Tuesday night, zzzzzzz
Hmm. I can't say exactly how much I got done today, since it was in scattershot places, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000-2500 words, so: good times. I'm actually feeling really wiped out this week, which either means that I'm fighting off some kind of incipient cold or it's a hormonal thing--I have tons of laundry to do and trash to take out, and it's all I can do to peck away at the laptop. (Upside: Sci-Fi was running a small X-Files marathon today, including "Bad Blood," "The Post-Modern Prometheus," "Home," and a Doggett-Reyes episode that I pointedly ignored. It was one of my better days for background television.)
Meanwhile, my mother, bless her heart (and I mean that sincerely, not in a Southern Snark way) is driving me crazy. And I think part of what's driving me crazy is that I understand where she's coming from, but I don't know how to measure or communicate what she wants to know. What happens is that she comes home every day and asks me how far along on Black Ribbon I am, even though I have told her that I don't know and that I have no way of knowing. I can tell her how many words and/or pages it currently is, but I cannot say how long it will be when it's done, and I can't be entirely sure how many scenes are lacking, as I'm at a point where I'm making up a lot of expansion as I go along. This just how I work, honestly, and part of the reason academic papers give me hives is that I literally do not know when they'll be done until the moment I go, "Hey! That last paragraph was pretty much it! There's nothing left to do! It's done!" A lot of this has to do with the fact that I work out of order. I can't help it; it's the way I think. And it kills me because I know that she's always believed in me as writer, even when I was five years old and writing "books" in crayon. My family has been supporting me financially because they believe in me, and I think we're all kind of looking at this as The Project That Makes Me Financially Independent. Of them, I mean; not independent of working at all. So I understand why she wants to know. But I've told her my goal is to finish this by my birthday, which is in almost exactly two months, so you'd think that'd give her a time frame, right? But today I'm like, "Today wasn't quite as good as yesterday, but it was still 2000-2500 words or so," and she says (hopefully!), "So is it almost finished?" Is it almost... is it... IS IT ALMOST FINISHED? ARE YOU SHITTING ME? And she keeps asking if I can give her a percentage ("Is it 80% done?" The only thing harder than saying "I don't know" is "Well, I do know it's hardly that done"), and I can't. I don't know. I feel like I'm on top of things, but "things" can't be quantified at the moment. I'm thisclose to making a frickin' bar graph of all twenty chapters showing approximately how much may or may not be done, except that I'm afraid imaginary numbers may be involved ("Chapter 7 = 3a x [15b +4c] - 54i"). I want to tell her what she wants to know, and I understand why she wants to know it, but I don't know how to express the answer in numbers, dammit!
Anyway, I am deeply of the tired, so I have only a tiny spot of linkspam for you today:
For those of you who have read Erik Larson's Thunderstruck: Notorious Dr Crippen wrongly hanged, scientists say. "But they concede that other evidence clearly shows that the body could only have made its way to Crippen's house when he and his [allegedly murdered] wife were living there." To be honest, I had wondered why Crippen would poison and mutilate his wife.
Chocolatier resigns after "extraordinary act of truffle-squishing" in a rival store.
Hey! It's a new Crap Email From A Dude! "You Have Destroyed True Love."
Time Bandits map reproduction.
Entertainment Weekly previews Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier. Whee!
Dumbledore is "Machiavellian," and Snape "Vindictive" Says J.K. Rowling, handles rogue bra with aplomb.
Tim Burton to Speak in NYC & Sweeney Todd Press Days Set.
A filmgoer’s guide to bad sex with Christian Bale.
Meanwhile, my mother, bless her heart (and I mean that sincerely, not in a Southern Snark way) is driving me crazy. And I think part of what's driving me crazy is that I understand where she's coming from, but I don't know how to measure or communicate what she wants to know. What happens is that she comes home every day and asks me how far along on Black Ribbon I am, even though I have told her that I don't know and that I have no way of knowing. I can tell her how many words and/or pages it currently is, but I cannot say how long it will be when it's done, and I can't be entirely sure how many scenes are lacking, as I'm at a point where I'm making up a lot of expansion as I go along. This just how I work, honestly, and part of the reason academic papers give me hives is that I literally do not know when they'll be done until the moment I go, "Hey! That last paragraph was pretty much it! There's nothing left to do! It's done!" A lot of this has to do with the fact that I work out of order. I can't help it; it's the way I think. And it kills me because I know that she's always believed in me as writer, even when I was five years old and writing "books" in crayon. My family has been supporting me financially because they believe in me, and I think we're all kind of looking at this as The Project That Makes Me Financially Independent. Of them, I mean; not independent of working at all. So I understand why she wants to know. But I've told her my goal is to finish this by my birthday, which is in almost exactly two months, so you'd think that'd give her a time frame, right? But today I'm like, "Today wasn't quite as good as yesterday, but it was still 2000-2500 words or so," and she says (hopefully!), "So is it almost finished?" Is it almost... is it... IS IT ALMOST FINISHED? ARE YOU SHITTING ME? And she keeps asking if I can give her a percentage ("Is it 80% done?" The only thing harder than saying "I don't know" is "Well, I do know it's hardly that done"), and I can't. I don't know. I feel like I'm on top of things, but "things" can't be quantified at the moment. I'm thisclose to making a frickin' bar graph of all twenty chapters showing approximately how much may or may not be done, except that I'm afraid imaginary numbers may be involved ("Chapter 7 = 3a x [15b +4c] - 54i"). I want to tell her what she wants to know, and I understand why she wants to know it, but I don't know how to express the answer in numbers, dammit!
Anyway, I am deeply of the tired, so I have only a tiny spot of linkspam for you today:
For those of you who have read Erik Larson's Thunderstruck: Notorious Dr Crippen wrongly hanged, scientists say. "But they concede that other evidence clearly shows that the body could only have made its way to Crippen's house when he and his [allegedly murdered] wife were living there." To be honest, I had wondered why Crippen would poison and mutilate his wife.
Chocolatier resigns after "extraordinary act of truffle-squishing" in a rival store.
Hey! It's a new Crap Email From A Dude! "You Have Destroyed True Love."
Time Bandits map reproduction.
Entertainment Weekly previews Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier. Whee!
Dumbledore is "Machiavellian," and Snape "Vindictive" Says J.K. Rowling, handles rogue bra with aplomb.
Tim Burton to Speak in NYC & Sweeney Todd Press Days Set.
A filmgoer’s guide to bad sex with Christian Bale.