Category: Worlds and Worldbuilding

  • Ohio 5: Grandma’s Secret and some pasts remembered – 685 words, 9191 total

    Ohio 5: Grandma’s Secret and some pasts remembered – 685 words, 9191 total

    Turns out my MC’s late and much-lamented grandmother had a secret she was keeping from those nearest and dearest to her. This secret might explain a scene in the very first book.  The grandmother’s personality, by the way, is spun off of my maternal great-grandmother, who lived to be almost 103, and who was a…

  • Plugging along on Ohio 5: Some good stuff, some that’s probably expository… 306 words, 8508 total

    Plugging along on Ohio 5: Some good stuff, some that’s probably expository… 306 words, 8508 total

    Part of today’s work is going to end up being edited heavily during the one-pass revision. Because it was world-building. Thinking with my fingers, walking my way through why what’s going on matters and how those actions work, and what their consequences have been. It was right in the chapter, and parts of it will…

  • OHIO 5: Far better than average morning: 1001 words, 8202 total

    OHIO 5: Far better than average morning: 1001 words, 8202 total

    So… The writing flew this morning. I’m not sure why… but things just clicked. And while they were clicking, the back of my mind was working on the problem of taking books four complete first drafts and one book that as of today is not quite ten percent done (in first draft only, of course),…

  • Today was FUN, wordwise.

    Today was FUN, wordwise.

    I discovered some new things about the town yesterday, and today I got to spend some time building those spiffy bits out. The Lesser God of Barbecue made an appearance. My MC’s primary ally discovered she knew something he didn’t about the town, at the same time that’s she’s discovered a weird little thing she…

  • My next week-ish: Brain reset, but no rest

    My next week-ish: Brain reset, but no rest

    I may not be in here regularly for the next week (I am possibly being a bit optimistic on that week thing, by the way. It might take me two or three to do everything I have to do.) The first part of what I’m doing is letting Book 4 settle into the back of…

  • Ohio today — monsters and dinner

    Things have gotten pretty dicey in small-town Ohio. The bad guys brought in things far too evil to be mentioned by name in a blog post, and a couple of the good guys have become lunch. I got 1139 words, and hit the logical place to stop for the day, so I did. Still have…

  • Ohio 4 Slow start, but some nice conflict — 852 words

    Ohio 4 Slow start, but some nice conflict — 852 words

    This morning didn’t go as I’d planned (scheduling conflicts and a calendar screw-up that broke a couple of planned things), and I was way late getting started on the words. But the local high-school football stadium found its way into the story, and tomorrow, I’ll be writing some scary, magic-y things happening there. Things that…

  • “No plan survives first contact with the enemy…”

    “No plan survives first contact with the enemy…”

    Or second contact…  Or third… The quote may  come from Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, or Carl von Clausewitz, or Dwight D. Eisenhower… or just some dude who knew shit. But it’s true — and it isn’t just true about war. It’s true about any sort of creation that requires spontaneous adaptation to unknowable but…

  • Tiptoeing through the minefield… and being mocked by my Muse

    Tiptoeing through the minefield… and being mocked by my Muse

    I’d hoped to get 1200 words net today, but after a workday that started at six AM and included very little sleep the night before, I’m going to take what I got and go do things that don’t require so much brain. What I got, though… Holy Crap! I found out something absolutely enormous about…

  • That RIGHT left turn in Albuquerque

    That RIGHT left turn in Albuquerque

    First, the word count. On Ohio 4 today, I got 1264 new words (out of my planned 1250…), and on Book 4, I now have 18,426 total. This was, overall, an excellent writing day, in which stuff happened that I was not anticipating that was way better than the stuff I’d planned. My characters were…