Monthly Archives: January 2011
Writing activity for the 8th
| January 9, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Lament of the Dove |
Small progress through Chapter 19 of Lament, pretty much, since most of my day had to go to other activities. I’m on page 19 of 23 at this point, though, so if I apply myself I should be able to finish the word count reduction for this chapter tomorrow!
I’ve been continuing to mull Oscar’s story in the back of my brain, and while I don’t have a real core plot idea for it yet, I do have a couple of beginning ideas. One, it’s possible this story may be non-urban fantasy, by which I mean, contemporary fantasy NOT in an urban setting. It may be rural/small town, and specifically, coastal. Two, I’m keying off a remark 
solarbird
Possibly whales. Possibly dragons.
More on this as it happens, y’all!
Character research counts
| January 7, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Research |
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Yesterday’s general exhaustion continues, so no new words tonight–instead, I started listening to the album of tuba concertos I purchased from iTunes, just to see what it stirs up in the way of story ideas.
I’m finding that just jotting down notes about what the various pieces make me think of is a useful exercise. This, I think, will give me some concepts I can maybe work into my boy’s story somehow.
And I can definitely tell just by listening to the first four pieces on the album that one, a smoothly-played tuba actually sounds pretty awesome. Especially if the piece is an allegro one, which gives you deep, fast, runs of notes that can be evocative of something big moving very quickly. I’m finding myself thinking of bears, of avalanches in storms, of dolphins racing whales deep underwater. I need to listen to the rest of the album and maybe another one or two to know for sure, but I definitely find myself wondering if this story’s going be in a non-urban setting. (Which would sit well with me, given that I’m in the mood to avoid a lot of the tropes you find in urban fantasy right now, and writing a non-urban fantasy would be an excellent way to do that.)
Two, it’s kind of unfortunate that the particular recording I’m listening to has obvious places where the performer is hauling in a breath, but on the other hand, I expect that’s almost unavoidable given how much air you need to get through a tuba to get it to make decent music. This however tells me that my boy Oscar, whatever social skills and graces he may like, has excellent lung capacity. 
It also tells me that I totally want him to be able to play smoothly and liquidly, like several of the stretches of music I’m hearing on here.
(For those of you who are interested, the tracks I’ve listened to so far are three parts of a concerto by Edward Gregson, and now I’m working on a concerto by Roger Steptoe. The Vaughn Williams in F minor is on here, too; I’ll get to that.)
Three, listening to music in the name of character research rocks.
ETA: Correcting Vaughn Williams’ last name since both kathryntwrog
Tired tonight
| January 6, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Mirror's Gate, Research |
But I did throw about 200 words into Chapter 2 of Mirror’s Gate, and therefore have done something writing-related! Thus, I can go to bed with a clear conscience.
Thanks by the way to everybody who has made such encouraging comments about the appearance of Oscar on my character radar! Props to sticckler
And I’ve already watched a few of the YouTube video links kathryntwrog
It’ll be a while yet before Oscar gets an actual story, I think; I am still mulling that. I can add though that this boy has absolutely no magical talent inherent to himself whatsoever. He’s bog-standard human, and as previously mentioned, his music is his one awesome skill. Now, in the usual Instrumental Duel With the Fey type of story, the mortal always wins the day because the music of humanity is supposed to be Just as Awesome as Magic–but I don’t think I’ll quite play it that way, since that’s the Expected Way, and the whole point of this is to screw around with the trope.
But it’s all good. I’ll listen to the music and let myself randomly brainstorm and see what it tells me! Woo, buying iTunes music in the name of character research!
And ha. I need a suitable tuba playing icon for posts about Oscar, I think!
Keeping the editing momentum going
| January 6, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Lament of the Dove |
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Not much in the way of raw word count reduction tonight, but I did make it through roughly six pages, and I am in the final third of Chapter 19 now. The best thing about this effort, I think, is finding one actual typo: a redundant use of a word in a sentence. And I found a couple other places where I used the same descriptive label twice too close together.
But that’s about all I had time for tonight since tonight also involved Irish session goodness! And it’s just after midnight now, and I have to go to bed.
Edited tonight: -138
Chapter 19 revised total: 5,586
Lament of the Dove revised total (fifth draft): 105,554
New character in my brain!
| January 5, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Writing |
Today my muse decided that it has a mad, mad desire to write an Instrumental Duel with the Fey story–starring a tuba player.
