Paksworld

First, the excitement:   my UK publisher’s publicity person emailed to tell me that BBC-Radio wanted to contact me, inviting me to participate in a discussion of future war.   Now I’ve done future war panels at SF conventions (the funniest, to me, was the one where I arrived just in time, in costume from having done a SFWA Muskteers  fencing demo, and turned out to be the only woman and only veteran on the panel. )   But this is different because the other panelists are not other SF writers or SF fans…but people in entirely different disciplines.    Early in the morning (my time)  on May 16 I will go to the assigned studio in Austin and all those lovely electronic connections will be made–and the other panelists and I and the moderator will dig into the topic, each in our own way.

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I’ve been working on the second plot-bomb section, very slowly until today because it had gone cold.  Today it warmed up and got all hot and bubbly and crispy at the edges.    And threw new surprises at me.   That was who?   Why did that other have a long split in the boot upper but no injury under it?   Why did the who that was do what he did?  Why did the other….?  Etc.

Over 2000 words today.    I ate too  much supper too late after that.  Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday and Wednesday were both 2000+ word days, and though today is moving much slower (there was writing-related business to do this morning, which also involved a trip to town to the post office),  Book V seems to be over its “You ignored me–I’ll ignore you” snit.    I’ve written out almost all of one of early-Tuesday-morning’s plot-bombs, and have the other still to do (notes made at the time, of course.)    I think it’s not quite as “big” in terms of wordage, but that doesn’t matter.  It’s an important chunk of plot, to be sure.

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I woke up with a headache, and lay there thinking “Not a migraine today, PLEASE.”    But apparently, the headache was a plot bomb about to burst in my skull.  Two, in fact, one each for the viewpoint characters involved.     As you have heard before, I enjoy plot bombs (words flow out with less effort and at least 80% of them are going to stay.)    But I see no reason why these plot bombs had to wake me up after only three hours sleep, instead of letting me rest until daylight and dropping their contributions down my turret hatch then.

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Having had a final round of “Just fix this bit right here…” from my agent today, Book IV is now with NewEditor.     All but that chapter’s work got his approval earlier in the day; the past 8 days have been busy but apparently fruitful.   Book IV grew back up to 170,800+ words, as my agent felt I had compressed some parts too much.     (Since the book has been, since it’s supposed first-final-length, everything from 180,000+ down to 156,000 [when stuff was clearly missing!] and many, many points in between, a tad under 171,000 is probably a healthy weight for it.)

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Agent had some worthwhile comments on Book IV which sent it back to me for more work.   This will result in an added chapter early in the book and the “perking up” (my term, not Agent’s)  of some fairly large chunks considered “flat” as well as showing one character more active and tough than before (hadn’t realized that character had softened that much between books.)     Some of that will involve shortening, and some will involve lengthening, as usual.   Agent has contacted Editor, who gave permission for an extension to do the work he suggested, pointing out that we could send her the version I sent him today, or a better version in ten days.  (Agent has had the book since January 20 and I appreciate the fast, analytical reading Agent gave it. )

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What I think (and devoutly hope) is the last pre-submission scene to be ripped up and rewritten was finished this morning by 10 am local time.    I was writing like crazy until 2:45 am when I pretty much froze up, joints and brain together, and started again this morning at 7:30am.  You are reading the typing of a very tired writer.

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So this afternoon I was hacking away at stuff, helped by Ms. Rancherfriend who has an excellent eye for the “enough of that, already” passages (she’s the reason the first Paks books did not chronicle every single hour of slogging through the mud. )  And while talking to her, a nagging little worry about a scene you will now never see  (because it Did Not Happen that way!)  suddenly rose up even though she hadn’t mentioned it, and I asked her what she thought about it.

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I am deep in chronology now, maybe halfway through, and discovering that I have duplicated some events (though the way the scenes are written varies a lot) and completely left out some very important ones.  Last night’s work session was on one such scene (a plot-mover for sure.)    Getting the others into even rough order helps a lot in seeing overlaps, duplicates, and gaps.

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I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that since September 5, I’ve been involved in Terie Garrison’s “Great Invitational Word Race” again, in which writers of all experience levels set a goal and see how close they can come.  Best part (besides being pushed to write every day) is that Terie found a cool counter with a horse and rider and racetrack, and we pick horse names and so on.   She makes the counter work with our reported words written, so you can see how your horse lines up with the others.   You can see it here.

Desert Orchid and I have been partners all along (he’s an old gray gelding instead of an old gray mare, but it still fits.)

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