azhure: (dreaming tree)

I have spent this week scribbling with red pen on my manuscript.  Ten chapters down, and I am at a crossroads.

I have made one discovery: the title The White Raven is all wrong for this book.  The previous title I had used – Thought and Memory – is the right title after all.

And I seem to have several superfluous characters.  They worked for the previous version of the book, and while I really love them, I think I may need to excise them.  It’s going to make for a lot more work and rewriting, but I think this version of the book will be better for it.  It also pretty much means that most of the second half of the book will be thrown in the trash.

And I still don’t know if this is going to result in something that I’m going to be able to send to agents or publishers.  But I guess even if it doesn’t, I’ll have learned something.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

azhure: (dreaming tree)

IMG_3074

And the desk starts to get messier ;)

Two chapters of The White Raven decorated with red ink today.  And some more of my story background and mythology worked out.

I really had forgotten how much fun I have editing.  I was having a ridiculously good time today.  All I need is a manuscript and a red pen!  Of course, I am in the section of the book that doesn’t require massive changes.  Give me a handful of chapters more and I’ll probably be complaining.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

azhure: (dreaming tree)

This morning it is raining.  Good, proper rain (though it seems to have stopped for now), which we haven’t experienced in Perth for a very long time.  There’s a chance of a thunderstorm today, too, which I hope pans out.

(And we pause for a moment while my kid decides that the back of my laptop is tasty.  Well, Mummy, it has an apple on it!)

I got actual proper sleep last night – seven solid hours.  Here’s hoping that the current bout of teething is over, so I can catch up on sleep a little.  The kid woke up earlyish at 6:30am, but that’s entirely doable when I’ve had actual sleep.

Yesterday, as you will have seen, I spent a lot of time printing out the last draft of The White Raven, along with my character sketches and story outline.  I started working on inputting my character sketches into a fresh Scrivener document yesterday and will continue to keep working on that today.  Then, I read through the last draft and see if I can get a working outline.  I’m going to be ripping out the guts of this draft, which is something I really enjoy.  If I could employ someone else to write my first drafts, I’d be happy, I think.  But we all have stages of writing that we don’t like.

Reading yesterday: I finished Sue Isle’s Nightsiders, the first of Twelfth Planet Press’s Twelve Planets books.  Enjoyed it thoroughly, and now I also want to work on my dystopic Perth book.  I’ll be starting Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Love and Romanpunk today, which I am looking forward to greatly.

More Game of Thrones last night, which I am still enjoying enormously.  Giving serious thought to reading the books at the same pace as the show.  I have read the first two books in the series, but it was long enough ago that I’ve forgotten the details now.  And I have to give mention to the latest episode of Doctor Who, which is up there with my favourite episodes of all time.  How can you go wrong with Neil Gaiman and Doctor Who.

 


 

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

azhure: (dreaming tree)

IMG_3021

The desk, newly cleaned in preparation to begin work on another draft of The White Raven.

Manuscript all printed out (minus a chunk that was still printing when I took this) and ready to be attacked with red pen.  Some reference books and caffeine.

Now, I get to see if I can make something useful of this book.

(Also, anyone who’s beta reading the last draft for me, it would be helpful if you could get some general impressions back to me soon – thank you to those who have!)

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

Tumbr

Jul. 19th, 2010 11:22 am
azhure: (me window cross)

Since I seem to be working primarily on The White Raven right now, I started another Tumblr account, this one devoted to inspiration for this book.

Things like this:

The Drop

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

Tumbr

Jul. 19th, 2010 11:22 am
azhure: (Default)

Since I seem to be working primarily on The White Raven right now, I started another Tumblr account, this one devoted to inspiration for this book.

Things like this:

The Drop

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

azhure: (Raven white and black)

I’ve been working on The White Raven, and, along with writing a very detailed outline (in which the book is becoming very, very different from its last incarnation), I’m also putting together a new playlist.

This is Alanna’s song:

I’m not sure what I’m looking for anymore
I just know that I’m harder to console
I don’t see who I’m trying to be instead of me

All this running around, well it’s getting me down
Just give me a pain that I’m used to
I don’t need to believe all the dreams you conceive
You just need to achieve something that rings true

There’s a hole in your soul like an animal
With no conscience, repentance unknown
Close your eyes, pay the price for your paradise
Devils feed on the seeds that are sown

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

azhure: (Default)

I’ve been working on The White Raven, and, along with writing a very detailed outline (in which the book is becoming very, very different from its last incarnation), I’m also putting together a new playlist.

This is Alanna’s song:

I’m not sure what I’m looking for anymore
I just know that I’m harder to console
I don’t see who I’m trying to be instead of me

All this running around, well it’s getting me down
Just give me a pain that I’m used to
I don’t need to believe all the dreams you conceive
You just need to achieve something that rings true

There’s a hole in your soul like an animal
With no conscience, repentance unknown
Close your eyes, pay the price for your paradise
Devils feed on the seeds that are sown

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

azhure: (Default)

Today’s progress:

Project: White Raven draft one.

