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.
For the Chapter 5 stuff, do you need to come up with new words, or can you essentially copy-paste from your other books and just adjust where necessary? It’s not plagerism if you’re copying from yourself…
Actually, passing off your old work as new is very much plagiarism.
I look forward to November too! Living upstairs of you, I am hoping to hear you practice. I haven’t yet, but then you have not had time to.
Jeff: Yeah, but is that the case here? She’s describing a proceedure for how to accomplish a task. If the book were about say, sewing, and the task was “baste a seam”, would an author need to come up with a new way of explaining how to do that for “How to sew costumes” and “How to sew curtains”?
It’s more detailed than that, Jan. Essentially I have to recast and rephrase, because I’m talking about it in a different context and a different headspace. I see what you mean, and I think what you’re saying is that it’s a case of using the same thought as a basis in both situations, which isn’t always plagiarism. You can’t copyright “how to baste a seam”, for example. So you’re sort of right: the thought is basically the same, and iy’s not the thought that’s copyrighted, it’s the sequence of words used to describe it. And I have to come up with a different way to say it, because the particular sequence of words I used to describe the process in other books has been copyrighted and sold. The idea may be mine, but the way I said it previously is now protected.
If, however, I wanted to use the same words because I thought I did it brilliantly elsewhere, I could do it and say “This is taken from ‘Book Blah’ by Me” (or Someone Else, if I think their way of saying it was exactly what I need — subject to fair use, and I’d better be able to defend my need to use of someone else’s words). Except my past instructions certainly weren’t the be-all end-all. And trying to say the same thing in a different way is a good test of how I understand the sequence, and often reveals a new insight that hadn’t occured to me before.
Using the same words by me and pretending they’re new is plagiarism. (I’ve caught someone doing this, and it wasn’t pretty.) Using the same words by me, with the editor’s okay and appropriate reference and attribution, would constitute quoting.
Scarlet: I have actually practiced once or twice while you’re home. You were in your office, though, and I was in mine… so no wonder you didn’t hear me. :) And I do play for Liam every once in a while. (Note to self: Yay, the cello doesn’t carry, and I can stop wibbling about people hearing me!)
Arin: Thanks very much for the explanation.