Paksworld

The last “block” of Book III fell into place with the completion of the swordfight at, um, 2:15 am this morning.    So between now and January 1,  there are decisions to be made, and multiple rewrites/cleanups to be done.  More text may need to be added (transition cues, scenes that now,  though not formerly, need enhancement.)     About 4-6 weeks of work is going to have to be accomplished in 10 days, two of which are Christmas Eve (when I have two church services to attend and one to sing in) and Christmas (when I won’t be working on the book–I’ll be sleeping and recovering from Christmas Eve.)  Plus a necessary social thing on 12/26 (annual party at close friend’s house given by her kids…not missing that.)   Hence, “writer as whirlwind.”

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This book…I’ll swear this book wants to drive its writer crazy.   Where did this new character come from?   And why, once she arrived, didn’t she behave like a normal character (if Kuakkgani are ever normal, that is?)    Not only do I now know a lot more about how someone becomes a Kuakgan (some of it I knew years ago, but I’ve learned more in the past couple of years) but I just found out what can happen to a young (in experience) Kuakgan during his/her first spring out in the world.

“The green blood is strong in this one…”

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Though I can almost hear the cries of Woe! No! from here, the braiding process always results in dropping some overwritten sections (or parts of them) and tightening this and adding to that.  Unlike cooking, where once you put the salt or the spices in, they’re in for the duration, writing allows do-overs…trying whether something works and then removing it if it doesn’t.  (Would love to have had that option the time I put way too much tarragon in the tarragon chicken!!)

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(GRUMP: just erased the whole post I was about to send.  My right little finger hit *something* (I wasn’t looking at it, so don’t know) and it all disappeared.  So this is not the post you would’ve had but the post’s general gist as I remember it after that moment of shock, useless attempts at recovery, and then writing a GRUMP.)

This week has been about reorganizing the POV sections into chronological order and writing connections when the lack of them became apparent.  I’ve also been noting places were cuts could be made later, to accommodate the additional material that will bring the book to the conclusion I’m trying to achieve…for which I need a LOT more room.    Right now the book’s just under 163,000 words,  but it changes daily up and down as this is trimmed slightly and that is added for connectivity and this other bit now turns out to be wrong, and here I’ve added a chunk…etc.    There’s a lot of front-loading in this book, so anything trimmed there has to be carefully done so the plot-threads can run smoothly on, without fraying to nothing later.

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When my first published story came out,  I was startled at how differently it read, set in a two-column layout.  I’d been worried the story wouldn’t feel fast-paced enough–but in that format, it flew by, almost too fast-paced.   That was my first experience of how the choice of layout affects a story.

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….Almost.   Still a few more things to be done before shipping them back to NYC.   I need to rewrite the Dedication, write the Acknowledgments, and run back through the text to catch a couple of things I think I may have done wrong.   Read the rest of this entry »

…of copy edits corrected.    There are only (!) 39 chapters, but more words in the last nineteen than in the first twenty.

I quit after finishing chapter 20, a few minutes ago.  Tired.  Tired of all the little red marks and having to check every single one.  Copy-editing is a tough job for the copy-editor, but the CE’s job is one of marking anything that strikes him or her as off.

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You would be SO happy that Editor sends me these, if you knew what gets fixed before you ever see the book.   I know some of  you think you’d like the raw, untouched text better, but…no.  Seriously,  editors…and Editor in particular…make books better.  So did the alpha readers and my agent, all of whom had comments that made me rethink some things.

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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 »

I told my editor that you alpha readers had found problems, and that I’m working on them.

She’s glad you found them and that I’m fixing them, so she won’t have to.

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