document. If I’m talking about a luthier’s workshop, I truly do mean planing, as in using a tool called a plane to shave thin curls of wood off a flat surface such as a plank of wood. Contrary to what you may think, I am not dumb, nor am I misspelling the word, and your assumptions to the contrary are not appreciated. In fact, I’m going to turn the autocorrect function off, and I don’t know why I haven’t done so yet in this story.

No love,

Me.

Rainy Morning In November

Another 1,700 words in the story yesterday afternoon, bringing me up to 6,981. I now know more about obscure Baroque intruments than I ever thought I’d know.

As I expected, I’m feeling a bit of resistance to working on this novella. I’m experiencing the odd double sensation of wanting to be writing because I enjoy it (when it’s flowing, of course), and not wanting to be writing because it’s work and I’m understandably rather weary of setting words down. And because I began with a vague idea and started writing to discover what happens, I don’t have an outline to fall back on to see what I should address next when I exhaust my current scene. Or rather, I have a few jotted notes that describe various events and conflicts in the story, but I need to write a bridge from where I am now to get to the first one. I’m going to put the word [bridge] in square brackets and highlight it, and then just start writing that first event today. Writing that event will give me a better idea of what needs to happen in the [bridge] section.

Today I will also practice the Beethoven at least once, hopefully twice. Yes.