Paksworld

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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Pruning, re-ordering, and now gap-filling…chapters have numbers now, and are in what I believe (!) is the correct order, all 33 of them.    Some are much longer than others, and some of the very VERY long ones may be split.    Very short ones may be combined (if same POV and adjacent.)

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Whatever the weather where you are, and your attitude about the holiday season…for me it means only three more months until Launch Month (not Launch Day, but Launch Month)  for Kings of the North.

It also means only one month left before turning in Book III, which is ambling along towards the version the editor sees, still untitled.  So unless there are major changes, I’ll be scarce on the blog while keeping the already abraded nose firmly on the relentlessly turning grindstone.

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Something has been brooding in the depths of the plot for this entire world (not just this book, or the previous, but I’m finding its shadows on sonar of the oldest–in story time–books, Gird & Luap as I re-read them for continuity)  for years.   Now it’s rising slowly  into view.   These are foundation-level conflicts that I’ve never really examined, having just discovered outcrops of apparent bedrock on which to put the foundations of the world 27-28  years ago.

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Sleep, Shakespeare said, knits up the raveled sleeve of care.   I wish something would knit up the raveled sleeve of prose when loose ends of yarn are hanging out and there’s not a knitting needle in sight.    However, the authorial crochet hook is working hard.  (My mother, who was incredibly good at needlework, pointed out one day that knitting and crochet are the same thing, really, except geometrically in some relationship I forget.  Upside down and backwards, maybe.)

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Yesterday’s 2700+ words and today’s 2000+ have rolled over the writer-odometer another satisfying amount.   More important for your reading enjoyment, Stuff has been Happening to multiple characters, some of whom are being revealed as not what I thought they were.  You may be smarter than I am and guess earlier that X is not really X but R’.    Or not.

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This week wasn’t as productive as the week before, due to Things.    However, other than two of the Things (neither of which produced any balancing good result), Things got done that needed doing.  (Not all, by any means.)

10,020 words for the five-day work week despite one day of <300 words.   22,054 for the month of August up to this moment.   Need another 20,000 by the end of the month (before Dragon*Con, that is.)

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So…page proofs are done (check) and some family LifeStuff probably/maybe resolved (half-check) and I’m back “on book”.   Yesterday, after a dietary error that kept me close to one room in the house, turned out to be a very productive writing day anyway (3001 new words, in addition to cleaning up some continuity problems I discovered while working on the proofs of Kings…no, B- did not tell his father about hmmmmmph at Autumn Court, becuase hmmmmph didn’t start until AFTER Autumn Court. when ummmm went mmmmph.  Yes, hate me.)

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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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There’s nothing like actually turning off everything else and convincing the distractable mind that no, it cannot do anything until it’s produced the day’s wordage.  No, we are not playing Solitaire.  No, we are not reading email.  No, we are not checking Twitter, or LJ, or the SFF.net newsgroup.   The television is off limits.   The new red shiny netbook is off limits.   The outdoors is off limits.   Cooking is off limits.  (Dishwashing isn’t.)    The piano is off limits.  This chair, this keyboard, this one file.  First.

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