Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Writing Group => Topic started by: EUOL on March 19, 2004, 04:27:13 PM
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I figured this goes here, rather than in books, since this seems more like the appropriate place for a thread dedicated to the writing process. So, post gripes about writing, problems with writer's block, questions about style--or, if you feel like it, personal victories.
So I'll start. Woot! 30 pages so far today, and it's only 1:30!
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So I've been filled with a benevolent amount of writers block for the past week or two. Everything I wrote just sucked royally. I tried writing my workshop story, but that ended up failing the first time.
But last night I finished my story, after about 7 hours of going back and forth, between this and that, and distracting myself, I finished it.
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I've had terrible writer's block for about 2 months now. I've written about 1500-2000 words in that time. I see EUOL's done 30 PAGES today (what's that, like 7500 words?) and I"m thinkingn "HOLY FRICK!" Of course, while he DOES have a job, he's not at the office and commuting for over 10 hours of each day, but still. I was doing that during November and I got over 50k words that month. I need to get out of this rut.
I have hope though, if only a slight hope. Yesterday I wrote a good 1000 words. THere's only two problems. 1) it has nothing to do with any project I even had on the back burners, though ideas for using it are coming to me.
And 2) it's well... I don't know how to say this without being blunt or ashamed, so I'll just embarress myself. It's nearly pornographic. Definitely not something Id want my children to read even when they grow up. If it was in a movie, I'd leave the theater. Why did I DO that?
SO on the one hand, maybe I am writing again. But what I've written has to be re-done to be usable. I feel like such a dork.
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As a matter of amusement, one of my friends is in a class where the teacher (female) made a huge point about the difference between something being 'erotic' and something being 'pornographic.' She said the first was okay, and the second was bad.
Kinda wish I'd been there to see that--especially at BYU.
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So here's my dilemma (other than a year-long writer's block, but that will be solved if I just sit my butt down and start writing now that I have all this extra time)--
I need character naming resources. Baby books are no good, since I'm working with a Scottish folk tale. I just found an SCA site that has some interesting information, and I might just pull a few names from their lists and use them till I can find better ones, but it just seems like my characters aren't real until they have names that fit them. Any ideas?
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I don't know if this is anything different from what you've been useing Stacer, but when I need a name I sometimes use a baby namer at MSN.com. you can choose things like what culture is the origin of the name and some other things.
http://family.msn.com/tool/tools.aspx?name=namer&dept=baby&sdept=bpc
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I'll check it out. I've actually been having a bit of success in the last few minutes with this SCA site (Society for Creative Anachronism, if you didn't know, which I'm sure you did, seeing as how most of you know tons more about this sort of thing). I've got the coolest name for my prince: Feradach. Isn't that just unique and weird enough? And for short I'll call him Dach. (pronounced the way the ch in German would sound)
Okay, maybe not very noble. I might have to rethink it tomorrow when I'm not so tired. But the story is coming along a little better.
Now, another question for you, EUOL: when you say 30 pages, do you mean double spaced or single? Because if you mean double, that means I just got 2 pages in the last hour, which is saying something since I haven't written something new in a year!
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And if anyone else has a need for medieval Scottish names, there are a number of resources here:
http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/
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I write, thanks to Dave's influence, in double-spaced courier 12-pt. That's 250 words a page if you count blank space.
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Well, that's it. I hit 40 pages today. Of course, that's getting up at 3:00 am and writing until 10:00 am or so, then writing for another four hours or so at night. Guess most people can't really do that....
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ok, well, it really is more "erotic" than "porn," and, as JP poitned out (correctly) a little forced and cliche. THough I think I can use the idea of the scene, I think those words are good for the Recycle Bin
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I used a bit of erotic in my story. Nothing really wrong with that.
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I did much better Saturday. (Friday I was obligated to attend a dessert social, as it was being held in my home). I wrote 1000 words. Which is nearly as many as I'd written total in the previous two months. I'm hoping to keep up that kind of pace so I can finish the first draft by end of April.
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Between Friday and Saturday, I think I got 1000-1500 words. However many are in that chapter I sent out. It's about 6 pages long, so that seems about right. I forgot to actually count. At any rate, that is better than I've done in a year, so I'm feeling pretty good about that. Course, the next thing is that I can't stop there. :P I think I'll try to get another 2 or 3 pages tonight.
