Entries tagged with finishing

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2023 books—and life in 2023

I didn't come anywhere near to reading 2023 books. In fact, I finished far fewer than I usually do in a year. My mind was quite restless and there were physical ailments to deal with. And depression. I did quite a bit of picking up and putting down, then picking up again, then putting down again. I read only one romance this year. It was unsatisfying and I just wasn't in the mood for romance. I read a lot of noir: American noir, Scottish (tartan) noir, Swedish noir, Icelandic noir. You get the picture. Oddly enough, my comfort reads. Which means that most of the books I finished were novels. I have always read nonfiction more slowly, in fits and starts. I'm actually quite far along on some of the unfinished books. I just didn't get them across the finish line in 2023. Others I didn't finish because of eye issues: the type was too small or too light. Really need those new glasses! I hope to take care of that soon. And no, Kindle and other digital is not the answer. That brings on it's own form of eye strain, not to mention neck and shoulder strain. Plus, I just don't like reading digitally. There's something so wonderfully sensual about holding a paper book in my hands.

My creativity has also been quite hit and miss. But I did finally manage to write The End on the zero draft of my novel Carmina, which I struggled for a long time to finish. It's a complete mess and will need heavy revision and it's possibly the worst thing I've ever written. (Then again, I think that at the completion of every project.) But none of that matters. The novel will be going into a metaphorical trunk for a while until I can gain some perspective. In the meantime, I will work on something else (hopefully). I haven't decided what yet but the good news is that I have a number of projects to choose from.

One of the books I didn't finish was Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce. I absolutely loved it but about halfway through I had to stop. You see, I was attempting to write my own fairy novel (see above) and Joyce's wonderful book was eating my head. I needed to put it down and concentrate on my own vision of things fairy. I look forward to getting back to Joyce in 2024. This was also somewhat the case with Sylvia Townsend Warner's Kingdoms of Elfin.

The physical ailments remain a challenge but if they ease up a bit—or if I come to a place of acceptance and adaptation—I can still get things done. The creativity certainly helps with my neurosis and depression—one vital reason to keep pursuing it. I want to self-publish at some point (I've totally given up on traditional publishing), but I've had to kick that particular can down the road for a while for various reasons. Still, I live in hope.

And so, on to my unimpressive reading list.

Books Finished in 2023

1. An Echo in the Blood by Diana Gabaldon (reread)
2. Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin
3. Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen
4. The Wailing Wind by Tony Hillerman
5. Encore In Death by JD Robb
6. The Night Singer by Johanna Mo
7. 21st Century Fairy by Morgan Daimler
8. The Shadow Lily by Johanna Mo
9. Midnight Duet by Jen Comfort
10. The Living Stones by Ithell Colquhoun
11. Palace of the Drowned by Christine Mangan
12. The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison
13. A Tempest At Sea by Sherry Thomas
14. Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabsldon (reread)
15. Execution Dock by Anne Perry
16. Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
17. The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin
18. Honeytrap by Astor Glenn Grey
19. The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
20. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
21. Sinister Pig by Tony Hillerman
22. The Diviner's Tale by Bradford Morrow
23. Payback In Death by JD Robb
24. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
25. The Creak On the Stairs by Ava Bjorg Aegisdottir
26. Dead Souls by Ian Rankin
27. Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett
28. Faces Under Water by Tanith Lee (reread)
29. Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin

Books Started or Continued in 2023

1. Spirits of Blood, Spirits of Breath by Barbara Alice Mann

2. The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham (restart) (abandoned) - the story was interesting but I kept boincing off the early 20th century prose so I gave up on it

3. Before the Great Spirit by Julian Rice

4. Committee of Sleep by Deidre Barrett

5. The Humans by Matt Haig

6. Hokuloa Road by Elizabeth Hand (restart)

7. The Drifter by Nick Petrie

8. Half American: The Herioic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew F. Delmont

9. Hekate In Ancient Greek Religion by Robert Von Rudolph

10. The Vengeful Djinn by Rosemary Guiley and Philip Imbrogno

11. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff (reread)

12. Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce

13. The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi

14. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

15. Mischief Acts by Zoe Gilbert

16. Time Loops by Eric Wargo

17. Magical Folk ed. by Simon Young and Ceri Houlbrook (essays)

18. Darkness Walks by Jason Offutt

19. Forbidden Science #1 by Jacques Vallee

20. Hesiod tr. by Richard Latimore

21. Kingdoms of Elfin by Sylvia Townsend Warner - I read many of these stories years ago when they were published
in The New Yorker and am slowly getting reacquainted with them

22. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson (finished this last night)

