Quote, remember?\u00a0\u00a0 In this case refers to Book IV\u00a0 having turned sullen and uncooperative, largely because of\u00a0 interruptions to its previously flowing progress.\u00a0\u00a0 And one of the interruptions was the preparatory period for Easter.\u00a0\u00a0 Hence the quote seemed to fit very well.Where we are now in the book is a curious place where I’m writing in fill-in backstory and sidestory, because the main story sagged.\u00a0\u00a0 This happens in every book, and in every book I hope it won’t…that I’ve gotten past that stage in my writing career and from here on out books will simply flow forth–if not effortlessly, at least without this annoying mid-book sense of having driven into a particularly gooey mudhole.\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes it means I’ve gone wrong, but usually it’s just a difficult period of slog, slog, slog, putting words into the file even while knowing that\u00a0 lot of them will have to be deleted later.<\/p>\n
The only thing that works is doing just that…laying down one day’s layer of words on another until finally something internal switches into gear and the story takes off and runs to the end.\u00a0\u00a0 Feeling like the Little Engine that Couldn’t Quite is part of the drill.<\/p>\n
One amusing thing that will probably be axed by Editor if not me is a scene in which a midwife lectures two grizzled old armsmasters on what exercises a pregnant swordswoman should and should not be given between now and the birth.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I realized, getting into it, that the midwives in Tsaia and Fintha both would have had these conversations many times.\u00a0 Girdish women who are pregnant don’t quit training–and the young inexperienced ones won’t know what they should\/shouldn’t do.\u00a0\u00a0 It was an interesting insight into the midwife’s character, the armsmasters’ characters, and (in hindsight) how these societies have assimilated women as soldiers.<\/p>\n
Very different from my experiences in the military decades ago.\u00a0\u00a0 When a woman got pregnant, she was in disgrace.\u00a0 As with many people now, the presumption is that “she got herself pregnant” (as if\u00a0 a man and his wigglers had nothing to do with it)\u00a0 and the responsibility all rested on her.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I knew a woman who got pregnant all right–by an officer supervising her, which brings up the whole issue of unequal power–and at the time there were no maternity uniforms (at least that’s<\/em> improved!)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Very tough time for her.<\/p>\n Still, the scene hasn’t shown itself to be plot-necessary yet, but then the plot is sitting on the side track, huffing and puffing a little but not going anywhere.\u00a0 So meantime, I’m piling words into the coal car (or equivalent for stories, whatever that is) and trying to figure out exactly what Dragon is up to.\u00a0\u00a0 Dragon is not cooperative either, and unlike characters is not the least intimidated by authorial authority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Quote, remember?\u00a0\u00a0 In this case refers to Book IV\u00a0 having turned sullen and uncooperative, largely because of\u00a0 interruptions to its previously flowing progress.\u00a0\u00a0 And one of the interruptions was the preparatory period for Easter.\u00a0\u00a0 Hence the quote seemed to fit very well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[108,20,107],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-writing-life","tag-background","tag-progress-report","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1181,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions\/1181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}