I'm back.  Sort of.  I'm liable to disappear again for blips of time, but I've actually had a chance to read and *gasp* comment on some LJ posts since yesterday.  The week or so before that, though...well, please do fill me in if I missed anything terribly exciting, like you just sold a novel or cured cancer or something.

TNEO Progress-O-Meter
I got the bulk of the Big Mass O' Research I needed to do for my TNEO lecture done, so that's a relief.  Now I just need to organize it all into a lecture, which is still work, but it's the easier part for me and less likely to make my eyes cross the way plowing through agent listings and websites and deal news did.

I'm not as far along on my TNEO critiquing as I was hoping to be by this point--one crit complete, *cough mumble cough cough* more to go.  But I've at least done a first read through of all of the first round novel chapters, and I have nowhere to be this weekend, so I intend to be a critiquing mad woman.  And, if the weather cooperates, bicycling will hopefully be on the menu as well.

The Writerly Update
Novel progress has been sloooooow.  Surprisingly so.  I was sure this chapter would go faster, but I forgot how much rewriting I needed to do in the opening scene.  Giving a character a complete personality transplant will do that.  But it all came together, just in time for me to kill the character off.  Official Big Fat Epic Fantasy Body Count: 5ish.  I say "ish" because a) I'm not counting some random guards and mercenary types who've bought it, and b) three of the five-ish were extremely minor characters, but I've decided that they count because walking into a room full of three bloodied dead folks was kind of a big deal for the not-dead folks.

And on that note, I seem to have caught another dang cold, so I need to get myself to bed.

It annoys me greatly to have been stuck in an office for most of this week instead of being able to sit home in my sunroom enjoying the weather and all the pretty blooming things.  I need to figure out a way to reconfigure my office so I can flip my desk around to look out the window instead of sitting with my back to it.  Center City Philadelphia may not be as calm and peaceful as my backyard, but after the Milton-in-Office-Space shuffling I experienced at my last office job, I greatly appreciate having a view.

Onto the writerly update:


About 3,000 words further in the last two weeks.  Meh.  But I finished the rewrite of chapter 12, chapter 13 was already done as a result of all the chapter splitting and shuffling I did a few weeks ago, and chapter 14 is coming along nicely, I think. 

I've been surprised to find out how much I enjoy writing the political intrigue and manipulation aspects of this story.  Whether I'm any good at it remains to be seen, but those parts have been the most fun to work on.  When I started the first version of this novel several years ago, I expected it to be more of a Big Epic Questy Thing with Kick-Ass Sword Fights type story.  But then it started to morph, particularly when someone who began as a supporting character wormed his way into becoming co-protagonist along with my initial main character.  So there's still some questy-ness to the story, and there are still sword fights, but with the co-protagonist came a lot more political intrigue (and sex) than I had planned on.  It's made for a far more interesting story, so I'm glad he charmed his way into securing a larger role.

Now if only I could come up with a decent title for the damn thing.  I likely mentioned in a post way back when that the novel was originally called Prophecy's Sons.  My Big Honking Rewrite Idea, however, involved axing the prophecy.  Jettisoning that pesky prophecy was probably the best thing I could have done for this story, but it does leave me in need of a new title.  I was hoping I'd come up with a new one by this point in the rewrite, but no such luck.  Often, potential titles will leap out at me early on in writing something.  But when they don't, I have the hardest dang time coming up with one.  Earlier today I jotted down a list of words tied to themes and plot points in the novel and stared at it in the hopes of coming up with something, but no such luck.  I know it's not the end of the world if I don't come up with a title in the near future, but I find having a title comforting when writing.  Not having one leaves me antsy, like if I'm missing the title, then what else am I missing about the story?

So, last week?  It sucked a lot.  No writing time over the weekend?  Also sucked.  And rain and wind strong enough to knock over a big-ass pine tree and street light in the neighborhood when you're trying to move large pieces of furniture?  Yeah, that sucks too.

