Sundry

Tappity Tappity - Hit the end of Part two in my re-editing of Raising the Storm. It's kind of weird. Before the last actual rewrite, I did something I call "telescoping" -- two characters got slid together and made into one, more complicated character (Formerly a brother and sister, now a female only child).

Without a savvy older brother to pass on knowledge of the outside world, the character ended up horribly naive. That made the story richer, and her development more interesting, but then I went too far with it, and suddenly the character just could not end up where I wanted her to within the length of time the story actually takes.

So now I'm trying to find ways to make her slightly less naive, but preserve enough of it to give her the richness and the interest. And to make her fit with her own background. Also, the severity of her naivete meant the other main character thinks she's "sweet" -- in both positive and derogatory senses.

In prior drafts, he fell in love with her. In this draft, that doesn't seem to be how it's going to fall out (the other person he falls in love with seems to have won that side of the romantic quintangle, and that's fine by me), but he is supposed to count her a friend close enough to lose it when the excrement meets the hurricane (They don't have motor powered fans).

Disco Dracula is totally backburnered for now - but it has decided to leap from "Assigned work I'm dealing with grudgingly", to an "ongoing project I wanna finish", which means it *will* be returned to, when I'm next in the mood to chew on short fiction (Or doing work avoidance on the novels). I've been doing sporadic bits of research on it, starting with Wikipedia and google.

Mourn - I so want the downtown library to hurry up and open up. It's the only one I can easily reach from work or home that's also of an acceptably large size -- and the hours for the miniature replacement branch just don't work with the hours I actually get off work and reach downtown. Yes, I could theoretically go more out of my way  -- but, observe, there are five bookstores (two new, three used) that aren't out of my way, two places to pick up discount/remaindered books other then the actual specialized bookstores, and about four others that are closer than any given library branch of acceptable size, or are actually on my way between home and some other approriate location. So I spend a little more on the books I lust to read, and for things I don't want to own, just know, I put off research until "later", or skim bits off the internet just to say, "well, I looked some of it up."

Besides, there isn't a bookstore in this city that has Locus magazine.

Thwack! - When I got the oh-so-pretty ever so nice magyar horse-bow, I passed on the leather wrap for the grip because, though the existing grip is admittedly thin, I thought it was adequate. But I'm starting to notice that the narrower point of pressure is hurting my supporting hand and also making it very hard not to grip too tight. Like I don't have enough technique problems. I thought it was just adaptation blues, but I'm starting the think it could develop into a chronic problem, and my hands and wrists have enough of those. So, Christmas being what it is, maybe I should ask Colin for that leather wrap as well as a thumb ring (I've tried the Magyar shooting style, too, and I think I could get to like it more than the European. I'm *Not* getting the horse to complete the set, though.)

Grrr. - Thanks to sartorias (And a few other things, but it's nice to have a scapegoat), I think I'm going to end up picking up some books tonight. Alas, at Chapters, as I'm already pretty sure that they had a copy the last time I was there (Months ago) and I equally know the beloved McNally doesn't have this exact book (Been there less than two weeks ago), and they do have far too many other tempting ones. Well, I already knew I'd be late for Dance Practice, just because I know what the bus schedules are like. I hope this won't throw me out much further. Maybe if I'm smart I'll actually start some of the dread Christmas shopping while I'm there.

Also Grrr - Old work peeve just came up again: Who the hell sets up a program where you have to manually enter around 100 data points, but leaves it with a save button that only saves up to twenty, and a glitch where, if you hit backspace in the wrong moment, and everything you just entered goes away. (That moment is right in between two entry boxes where you might have to backspace and correct something, so all you have to do is miss hitting tab once, or hit it one too many times. Loverly.)

I suppose I shouldn't bitch at having to do another 45 minutes worth of work when I've been bitching about dead time -- and not incidentally, can manage to type up this livejournal entry -- but the fact that it's the *same* work I'd done once already still annoys me.

I'd say I haven't done much else meantime, but that's not exactly true. I've noticed the amusing fact that, on an average week, the *only* evening that isn't taken up by this, that, and everything, is Saturday night. And the bits around the edges are writing time.

