Paksworld

Today’s work was cautious fiddling with the changes already made…should this go here?  Or here?   Should this bit go before or after that bit?   Read some sections aloud.   Ick, a clunky chunk, away with it.   A fossil of an earlier draft: away with that, too.  But this bit from yet another draft…should go back in, maybe?  Put it in, took it out, put it back in, decided to “save as” an alternate form of the chapter. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday’s workday turned into a mere shadow of itself thanks to something I ate that didn’t love me for some hours of the night before.  But still–progress.  Sort of.  I was going back over the work on Book II and realized that I had totally ignored a “conversation file.”

What, you might well ask, is a “conversation file?” Read the rest of this entry »

I meant to write a little short post yesterday.  Book had other ideas, snagged me aside, and poured yet more Content into my head.   I kept struggling away.  “Book,” I said, “I have to practice the music for tonight–it’s important.”

“You have to write me,” Book said.  “NOW!”  Read the rest of this entry »

“Are we there yet?”  ask the impatient ones.

Maybe.  Closer, anyway.   The readers now like the first two of the POV sections to be worked on.  As always,  any change affects the whole, so a perfectly good next chapter now isn’t perfectly good.  Nor the one after that, or after that…there’s the propagation of information (nice catchy phrase–belongs in a Tom Lehrer song…)   Spoilers below, for the spoiler-avoidant among you. Read the rest of this entry »

So…the readers agreed that the changes made the chapters better.

Now they want more better.   That hollow pcck-pock-pock you hear is me beating my head on the desk (actually impossible as the keyboard is in the way and it’s an old, sturdy keyboard I don’t want to risk…) Read the rest of this entry »

First two chapters of the revised POV are done…or rather, they are done enough that they went off to two readers, with some process questions in addition.

If those chapters do what I hoped, and the answers to the process questions indicate a clear path for the next few POV chapters, I won’t need to do much to some of them…the scene is set.   Some spoilerish details follow.

Read the rest of this entry »

Talk about mixed blessings…I get this monster down to a reasonable length, and then someone says “Yes, but…” and I start working on that, and boom! comes a plotbomb that explodes all over the scenery, showering it with many-many words.  Read the rest of this entry »

Book II has now undergone several procedures, starting with cloning and a new identity (has a hospital bracelet with the name of its primary and the number of its clone-identity), followed by (for that clone) extraction of all POV chapters for that character into another file.  Both the primary and the POV clone are on life support for the duration, ensuring that nothing’s permanently lost.  Read the rest of this entry »

Today I had three projects going…well, I had three projects I was supposed to be working on at once, but I really don’t have a three-track mind anymore.  Read the rest of this entry »

Losing something you’ve written is the #1 Writerly Woe–in this case a post I wrote a few hours ago, hit a wrong key, and lost…Boom! It had been a witty (I thought), entertaining (I hoped) post about another Writerly Woe that occurred today.  Lovingly crafted to bring you the utmost in amusement  and maybe a little insight into writer psychology.  Read the rest of this entry »