The Writerly Update
Close to 600 words into what is now chapter 12.  More revision wordage would have been nice, but considering the aforementioned suck, I’m amazed I got that much.

The Readerly Update
I’ve been reading On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman, which has some really fascinating (and sometimes disturbing) stuff in it.  I put it on my “to read” list after j_cheney had posted about it some time back.  It sounded like it’d be a good resource for a short story I’ve been planning to rewrite, and it’s delivering on that front.  What I didn’t realize was how useful it’d be for my novel rewrite as well.

Submission Land
I don’t think I’ve ever had this many submissions out at the 100-day+ mark all at one time before.  Luckily, working on the novel rewrite instead of a short stories at present has me obsessing over this less than I normally would.

Random Literary/Theatrical Musings
I saw a production of Romeo & Juliet Thursday night.  It’s been a while since I’ve read it or seen it performed, and the production made me realize why, unlike a lot of other Shakespeare, I don’t love this play.  Two things in particular: 1) The supporting characters are far more interesting than the protagonists.  I spend most of the play wanting to slap them.  2) After Romeo and Juliet have bit it and brought their angsty histrionics to an end, we have this moment where the friar stands there in the tomb telling the other characters everything we just saw happen.  "As You Know, Audience..."

So, this is supposed to be a writing journal or something.  I should probably return you all to your regularly scheduled programming.

Novel Land
Sloooooow progress on the novel last week.  I squeezed in what time I could, but it just wasn't enough to finish the current chapter despite being so close to the end of it.  Hopefully I can get some extra non-train ride writing time in tonight and this weekend, because I'm having fun with this story right now.  It's awesome how much things have improved after giving one secondary character a personality transplant.  Too bad I still need to kill him.

Workshop Land
So, Odfellows on the flist: who else is doing TNEO this summer?  The good news is that I'm going this year.  The bad news is that it's only because we have to take two-week furloughs at work.

Submission Land
And I've reached the 25-day mark with a submission at F&SF.  What are the odds of two stories in a row getting lost in the mail?  Because that would suck.

Fell off the face of the LJ planet for a bit there.  I just tried to catch up on my flist but quickly realized how laughable that was if I wanted to get anything else done this afternoon.  So I hope I didn't miss anything too terribly exciting.

Pimpage
The Best of Every Day Fiction Two, which includes my story "Monkey Love," is now available for purchase.

Injury Update
The foot injury from last week is amazingly improved.  Given how much it hurt last Thursday, I was quite surprised how much better it felt the very next day.  I even survived lots of walking around New York last weekend (tangent: so glad I had the chance to see Angela Lansbury on stage, for the awesome is strong with her).  The foot's a little twingy sometimes, and it'll probably be another week before I consider doing any serious exercise or wearing heels again, but I'm relieved it hasn't turned into the Injury Drama I feared it would.

The Writerly Update
I've been finding it hard to post lately.  A lot of that has to do with being insanely busy, but a lot also has to do with a general feeling of demoralization on the non-writing side of writing.  I was tempted to whine about it, but then a silly little fortune cookie of all things gave me a proper bitch-slapping yesterday: 

Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm for writing I've still got, particularly with the novel rewrite.  Speaking of:


I got about another 2,000 words into chapter 8 over the past week or so.  Considering how limited my writing time has been recently, that's not too shabby at all for me.  And given the nature of the revisions, progress isn't just about the wordage.  I didn't add many new words yesterday, but I did a whole mess of figuring out how to tackle the rest of this chapter--what can be cut, what should be moved, what needs to be added or completely rewritten.  The cutting and streamlining feels particularly good.  This chapter started out rather long and was a bit slow in parts, so I think (hope) trimming it down is going to make for a much tighter and better-paced read.

And to two characters in particular, I just want to say: THANK YOU. For finally talking to me, that is. See how much better everything is when you open up a little and let me know what's going on inside your heads? You two gave me so much trouble in earlier drafts, and a lot of people didn't like you because of it.  But now?  Well, it'll be some time before anyone reads the rewrite, but I think both of you stand a far better chance of winning people over now.