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Mar. 7th, 2010 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseSo. Bird of Dusk's current draft is finished. (See my last post for the whole call for critiques thing. Yes, I did that first. I figured that revisions to chapters 30-35 could be done while I'm sending out chapters 1-6. Turns out I caught an error in chapter 4 and tweaked a thing or two in 5 anyhow, oops. But no harm done yet)
130,000 words (Actually, I think it ended out at 131k). Two characters got squished into one, chunks of text near the end went away. I hunted down and destroyed all instances of certain words in the wrong contexts. I still feel like there must be something in the closing sections to reduce, but I figure it can wait for crits.
Also, the story I've been pecking at on the Dana is going to get thrown back into the dark pit of my psyche. (It's not the good kind of dark pit of the psyche, that involves facing your demons, making yourself uncomfortable and stretching as a writer. It's the other kind, the kind that seems exploitative and in it for the bad thrills. And which, if you feed it too much, turns off the parts of you that think about the consequences of exploitation.)
I know my *very* next projects (2), but both are short fiction and shouldn't take long.
So now I'm thinking about what to work on. It seems like I've been reading a lot lately that involves entourages (modern and older) and how they tend to surround celebrity and royalty, and I've been wanting to work some of that into the Serpent Prince, etc. (There are reasons neither Prince nor Duke have much entourage during some parts of the story, but there are places I glossed it over; partly because I'm in first person and Ketan wouldn't think to comment on it, but more often because I didn't think about it enough.)
However, of all projects, the Labyrinth/DWJ pastiche has been kind of sitting in my mind. And I'm thinking that one might be a good one to move onto the Dana. It certainly has the "This is a raw draft" effect. It also has the "this should be fun" effect.
I'm also finding that the current course; editing and writing one more advanced project at home and doing crazy first-drafty work on the Dana at lunch hour really works for me. Being in totally different geographic locales, It's easier to keep the editing monster and suck monkey away from the first draftiness, and it's easier to corral them to work when i need them at home.
But I'm considering a few other things, too; between projects, my mind tends to recall and cling to bits from all over in a desperate effort to shake off the last project. because it's *real* easy to end up thinking more about Bird of Dusk. That's what I had my brain trained to do for the last month, after all. So. As good a way to decide as any. Let me know if anything sounds good:
(Note, most of these are rough, especially but not exclusively in the second section.)
Projects for home (More advanced drafts)
The Serpent Prince
Most men came before the High Dame of Germaine with admiration and lust. I approached her chair with contempt and scarce-veiled hatred.
Soldier of the Road
The wind scoured across my cheeks and spat the dust of the road into my eyes.
Blood of the Woods
Zhared watched the camp from his meagre shelter, and wished they had settled themselves nearer the brink of the woods. The grain was ripe with summer's end, but it did not shelter him as closely as the oaks could; nor could it stop a gunshot.
First drafty things for the Dana
Armageddon: J. Girar
There's things that happen every era, every place, that make folk of the time say, "I was there." And give the ones who get to say it and mean it a little extra cachet.
Some are better than others to live through.
Armageddon: Sandori
This is what Sandori Girar knew how to do: Set a bone. Pitch a tent. Help the goats give birth. Make Crossbow bolts. Hunt game. Teach the younger children their lessons. Cast simple illusions. Put anyone into dreamless sleep by will alone. And wander the remnants of the Ocean of Knowledge through their dying computer without being recognized as human by the imps.
The above two stories, dad and daughter, intertwine. I can try writing them together or separately; the snippets I have so far were written months apart.
Gods in Flight
To explain why I ended up where I did, at the right hand of the Bastard, of all Gods, I think I'd better start with a sum-up where I'm coming from.
I was born in nowhere-town in the county of nowhere in the province of nowhere in the farthest back corner of the most nowhere country on the whole planet.
This above is currently probably the lowest contender for working on just now.
Merlin's Dive
Colleen Dukas arrived at the television studio after a weekend of significantly more drinking than she had assayed even in college.
Since this one seems to want to switch to first person, that is opening the most subject to change.
Labyrinth/DWJ pastiche
Heather had lost count of how many turnings she'd taken in this part of the maze.
The Dragon Queens
I woke sheltered from the winter beneath a dragon's wing, and wrapped in the arms of my husband - a man I barely knew.
