Paksworld

Made it to 100,010 words…just now.   (OK, five minutes ago, time in between spent shaking out fingers.  Call it 11:15 pm.)   Today’s production was about 1500 words.

At this time last year,  I was only about 52,000.    Hence the difficulties of last fall and winter.   I don’t think I can hit my usual full-steam-ahead production rate of 2000 words day right now, what with LifeStuff, but I’m not in the bind I was in last year as long as I don’t take off a month to lie in a hammock.

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Plot bombs I’ve explained before–inspiration that explodes in the plot and drives it forward into new and fascinating territory.    What I’ve had this week isn’t a plot bomb.  It’s more like that rib-spreader thing that surgeons use when they want to mess around inside someone’s chest cavity.    This week’s inspiration–if you can call it that–shoved itself into too small a space in the plot and then pushed it open.

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I’ve been knitting again, and the ball of yarn from which I’m knitting (ball, not skein) developed some tangles in its innards (it’s a commercially wound ball; they do this sometimes.)  It was necessary to partially eviscerate the ball (reading into the hole and feeling around and then pulling a hunk out) to untangle it.   This is remarkably like what’s gone on  with the story the past few days, and is a clear sign that my sudden urge to start knitting again was connected to more than hand pain–my brain needed the tactile and musculo-skeletal input.

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So as I’m slogging, lurching, struggling through the mental swamp that is this part of Book IV,  I realize that what keeps tripping me up is the E subplot.  (As opposed to A, B, C, and D.)    What the heck is going on with E-subplot (or, to shorten things, Eplot.

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Over 80,000 words now, that is.    That doesn’t count the side notes, the entries on the “Ideas” file (where I keep reminders of what this book is supposed to be covering, and those moments of sudden inspiration that don’t come in connected fictional prose.)

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Quote, remember?   In this case refers to Book IV  having turned sullen and uncooperative, largely because of  interruptions to its previously flowing progress.   And one of the interruptions was the preparatory period for Easter.   Hence the quote seemed to fit very well. Read the rest of this entry »

Very likely Book III will get a new title in the next few days.    I’m participating in the process of coming up with a new one.    There was editorial concern that Crisis of Vision, though it did fit the “hinge book” position, did not carry enough of the epic fantasy feel (and in fact “felt” more like a nonfiction book to some.)   This will not delay the schedule or anything; it’s just one of those changes that comes along, and I thought I’d give y’all a heads-up about it.   I think I mentioned that the US edition now has cover art, but I’m not cleared to show it to you yet (and the old title’s on it, so it’s a good thing it’s not spread all over the internet.)

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Book IV, that is.   Still busy with business stuff (and tax stuff, and Lent-into-Holy-Week music stuff and…so on) but Book IV is now back up the priority ladder and scooting along.   5000 words so far this week.   I’m not going to make 10,000, because a) I took time off today to have lunch with friends and b) I’ve invited different friends to dinner Saturday evening, which means I have to do some grocery shopping and spend some time Saturday cooking.   But still.   Book IV is back on the track and moving.

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Book IV called me back today with a vengeance, and I’ve done the first substantial work since finishing the Great Race.  Over 1500 words.    A plot-bomb of sorts that’s been burning a hole in my typing fingers since the fever went down.   However, it’s a major, MAJOR spoiler so I can’t talk about it.

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The morning began with the discovery (not unexpected by me!) that the dozen or so ants on the counter yesterday had become a superhighway of ants along the edge of the counter, up the wall, and into one of the cabinets.  They had also constructed a network of smaller routes on the counter itself.  Some of them had crossed the Great Chasm between counter and stove top, with the result that the sugar bowl (these are sugar ants, much to be preferred if you must have ants) had ants in it.

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