Because here’s the thing, y’all. You pick up a novel where the lead character is a musician, that musician is probably going to be playing one of a set of “sexy” instruments. This isn’t just a fantasy novel thing, though god knows fantasy has its share of fiddle players and guitarists and flautists and harpists–mystery and romance are guilty of this, too! (And yes, I say this fully cognizant of the fact that I’ve got four, count ‘em, four musicians in Faerie Blood–a violinist and a bouzouki player as the lead characters, as well as a guitarist and a whistle player in the supporting cast.)
But you know what you don’t get? Books that show love to the less sexy instruments, and do so in a non-comedic fashion. Anybody out there EVER read a serious story about an accordion player? How about the French horn? And I say right now that I will hand over a free copy of Faerie Blood to anybody who can find me a serious novel about a tuba player. Until that happens, I am totally going to write one.
And this will be a serious, actual fantasy novel in which the tuba player gets to save the day. I don’t know yet what the plot will be, other than that I wish to screw around with the Instrumental Duel With the Fey trope–only this time, the guy that’s going to be bringing it is going to bringing it with a tuba.
Once I decided I was going to do this, this guy immediately started taking shape in my brain. Tonight’s writing-related thing was opening a character file about him, to jot down all the thoughts bouncing around about him.
I know this much: his name is Oscar Beck, he is a prototypical gawky nerd type, and the one thing in life he is awesome at is that he can pull music out of a tuba to make an audience weep. He reads like a crazy reading thing as well because music and books are way less scary than interacting with actual people, and so he’s a big, big fan of Lord Peter Wimsey, as an example of a hero who is a) awesomely brilliant, b) a musician, and c) not handsome in the slightest, yet possessed of thermonuclear charisma! He would rather die than admit it to anybody as well, but he has totally nicknamed his tuba the Horn of Helm Hammerhand, because he is an utter Tolkien geek and he loves him some Battle of Helm’s Deep.
Oscar, it’s delightful to meet you. And boy, are YOU going to be surprised when you find out that girl in the last chair of the oboe section is way, WAY more unusual than she seems. Not to mention that you and the Horn are going to have to save the city. And possibly the world.
Props to kathrynttechnoshaman
No words accomplished tonight…
| January 3, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Short Pieces |
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But that’s okay, because I’ve been doing planning on the Psychic Chick of Size story. Y’all remember that one, right? The one with Elizabeth, the Psychic Chick of Size, and Ross, the brother of a murdered Warder?
The muse demanded I give that story some hardcore thought tonight to see if I can actually get it properly planned out, and figure out whether it’s going to be a short story, a novella, or a proper novel. I also needed to identify the culprit, and nail down what his or her motives are. And I’m pleased to report that while I have to finish writing out the rest of the outline notes, I do actually now have the plot nailed down!
I won’t tell you too much about the story for fear of spoilers, but I will say this: the culprit hasn’t just murdered a Warder. He or she is aiming for bigger prey–and the Sidhe are about to be very, very NOT AMUSED.
Also: I’m pretty sure this is going to wind up novella-length or so, based on the rough notes I’m getting and how much I know about my own tendencies of word count. But I’ll be better able to tell once I get some actual scenes sketched out. I still need a title, though, not to mention some idea of what I’ll want to do with this story once it’s actually finished.
For my own reference, just to remind myself, the current word count on the piece is at 1,981 and I’m not out of the first scene yet. Like I said: this smells like a novella.
And yay, three days in a row of doing Things That Further the Writing!
Accountability, I has it
| January 2, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Lament of the Dove |
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Two days in a row getting writing-related things done! So far, so good.
Today’s effort, scattered across several hours through the course of the day, was editing about eight pages in Chapter 19 of Lament. This puts me just shy of halfway through the chapter, and so far I haven’t lost much significant word count. We’ll see what the rest of the chapter does for me, though it may just be that I don’t need to whittle this one down all that much.
Which’d be nice, since it has some of my favorite Julian and Faanshi mileage in it:
Before Julian could say more, Faanshi stirred and whimpered, horror flickering across her countenance. All at once he grew conscious of the shape of her, of the press of her slight form against his own, and that at some point during their headlong rush her hat had gone missing. Her hair, uncovered, smelled of sweat and leather and pine needles.
