Can I say, “Thank God it’s over, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” to this year? It has been brutal from start to finish, with personal losses, financial struggle, The Book That Would Not Die (having tossed about 300 pages of manuscript the first time and about 280 pages the second time, I’m now about … Continue reading →
Yesterday, after seven straight hours on the proposal and a few hundred words of actual progress, I threw up my hands in despair for the entire day’s work, went downstairs, and watched three episodes of the second season of The Sopranos with Matt. About 300 words on the proposal, nothing on the book. Today I have scheduled to take off, … Continue reading →
I am still slogging on the proposal right now, and though I made my life, and future strategy & tactics planning sessions vastly simpler by deciding that for this first book at least the conflict will not take place across a splash of a million tiny islands but rather on one smallish continent (or largish island), I am now having … Continue reading →
2500 words on the book 1000 or better on the proposal Code Red in hand, I’m about to get started. Today in the book, Seolar discovers the depths of trouble his world has just fallen into — and maybe Lauren returns from the afterlife. Maybe. Have to see how it all falls out. In the proposal — well, I currently … Continue reading →
Death At Winterfest Snow falls in the heart of the forest, burying the trees, burying the ground, and landing on the great carved stele at the center of the circular clearing. The ground all round the stone is bare — bare of grass, of footprints, of any creatures with the courage or foolhardiness to approach. Bare even of snow, for … Continue reading →
But I finished the scene, and I nailed it. I can’t add to it to make it better, and I don’t want to screw up the flow of tomorrow’s 2500 words by starting that work tonight and then breaking at some arbitrary place just so that I can rack up some additional numbers. So, weirdly, I guess I’m done for … Continue reading →
There was a bit of unexpected reverence to attend to; and again I find myself liking Baanraak, even though I shouldn’t. … Continue reading →
And the wicked deed is done. Now what remains for the scene is a very messy mopping up. … Continue reading →
Every strength can be turned into a weakness, and every weakness can be turned into a strength, and it is not by our strengths that we succeed or fail, but by the way we manage our weaknesses. The monkey is well on his way to winning against dragons, demons and wizards — but I’m done with this for the day. … Continue reading →
I have worked myself into a corner I’ve set up this stunning, world-spanning, world-changing disaster, and now I’m looking at the people I have on hand to fight it, and I don’t know what they’re going to do. It’s a game of “Monkey Wins,” –humans outnumbered, outgunned, and outsmarted who have to come back and pull it out of the … Continue reading →