Timewaster's Guide Archive

But that explains my lack of progress on anything literary and absence from this August forum.

Bah, excuses, that's not what we're - oh, wait.

I myself personally am currently just shy of 50k, and will continue to be so for approximately 1.5 weeks. I suppose I could cut back on the nonessentials of life and manage both writing and uni, but that way madness lies. Madness, I say!

It's interesting that Von Bredow seems to be the only one who can shield her out.

I'll make a note to dwell some more on this in the next draft, to clarify that a bit.

Should be "repulsed" instead.

I thought so, too, but "revulsed" was the word that first came to mind when typing, so I thought I'd stick with it. "Repulsed" does seem to imply some kind of an actively repulsing agent, which isn't entirely what I was aiming for.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

The latter, she feels reluctance from him, too.

As to the flailing, that shall be fixed in post as well.

The same goes for the pills. I pretty much forgot about them while outlining, so nobody will be doing any analysing in this draft. But they will in the next, even if it only turns out to add a scene or two. I'm also trying to avoid having to research too much at the moment, to be honest. I did make a large note to myself to "DO. THE. MATH.", but to no avail.

As I understood it, the "good" philosophy that ryos wants to see is what regular Cerebrants follow, and only the heretics, i.e. the Potencers, use up the soul itself. It seemed quite clear to me when first I read it, but now that I've read the critiques and gone back to read it again, the passage explaining the system seems somewhat confusing.

Anyway, to begin with the bad, there are some words and phrases in there that seem out of place ("no, I'm good", "cool" used not to describe temperature, "in one fell swoop").  I would also agree that you should tone down Tav's thoughts some during the memory scene, although I do think it's a good place for exposition, and you handled that nicely.

What bothered me more about that scene was that the descriptions of the setting came a bit too late. I initially assumed that the lord was part of the besiegers and not the besieged.

That said, I enjoyed the action very much. That might not be saying much, though, as I pretty much love everything that features a bayonet charge.

By the way, will you be addressing the issue of there not being enough souls if the population increases? That was one of the first things that occurred to me when I read about the whole reincarnation deal.^^

I'm sort of on a run at the moment, and want to get as much written as I can while it lasts. And I really don't want to expose you to a wholly un-edited draft. That would be cruel.

Also, I finished my very first chapter-length chapter just now.

My submission shall come next Monday

I second that motion.

My little way of saying, "that's a really long outline."

If I remember correctly, you actually said that already.


Edith adds:  Of course you do, Flo!

That's quite the outline, Flo.

I've finally reached 20k, too, which means the manuscript is now longer than the outline by a third or so.

Also, I may have accidentally outlined two novels. Oops.

Do you think the issue with the many viewpoints is specific to the beginning? I.e. would reading feel less like work later on if the beginning took longer to set up the various viewpoints? Or (as has been mentioned in one of the other threads, I think) would simply connecting the plotlines take care of that? Say I had character A go someplace and meet B, skip a bit of time and carry on from B's viewpoint.

Or maybe I'll have to simply condition myself to be more patient and write longer scenes.