Story of the Day
Today was a day of beginnings—the Vardin kind, the kind that will hopefully start a new way of living my world.
On the mundane fronts, I had a job interview today, a job interview yesterday, and a very busy life trying to get thank you and Christmas cards written. Turns out that I'm behind on everything, especially reading other people's books, but I'm hopeful that come January, I will be gainfully employed and financially independent. Yay.
On the writerly front, I was talking (f-locked) to trovia and also to Kira Butler about sketching and layering as a writing process.
I write it as if it's fanfiction, as if everyone in the world knows exactly what I'm saying, then on the next layer, I really think of the ambience and context from my character's POV and layer in more and anything I think must be understood by the reader, then last I really think of the uninitiated reader and tuck in all the necessaries to help them along. Ship to beta, go back and layer in with answers to all her questions.
It got me to thinking, and I decided to do something I hadn't thought of before, hadn't dreamed of—just. write. the. story. down.
Forget the fancy words, the narrative, the dialogue, the beautiful scenes; just get it down! It's a lump of telling just now, split into paragraphs at the appropriate junctures with the occasional nugget of real written story begun. I'm not incorporating the mess of material already written because it bogs me down getting the whole big picture on paper. When it's finally down, we can layer from there.
Vardin Word of the Day
vishata | vishahta [ vi SHAH tah ] or [ vi SHAH tuh ] from v-sh-t (etym. Old Vardin)
ht. n. #p. 1. originating historical events, usually presented in a series or set of stories; 2. the set of records detailing the stories of the founding members of the Houses of Vardin.
vishata, hunter plural, the happenings which cause or originate a particular period of time, usually the present era.. s. vashet, pl. vishata. [from Old Vardin, v-sh-t.]
Written Work of the Day
Yesterday, I began work on sketching out The Rothnen Cycle. It's a sketch, not an outline or a draft in the traditional sense, though it will be once that sketch is fleshed out, so I arbitrarily set 120,000 words as the book word count goal (this is perhaps an understatement), and I will be regularly posting progress counts (unless you all announce that you would rather I not, in which case, I'll throw them on a page somewhere—like my sidebar—instead).
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| 1369/120000 words. 1.1% done. |
And a scribble for good measure:
It was a late wind—too blustery, too wintry for the turning of spring to summer. Keisleh closed her mouth against the cold, ragged tickle it left in the back of her throat.
Rec of the Day
So M.C.A. Hogarth has a Pinterest at last!
Anything new going on with your muse or writing process? Any special things you've read or places you've visited?
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.
I'm happy to see your progress bar for the Rothnen Cycle. You do realize that by posting it you're giving me permission to nudge you if the bar doesn't move for a while? 😉
Me, I'm 10K into a new novella (10K! How'd that happen so fast?). Have plans for revising a short, writing a short. Am working on a fun fun (secret) project that I still need to brainstorm. Instead of being overwhelmed by my To Write list, I'm determined to be excited and glad that my Muse is overflowing with ideas. 🙂
Drat it. I just gave you power! Ah well, that in itself is probably a good thing. I wish I knew how you get in that fast. There was a time, a time, when it took me three weeks to turn around a 22,000 word juvenile novel. And it was good. Characterization, story solid, beautiful and written just right for the family audience. That was the last book I finished, and there's a part of me that gets afraid I think every time I can't seem to get another one done.
It'll happen. I finished "The Singer", after months and months and pulling teeth, and then other short stories followed. I know it will happen. I'll get a book-length project done and then the block will finally have the shove it needs to stay gone. It's getting that one written. It's pushing past that first time.
My reaction to writing fear is to type faster! I figure that if I get those floodgates open, the sheer volume and velocity of words will wipe out any blocks in the way. *wryly*
I like it. I just dumped all my disparate notes and scribbles (not all, just almost all and working on it) for Vardin into Scrivener and there was more than 93,000 words in there! Now to just turn those into coherent words!