Go Figure...

Progress notes for December 28, 2006:

Soldier of the Road


New Words: 1500 or slightly more
Reason for stopping: Reality check.
Tea: pomegranate rooibus.
Music: Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Let's Frolic, Heather Dale, the Hidden Path.
Darling du jour: In short, he turned into a wolf and ran away.
Can't stop fidgeting: The whole process of working on this, not the Serpent Prince. At least it's the same character and the same voice, and part of me has been itching to jump around a bit rather than writing through everything in order, even though it’s out of character for my writing style.

The problem is, this, being the opening prologue and the start of chapter one, gives a pile of backstory for the prior (unfinished) novel. All at once in a massive early infodump (Or rather, two). And thus sucks. I've railed enough against "frontloading". I'm sure some of it I could integrate, slowly. THAT, not the fact that I'm working on this instead of progressing neatly, is the reality check. I now have to cut apart a chunk of what I wrote so it actually gets somewhere. Grrr.

Go Figure...

Progress notes for December 28, 2006:

Soldier of the Road


New Words: 1500 or slightly more
Reason for stopping: Reality check.
Tea: pomegranate rooibus.
Music: Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Let's Frolic, Heather Dale, the Hidden Path.
Darling du jour: In short, he turned into a wolf and ran away.
Can't stop fidgeting: The whole process of working on this, not the Serpent Prince. At least it's the same character and the same voice, and part of me has been itching to jump around a bit rather than writing through everything in order, even though it’s out of character for my writing style.

The problem is, this, being the opening prologue and the start of chapter one, gives a pile of backstory for the prior (unfinished) novel. All at once in a massive early infodump (Or rather, two). And thus sucks. I've railed enough against "frontloading". I'm sure some of it I could integrate, slowly. THAT, not the fact that I'm working on this instead of progressing neatly, is the reality check. I now have to cut apart a chunk of what I wrote so it actually gets somewhere. Grrr.

Six Reactions to Farthing

- In the tail end of the next to last chapter, I moved my hand unawares across the cover where I held it and was pulled out of the book by a sudden unexpected slick feeling under my fingertips. The cut I'd given myself earlier with the cheese-knife had reopened.

As I wiped the cover clean and reapplied pressure to the slice, I thought a little confusedly that if I was going to bleed quietly all over a book, this was certainly the appropriate choice.

- When I finished the book, I reread the bottom half of the last page, sat quietly for half a minute, then burst into tears.

This requires some explanation. I cry at books and movies and such all the time, even when, as with A Christmas Carol, I'm aware I'm being manipulated shamelessly to do just that. Crying itself isn't the key here.

You see, when something nice and fluffy and emotionally manipulative like A Christmas Carol is over, I've long since stopped crying. I don't cry once it's all over. I cry only at the moment the full weight of everything is upon me.

I've only had this after-the-close reaction once before, and even then, I didn't cry. In fact, I may have cried in the course of the book, but afterwards, the weight was... different.

I also found myself thinking this was a totally useless reaction, and surely I could find something more useful to do in response?

- I want to buy copies of this book for everyone, and I mean everyone, to whom I haven't given a gift yet. Even the ones who won't like it. Especially them. Because most of those would still read a country house mystery. Although it's tempting to remove the dustcover for some.

- I frequently think that my ways of fulfilling what God wants of me (Or the Gods, or however you view it) are as a writer and a singer, to tell stories that make people think.

I frequently wonder how ths is useful compared to, say, running a charity. Feeding the poor. Helping alcoholics recover or ex-convicts fit in. Travelling to Africa or Russia to improve their agricultural endeavours. Trying to regulate corporations that manipulate their workers or abuse the environment.

Right now I'm not wondering. I'm just sure I couldn't have done it like this.

- Several of the criticisms I've seen before I just don't agree with. The bigger ones being, too many Athenians and Macedonians (If there were more Athenians and fewer Macedonians, I might wonder a bit, but I only even considered it because of critics.) and the one about not being convinced Lucy could think as she does with her upbringing. Her two biggest influences, Hugh, and Abby, more than adequately explain that. The one I'm curious about ending up thinking as unlike his predecessors he does is Hugh. And that's pre-book.

