Daily Archives: January 19, 2007

Swan Sister Update

Total word count, Swan Sister: 29,617
New words today: 2,866

There’s a tiny voice in the back of my brain that’s saying “you’re only 150 words away from accomplishing 3K today”, and I am putting my hands over my ears and singing “LA LA LA” to drown it out because I am exhausted and I refuse to drag this out.

Angst, characters trying to figure out what happened, more angst, characters trying to figure out what to do next, some angst, then skinning and dressing a swan and practicalities like what to do with all the bits.

Yeah, it’s been that kind of day. Three and a half hours of this. But I may have gotten the story to a place where it can actually move again, now. The Significant Stuff of this portion of the book has been dealt with, and now everyone can get going and act.

Die, Angst, Die

Argh! My characters are angsting about the last scene and what happened therein.

So of course I have now combined Radio Sunnydale and BtVS: The Album in a playlist to counter it. (Because there’s nothing angsty about Buffy, oh no.)

No, this music is not conducive to the era or atmosphere I am trying to cultivate for this novel. But it’s sure destroying the angst that’s built up. Move on, people. Advance the plot! Quit moaning about how your lives are changing and how you don’t know where you’re going, and get on with the change.

(See? Right on cue, Joey Ramone’s “Stop Thinking About It” has come up. Obey Joey, characters.)

LATER: Yes, butchering and skinning swans is a much better activity than angsting. Yikes. (Now I theoretically know how to skin a bird. I should go through Fearsclave‘s archives and dig out all the entries that discuss dressing fowl corpses, to pay more attention to detail.)

Writing Truisms

Matociquala reminds everyone about one of the overlooked/unknown truths regarding professional writing:

(this pro writer thing isn’t just writing. There are page proofs, interviews, research, contracts, business nonsense, copy-edits. There is slush to read. There is Stuff. Stuff takes up a couple of hours a day. Every day. Some days it can take ALL DAY.)

and

continued creative output requires continuous creative input.

The Stuff can really mire you down. Particularly if, like me, you forget that it’s part and parcel of the whole career while you’re doing it, and think it doesn’t qualify as Real Work.