So I Did Write Yesterday After All

by Liana Posted on January 23, 2014
This entry is part 51 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

I did figure out my edits for the Dowse and Bleed cover, but otherwise thought the day would be a wash.

Well... Not so much.

For the last two hours of the day. Literally. I just decided to force the issue though I was tired and staying up until midnight was a lousy idea, but I did it. Yay me. I think anyway.

No reading yesterday at all, except the on-the-job SEO book. I had noticed Jason Gurley just wrote and published four short stories and I realized I hadn't put any time in my 2014 for can-finish-it-in-a-day shorts, so decided to write one. I got 820 words in though I'm not impressed, and then realized that this was not a pre-existing priority fic, so I wrote 391- and 460- word additions to the collaboration.

At 12:09 a.m. of today, I went blissfully to bed.

Something accomplished, something done
Has earned a night's repose

— "The Village Blacksmith" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Continue reading →

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Keeping the Head Down

by Liana Posted on January 21, 2014
This entry is part 50 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

Currently rather frustrated so will bury my head in work and not talk to anyone. I don’t want to be a snappish dragon.

Writer’s Social Therapy

I don’t want to be a snappish dragon
I don’t want to snarl and blow
Say nothing, I know, if I can’t say it nicely
So down in the scribbles I go #

Had a chat that perked me up a good bit. Yay.

Writing

Got working on Tracing Trouble and decided that nothing I was writing was working. Which is a pain. I'm about ready to cull through the twenty-two versions of Dowse and Bleed to figure out how I got from point A to point B, but I think I should probably just find a different way to go with this and get going.

Yeah. Sure. :rolls eyes at self:

Never mind. Very frustrated. Tried a few other stories: collaboration, Splintered, other K&T stories— No dice.

Reading

Yesterday, agreed to give a SF thriller a whirl, solely because of the SF not the thriller bit. It's called iSeal and shall hang out in my email inbox until I'm ready to get to it. My to be read pile is getting ridiculous. :grins:

Didn't even read anything today except stuff I'm trying to write and an SEO book for/at work. Required reading, but lovely. I actually want to learn about SEO.

So no recreational reading today. Pity that.

Publishing

When all else fails, format. Left off on page 38 of justification on Dowse and Bleed.

Technical Difficulties

Ran out of time to do a full scan and the quick virus scan turned up nothing. I have a plan. Tomorrow's dance card is getting mighty full.

Writing

Managed to add another 166 words to the front end of Tracing Trouble. I really do need to rename it. I'll get there. I don't expect to get any more writing done tonight. Naturally, I'll update if anything changes.

Word Counts

  • Fiction: 233 words
  • Poetry: 32 words, 4 lines
  • Blog: 284 words

Splintered Gates

  • Today: 0 words
  • Total: 2493 words

Collaboration

  • Today: 0 words
  • Total: 3409 words*

*written by me in 2014

Tracing Trouble

  • Today: 233 words
  • Total: 2244 words

January Totals

  • Fiction: 9200 words
  • Poetry: 244 words | 49 lines
  • Blog: 7208 words

Completed Pieces

  • Poem: "Before My Eyes," 220 words | 47 lines.
  • Fanfic: "Mistakes," 1397 words.
  • Poem: "Writer's Social Therapy," 32 words | 4 lines.
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Up and Down

by Liana Posted on January 20, 2014
This entry is part 49 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

So over the course of the last few days, I have fixed my computer three times and it has unfixed itself. Virus scan tomorrow.

Reading

I am reading The Flood while reading other books because frankly, I'm not ready for the Fire and Water series to be over. The other books were the Queen's Thief books by Megan Whalen Turner. A very long time ago when I was fourteen years old, my writing instructor recommended The Thief. I fell promptly and wholly in love. I never picked up the other books. This year, I rectified that and wow, these are so incredibly good. I want more too. Much more. I feel new fandom coming on.

Publishing

I got through page 20 of justifying/hyphenating the updated trade paperback interior of Dowse and Bleed. This proof already comes to hand too easily. I'm so ready to publish more and update Gone Hunting and write more. Alas! Only so much time and energy.

