| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | |
Aug 02
Posted: under the writing life.
Tags: craft of writing, progress report, the writing life August 2nd, 2010
Some Mondays feel more like the working writer than others. This past weekend, I deliberately took both Saturday and Sunday off from the book. I hoped this would generate some pressure from the book to start of the week, and I had plenty of other things to do.
Jul 27
Posted: under Contents, Craft, the writing life.
Tags: characters, Contents, craft of writing, progress report, the writing life July 27th, 2010
So…page proofs are done (check) and some family LifeStuff probably/maybe resolved (half-check) and I’m back “on book”. Yesterday, after a dietary error that kept me close to one room in the house, turned out to be a very productive writing day anyway (3001 new words, in addition to cleaning up some continuity problems I discovered while working on the proofs of Kings…no, B- did not tell his father about hmmmmmph at Autumn Court, becuase hmmmmph didn’t start until AFTER Autumn Court. when ummmm went mmmmph. Yes, hate me.)
Jul 18
Posted: under Craft, the writing life.
Tags: craft of writing, progress report, the writing life July 18th, 2010
There’s nothing like actually turning off everything else and convincing the distractable mind that no, it cannot do anything until it’s produced the day’s wordage. No, we are not playing Solitaire. No, we are not reading email. No, we are not checking Twitter, or LJ, or the SFF.net newsgroup. The television is off limits. The new red shiny netbook is off limits. The outdoors is off limits. Cooking is off limits. (Dishwashing isn’t.) The piano is off limits. This chair, this keyboard, this one file. First.
May 14
Posted: under Contents, Craft, the writing life.
Tags: Contents, craft of writing, progress report, the writing life May 14th, 2010
I spend a couple of hours with Book III yesterday (all I had, due to Other Things) and had fun with the inimitable Arvid. I don’t know how much of this will fit in the final Book III–but it’s such fun to write. As with the story of the King of Pargun and his difficult daughter Elis, that we put up on the publisher’s blog site, I’ll find it a home somewhere even if it can’t stay in the book proper.
May 11
Posted: under Craft, Editing, the writing life.
Tags: craft of writing, the writing life, writer-as-editor May 11th, 2010
….Almost. Still a few more things to be done before shipping them back to NYC. I need to rewrite the Dedication, write the Acknowledgments, and run back through the text to catch a couple of things I think I may have done wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
May 07
Posted: under Editing, the writing life.
Tags: craft of writing, progress report, the book business, the writing life May 7th, 2010
…of copy edits corrected. There are only (!) 39 chapters, but more words in the last nineteen than in the first twenty.
I quit after finishing chapter 20, a few minutes ago. Tired. Tired of all the little red marks and having to check every single one. Copy-editing is a tough job for the copy-editor, but the CE’s job is one of marking anything that strikes him or her as off.
Apr 29
Posted: under Craft, the writing life.
Tags: craft of writing, progress report, the writing life April 29th, 2010
Yesterday was a partial success (interference from gut bug, but still some production of decent story) and today, despite Book III’s attempt to lure me off to another project (at least, I’m blaming III for that, rather than the other project–a nonfiction book), I made progress on both of them. 1500 on the nonfiction, not quite 1500 on III.
Book III would like to run smoothly, but too smoothly…I stopped it in its tracks today when it was about to have a perfectly normal conversation in a place that demanded something else. “Wait,” I said. “If A really started from X in the morning, A should have reached Y by now. And A is only halfway between. B started from Y at noon and is halfway now, so do we see a problem?”
Apr 21
Posted: under Contents, Craft, the writing life.
Tags: Contents, craft of writing, mistakes, the writing life April 21st, 2010
…But it’s fixed now and none of you will ever know why I had to dive back into Kings of the North, fix something, email my editor about it, have her point out what was wrong with the fix, fix it again….
Apr 14
Posted: under Background, Contents, the writing life.
Tags: Background, characters, Contents, craft of writing, the writing life April 14th, 2010
Not talking here about the obviously fantasy weddings we usually see (in pictures in the paper announcing them, for instance) between the beautiful bride and the handsome groom who might as well be made of sugar icing because they’re going to melt in the first heat of difficulty. No, talking here about the weddings in fantasy fiction…since there’s going to be one (though not yet…don’t start making the cake now.)
Mar 20
Posted: under Life beyond writing, the writing life.
Tags: cooking, craft of writing, Life beyond writing, the writing life March 20th, 2010
On occasion I’ve written about writing in cooking terms–stirring the pot, things bubbling up from below, flavorings that must not over-dominate the final meal, something cooking so long the story goes mushy, etc. But there’s another relationships between cooking and writing that not many people have mentioned.
RDF/RSS Feed
Atom Feed
