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| So, I stayed up late last night reading a book I couldn't put down, which hasn't happened in a while. I'm not sure if this is a sign that I'm a good writer or a complete narcissist, but the book was The Assassins of Lov. Around the 30% mark, the plot clicks and it becomes hard to find a place where I didn't want to read what comes next (which, obviously, is odd since I wrote it). So now it's time to go back and take a hard look at the opening and figure out how to make that just as addictive. Or get some therapy to work on my narcissistic personality disorder. |
| With a whole bunch of time on my hands and only so much editing I can do in a day, I made a new portrait of Jinxx. I would stick the picture here but I can't figure out how to do that (or don't have so much time on my hands that I want to figure it out). But if you want to see it, you can find it here (at least for a month—I set it to expire): https://postimg.cc/PN7QNpxD |
| Nicely done! |
Reply| I haven't posted anything since I stopped daily writing on my MS, but with so much dire news in the world, I thought I'd share something happy. Ducks being awesome. https://twitter.com/canalststation/status/1238133899148001280?s=20 |
| Just an FYI, when you post in your notebook, it appears only on the Community Newsfeed (where everything everyone posts in their notebooks appears) and on the Personal Newsfeed of only those who have clicked your Plus sign. Clicking a person's Plus sign means you are favoriting them or becoming a fan. After you click a person's Plus sign, you will see everything they post on their Personal Newsfeed. What does this mean? Well, since you don't have many fans, it means hardly anyone will see what you post. When people click Newsfeed on the left, it takes them to their Personal Newsfeed. Most folks never go beyond that, so will never meet you. Thus it's important for YOU to go out and meet THEM.  Of course, this can be done lots of ways such as through contests, blogging challenges, etc. But one of the easiest, IMO, is to hop on the Community Newsfeed and start meeting folks. When you are on your Personal Newsfeed, you will see "View the Community Newsfeed" along the top-ish part of your Personal Newsfeed. Click that and a whole new world will open up. Scroll down and click Like (or Love or whatever) and start commenting on things you have something to say about. Over time, people will start to notice you and will often start wanting to follow you (click your Plus sign). Once they click your Plus sign, they'll see your posts, even if they are only on their Personal Newsfeed. Plus, on the Community Newsfeed you find out about tons of happenings around WdC. Win-win! Anyway, thank you for sharing something positive on here!  |
| Since I haven't put up a note in days, and have no writing news I'm giving you all a cute animal thing: https://twitter.com/PeccaryNotPig/status/1224515892282740737?s=20 |
| Note for myself, based on the amazing the Secret to Our Success by Joseph Heinrich (<that part is for you, readers)—Tavern scene, show bonding while sing and clapping with the cante singer. |
| I ended up writing another scene and another (short chapter) to finish things off, but the first draft of The Betrayer of Lov is complete. Not quite the feel of victory I'd expected mid-week, but it's a solid draft that should polish up into something publishable. Now it's back to getting The Blasphemer's Cypher ready for querying/publishing. And probably fewer notebook entries. |
| I think I'm done. It's a little dissatisfying because I'm chopping off a chapter, but the stuff I wrote beyond the "probably done" part doesn't feel necessary. I just need to tweak what I have a bit to include something. |
| A really cool part of writing novels is having something you did early on, with no conception that it would resonate later in the story, come back and multiply something you'e doing later. Caséo Ibkynler, your tragedy resonates on long after you jumped. |
| When you can magically predict the future, your plans always come off, right? Execution is the first chapter I've ever written, over 5+ novels, to end mid-sentence without punctuation. No word count today, because I only have ~600 so far and need to push myself to make headway on A River Barge, the next chapter. |
| It turns out I had no idea what my chapter was about, beyond the starting and ending point. And not knowing that made writing much more difficult. So I drew a map of Port Orthinerkylas, where the action takes place. https://www.dropbox.com/s/yvbw399ytpehy7e/Port%20Orthinerkylas.jpeg And the map was helpful. But I still only wrote a thousand words and didn't finish the scene. But I know what's going to happen when I return to writing tomorrow. |
| I'm watching the Netflix documentary on the great flamenco singer, Camarón de la Isla, which has some amazing old film of his mother singing and of the kids in Isla, circa the fifties. I'm not sure I'd recommend the first episode, at least, to people who aren't abnormally interested in flamenco (as I am), but I learned an amazing fact: Camarón wasn't nicked names "Shrimp" (camarón) because he was small. He was given he nickname because he was "pale as a shrimp." I so have to steal that. |
| No word count today, amigos, because I'm not done writing. I may having an end-of-novel pacing issue due to my off-outline creating. Just finished a great conversation where some Lady Margaté backstory gets revealed (hint: life at a military academy as the only girl student is not excellent; Lord Sesedo—more than just a lousy general). However, this happens when planning for the extremely action-focused, high-danger ending chapters is about to happen. I'm keeping it for now, but I'll have to give some real thought to this in revision. |
| There are four chapters left in my outline, but at least one of them will be two chapters. Probably six chapters left in total. I'm at 82,000 words, so I'm likely to hit 100,000 words for the whole thing. If it turns out Jinxx is a pious, disabled Harry Potter, my publisher won't make me cut this down, but I think some serious razoring is likely due once I get this all done. (2900 words today, which is less a brag than a statement of mild panic.) |
| The perception I had of outlining before I became an outliner was that it would remove all the surprises. The One-eyes Dwarf was not part of my outline, but it turned out before I could get to No Plan, New Plan, I had to include it. Outlining isn't for everybody and I now some amazing writers who don't, but if fear of losing the immediacy is holding you back, cross that off your barriers list. In the keeping myself honest with public word counts (aka, how I brag but pretend to be humble), today was a 2300 word day. I might not be done. I feel I have No Plan, New Plan in me, but I need to eat. |
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Congratulations on cranking that first draft out! Feel free to let me know if you want me to focus on any particular things as I read, or not focus on any particular things. 