Sundry

Tappity Tappity - Hit the end of Part two in my re-editing of Raising the Storm. It's kind of weird. Before the last actual rewrite, I did something I call "telescoping" -- two characters got slid together and made into one, more complicated character (Formerly a brother and sister, now a female only child).

Without a savvy older brother to pass on knowledge of the outside world, the character ended up horribly naive. That made the story richer, and her development more interesting, but then I went too far with it, and suddenly the character just could not end up where I wanted her to within the length of time the story actually takes.

So now I'm trying to find ways to make her slightly less naive, but preserve enough of it to give her the richness and the interest. And to make her fit with her own background. Also, the severity of her naivete meant the other main character thinks she's "sweet" -- in both positive and derogatory senses.

In prior drafts, he fell in love with her. In this draft, that doesn't seem to be how it's going to fall out (the other person he falls in love with seems to have won that side of the romantic quintangle, and that's fine by me), but he is supposed to count her a friend close enough to lose it when the excrement meets the hurricane (They don't have motor powered fans).

Disco Dracula is totally backburnered for now - but it has decided to leap from "Assigned work I'm dealing with grudgingly", to an "ongoing project I wanna finish", which means it *will* be returned to, when I'm next in the mood to chew on short fiction (Or doing work avoidance on the novels). I've been doing sporadic bits of research on it, starting with Wikipedia and google.

Mourn - I so want the downtown library to hurry up and open up. It's the only one I can easily reach from work or home that's also of an acceptably large size -- and the hours for the miniature replacement branch just don't work with the hours I actually get off work and reach downtown. Yes, I could theoretically go more out of my way  -- but, observe, there are five bookstores (two new, three used) that aren't out of my way, two places to pick up discount/remaindered books other then the actual specialized bookstores, and about four others that are closer than any given library branch of acceptable size, or are actually on my way between home and some other approriate location. So I spend a little more on the books I lust to read, and for things I don't want to own, just know, I put off research until "later", or skim bits off the internet just to say, "well, I looked some of it up."

Besides, there isn't a bookstore in this city that has Locus magazine.

Thwack! - When I got the oh-so-pretty ever so nice magyar horse-bow, I passed on the leather wrap for the grip because, though the existing grip is admittedly thin, I thought it was adequate. But I'm starting to notice that the narrower point of pressure is hurting my supporting hand and also making it very hard not to grip too tight. Like I don't have enough technique problems. I thought it was just adaptation blues, but I'm starting the think it could develop into a chronic problem, and my hands and wrists have enough of those. So, Christmas being what it is, maybe I should ask Colin for that leather wrap as well as a thumb ring (I've tried the Magyar shooting style, too, and I think I could get to like it more than the European. I'm *Not* getting the horse to complete the set, though.)

Grrr. - Thanks to sartorias (And a few other things, but it's nice to have a scapegoat), I think I'm going to end up picking up some books tonight. Alas, at Chapters, as I'm already pretty sure that they had a copy the last time I was there (Months ago) and I equally know the beloved McNally doesn't have this exact book (Been there less than two weeks ago), and they do have far too many other tempting ones. Well, I already knew I'd be late for Dance Practice, just because I know what the bus schedules are like. I hope this won't throw me out much further. Maybe if I'm smart I'll actually start some of the dread Christmas shopping while I'm there.

Also Grrr - Old work peeve just came up again: Who the hell sets up a program where you have to manually enter around 100 data points, but leaves it with a save button that only saves up to twenty, and a glitch where, if you hit backspace in the wrong moment, and everything you just entered goes away. (That moment is right in between two entry boxes where you might have to backspace and correct something, so all you have to do is miss hitting tab once, or hit it one too many times. Loverly.)

I suppose I shouldn't bitch at having to do another 45 minutes worth of work when I've been bitching about dead time -- and not incidentally, can manage to type up this livejournal entry -- but the fact that it's the *same* work I'd done once already still annoys me.

I'd say I haven't done much else meantime, but that's not exactly true. I've noticed the amusing fact that, on an average week, the *only* evening that isn't taken up by this, that, and everything, is Saturday night. And the bits around the edges are writing time.