synchronicity, part the… i've lost count

 journal, pre-crash, shadow queen  2 Responses »
Jan 292007
 

The quote which met me when I logged in today:

I always work intuitively without much knowledge of where I'm going. I find that if I insist too strongly from the outset it won't take on the life that a novel needs to have. I find that by writing in the dark and coming up with a big messy first draft and reshape and rework I stand the best chance of coming up with a book that's a little smarter than I am. That may be useful to others struggling with novels. There's always a point during the writing when the book falls apart, which is a difficult period and no fun, but what actually happens is the novel is outgrowing my idea and taking on a life of its own. All novelists are heroes. Blessings on your efforts.

— Michael Cunningham

I would like to believe that the reason the novel is fighting me is because it's outgrown my ideas and taken on a life of its own.

However, in point of fact, I rather suspect the novel has a broken back. And I've just gone and pressed on the break in the spinal chord, and that's why it's flailing around and being generally uncooperative.

Time will tell, I suppose. The problem with novels is you have to finish them and gain a little distance before you can judge them. And the finishing part takes so durn long…

Onwards and upwards, as they say.

 Posted by at 6:45 pm  Tagged with:

one day more

 journal, pre-crash, the wages of salt, writing life  Comments Off
Jan 242007
 

I cannot concentrate today. If someone were to barge in, place a shotgun to my temple and shout, "Quick, what's the square root of one?" I doubt I'd be able to find an answer. (Well, sure, yes, the shotgun might make me wibble at the best of times. But hush in the galleries, would you? I'm trying to make a point.)

I suspect today's bout of scatty-head has much to do with the fact that my eyes have decided to misbehave. By which I mean they've started blacking out at seemingly random moments, that sort of thing. Oh, yes, and one feels quite swollen, although it's much better now than it was over the weekend. Does make any sort of activity a touch difficult.

But! We shall forge on. Hopefully I'll regather some momentum before the night's out, and maybe this time when I take on the short story, I'll win. For a change.

(or not.)

23 January 2007

 journal, pre-crash, shadow queen, writing life  Comments Off
Jan 232007
 

Revised Words: 1,191 / 1,220
Previous draft comment du jour: This is possibly, without question, the worst simile ever coined.

I am so in the zen of pressing Ctrl+S whenever I pause to think that I quite often end up saving webpages to my hard-drive out of sheer absentminded habit. Most of these pages are my blog editor's compose screen. Go team me.

22 january 2007

 pre-crash, shadow queen, the wages of salt  2 Responses »
Jan 222007
 

Revised Words: 2,595 / 2,770 (Dead Queen), 1,411 / 1,740 (Blessed)
Soundtrack: Garden State, Scrubs
Exercise: An hour and a half! It didn't help my plotwork any.

That hope I had, of the rest of this short story falling into place now I'd found the new structure? Unfounded. Utterly. Honestly, it's like waging war. I have answered story's latest recalcitrance and stubbornness with editing everything I know will be staying. Which means tomorrow may prove rather … trying 8O
I am a lucky, lucky writergirl.

 Posted by at 6:02 pm

that sound you heard…?

 journal, pre-crash, the wages of salt  2 Responses »
Jan 212007
 

…is the sound of this story wiping the floor with me.

It just took me an hour and a half to come up with a new way of beginning this story. An hour. And a half.

It's not even in the final perfect and polished form. There's a little note next to it which says "Erk. Fix this so it's, you know, readable."

Okay, so it's an awful lot better than my first attempt at starting this story — which was very clearly me wandering around the setting I'd created, humming to myself and wondering how and when and precisely why all the characters got together and started, you know, storying. Whereas now those first six pages have been condensed into one sentence1.

So, yes. Progress. In its way.

On the upside, now that I've figured out the new structure for this story, there's a chance the rest of it might fall into place. That's tonight's writer's lie, anyway. :| Wish me luck.

  1. No doubt everything in those first six pages which didn't make it into that one sentence (namely, everything, since that one sentence is entirely new) will in fact be dissected and threaded through the rest of the story. But still. [↩]

dream maker, you heart breaker

 journal, pre-crash, shadow queen  6 Responses »
Jan 172007
 

Revised Words: 1,651 / 1,660
Soundtrack: Doing Time for Patsy Cline, Elizabethtown

Well, there was no comet, at least not for me. Y'see, the best time to see the comet at the moment is apparently around 8pm. But at around 8pm? It's still daylight. Harder for comet-spotting. Also, I think I'll have to head somewhere I can see the horizon, because I think it's still pretty low in the sky for us. Which the trees around my backyard rather obscure. Boo.

In other news, take a look at the plant I noticed the other day in the work carpark. It's the one lurking behind the lamp-post. It's the one taller than the lamp-post.

Look at the size of that monster! I tell you, the triffids are coming, and they're starting with… oh, right. Nobody would start an invasion where I live. Okay. Stop the panic, everything's fine.

Except there's a freaking enormous plant lurking behind the lamp-post where I have to work!

15 January 2007

 journal, pre-crash, shadow queen  Comments Off
Jan 152007
 

Revised Words: 1,163 / 1,200
Soundtrack: an awful lot of Damien Rice today.

Last night there was a comet over Krakow. Tonight there's a comet over Catalonia. In about forty minutes I'm going to see if I can't spot a comet over me, because apparently it's climbing the southern skies as of last night.

I spent today being bewitched by a new IM client. I've always been able to resist the lure of instant messaging, because none of my friends used the same protocol (thus requiring seven gazillion different logins) and because the clients I'd used, quite frankly, blow. But now I've found gaim. This could spell doom for my productivity levels. On the other hand, those of you who nudge me gently every now and then for seemingly vanishing off the face of the earth can now, potentially, see that I haven't. Win some, lose some, right?

bad habits part 104(a)

 journal, pre-crash, shadow queen  2 Responses »
Jan 142007
 

At the moment I'm reading Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier.

That's not the bad habit.

Rebecca is a first-person narrative. An excellent example thereof. And here I am, reading it, while trying to write a first-person narrative.

Right there, that's the bad habit.

One day I will learn not to read examples of excellent prosecraft while I'm writing something comparable1. Later is okay, later means I can go back and revise. Before is even better, before means I can study and practise. But during?

No. No, that won't do at all.

  1. Yes, I realise this means I should read nothing while writing, since almost everything is comparable in some way, however tenuous. That is precisely why I haven't learnt this trick yet. [↩]
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