Mostly about religion, some about writing.

At church this morning, we had a bagpiper, hiding at the very back of the balcony where msot of the congregation couldn't see him even when they turned around. From the choir, between the altar and the organ pipes, of cours,e I could see him perfectly - silhouetted against stained glass, beside the throne-like chairs in the centre. Very pretty image, that. Pretty good piping, too.

So, I managed to get the POV switch done, then barrelled through several short chapters' worth of edits. I admit I stopped looking at the sheets with my prior editorial marks, so I may have missed typos (I did catch the place I put "You ate the healer" rather than "You are..."), but I change a heck of a lot. Name changes, alas, aren't always as simple as a find-and-replace - when the things used in place of the name are titles and honorifics, some sentences would just read wrong if all you did was swap-out. My back hurts.

I also did a first real session on the stair-climber, plus all the warm-up, cool down, and arm exercises. Alas, the push-ups I did yesterday made the ones today painful, so I'll skip those tomorrow, lest on Tuesday I'm unable to do archery. It ased my back a bit, before I went back and did more of the same.

And, weirdly enough, all my November NaAmbiguWriMo (Which is slightly more accurate than cicadabug's offering of NaNoAmbiguMo, as it's all writing-related but not all novel-related) and winter-long exercise stuff seems to have come in by way of cat-vaccuuming.

Yes, I'm writing to avoid something else.

The Digger's class I'm taking is in part a set-up for membership in Augustine specifically and the United Church of Canada in general. And one thing we're supposed to do is find a way to express our core faith, what brought us to Christianity, and what we believe matters most in it.

I know a lot of these things, of course. But I don't know how to express them. I mean, yes, I got most of them out to Loraine in a lengthy discussion with much stammering and back-tracking and digressions that may or may not be relevant, and I could probably converse about them with any number of people at length, but to sum them up in two or three paragraphs? I could even couch it in my own fiction. She thought that could be neat. But the only piece of work that's current that has anything to do with that is novel-length (That being Raising the Storm. The main character is basically a priest). And the only other one that jumps to mind is a zero-draft novellette I mean to rework whenever it finally feels time, about the current character's great-grandmother. Not exactly up for a two minute presentation.

I'm seriously tempted to just read excerpts from The Silver Chair and Hogfather. Heck, if I could do it convincingly, Loraine would let me get away with it.

Mostly about religion, some about writing.

At church this morning, we had a bagpiper, hiding at the very back of the balcony where msot of the congregation couldn't see him even when they turned around. From the choir, between the altar and the organ pipes, of cours,e I could see him perfectly - silhouetted against stained glass, beside the throne-like chairs in the centre. Very pretty image, that. Pretty good piping, too.

So, I managed to get the POV switch done, then barrelled through several short chapters' worth of edits. I admit I stopped looking at the sheets with my prior editorial marks, so I may have missed typos (I did catch the place I put "You ate the healer" rather than "You are..."), but I change a heck of a lot. Name changes, alas, aren't always as simple as a find-and-replace - when the things used in place of the name are titles and honorifics, some sentences would just read wrong if all you did was swap-out. My back hurts.

I also did a first real session on the stair-climber, plus all the warm-up, cool down, and arm exercises. Alas, the push-ups I did yesterday made the ones today painful, so I'll skip those tomorrow, lest on Tuesday I'm unable to do archery. It ased my back a bit, before I went back and did more of the same.

And, weirdly enough, all my November NaAmbiguWriMo (Which is slightly more accurate than cicadabug's offering of NaNoAmbiguMo, as it's all writing-related but not all novel-related) and winter-long exercise stuff seems to have come in by way of cat-vaccuuming.

Yes, I'm writing to avoid something else.

The Digger's class I'm taking is in part a set-up for membership in Augustine specifically and the United Church of Canada in general. And one thing we're supposed to do is find a way to express our core faith, what brought us to Christianity, and what we believe matters most in it.