“Carefully, girl,” he warned when her eyes opened.
“Julian?” Her voice was small and broken, and as her gaze shot up to his face she said his name again, with prayerful relief. “Julian!” Then she threw her arms around him, buried her face against his shoulder, and sobbed.
In consternation he froze, aware of something going loose and tender within him. After a moment his arms eased their grasp and shifted, as if of their own accord, to better hold her. “Tykhe,” he muttered. “Don’t cry.”
“I don’t mean to be a burden! Please don’t leave me!”
Hadn’t he promised to do just that on the run past Tolton, if she slowed him and Rab down or proved a danger? “I won’t,” said Julian nonetheless, that loose place within him broadening, threatening to rise into his throat, to cut off his speech. “I won’t leave you, Faanshi. It’s all right.”
When had he changed his mind?
That’s me, a sucker for making life difficult for the Rook!
Edited today and tonight: -91 (but that’s across eight pages)
Chapter 19 revised total: 5,724
Lament of the Dove revised total (fifth draft): 105,692
2011 says HIYA! And also, bring it
| January 1, 2011 | Posted by annathepiper under Bone Walker, Child of Ocean Child of Stars, Lament of the Dove, Mirror's Gate, Queen of Souls, Shadow of the Rook, Shards of Recollection, Short Pieces |
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So by and large, 2010 went pretty well for me on a personal level–but not quite so much on a writing level. I’d like to change that this year, and that means getting Seriously Back on the Stick. Here are various goals I’m going to aim for this year. Sooner is better, but I’m not going to nail time frames down to these because really, the overall goal boils down to this: Get Back My Writing Discipline. Anything above and beyond that will be cake.
In general order of priority, these are the main goals:
- First and foremost: finish the edit pass on Lament of the Dove and get the revised manuscript back to Carina Press. Current status: Chapter 19 of the word count reduction pass.
- Follow up with Drollerie as to whether Bone Walker will actually be feasible for Drollerie to pursue this year, and if so, what they need from me to make it happen. Either way, I should go ahead and finish it. Current status: still in chapter 11, and I’m about to the point where I need to plan out what’s going to happen for the rest of the book.
- Review where I left off with editing Queen of Souls and get that into queryable shape. Current status: still pretty much on Chapter 2 of the second draft.
Everything above and beyond these things is a stretch goal, right now. This includes all of the current notable works in progress, which are:
- Shadow of the Rook. Current status: Made it into Chapter 4 before serious edits to Lament made it clear the beginning of Shadow will have to be heavily reworked as well. Therefore, Shadow will remain on hold until Lament‘s edits are done.
- Mirror’s Gate. Current status: Chapter 2.
- Child of Ocean, Child of Stars. Current status: Interlude between Chapters 3 and 4.
- Shards of Recollection. Current status: Chapter 1.
- Still-untitled Faerie Blood-universe piece starring Elizabeth the psychic, and Ross the brother of a murdered Warder. It’s still not clear to me whether this piece is going to be a novella or a novel in its own right. Review of it must occur.
And oh yes: I DO still intend to do the last couple of How to Read Ebooks posts, as well as any further ones that occur to me. If anyone has specific requests about ebook-related things you’d like to see me post, please let me know!
Tonight, I can safely say that editing of Lament has happened. I doublechecked Chapter 18 and realized there was another minor scene with Celoren that I could completely nuke–partly because it didn’t really advance the plot much, and partly because removing it also addressed one of the various issues from Carina’s editor. And I’ve headed into Chapter 19, where I’ve re-discovered that I did leave this chapter in a bit of a mess after cleaning up the tail end of 17. Now I get to clean that mess up.
It’s also become clear that I will indeed be swinging back around for a sixth draft once the word count reduction draft is done. It’ll have to be the sixth draft where I go back in and put in significant new content.
And since I’ve made it a couple of pages into Chapter 19, about 20 minutes shy of midnight, I’ll call that today’s writing-related activity. More tomorrow. DAMMIT.
Edited tonight: Quite a bit, actually
Chapter 18 revised total: 3,750
Chapter 19 revised total: 5,815
Lament of the Dove revised total (fifth draft): 105,783
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