23. The Lost King by Philippa Langley and Michael Jones

24. The Eighth Tower by John A. Keel

25. Devoted to Death by R. Andrew Chesnut

26. The Bookseller of Inverness by S.G. MacLean (finished this a couple of nights ago)

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Musings

I would say to my pagan friends the same thing I would say to my friends of any religion: beware thinking your way is the One True Faith. There are many paths back to the Source, but judgement and rigidity are not amongst them.
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I'd start calling him President Cthulhu but that's an insult to Cthulhu.
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You know, I've supported Nancy Pelosi all this time but mostly kept quiet because I didn't want to fight with people, often people I liked and admired. I'm a little ashamed of that, but oh well. I knew, you see, that Pelosi is one of the canniest and most experienced politicians in Washington and I knew she was holding fire for a good reason. Last week that reason became eminently clear: she was waiting for a smoking gun. One that these cretins couldn't wiggle out of, one that the general American public could readily understand. It may be argued that the Mueller report was a smoking gun, but even Mueller himself obfuscated and demurred so much that it wasn't something that could be easily conveyed to the larger public. But everybody understands the kind of brutish and heavy-handed strong-arming Trump attempted with Ukraine. It was schoolyard bully stuff and illegal and immoral as hell. It's enough to start changing minds--except for his rabid believers, of course. Trump said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and no one would hold him responsible. What he was too stupid or arrogant to realize was that when he did give Nancy Pelosi an easy-to-hold gun of her own, she would have no hesitation in pulling the trigger. Good work, Madame Speaker. I'm sorry I didn't defend you.
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You know that overworked and ridiculous phrase in writing: "She (he) released a breath she didn't know she was holding"? I've always loathed it in a work of fiction, but when the Ukraine news broke and with all the revelations that came out... I released a breath I didn't know I was holding.
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I used this deck quite a lot at one point in my life. Can you tell?

Fortunately, the cards don't look as disreputable as the box. And after literally decades of using this deck, I just discovered that I had two Knights of Swords. I'm not sure what that means. I would probably have never known if they both hadn't come up in the same reading. Reversed. And yes, I guess the day of that reading had been about being, "indiscreet, extravagant, and foolish." I've been through the entire deck now and there are no other duplications and no missing cards. But I guess I'd better pay attention to that Knight, hadn't I?
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I was born in the last six hours of Virgo, just seven hours shy of the Autumn Equinox (West Coast time), so I have a hella amount of Libra in my chart. I was really feeling the effects of the new moon in Libra at the end of September. I tried to use that energy well. Balance and rectification. Throwing off the shackles of old bad habits that are holding me back.
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One of the best parts of living alone is that when I'm not feeling well I can sit around and groan and not worry about driving anyone crazy with my drama queen ways.
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I was watching one of those ghost shows on TV and the house owner was talking about how a ghost threw her cat across the kitchen. And there's the cat sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor with its leg up cleaning its nether regions. He seemed very unconcerned in general. She took the ghost hunters into the bedroom to talk about what happened in there and here comes the cat to sprawl on the bed. "I ain't afraid a no ghosts." In fact, I kind of regard cats as a reverse ghost monitor. If they are there and not concerned they ain't no ghost there.
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Every time I watch the science channel I wonder if the people who came up with the SciGo acronym realized how close it sounds to "psycho."
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When the estimable Dr. Lucy Jones, eminent geologist, says that she fears climate change more than earthquakes one should really pay attention. I saw her state just that in a recent interview.
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I may have finished writing something that seemed very much like the denouement of my current novel. Only the coda left, and that's already half written. But it’s been a couple of weeks now and I still haven’t finished it. I can’t help wondering if this resistance is a way of preventing myself from moving on. Or knowing that once I finish that coda, I'm done with this world for the foreseeable future. I can't see writing any more Dos Lunas stories any time soon--and I've lived there on and off for so long (since 2000), I may be reluctant to let go.
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I've come to the conclusion that I like having mindless tasks to do, things that most people would never have the patience for. I suspect it's a Virgo thing.
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Oh yeah, that probably explains a lot about the last few months. I forgot until just last week that I have summer SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Somehow I manage to forget that every freaking year.

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Talky talk talk

This morning one of my finished novels, the one that had some of the best writing and worldbuilding I’d done but was structurally flawed, starting talking to me, giving me new ideas and ways to fix the broken bits. Basically, after I finished this novel I realized that I’d tried to write a trilogy within the skin of a single novel (one of the curses of being an organic writer) and it would take a mountain of work to make things right. I’d slogged away at this thing for a year and a half and didn’t have the heart to do a massive restructure and start over, at least not at that juncture. So I shelved it and went on to another novel. I needed the break.

Well, today, as I said, that old novel started talking, doing a full court press, the new structure unfolding before me. It will still need more thinking, but I begin to see how to fix things. And, of course, it has absolutely nothing to do with the novel I am currently working on. But having finished six novels, I’m familiar with this syndrome. It is yet another elaborate attempt at sabotage by my subconscious—because the novel you’re not working on is always more attractive than the novel you are currently working on.

So, I took some notes and politely told the old novel to hold its peace. I would get to it in due time—but first I am going to finish what I’m currently working on. Like I said, I’ve been through this process enough to know that distractions are not my friend. Finish what’s on your plate before planning the next meal.