Dark Water
Hahleph-Ailce was not, by her own admission, a forest fox at all. She was meek, at least for a vixen.
130,000 words (Actually, I think it ended out at 131k). Two characters got squished into one, chunks of text near the end went away. I hunted down and destroyed all instances of certain words in the wrong contexts. I still feel like there must be something in the closing sections to reduce, but I figure it can wait for crits.
Also, the story I've been pecking at on the Dana is going to get thrown back into the dark pit of my psyche. (It's not the good kind of dark pit of the psyche, that involves facing your demons, making yourself uncomfortable and stretching as a writer. It's the other kind, the kind that seems exploitative and in it for the bad thrills. And which, if you feed it too much, turns off the parts of you that think about the consequences of exploitation.)
I know my *very* next projects (2), but both are short fiction and shouldn't take long.
So now I'm thinking about what to work on. It seems like I've been reading a lot lately that involves entourages (modern and older) and how they tend to surround celebrity and royalty, and I've been wanting to work some of that into the Serpent Prince, etc. (There are reasons neither Prince nor Duke have much entourage during some parts of the story, but there are places I glossed it over; partly because I'm in first person and Ketan wouldn't think to comment on it, but more often because I didn't think about it enough.)
However, of all projects, the Labyrinth/DWJ pastiche has been kind of sitting in my mind. And I'm thinking that one might be a good one to move onto the Dana. It certainly has the "This is a raw draft" effect. It also has the "this should be fun" effect.
I'm also finding that the current course; editing and writing one more advanced project at home and doing crazy first-drafty work on the Dana at lunch hour really works for me. Being in totally different geographic locales, It's easier to keep the editing monster and suck monkey away from the first draftiness, and it's easier to corral them to work when i need them at home.
But I'm considering a few other things, too; between projects, my mind tends to recall and cling to bits from all over in a desperate effort to shake off the last project. because it's *real* easy to end up thinking more about Bird of Dusk. That's what I had my brain trained to do for the last month, after all. So. As good a way to decide as any. Let me know if anything sounds good:
(Note, most of these are rough, especially but not exclusively in the second section.)
Projects for home (More advanced drafts)
The Serpent Prince
Most men came before the High Dame of Germaine with admiration and lust. I approached her chair with contempt and scarce-veiled hatred.
Soldier of the Road
The wind scoured across my cheeks and spat the dust of the road into my eyes.
Blood of the Woods
Zhared watched the camp from his meagre shelter, and wished they had settled themselves nearer the brink of the woods. The grain was ripe with summer's end, but it did not shelter him as closely as the oaks could; nor could it stop a gunshot.
First drafty things for the Dana
Armageddon: J. Girar
There's things that happen every era, every place, that make folk of the time say, "I was there." And give the ones who get to say it and mean it a little extra cachet.
Some are better than others to live through.
Armageddon: Sandori
This is what Sandori Girar knew how to do: Set a bone. Pitch a tent. Help the goats give birth. Make Crossbow bolts. Hunt game. Teach the younger children their lessons. Cast simple illusions. Put anyone into dreamless sleep by will alone. And wander the remnants of the Ocean of Knowledge through their dying computer without being recognized as human by the imps.
The above two stories, dad and daughter, intertwine. I can try writing them together or separately; the snippets I have so far were written months apart.
Gods in Flight
To explain why I ended up where I did, at the right hand of the Bastard, of all Gods, I think I'd better start with a sum-up where I'm coming from.
I was born in nowhere-town in the county of nowhere in the province of nowhere in the farthest back corner of the most nowhere country on the whole planet.
This above is currently probably the lowest contender for working on just now.
Merlin's Dive
Colleen Dukas arrived at the television studio after a weekend of significantly more drinking than she had assayed even in college.
Since this one seems to want to switch to first person, that is opening the most subject to change.
Labyrinth/DWJ pastiche
Heather had lost count of how many turnings she'd taken in this part of the maze.
The Dragon Queens
I woke sheltered from the winter beneath a dragon's wing, and wrapped in the arms of my husband - a man I barely knew.
Dark Water
Hahleph-Ailce was not, by her own admission, a forest fox at all. She was meek, at least for a vixen.
