Paksworld

Talk about mixed blessings…I get this monster down to a reasonable length, and then someone says “Yes, but…” and I start working on that, and boom! comes a plotbomb that explodes all over the scenery, showering it with many-many words.  Read the rest of this entry »

3061 words today.

That battle I was talking about?  It’s unfolding rather differently than I planned originally, but better.   To argue with the A-Team “I love it when a plan comes together”—I love it when my plot-daemon knows better than I do what should happen. Read the rest of this entry »

Book three is being a bit slow to start, due to all the other stuff going on and also some deep thinking.

But it’s at 5600 words (roughly–not exact count) as of this morning, with over 1000 words added today.

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About three days ago,  one of those ideas hit me that could be really good, sort of interesting, or not at all the right move.    It’s very spoiler-full, so here’s your first spoiler warning…if you don’t like spoilers, skip this post.

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You could be forgiven for thinking “She isn’t posting; she must be goofing off while she’s traveling” but in fact I have been working when I could find a place to put the machine or open the notebook.

Some railroad tracks are smoother than others.

That being said, here’s the update.  During the Ninc conference, I took off at least an hour a day to write.  Usually more, sneaking away from program items I didn’t feel I needed.  I wrote on the trains (all the trains so far) and in the waiting rooms.

What this has produced is, so far, a much improved early section, with foreshadowing of troubles to come (alpha readers will note that their comments bore fruit–there’s foreshadowing, rather than just “Look, the roof fell in.”    Then there are revisions flowing from the new stuff into later chapters (not completely done yet) and a lot of “think tank” work on the deep logic that will inform the rest of the story.

Possible Spoilers Below

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Make for exciting stories.

Today, when I planned to do a whole lot of other stuff, has produced, so far, 2600 words and a character I did not anticipate in any way.

In other words, another plot bomb.  A BIG plot bomb.  A big enough plot bomb that I’m questioning whether it’s really a plot bomb or maybe I’ve gone totally bonkers.  True, books do produce more plot bombs toward the end (usually, if they have any…) but this…

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2594 words so far today.  I was asking it for at least 1000–getting this much more indicates that I’m on the right trail, not just any trail.   Book is grinning.

Gnomes appeared.  I didn’t know before this that they consider the road through their lands closed in winter.    So late travelers have been accosted, and this will have Consequences.  Sure, everything has consequences, but this is upper-case-C Consequences.  The question now is whether certain persons made it across the pass before the gnomes started their winter warding.  I don’t know yet, but I know I’ll be finding out.

The total page count at this point means little, but for those who gloat over page counts,  the ms. just hit 600 and is about to lop over into 601.  But my hands are hurting, so I have to quit for a bit.  (Gee, I could do laundry, clean the bathroom, put sheets on the bed, straighten up….you can stop sniggering now.  I do sometimes do housework, just not often enough.)

After a nice canter of 1400+ words this morning,  the total count is now over 120,000.

The Count of Andressat and I have had a big surprise.  It’s harder on him, as it gives him a bad case of familial cognitive dissonance; for me, it opens interesting plot vistas.   I meant to get back to Arvid today, and I may, but what’s happening in Aarenis is driving the situation that Arvid finds himself in, and I needed to figure out exactly who did what when, so the chronology would be straight.

I do hope this won’t prove to be one of those times I followed a false trail and have to undo it, because this trail has complex consequences and undoing *that* is arduous.

Those of you reading my LJ last year (before this blog existed) may remember the series of plot bombs that landed on me in the last third of the book.

Plot bombs are events/characters/situations that I didn’t anticipate and that propagate new plot and lots of words all of a sudden.  They disrupt my train of thought and break things open.   But, being creative and not truly destructive, plot bombs are always–well, almost nearly always completely–right.

The first true plot bomb of the second volume exploded in my head this morning.

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