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…but the cleanup remains a work in progress. MOST of it was done (by sundown today) but the final packaging of leftovers for the freezer, not so much. I sort of fell over in mid-afternoon and slept for two hours. THUD. We had wonderful guests, who brought wonderful contributions to the feast, and several of whom helped a lot in the initial cleaning up, and good conversation, and a long walk on the land for most of us between the main meal and dessert, and then dessert and more conversation, until the light failed and people started for home.
Meanwhile, the book progresses, in spite of all delays, interruptions, and excitements wanted and unwanted. Agent’s comments on the first 150 pages led to some work on background and foundation, expanding the first chapter (which will make the actual leading edge of the book easier, since I now know more about some other people who are going to be secondary characters during the mmph and ummph.) An email exchange with another writer/acquaintance with expertise in one area led to rethinking an early incident in the plot (the difficulty of landing an inflatable life raft on a rocky coastline is…worse than I thought from other things I’d read. Doing it twice without killing everyone won’t be believable to those with experience, so I’m changing that bit–you never read it, so it never existed, so my saying it existed is…legend. Just legend. Mistaken legend.
I will lose some of the words already written when I rearrange that part of it (not doing it quite yet because I’m working on that early part Agent said needed more of what it did, in fact, need more of) but it should also make a more rapid advance thereafter. At the moment, it’s at 172 ms. pages, 33,375 words (according to Word) and I hope to spend some solid time on it tomorrow.
There are, so far, several familiar POV characters–Ky, Stella, Rafe, and Grace Vatta, still Rector of Defense on Slotter Key. In story time, Ky is in a life raft in a cold ocean, Stella is 90% convinced she’s dead, Grace has been trying to locate her but running into roadblocks that suggest something more sinister than a shuttle going down, and Rafe is trying to locate her from too great a distance and then determines to come closer. A number of important people have already died, and story logic is pushing me to off a couple more. I don’t want to. On the other hand, that red shirt is pretty clearly a red shirt. If you’re going to assassinate X in a nefarious plot, then either X’s aide is part of the plot, or will also be a target. And my saying “But I like X; I was just getting to know X; X will be very useful to Y…” is not enough reason to ignore story logic. X may be called in for an little chat with X’s writer, wherein X will declare for “co-conspirator” or “victim.” Sort of like being called in for a little chat with Lord Vetinari in a Discworld book. Some characters opt for noble death; others decide that actually, all along, they were part of the dark side. Or maybe, in the meantime, X will just do something stupid, fall out of the lifeboat, and be impaled on the giant pufferfish. (Yes, there is a giant puffer fish. Don’t tell anyone else. It might not be there in the final book. But the scene in which the giant puffer fish…er….mmph…)
Comment by Nadine Barter Bowlus — November 29, 2014 @ 12:29 am
Ending my day chuckling after reading the mumphs and umphs. Thanks, Elizabeth. Glad you had a pleasant holiday.
Comment by Iphinome — November 29, 2014 @ 1:05 am
172 pages in 33375 words? Do you double space?
*mumbles something about different results from that number*
Comment by Daniel Glover — November 29, 2014 @ 6:20 am
Elizabeth,
Make sure it’s not a canoe either. I won’t believe it if you just change it to a canoe. Trying to do that kind of landing in clear weather, with only rather largish rolling waves on to a solid rock face with a 1 up to 2 deep pitch for a group of six canoes was an interesting endeavour during my youth. It was done successfully by all but it took multiple attempts by the lead boat which we could then all duplicate.
Comment by elizabeth — November 29, 2014 @ 8:32 am
Daniel: Not only is it not a canoe, it will never be a canoe, no matter which draft of the book it is.
Iphinome: I double-space because that’s standard ms. format and lets me talk to Editor in terms she’s familiar with. Also, when I do print out sections, it gives me room to write notes to myself between the lines.
Comment by elizabeth — November 29, 2014 @ 8:34 am
Nadine: It was hard holding back on details about the giant puffer fish, but…plot relevance = spoiler.
Comment by Iphinome — November 29, 2014 @ 9:16 am
Thank you your ladyship.
Comment by elizabeth — November 29, 2014 @ 9:49 am
Iphinome: You have no idea how many notes to myself end up scribbled on a ms. Some notes are now inline, between square brackets: [yadda-yadda-yadda-good grief, E, can’t you write interesting dialog anymore???] [Wait–this Par. should be back…where was it? Where the puffer-fish first showed up. Move it later.] [NO!!!!] [Hot damn, does this mean X is [redacted]??? No, that’s too easy. But what if…???]
Once there’s a page to scribble on freely, notes end up between lines, up the margins, etc. It may also have Absolute First Reader’s notes on it. “Wouldn’t Y have something to say here?” “This is dup. of para. in prev chapter page 243.” “She’s sounding whiny here.” “Will you please KILL this guy?”
Some writers, I’ve heard, print out in triple space to allow even more room for notes from multiple first readers. I’m chicken.
