Feedback

Feedback is fantabulous. I love feedback.

Today I got a nice chunk of feedback on my latest fictional endeavor. Very nice indeed. It was full of accurate, incisive indications of things that need fixing, and which will be, I think, hugely difficult to fix. Weeks of head-pounding revisions loom ahead. But! It also said the reader enjoyed the story. That makes everything twinkle with pink fairy lights.

On the Writing Front

I've backed up a bit. While reading and revising the other day, I came to a point where I felt everything up to that point had been at least OK, but everything after was really bothering me. I've gone further back, added a bit to a scene, and I'm now in the process of trying to derail/re-rail what happens after the problem point. What this means is that roughly four thousand words out of nearly forty five thousand are... if not completely lost, at least in serious jeopardy.

Which is not so bad. So, I'm back to 41k. But it's better, I think.

And I'm calling it a novel. So there.

And

You know what's really annoying? I can't post any of this stuff, because I don't want to ruin the impact when read in its proper place (assuming I ever finish this damn thing).

38k

Finally passed the 38 thousand word mark. It has been a long time coming, for whatever reason. I had to go back to the beginning, basically, and work through all the stuff up to this point, fixing things, to finally get to a point where I was able to go on. But today, it did go on, finally (I said that didn't I?). I'm even happy with the results, although, as usual, that is tempered by the fact that I will still have to come back and look at it again later.

34048

So, here we are, at the end of August. I got about thirty-five hundred words done in the last two weeks. If I can get six or seven thousand done in September, the first draft will be done. That is, assuming I can fit the rest of the happening that is supposed to happen into six or seven thousand words. I'm feeling it might take a bit more than that. (You never know, though. It could take less.)

Am I rushing along to try and get to the end? I think I might be. I think maybe I should, because once I have a framework in place, I can begin the serious carpentry. I think I like that part. Then again, maybe that's just me forgetting what that part is like.

Shuffling Forward

21006 words. That makes pretty good progress, for me. I also scribbled away a little at the current Ran's Daughter illustration, finally getting something which isn't too horrible to contemplate posting. Now I just need to color it.

So, all in all, things are going well on the creative front.

I can't post an excerpt from last night's work, though, because it would either make no sense or be too revealing. I also can't post any artwork, because I'm embarrassed how slow my progress has been, and I want to have a sequence complete before I let others see it again.

What was nice about last night was the way, on the way to one scene, I found something else happening that I hadn't anticipated. I love it when the characters start taking control.

Something to be proud of

The Dead Channel

Visit and see if you like it. There's more than just my stuff there, and more to come. I'm proud to be a part of it.