Echoes in a Hollow Space

POVs are breeding like rabbits. Once I violated my "no new POVs late in the story" rule with Ramona, it looks like I uncorked the bottle and released the hounds...the genie, that is. Another new POV cropped up in chapter 26 and I suspect at least one more is going to happen before I'm done. At this point, though, anything I can do to keep the story moving forward (albeit, slowly) is a good thing. I'll worry about fixing things later.

And things are going slow. Part of the reason, I suspect, was that the ending of this novel got so complicated I was forced to do a detailed outline in order to tie up all the loose ends. It's killed a lot of the storytelling impetus for me. Or maybe I'm just tired. Or maybe my discipline, which used to be so discipliney, has gone south on permanent vacation.

I would really (really really) like to write a simple, straightforward novel next time. Really. My ideas get so dingdangnabbily complicated, each and every time. But my mind doesn't seem to work that way. Except for my "short stories." Most of those have novelistic pretensions, but I call them short stories because they don't have the infernal complications my longer work tends to have. Maybe I should pursue that. Maybe there are some simple, straightforward novels there. I'd probably finish more.

Or maybe I'm just in the process of re-evaluating who I am as a writer, what I want from this writing game, what I don't want. I know that I am a writer and will always write, I just don't know about the rest of it anymore.

And here's a wonderful post from Justine Larbalestier on writing versus a career in writing. It couldn't have come at a more propitious time for me.

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%)

There are three things floating through the ol' creative noggin these days, things that are playing with my mind as I play with them.

The first is the one I've been playing with for at least a month now: the partially finished Dos Lunas novel which needs a makeover. I've been doing research reading for that for quite some time and have many new ideas.

The other is the rewrite of the novel I just finished. (Wow, in September. Has it really been that long? But that's the date on the most current file. Gosh, time flies when you're...too busy to breathe.) Actually, I'm thinking about the other novels in the series as well, thinking I need to do a formal outline of the larger story arc to set it straight in my mind. That would also help with the rewrite of A Rain of Angels. (For those brave souls who read the first draft, you should know that I'm well aware it needs a heap o' fixin'. I think overall it's a decent piece of work, but it was a first draft and has many flaws.)

The third thing, or rather, person, that's been tickling my mind is Sabina, the self-described "unrepentant Once and Future Whore" from my vampire novel, Shivery Bones. She's talking sequel, one centering on her, of course. She gave me a really good idea for one, too. She's something of a villain, completely self-centered, defiant, ruthless, cruel, down and dirty...and I love her so. Not everyone who read Shivery Bones feels the same. She's always wanted her own book. She tried to take over Shivery Bones, and I've been fighting to excise her tentacles in it ever since.

On the crud front: I continue to crud, though I'm feeling marginally better today. I still don't stray far from my easy chair and my bed, but I do feel better.

Lately I've been taking a page out of the book of kmkibble75. No, I haven't mutilated his ms. I've been outlining and moving around the puzzle pieces for the finale of Night Warrior. I've always known what happened at the end (you'll be glad to know), but it's starting to get complicated as the three timelines come together. In the big push towards the end I wanted to feel as if I really did have a handle on things.

What with the household move, I didn't work on the ms. for about a week and a half, and that's too much time to keep the feel of the narrative alive and coherent inside my mind. It's all there if I pay attention to it every day or almost every day. But if I get seriously sidetracked for a week or more, I have to circle back and reacquaint myself. It's not the plot, exactly, that fades, but the emotional resonance. The method acting; the grip of the characters' innards. It's hard enough to ride my own emotional life without mollycoddling theirs, as well, and my psyche seems ready to abandon them at a moment's notice.

Outlining ahead of time might have saved me outlining now, but as I've said before (ad nauseam, in fact), that process doesn't work for me. I think it's because the narrative tends to be an emotional ride for me rather than a left brain exercise. I have to feel my way along because I have to stay in touch with the feelings of my characters. But I do sometimes have to stop and make "spot outlines" to make sure I still know where I'm going. Because the plot has a tendency to shift on me sometimes as I go along, and when paying attention to the way everyone feels.

Meme of the day:

My Roman Name is Aemilia.
Take The Roman Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

I've got a thing for Romans, but only since I started researching them for my characters, Annia Sabina and Caius Cassivellaunus. I never thought Romans were all that cool before. I suppose Steven Saylor went a long way towards coolizing them for me. I loves me some Gordianus the Finder.

