Holly Lisle: Writer

Interlude #2 — Nate The Lesser Evil

As hinted at in the title, this scene is from Nate’s POV, and is introducing more of the WHY of the whole story…along with adding what I hope are some scary promises to fulfill later on.

I got 376 words, and am 11K into the story. It’s running longer scenewise than I’d anticipated, so it may come out longer than 50K total. If it does, that’s okay. I’d planned to lengthen during the revision anyway.

The physics of Story (the world of our creations) and the What Is (the world we inhabit) and how each interacts with the other proved challenging—I ended up sitting in a Target-version Starbucks and working my way through a mocha frappachino and a full notebook page trying to figure out how everything links in to everything else.

Hit the end of both at about the same time, which was nice. (And only worked out because I drank slowly.)

So that’s my first day of the new writing week.

How’s your story coming along?

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20 responses to “Interlude #2 — Nate The Lesser Evil”

  1. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    I’ve been writing the end of my story so I know where I’m going. A little stuck right now, but I’m also working on a writing class assignment and on a show/don’t tell workshop.

    I have a hard time writing from my heart directly on to the computer. Things just seem to flow better if I hand write it first. I then retype that into the computer in proper format and fix any glaring mistakes. That’s when I get my word count. Not sure why I’m wired this way, but it seems to be working. Once I get to the editing, I’m ok working on the computer, unless it’s a total scene rewrite, then it’s back to the notebook. About 3500 since I last posted.

    Reply
  2. Kait Nolan Avatar
    Kait Nolan

    382 last night, FINALLY moving forward to next scene (after, what? 3 weeks? 4?)

    Reply
  3. Gerhi Janse van Vuuren Avatar
    Gerhi Janse van Vuuren

    I am starting a new story from the beginning. I have the ideas for a semi-passable sentence, a feel for where the story starts – the first two scenes – and not much else, yet.

    Reply
  4. Karen Avatar
    Karen

    No writing today as work sucks the creativity right out of me, sometimes. But I did get a little over 300 words yesterday on this year’s Nano. Nice after not writing for two weeks.

    Reply
  5. Gabby Avatar
    Gabby

    933 words. yay

    Reply
  6. Kait Nolan Avatar
    Kait Nolan

    354 words last night. Finally back in town and done with traveling (thank God). Trying to get back into it.

    Reply
  7. Cayleigh Avatar
    Cayleigh

    I felt like doing absolutely nothing after a crappy day today, so I curled up in bed with hot chocolate and started on Christmas cards. Even with my lazing about though, I managed to add 250 words to my story.

    It was mostly going back into a chapter I’d briefly sketched out before–just bones–and taking out what didn’t work and replacing it with what did and fleshing out the rest, so my actual words written was more like 800.

    I can feel what used to be scene scraps being linked together one by one, and it really is exciting.

    Reply
  8. red_dot Avatar
    red_dot

    Still taking a break and enjoying the family time. I did get a kick right in my book binding after watching the movie 2012. I am at a loss of what to think about it. In the movie the main character wrote a book about the space shuttle atlantis. It kinda reached out and smacked me. In the movie there is a little more detail about his book but it is like right on with what I’m doing. Have no clue what to do now, keep going? start something else?

    Reply
    1. The Pencil Neck Avatar
      The Pencil Neck

      Just do it.

      This is the book you wanted to write, so write it.

      Any two people given the same idea for a book will create totally different books. Just make yours good and it doesn’t matter what the other person did. Especially since in this particular case, the other person is fictional to begin with. 🙂

      Reply
      1. Red_dot Avatar
        Red_dot

        Thanks for the advice. I should find out by next month if my job will be slow, that would give me at least 8 more months to write at work. Plus there are 5 missions left with the shuttle. I love this site, for people like me who have no clue, all of my Holly friends help me along, Happy Holidays to each and every one of you.

        Reply
  9. Megs Avatar
    Megs

    After nursing a nasty little article of a block for ages, I raked in a roughly 750 word article, less than 500 word contest entry essay draft, and 67 pages of my first phase of HTRYN last night. Hopefully, I can keep this up and start posting here consistently again.

    Reply
  10. Peggy Avatar
    Peggy

    1123 on Saturday, and 255 on Sunday, to my GREAT surprise; I wasn’t expecting any, given that in about six hours, I’m leaving on holiday for three weeks.

