Quote of the day

"One writes first to find himself, then one writes to find the universe. One writes for wisdom: the writing is the road and the wisdom is the place to where the road is going. This remains true until when, over the course of much writing bad or good, inconsequential or important, one has constructed a literary persona, the purpose of which then becomes its own self-perpetuation."

—Steve Erickson, Amnesiascope



I'm not sure I'm quite this cynical, but I liked the quote anyway.

Weekend sirens

I started chapter 25 of Night Warrior early last week and then got...not stalled, exactly. I just didn't want to work on that novel. Usually in the later stages of a novel I'm kind of RoboWriter—I focus in and stay focused. I may not crank out huge word counts per day, but I crank them out every day, rain or shine, and wind up with a decent average for the week.

But by Tuesday last week I'd gotten all fidgety about things that have little to do with the novel: the market (or lack thereof) for the kind of book I'm writing, mostly, and wondering if this has been a big waste of time. I think there may also have been some reluctance to write the tough stuff in this part of the novel, too. Plus, I've been antsy to move on to other projects, other worldbuilding experiences, and another novel that's been on the backburner for over a year came on really strong last week. So I gave myself a vacation from Night Warrior and started this other novel.

Not the 18th century one I'd mentioned wanting to work on weekend before last, as it happens. Another one, called Charged With Folly—an alternate universe/steampunky thing that's very different from other stuff I've written. It still needs a ton of worldbuilding, but I wanted to play with the first chapter because the opening came to me one night in a kind of half-awake, half-asleep moment and I sat up and went, "Whoa!"

Suddenly wide awake, I jumped out of bed and cranked out about 2000 words fast before my mind finally settled down and I could get back into bed in the wee, wee hours. Well, actually, I thought I'd finished, went back to bed, something else dropped into the slot, I leaped out of bed again and wrote some more. That happened about 2 or 3 times before I finally did settle down.

That was it for awhile. (And looking at the date I appended to the original file, it was June 2003, so it's been two years.) I've played with the idea on and off over that time and it's been a highly seductive siren for me—but a stop and start siren.

That original file, btw, had the working title of Barfing Angel for ever so long. For obvious reasons, that had to change, but it refused a name change for the longest time. I've gotten used to the new title for the most part, but it still wants to be known by the old one.

I made wonderful progress on Charged With Folly last week. Now I've got 2700 words of chapter, plus another 3500 or so of partial scenes, notes, et al. I considered posting a trial balloon on OWW. I may still do that, because I have a near-complete chapter. I still need to write the final scene, but it's time to turn my attention back to Night Warrior. I need to finish that for my own sense of completeness and "keeping promises" to my characters and finishing off that story cycle. Not to mention keeping the promises I made to my local beta readers who I've repeatedly assured that I "knew what happened at the end." They've threatened to moider me if I don't finish. And I think I'm okay with that. Finishing, that is, not being moidered. Vacation's over and I got back to work today, did my usual word count on NW.

But there's no reason I can't play with my siren on the weekends. :-)