Bubbling Up

That's my city Michael Lovitt, who has a wonderful article on cross-browser PNG transparency in ALA, also has a lovely photo gallery of San Antonio (admittedly from a tourist's perspective). Someday I'll get a decent camera and shoot a few lesser-known spots, like the fountain outside Crossroads Mall (it's almost Zen, really) and El Chaparrel, which is the only Mexican restaurant in town better than

The WB has given permission for David Boreanaz to appear in the Buffy finale if this is its last season. If the source is reliable, this is huge, fantastic, wonderful news. The lack of crossovers between Angel and Buffy has been particularly senseless this season, between the parallel apocalypses taking place and Buffy's ongoing references to their relationship.

Potato Shack is open in Bryan! Woo hoo!! I've been comparing the Treo and the HipTop/Sidekick, and I've just about worked myself up to buying a Treo. It's cheap right now, the coverage is better, I still get the ability to take notes and sync with the PC (as I do now on the Visor), and I can keep all my Palm OS goodies. The only point in the Sidekick's favor is that it has a camera built in, but how often do I take pictures? Granted, I've often wanted a camera phone, but it's not worth the loss of the Treo's other features. My dilemma now: go for the itty bitty qwerty keyboard, or stick with Grafitti?

When good interfaces go bad, take 2 For months I've been swearing at the email client I have to use at work because in the Mac version, the user has no control over the font used to display the messages. You can specify this on outgoing messages, but not on the ones you read. The manual says this is because the font size is hard-coded into the client -- only in the Mac version. So after five months of squinting at my email, this morning I discovered that making the whole window wider increases the font size in the message display. ... Whoever designed this interface needs to be dragged into the street and shot.

Some people have far too much spare time: there is a memorial page for the villain who met his end on this week's Buffy. It's very, very silly, although his epitaph is an amusing reference to Buffy's.

Lunch writing: 2/3 of a page on Friday, 2 pages on Monday, none yesterday, and a page and a half today. Whee.

Thoughts on turning 25 I feel so much better about my life than I did a year ago. It took two job switches, but I'm happy with the way things are going now. I have a bean. eeeeeeee! A couple of years ago I promised myself that I'd have my book done by the time I turned 25. It isn't finished, and in fact I'm not even working on it at the moment... but that's OK. If I had tried to finish it just to meet the birthday deadline, it would have sucked. I'm much happier with the current novel-in-progress than I was with the tripe I was churning out on the old one. I'll get back to that one when I'm a better writer. Belated New Year's resolution: finish something. Anything.

I really, really need to rant. If you don't give a rodent's behind about web design, skip to the next post. For the rest of you.... a certain fellow employee, in a distant but related part of my organization, hired a freelance web designer not long ago to create a new site for his department. Since this department had no webmaster of its own before I was hired, I think his initiative laudable. However, the same cannot be said of the designer (who shall not be named). This guy: a) did the entire site in frames, with no <noframes> content b) did the site in Frontpage c) did most of the navigation and content in images without ALT text d) ... similarly, paid no attention to other accessibility features required by law e) couldn't be bothered to write proper code Check out this shining example, from the main navigation frame: ... <body topmargin="0" leftmargin="0"> </body> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" id="AutoNumber6"...> ... </table> </html> There are several things wrong there, not the least of which being that the order of elements is so hosed that some browsers, including Dreamweaver's design window, won't even display the table. GAH. The designer (who shall not be named) had better not set foot within 20 yards of this building, or he shall face the wrath of she who must spend her day fixing his stupid mistakes.

Today on Wired: Even security-conscious sysadmins are amused by the constant hacking of the RIAA website.

Mmm, novel fodder.

Year in Review Well, 2002 didn't suck, despite two job changes and a distinct lack of progress on the publishing front. Thanks to everyone who made it not suck. Tonight or tomorrow I will relate my adventures over the holidays. For now, I would like to point out that Sweet Home Alabama, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, My So-Called Life, Much Ado About Nothing, Anne of Green Gables, Buffy season 3, and Angel season 1 are all coming out on DVD between now and February 11. Hello, couch. Also, for the three people reading this who have also read Queen of Camelot, the sequel is finally here: Grail Prince, by Nancy McKenzie.

