Gettin'er Done

Now that I have the second part of the rewrite out of the way, I can focus on more mundane matters.
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Today I'll be taking the car in for some much needed maintenance and repairs. I'll actually enjoy that since I can kick back and read while they're fixing the car. A whole morning of nothing but me, a book, and a nearby snack machine.
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Bliss!
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Next I need to finish up The Barrow Wolf. I'll probably start working on that tonight. There is no real rush on it...the anthology it's slated to be submitted for doesn't even close till this autumn...but I don't like to leave a piece lying around where it might be forgotten. Better to finish it while it's still fresh. That way I will also have two short stories, two flash fictions, and most of one rewrite already done this year. I don't want to fall behind.
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Busy! Busy! Busy!

Semi-done

Well, that's a pleasant surprise.

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I actually worked my way through the edit of The Cistern. I finished right before having to go pick up my daughter. I'll read through it again, seeing if I can spot any obvious screw ups, then I'll send it off this evening.

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Then I guess I'll start editing The Barrow Wolf. I think I'm going to tweak the ending just a little, but leave it largely alone. Mainly I need to fix a bunch of bad word usage, and one page where the pronouns ran wild. It was pretty graphic, and both the proofreaders I used for this one winced at it.

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Hopefully, either my copy of "Pandora's Nightmare" or "Proxies of Fate" will arrive soon so I can relax the gray cells and do a little reading. Either would be fine. I just need to unwind before junmping into the next project.

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I'm very sleepy, which is ridiculous since I have slept almost as much as I've been awake the past few days. But here I sit, trying to keep my eyes open. It's probably just that my schedule got thrown all out of whack. Regardless, it's not going to be easy staying awake.

Time to Shake This Off

It's five in the morning, and I just woke up from another nine hours of sleep. I haven't been awake for a twelve hour stretch in the past two days. Something is definitely up.
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Other than a general feeling of gloom, I felt okay so I don't know if it was something physical or not. Either way, I need to shake it off and move on. I didn't get anything done yesterday, so I have to crawl back on the wagon again today and get some stuff done.
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I have Stinkerbell's therapy today, so I'll need to pick her up from her school at noon and take her. I only have a couple of thousand words left to go on The Cistern rewrite, so I need to try and get that done. The house isn't in "horrible" shape (at least by our sadly lacking standards), but it could sure use some work.
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Oh well, it's just about time to start getting around and making the kids lunches for school. I'll try and have a little more productive day today, and shake this malaise off.

Ugh

Crawled out of bed in time to pick up the boy from school, and get the girl off the school bus. The boy did his homework and is now playing Ratatoille, the girl is cheering him on from the sidelines.

I'm staring blearily at the computer.

I'll see if my head clears enough to write this afternoon. My schedule is all out of whack now. Blech!

Work Proceeds

I'm now at the nine thousand, three hundred word mark on "The Cistern" rewrite, and plugging along. It's still the same story, with a little more detail thrown in in some areas, and things glossed over a little in other areas. I think I can salvage it.
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Still thinking about the ending of "The Barrow Wolf." I'm debating tweaking it just a tad, to make it's ending a little more compromising, without really changing much. I have to stay true to the characters, and the truths that make them who they are.
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Then I need to turn my attention to a couple of short story ideas I'm dwelling on for a future anthology. I can't devote too much time to them yet, at least not until this edit is done, but it's always good to flesh out ideas. And then there is always Argiope screaming in the background for my attention. I've been killing the same three drug runners for three weeks now, and they're getting tired of it. I need to get that scene finished.
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So I"m currently juggling three projects while doing the prep work for two more. Heck, I didn't work this hard shoveling uranium ore back at the old ore mill. Which brings up another thing I've been thinking about...
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...I haven't set any stories in New Mexico yet. I spent a significant part of my life out there, and it's a great setting, but so far I've pretty much stuck to either Texas or the world of Khrem. It might be time to broaden my scope soon.
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Oh well. Back to the grind. The kids have school tomorrow, so sometime tonight I need to pack their lunches and have their stuff ready to go in the morning.
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Ta.
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UPDATE: I'm now at eleven thousand, two hundred words and I'm stopping to sleep on the situation. The monster of the story is making his grand appearance, and I think I can do it better than I did the first time around. This is a good place to pause. I have my nights and days backwards again, so I'll have to straighten that out by tomorrow when I'll need to take Stinkerbell to her therapist. That means I'll probably snooze today, then try and get some sleep tonight as well...which means I won't get a huge amount of writing done. We'll see though. Things always work out different than I expect on these things.

Eight Thousand Words In

I'm better than halfway through "The Cistern" now, and Cargill is slithering down the tight shaft into the chamber below the hill. I'm trying to play down the ropes a little, but it's also going to be a matter of playing up other angles. When I'm done, the idea is for it to pretty much read the same as before but not be quite so confusing.

One of the things I'm trying to preserve is the sense of "process" when it comes to Cargill. He is a man of method and skill, and I want to preserve that. I don't mind simplifying things some, but I don't want to get away from the things he does. I only want to do it for clarification.

I woke up a little bummed out this morning. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's chemical or something...but Nate has a case of the blues at the moment.Oh well, when you can't even figure out why you're depressed, it can't be that serious. Right?

Status Update

Plugging away on rewriting The Cistern, while kids climb on me like a jungle gym.Progress is slow, but will hopefully improve tonight after bedtime.

Also currently digesting feedback on The Barrow Wolf. Had one proofreader offer some concerns about the ending, and will check with the others to see if perhaps some tweaks are in order.

I intend to take the boy to see a movie today..."How to Train Your Dragon" or something like that. It's getting solid good reviews, and it's been a while since I've taken him anywhere.

That's it for the moment.

Thrills! Chills! Excitement! Romance!

Have you even noticed what interesting lives writers have in the movies and on TV? Wanna see the reality?

In this thrilling episode, I'm struggling with writer's block while trying to revise a novel I've already written! Oohhh! Ahhhhh! Meanwhile my son is tempting me with a cookie, despite my wheat allergy. Ooohh! Danger!

Yeah.

Sometimes I wonder how I can stand all this glamor and still be conscious. And the excitement! It's a real thrill ride! (especially when I notice that the four year old has been quiet for too long).

Yep, you too can quit your day job and live the dream!

Rewriting The Cistern

So I have reached the point of the edit where I quit just accepting small changes in the syntax and punctuation, and dive off into actually rewriting.

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There is a certain point of the story that simply doesn't work for about half the readers. And the only way to fix it is going to be going in with a butcher knife and excising the whole mass. Then I'll have to replace it with something different, but still fits into the story as a whole. This is goingt to be a real challenge.

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At the moment, I have Cargill indulging in internal dialogue with his former self, as opposed to just musing like he was in the first set of drafts. A bit of argument between Mr. Cargill and Mr. Chance...so to speak. I'm not totally sold on the idea, and will have to back up and read it after a day just to see if I think it really works.

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That's the problem with rewriting. You're trying to achieve a goal you have already written, but now trying to write in a different way without changing anything.