Comment by Daniel Glover — November 29, 2014 @ 9:50 am
I had forgotten how much fun it was to hear about the puffer fishes in the plots. 🙂
Comment by Tuppenny — November 29, 2014 @ 9:53 am
Yay for the Pufferfish.
Comment by Iphinome — November 29, 2014 @ 10:28 am
Yes your ladyship.
I’ve heard tell of people doing something similar, though with a double-slash // for inline notes. Probably an ingrained habit from something unrelated.
Comment by elizabeth — November 29, 2014 @ 10:43 am
Or just choosing what seemed easiest to type and also do a search for. Only once has one of my self-notes with [] ended up in front of Editor. Double slashes would work just as well. A friend of mine, when he needs to name a background character or expand something, but he’s in a hurry, writes “Krakatoa!” Fun to read his first drafts aloud. “Krakatoa! burst from the trees, guns blazing….When they came to Krakatoa! night had already fallen, hiding the names of stores and the faces of those who emerged from alleys to attack them…” (Those aren’t his sentences, BTW, but stuff I just made up, to show that Krakatoa! could be a person, place or–not written because I didn’t want to bore you–an entire scene.)
Comment by Wickersham's Conscience — November 30, 2014 @ 3:08 pm
I have friends who spend their winters (Antarctic summers) piloting Zodiac rafts with big outboard engines, ferrying adventure tourists from ship to shore. In any kind of surf, landings are quire difficult because rafts can be flipped. Landings in anything but flat water on rocks are never attempted. There aren’t many circumstances in which it is safer to attempt landing on rocks in surf than staying out in the water.
Comment by Linda — November 30, 2014 @ 9:39 pm
Glad to hear that Grace is alive and kicking … which reminds me, I need to make more “candied” orange peel for my holiday baking.
Are giant puffer fish related to Gird’s Cow? I really love the whole cow thread.
Borrowed Crown of Renewal from the library … the hard copy seems to have a somewhat different feel to it than the e-book. Maybe one is more aware of where one is in the story with the physical pages yet to read/already read.
And I had a funny thought, wondering if Arvid’s black horse, who did in the bad guy (kind of) is in training to be a Paladin’s mount.
Comment by GinnyW — December 3, 2014 @ 7:56 pm
I envisaged the giant puffer fish more along a Jonah line of thought. Although they are poisonous if you eat them, are they poisonous if they eat you?
Comment by Kip Colegrove — December 3, 2014 @ 9:07 pm
I recall a sequence involving a water rescue in one of the Serrano/Suiza books It involved an amphibious aircraft. It read very true to life. I could feel the swell of the waves and smell the salt spray and turbine exhaust. The convergence of airmanship and seamanship was neatly handled.
I wish you equal success in the current story.
Comment by AThornton — December 4, 2014 @ 11:26 pm
“there is a giant puffer fish.”
Fugu for the masses!
Comment by AThornton — December 4, 2014 @ 11:36 pm
BTW, if there’s giant puffer fish there’s REALLY big tiger shark and sea snake equivalents in the ecology since puffing (and being poisonous) is a defense against predators. So perhaps Mr. or Ms. X could escape the puffer only to be eaten by a ginormous sea snake.
Comment by Iphinome — December 5, 2014 @ 12:00 am
AThornton and above those, the ultimate apex predator. The sabretoothed-dire-tiger-bear-snake-shark-rex-thulu?
Comment by elizabeth — December 5, 2014 @ 11:52 am
Any of those friends want to help an SF writer make fewer mistakes? If so, please send them thisaway or to my website to contact me.
Comment by elizabeth — December 5, 2014 @ 11:57 am
AThornton: Well, yes, of course there are really big predators that make a try for the pufferfish. Although some prey, if it survives long enough, “outgrows” its predators, whose energy budget is different. So there could be giant pufferfish w/o even bigger sharks or snakes…living long, peaceful lives and almost never having to “puff” and finally dying of old age, where they become food for decomposers.
Iphinome: Ultimate apex predator…no, you don’t lure me into spoilering yet. It may not even be in this volume. (The plot bomb string has opened out the possibilities consikderably.
Comment by AThornton — December 6, 2014 @ 6:08 pm
Iphinome: the ultimate apex predator seem to be species of bipedal, forward vision, pack-hunters. We see this with dinosaurs (conjecture) and us (definitely.)
Elizabeth: trying to remember the prey/predator size ratio. It’s a constant (IIRC) but darned if I can dredge it out of memory. Anyway … As I’m sure you know, the size of a species depends on the evolutionary pressures brought to bear on the species in its ecological niche. Gigantism comes at a major energy cost and (AFAIK) comes only if there is a large supply of highly available, cheaply obtained, food so I guess there could be giant puffer without giant predators eating them.
But where’s the fun in that? 🙂
Comment by patrick — December 12, 2014 @ 10:45 am
Depending on the method of assassination, perhaps X’s aide could be badly wounded, thought to be dead, but survive? Plausible in a drive by shooting, but perhaps less so in a “destroy the spaceship” plot. Not wanting to speculate too much for fear of tripping over spoilerish details. 🙂