Jewels of Awe

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I made the goal.

No one is more surprised about this than I am.

However, I suspect realizing I didn't need chapter 25 did a lot to help me get through the end. There's at least one transition still marked with [Erin sneaks out here] and another fight scene that basically says, "We fought, I hurt my shoulder, and then I stabbed him in the eye. It was really gross." I mean, it's slightly more fleshed out than that...but really not by much. There's also a chapter not more than 500 words I'm not convinced I need. I'll have to make a decision about that soon, too.

So it's a mess. But it's a draft. 78k.

I woke up this morning inspired to finish the last part of the climax, which was mostly putting things in order and finding an exit line. After Meadows Gathering Number Two, I had the denouement, and I usually keep those around 1,000 - 1,500 words. I managed to fit it in three minutes before midnight.

Once the draft was saved in ten different places, I rewarded myself with ferret snuggles and knitting time.

Bah.
I am just a stupid girl with an unfortunate amount of misfortune.
Maybe I should share it with the world. I think I already do sometimes.
Maybe I am a child in wolves' clothing. I am probably just a sheep.
Maybe I don't know what to do now. No, I don't.
Maybe I am not here anymore. I don't know, the line's a bit hazy. The reminders gone.
People ask me all the time, "Why did you do this?" or "Why don't you have that?" and "How are you going to do that?" but I can never properly answer them. I don't have any reason for doing or not doing this or that. I make no plan, I have no cause. I'm fairly certain I have less then most people I know (except when it comes to bad luck). I do less then most people I know. I hope less then most people I know. Nothing more to say for now.

To those who celebrate, a Merry Christmas to you! *hugs*

Kind of quiet day. Highlight was hanging out in Lake George with Abbey and Nik, Kristi and Rob, and Kristi's parents, the kids' grandparents. rafaela got the wee ones The Dragonriders of Pern and the first two Harry Potter books, respectively; I got them both a few little things on the side, and then Spyology for Nik and (in my ongoing bid to corrupt the little imps over to the Geek Side of the Force) a Dungeons and Dragons Starter Kit, her first roleplaying anything; I was a bit afraid that Kristi would kill me for that, but it turned out that I should've been more concerned about her keeping it for herself. (Yes, the kids are getting it from both sides.) And lo, there was ham and seafood dip and deviled eggs, and lo, they were good.

And now, home, fed and mellow, we are settling in for a screening of A Hard Day's Night. Life is good.

And yet.

And yet, something aches this Christmas, and I don't know what. It'll pass, but I'd be remiss in not mentioning.

I hope all is well with you all. May your evening be a good one.

I'm convinced that my family and Jeff's family love me best.

No, really. Look what was under the Christmas Kippy.



Merino/silk fiber, and a unicorn Golding spindle.

--

I hope everyone is having a fabulous Christmas (or fabulous Friday if you don't celebrate today).

I've got Meadows Gathering Number Two this evening. Yesterday's went well. There was lots of food and talking, which took a couple hours. Then half the family followed us home and there was more talking (not so much food) before everyone realized it was late and left. I webcammed with a couple friends -- always a happy thing! -- and ended up with just over a thousand words in ERIN INCARNATE. Closer to being finished.

I was hoping to be able to share the artwork for Red Hood’s Revenge as a Christmas treat, but the final cover isn’t ready yet.  However, I can probably get away with sharing this new icon I made today

I had been worried about switching cover artists in mid-series.  I was scared the characters wouldn’t be recognizable.  You tell me — is this Snow, or is this Snow?

I’ll probably be scarce for the next few days, doing the Christmas thing with my family.  All the best to everyone who’s celebrating, and here’s to a wonderful 2010.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

This is fantastic. More places should make coffee like this.

Check out the similar videos too.

I hit 75k in ERIN INCARNATE tonight.

Still not done.

I'm only irritated at that because a few months ago it swore up and down it was going to be done at a slim 75k, and here we are, sitting at 75k and I have at least two and a half chapters to write, plus filling in the scene I left like a stick figure the other day. (Or was that yesterday?)

In happy news, I'd rather write than go to sleep. I haven't felt like that in a couple of weeks, and I really like the feeling of being so involved in my story that going to bed seems like a stupid waste of time. But I'm definitely going to bed. In like five minutes.

