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Of frogs and princesses
Feb. 13th, 2010 05:30 pm15,000 words on the rewrite. Also, I've figured out the outline for the unwritten part of the book, but as I've promised a friend that she can read the first part over her spring break I'm going to finish the rewrite first.
I have the best friends. How many people are not only willing but eager to read their friends amateur literary efforts?
***
Also! Yesterday I finally got to see The Princess and the Frog!
( Some spoilers, I guess, although it's a Disney movie, so it's not like you go because of the plot twists )
I have the best friends. How many people are not only willing but eager to read their friends amateur literary efforts?
***
Also! Yesterday I finally got to see The Princess and the Frog!
( Some spoilers, I guess, although it's a Disney movie, so it's not like you go because of the plot twists )
Halfway point
Feb. 5th, 2010 11:49 pmThe good news is that I've reached 40,000 words. The bad news is that half those words are an offense against the English language, and the other half are a crime against the art of story-telling itself.
At least I haven't lost my sense of grandiose melodrama. The life of the feckless young writer would just be insupportable without it.
The other bad news is that I'm just about to drive straight off the edge of my outline and plummet to the tide-washed rocks below. (Fortunately there is some slight good news corollary to this: I know more or less where the story is going, I'm just not sure which path it needs to take across the trackless wastes to get there.) I know some writers can write without outline, but if I don't know where I'm going my stories generally implode.
I think I'll go back, rewrite the first half, and try to chip away at the outline as I go.
And the last bit of bad news is that I didn't get the internship. Drat.
At least I haven't lost my sense of grandiose melodrama. The life of the feckless young writer would just be insupportable without it.
The other bad news is that I'm just about to drive straight off the edge of my outline and plummet to the tide-washed rocks below. (Fortunately there is some slight good news corollary to this: I know more or less where the story is going, I'm just not sure which path it needs to take across the trackless wastes to get there.) I know some writers can write without outline, but if I don't know where I'm going my stories generally implode.
I think I'll go back, rewrite the first half, and try to chip away at the outline as I go.
And the last bit of bad news is that I didn't get the internship. Drat.
Contemplative
Jan. 23rd, 2010 11:23 pmStrange to say, but the snow is melting here. The sidewalks are wet, and in places the snow has receded sufficiently to show the sodden grass, which is dark and wet as seaweed.
I spent the evening sitting at the bay window in one of the campus lounges, reading about childhood pre-World War I and watching cars pass and silhouettes of students climb the steep, snowy hill across the road. I wonder where they all were going.
***
Rotten day with the writing. I wrote a lot. All of it was terrible. *kicks book* But tomorrow I get to write a confrontation, a reunion, and an arrest, so that should be fun.
Also, I baked cheese and onion scones. They were delicious.
I spent the evening sitting at the bay window in one of the campus lounges, reading about childhood pre-World War I and watching cars pass and silhouettes of students climb the steep, snowy hill across the road. I wonder where they all were going.
***
Rotten day with the writing. I wrote a lot. All of it was terrible. *kicks book* But tomorrow I get to write a confrontation, a reunion, and an arrest, so that should be fun.
Also, I baked cheese and onion scones. They were delicious.
Words words words words...
Jan. 20th, 2010 09:03 am21,000 words.
I came up with a way to avoid the Horrible Escape Scene. I hate escape scenes; almost always they make the bad guys look like total doofuses (doofi?). It's hard to fear a villain who leaves unnecessarily large air vents in all his prison cells, and doesn't even use them to pipe in poison gas or ninjas.
Also, I've been going back and forth on the word "kvetch." I'm almost positive some people will dislike its use in a fantasy novel, although really, why? Presumably the speakers of fantasy languages steal words from foreigners. It's one thing to object to an expression that's anachronistic (put a sock in it, in a world without phonographs), or obviously refers to an Earth person (Machiavellian, though I can't let it go without pain), but objecting to words because they have a less-than-purely-Anglo-Saxon etymology seems silly.
I came up with a way to avoid the Horrible Escape Scene. I hate escape scenes; almost always they make the bad guys look like total doofuses (doofi?). It's hard to fear a villain who leaves unnecessarily large air vents in all his prison cells, and doesn't even use them to pipe in poison gas or ninjas.
Also, I've been going back and forth on the word "kvetch." I'm almost positive some people will dislike its use in a fantasy novel, although really, why? Presumably the speakers of fantasy languages steal words from foreigners. It's one thing to object to an expression that's anachronistic (put a sock in it, in a world without phonographs), or obviously refers to an Earth person (Machiavellian, though I can't let it go without pain), but objecting to words because they have a less-than-purely-Anglo-Saxon etymology seems silly.
New Year's Resolutions
Jan. 1st, 2010 10:40 pmNormally I don't do New Year's resolutions - not that I have anything against them; I just have nothing to resolve that I haven't already been working on.
But this year, I have two. Because artificially imposed deadlines are good for the soul!
1. Send out stories to magazines. One submission a month, perhaps? (Obviously more is allowed, that's just a minimum.)
2. Finish a novel. The last time I finished a novel was, um. Tenth grade. So much time wasted!
Does anyone else have New Year's resolutions?
But this year, I have two. Because artificially imposed deadlines are good for the soul!
1. Send out stories to magazines. One submission a month, perhaps? (Obviously more is allowed, that's just a minimum.)
2. Finish a novel. The last time I finished a novel was, um. Tenth grade. So much time wasted!
Does anyone else have New Year's resolutions?
