Yesterday I was going to write a post saying I’d be talking to agent tomorrow.\u00a0\u00a0 Never hit SEND.\u00a0\u00a0 This is it:\u00a0 “Another chat with Agent.\u00a0 You will get a report.\u00a0\u00a0 As for Horngard II, it creepeth onward (it doesn’t want to cooperate unless I’ll give it all day…this splitting time with the County Tax Office’s deadline-looming Wildlife Management report doesn’t suit Paksworld, which thinks-since I’m back in it now–it owns my brain.\u00a0 Does, mostly, at the moment.\u00a0 But I’ve misplaced the Kieri’s First Command store I found I could work on in short snatched, which makes me hate Word’s misnamed “search” function all the more. Search INSIDE a file fine.\u00a0 FIND a file (actually Microsoft’s FIND function for files is the problem–apparently it won’t look inside folders, and Word never lists the path while you’re IN a file so you can take notes.\u00a0 The memory thing of TBIs kicks in when I try to remember which folder that file is in…I’ve looked in the Paksworld Stories and Stories folders, both of them, for a hint, but no.\u00a0 On both drives it might be on (Data, under D: in the computer, and Data under the (folder) that replicated the D: drive on the card, F:\/”<\/p>\n
Today had the chat.\u00a0 Still another draft to do.\u00a0 SIGH.\u00a0\u00a0 As he said, and I also agree (but hadn’t agreed *in time*) , when you are first fixing a flawed ms. every fix can make it better but open up new views of what’s not that good yet.\u00a0 The goal, of course, is to have it equally good from start to finish (whatever level of “good” is reached.)\u00a0\u00a0 Or at least a “smoothed out” reading experience so it’s not four good chapters, a boring chapter, two OK chapters, two good chapters, two real stinkers…etc.\u00a0\u00a0 He was encouraged because it’s definitely better overall…except….where it isn’t.\u00a0 SIGH again.\u00a0\u00a0 He pointed out that since I hadn’t been able to write even remotely publishable book-length fiction for over 4 years, I could expect to have lost some skills, and since the cause of not writing was the brain injury…it’s more remarkable that I can now…with more revision…than it would be if I couldn’t.\u00a0\u00a0 I remind myself that the original Paks books had three full-length drafts before I submitted it (when I’d had only one concussion) and then the estimable Betsy Mitchell worked them over…so I’m still within the envelope.\u00a0 Fast first draft, multiple revisions.\u00a0 Because I don’t know the whole story, haven’t sorted out what “really” happened and thus can’t critique the whole story structure.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve muttered before and say it again:\u00a0 using Michelangelo’s analogy, my method seems to be to create the block of marble first and *then* cut away everything that isn’t the final statue…except that the creating of the stone and the cutting away occur multiple times.\u00a0 Very messy process.\u00a0 Chips of marble all over my mental and physical floors (in the form of sheets of paper covereed with notes to self, notes from agent or first readers, pages of ms. in the trash.\u00a0 Only right now I can’t print any of the ms, so…grrr.<\/p>\n
ANYway, I was working on the next little collection of Paksworld stories, trying to decide how to group them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Several would fit into a group of “young people as protagonists”:\u00a0 “Dream’s Quarry” from Horse Fantastic<\/em>, a horse nomad story, “First Blood,” from Shattered Shields<\/em>,\u00a0 maybe “Mercenary’s Honor” from OperationArcana<\/em>, because Aliam is still a young man and Kieri is in it as a squire,\u00a0“Gifts” from Masters of Fantasy, \u00a0 “The Dun Mare’s Foal,”<\/em>\u00a0 serialized here,\u00a0 or \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em> “A Bad Day at Duke’s East” (a story never published–Arcolin’s adopted son Jamis is in it.)\u00a0\u00a0 The story now called “Kieri’s First Command” could be retitled for its main POV character, that Marrakai kid, if there’s enough room.\u00a0 It’s the first half of the longer story (which was written back when, and both file (in WS) and printout lost over the years)\u00a0 that ends with Kieri\u00a0 saving the Tsaian force and pushing the Pargunese back into Pargun.\u00a0\u00a0 Duke Marrakai is badly wounded and (IIRC) died on the way home; the Crown Prince is killed.\u00a0 Kirgan Marrakai lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday I was going to write a post saying I’d be talking to agent tomorrow.\u00a0\u00a0 Never hit SEND.\u00a0\u00a0 This is it:\u00a0 “Another chat with Agent.\u00a0 You will get a report.\u00a0\u00a0 As for Horngard II, it creepeth onward (it doesn’t want to cooperate unless I’ll give it all day…this splitting time with the County Tax Office’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,5],"tags":[51,107],"class_list":["post-2919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-revisions","category-the-writing-life","tag-revision","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919"}],"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=2919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2920,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919\/revisions\/2920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}