Jeff wants to risk our lives tomorrow by going out. I don't know why. Nothing exciting, I promise you. I think he just wants to be away from the house to somewhere that isn't work, which is reasonable. But if you don't hear from me and my IM status doesn't change for a few days, the mob of late Christmas shoppers got us. :P

Tomorrow evening we have Meadows Gathering Number One, and then Meadows Gathering Number Two on Friday. Three generations, plus the fourth who doesn't have the name, but we'll claim her anyway because she's cute and doesn't talk back (yet).

So I'm definitely not going to finish this manuscript on Christmas, but it's cool. We're having fun spending time together again, and I'm looking forward to revisions. I've already got a lot of notes of things I want to expand, trim, and unstink.

ETA: Actually, looking at my Scriv notecards, the chapter I skipped writing whenever I skipped writing it might not be necessary. I think I can fit important information into other scenes.

Which changes things to one and a half chapters to write. Okay, so maybe I could finish this on Christmas. The half chapter is the one I'm on now, and the other is the denouement, which is usually like a thousand words.

Hmm.

http://twolumps.net/

If you're not already playing Akoha, you need to be. It's a game devoted to making the world better. Just go see. If you do play, my user name is slipjig, of course.

Thanks again to rosefox for introducing me. (And no, I'm not using that to fulfill my "Thank Someone" mission, although technically I could.)

 Merry Christmas everyone!! I hope it's filled with love and joy and that you get to spend it with loved ones!! 

And a Happy New Year as well! May it bring new opportunities and health, wealth and love!! <3 

And Happy Holidays to those who don't celebrate Christmas! 

See you all next year!! <3<3<3 

-Catherine 

Task: Fix puzzle for the New York Times, specifically repairing the three questionable entries specified.
Status: Questionable entry #1: fixed well enough, I suppose. Questionable entry #2: looking really good, thanks. Questionable entry #3: oh, gods, please stop me before I drive this mechanical pencil through my skull. *weary sigh*

Task: Complete holiday shopping.
Status: Kids' shopping completed, with no help from the kids. (You'd think that my asking them 17 times what they wanted for Christmas might be a hint that I could use some suggestions, please.) Shopping for everyone else is only partially completed, and much of it will take place after Christmas, especially for those I'm seeing at Arisia. (Yay, excuses!)

Task: Clean litter boxes.
Status: Aw, Mom, do I hafta?

Task: Upload new steampunk Dalek icon.
Status: Totally.

Zardoz Claus is checking his list.  Twice.

Originally posted on sixbucksamonkey.vox.com

Dear Anonymous Commenter,

Thank you for taking the time to comment on my post about Self-Publishing Myths.  While the poor grammar and spelling were annoying, (something you might want to work on as you self-publish that second book), I was struck by this part of your comment:

“Lets be realistic- how many people get published through traditional publishers? When people used to ask me if i was published i would ask them if they had won american idol.
Its not about talent, its about pitching, luck, who you know and the stars aligned!”

I spent way too much time thinking about your words, trying to find a response that would capture the true depth of my feelings.  I came up with the following:

Bite me.

To elaborate, you wander over to the blog of an author who’s published five books with a commercial publisher and proceed to explain that talent and skill and work have nothing to do with it; I just got lucky and knew the right people.  Because the right people will happily risk their careers to publish their friends’ books, even if those books suck.  Is that the line of pseudologic you’re following here?

From what I’ve seen, this sort of nonsense usually comes from one of two scenarios:

1. You drank the Kool-Aid from one of the scammier vanity presses and bought into their crap about “traditional publishers” being run by evil overlords who live only to crush the souls from peppy young writers like yourself.
2. You submitted a few times, got rejected, and decided to take your toys and go home.

You go on to say, “My books are good, as im sure a million unpublished books out there are.”  Right.  Much like everyone who tries out for American Idol is sure their singing is good, and that they deserve a major record deal. 

Because it’s so easy.  Because anyone can sit down and crank out a great story.  Heck, my cat hocked his breakfast onto the keyboard last week and produced a dandy little flash piece about zombie squids.  Everyone’s wonderful and brilliant, and it’s just a lottery as the Publishing Gods roll their d1,000,000 to see which of those worthy candidates shall be chosen.

Most of the people who get rejected from American Idol are sent home because they suck.  The ones who make it to those final rounds are the ones who’ve worked their asses off to learn how to sing.  Writing is the same way.  It takes time and a lot of work.  No magic fairy is going to blow sparkly story dust up your butt and transform you into the next J. K. Rowling.

I understand if you’re frustrated.  I know it can be discouraging trying to break in as a writer.  I’ve been there, and so has every other commercial author you so casually dismiss as “lucky.”

