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01/16/2009

After a miserable night of sleeping (not the coughing so much — just couldn’t get and stay asleep — and I had HORRIBLE dreams), I woke up to Littlest Monster’s fever.  She’d complained of headache and sore throat the day before.  All parents of school-aged kids are probably whispering “strep!” and you’d be right. 

Meanwhile tonight Middle Monster also began running a temp.  She doesn’t have a sore throat though, and since she had her tonsils out last year, I don’t think it’s strep.

And of course, I’m still coughing and coughing and coughing, although my voice is better.  So I took Bethanie’s recommendation and bought some Airbourne tonight, as well as a general vitamin.  I got out of the habit of taking anything, which certainly hasn’t helped my immunity.  I’m determined to get over this thing!

I didn’t write until 10:30 tonight, but I did accomplish the following:

  • NSR:  revised next section, 1528 words.
  • NSR:  jotted notes for next (new) section in Quinn’s POV.  Will attempt that tomorrow.

I’m running behind on the revision.  I scheduled myself 10K a week, so I need to get 5K done by Monday.  With all the sick monsters, I don’t know if that’ll happen.

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1/15/2009

 

  • NSR: Reworked the opening scene into Ruin’s POV.  Tough.  I actually ended up with negative words today, but it was a good change.
  • SFR:  brainstormed while sitting through basketball practice.  Got some good backstory for the heroine, but I have no character names yet.
  • Participated in Drollerie Chat tonight.  Sorry, I forgot to advertise it here!

And to prove that I’m really REALLY insane, I think I’ll be writing something new in the Blood and Shadows world to giveaway.  By 3/8 for E-Book Week.  *dies*

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Color Me Intrigued

Color always plays a huge role in writing for me, which may seem rather odd.

Think about it.  The Blood and Shadows world colors are appropriately black, red, and white.  The Trinity is based on that color scheme, and the main characters reflect those colors as well.  With the Sha’Kae al’Dan, color is part of their individual honor.  The Blood, the personal guards, all wear red to symbolize their willingness to sacrifice every last drop of blood in Khul’s defense.

In Beautiful Death, Isabella’s trademark clothes are based on a simple color scheme:  black and indigo.  Hades is silver, to match his hair and eyes.  Their power signatures also match the colors, and Isabella’s aura manifests as sweeping indigo butterfly wings.

Now the brand new project I’m working on suddenly shouted out its color scheme to me.  Purple, mainly, with emerald green, and just a touch of black and red.  What makes this hilarious is I have to use folders, papers, and pens that reflect those colors.  Of course I have a black and red speckled composition book for the Blood and Shadows work.  now I have a purple folder and purple legal pad for the new project.  I have no idea what those colors MEAN yet, but creatively, those are the colors that are speaking for this project.

How about you — does color play a part in your world or character building?

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01/14/2009

  • NSR:  next scene revised; 1373 words
  • Read first three chapters of Debra Dixon’s GMC over lunch.
  • NSR:  Began making notes on how to revise the opening.
  • SFR:  watched The Crow for inspiration, tone, etc.
  • SFR:  researched nanotechnology and autosomal recessive inheritance.  Jotted tons of worldbuilding notes and major backstory.
  • Received two new research books via Amazon today thanks to rec’s by Jenna.  Should make the other possible new novella in March/April very, very interesting!

SFR is the “bright shiny” I mentioned in Dec.  SFR=science fiction romance, series/titles unknown.  Brand new world.  Tons of cool stuff.  Lots of research and planning.  I plan to get multiple projects out of this world, timing TBD.

NSR = Mayan Fantasy

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Changing It Up

I’m going to experiment with how I post for awhile.  I was using “RX Day xx” before, but quite honestly, this year is going to be craaaaazy.  I won’t be working on only one project at a time, at least not for more than a couple of days at a time.  I just have too much to do.

For instance, things I’ve worked on in the past week that I didn’t mention much here if at all:  an entire hardcopy pass of The Road to Shanhasson before Deena begins ripping it apart (400+ pages); a full critique/read for a friend; worldbuilding for the next project; research for the next project; detailed prep and GMC work for the Mayan story as well as revisions.

It keeps me accountable, and right now, I need that.

