Category Archives: Writing

ESTC Update

Gah.

Current word count stands at 46,746 and page count at 206 after tightening and polishing Chapter 4, which isn’t fully polished to my satisfaction but could be handed in like this. It’s something I can go back and fiddle with if I have time after everything else is done, and if I don’t, I’ll get it in the rewrites. (I hate thinking that. I want it done right the first time.)

Also, something I wrote in Chapter 4 today inspired a ritual that got written in Chapter 6. I orignally thought this ritual had to go into Chapter 7, but I was evidently on another planet at the time. So that’s been crossed off the list of things to do for Chapter 7, even though it shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Tomorrow: Chapters 5 and 6. And since 6 is such a little thing, maybe some of 7. (The actual stuff that needs to be done in 7, I mean. Wow, I’m tired.)

I need to go find dinner. I think there’s leftover chili.

ESTC Update

Things are rolling along nicely. Adequately. Well, not badly.

The total word count currently stands at 44,730, and there are 201 pages. Chapters 1 through 3 are pretty much complete, with only a couple of highlighted sentences to be rephrased when I have more of a brain. Chapter 4 is seventy-five percent finished as well, although that final 25% is going to be a pain in the neck to complete because it’s lists and correspondences and will likely take most of my day tomorrow.

Then it’s Chapter 5, where I have to write a set of instructions for basic meditation, expand a ritual, clarify and expand the breathing meditation, outline a basic circle-cast, and cover basic shields (can’t I just say “read this other book I wrote”? — only I won’t do that because I hate it when someone deliberately leaves something out so that I have to go buy another book in the middle of the book I’m reading). All these things seem huge in my brain, but they’re really only a paragraph or two each. And then in chapter 6 there’s only one thing I have to fix/tweak/expand.

Which brings me to Chapter 7, the chapter of grief and sorrow and the icky things one doesn’t want to have to think about, which only needs three rituals and some polishing. If I don’t finish it on Friday, then it, Chapter 8 (which needs some moderately substantial things added to it), and Chapter 9 (two rituals need to be created in entirety) will be handled Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday will be the final finicky bits and read-throughs and checking of appendices. Oh, and I have to fit looking for visual references for the art department in there somewhere too.

‘Cos next Wednesday’s it. By five o’clock it has to be in someone else’s inbox on someone else’s desk in another country. The End.

I’m looking forward to November. Odd to say that, but I am. It will be nice to have some time to myself.

Orchestra tonight, and yet another week has gone by where I’ve been working so much during the day and being so wiped at night that I haven’t rehearsed anything. This is yet another reason to be looking forward to November: I’ll actually be able to practice.

Every Day We’re Dumping The Body

Yes, we’ve reached the hack and slash part of the game, where I wade through the MS and am merciless with the cut-and-paste-into-a-Deleted-Materials-file sequence of mouse clicks. Get rid of those useless paragraphs and those vague thoughts! Make room for the rituals and meditations that exist only in the [insert ritual here] sense! And since I’m also at the low self-esteem I-hate-myself-my-writing-is-awful point of the process (right on schedule, I must add), cutting things out to make it as focused as possible isn’t being hindred by any sense of maudlin attachment.

This is where I stop counting words. The final count will be what it is when the dust settles mid next week.

A Sort Of ESTC Update

The problem with the book at the moment isn’t coming up with 8K more words to put in the manuscript. No, that would be easy. It’s finishing it that’s the challenge.

Yes, those are two different things. One means you can just throw words into the file. The other means you have to bring every single small section to an intelligent conclusion, make sure all your interchapter references are correct (and that they actually exist — I found a reference to a set of breathing meditations that aren’t there yet), create the bits that are currently marked with [insert info here], and check that everything in the detailed outline you submitted is actually in the book in some form or another. Plus be brilliant while doing it all, making deep observations and providing a solid and inspiring structure to facilitate someone’s spiritual experience.

(And I wondered why I was having an anxiety attack on Wednesday? All this, plus no time to practice an astonishingly difficult Beethoven symphony that I really need to work on. I hate feeling unprepared and lame, and that’s exactly how I’m feeling at orchestra these days.)

I’ve just taken the time to go through the MS file and make a handwritten list in my notebook of each thing that has to be added, rewritten, polished, inserted, and so forth.

Five pages of notes later, I am grimly unamused. (Of course, I also discovered that I was further along in certain places than I thought I was. That’s a good thing.) So for the next week, I’ll be going through the list item by item. I’ll fix something, cross it off the list, go to the next thing that needs to be done, do it, and so on.

I’ve started by deleting a bunch of stuff that didn’t go anywhere. (Great ideas that sort of wandered into a corner and stood staring at the paint. And no, they’re not gone forever: they’ve gone into the Deleted Stuff file in the ESTC folder. I don’t throw anything away. You never know what will come in useful for an article or a future book.) Deleting after adding some writing earlier today means that the MS count currently stands at 41,584, which at least isn’t lower than it was when I closed up shop on Wednesday. And I still have an hour to work.

It’s no longer about the word count. (Well, to be honest, it’s never been about the word count; word count is just the only way I have to judge how much of the book exists.) Now it’s all about how much work I can get done in order to to make it the best book it can be before it leaves my hands on November 1.

On to item #2 to be handled.

ESTC Update

Total word count, ESTC: 41,207
Total words today and yesterday: 1,172

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
41,207 / 50,000
(82.4%)

You know that whole dramatic “how will I ever fit all the info that has to go into Chapter Two into Chapter Two!” thing I’ve been wibbling and worrying about?

Short. Very, very short. Three pages of point form notes, which will probably expand to six once I write it out. Which leaves me lots of room for all the other stuff I want to write, like rituals in the final chapter and another three or so pages of meta stuff on rites of passage that belong in Chapter Two as well; all the things I wanted to include but was afraid wouldn’t fit. Yay me.

Oh, and I made pretzels this morning. Next time I’ll use one cup less flour and cut the sugar in the dough by maybe half. Very excellent nonetheless. But then, I’m a salt devotee, and I adore big dough pretzels.

And there’s nothing like the Colonial theme from the BSG season 2 soundtrack to get me motivated. Of course, it also has other associations for me, but damn, it’s a fine, fine piece of music.