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Me Day

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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.

Hay-zeus Marimba

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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.

Stuff.

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I hit my goal again today, which means I’m back in the groove (last Monday not withstanding). I wish I could do well above my groove, but such is life.

Meanwhile, have some links:

1) Back to the Future 4: Escape from Guantanamo. Marty McFly is in serious trouble.

2) Pediatricians address the effects of bullying on victims and bullies. My son’s two schools so far have done a good job of dealing with bullying incidents, but I don’t know if they’re this sophisticated.

3) Nick Mamatas on making money off your fiction. I’d always heard that novels are where the money is, but he offers an interesting counterpoint. Not that it matters to me, since my productivity crashes as the word count shrinks. It’s not that I can’t write short stories; it just takes me longer.

4) Finally! A plan to help people compare and contrast insurance plans.

5) How to make big money fast as a novelist… in Sim 3.

I make it because I know I’ll have to destroy it

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Sundays aren’t the expansive, relaxing work days that Saturdays or Tuesdays are. I have a definite time when I have to be finished with my daily goal and back at home so my wife can go to work. It’s enough time to do what I need to do (considering my process) but I need to get up on time and really focus.

And today, I found myself thinking Why am I writing this scene? I’m just going to have to cut it in revisions.

It’s a scene where the protagonist wakes alone in a strange place. He thinks he’s been taken by enemies, but it’s really just his reckless asshole compatriots. He’s also been terribly injured, so he’s terrified and desperate. As I described everything he did, I kept thinking Nothing comes of this. It’s all setup and no payoff.

On the other hand, it’s what the character would do.

So I wrote it all out, thinking that maybe I was cheating on my daily goal, but knowing that it’s better to follow the character than try to lead them. And who knows? I may find a better payoff for it later.

Phew

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I met my goal for the day, which makes three days in a row. Jeez, this is almost like a job. And since I had some extra time, I took care of the three little revisions my editor asked for in Everyone Loves Blue Dog. And that’s where the crazy came in.

I know the book is going straight to the copy editor, and I was paralyzed by the knowledge that I wasn’t going to get a chance to revise it. I mean, I was inexplicably freaked out by it.

Still, it’s done (once again!) and sent off. Next for … Blue Dog will be the copy edit in a few months. Next for Man Bites World is another morning trying to hit my goal before my wife goes to work, which will be tomorrow.

I have twenty minutes to check out my library materials and hit the farmer’s market for some beefsteak tomatoes. Enjoy your day.

From the department of low expectations

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I made my word count goal today. It was, as expected, a problem with my focus. I’ve dealt with this before and I know what to do.

In other stories of barely meeting extremely low standards, a California judge dismissed a lawsuit, stating that a reasonable person should know that “crunchberries” are not real berries.

My last post was “This is tough” but this will be tougher

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Today I worked on Man Bites World for a little more than an hour before my day job began. On those days, my daily goal is 500 words–just enough to feel I accomplished something in a limited time. On bad days I can feel okay about barely making it; on good days I can double it (or almost double it) and feel pretty good.

Today I wrote 200 words.

There’s no excuse for it. Yesterday was even worse–near as I can tell, I wrote negative one words.

Last night, though, I sat and talked quite a bit with my wife. I’ve been avoiding the Starbucks near my home because some of the other customers are too close and too gross, but working at home isn’t cutting it. Even when I’m out, though, or at a different coffee shop, I’m daydreaming, distracted and generally zoned.

Not that this is new. I’m *always* daydreaming, but I need to get my head clear and focus my daydreaming on the characters.

My wife thinks its a lack of sleep, customary depression following the end (hah!) of … Blue Dog and some overly self-indulgent calorie consumption. She’s right, too. But the only cure I know of is to brow-beat myself into looking at the laptop and only the laptop.

It had better work, too.

Sun!

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It is gorgeous and sunny right now. I’m sitting by the huge window at the library, thinking about the next step in Man Bites World.

When I came back to it a week ago, I jumped to about the 6K word mark, hit enter a bunch of times, and started writing a sequence that I’d been putting off but that really needed to be early early early. I wanted to keep it down to about twenty five hundred words, but it’s actually a little more than double that, because I can never seem to judge how much space and detail each plot beat needs. Hopefully, that will improve.

Still, the sequence has a great deal of suck in it. I know what’s wrong, but not specifically how to fix it. I’ll make a couple quick notes to myself, jump to the end of the draft, (which is now nearly 40K words) and push on from there.

Which means I won’t hit my new word goal for today. Ah well. I’ve reviewed the rest of the draft, changing things to accommodate the new section, so maybe that counts. Or maybe I should do a few hundred more words.

In other news, my buddy received his copy of Child of Fire yesterday, and so far he likes it. I’ll be calling him in a couple hours to coordinate travel plans for San Diego Comic-Con.

The organic open air farmer’s market started their season today. There are many more lunch and snack stands this year, and much less produce. Huh. I’ll still swing by later for fresh Basil and tomatoes.

Actually, I’ve just decided I don’t care about making my goal. It’s freaking gorgeous outside. I’m going for a nice, long walk.

Talk about terrible titles…

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David Hines recently recommended a book called Meditations on Violence: a Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence, and of course I snapped it up.

I’ve barely started it, but one of the early points the author makes is that too many people are willing to discount their own personal experience because it does not jibe with what a self-appointed expert tells them. One of the author’s fellow prison guards, a man who had a great deal of practical experience in fighting, did exactly this during a class of martial arts techniques.

My first reaction was: People don’t really do this, do th– And then I thought about Absolute Write.

The AW forums have see a regular traffic of newbie writers asking permission to do the most basic things. “Can I have an protagonist do unlikable things?” “Can I have an unhappy ending?” “Can I write this book in third-person present tense?” “Can I write a love story where the couple breaks up at the end?”

Frankly, that stuff drove me crazy. I wanted to say “Pick up a book! Read it! Does it work? Can you make it work? Why are you asking permission?”

And it would turn out that some person on some message board somewhere said books need happy endings, or maybe an agent wrote a blog post expressing their personal dislike of present tense. And none of that should dictate what a person can or should do.

Of course, the hard part in all of this is examining my own assumptions.

As an aside: today is the first day all week that I hit my daily word count goal. Yeesh. Tomorrow will be better, I hope.

You know what I hate?

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You know what I hate? Tasting my own blood.

Yeah, I went to the dentist today. No fillings or drillings were required, but the scraping and gouging still made my gums bleed.

In other news, I am making slow progress on Man Bites World. Not surprising. It’s part of my process (apparently) to start slowly and pick up steam.

I’m happy with the scenes I’m writing, at least.