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Everlasting book of names (http://ebon.uni.cc/)
Random name generator. I use it to name everything. Download all the extras, and it has every real place you can think of, and a lot of fake places. Has british names in there.
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/gens/ is another good one - a page full of generators of all sorts.
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Congratulations everyone.
I need outlining suggestions. The friend that I have been working on a novel with for . . . oh, the last 5-7 years, is in a writing mood again, and we really ought to get started. NANOWRIMO showed me that for serious writing, I first need a serious outline.
So, how do I do that? I appeal to anyone who has used, or uses one.
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I work with scenes. I build a story from several really good scenes that I want to tell--I take what I have, then connect them in a line. Then I go about filling in the blank space with ideas and plottings.
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Peks' Tale grew out of one scene, really. I have a whole list of ideas that I wanted to use for "knights." However, only one of them actually ended up used. But that led naturally to how I was going to build to it. I didn't outline the later part until after almost all the first part was written. It was little things that came up during the writing of the first part that gave me the ideas for the end.
The main thing for an outline is (and yeah, it sounds obvious) just knowing where you're going. What are you starting with? A character? A scene? A theme? A world? I'd do my outlining slightly different based on each of those.
With a character, I'd look at the issues most important to that character. So I'd get soem ideas for scenes that would develop those issues or character traits. A character is rarely in a vacuum, and you probably also have related characters that come up as you talk about the first character, so use them in those scenes. Then you need to connect the scenes. do that by deciding what the scenes you've got point to as a conclusion, and then drive all the connections to that conclusion.
A scene also can't exist in a vacuum. It has to have characters, so you can do the above with those characters. but Since the scene was your idea, maybe you want to make that the most important. What sorts of events could lead up to that scene. What are the consequences of the scene? keep making new scenes forward and backward till you have a good starting point and something that concludes it all.
A world is going to have a major event somewhere: a war, a succession issue, a great evil, a romance. The "world" can be small, like a town or a villa (maybe the event is a murder or a strange visitor or the discovery of a secret), or it can be a literal world with many nations (war, disease, social change), or even a collection of planets or systems in science fiction. Tell the story of that event. Or just find characters that are influential and interesting enough in your world to write about.
With a theme, you can go several routes. Create a character who embodies the theme, or make up a couple scenarios or settings that would communicate the theme. THen look above.
Naturally, this isn't all the ideas possible, but it should be enough to get you started. If you need more specific help, we'll need more than "how do I outline?" :)
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Pearls Before Swine (http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/pearls/) has quickly become my favorite syndicated comic currently in the papers (followed closely be Get Fuzzy (http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/getfuzzy), but that's neither here nor there). Today's seems relevant. Rat often writes novels about Angry Bob dying, but todays is different. Just for record keeping, here's a link to the comic in question, which has to do with how to create a scene:
"The Monkey Wept" (http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/pearls/archive/images/pearls2008133640324.gif)
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Sounds good. I'm glad I'm not the only one who starts a story with few cool characters and a few cool scenes.
So, here's my second question. Do you outline the entire story before you start writing or just outline the beginning?
I'm thinking that for me, at least, I'll need to outline the entire story before I begin the serious writing, but I will also need to be accepting of my deviations into scene writing when inspiration strikes.
I'd like to hear how everyone else does it though.
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heh, I hadn't outlined anything before beginning this novel. But at about the halfway point I realized I had introduced a lot of stuff and needed an outline to make sure I covered all the issues I'd brought up before the end.
With short stories I generally know exactly what's going to happen for the whole plot before I start actually writing. That doesn't mean the plot can't change. Like last night's story. Originally it wasn't going to involve the thief character, adn I knew where I was going. But then I had that idea and had to change the whole ending.
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Ug. 40 pages, but I teach in three hours and I got up at 1 a.m. after two hours of sleep. Must...take...nap....
(The writing went very well, though. Gotta love those eleven-hour writing sessions. When it rains, it pours.)
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I *wish* I had time in my week somewhere for an 11 hour session of anything.
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Still, 1,000 pages on Friday is nothing to sneeze at.
