Finished today’s work and yesterday’s, too. The book wants to be written now, and is helping me push it along.
I also “finished” some promotional stuff Del Rey asked me to do for Child of Fire, for certain values of “finished” that involve another read-through to polish it up.
I was supposed to also work on Cool Thing That Would Be Awesome If It Worked Out, but time has already left, and so must I.
New ending… plotted!
There are still some blank spaces to fill in, but I just finished reworking a whole new ending for Man Bites World.
Take that, book that doesn’t want to be written!
There are few plot problems that can’t be solved by asking Who are these characters and what do they want?
After a productive week, I’ve hit another wall with the plot. There are so many threads to tie up, and now that the book is 70K+ I should be wrapping all of them up.
But I need a long walk to think about the best way to tie up all the threads.
Of course, in the old, pre-contract days, I would have just put it aside for a month or two while I wrote short fiction. That’s not a viable option now.
I just received a two-month deadline extension for Man Bites World. Frankly, I’m embarrassed that I need it and more than a little frustrated with my method of working. For the last few weeks, I’ve had a powerful case of Other writers can do this, why can’t I? That’s still going on, but without the worry of missing a deadline.
Well, I did spend over two months of this year on revisions to the soon-to-be-retitled Everyone Loves Blue Dog. My agent warned me to factor that in when calculating deadlines, but I had no idea I’d be stuck on it again for over two months!
At any rate, I head to SoCal in two weeks to Comic-Con and see friends–while there, I plan to steal extra time for book three. Hopefully it will not only be finished, but good, too. Hopefully part 2, I will never have to ask for this again.
Rather than struggle with Man Bites World for a moment, I’m going to post some links.
1) The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads of all Time. Some of these have been circulating for a while, but there’s some all new, all disturbing images there. Via eeknight.
2) Bamboo Bikes from Zambia. Too cool.
3) Ten Ways to Take a Bad Author Photo. Pretty funny. I used my author photo on the front of my Facebook page.
4) The only part of the NY Times Book Review section I read religiously is the Crime Section, but there’s something about Marilyn Stasio’s style that annoys me to no end.
Shit. I went to the Starbucks across the street from day job, sat down with my laptop and coffee, and promptly spilled the whole thing over the table. Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott is soaked through and my computer kept flashing to a white screen.
I say again: Shit.
Now I’m sitting at my desk at the day job, with computer and book resting on the air conditioning vent beside me, drying out. ::fingers crossed:: Instead, I guess I’ll work on some of the publicity stuff I’m supposed to whip up by the end of the month, and thinkerate on the characters and plot.
I just did slightly more than three thousand words on Man Bites World. I know some writers do that every day, but I have never written so many words of prose in one day. That’s huge for me.
Book, you are annoying. Like golf. Like jigsaw puzzles. You are frustrating and impossible for days and days, and then suddenly you give a short term accomplishment. This is great! I think. And fun, too! I need to do this all the time!
But I know your sneaky ways. Tomorrow, you’re just as likely to be impossible again.
::shakes fist at laptop::
(They were good pages, too. I’m happy with them.)
Because Salad Eater works on Sundays, our Sunday holidays (like Father’s Day) are usually celebrated on Saturday, with a little runover to the day itself.
Therefore, when I got home from my long walk yesterday, I received a Father’s Day present (grinder attachment for my stand mixer–my hand grinder is a pain) and then I got my real present: reading time. I spent most of yesterday and a good part of today with a book.
Because I’m something of a pokey reader, I only finished one. Because it was next up, it was Turn Coat by Jim Butcher. It was fun stuff and in keeping with the previous novels. It’s very much in the summer tentpole action-fantasy movie style, with likable characters, a final act that covers a quarter of the story and sexy actresses for all the female roles. I enjoyed it, but then, I would say that, wouldn’t I? I’m sure you’ll hear kudos from others, so there’s no need to take my word for it.
Today was a day off from writing to plan the next section of the novel and have breakfast in bed. I had corned beef hash with poached eggs on top, and right now I’m drinking a tall glass of Rogue Arrogant Bastard Ale. Maybe I’ll get out the rowing machine tomorrow.
I’m going to sign off because it’s late and I have some more thinking to do. That grinder, though? It worked great. ‘Night.
If my WIP suddenly lunged through my computer screen and started strangling me, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Christ.
My head is too full of other things right now. Some of it is other people’s business, which I can’t talk about. Some is my business that I don’t really want to go into. It’s frustrating and infuriating, but this is the process.
I just wish I had more time. I’m struggling with a really difficult scene, and it keeps wanting to go in three directions at once. I’d be happy if I could find something true to the characters, and I’ve just realized I should have spent an hour or two yesterday on research.
More time. I need it.