So on working days, I’ll record progress similar to what I did for NaNo, but it will be across multiple projects.  I’ll try to mix it up with detailed posts on writing, reading, movies, TV, etc. so it’s not a boring progress report, too.  If things do get too boring, I reserve the right to dump this method and try something else.  :mrgreen:

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Dilemma

I find myself in a most unexpected problem. 

Because I’ve been sick, I haven’t had the brain power for hard revision, so Revision Xibalba is very much behind where I wanted to be by mid-month.  I’ve also been reading more blogs and groups to pass the time, which has led me to stumble across several submission calls.

Tempting ones.

Saying no has never been one of my strengths, nor is balance.  I’d really like to do all three of these submissions.  (One is already finished, at least the first draft; the other two, I don’t even have ideas for.  Yet!)  But I can’t do both of these others and get the Mayan fantasy revised like I wanted, nor finish worldbuilding and plotting the other idea I had.

Something’s gotta go.  And I don’t wanna.

And yes, at the root of this dilemma is a reluctance to work on the Mayan story.  It’s a hard revision.  I’m juggling more POV threads than I’ve ever attempted before.  I also realized that I’ve got a serious flaw at the beginning.  (What helped point this out was Debra Dixon’s GMC — although I knew it, I’d chosen to ignore it, thinking I could work around the problem.  But I really can’t.)  I need to eliminate one rather useless POV, or at least rewrite the beginning entirely into Ruin’s POV and put this other one in later.

As I said, some hard decisions that have significant impact on the story.  I’m torn between finishing this draft, and going back to fix the beginning.  I’ve decided to continue forward progress, but that beginning is nagging me like a sore tooth.  I’d hoped to send out a few queries once I’m close to the end of the revision, but I can’t do that if the opening is wrong.

It’s really time to buckle down, press my nose to the grindstone, suck it up, and just do it.  The Mayan story is my highest priority.  So I committed.  So I shall do.  Lord help me if I get solid ideas for the other two temptations.  One, I think I could probably handle.  Not both.

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Calling All Gregar Fans

All these threats of making me go to the doctor might be helping me feel better.  Or maybe it was simply eating the first real food of the day.

Or maybe it’s just getting some excellent news!

Tomorrow, “Prometheus Unbound” will be included in the weekly newsletter at All Romance E-Books.  This is a great opportunity to reach new people and let them see a bit of the Mythomorphoses world.  Hopefully they’ll be intrigued enough to come visit Athens with Isabella. 

In pulling together my backlist and coming soon items for the newsletter, Deena and I agreed to target: 

The Road to Shanhasson, March 2009

Which I often called “Gregar’s Book.”

I’ll be making my final pass on paper tonight to make sure all the loose ends are tied up now that I know exactly how the trilogy ends, and then I’ll work with Deena the next few months to ensure the story shines as brightly as Gregar’s ivory rahke.

Oh, and over lunch, I finished the first draft of the short story, which came in just under 2,400 words.  Yes, Virginia, it is possible for me to write something less than 100,000 words!

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RX Day 3

(Starting day counts over for 2009)

Not quite as Dark & Early today, but I still got quite a lot accomplished.  As I hoped, a few more paragraphs enabled me to pick up the next scene from the first draft, which was mostly cut and paste.  Then I polished those pages (it was first draft NaNoWriMo quality!)  So a really good morning so far.

I also started working on a short story last night.  Yeah, I need another idea like a hole in the head, but it’s short.  Target length is 2-4K.  I have no idea if I can pull that off, but I love the challenge.

Today: 2,545

NSR total:  37,622

Snippet:

He tilted his head, his eyes grave as he studied her.  “You can read our writing, yet you haven’t actually walked my city?  You haven’t seen the temple?”

She shook her head, braced for laughter, condemnation, and incredulity.  Instead, he nodded solemnly.  “I see.  That is why you made such a grave mistake.”

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Revision Xibalba

So today, it’s back to Revision Hell, or more appropriately, Xibalba, since this is the Mayan fantasy.  I didn’t plan to do a full “dark & early” schedule this week, but That Man had to be up early for work, so I’m up too.  Unfortunately, we both had a really bad night of sleeping.  Yes, I’m still coughing.  The monsters were up way too late, dreading the return to school, I suppose.  All in all, I’m feeling pretty much like death warmed over, but I did get a little writing done.

