Paksworld

December 18, 11:43 pm and I’m at 178,644 words, p. 551 of 811, after some hours off today, working in the “picnic grove” to trim snaggy bits off the lower trunks of trees, and then the barn leveling more decomposed granite in the east stall, pick up manure in the south barn lot, feed, and yes, pet and give treats to the horses.  Progress is slow, my brain’s tired of staring at the text and trying to find words to cut.  Still finding them but not as fast now.  I think the writing was getting tighter in this part maybe.  I hope.  Clock’s ticking, calendar’s turning, I need to get this finished so I can get on with the wildlife management report and turn the book back to my agent so it has a chance of finding a publisher.

This is the season of trimming trees, too, and even though some of the bur oaks still have green leaves on them…most of the trimming’s being done right now on the cedar elms in the near meadow.  The picnic grove looks more and more like a grove of actual trees every year–not only are they taller, but the trim is defining, as I’d hoped, the “rooms” in the grove.  We won’t live to see it mature–and a later owner can of course just destroy it–but we should be able to use it a little this year.  The part of the near meadow between the grass waterway and the original fence of the house and lots, east of the main maintenance path, I hope to fence as an additional horse lot soon.  The south horse lot is turning into a “dry lot” (just dirt, which means it erodes in heavy rains, is badly compacted by constant use, and has very little grass left after several years of drought.   It needs a year or several of rest & recovery, with reseeding with a good shortgrass like buffalo or a buffalo/blue grama mix.

Outside work to accomplish these things eats up writing time; writing time eats up work /maintenance/housekeeping time.   But better to have too much to do than be bored and think there’s nothing to do, right?  Right!

Must be in bed in 5 minutes. Bye now.

At present,  5:26 pm Friday 12/15/2022, I’m working on page 486 of 813.  The total word count is down to 179,041.  The high in word count was I think in the 183,000+ range.  I don’t think it ever swelled to 185K but I didn’t check every minute.   There’s still stuff to be added and stuff to be taken out.  This round of revision includes a lot of  word-removals.  Most are singles, some are multiples, and a few are “That whole paragraph: OUT!”  Ideally, from the feel of it, this needed an overall shrinkage of about 10% .   In other words, 18,000 words gone.   Very roughly, that’s one word out of every line of the ms, 23 per page.  I’m not on target for that amount of shrinkage, and there’s still a little to be added.

A snippet from an exciting moment.   Location: Marrakai estate west of Vérella.   POV character: Juris Marrakai who has ridden from the city after receiving a courier message that the estate had been attacked but everyone was OK.  He has an escort of Royal Guard just in case–luckily since the second attack is going on when he arrives.

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He hadn’t jumped a fence in armor for several years, had forgotten the extra heave the horse gave, and the way the armor put him in a different balance.  He landed harder than he meant to; the horse grunted, but then caught its stride and ran on to intercept the enemy riders.  The momentary slowdown saved him from the bolt that whizzed across in front of him; the group he ran at scattered, losing its cohesion.

A high yodel from behind–a family signal–and pounding hooves–must be Gwenno–but he dared not turn to see.  He yelled, not the family call but a roar of rage to distract the man starting to turn to shoot at Gwenno and aimed his horse at that one. Beneath him, his mount let out a stallion scream; the man’s horse panicked and charged off at an angle, bucking; the man couldn’t stay on and fell hard, bouncing twice before lying still. Juris glanced around.

Another talk with my agent last week, and I had new things to work on (which is fine, though of course I’d prefer to write absolutely perfect books up front.)  One thing he couldn’t explain clearly enough, except that one character’s sections did not work for him…and I kept looking at them and looking at them, and finally…in a “scales falling from the eyes” moment tonight, there it was.  An absolutely plain as mud and about as interesting lump of  infodump masquerading as an interesting look inside a major character’s thinking processes.

All informative.  All static.   No reader should have to read that many pages of Gwenno reviewing her reasons for doing something.  Was it accurate?  Yes, that’s how she thinks and what she thinks.  Are some of those points plot relevant?  Yes, as showing motivation.  But do we need them laid out in order like a plot summary?  No, we do not.   WHY couldn’t I have seen that months ago when I first wrote it?  (I was having a lot of fun just writing…)

Said it before and I’m saying it again…if you’re writing ANYTHING and you start thinking “If I can just make it until the next interesting/fun/exciting/ bit…that’s the part to change or just delete.”   Gwenno deserves to have her POV sections bouncy and energetic and determined as she is, not pages of her thought processes.