I know a lot of these things, of course. But I don't know how to express them. I mean, yes, I got most of them out to Loraine in a lengthy discussion with much stammering and back-tracking and digressions that may or may not be relevant, and I could probably converse about them with any number of people at length, but to sum them up in two or three paragraphs? I could even couch it in my own fiction. She thought that could be neat. But the only piece of work that's current that has anything to do with that is novel-length (That being Raising the Storm. The main character is basically a priest). And the only other one that jumps to mind is a zero-draft novellette I mean to rework whenever it finally feels time, about the current character's great-grandmother. Not exactly up for a two minute presentation.

I'm seriously tempted to just read excerpts from The Silver Chair and Hogfather. Heck, if I could do it convincingly, Loraine would let me get away with it.

It really is about getting wet.*

So there I am, scrubbing the bathroom, when a bunch of things just tumble into place in my mind.

One of the pieces of advice Jim Macdonald hammered at me at VP was "If you have a character who's there at the beginning, and she's there in the middle of the story, and she influences most of the rest, she'd darn well better be there at the climax. (Which sounds like a "well, duh..." but isn't always, not when the character in question is lying enchanted in a cave in a distant mountain range).

I found myself thinking of a way to really super-briefly summarize the main plotline of Raising the Storm (*not*, I should note, the novel Jim was talking about). I'd come up with a pretty good one, actually, as I was scrubbing, and found myself muddling over the problem of what to do with one particular bit in the climax, when a passing comment Branwen made in her critique of the opening chapter clicked. There was a minor character she'd mentioned finding interesting, and I'd been thinking that after the first half, he really didn't have much to do.... someone who showed up at the beginning, and influenced things for him throughout... and a moment later, yay! I knew how he fit into the key scene in the middle of the story, too.

Two problems -- a character who shows up early then fades out, and a climactic scene with one annoying little detail that needed resolution -- and two pieces of advice/commentary, all work together to produce another great poof of inspiration, and a plain solution. And conveniently, they resonate with a choice another character already made.

Thank you, Uncle Jim! Thanks, Brannie!

Of course, about half-a-minute later, Colin came in behind me and turned on the fan, pointing out that he could smell the cleaner fumes all the way from the bedroom. Take this as you will.


* Not that way, though that's fun, too. But I'd made a post elsewhere just a couple of days ago about how moments of inspiration like this always seem to come in the shower, or while washing dishes, or doing things again. And here I am again, washing.

It really is about getting wet.*

So there I am, scrubbing the bathroom, when a bunch of things just tumble into place in my mind.

One of the pieces of advice Jim Macdonald hammered at me at VP was "If you have a character who's there at the beginning, and she's there in the middle of the story, and she influences most of the rest, she'd darn well better be there at the climax. (Which sounds like a "well, duh..." but isn't always, not when the character in question is lying enchanted in a cave in a distant mountain range).

I found myself thinking of a way to really super-briefly summarize the main plotline of Raising the Storm (*not*, I should note, the novel Jim was talking about). I'd come up with a pretty good one, actually, as I was scrubbing, and found myself muddling over the problem of what to do with one particular bit in the climax, when a passing comment Branwen made in her critique of the opening chapter clicked. There was a minor character she'd mentioned finding interesting, and I'd been thinking that after the first half, he really didn't have much to do.... someone who showed up at the beginning, and influenced things for him throughout... and a moment later, yay! I knew how he fit into the key scene in the middle of the story, too.

Two problems -- a character who shows up early then fades out, and a climactic scene with one annoying little detail that needed resolution -- and two pieces of advice/commentary, all work together to produce another great poof of inspiration, and a plain solution. And conveniently, they resonate with a choice another character already made.

Thank you, Uncle Jim! Thanks, Brannie!

Of course, about half-a-minute later, Colin came in behind me and turned on the fan, pointing out that he could smell the cleaner fumes all the way from the bedroom. Take this as you will.


* Not that way, though that's fun, too. But I'd made a post elsewhere just a couple of days ago about how moments of inspiration like this always seem to come in the shower, or while washing dishes, or doing things again. And here I am again, washing.