    I don’t expect to get words while I’m on holiday, and my ‘Net access may be sporadic anyway, but I’ll see y’all in the New Year. Merry Christmas (or appropriate holiday), Happy New Year, and good writing to all!

    Reply
  11. Deb1789 Avatar
    Deb1789

    I Got 1456 words tonight, after sitting out Friday and Saturday.
    My characters were officially released from Quarantine, and my human character thinks he was dumped into the political deep end. He’s wrong. That’s next scene. 🙂

    Reply
  12. The Pencil Neck Avatar
    The Pencil Neck

    210 words. (Friday)
    501 worlds. (Sunday)

    The Princess, alone at the station, decides to buy a ticket back to her kingdom to take up the fight against the rebels and to free her bodyguard (even though she really has no clue where to start.) As she’s standing in line to buy the ticket, a woman who appears to have seen better times approaches The Princess and asks where she’s planning on going. In an amazing coincidence, the woman has a ticket to the Kingdom that she’s looking to get rid of. The Princess, thinking to do the woman a favor, hands over her account card to buy it from her. The woman is very happy and gracious. The Princess goes to a restaurant to grab a bite before her flight leaves. And when she goes to pay the tab, her account card is rejected for insufficient funds. And then the police arrive.

    I had actually skipped ahead a little and I went back to get the intervening scenes. This was something that I had planned on writing and had accientally skipped because I wasn’t sure if it would work with the rewriting. But I think it definitely does.

    I’ve been ill the past two weeks. First, I got a head cold right before Thanksgiving. And then as I was recuperating from that, I got some weird GI issue that lasted almost a week (assuming that it’s over, at the moment I can still feel it.) I’m not going to go into much detail about that; believe me, it’s for the best. But it really left me without much energy or concentration. So, I’m behind on my revision as well as my WIP.

    Reply
  13. Michelle Avatar
    Michelle

    Only 177 today, but I got 1842 yesterday so I’m happy with my weekend count!

    Reply
  14. Jessica Avatar
    Jessica

    2744 collective for the weekend. Very happy on 2 levels: 1) because I did it while sitting the twins all 3 days/nights and 2) because I recognized in myself the ability to work in both pantsing (deductive) and plotting (inductive) fluidly – at least on this occasion! 🙂

    So leaving the Speaker’s office, Cait’s entourage of guards is attacked by an assailant who sneaks Cait off to a corner. Things got quite intense with a few neat sword tricks. The assailant wants information on James, apparently at any cost. Cait, who’s feeling none too cooperative at this point, gets snarky even with a blade at her throat. So the assailant knocks her unconscious and carries her off to an undisclosed location. She regains consciousness in time to hear a brief conversation, some footsteps and them gets brutally beaten. She makes the mistake of admitting she thinks James is dead. The deposed General (and James’ uncle) is not pleased at the news. … 🙂

    Alternatively I had written Cait brokering a deal with the assailant, but getting separated in the market and wandering for a bit oggling food. But this broke the running pace and works much better earlier (with some tweaks) because the core of it surrounds the Earth coin Cait pulls from her pocket – and how it is illegal on Other.

    Lastly, a shoutout to DasteRoad and anyone else who is stuck in a slump right now. Hang in there and keep at it. Boy have I been there these last 20K!

    Reply
    1. Parylin Avatar
      Parylin

      Oh, on a side note – I got to see the Olympic Torch 3 times up close! The first time was on purpose because my department head was running it (woo hoo Gary!). The 2nd time it went in front of my cousin’s house while I was sitting the twins! And 3rd time this morning (Monday) as I’m coming out of a building to get to my transfer bus everyone’s lined up and cheering and then there goes the torch AGAIN! 😀

      Reply
  15. Tamara Avatar
    Tamara

    Well, since my last post that I got started writing—I haven’t written a thing! How ironic! But I have a very good reason. I have spent the weekend traveling to & from DC for my sister’s graduation from grad school. 2-3 days off (when you still get to plot, just not write) can’t be a bad thing. Can it?

    Reply
    1. Gabby Avatar
      Gabby

      Yeah, it sounds like a win to me 🙂 Congrats on actually getting something done even though you had real life distractions.

      Reply
    2. The Pencil Neck Avatar
      The Pencil Neck

      Every little bit helps. Sometimes things come up and you gotta do what you gotta do. 🙂

      Reply

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