Holy shit.... Mafia has taken over the New York publishing scene, apparently in much the same way that Thing has become the late-night game of choice during writing workshops. Too funny. (via Boing Boing)

In other news, my hair and I are friends again. I'm glad that a couple of days ago, when I wanted to chop it off and/or spiral perm it, my better judgment won. (Conditioner. Conditioner is the key.)

Anyone besides me not getting anything done today?

Busy morning roundup: The Onion's Two Towers infographic: "Much like hero Frodo Baggins, many married viewers would like to cast their burdensome rings back into the fiery chasm whence they came." Lots of stuff from the SciFi Wire: Buffy cartoon not dead yet, more Max Headroom (maybe), Matrix reloaded pictures (*drool*), and Kevin Smith may be writing Mad Max 4. It's a weird world. Tantek's blog features a lovely piece on writing good HTML. That sounds like such a simple thing, but keeping your markup simple while applying lots of CSS to it is about as easy as dealing with fourteen nested tables used to be. He also links to this little Flash cartoon, which I also found terribly funny.

Whoa... DirecTV DSL is history. That's pretty surprising given how often - and how recently - they've been showing the DSL commercials during DirecTV-specific commercial slots.

No lunch writing today; went out with friends instead. Getting twitchy... must write soon. More on Building Accessible Websites: finally finished chapter 6. Bleh. Chapter 7 was OK but its subject (Text and Links) is pretty hard to screw up. Chapter 8, Navigation, is a gold mine.

The server saga continues... Apache and Perl are installed but not playing nicely together like good little children should. MySQL is, I'm told, also installed. PHP is too, but it needs some configuring. Movable Type isn't installed yet. Gotta get Perl working first. Argh.

More writing not yet typed: Friday lunch (1 page?), Saturday on the side of the road on the way to San Antonio (1 page), Sunday on my Visor during Christmas carols at church (roughly half a page). Technically that last snippet is typed, but not in a format I can count words automatically with. I hadn't planned on getting any writing done over the weekend - knew Christmas shopping with my mother would take up all time and energy - so I'm quite pleased that I managed even a little bit. Oh, and my Christmas shopping is mostly done now. That is progress.

There's a secret garden on the Blogroots site: an introduction to blogging, what blogs are, and how to get started. Nicely done. (Actually, it may not qualify as a secret garden at all, because I don't think it's linked to *anything* on the Blogroots site.)

Firefly has finally bought the farm. It's peripheral to my TV-watching, interesting only because it's part of the Buffy/Angel family (though not the universe). I hated the premiere. I've downloaded one other episode (had some extra bandwidth to burn) and haven't watched it yet. It has the fascination of a train wreck rather than a good story.

I am William Gibson. (via Making Light)

This just in: PicturePop is a brilliant little utility for OS X that lets you preview an image by right-clicking it in the Finder. Awesome. (via Six Apart.) Wrote one tiny snippet and some notes at lunch. Fingers too cold to hold pen... oh, btw, Monday's lunch writing turned out to be exactly 400 words.

Words I don't use often enough: carom. No writing since my last post. (Damn the holidays.) At least lunch writing is a possibility today. Today, we have had power but no network. Today I have felt like I imagine amnesia victims must feel, at least after the initial shock has worn off: I keep reaching for knowledge, knowing it's there, but I can't quite get to it. SF writers have been predicting neural 'net connnections for years, but I already feel like the net is an extension of myself.

More lunch writing today... about a page and a half (400-600 words?) which I will type up later.

Chalk up a few more points for shower-induced inspiration. I came home from my yoga class with every intention of working on the server and hanging the curtains in the living room, but a complex set of scenes ambushed me in the shower. Two thousand and sixteen words later, I feel like I could still go for a while longer... and I just might. I *love* 2000-word days.

