In the Void

316/604 pages through the fast read-through. Eyes tired. Cleaned up one of the loose ends. (Had a prop that just faded out of existence.) Got one more waiting to be fixed.

When I hit page 604 last time, I was disappointed. I didn't feel I'd accomplished what I wanted with the book. Reading it through again, though, I feel much better. I'm still enjoying reading it, and I did pretty well hitting the mark after all.

I'll be mailing a big box of candy (mostly M&Ms) to Australia later this morning. American candy, it seems, uses corn starch as a thickening agent rather than wheat gluten (meaning that wheat-intolerant Aussies can't eat their own wheaty M&Ms) I hadn't known that before last summer, but it makes perfect sense given their crops there. One of those things writers need to keep in mind. ::wags finger like schoolmarm::

So, I hit page 602/602 on the revison today. I think that means 'done'

The ending needs to be tweaked, and I'm going to spend a few days cleaning up little odds and ends, but after that it's going to the first reader. Finally.

Outta here...

The sun finally made an appearance this afternoon, after days and days of Seattle-ish weather. Did a touch of yard work, but didn't bother with the dead snake or dead skink. I keep hoping something will come along and eat them. The ground is really soggy out there.

I'm starting this work period at 85% through the WIP. The major changes have been made, so now it's only cosmetic from here to the epilog. Perhaps tomorrow? The WIP has ballooned from 95 to 120K, not too surprising, and I'm hoping the first reader will spot all the boring bits so I can chop about 10K out of that.

Tomorrow is two weeks to Wiscon, and I'm not ready.

It's spring on the south side of the mountains. It's more arid to the northern side of the range. It should be raining. I've forgotten to make it rain. Drat.

Now I have something else to fix.

Page 277/510 on the Devil in the Details revision. Up to 101K now.

I passed through the halfway mark at some point today, but didn't kill anyone.

On track to finish by the end of April.

I've been mostly gone for the last few days, on the road and only managing to slip in an occasional comment. I'll catch up with people as time allows....

Spent time with family down in Texas. They need rain, of course....but there is this.

They're always a nice thing to see, although I'll have to go back later to catch the bloom.

Got only a little work done, but I think I'm ready to redo the end of the outline for DitD, got the last of it worked out in my head.

WOTF has contacted us, and apparently they want to officially 'release' the book on Friday the 13th, L. Ron Hubbard's birthday. I had the opportunity to send birthday wishes in, but it looks like I missed their deadline....

Trying to catch up today.

Received in Mail: Midnight Never Come by swan_tower (We'll see when I ever get time to read that!), plus coffee, and Nebula ballot.

The fence guys are finally here.

I can't watch. It's painful. They're tromping over my irises, through the larkspur. Ouch! I can't watch.

A friend has started a new e-zine Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. All I can say is more power to them!

I'm on page 78/470 of the DitD revision. There aren't going to be too many changes up front. Mostly small dialog changes, and some continuity stuff. About page 350, it's gonna go beserk.

I can't watch....

I'm trying to have discipline in certain areas, although the miserable cold hasn't helped. So far so good, though.

Things I'm working on for the next month:

These aren't so much 'goals' as what I'm planning to work on...

Dreaming Death
I'm going through my mss scene by scene (planned at 1 chapter a day) and making certain that each scene has enough setting detail. This is a weak point for me that writing short stories has not helped much. I'm not naturally big on setting, and often in my own reading, I skim through setting sections.

The problem here stems from the fact that one of the POV characters is blind. That is not the real challenge, BTW--I've sold blind characters before. The challenge is that I tend to forget that in the scenes with the other POVs....and waste a chance to put in lovely visual details. That's what I'm looking out for. (Also, I found a typo in the first 32 pages. Eep! As many times as this mss has beeen combed, I should have caught every one.)

Ah, well. I'm hoping that in the next novel, I'll remember to write each scene with lots of setting. That way I don't have to do it later (it's almost always a 'second draft' thing for me).

Iron Shoes
I'm working on the re-write of Iron Shoes as well, one section at a time. I'm through section 1 (which had the most massive changes) and will start 2 today.

Devil in the Details
I'm hoping to have both of the above done by the end of the month so that I can start on Feb 2 on the rewrite of DitD. So right now, I'm thinking about DitD. Like with most finished rough drafts, I'm thinking about the story arcs and how to make them 'land' properly. One of the things that I had trouble with is that Kirien's original motivation is lost, replaced by another....which leaves something to be desired in the 'reader satisfaction' area.

Today while I was in the shower, I finally figured out the connection between the two motivations, which should allow me to restructure some of the plot details nicely. Woo Hoo!
(OK, it doesn't sound big, but it makes the difference between a weak plot and a solid one.)

Anything else?
No, not really. If the plot bunny throws something my way, I'll bite, but right now these should keep me busy.