You chose to go the self-publishing route.  Maybe because your unique creative vision was too special for the New York publishers.  Maybe you really are as good as you think you are, and the entire publishing industry was just too blind to see it.  Maybe not.  I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care.  I wish you all the best, and I hope you’re happy with your choice.  But if not–if you’re going the passive-aggressive “publishing is mean and out to get me” route to console yourself–could you please at least keep it to the privacy of your own blog?

Thanks.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

I meant to post this a few days ago, but neglected to do so. It seems to be an appropriate time to run this one again, if the cavern in my own cranium is of any indication:

Poll #1502486
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20

How are you doing right now?

What is your greatest challenge right now?

What is your greatest joy right now?

Authoress Anonymous and I (perhaps foolishly) decided we'd finish our drafts by Christmas evening. I have no idea why we thought this was possible, but apparently we're going to try. Last I heard, she has two chapters to go. I have four.

Yeah, I don't think I'm going to make it, either. *g*

I still need to write:

1. Erin finding a way down from somewhere very high that isn't falling
2. Erin running around the city looking for a cute boy
3. A cute boy's POV, which I skipped today because I'm busy being in Erin's head
4. Erin learning the Awful Truth
5. Erin standing up to various people and going to save a cute boy
6. Lots of actiony things including but not limited to, fights with dragons and sylph, and lots of people dying ugly deaths
7. Denouement.

Not necessarily in that order. (Except the denouement, of course.)

Even if I don't finish by the crazy deadline, that's okay. I'll still have pushed through a lot of hard things. Action scenes are some of the toughest for me, so today I let myself breeze through one so I can flesh it out and fill it in later. It's a stick figure action scene, but I can see what happens there and later I can make it Blue-Ray. (No really, one day it will be awesome. Just not today.)

--

Here's Kippy sitting by yarn. It went in the sink this morning (and nearly didn't fit), and it's been drying all afternoon. The side you see was at the bottom while it was hanging, so it's wetter than the rest. Of course, that's the side Kippy wanted to sit by. (Cats are so weird.)

Originally posted on sixbucksamonkey.vox.com

I think the one question that has surprised me the most since the release of Dawnbreaker is whether there will be more books in the series. I wrote Dawnbreaker in such a way that I wanted to give readers some closure after the first three books, but I never meant to phrase it in such a way that people thought the series was over. I’ve got several more books planned for the series. In fact, I’m contracts for at least a total of six, and I’m hoping to squeeze out a few more before it’s over.

As it stands at the moment, Pray for Dawn (book 4) is scheduled for release in late June, while Wait for Dusk (book 5) is scheduled for release in late July of 2010. My publisher and I decided to do a quick back-to-back release of the next two books as a treat to readers. Both books are currently up for pre-order on Amazon.com if you are interested. In the meantime, I will be spending this winter and early spring writing book 6 in the Dark Days series. After that book is handed in, I will begin sketching out what I hope will be more books for the series.

Turning to look at the convention schedule, I will be attending the Romantic Times convention in Columbus, Ohio at the end of April. It’s always a fun time filled with some amazing authors, including the amazing Rachel Vincent, Vicki Pettersson, Melissa Marr, Jeaniene Frost, Jim Butcher, and Charlaine Harris. You don’t want to miss out on this one!

In addition, I am planning to attend the Romance Writers of America convention in Nashville, Tennessee in late July. This is another chance to meet some amazing authors and get some books signed.

As for the rest of 2010, I hope to sneak in a quick vacation to Disney World and spend the rest of my time writing some great books!

I finally heard back from Will Shortz about two puzzles I'd submitted to the New York Times a while back, both of which were revisions of earlier puzzles he'd rejected for specific reasons (one daily themeless, one Sunday). Both were rejected again. Well, poop. *sigh*

I have to say, though, that the rejection notice was very encouraging, which I understand is very typical for correspondence from Will and his assistants. I'm getting an amazing eductaion in puzzle construction just from the comments; you don't just get a "no," but also a "why not." The themeless he rejected outright, although apparently "it was very close." Main problem: too many plurals. As for the Sunday puzzle, the stumbling blocks were three specific entries, two of which were stretching in different ways (which I had a sneaking suspicion would be the case), and one of which was deemed a bit too obscure (note to self: non-MTV Generation solvers and non-Trekkies are much less likely to know who/what T'Pau is/was). For the second time, though, I was specifically told that a revision would be welcome, so I have the distinct feeling that they really want this one if I can get it into shape.

So, yeah, I'm somewhat bummed, but also getting the message that I should keep on submitting stuff. Wish me luck.