Here in the office, we keep having power outages. The lights are on one breaker and the outlets on another, so our computers go suddenly, disconcertingly black while around us everything appears normal. Yesterday things stayed dead for so long that eventually the lights went, too, and there was nothing left to do but drag my chair over to the window and read by the wintry gray light. We did consider going to the restaurant next door for drinks, but what's the point of going to a bar if the blenders are dead? (The admin assistant points out that she prefers her 'ritas on the rocks anyway. Nyah.) The book I curled up with was Joe Clark's Building Accessible Websites. I had gotten bogged down in this last week, but things picked up again once I got out of the quagmire that is chapter 4. Chapter 5, as it turns out, is a gem. I'm tempted to photocopy parts of it and force it on our graphic designers who insist on doing things the 1997 way. Chapter 5 contains such unexpected delights as "HTML has been tarted up considerably since its earliest days" and, on Bobby, "Do not rely on software as dumb as a dromedary to evaluate accessibility." Clark is one of those rare few who write as honestly and plainly in books as they do online. That said, I thumb my nose at chapter 6, which is much too long and rambling. A section about pop-up windows does not belong in a chapter on images. I'll let you know about the rest of the book once I've finished slogging through "The Image Problem." I have read the appendices, though. They're wonderful, particularly the one about accessibility and the law. I must warn you, however, that if you approach the colophon with the same anticipation you held for the appendices, you will be sorely disappointed. It's nothing but navel-gazing (mostly about typography). At least Clark has the good sense to relegate this stuff to a colophon rather than diluting his appendices with it. I suppose I should go get some work done while the power's still on.

The Literary Review Bad Sex Prize is here again. (Do I have to warn you that there's some explicit stuff behind that link?) Pinstripes and Ethan Hawke and Chairman Mao.... oh my.

A while back, I tore my hair out trying to find a way to print a list of the files in a directory. I was in Windows at the time, and finally found a little DOS utility that did a decent job. But, as usual, it's so much easier in OS X!

Luke Francl has updated the Word Unmunger to handle Word X's crazy if-then tags. Go grab a new copy!

More on disemvowelment: a Making Light reader has created a Movable Type plugin to perform the disemvowelment automatically. Holy shit, they've finally fired R.C. I don't remember an A&M without the man. I think you'd have to go back a generation to find someone who does. Salon has an article on why books cost so much. As far as I can tell, the author has done a pretty good job with it. Aspiring authors will want to read it in conjunction with Patrick Nielsen Hayden's comments on the state of publishing. The interview is two years old, but not out of date just yet. Glaciers move more quickly than publishing, generally.

The Wall Street Journal has a hilarious article on profiling by computers -- or, what to do when your TiVo thinks you're gay. I think by now we've all seen Amazon's recommendations for "clean underwear" (would you buy any other kind?) from its new clothing store. The bane of my Amazon existence is kitchen gadgets. I bought a couple as gifts last year, and now that's all my Gold Box ever contains... until today, when it coughed up the Rocky Horror Picture Show DVD. I'm not sure I want to delve into the workings of an algorithm that thinks Rocky Horror and stainless steel kitchen utensils belong together in any context.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has discovered a wonderful punishment for blog trolls: disemvowelment. (That's not a typo.) Her innocent housekeeping post drew a troll from Patrick's blog, and she (to the amusement of her readers) has merrily thwarted his efforts to make a nuisance of himself. To join the fun, read the comments thread. (You may have wondered why a housekeeping post deserved 90-odd comments. Now you know.)

I have a couple more pages to type later. Writing at lunch is going much better than usual on the new project. It helps that I really like all my characters, and they're much more distinct than the ones from some of my other projects. I'm having a lot of fun writing the youngest of the four siblings, the alchemist. In my opinion, alchemy is sadly underused in magic systems, given that it has so much potential for mayhem.

Typed up all the stuff, finally. The grand total is 2100 words (so far), but 600 of that is in the notes. Not a great total by NaNo standards, but just right for my usual goal of 500 words a day.

New Novel, Day 4 I'm really going to have to name this at some point. I spent lunch today figuring out what the fourth sibling's particular talent is, and how he's going to be crucial to the plot later on. (I knew I needed him, but had no idea how or why.) Wrote half a page or so, plus notes. In other news, I think I have a title for the desert novel (now that I'm not working on it): Fallen. Or perhaps The Fallen. Can't decide. (Don't have to, yet.) Since a lot of things fall down in the book (stars, a city, a dictator), it seemed to make sense.

I've been adding to the new novel, but it's all handwritten and I don't know what the word count is yet. Maybe I'll get around to typing it up this weekend. Wrote a couple of pages Monday night (new novel day 2) and one page yesterday (day 3), which I felt was pretty darn good given that I was home from work because I was dizzy and exhausted.