New words: 2,021

Total words: 51,829

Goal: 100k

Writing:

I started late today, thanks to my own procrastination (I really need to cut down on blogs and rss feeds again), and honestly expected a kind of crap writing day.  I should know that usually heralds a fairly decent day ;)

Got into a section of the book that’s tough to write.  I’m actively torturing pretty much every one of my characters emotionally now.  Which hopefully makes for some interesting reading.

Real life:

Went for a walk this morning.  Grocery shopping.

The human suit is having a bit of a complain this morning.  Back’s randomly sore, which has made it a bit hard to concentrate.  Sometimes my default writing place (on the couch, with legs up and laptop on lap) is a really good thing.  Today it just made my back hurt more.  And yet I still sit here.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

azhure: (Default)

I have decided that I work much better when I make myself accountable for the work that I’ve done.  I’ve had a bad couple of months of low productivity, and I’m determined to turn that around and start being productive again.

And so!  The return of metrics posts.  Wherein I will get shameful if I don’t actually make decent wordcounts.  Apologies to anyone who finds them boring - feel free to skip over them if you don’t find them of interest at all.

Today’s progress:

Project: White Raven (draft…umm, one of this current incarnation)

New words: 1862

Total words: 49,808

Goal: 100k

Writing:

I’ve been doing a kind-of-productive writing wherein I write a bunch of rough words, then go back and edit them at least once before I move onto some new words.  It’s really been slowing me down and frustrating me, so I think it’s going to be back to churning out words without editing until the end of the manuscript.  I’m not sure if I want to inflict my horrible first draft rambling onto my beta readers, though.  It ends up being kind of a mess.

I am just frustrated with this novel, even though I’m really enthused about writing the second half of it.  I want this draft to be done so I can work on polishing it and then getting it out there.  And so I can work on the other novels kocking around in my head.

Real life:

Went for a walk this morning, for which the human suit is thanking me (and complaining a little).  I’ve also set up cross-posting properly from Wordpress to both Dreamwidth and Livejournal, so public blog entries will be available on all three platforms.  Not that hardly anyone actually reads from Wordpress ;)

I’m also making a concerted effort to catch up on review reading.  Of which I have an insane amount to do.  And several reviews that need to actually be written.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

Aha!

Mar. 9th, 2009 05:39 pm
azhure: (Default)

Last week was pretty much completely useless for writing.  I found myself completely stuck - not blocked, but stuck, not wanting to go any further with the current draft of The White Raven.

Over the weekend, amidst much pondering and wondering, I figured out why I was stuck.

And I think I’ve figured out how to fix it.

Unfortunately for me, it’s going to require a complete rethinking of this novel.  As in, I’m going to chuck out about half of what’s there right now and rework it.  Which means that I’m going back, essentially, to a first draft.  One with some good bones in place already, but with a lot of fleshing out between those bones required.

This book actually has a very long history with me.  The original concept came to me somewhere around age 20, and I’ve tooled around with it on and off for years.  Which shows in how bloated the plot has become.  I’m streamlining it, and hopefully it’s all going to work better this way.  As it is, I’m looking forward to working on it now, which says a lot to me.

[cross-posted from my website]
azhure: (Default)

This week was actually a good one for writing.  The last few days have been hot, and we’ve been without air conditioning, which resulted in my brain melting, which resulted in this week’s wrap-up post being late.

And if that sentence made any sense, you’re doing better than I am straight away.

I got a good deal of editing done, and enlisted the services of some beta readers to try to nut out what wasn’t working about the first chapter of TWR.  I think I know what’s wrong now, mostly, and I just need to figure out how to fix it.  I have some ideas, I just need to play around to see how it all fits together.

I also had a random epiphany on how to change something in the upcoming plot so that things mesh well better with the main storyline.    It’s kind of like putting together a jigsaw right now.  I’m heading towards the dreaded middle of the book, where it’s way too easy for me to veer in three hundred directions at once.  Hopefully my trusted betas who are reading these edits chapter by chapter will help me keep on track.

[cross-posted from my website]
azhure: (Default)

I’ve decided that I’m going to try to update once a week as to how the edits of The White Raven are going.

This week, I’ve managed to get the first two and a half chapters edited.  I’d really like to get the last half of chapter three done, but the brain’s begging for a rest right now.  Maybe I’ll get enthused over the weekend and get it done.

It’s surprising me how much I’m liking this book.  The hard part is that I really want to write the companion novel, which occurs parallel to this one.  Argh.  I really should plot it out as I’m going.  Hm, actually that’s a good idea.  I’ll do that.

I also have all kinds of mad plans to make forays into a YA book, since they seem to be a pretty hot commodity at the moment.  But can I write YA?  I guess I try it and see what happens.

I’m really wishing for more useful hours in a day right now.  I’d love to be able to sit down and write for at least 5-6 hours (or more) and be productive.  You’ve all heard this from me before, though, and there’s no real sign that it’s magically going to happen.  For now, I’ll just have to be content with the good hours that I have, and the room I have to work in.  Things could be far, far worse.

All I have to do is keep on writing.

[cross-posted from my website]

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