Progress Report? What's That?
In this case, it's one that's back to the beginning: I finally wrote the "prehistoric prologue" (covering 1 Billion B.C. to the 17th century A.D.) for Shenandoah that I'd been dithering about on and off over the past few months, finally figuring I should just write one and then decide if I want to keep it.
I don't like it as much as I'd hoped, especially the pseudo-Michenerian opening paragraph, but I don't dislike it enough to toss it. I'll keep on tweaking and then make a final decision before sending out the book.
PROGRESS REPORT FOR 8/1/10
New Words: 2400 of the prologue, "The Great Valley".
Total Words: 121400.
Reason For Stopping: Finished.
Mammalian Assistance: None.
Exercise: Walking around campus with Laurie and the dogs.
Stimulants: None.
Today's Opening Passage: A world of its own, rich with life and promises for those who would listen. Fed by rivers and running one hundred and fifty miles tucked between two ancient mountain ranges-the Blue Ridge on the east and the Alleghenies on the west, never separated by more than thirty miles. Some call it the Great Valley, taking the name from its parent Appalachian valley stretching unbroken across the eastern United States from Maine to Georgia. Others call it the Valley of Virginia, the only valley in the state that need not be called by name. But most simply do call it by its name: the Shenandoah.
Darling Du Jour: Also maybe a little dry, but I kind of like it...
Many of the Shenandoah’s stages of life can be remembered through its largest formation: The fifty-mile-long wall of the Massanutten Mountain ridge, which divides the Shenandoah River into its north and south forks, and would frustrate generations of pioneers trying to find an eastern passage into the Valley. Limestone deposited when the Valley was a shallow tropical sea is capped and veined through with sandstone from its days of steep valleys dropping into a bay. The North American collision with Africa just eastward crushed these layers sideways above a granite base, along with the volcano-formed greenstone that was pushed upward until it emerged as cliffs and faces whose gleam could be seen for miles in the flatland below. Those volcanoes also left their traces in the stepped waterfalls so treasured by hikers, and the basalt columns building the face of Stony Man, a perpetual sentinel over the Valley.
Other Writing-Related Stuff: E-mailed a query about the Camelot Book to a particular publisher that does both SF/F and historical novels. Got a positive response and so sent along the manuscript. (Deep breath.)
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Caribbean by James A. Michener; The Fall of Rome by R.A. Lafferty.
I don't like it as much as I'd hoped, especially the pseudo-Michenerian opening paragraph, but I don't dislike it enough to toss it. I'll keep on tweaking and then make a final decision before sending out the book.
PROGRESS REPORT FOR 8/1/10
New Words: 2400 of the prologue, "The Great Valley".
Total Words: 121400.
Reason For Stopping: Finished.
Mammalian Assistance: None.
Exercise: Walking around campus with Laurie and the dogs.
Stimulants: None.
Today's Opening Passage: A world of its own, rich with life and promises for those who would listen. Fed by rivers and running one hundred and fifty miles tucked between two ancient mountain ranges-the Blue Ridge on the east and the Alleghenies on the west, never separated by more than thirty miles. Some call it the Great Valley, taking the name from its parent Appalachian valley stretching unbroken across the eastern United States from Maine to Georgia. Others call it the Valley of Virginia, the only valley in the state that need not be called by name. But most simply do call it by its name: the Shenandoah.
Darling Du Jour: Also maybe a little dry, but I kind of like it...
Many of the Shenandoah’s stages of life can be remembered through its largest formation: The fifty-mile-long wall of the Massanutten Mountain ridge, which divides the Shenandoah River into its north and south forks, and would frustrate generations of pioneers trying to find an eastern passage into the Valley. Limestone deposited when the Valley was a shallow tropical sea is capped and veined through with sandstone from its days of steep valleys dropping into a bay. The North American collision with Africa just eastward crushed these layers sideways above a granite base, along with the volcano-formed greenstone that was pushed upward until it emerged as cliffs and faces whose gleam could be seen for miles in the flatland below. Those volcanoes also left their traces in the stepped waterfalls so treasured by hikers, and the basalt columns building the face of Stony Man, a perpetual sentinel over the Valley.
Other Writing-Related Stuff: E-mailed a query about the Camelot Book to a particular publisher that does both SF/F and historical novels. Got a positive response and so sent along the manuscript. (Deep breath.)
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Caribbean by James A. Michener; The Fall of Rome by R.A. Lafferty.