I got stuck at 3K for my NaNo novel. But after an entire weekend of being a bum, last night I came up with a totally new idea - new world, new characters, radically different style for me - and I'm loving it. I cranked out six pages of notes and snippets without breaking a sweat. This is going to be fun.

Hmm. Yesterday's total was actually a little over a hundred, now that I've typed it up. Along with today's work, I have exactly 800. Yay, only 49,200 to go!

I started my November novel at lunch today. *looks at calendar* *looks back at writing notebook* Only 75 words done so far, not counting notes or the 8500 words in the previous version of the story. I might be able to salvage a few of those, but not many. More tonight. Lunch is too short.

Things have been slow. Last Thursday I wrote 10 pages - fanfic, of all things. I haven't written junk like that since I was a freshman in high school. Argh. But the scene played itself out in my head during lunch, and I tweaked it and made the smallest of reminder notes during the afternoon at work... and when I got home the bad prose poured forth with very little hesitation. I think I may have discovered the secret to Nanowrimo. Similar tactics got me two pages yesterday - on the real book, this time.

I was sitting here about to post, and I just had the most brilliant idea. Back in a few.

700-ish words on Sunday and 500 words last night - a minor breakthrough, I think, and not just because it's the first thing I've written in a while, but because it provided a key bit of worldbuilding. I owe both tidbits to the Liaden Universe books, which I devoured last week. They made me realize that while I have characters, I have very little context. I need to give my people a society to play in! This sounds so silly - you see, I thought I had, and then I read this series and realized how wrong I was.

Still no writing, but this time it's because I've moved. My writing files are in at least four different boxes, to say nothing of my research and reference books. Oh, and I have no desk. Despite all the chaos, I've been mulling over things regarding that novelette I took to VP. I came up with one or two more novel ideas related to it, and now I'm wondering if I haven't stumbled onto a romance/fantasy niche (currently occupied only by Susanna Clarke's short stories, to the best of my knowledge).

Not much writing to speak of - a few notes on the mainstream novel, thoughts of reworking my VP novelette. I'm far too easily distracted. If I don't post writing progress tonight, someone slap me!

Wrote 760 words in a mad dash after my shower last night. I've just finished typing them up and I realized that one of the scenes isn't really a scene at all, just a quick outline. I'll try to write it properly later this week. I finished Buffy. Yay!

No writing to speak of this week. I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer obssessively, and it's sparked plot ideas for the gaping black hole of plotlessness that used to the second half of the book. I have plot now. I also have motivations for several supporting characters, which makes it a lot easier to write them. I've brought home dozens of little scraps of paper from work with ideas scribbled here and there, and this weekend's task is to assemble them all. And to start season 6.

178 words last night - another as-I-was-falling-asleep ambush. It's going to need rewriting, but it gets the idea across.

And that makes 30K. Whee!

Writing at work again - 81 words and a cool plot twist for the end of the book. Total for the week is 1672, assuming nothing else jumps up and bites me before tomorrow's group meeting. And it better not - I have other things that need doing tonight!

183 words at work this morning. (Bad me!) That puts me over 1500 for the week (so far) which is a Goodness because I'm starting the Breakout Novel course over at Forward Motion tonight, and I have to work on an author website, and I'm going to be very busy for the rest of the week.

Someone remind me later to turn on the archives for this blog, OK?

... and I seem to be tapped out. I had hoped to reach 1500 tonight, since that was my goal for the entire week in my writing group, but 1408 is a very respectable total for a weeknight. (Hell, I can't remember the last time I accomplished that much on a weekend.)

Added 91 to that last bit....

... another 560. If only I could do this every night!

.... another 678 words. Two nice little scenes, both important.

Just typed up 79 words scribbled on a note at work this morning. I wrote a full page of notes last night that popped into my head as I was trying to go to sleep. I'm going to work on building some scenes out of those, and see how far I get tonight. Apparently an entire week of watching nothing but Buffy has spawned a few plot ideas. Yes, thank you, roll your eyes and reach for the Back button. I'll just be scribbling in the corner.

Tonight's total: 904 words. The early part will need to be rewritten, but overall I think it's a pretty strong scene. Mike, can I have my Buffy DVDs back now? I've been a good girl! Got my quota for this weekend's writing group (if we're meeting at all), and it's not even Friday yet.

Clearly it's been too long since I wrote longhand - I can no longer estimate with any accuracy at all how long a segment is. That little scene was only 124 words. Ah, well. It's still good.