And EUOL, please understand that I'm jealous when I say you're disgusting. :p
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I think you mean 1000 words, eh?
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i WISH I'd written 1000 pages in a day. That would mean I'd written a whole trilogy. Or one Robert Jordan novel. Either way, I'd be good to go.
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:o Oops. I broke it.
Sorry about that.
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Roar! 22 pages. Not my biggest count, but this was a GOOD chapter.
Which, by the way, is a very nice feeling since yesterday's chapter felt weak. What do you guys do when you get a chapter like that? I'm never sure if it's just the mood I'm in--it isn't like the chapter was terrible (if it was, I'd rewrite it.) It just wasn't stellar. Some of the connecting chapters kind of have to be that way, it seems.
Still, it's always nice to follow those up with a particularly good chapter. That way you know that you haven't 'lost it', whatever 'it' is for that particular book.
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Right now I'm going back and revising my first two chapters to fit what I've finally figured out has to happen, and I think it fits the story better. So I'm not averse to going back and revising mid-stream, at least not this early in. I mean, I'm only on chapter 3. If this had happened in chapter 10 I'd be more wary of that.
But since this is my first time actually going all the way through chapter by chapter, I'm discovering my process as I go along. I've decided that I want to have a rough draft done by the end of the summer, so this gives me incentive to get a chapter a week done.
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Hummm. We'll have to try and find a way to make certain you accomplish your goal.
I know! Nagging. It's time tested and mother-approved. (Especially if it's my mother.)
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my current method of dealing with it is just to move on. Finish the draft, get comments, then come back and revise/rewrite it once I know what other people think. It may be harder to do when you have to get things done faster than I currently have the luxury to do.
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PS--response to your story sent off earlier, SE. I'll try to get to your KINGS comments in a bit. I tend to compartmentalize my books, working on one at a time, and so it's sometimes hard for me to derail myself from one project to go do some short editing on another. However, I would like to ask you some questions while the story is fresh in your mind.
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sounds good. Remember I'm on IM most nights for at least a few hours too, if you want something more conversational, you could interrupt your writing for an hour or so and pop on. (course, my presence on IM is always subject to children not needing my attention)
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Up until recently poor chapters made me quit for a while. Mostly because without an outline I wasn't sure where else to go, and the discouragement was too much. I'm hoping that doesn't happen this time.
Things are really slow at work today. It's too bad I already finished Saint's latest chapter.
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i can send you more when I get home :) (not of that story, but "stuff")
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That would be great.
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i(not of that story, but "stuff")
Aha!
Its Harry Potter Slash fic!
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The problem I've been having lately is a script for a comic book. When do I stop explaining, and when do I end the stupid thing? Too much text..... @.@
Do you guys just write until the section ends itself? Or do you need plan an ending for it to work?
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depends. sometimes I find a convenient "pausing" point fo sufficient drama to end it there. sometimes I've already planned that.
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Okay, I've got a ton of countries to name, and no idea of where to start. I've started stealing and relettering names, but what does one do for countries?
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Speaking of names, whats a good one for a small towned insane aslyum?
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Let's see, couple things to address here.
Sharm: Good question. How do I know when to end? I spent a while talking this over with my students. The main reason to end a scene is to get them to read on to the next section. Therefore, you generally want to end in one of three ways. 1) At a moment when something interesting is revealed. 2) At a moment of high tension, with something very interesting about to happen. 3) At a moment where your writing is particularly good, and the reader feels a particular empathy for the characters.
Option One: This works well for mystery style plots. Generally, you want to build a scene/chapter so that it has its own rising action and climax. The climax, therefore, when you're ending with this option is the discovery of something vital and interesting. The reader will continue on to find out what the ramifications of this discovery or revelation are.
Option Two: This is a classic 'cliffhanger' ending. I am wary of this one for writers. Don't do the 'Batman' ending. Remember, each scene should have its own rising action, and should feel complete. In comic books, you can probably get away with a bit more of a cheesy cliffhanger. However, if you do cliffhanger in this way, I think it should be continued in the very next section. I do this occasionally to signify 'Significant change in chapter tone coming up.' IE, I'll write a chapter that is building up to a character's decision to fight. Then, I'll break, and in the next chapter get into the battle itself.