Typo of note: Llamrei didn't shy from the grizzily burden

(You can tell I'm a native Westerner, huh?)

Socks of the day: White with little blue-grey flowers.

So, I depressed myself last night by sitting down and figuring out the page count for each chapter I've finished thus far, calculating an average page count, estimating how many chapters it will take to finish, and doing the math (SMF). Let us say that it was more than I anticipated. There's not a lot left in the 1968 and 1977 timeframes, but the 6th century has a lot going on.

If you are an organized writer, you might say to yourself, "Pam, shouldn't you have known this before now?"

The answer is no. I couldn't really do an estimate like this before because there is always a certain amount of terra incognito in my novels as I write them. And my plots are always complicated. I'm just now at a point where all the plot elements are coming to fruition, where the lookout has called, "Land ho!" and I can see the entire stretch of water between me and that shore I hope to land upon.

Realistically, I think it probably won't take as many words to get there as my crude estimate suggests, but the thought that it might took the wind out of my sails. Just a bit. The wind has picked up again and I'm still on course. But.

And for those of you kind enough to agree to read this monster in its entirety, I won't be expecting you to read this monster. I plan to do some hacking (maybe quite a lot) before I inflict it on any beta.

And then there's this here post right here by sartorias featuring Rudyard Kipling talking about writing long and cutting down and the work being the richer for it. That was some consolation.

Sometimes I start to write a story and it's all there, right on the tip of my brain just waiting to spill over onto the page. Most times that's not the case, though. Most times I write stories in stops and starts, pick them up, work in a frenzy, put them down unfinished—and maybe I don't pick them up again for months, sometimes years. Sometimes it takes years for me to finish a given story. This is also true for novels. Thank gosh golly I'm not one of those writers who loses it if I drop a story mid-draft.

Many times I've tried writing the rational, organized way that others manage, but it doesn't work for me at all. I tend to get writers' block if I go that route. Outlining, determined finishing of a story in one determined pushed—none of that discipline thing works. Those techniques are the only ones which well and truly kill a story for me.

I'm very dedicated about writing every day and I certainly can push through to the conclusion of a long piece of writing, but I seem to need that psychological permission to bail if I need to. Often I don't bail, but I need that option. My irrational technique works in terms of productivity because I've always got plenty of stories and novels in the pipeline ready to be picked up again. Something is always ready to be finished.

It's hard to say why a given story will all of a sudden sit up one day and say, "Hey! I'm ready!" I think there are probably a lot of different reasons. Sometimes I hit a certain point and realize I haven't done enough research; sometimes I've had false notions about my characters and have to stop until I know them better; sometimes I'll hit an unbreakable knot in a plot and know I have to let it be for awhile until my unconscious comes up with a better solution. I don't often consciously work on these problems, but the stories aren't dead in my back brain. I'll have dreams about them, daydreams about them, sudden insights, and I'll dutifully jot them down in the story's folder and go on with whatever I was doing. Eventually a sort of critical mass takes over and it's time to go; sometimes something really big slaps me in the face and I know it's time to tackle the story again.

Then sometimes, like tonight, I'll be reading or watching or discussing and a little lightbulb pops over my head and I'll realize that the reason I stopped writing Story A was because I have all the pieces there but the psychological or mythological undercurrents haven't been knitted together properly, or even understood properly. I wasn't ready to write the story because I hadn't advanced enough conceptually to get the job done.

I was reading The Philosopher's Secret Fire again tonight (my light weekend reading) and had such a breakthrough. The elements of Story A were in place, but I wasn't understanding the scenes and images my unconscious was throwing onto the page. Because the images confused me, the story confused me and I had to stop. I won't mention the story because the one thing besides organization that will kill a story dead for me is talking about it too much upfront. It very much has to be between me and my unconscious—our little secret. S/he's a very jealous animus/anima,

Odd, but I almost feel as if my Muse is male. Animus. If Keats's can be a belle dame sans merci I guess mine can be an homme. I hate categorizing him/her too closely, though. You never know what's going to p!ss Muse off and make Muse go hide.

I love my Muse, I do I do I do. I will feed my Muse strawberries and walnuts (don't ask me, that's what s/he wants) and dry my Muse's feet with my long, red hair if my Muse will only stay to play.

And play is the only way to get any work done in my world.