Saturday's accomplishment was a new plot twist and an 800-word synopsis of the book. I needed to write that; I just couldn't keep my brain wrapped around the overall concept because I got so lost in the nifty details. No doubt it will come in handy when it's time to market the thing. Last night my wrists hurt too much to type anything, even an email, so I read for research (A Distant Mirror), then worked on Patricia Wrede's worldbuilding questions, skipping over the ones that seemed painfully obvious and/or irrelevant, and answering others in detail. That made me think about a few things, like commerce, that were lurking in the back of my head waiting to make an appearance. That in turn clarified the bad guys' motives. And then, as I was falling asleep, two short scenes ambushed me. I hadn't planned to get any real writing done! I was quite pleased - it was a logical continuation of an old idea, just something I hadn't thought of earlier. And it adds new twists to several plot points. I'll type it up later and report the word count - it's probably just 200-300 words, but good stuff all the same.

Forcing myself to write before I could watch the Farscape season opener worked beautifully. I needed to get 1K done before my writing group this morning, and I did 1002 just in time to turn on the TV and settle in. This afternoon I'm going through the printouts of all my writing files, and I've just had the best idea yet to explain the bad guy's motivation. It's beautiful. I think it'll work. I'm going to noodle around with the rest of the plot and see if the magic will extend to that part, too. Haven't done an actual word count in a while - part of the printout idea is to find where things are repeated and if there are any more scenes that I thought I'd already written but haven't yet. Anyway, with this week's work it ought to be somewhere around 27.3K.

116 words tonight - though I could swear I've written this idea before. Can't find it anywhere else, though....

No progress to report - I've been tied up with other projects and books - but I did think up a plot twist this morning. Gotta count for something.... Last week's plot changes are still percolating. Progress will be made this week. I met with a new (to me) writing group on Saturday. I love it! They don't exchange critiques. Instead they sit in the coffee shop and talk about writing for several hours every other week and write down the goals we hope to have met by the next meeting. It's great, and low-stress, and I think I'm far more likely to accomplish what I set out to do in a setting like that.

I had begun graphing my progress in Excel - something I picked up in someone else's newsgroup, I'm sure - but I'd let it go, and I've just now updated it for the last month (since I've faithfully recorded my word counts here). A slow but somewhat steady climb, with the current total at 26,171 words.

.... which I've just written into a quick 200-word outline of the early chapters in the later storyline of the book. This is one of those ideas that really ought to have occurred to me years ago. (Yes, I've had these characters in my head, off and on, long enough that I can say that.) It's such a logical explanation for bringing the characters together in the first place, which is something that had stumped me for a while. I knew Aver had a reason for visiting the city, but I had no earthly idea what it might be until tonight. (Well, I'd invented a reason, but it was forced and awkward, whereas this one feels right.) I've gone on a book-buying spree, mostly to do research. Realized that I ought to know how others were writing about lucid dreams, so I picked up a copy of Graham Joyce's Dreamside. Also realized that I still need to finish the story I submitted to Viable Paradise, so I bought some Regencies to get a feel for how they're written. My only experience with them when I wrote the story consisted of Jane Austen and The Rushden Legacy, a hilarious book written by Melanie Rawn under a pseudonym before Dragon Prince was published. Clearly I needed to do some market research, but I hadn't bothered, and this led to all sorts of glaring errors in the story. I read my first Georgette Heyer book over the weekend, and I must say I was a bit disappointed, given her reputation. I have another of hers - perhaps this one will be better - as well as a few by other authors.

Was ambushed by 534 new words tonight. It's kind of a short retelling of a short story I wrote a while back, which was set in the distant past of the world of the current novel. I started to write this just to remember an idea I had that might help fix that (hopelessly broken) story, but then it morphed into one character telling it to another and analyzing it a bit in light of current events. And that sparked other ideas....

About 550 words tonight, mostly background stuff rather than story-words. I could probably do more, but typing really hurts right now.

Damn. That isn't available as a print, and the lithograph goes for about $2500. Clearly, I need to finish this novel and sell it to the highest bidder!

I saw a new-ish lithograph by Michael Parkes this morning while I was looking for art for my office. It looks nothing like anything in my novel, but it's sparked a whole slew of ideas. Pretty soon it will look like things in the novel, since I'm already changing things in my head. I think I'll leave out the cats.