I’m still frantic about that notebook.  It had all my character diagrams in it.  For the newer characters, like Dr. Tara Portman and Special Agent Quinn Salazar, those were the only notes I had about their dark secrets.  I think I remember most of what I need, but what if I don’t?  It also held the original timeline paradigm for each act with my notes about each character thread.  I never fully translated those sheets into my Excel doc.  Again, I think I remember most of what I need…but I might not, either.

I must find that notebook.  The problem is, I can’t remember how long ago I had it.  I’m pretty sure I took it in the car with me on a recent trip.  Perhaps over Christmas?  But I can’t remember why I would have done that, unless I thought I might work on the Mayan story in the car.  I knew I wouldn’t really start on it until January, though, so that doesn’t quite make sense.  I guess I’ll start calling people and see if I left it at their house, but surely they would have called if they’d found it.  I already looked in the car, but I’ll check again, under the seats, everywhere.  I’ve been through all my usual places to stash things in the house, and bribed the monsters with a reward if they can find it.

Yet it’s still gone.  :cry:

ETA:  I FOUND IT!  And I can’t even blame the monsters for misplacing it.  It was downstairs on the wrong side of my recliner, underneath a small plastic container of art supplies. 

This morning, I started the next scene.  It should eventually connect with the first draft where I can cut and paste, but so far, it’s all new words.

Words:  920

NSR second draft:  35,077

Snippet:   

“He was a fool to tamper with magic of which he had no understanding.”  The arch of his eyebrow asked whether she was as big a fool.  He leaned forward, his eyes glowing brighter.  “Don’t you understand, lady?  Fresh from Xibalba where they’ve been imprisoned an eternity, they were still powerful enough to kill me.  Meanwhile, each moment they’re free, they’re killing and gaining power with every drop of blood.  I have no magic strong enough to force them back.  They’ll spread rot, disease, death, and torture, from sea to sea, people to people, as quickly as possible.  I can’t stop them.  Yet I must if I’m to save any of our people at all.”

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Prepping

While the New Year has come and gone, it still feels like a vacation/holiday to me until the monsters go back to school.  Tomorrow.  Thank the Lord!  Today is Princess Monster’s 10th birthday, so I took this day off, probably my last vacation day for quite a while.  Basketball starts up this week, and with all three playing, our weekends are shot for the next 8 weeks.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading (4 books since I finished Return) and watching movies (Hellboy, Princess Mononoke, Seven Samurai).  I’ve also been clearing the slate, so to speak.  Getting Gregar, Mykal, and Dharman out of my head has proven more difficult than I expected, but slowly I’ve been switching gears to the Mayan fantasy. 

Unfortunately, I’ve misplaced my orange folder that has some of my notes in it (e.g. the monsters probably cut it up to make artwork).  I have my index cards and spreadsheets, but now my mind is mourning that folder (even though I can’t remember what’s in there).  I’ve read the nearly 120 pages I’ve polished, but I’m mentally stuck.  I can’t remember how this scene was going to end (note to self:  never leave a work in the middle of a scene without notes.  But what if I made notes and now just can’t find them??)  So I might have to skip ahead or something.

I plan on using this week to slowly work myself back to a Dark & Early schedule, stretching those writer muscles and freeing up those brain cells, building momentum day by day until I’m back to full speed.

I really want to finish Revision Xibalba this month, but after seeing how many scenes I still have to go (some of which haven’t been drafted yet), I may need another month.  We’ll see.  I have the query written and the list of agents I want to target.  I have a bad synopsis that I’ll need to throw out and rewrite, but the proposal package is just about ready.  I don’t have high hopes with the market in turmoil.  Plus, this idea isn’t as fresh as it was when I first came up with it.  I’ve minimized some of the “common” elements and highlighted what I think makes this story unique.  We’ll see if I get any nibbles.

I’m also going to use this slower time to get back into a regular exercise routine.  Nothing too strenuous to start, but after killing myself through NaNoWriMo, my back and knees need to get back to work!  The bright side of two hours of basketball practice every week (two of the monsters have practice at the same time) is more time to walk on the track.  It gets really boring since the track is so small, but it’s better than sitting on that uncomfortable bench.

How’s your new year going?