Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2005-09-16 03:32 pm
edenfalling) wrote2005-09-16 03:32 pm
Entry tags:
general life update, plus reading report
So. What I did the past couple days:
1) Outlined chapter 17 of "Apartment Manager." It will be the final chapter, and then there will be a brief epilogue... you know, one of those "A few months later..." sorts of things. It's kind of sad to think the story will be done, and I won't be playing with these exact characters again (the sequel, "The Guardian in Spite of Herself," is set a year later and doesn't involve all of the same characters), but it feels good (weird, but good) to look back and say, I wrote 65,000 words in under nine months, and the story's almost finished. I mean, "Secrets" is longer (nearly 90,000 words at the moment) but it's not quite 2/3 of the way through yet, and I've been working on it for three years.
2) Finished a scene in "Grace," one of my fairy-tale retellings, which laid an important plot point for later. Now I get to switch POV characters from Grace to Ricky, and start the quest portion of the story, and the nasty moral quandaries. After that, it's back to Grace, and things get really sticky. And I think I will close the story with Iris, the fairy godmother, just for symmetry's sake. Structure is not the only important thing in writing, but patterns can help add a sense of finality and resolution when they work right.
3) Twiddled a little more with "The Sum of Things," my original novel from last NaNoWriMo. I think Talin's sections are pretty much where I want them to be. Now I need to finish straightening out Ranna's scenes, and then I can start adding new story. (I don't want to add anything until I have a corrected base to build off of. Well, the next scene is Talin's, so I probably could write it without fixing Ranna first, but I'm a little compulsive about certain kinds of order. I'm not going to fight myself when I don't need to.)
4) Read a few books:
Orion Among the Stars which I read once back in high school and had mostly forgotten. Ben Bova does write entertaining stuff, even if I find his underlying themes somewhat trite and badly thought-out.
Jinian Star-Eye, the final book in Sheri S. Tepper's nine-volume True Game series, of which I have now read six books. Someday I will find the remaining three. They're extremely whacked-out in some ways, and somewhat shallow and facile in others, but you can see Tepper's driving themes and such emerging from underneath the awkwardness of a beginning writer. It's quite fascinating to watch. (Also, the story concepts are lovely in their own right.)
A Civil Campaign, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Okay, I'm convinced. She's amazing. I now have four more Miles Vorkosigan books checked out from the library, and am kicking myself for being too lazy to look into them years ago.
And a couple soupies, which were predictable as always. I have discovered that these days I tend to skim the sex bits (read one, you've read 'em all) and read more for locations, imagery, or the random bits of information about various jobs and such that give the better romances their gloss of verisimilitude. And then, occasionally, you find little pearls of truth in the middle of formulaity. I don't read many soupies anymore, though I used to go through them at ridiculous speeds in high school, but they're a sort of comfort food for the brain and heart. Not good as a steady diet, but nice now and then.
1) Outlined chapter 17 of "Apartment Manager." It will be the final chapter, and then there will be a brief epilogue... you know, one of those "A few months later..." sorts of things. It's kind of sad to think the story will be done, and I won't be playing with these exact characters again (the sequel, "The Guardian in Spite of Herself," is set a year later and doesn't involve all of the same characters), but it feels good (weird, but good) to look back and say, I wrote 65,000 words in under nine months, and the story's almost finished. I mean, "Secrets" is longer (nearly 90,000 words at the moment) but it's not quite 2/3 of the way through yet, and I've been working on it for three years.
2) Finished a scene in "Grace," one of my fairy-tale retellings, which laid an important plot point for later. Now I get to switch POV characters from Grace to Ricky, and start the quest portion of the story, and the nasty moral quandaries. After that, it's back to Grace, and things get really sticky. And I think I will close the story with Iris, the fairy godmother, just for symmetry's sake. Structure is not the only important thing in writing, but patterns can help add a sense of finality and resolution when they work right.
3) Twiddled a little more with "The Sum of Things," my original novel from last NaNoWriMo. I think Talin's sections are pretty much where I want them to be. Now I need to finish straightening out Ranna's scenes, and then I can start adding new story. (I don't want to add anything until I have a corrected base to build off of. Well, the next scene is Talin's, so I probably could write it without fixing Ranna first, but I'm a little compulsive about certain kinds of order. I'm not going to fight myself when I don't need to.)
4) Read a few books:
Orion Among the Stars which I read once back in high school and had mostly forgotten. Ben Bova does write entertaining stuff, even if I find his underlying themes somewhat trite and badly thought-out.
Jinian Star-Eye, the final book in Sheri S. Tepper's nine-volume True Game series, of which I have now read six books. Someday I will find the remaining three. They're extremely whacked-out in some ways, and somewhat shallow and facile in others, but you can see Tepper's driving themes and such emerging from underneath the awkwardness of a beginning writer. It's quite fascinating to watch. (Also, the story concepts are lovely in their own right.)
A Civil Campaign, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Okay, I'm convinced. She's amazing. I now have four more Miles Vorkosigan books checked out from the library, and am kicking myself for being too lazy to look into them years ago.
And a couple soupies, which were predictable as always. I have discovered that these days I tend to skim the sex bits (read one, you've read 'em all) and read more for locations, imagery, or the random bits of information about various jobs and such that give the better romances their gloss of verisimilitude. And then, occasionally, you find little pearls of truth in the middle of formulaity. I don't read many soupies anymore, though I used to go through them at ridiculous speeds in high school, but they're a sort of comfort food for the brain and heart. Not good as a steady diet, but nice now and then.
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Oh, and hi. *waves* I've been stalking your journal out of love for Apartment Manager (which I am sort of both happy and sad to hear is almost done), though the original stories you've posted here are also very interesting.
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