Writing

Started at 1696 words on Tracing Trouble, wrote 211, dumped those words, then went to the end and kept writing. I wanted to get 1000 on both this story and the collaboration today, but my computer was still crazy and my aunt visited today. I expect my evenings for the rest of the week to be similarly shortchanged.

Word Counts

  • Fiction: 526 words
  • Poetry: 0 words, 0 lines
  • Blog: 215 words

Splintered Gates

  • Today: 0 words
  • Total: 2493 words

Collaboration

  • Today: 0 words
  • Total: 3409 words*

*written by me in 2014

Tracing Trouble

  • Today: 526 words
  • Total: 2011 words

January Totals

  • Fiction: 8967 words
  • Poetry: 212 words | 45 lines
  • Blog: 6924 words

Completed Pieces

  • Poem: "Before My Eyes," 220 words | 47 lines.
  • Fanfic: "Mistakes," 1397 words.
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Today in Non-Scribbles

by Liana Posted on January 17, 2014
This entry is part 48 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

I didn’t intend to write 63 insignificant blog post words first, but I felt I owed it to you all to say why I didn’t do a daily scribble report or, for that matter, daily scribbles at all.

May I simply advise you that if your operating system ever has issues, flatten the whole thing and start from scratch. While my computer has had a productive life since that whole issue a few years back, it has also been fritzy and, at times, dangerously unstable.

Publication

So I started out tweaking the typesetting for Dowse and Bleed. In mass market size, the spacing suddenly becomes a lot more important than in trade, so I needed a little more than hyphenation to please me. I discovered that you can reduce the font size of the spaces in a line, which modifies justification without messing with line height or font spacing between letters, just words. Needless to say, this is a wonderful tool, though it also has limits, e.g. no more than a four point reduction and preferably only one or two.

Got back a testimonial to Jason Anderson, my formatter for the ebook versions who did a fabulous job. Growled umentionables at my test series bible site which won’t let me log in to add the style guide and series bible information from Dowse and Bleed.

Reading

My brain wouldn’t settle down for reading yet, any reading, so I’ll save that for the evening or tomorrow if I’m too exhausted tonight to do more than fall into bed.

Publication

Hold the presses! The proof arrived! Wow. I like it, though the cover is quite a bit darker than I expected, and I'm seeing a couple of tweaks. Oh, so exciting. I'll have to update the files. I wasn't going to finalize the mass market 'til I saw how my file did for the trade.

Wow.

Ahem. So not counting blog words for the no-scribble days simply because I can get away with it.

To all a good evening!

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Where HAVE I Been?

by Liana Posted on January 17, 2014
This entry is part 47 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

Well, to be honest, reading The Drought, Honor of the Queen by David Weber, and getting ready to dive into The Flood while also working on getting all formats of Dowse and Bleed ready for publication while trying to resurrect my dead-in-the-water home computer (registry error).

I'll get back to updating after I start scribbling again instead of just percolating and tech supporting. Did I mention tech is not my color?

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Change of Plans—on Both Fronts

by Liana Posted on January 15, 2014
This entry is part 46 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

I had a plans. I changed them.

Reading

Today, I intend to finish reading The Drought and worrying about notating it afterward. I was trying to be good and do them both at once, but I think I just want to read the book right now, since she doesn’t want notes yet anyway. Fell asleep late in the middle of the book so morning post.

Writing

Collaboration

I know what to write next, but it’s not coming and I hear a siren call. :frustrated growl: Going to switch tactics for now.

Kingdoms and Thorn

I wanted to publish twelve books in 2014. That means finishing eleven. I started writing at 1695 words in Tracing Trouble and took a break at 2298.

I had wanted to do Collateral Damage next, but every time I sat down to it, my brain froze up and everything about Kingdoms and Thorn keeps breathing Cate to me. I have the photo silhouette for the cover, the meat and potatoes of this story, the core conflict, and now, due to a song lyric search today, I have the heart of this story. I pulled a thecatisacritic and went for a song, Vienna Tang’s “The Tower.”