I actually take this as a positive sign. If the old habits of distraction are trying this hard, maybe it’s a sign that the Wonder Machine really is back online.

I’m so afraid to be hopeful because I’ve been disappointed so often in recent years. This time feels different from all the other abortive attempts, but who the hell knows?

I should probably stop talking about it, so if I go silent it isn’t necessarily a bad sign. Just conservation of resources.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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Talky talk talk

I actually take this as a positive sign. If the old habits of distraction are trying this hard, maybe it’s a sign that the Wonder Machine really is back online.

I’m so afraid to be hopeful because I’ve been disappointed so often in recent years. This time feels different from all the other abortive attempts, but who the hell knows?

I should probably stop talking about it, so if I go silent it isn’t necessarily a bad sign. Just conservation of resources.

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THE END.

Just a wee story, like pulling teeth the whole way, but it’s the first time I’ve finished a work of fiction in a very, very long time.

It was always like dreaming for me, something I couldn’t wait to get back to each day, but it hasn’t been like that since before my mother died. I don’t know if the sit-butt-on-chair-and-start-pulling-teeth method is my new reality or just the painful first steps to a full recovery, but I’ll take it either way, or any half-assed step between.

Now for the next story.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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THE END.

Just a wee story, like pulling teeth the whole way, but it’s the first time I’ve finished a work of fiction in a very, very long time.

Now for the next story.

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Finishing

Random quote of the day:

“Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.”

—Neil Gaiman, “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian, 19 February 2010

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Entry tags:

Finish

Random quote of the day:

“Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.”

—Neil Gaiman, “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian, 19 February 2010

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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Unfinished

Random quote of the day:

“Let death take me planting my cabbages, indifferent to him, and still less of my garden not being finished.”

—Michel de Montaigne, The Essays, Book 1 (tr. Charles Cotton)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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Having a good time, wish you were here

Random quote of the day:

“For me it is torture when I finish a novel. The good time is when I’m writing. When I am finished it’s no more fun.”

—Umberto Eco, “Book Notes,” The New York Times, July 12, 1995

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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Having a good time, wish you were here

Random quote of the day:

“For me it is torture when I finish a novel. The good time is when I’m writing. When I am finished it’s no more fun.”

—Umberto Eco, “Book Notes,” The New York Times, July 12, 1995

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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Empty shell

Random quote of the day:

“Every book is a purge. At the end of it one is empty…like a dry shell on the beach, waiting for the tide to come in.”

—Daphne Du Maurier, National Geographic, Vol. 120, December 1961

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Entry tags:

Empty shell

Random quote of the day:

“Every book is a purge. At the end of it one is empty…like a dry shell on the beach, waiting for the tide to come in.”

—Daphne Du Maurier, National Geographic, Vol. 120, December 1961

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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Well, that draft’s done

I don’t want to see it again for a long, long time, until the betas have had at it.

I’m moving on to something new!

Huzzah, huzzay!!!

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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Wow, seemed like much longer

I always put a date in the filename when I start a new draft of a novel as a convenient reference for when I started, then tend to gloss over them and ignore them as irrelevant. I just looked at the date on the file for the first draft of Venus in Transit: June 26, 2009. That means I spent just about a year on the damned thing. I would have sworn I was at least at the year and a half mark. It seemed interminable. It was a longer time span than other recent novels have taken to produce a first draft, and it was interminable, but dang. I’m surprised.

Oh, and I was able to leave the draft alone for one whole day in order to fix up and post a short story I wrote about a month ago. I woke up this morning itching to do the read-through on Venus.

I apparently have my writing Jones back.

Talk to me again when I’m halfway through the read-through. My attitude may have altered somewhat.

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My WIP is whipped

Thirty chapters, an epilogue, and over 120k (and ohmygod, that has to be cut down a lot), but for now I am

d-o-n-e.

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Every novel is a death march all its own

But if you keep marching, sometimes you get a break right there at the end and a momentum, almost a giddiness, takes over. At least for me. Though not for every one of my novels. Some remained death marches until I typed The End.

Happily, I think I've made it through the death march phase of this one and the juices are flowing again. I'm actually having fun. I sometimes think the amount of stuff I have to edit out is in direct proportion to how much fun I'm having, but I'm in that place of not caring much. I'm having fun, I'm getting the story down on paper, and I can smell the ending. It has the fragrance of green and verdant nature, beckoning.

And I shall go, tra la, tra la, traipsing through the long, green grass, unafraid of snakes and tigers! Tra la!

Venus in Transit:

(Actually, I'm sincerely hoping it won't go this long, but I've traipsed through this kind of greenery enough times to know that I usually wind up at about 120k and then have to edit down. *sigh*) (But that's infinitely better than being stuck in the quicksand.)

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Unfinished

Random quote of the day:

"I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged...I had poems which were rewritten so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out."

—Erica Jong, quoted in Writers on Writing

( Illustrated version. )

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And done

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%)

Entry tags:

Angel, Draft the Second, finished

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.