So I'm taking out the entire mercenary plotline of my book. It's pretty huge. It means there's nothing keeping Aramen from heading right to Ancastle (except the size and slowness of his army, which still keeps him to about 2 miles an hour). It means there's nothing to make him separate the women and send them on ahead, so the Hocks won't attack and ( Read more... )

I'm trying to RIAW (rewrite-in-a-week) because I need SOMETHING to motivate me into finishing this darn book. And still, I've written about 1/2 a page and keep coming back to LJ, or getting up to get a snack, or do laundry, or whatever ( Read more... )

Steve Breaston is my new hero. Holy freaking cow, batman. I mean, seriously. The only thing he didn't do during the game today was rise from the dead ( Read more... )

Dare I say that I am finally happy with the Baler scene as written? It needs to be good; this is one of the most exciting parts of the book. And at last I think I have the tone right, the right POVs, everything that has to happen (Savonie meeting Merilas while Merilas is blind, Savonie discovering Harod survived, Forn revealing his intentions ( Read more... )

Huh. I should probably have lunch, eh? I'm retyping a section of my book because it's much too scribbled over already for me to possibly add anything more to it, but I realized that if I move Savonie's journey to Baler from nighttime to midday, I lose the opportunity to contrast her with Tharlie in a social situation, and am left with no place to ( Read more... )

Okay, sometimes I just amaze myself. A few weeks ago I rewrote a scene in the early part of Aramen's journey from Reist to Ancastle. With my new focus on action, it occured to me that I needed to have something HAPPEN in this scene, something more than just Aramen musing about his chances against Rearc, the stupidity of Forn's attraction to Savonie ( Read more... )

Stupid cat. Not that I would ever mention anything to him, because I'm sure it would hurt his feelings, but it's very unnerving to be roaming around the kitchen and then turn around and find a black cat sitting there, watching you ( Read more... )

And then every now and then my parents will do something very cool like call me at 6:30 and say they want to go out for Italian, and I end up with a fantastic stuffed eggplant al forno with a nice class of Chianti ( Read more... )

From the harshest critter in my online writer's group:

This still is the most interesting opening to any novel I've seen dropped on the list this year, with apologies to everyone else! It is still burdened with a great deal of Telling but parts of it are very nice, and the hook is so very strong. It is a grand entrance to a promising tale.Yeah, I' ( Read more... )

BREAKTHROUGH BREAKTHROUGH ( Read more... )