Echoes in a Hollow Space

Yeah, I've reached the part of the manuscript that makes me cringe. Chapter 12 and one too many scenes with people sitting around talking. Brain no work so good. Can't think of nothing better. I've lost all perspective—so I'm just going to keep pushing forward.



A Rain of Angels rewrite:

54,250 / 11,750 (461.7%)

Not crazy about this new Zokutou image. It's looks kinda nasty.

I know that I am well and truly done with a ms. when I reach what I've come to call the Loathing Draft. That's where you don't think you can read through/rewrite the damned thing one more time without doing yourself injury and there's nothing left but to finish up the edit and start sending it out.

If an agent wants changes, or an editor is willing to pay me for the book, then I will happily and yippy-skippily make the changes. Otherwise, it's time for this book to make it's way in the world. Three-quarters of the book to go, and some of that I expect to be hard sailing. The chapters I've done so far have mostly needed a language/clarification polish, but the middle of the manuscript may be something of a Sargasso Sea. Such is the writing life! Yo ho, yo ho.



A Rain of Angels

24,000 / 112,000 (21.4%)

Alas, not a productive week, word-wise. A number of distractions, plus I had to stop and do a "Where the hell am I and where am I going?" outline for the rest of the book. I'm not an outliner, per se, but about once every third of a novel, I get flustered at where the book is leading me and have to stop and reconnoiter the landscape. Is it still possible to get to the endpoint from where I'm currently traveling? The answer is almost always yes, but once that panicky feeling starts, there's nothing for it but to think things through. I may not follow the outline now that it's done, but at least it's done it's job and I can hopefully get back to writing.

I'm definitely at the "this is no longer fun" stage of the novel. But that usually just means I'm close to the hump that will allow me to get on with the downward slide. Not as close to the hump as I'd like to be, can't see over the top, but close. I suspect future drafts will have me telescoping some of what I've written and expanding other stuff, but this is not the time and place to worry about that. Just pushing forward here. I want to get through the current slog and get to those action scenes, but I keep getting distracted by more and more slog.

I do find myself thinking longingly of the next novel I'd like to do, even to the point of doing a good deal of research reading for it. I'm also itching to put the final final final FINAL polish on the last novel so I can start inflicting it upon the world. But I know these sirens do not mean me well. They care nothing about humps and mountains, being largely aquatic. They want me to jump overboard and drown or smash my boring-old-definitely-not- fun-anymore boat upon the rocks. I must stuff my ears with wax and keep on rowing. That's the only way I'll ever see the shores of home again.


Venus In Transit

72,250 / 100,000 (72.2%)

I didn't get back to the current WIP right away after finishing up the language edits for A Rain of Angels. I'm waiting for a handful of final crits on that one and thought I was safe from it for awhile, but apparently my mutant psyche had other plans.

I got mugged later in the week by the worldbuilding for the sequel to Angels. That is, my subconscious suddenly supplied me with the character hook I'll need to tunnel into that idea. I've had the überidea for some time now, but that was a vague, high concept. Concept is a no-go for me without meat on the bones. Character POV and meat splattered down on me heavily last week.

Of course, worldbuilding is always the fun part of this and I can easily be seduced by it. So fun to play in imaginary back yards. I let it play out for a few days, then told the backbrain it was time to settle down and get on with the current WIP. I started back on that yesterday. It feels okay. Still the saggy middle, but meaningful forward progress. Only mild panic flaring around the edges. The usual. I can deal.



Venus In Transit

64,500 / 100,000 (64.5%)

Although in the beginning of this draft I did a lot of cutting, then later did a lot of plumping, the little cuts and adds along the way kept this ms. pretty steadily at this word count. It got down to 114k and up to 116.5k, but for at least half the way through it's hovered right around 115.5k. I have no idea what that means, except that I am done for now.



A Rain of Angels

115,500 / 115,500 (100.0%)

A Rain of Angels

95,500 / 115,250 (82.9%)

Venus In Transit

37,000 / 100,000 (37.0%)

Click on thumbnail to get your own word cloud.

I'm getting tired, my prose is getting tired, this idea is getting tired. I now hate everyone in this book (Angels).

However, I did have a major epiphany this weekend about the sequel. Of all the rotten luck! ;-)


A Rain of Angels

78,250 / 115,500 (67.7%)

Venus In Transit

37,000 / 100,000 (37.0%)

I didn't get much work done on Venus this week. It's hard to keep "the dream" of two novels in my consciousness at once, I'm finding. Angels, by necessity, has been dominating.

I did manage to do some serious worldbuilding for a short story set in Neolithic times. Both Venus and Angels have most of the significant worldbuilding behind them, so this other story allowed me to indulge in something else while I hammered away at Angels. I should also note that "serious worldbuilding for a short story" does imply that I'm doing my usual trick of trying to write a mini-novel. I think this idea may have novelistic potential somewhere down the line, but I also think there's a genuine short story that I can extract from this, a "moment in time" or "moment in two times" that converge in an abbreviated fashion. I hope. We'll see. I do like the idea, though.

I've made some good progress on Angel, as well. My back brain presented me with the solution to a certain plot hole that had me tearing my hair out. I thought it would entail ripping out huge sections and rewriting, but Yay, Hineybrain! It came up with a simple solution that I think works well without me having to resort to hari kiri.



A Rain of Angels

35,750 / 115,500 (31.0%)

Venus In Transit

37,000 / 100,000 (37.0%)

Eager steampunk writers want to know...is it peaking, or about to be passé? It was bubbling along for the last couple of years, a nice little subgenre trying to make friends with the cool kids and to fit in without getting beat up for its lunch money. Now it seems to be coming on strong everywhere I look, one of the popular kids.

I find myself with a steampunkish ms. at a time when I see it exploding everywhere. My book still needs a final polish to be ready to shop around (not to mention those pesky synopsis and query). My biggest fear is that if I wait to do all that until I finish the novel I'm currently writing, the market will have passed me by.

Yes, yes, I know, you can't completely predict the market, and you can't go chasing after it—but I do have this bird in the hand, you see. A steam-powered one, at that.

OTOH, I'm writing hot at the moment on this other novel. I hate to abandon it, because if I do there's no guarantee it will reclaim me again later. I really don't want the trend to pass me by.

What to do, what to do, what to do? Make up my mind for me, would you? Inform me of my decision at your earlier convenience, please.

I should have finished a few weeks back, but took a couple of weeks off to mope.

There's still plenty of ugly, but I hammered out a lot of ugly. At one point I slashed a bunch of stuff from the abominable chapter five, then added new stuff in, bringing my 120k novel up to almost 123k. I despaired.

But I managed to do quite a lot of butt-kicking in the remainder of the book. The new count: 114,750 SMF, 28 chapters.

And I haven't even done what I call the "grunt and strain" draft (bathroom metaphor intentional) wherein I make every paragraph, sentence, and word justify it's existence and squeeeeze that manuscript down. I'm feeling slightly less freaky and despaired than I did at 123k.

A huge thanks to all my brave betas who read the skanky first draft.

I want to do something new now. I want to work on my new novel. I want to.