That's More Like It

Well, that's more like it.

After Friday's flailing around trying to get a handle on the story, followed by Saturday's break for yard work (and I'm still a little sore, but at my age that's pretty much standard) I had a good session working in the WIP Sunday. It was fun, and by the time I was ready to make dinner, I had enough to show Tori. She was enthusiastic, laughed a few times, said she had no suggestions, and asked the only real question a writer wants to here: "And then what happens?"

Fortunately, I have a pretty clear idea of what comes next. Having three chapte4rs of setup, with mystery, danger, some villains and an ass-kicking, it's time for a little exposition and filling in the intentional blanks. And I know exactly how I want to do that. It's time for the brothers to have a discussion, followed by mother's announcement. That'll establish their relationship, suggest the older brother's problem, and set up the next problem for them to deal with.

I've also got these, for want of a better word, interludes. Something I'm trying to give the story a little more scope. Haven't tried them since the recurring dreams in Chance, and I'm still not sure how well they worked there. It's all part of learning the craft.

So I'm going to have another cup of coffee (or six) and get to work. Have to finish before Monday night football. The Seahawks are playing.

For the record: Sunday I ended up with a healthy 2,130 word count, bringing the total to 3,449. But it's not the number of words, really, that are important. This time I think they're the right ones. And it was fun. Really like the characters.

Spinning Wheels: So What Comes Next?

 “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Stephen King

The last words I posted when announcing I'd finished the revision of Scurvy Dogs! were "Now what do I do?" That wasn't hyperbole. I've spent two years with Scurvy Dogs! as my focus. It's done (for now.) What comes next?

I'm not referring to the next step. That's clear enough. Wait for and incorporate any of Tori's comments, send it to Eddie the Agent, wait for his thoughts. Meanwhile, wait for Eddie's notes on Chance. That's a lot of waiting.

And I'm hampered by the fact that as soon as those things happen, I have to work on those projects. Chance has a lot to recommend it, but is likely to need a lot of work. Starting a new project today that I'm just going to have to jump in and out of as other work intervenes doesn't sound appealing.

It's not like I don't have other ideas to work on, thoughts that seemed promising, which I jotted down. But at most I have a couple of weeks to work on any of them before other things will intervene.

On the other hand, I don't have time for dithering, either. I am not a young man and my lifestyle does not conjure images of long years ahead of me to do all the work I want to. I feel like the lover in Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress.

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
...
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.

Yeah. So I need to get to work I want to take a look at my failed third novel, The Bones in the Closet. There was something there that had the kernel of a good story, but it went off the rails really badly. Very frustrating experience, and it kind of scared me. Got out of control and made me wonder if I really could do this, despite the fact that I had written two previous books I thought were pretty good. That failure made starting Scurvy Dogs! a little nerve wracking. Although in the end, I really think it's my best effort yet.

Perhaps I have just enough time before all the various notes start coming in to look over Bones and figure out what went wrong and how to tell the story I thought I was going to before the story got lost – literally – in the forest.

If not, I've got three ideas on the list after that. The point is, I'm a writer, so I should write. It's part passion, part compulsion – and part a job, without the luxury of taking time off. But launching the next project is another leap of faith.

Like Stephen King said, "The scariest moment is always just before you start."

It's 4 in the Morning, and I'm Finished

I thought I was almost done around 6 p.m., when I turned the computer over to my son Max, and got up to make dinner. Then, while sitting in the armchair after eating, something occurred to me that I should have thought of two years ago. I jumped up. Literally, I jumped out of the chair and almost touched the ceiling. I've gotta be careful, my hamstrings aren't as tough as they used to be.

It made total sense. Itchy John's knife. Bring it in again at the end. And if Buck had known about the squire and blamed him, that would bring that whole thing full circle to. It's like the old play writing maxim, if you show the audience a gun in the first act, it has to go off in the last. It applies here to. There's no point putting something in that doesn't have a payoff later. It's just wasted words. And you can't put in a payoff at the end if you haven't set it up in the beginning.

So I went back up into earlier chapters to set those things a little more firmly. Then I tossed about half of what I'd written today and got back to work.

It's now 4 a.m. on Aug. 21, so technically I missed my deadline by a day. But since I haven't been to bed since I started working this morning, I'm calling it one writing session. The last for Scurvy Dogs!, at least until Tori checks in, and then Eddie the Agent, and then whatever publisher buys it.

As Jubal Harshaw says in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, editors like the taste of the coffee better after they've pissed in it.

And now I'm done. I wrote 4,538 words today, a little more if you count the stuff I tossed overboard.  Scurvy Dogs! is complete at 64,911 words, which is right about where I always thought it would be.

Now what do I do?