Tag: progress

Journal

Back to Square One

maggiedot

Today in Mommy-Land

I swear, every time I start to get a little confident in my mothering skills, the Little Man throws me for a loop. It’s a weekly occurrence, now. What worked last week doesn’t work anymore. That nap that started seeming routine and awesomely long? Yeah, that’s gone now. Copious reading time? Yeah, no. I’ve been picking away at the same book for the past month. *le sigh*

Also seem to have some kind of bug, which I so *don’t* need right now. Plus the hubby’s back to his long-distance rotation (hopefully his last, but who knows?), so there’s that mental adjustment, too.

Today in Writer-Land

Very little happened here today. May have mentally fixed a problem the 4th scene was having, may scrap a character trait that–upon rewrite–feels a bit too forced. Over the weekend listed three important changes to make to the already rewritten portion, but haven’t implemented them yet.

I realize now that I have a tendency to try to change too much of the original story, which is a basic editing skills problem. Lately, I feel like I’ve jumped to a new level of development in my writing, only to realize I know *nothing* about writing. Ugh. I guess it’s good, but it sure is frustrating.

Also, my current year’s goals, in view of mobile baby, are looking pretty challenging to hit… *rawr*

Journal

Day 2 — Son of 2014 Goals…RETURNS!

maggiedot

Phew! It’s been a day. Didn’t get half as much done as I was hoping, general life-wise, but I did manage to set down some time for both the current New Project and the Editing Project. Have some extra-curricular work coming up in the next few days/weeks, so that’ll probably slow some of this momentum down, but so long as I’m still getting words and time in, I’ll try not to feel too bad about not getting the same numbers. Numbers are numbers are numbers, right? 

WRITING PROJECT: In a world where wars are waged in shadow and the separation between man and machine is shrinking by the day, a war-droid wielding cyborg-girl begins a secret battle against those who would control her and destroy the only chance of a future she’s ever had.

Working Title: Shadow Games: Book 1 of the Shadow Engines duology
Added Words: 2,672
Total Words (to date): 88,857

Happening Today in the World of Fiction!: Sarad takes out a little pent-up brotherly aggression, a good bit of blood is spilt on polished tiles, a secret elevator revealed, and a fight is definitely brewing. Expect more bloodletting tomorrow!

Notes: Once I got myself in the chair, fingers to keyboard, the words flowed moderately well. The scene feels a bit bloated and slow, so I suspect there will be some significant trimming later, but meh. It’s moving forward, even if slowly, so I’ll take it. It’s something!

EDITING PROJECT: Ghosts and legends and Bluebeard, oh my! The cold Maine coastline! Haunted grounds! Ribbons and bitter, ghostly wives! Dueling secrets! True love? Perhaps!

Current Editing Project: Nobody Here But Us Monsters
Accomplished in Edits: Finally took the time to get a pen-and-paper outline of the revised plot down (which is pretty similar to the rough draft I’ve got, but does shift the POV), which helps me to get a grasp of what I have left to do. (A lot. Like OMG whoa a lot.) At least I don’t think this one’s going to evolve spontaneously into a novella like others have (Scientific Term: “Spontanovella”).

Got down another rewritten-from-scratch scene with the new POV, and I’m loving it. For the first time, I feel like I’ve got enough distance from both the Bluebeard character and the New Wife character to actually show what they’re both going through as the story progresses. And can I just say, I love, love, LOVE bitter ghost wives? They’re so fabulous. They make it so much fun to write. So *that’s* good! ‘Cuz there’s a lot of story left to go, though the word count is managing itself rather well for a change. Yay for staying short! :D

Journal

Beginning the New Year

maggiedot

So I’m not even going to try to disguise the fact that I am BLATANTLY AND UNABASHEDLY copying fantastist and brilliant author Cherie Priest’s blog style for the time being. (Also read my interview with her and her story in Apex Magazine here!) I’ve yet to find another format that so succinctly captures what I enjoy in a writer’s blog, so for now, I’m just gonna do what any beginner does: I’m going to copy the masters. :)

Basically, these will be brief, daily posts to keep myself on track and remind myself what I actually got done over the course of the day, even if that’s just getting in a much needed nap. They’ll be primarily writing-related, but I’ll probably add in a few little things about the day in general here and there when interesting. :)

WRITING PROJECT: In a world where wars are waged in shadow and the separation between man and machine is shrinking by the day, a war-droid wielding cyborg-girl begins a secret battle against those who would control her and destroy the only chance of a future she’s ever had.

Working Title: Shadow Games: Book 1 of the Shadow Engines duology
Added Words: 2,431
Total Words (to date): 86,305

Happening Today in the World of Fiction!: Well-meaning Keon finds himself in hot water again, returning to his home only to find that his return was perhaps orchestrated by his psychotic half-brother, Sarad. The local police are not amused, but at least the hostages are being released, so that’s good, right? RIGHT?

Notes: Continuing this project from NANO, and trying to wrap it up into a completed rough draft. Shouldn’t have too much left to go, really–just a handful of chapters–and things are clipping along rather nicely after the holiday break (surprise!).

EDITING PROJECT: Ghosts and legends and Bluebeard, oh my! The cold Maine coastline! Haunted grounds! Ribbons and bitter, ghostly wives! Dueling secrets! True love? Perhaps!

Current Editing Project: Nobody Here But Us Monsters
Accomplished in Edits: I’ve been going through the first couple chapters of David Madden’s Revising Fiction: A Handbook for Writers, because for those of you following this blog, you’ll know revision has been my major tripping stone these past few years. Today, it was more of a thinking day. I have something of a good core for NHBUM, but I’ve been struggling with the PoV–how much to show, from whose perspective, how best to effectively show the character dynamics without giving too much away too early while leading to a good payoff at the end. I wrote several aborted drafts in first Bluebeard’s POV (1st Person), and then an alternating Bluebeard/NewWife POV (both alternating 1st POV), but neither of those worked.

The latest, completed draft, was of the New Wife exclusively, in 1st again, but attempts to determine to whom she’s speaking and why she’s relating this story, and how to tell it without giving her secret away too much while still playing fair–Eh, needless to say, it’s been a minefield.

After today’s thinking, I think I may be on the right track, starting from pseudo-scratch using 1st person but this time from the plural perspective of Bluebeard’s seven dead and bitter wives who still haunt the manor. Instead of them trying to save the New Wives, these dead women are so humiliated and enraged by how they were tricked and trapped by this terrible man, that they instead seek constantly to prove that they were not stupid to look, that it was not *their* fault that they gave in to his test, and therefore attempt to prove this by sucking in all the new wives and getting them to look. It offers just what I needed in terms of tension and dynamic that both shows and hides the secrets of both Bluebeard and his New Wife, and yet ultimately should still make for a good payoff in the end. Anyway, got about 500 new words on the rewrite done, so that’s something, and I’ve got a clearcut path now. Looking forward to what tomorrow brings!