writerly ways

[cornerofmadness]

I honestly had a lot more to say but it is now all gone but I obviously made it to PA in one piece. I did see something odd outside of Athens. It took a few moments to realize she was on a recumbant bike and was encased in a tent-like thing where only her head was visible from my angle (it was raining and miserably damp)

I thought I packed the original fiction info onmy flash but I'm not seeing it. I did get out 1600 words of original fic this week and I made some mental notes on my upcoming projects. I'm taknig a break from writing the short fiction for a few months. I want to concentrate on finishing things and/or cleaning up the existing novel. I really must learn to finish things so keep after me for up dates. I'll be working on for certain, Machiavelli Moon, Riding with Strangers and Splinters of Silver and Cold Iron so I should make a point of making weekly progress updates.


the other thing I might start on is the demon hunters. Temple's partner informs me she's Italian (appropriate for our area). I'm trying to decide on her first name Giuseppina (Jo),
Giovanna (Jon) or Concetta (Chet) and yeah the guys will probably call her by the more masculine nicknames.

The cat is starting at me. I think it wants something.

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Sophie's looking at you funny - Not another Concetta!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

hahahaha but it's a nice name

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but she's OURS - Sophie

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

maybe you should script her for the scriptfrenzy thing

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

ELD says she was thinking about that for Dylan's story - Sophie

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

hahaha we still HAVE part of that

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's what ELD was saying. Either that or the I Dream of Jeanie thing - Sophie

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

snort

[marynachaotica.livejournal.com]

*chuckling* Usually when a cat is staring intently at a human it means A) Time for human to stop what they are doing and; 1) Pay Attention to THEM 2) Time for a wee walk around the house

B) STOP what you are doing now...don't you hear me?

C) There's something/someone/someother standing behind you. (that's always a bit unnerving)

D) For some reason you look funny to them, and they're trying to once again figure you out.

With my dearly departed cat it was usually C.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

eh he wanted outside

[marynachaotica.livejournal.com]

*LOL* There wasn't anyone else he could stare intently at? Doing that Jedi mind trick "Open the door you will."

[bob_fish.livejournal.com]

Yay more demon hunters! *happy dance*

My vote's for Giovanna. Not sure I could tell you why, I just like the name.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

now to find that plot...

All three names belong to various great-grandmas

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the finishing what you start thing. I've been trying recently to push on through the later chapters of The Fox and the Shadow--I went back and reread the entire thing as written so far and, well, it didn't take very long. It seemed like a mountain of work, but I swear it's shorter than the NaNo novel I wrote this past year, and that's almost exactly 50,000 words and no more. Hardly more than a novella.

I got hold of that 90th Anniversary Edition of Writer's Digest that you recommended, by the way, which is what's firing my latest enthusiasm to finish my novel. More than one of the articles drove home the fact that you CAN'T MARKET AN UNFINISHED MANUSCRIPT.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

i know that well (but apparently people do it to agents all the time, sending them unfinished stuff)

I need to use what the contest gave me for Mach Moon, cut some characters and streamline it

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

Apparently marketing half-finished manuscripts is a _major_ problem, or it wouldn't have been brought up so many times in that issue of WD and others. Pushing rough drafts is probably another sore spot for editors/agents, but they didn't go into that. I wouldn't give an editor a rough draft to read any more than I'd go to a job interview in my jammies, but apparently a lot of would-be writers are too impatient (lazy?) to finish what they started before they try to make money off it.

Yes, cutting some characters from MM would...I wouldn't say improve it, but definitely make it more accessible. You're a cast-of-thousands kind of writer who thinks on a grand scale, so keeping your main characters in any given story to a manageable number is always going to be a challenge. But like they say, it's always better to have excess to trim than to have to stretch skimpy writing to cover the bare spots.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Or they don't bother to research a damn thing before they start flinging manuscripts out there. Recently someone from one of my groups tossed us a cover letter and it had just so very many mistakes. I suggested the latest WD which covered this and she said 'well i HAVE that' I'm like did you read it?

I could take the whole subplot with Sulien's insane daughter, keep it for the sequel and reassign some of her parts to the one villain who gets away. Not to mention I NEED to get the science subplot much more to the forefront of the motivations is just plain weak