Just got back today.\u00a0 Had two good writing days on trains (2000+ words each day) after a brief conference with Editor at the convention.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As usual, time away from a project allows more balanced contemplation of what’s already been done.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I realized, for instance, that a pivotal scene I’d been thinking about for months had never actually made it into the computer–an extreme case of “I know that, but I didn’t show that.”<\/p>\n
I worked on it on the train.\u00a0 It’s a hard one to write–there’s a lot of unfamiliar ‘magic’ going on–but it’s linked to a later one I did<\/em> write.<\/p>\n I explained to Editor that Book IV has been affected by the LifeStuff happening this summer, and though I will do my best to fix all that by the time it goes to Editor,\u00a0 it may need more attention than previous volumes.\u00a0\u00a0 Luckily, the first draft should be done well before it was done last year.\u00a0\u00a0 Unless, that is, I need to overwrite the end of the book (moving on into Book V) to find the right ending for IV.<\/p>\n Then Editor explained to me that Editor is taking early retirement as of the first of the year. \u00a0\u00a0 UK Editor is leaving Orbit for another publisher.\u00a0\u00a0 The wail you hear is a writer feeling orphaned (not the first time and won’t be the last…happens to all.\u00a0 But…WAIL.)\u00a0 Not to fear:\u00a0 Books IV and V are not in any present danger.<\/p>\n Present length–about 145,800 words in the rough\/first draft.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tonight I’ll be transferring the new long-file (the one done on the netbook in Word 2010, yuck) to the main computer and removing the formatting changes Word 2010 imposes.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then tomorrow–back on book.<\/p>\n Dragon*Con was a lot of fun but even more crowded than last year, and I came into it with less energy.\u00a0 Still, fun.\u00a0 And wonderful costumes.\u00a0 And friends to see, old and new.\u00a0 And a wonderful knitting circle Sunday afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0 I *like* knitting in a group, it turns out.<\/p>\n Good news arrived while I was in transit to Dragon*Con and while I was in transit coming home:\u00a0\u00a0 husband’s tumor is actually in the low-risk category for early metastasis (learned on the way up) and the oncologist agrees that watchful waiting is the best thing to do (learned on the way back.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We still desperately need rain and the end of the wildfires (I could see the smoke from the Bastrop area fire from far East Texas on the train yesterday evening) but otherwise the stress level should now drop and let me finish this book with a clearer head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just got back today.\u00a0 Had two good writing days on trains (2000+ words each day) after a brief conference with Editor at the convention.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As usual, time away from a project allows more balanced contemplation of what’s already been done.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I realized, for instance, that a pivotal scene I’d been thinking about for months had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,92,53,5],"tags":[82,112,20,107],"class_list":["post-1313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conventions","category-good-news","category-life-beyond-writing","category-the-writing-life","tag-dragoncon","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-progress-report","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313"}],"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=1313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1314,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions\/1314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}