RDF/RSS Feed
Atom Feed
Today was a 2000+ word day. Clitter-clatter-clitter-clatter on the keys, sometimes very fast, and sometimes a half hour spent staring futilely at the computer screen hoping words would show up there before I froze in that position.
In amongst the clitter-clatter of keys, a fairly…um…exciting scene was taking shape. Arguments, hasty rides across country, dead men in the snow kind of exciting (nothing subtle, in other words, on the surface level.) And suddenly, into the next bit of fierceness (swordfight) came the blade that’s been occupying my imagination since I first heart that Darkwood Armory was making it. And then I saw a picture.
And so, into the middle of a fight that should not even have had a rapier, let alone a swept-hilt rapier with a flamberge blade, such a blade appeared and put itself into the hands of a character. And I had to stop, back up a paragraph or so (it’s a fast-fighting blade, indeed it is), and remind myself (and Plot Daemon, who had fallen for the flamberge and was considering getting himself a hat with a plume) [I was NOT! Slander not your Plot Daemon or I’ll send the Erinyes after you!] that such rapiers do not exist in this world.
So if you look at the Links page, and you go to the Darkwood Armory link, and you look at blades (blades can be purchased separately) and you look at the flamberge….that is NOT what you’ll find in the book. Nor will the word “flamberge” grace its pages. But you’ll probably admit that’s one nifty looking piece of steel. Though, since it can’t appear in the books, I can’t claim that having one would be research. (That was the excuse for two very different blades that I wore around the house for a week each, to learn the feel of.)
The swordfight in which the flamberge no longer appears is still a pretty good swordfight, though it’s complex enough I’m going to have to ask some fencing friends to work through it as written and make sure it’s doable. And now it’s after midnight and I’m going to bed.
Comment by David Watson — September 18, 2010 @ 6:24 am
Nya ha ha and Ooolala, a flamberge rapier. Sounds verrry Franch, does it not? (pardon my terrible Franch accent, or I will taunt you again) Bet you can’t buy just one flamberge, when they would look so elegant in a two-blade cased set! DRW
Comment by elizabeth — September 18, 2010 @ 8:35 am
I am not buying a flamberge. I. Am. Not. Let alone two. At least…not any time soon.
Comment by David Watson — September 18, 2010 @ 9:01 am
Ahh, but the flambeaus look so elegent, Madame, so vairrry chic, as we imaginary Franchmen say. Imagine the figure you would cut/slash/poke and otherwise ventilate at your next Worldcon! If you figure the cost per month between now and then…. May Wee, Madame, it’s Uttly Ewe!
(we Python Frenchmen have a way with words) DRW
Comment by elizabeth — September 18, 2010 @ 11:08 am
Saving for it may begin, at some time, but not this month or the next. It would help if I hadn’t bought the other one.
Comment by elizabeth — September 18, 2010 @ 11:23 am
And another 2000+ word day on 9/18.
Comment by David Watson — September 18, 2010 @ 11:26 am
You all see that! 2000 words, she’s gloating at me again! All because I pestered her about a dumb sword… and because I only wrote 200 today and 400 yesterday…. she’s mean to me, I say, and gloating, yes gloating! DRW, petulantly
Comment by elizabeth — September 18, 2010 @ 2:39 pm
Just say you have a day job and leave it at that.
Nobody expects you to produce 2000/day x 25 days/month. They expect you to produce crossbows and teach fencing.
Comment by Jo Thomas — September 19, 2010 @ 2:22 am
Lovely sword. I’ve just received an armourclass pappenheimer, which is also lovely. The website appears to be down but the link I have is http://www.armourclass.co.uk/Data/Pages/17Century_Main.htm – if you’re curious.
And yay for the word count! I can occasioanlly churn out that much, given the chance to clear my mind of everything but writing, but as you say writing is your job not mine 🙂
Comment by elizabeth — September 19, 2010 @ 11:35 pm
Oh, my! The link worked for me and those are very, very handsome blades indeed. I see a dagger I want, but can’t afford.
Naturally I had to look at the other pages…more steel, more beautiful steel.
Comment by Jo Thomas — September 20, 2010 @ 3:47 am
I was about to type “All part of my cunning plan!” but I’ve just realised that sending you links like that slows down the word production. I need to engage brain more often 😉
Comment by Adam Baker — September 20, 2010 @ 8:17 am
Oh, absolutely gorgeous hardware!!
I wouldnt mind having a couple of those hanging on my wall, but what Ive always wanted is a high quality replica of a Scottish Claymore that I can hang on the wall w/ my ancestral Scottish clan crest & tartan.
And congrats on the progress w/ the book.
Just out of curiosity, as your moving forward w/ the book, do you wait until your completely done with the book, before sending it out to your alpha readers, or do you do it in parts?
Comment by elizabeth — September 20, 2010 @ 9:48 am
It varies with the book, because in my experience most alpha readers need a fairly coherent sequence. Since one of the things I ask of alpha readers is to notice if the causes come before effects, and if there are effects of decisions, etc….an out of order sequence makes it much, much harder for them to figure out. Book written in POV strands, like this one, rather than “front to back”, nearly always frustrate early readers once they jump strands–it’s like giant flashbacks. Single-POV books are much easier to write in sequence, and thus can be shared productively earlier.
So this one won’t go out until it’s 90% finished in total story arc, AND I’ve re-ordered quite a bit of it (more may come later, in response to first-reader comments.) The stuff I’m writing now, for instance, belongs months and months (our time) earlier, and has already made it clear that a later chapter is dead wrong. That was a sort of placeholder chapter, to scaffold the way to something nearer the end–and it’s not right.
Comment by Adam Baker — September 21, 2010 @ 7:00 am
Ah, yea, thats true, I hadnt thought about how sending it out in parts could affect the continuity & coherence of the story.
Comment by elizabeth — September 21, 2010 @ 8:52 am
I haven’t found the perfect way to write multi-viewpoint stories yet. I mean an efficient way that produces a coherent draft from day one right on through. It’s more like shunting cars in a railyard. You assemble a few (on one track or POV) that go together, then you have to switch tracks to assemble some of another, because those two are going to come together later…and they need to come together in the right order. Etc. So there’s a lot of back-and-forthing going on. In some books I’ve had a string of chapters with a POV’s name, numbered start to (usually) midbook, and a similar string for others, and then comes “the braid” when the strands are put together.
One of the problems with that is that as you’re jumping from track to track, trying to bring up each POV track and not let anyone fall too far behind, it’s very hard to track progress…keeping up absolute word count, for instance.
In this case, I started with POV-chapter strings, but decided (since some LifeStuff had thrown me off schedule) that I needed to put it all together to keep track of progress (and this worked in helping me make up lost time). But doing that meant shifting from POV to POV w/o worrying too much about where that segment should be in the final book (IOW, not shuffling the pieces as I went along.) There’ll be a lot of work to do in re-assembling.
Comment by Pamela Lunsford — September 29, 2010 @ 3:38 pm
The braiding was perfect in Oath. When the shifts happened I was annoyed for a moment that I had to leave that character then happy about where I was going.
The sword is beautiful. It doesn’t have to be in this series after all. Swords and ships have had a long association.
I found it interesting what you said about it
“And suddenly, into the next bit of fierceness (swordfight) came the blade that’s been occupying my imagination since I first heart that Darkwood Armory was making it”
Heart instead of heard was very true I think.
Comment by elizabeth — September 29, 2010 @ 9:52 pm
Pamela: I’m glad the braiding worked for you in Oath–and I think you’re right about the Freudian slip from “heard” to “heart” in reference to the sword.