Option Three: Don't underestimate this one. Good writing is always interesting, and it will always make people want to keep going. Even if you don't have a revelation or a cliffhanger, you can pull the reader along simply by writing your characters well, and ending with them being interesting. The reader will think 'I can't stop now. It's so good! I can read one more chapter.'
Hope that helps.
MoD: I bought an Atlas, picked a country, and began designing place names whose sounds fit that country. I didn't go for direct rip-offs. I just tried to use similar-sounding names that seemed like they would fit with the ones in that country. I think it gave my place names a sense of realism.
Gemm: You could always use the name of the asylum in DRACULA. (Can't remember what it is off the top of my head....)
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Well, yes. Those are very valid exit points. As for the asylum name, I could really use a name that I can, you know use. =P
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Arkham is the one in Gotham.
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Thanks EUOL, it helps. Now I just need to figure out if when I'm rambling, or else this whole first chapter will be explination.
MOD, you know I love ya, hon, but I hate the replacement letter trick for nameing things. Sometimes you can get away with it, if the origional word is unusuall, but most of the time it comes off as forced. Everyone knows what name your really using.
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That's how I do it, at least lately. It doesn't mean that you have to do it that way. It's actually very useful for characters that are so minor that it's the spelling, not the name, that is most important.
Thanks EUOL and Saint for the ideas.
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11 pages, one hour of editing, plus two or three hours of inputting my editor's changes to ELANTRIS. Not my most productive night, but I feel pretty good about it.
What about you guys? How's writing been for you lately?
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I've been really proud of myself. I've been writing on my lunchbreak about 3 or 4 times a week, at least a half hour. That's a lot more than I had been working on it, so I'm pretty excited about it. I'm working on consistency first, then I'll worry about increasing the time.
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Essentially I've been reading. Almost to the point of when I wonder where all of it comes from. (The book tree's are my guess. Someone planted a few, birds moved the seeds, and some more started to pop up.) But yeah, between War & Lit and Creative Writing I've gotten lots to read. In my Creative class we're doing workshop, which is essentially "grading" other peoples works that they submitted for the workshop classes. I have fun though.
Only 2 more weeks till this semester is over and I finish my first year. Yeah...
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writing has been sputtering. I did get almost 600 words yesterday, but I overcame two stops instead of just one. the real reason I stopped was because I was still weary from being ill, which is easier to take than "I can't hack it for tonight"
Lunch breaks have been primarily reviews, which usually run a few hundred, so I suppose I can add those in.
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Oh this reminds me, I was looking through my NaNoWriMo project from November and I found that it was atrocious. I can't believe I wrote some of that stuff. I'll probably reuse some of the stuff (gotta love recycling) since the idea(s) are good. Just... ewww...
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Yes, but NaNoWriMo is all about quantity, not quality, so don't feel bad.
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Do I have to post a bit?
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Stacer, you on for a bit? Wanna hop on a chat forum so I feel like i have someone to talk to while I write? can't promise a lot of attention, since I'm watching the kids alone today, but it'd boost my productivity a little.
nm. It looks like i'm going out for a bit.
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Sorry, couldn't help you anyway. I'm at the Family History Center this morning, till about 1. But I'll be home by 2 or so and will probably be on off and on through the afternoon--also will be rearranging my room so I can't guarantee anything. I have a party tonight but may end up staying home if I get too lazy to leave, and so it's a slight possibility I'll be on tonight.
(My roommate who's leaving is leaving me her old bed, which is SO much nicer than my old one. It's got cushioning so that you can't feel the springs! Yippee! So I'll be doing some manual labor this afternoon, and installing air conditioners. Air conditioners, already! I realize this may be something you said in Virginia a month ago, but still! It's really warm here.)
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actually, in Northern Virginia, at least, we have central AC.
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That would imply that you're living in a building less than 400 years old, I guess.
Okay, maybe not, seeing as you could be in "colonial" VA. At any rate, most of the places around here in the Inner City Ghetto, as we like to call it, have window units.
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no, the house i'm in is about 5 years old, tops. we like civilization more than history i guess. That's what Williamsburg is for.
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and all those state parks....
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nearly 1800 words tonight. hardly a EUOL accomplishment, but pretty good. I've got to go back through and add some things to this scene. and it probably needs a re-write, but at least it's written down.