- Adverbs. I only realised how much she uses adverbs when I put it down a while and picked it up at the start of a chapter where there are about five in the first page and a half.

However, and especially for those to whom J.K. Rowling's overuse makes them want to scream. This is the first time I've had it amply demonstrated to me that the use of adverbs itself is not the crime. It's that so often they aren't considered. They don't have to be Tom Swifty level bad ("The fire is too big!" he snapped hotly.) to be poor choices. Walton used adverbs *well*, and proved it could be done. In places, the adverb served as characterization, in a way that most good authors do by describing a full sentence of action or gesture.

Of course, after that page and a half I was back in the story and stopped noticing it. Welll... since I came out knowing the page and a half wasn't an abberration, it must have been chugging away in my subconscious.

Six Reactions to Farthing

- In the tail end of the next to last chapter, I moved my hand unawares across the cover where I held it and was pulled out of the book by a sudden unexpected slick feeling under my fingertips. The cut I'd given myself earlier with the cheese-knife had reopened.

As I wiped the cover clean and reapplied pressure to the slice, I thought a little confusedly that if I was going to bleed quietly all over a book, this was certainly the appropriate choice.

- When I finished the book, I reread the bottom half of the last page, sat quietly for half a minute, then burst into tears.

This requires some explanation. I cry at books and movies and such all the time, even when, as with A Christmas Carol, I'm aware I'm being manipulated shamelessly to do just that. Crying itself isn't the key here.

You see, when something nice and fluffy and emotionally manipulative like A Christmas Carol is over, I've long since stopped crying. I don't cry once it's all over. I cry only at the moment the full weight of everything is upon me.

I've only had this after-the-close reaction once before, and even then, I didn't cry. In fact, I may have cried in the course of the book, but afterwards, the weight was... different.

I also found myself thinking this was a totally useless reaction, and surely I could find something more useful to do in response?

- I want to buy copies of this book for everyone, and I mean everyone, to whom I haven't given a gift yet. Even the ones who won't like it. Especially them. Because most of those would still read a country house mystery. Although it's tempting to remove the dustcover for some.

- I frequently think that my ways of fulfilling what God wants of me (Or the Gods, or however you view it) are as a writer and a singer, to tell stories that make people think.

I frequently wonder how ths is useful compared to, say, running a charity. Feeding the poor. Helping alcoholics recover or ex-convicts fit in. Travelling to Africa or Russia to improve their agricultural endeavours. Trying to regulate corporations that manipulate their workers or abuse the environment.

Right now I'm not wondering. I'm just sure I couldn't have done it like this.

- Several of the criticisms I've seen before I just don't agree with. The bigger ones being, too many Athenians and Macedonians (If there were more Athenians and fewer Macedonians, I might wonder a bit, but I only even considered it because of critics.) and the one about not being convinced Lucy could think as she does with her upbringing. Her two biggest influences, Hugh, and Abby, more than adequately explain that. The one I'm curious about ending up thinking as unlike his predecessors he does is Hugh. And that's pre-book.

- Adverbs. I only realised how much she uses adverbs when I put it down a while and picked it up at the start of a chapter where there are about five in the first page and a half.

However, and especially for those to whom J.K. Rowling's overuse makes them want to scream. This is the first time I've had it amply demonstrated to me that the use of adverbs itself is not the crime. It's that so often they aren't considered. They don't have to be Tom Swifty level bad ("The fire is too big!" he snapped hotly.) to be poor choices. Walton used adverbs *well*, and proved it could be done. In places, the adverb served as characterization, in a way that most good authors do by describing a full sentence of action or gesture.

Of course, after that page and a half I was back in the story and stopped noticing it. Welll... since I came out knowing the page and a half wasn't an abberration, it must have been chugging away in my subconscious.