She turns up the light
Anticipating night falling tenderly around her
Watches the dusk
The words won't come
She carries the act so convincingly
The fact is sometimes she believes it
She can be happy with the way things are
Be happy with the things she's done

And yet I need not to need
Or else a love with intuition
Someone who reaches out to my weakness
And won't let go
I need not to need
I've always been the tower
But now I feel like I'm the flower trying to bloom in snow

Collaboration

Back on work and between editing, tweaking, and general scribbling, I got 1085 words.

Splintered Gates

So I went ahead while I was on a roll and there went 168 words in 21 sentences.

Word Count

  • Fiction: 1856 words
  • Poetry: 0 words, 0 lines
  • Blog: 362 words

Splintered Gates

  • Today: 168 words
  • Total: 2493 words

Collaboration

  • Today: 1085 words
  • Total: 3409 words*

*written by me in 2014

Tracing Trouble

  • Today: 603 words
  • Total: 2298 words

January Totals

  • Fiction: 8441 words
  • Poetry: 212 words | 45 lines
  • Blog: 6709 words

Completed Pieces

  • Poem: "Before My Eyes," 220 words | 47 lines.
  • Fanfic: "Mistakes," 1397 words.
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Publishing with a Side Dish of Reading

by Liana Posted on January 13, 2014
This entry is part 45 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

Publishing

I spent most of the morning turning out a mass market edition. My initial resizing had led me to believe my book would be 128 pages. It turned out to be 102. Needless to say, I might have to correct the spine width, but I’m hoping the difference is minute enough that I won’t: 0.05855 in.

Then, I contacted Createspace and asked them to add my second BISAC category to both editions and whether I’d plunked the Mass Market info in the correct field. We’ll see how it goes.

Got the first draft of the formatted ebook back and am very excited. Sent back four small corrections which were mostly my fault. Back and forth, then perfection! So happy.

Reading

Skipped writing for the time to read because noting what I’m reading on the tablet is a royal nightmare.

Writing

Too tired though I shouldn't be, so it's off to bed.

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Scribbling at Leisure

by Liana Posted on January 12, 2014
This entry is part 44 of 103 in the series Daily Scribble Reports

I didn't rush into anything and I took my time and here I am.

Today, I skipped reading The Drought like I was supposed to and read Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler and the collaboration fic so I could write in it.

Writing went well and is continuing. I also created the mass-market book cover for Dowse and Bleed. I like it better than the trade. I'll do the interior tomorrow.

So tonight, I added 19 sentences to Splintered Gates, which came out to 150 words. Now, I can go to bed.

Word Count

  • Fiction: 1263 words
  • Poetry: 0 words, 0 lines
  • Blog: 324 words

Splintered Gates

  • Today: 150 words
  • Total: 2325 words

Collaboration

  • Today: 1113 words
  • Total: 2724 words*

*written by me in 2014

January Totals

  • Fiction: 6585 words
  • Poetry: 212 words | 45 lines
  • Blog: 6347 words

Completed Pieces

  • Poem: "Before My Eyes," 220 words | 47 lines.
  • Fanfic: "Mistakes," 1397 words.
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I'm Not Alone

by Liana Posted on January 12, 2014

Behold! My writing process in the words of Kristine Rusch:

I mentioned in my first blog on this that there would be a lot of sausage-making in these posts. I don’t write in order (I wish I did) and characters tend to surprise me at times. So, I often have to work out how they got from point A to point YY. Some of that stays in my office forever, and some of it either becomes other projects or goes into the book.

In other words,  I don’t just write a book, I assemble it from pieces. On my very first novel, I printed out the chapters, then spread them on the floor of my office like playing cards, and put them in piles until they made sense. I can mostly do that on the computer now, with my own weird version of a spreadsheet, but it’s the same process.

A friend of mine calls that “writing into the dark” and whoa, boy, is she right. Sometimes I shed a light on a part of that darkness, see a maze, and slam the door closed. Sometimes I shed a light, and realize the room was bigger than I thought. And sometimes I shed the light, and realize what I thought was a room was really just an unimportant shadow. But I need to go in deep enough to turn on the light in the first place.

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