Tonight, Being Writing Night
Okay.
So as it stands, my Shadowstalkers MS is 549 pages.
115,912 words.
I revised the first third late last year, early this year.
I have about 352 pages to go through, tightening here, gutting there, fletching there so as to send to story true to its mark, like a VERY CLEVER ARROW. Or maybe a glaive. Glaives are less subtle than arrows perhaps, and I, as I have said before, am about as subtle as spandex.
56 days til July 15th, which is when Patty and I have promised ourselves our respective MSes will be ready for the Great Agent Quest.
So that's 6.28 pages a day.
Sometimes it's dreadful to work with numbers. But sometimes it's elegant. Sometimes both! Mostly, as with odometers and scales, it's a way of measuring and management.
Things to remember:
Kiri, Sita, Amal, Caitlyn, Jess, Katie, Coal and Patty all like the book okay. They love me, but they're also readers. Let me remember this and be reassured.
Howard gave me my most recent and thorough feedback and, if he's not - as he confesses - my intended audience, he's still very encouraging. The other males of my acquaintance who have read it (several years ago now) were all helpful and interested.
My brother Declan still sometimes quotes Kit in his "Really, darling!" mode -- from back ages ago when I'd used to read bits of the chapters aloud on road trips and the brothers were yet tots. It makes me laugh: some things stick!
Even if this is not the book I'd sit down to write NOW, it's still worth working on. I love it too much. I've spent too many years on it to give it to the dust. It deserves this last push, and at least a look at the world before I consign it to the proverbial Juvenilia Trunk.
All right.
So I have a deadline. I've got some numbers in my brain. It won't work out quite right, I know, because I've conventions and all manner of interruptions in the planning, but I am determined: NO SHORT STORIES until July 15th. At which point, I'll give Lady of Shades a fresh draft and send it round again. And finish that cool murder mystery fantasy story Martyr's Gem I started. And the new Jack Yap story.
Now that I've got that out of my system... TO WRITE!
LATER EDIT
REVISIONS:
Chapter 12, "Casualties," drawn and quartered. Sewn back together and restuffed with (hopefully better) stuff, but not as much.
1926 words total in chapter.
9 pages.
Some progress is made.
So as it stands, my Shadowstalkers MS is 549 pages.
115,912 words.
I revised the first third late last year, early this year.
I have about 352 pages to go through, tightening here, gutting there, fletching there so as to send to story true to its mark, like a VERY CLEVER ARROW. Or maybe a glaive. Glaives are less subtle than arrows perhaps, and I, as I have said before, am about as subtle as spandex.
56 days til July 15th, which is when Patty and I have promised ourselves our respective MSes will be ready for the Great Agent Quest.
So that's 6.28 pages a day.
Sometimes it's dreadful to work with numbers. But sometimes it's elegant. Sometimes both! Mostly, as with odometers and scales, it's a way of measuring and management.
Things to remember:
Kiri, Sita, Amal, Caitlyn, Jess, Katie, Coal and Patty all like the book okay. They love me, but they're also readers. Let me remember this and be reassured.
Howard gave me my most recent and thorough feedback and, if he's not - as he confesses - my intended audience, he's still very encouraging. The other males of my acquaintance who have read it (several years ago now) were all helpful and interested.
My brother Declan still sometimes quotes Kit in his "Really, darling!" mode -- from back ages ago when I'd used to read bits of the chapters aloud on road trips and the brothers were yet tots. It makes me laugh: some things stick!
Even if this is not the book I'd sit down to write NOW, it's still worth working on. I love it too much. I've spent too many years on it to give it to the dust. It deserves this last push, and at least a look at the world before I consign it to the proverbial Juvenilia Trunk.
All right.
So I have a deadline. I've got some numbers in my brain. It won't work out quite right, I know, because I've conventions and all manner of interruptions in the planning, but I am determined: NO SHORT STORIES until July 15th. At which point, I'll give Lady of Shades a fresh draft and send it round again. And finish that cool murder mystery fantasy story Martyr's Gem I started. And the new Jack Yap story.
Now that I've got that out of my system... TO WRITE!
LATER EDIT
REVISIONS:
Chapter 12, "Casualties," drawn and quartered. Sewn back together and restuffed with (hopefully better) stuff, but not as much.
1926 words total in chapter.
9 pages.
Some progress is made.