sundries

[rm]

- My elbow is fucked. Not a little fucked, but FUCKED. I think I know what's going on though, and it's not hyper-extension, but the same thing that's wrong with my knees that I've learned how to work around. I'm going to buy a brace and go back to fencing Wednesday very carefully. If that doesn't work, I'll get accupuncture on it or something while I start to learn to fence right-handed.

- I am now well into writing book 2. No panic yet. If I can finish all the questions for the first three chapters tonight, I'm well on track to my first deadline (Monday).

- Library event in Queens this weekend.

- Oscar party this weekend.

- Some progress being made on novel with Kali.

- No progress is being made on my novel, which is, as ever, STUPID. Of course I get like this when I'm on a book deadline that gives me no time to work on it. But seriously, if hearing writers I know and like as both writers and people bitch about how much they hate their first complete draft of something isn't inspirational, I don't know what is. Just Write The Damn Book. Dammit.

- I finished th first Kushiel trilogy last night. I have a lot to say about it and will do so later. I find the books incredibly moving, yet, because I am reading them at this point in my life, they are not so much important to me, as they don't have very much to tell me that I don't know or haven't come to peace with. So I cry like fuck when I read them, and act moody for a day, and then sort of forget about them. Which, for anyone who has lived through me and books that are important to me, is probably a relief.

- I can't believe how much you guys enjoyed the Megu post.

- Religious people banged on the door this morning.

- Patty, meanwhile, is home sleeping. I am full of envy.

Comments

Write, then fix, yes.

[happy-hacker.livejournal.com]

What christinenorris said. Write, then fix. Write to get the ideas out where you can see them, to get a grip on the characters, to get a sense of the way this book wants to be told, then revise to tighten things up, improve the depth, sharpen the symbolism that crept in originally - or add some. Tear out seconds that don't carry their weight and redo them so they do. Then revise again to check for continuity errors. Good books are born in the editing.

The most recent novel I finished was missing about half its plot organs in the first draft. And I can't even say it was a NaNoWriMo draft and I was in a hurry, either. I just hadn't nailed them down yet.

-Jim