Feb. 25th, 2009

abracanabra: (hairtwist)
(I dreamed a dream-within-a-dream, something that is mighty unusual for me. My recollection is all fragmented, though.)

Me, my parents, and my two brothers (I have no living siblings) were setting up our living quarters in a house we would be temporarily in. I was cranky because we had to fit three people and three beds into one small room for me and my brothers.

There was great danger, but me and my group thought we could maybe bluff it out. There were about four of us. We entered a darkened amphitheater where monsters sat in ranks. We thought we'd be okay, but then the small bunnies in the very top seats began to laugh. They weren't their usual cheerful self. Some sort of black tendrilled ooze was seeping from one to the next, black slime matting their fur and pouring from their eyes. When it reached them, they began to laugh. We backed out of the room, with the green-maned god guarding our rear. In the corridor, we ran. We had to escape the castle before we were caught. We took the fire escape stairs. At the bottom level, we peered out the window as a horde of creatures swept past and then back, returning from an unsuccessful hunt for us. As soon as it was clear, we ran down the corridor, but when we passed a set of stick-and-stone 30-foot-tall statues, they came to life.

I woke up in my new bed with a start that knocked off the flat screen TV on the drawers at the bottom of the bed, but I caught it midair before it could break. The weight pinned me (I suspect a cat was sitting on me at this point.), and I waited a while to see if anybody would answer my calls for a little help. They didn't, so I moved it, and somehow that meant I had to rearrange all the furniture in the room. It meant that I had a worse view out the window, but that didn't really matter, because I knew I had to get back into the dream, which was real, or something terrible would happen.
abracanabra: (writingblue)
02/20/2009 - Friday, full+ work, even if it is at home
* Posted writing log.

02/21/2009 - 02/23/2009 - Saturday - Monday, working on work project in every spare minute.
* Replied to critiquer's request for a critique of his critiquing.

02/24/2009 - Tuesday, mostly work
* Updated market list from Duotrope.
* Added March MinnSpec writing group meeting and submission deadline to calendar. Still annoyed I missed that this month.
* Read Writing-World, Critters, FFWSmallMarkets, FundsforWriters, WritersDigest newsletters.
** Added "The Art of Fiction" (1984) by Gardner to my reading list.
* Added books bought to writing expenses spreadsheet.
* Processed Gaea's crit of the last 6 chapters of Vicesteed. Woo-hoo! Another person makes it all the way to the end!
abracanabra: (Default)


Palimpsest is a sexually-transmitted city.

It is a virus, an addiction, a heaven and a hell. It is a city that lives within the body: those who visit it find their flesh marked with black lines like a streetmap, a tattoo that cannot be removed.


That's [livejournal.com profile] yuki_onna talking about Palimpsest over on Scalzi's blog.

Her stories are jewels inlaid in a lattice of myth and magic and heartbreak, and she's a skilled artisan. (Her blog posts aren't half-bad, either, if you're looking for somebody else to follow.) I've been following her blog for years now. She has another book out, Palimpsest. I'm pimping it (as yet) unread, with all confidence in her skills. The Orphan's Tales was beautiful and filled with thought-provoking chewy bits, and I expect Palimpsest to be better.

All about the music and jewelry and art and perfume and chocolate and other wonderful things inspired by this.
abracanabra: (Let Me Tell You a Story)
02/25/2009 - Wednesday
* Posted writing log.
* [livejournal.com profile] penthius freewriting, "Birthday-Wishing Chimps."
* Made editing changes to Vicesteed, Chapter 7.


Deleted from Chapter 7

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
1,318 / 4,959
(26.6%)


Old chapter wordcount: 4,959
New chapter wordcount: 3,641
Vicesteed Draft 1 wordcount: 207,877
Vicesteed Draft 2 current wordcount: 192,195
Which scene is it anyway?

He stopped keeping account of the contents of the piles. It was difficult, with the hands moving so fast, and he most sincerely doubted any of it had any hand in the cause of the prince's illness. He was tired. He wished for his lunch and his armchair. Although the housekeeper had promised him lunch, it would not be in his home, with his daughter sitting across the table. He could not have a leisurely cup of tea while considering the mating habits of the unfaithful husband.

He smiled. At least there was one advantage to this business.

Reason for deleting: Didn't really fit with the rest of the scene. Unfaithful husbands were never previously mentioned, either, so it was rather a non sequitor section.
Notes:
Huh. I guess I did pretty much maintain my cut ratio. I felt like I was leaving most of this in--there were a couple of sections where I cut a paragraph, and no longer sections. Most of it was a word here and a sentence there. I really like this chapter.

Or, should I say, I really like what used to be this chapter. This is what I did today: finished making editing changes to chapter 7, and then restructured everything I've edited from that POV so far. That's three chapters. I took the first half of the second chapter and merged it with the first chapter. Then I took the first half of the third chapter and merged it with that. Then I moved the second half of the second chapter and shoved it behind the second half of the third chapter. All in the name of getting "the good stuff" into the first three chapters, which is the usual sample amount an agent will want. I think it works better now--I really wanted to get the ragman into the beginning.

There is no longer a Chapter 7. There is a placeholder. Chapters 3 and 5 have been reworked, to--I hope--good result.
abracanabra: (Default)
  • 09:02 Had a dream-within-a-dream, 2 separate narrative lines. Neat.
  • 12:10 Amused by writing notes I leave for myself: "Move this section to previous for clue enhancement."
  • 12:30 Dear "Halloween Discount" spammers: You've got your season wrong.
  • 14:56 Phil's writing advice: "A first chapter, if written for men, should take no longer than a bowel movement to read."
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