Echoes in a Hollow Space

I got this one from sosostris2012. It's a different take on the first line meme. This is everything I worked on in 2006, finished or not. (So, I cheated a little with some of these and put the opening paragraph down—but only on a few.)

If this had been a list of everything I finished in 2006, it would be a short list indeed: Night Warrior, a novel. I did a lot of revising this year, some of it quite extensive (Shivery Bones) and started some stories, but the only thing I actually finished was NW. That novel just about killed me, which seemed to be a theme for the year.

( Behind a cut to reduce boredom. )

Nothing to be done about it, I'm afraid.

I was looking through my folder of half-finished projects and ideas yesterday after finishing the rewrite of my story, "Loose Dogs." I felt a strong pull towards "The Heart of the Western Tide," a story that's been patiently waiting for me to get around to it. I conceived of it as a novella, but when I worked on it yesterday it started to get novelistic pretensions. I told it not to put on airs, not to get ahead of itself, but it stuck its tongue out at me and proceeded on its merry way. I still think it's a novella, but I'm going to let it have its head and see where we end up. That's can be dangerous, but often you get to see unexpected scenery.

This story has some powerful mojo. It was a dream, a powerful dream, and when I woke up from it I hurried right to the computer and wrote an opening and many pages of notes--about 1700 words in one sitting. I played with it for several days but I was deep in the heart of Night Warrior at the time and didn't want to stop long enough to work on it.

Yesterday, I'm glad to say, when I read through it I was able to recapture some of that remarkable feel and had a good time working on it.

I've managed to bore myself with Charged with Folly doing all that research reading. Probably a good sign that I've done enough reading for now, huh? I put down the books and I'll let that idea simmer. It'll come back into focus. And then maybe I won't have any more excuses not to write it.

I conceived a startling plan yesterday, inspired by the prolific jasperh: working on more than one novel at a time. I've always had several novels at various stages of development at any given time, but usually once one of them reaches a tipping point and decides to push for the finish, I become so obsessed I concentrate on nothing else. I suspect that will still be the case, but there's no harm in trying something else in the meantime, is there? It might allow me to advance some of those other projects quite a bit before I become transfixed by one and turn all my focus on it.

Having just finished chapter 22 of The Novel and having just posted chapter 14 to OWW, I decided to take a break from Night Warrior today and work on an old novelette I thought I could fix.  It was going great until I hit scene five and then splat.  You know, having many months perspective on this since I last worked on it, I can see the splattage point quite clearly.  I'm just not quite sure what to do about it.  Cut some stuff, obviously.  But what?  I always get so confused about what to cut and what to leave in my short stories.  I suck at short stories.

Synchronicity of the day (day being a 24-hour period and me having seen this as I was driving home last night after just posting about a tsunami):  A bright red convertible sports car with the license plate, TSUNAMI.  And when I got home, CBS news (which I don't usually watch) had a report on the Asian tsunami as well as the scare in Crescent City.

Interesing sight of the day:  The blue-gowned graduates waiting around outside the auditorium as I drove by my alma mater Venice High School last night.

My response:  To start whistling Pomp and Circumstance, of course.  Then I wondered if I had beans at home to go with my chicken, tortillas, and pico de gallo.  I continued to worry about beans and whistle Pomp and Circumstance all the way home although I really would rather not have.  (I didn't have beans, but it was delish anyway.  I made chicken-flavored rice to go with it.)

Alternate interesting sight of the day:  While driving in this morning, seeing some workmen pulling down a billboard sign.  I usually never see them in process—it's just something new when I drive by.  This one was like a giant plastic sheet which they unbolted and let drop whole.  Not like in the old timey cartoons and movies where they paste strips of paper up like giant wallpaper.

Things I thought of blogging about today: Cliches and how I use them as placeholders and don't necessarily clean them all out of my ms. until the second draft so as to just keep pushing forward and stop obsessing.  The purpose of the first draft is to get finished, not to be beautiful.

Why I didn't blog it: It seemed boring even to me.

Cliche of the day:  Or she had new eyes and could see for the first time.

Darling du jour:  The sky loomed behind the lantern of the moon, the stars washed out to a pale blur by lunar glow and the lights from the neighborhood.