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make it 1900, which is half the chapter. The Beatles "Hey Bulldog" came on. ANd since most of what i needed to add involved a large hound, I felt it was a prompting. I still need the re-write. I can't vouch for it's clarity to anyone else, but I have the rough draft down. Fine tuning comes later.
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Congrats. Remember, Dave said that 2,500 was his daily average, so I'd say 1,900 is an impressive number for a days work done by a guy with an 8-5 and a family.
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47 pages today...must keep going...
Two more chapters, and the book will be done.
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I vote for EUOL having the most freakish writing schedule of all time.
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I second that motion. All in favor?
(oh, and good job EUOL!)
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If this is the TWG parody one, then I will most definately want a copy of this. Electronically.
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heh. Well, first it's certainly not a 'TWG Parody.' I was fishing for some names, so I let some TWG people give me ideas, but other than that there's no connection.
Second, I've still got about a chapter and half left to write on it.
Third, it needs a couple weeks of revisions before it's readable. The problem is, my editor's on my case to revise ELANTRIS, so I'm going to have to jump to that for a while.
Once it's finished, if you want to be one of my reviewers, I could probably be talked into sending you a copy.
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Yeah, I'd be willing to give ya some help. But it isn't the one with the group of people that have my semi-post-apocal-symmetrical style of language?
If I'm talking about a different book altogether, do interrupt me.
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No, you're right. I loosely based the dialogue of one of the characters on your early-forum posting style. It kind of evolved from the few examples of yours I used as a model, but I'd be interested to hear what you think of it.
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Sweet, I am totally looking forward to it then.
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Would I be able to have a read as well? *Looks hopeful*
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You know EUOL makes us all look bad, him being the "Productive" one and all.
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Well, I just finished Part One of WELL OF ASCENTION. That puts me roughly one fifth the way through the book.
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Does anyone get to read any parts before you finish?
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Heh. They're barely fit for ME to read right now. They aren't even spell-checked!
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Speaking of spell-checking, I hope you've spelled it Ascension, with an S, in anything official. ;)
...Oh, and good job on hitting that mark. (Can you guess which part of editing I'm the strongest at? It's not the encouragement part, I guess.)
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well, I just finished Mistborn, EUOL. Hope you got all my emails. You should have at least a sentence on every chapter you wrote.
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Yes, and thank you. I'll get back to you with specifics as soon as I get done with this copy edit of ELANTRIS.
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At some point I shall read mistborn.
That point is, uh, not now >_>
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Whew! 642 pages into WELL OF ASCENSION. That puts me at over halfway, even if I run long. (Which, knowing me, I undoubtedly will.)
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What's your personal deadline for this, again? Wasn't it February or something?
And good job!
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I am salivating already.
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Yes, I can't wait to find out what happens next. Especially how Vin turns out.
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I'll have to take a good chunk of December off to do a MISTBORN rewrite. So, the projection for WELL is probably early March, I would think.
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I'm seething with jealousy, because that means that you have 642 pages on your project for 518, while I have 29, and I have to discard at least seven of those. This is what I get for working on so many projects at once. It's going to be a long long week.
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*bump*
The writing board has been sleepy lately. Just thought I'd say that chopping a 30-page paper to an 8-page paper is a lot harder than fleshing out an 8-pager to a 30-pager. Especially when that 30-pager was needing about 2 more drafts before it was satisfactory to me, anyway.
But I haven't looked at it for two days, so hopefully the time away from it, combined with friends' feedback, will make it a beeeauutiful thing by tomorrow evening.
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I don't know where else to put this, so I'll put it here.
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/iafa/icfa26/icfa26schedule.html
I'm allllll the way down, under Saturday, Fantasy Perspectives on Social and Symbolic Realities. Cool, huh? I guess it's technically not my first paper presentation, because LTUE is first, but I had to turn in my paper by today, so it was fun to get the schedule.
Oh, by the way, those of you in Provo who will be around for LTUE, I also just got the schedule for that recently. I don't know if it's posted on the site or not, because I've been getting it in emails. I'll present my paper that Friday at 4. And I'll be on a few panels, if you feel like going to them. Not sure they'll be all that interesting, but it's good professional experience.