I've been scribbling more notes at work. I brought home seven little slips of paper yesterday and began typing them up. Some of them dealt with the web company I'm working on (more on that later) but there was a tiny little scene of about 160 words in there. This morning I woke up and had four more little fragments running through my head. They were really tiny - the total was only 260 - but each of them addressed a really difficult place in the novel and got things moving again. Well, three out of four - the fourth one was an addition to the scene I mentioned above, which goes with the Jane novel.

Now, this is odd - I was perusing the Booksense 76 and stumbled across this hardcover, which uses the same cover photo as Queen of Camelot, in a dfferent shade of monotone. Really, the art directors at the different houses ought to have lunch together more often; they're obviously using the same stock photo catalogs.

Shortly after my last post, I caught the cold from hell. I'm still coughing. Then I burned three fingers - second-degree, ouch - and couldn't type for a while. The long and short of it is that I've been reading instead of writing - again. I'm almost all the way through the Amelia Peabody series, and I polished off Nancy McKenzie's Queen of Camelot in one very long day while I was home from work. Excellent book. I did scribble down a few notes for the desert novel at work yesterday. Elizabeth Peters's plots are outrageous, whereas mine are boring. One of her more effective plot twists struck me as something I could use. That thought has led to some mental reworking of how the two timelines will interact. I've also decided to scrap my outline, again, along with the narrative structure. It's gotten too restrictive, though I was really hoping to keep it. Oh well. So much for my decision to work on Alice instead. No matter how often I stop writing this novel, I always come back to it a few days later. I suppose this means I'll have to finish the damn thing.

Another 216 words in a late-night ambush. Total for the day is almost exactly 700. And to think I'd planned to be a vegetable after work today!

Oh, yeah - Trading Spaces was really cool this weekend.

I've come to the conclusion - once again - that I'm really not ready to write the desert novel, not until I've done lots more research. But since I'm under a deadline for a writing workshop this weekend, I'm working on a different chapter one. For my long-time readers, it's the untitled nanotech thing known as Alice. This, I can write - it draws on my experience in The Job From Hell, both my work in admin and what I picked up about water treatment and waste remediation from reading the scientists' proposals and reports. (Mental note: must let Michelle read it when I'm done. She'll get a kick out of it, and she'll recognize all the sleazy characters as former coworkers.) It's definitely easier when I know what I'm talking about. I've just invented a new operating system for Alice's computer network, and I've written 480 words in under an hour, when my usual goal - the one I don't meet - is 500 words a night, in roughly two hours of writing.

36 words. WHAT a total. I'm just generally brain-dead tonight. I'll probably be much more productive reading a book or something. However, I did want to share the thought yesterday that got me going again: When I die, would I rather be able to say that I saw every episode of Trading Spaces, or that I finished a novel?

503 words total. Woo hoo! Thanks to Erin, whose journal entry last night made me feel really guilty about not writing. :) (Note to self, in case I forget before tomorrow: some of the Tivaazin are part of the Companies. Not all of them, though.)

170 last night and 220 so far tonight - and I just had an a-ha moment. It explains so much! (How can you explain to a non-writer that you know what's going to happen, but you don't necessarily know what leads up to it? In my experience they just look at you. *blinkblink* *blink*) I've committed to a writing workshop on the 20th, and I intend to take chapter one at the very least. Which means I have about a week to finish it. It's so much easier when there's a gun to your head (so to speak).

400 words tonight. I think it fits in chapter six, though if that's true, the section that's currently in chapter six will have to happen later. why do I bother to outline? Saw an interesting show today on the Travel Channel - Secrets of Ancient Rome. They talked a bit about the Oracle at Delphi, and I had a few "why didn't I think of that?" moments. It all fits so beautifully with what I had planned. But I'm realizing more and more that, as usual, what I'm really missing here is plot. That's why I get stuck so often - I have a set of core characters, but not enough of a supporting cast, and my plot is completely uninteresting. ARGH.

Another 150 words. I feel so much better! I really have to get back to doing this every night. I get unbelievably grumpy when I haven't written in weeks.

I knew I needed a con. Woke up this morning with a scene in my head, for the first time in ages - and it's part of the elusive chapter one! Wrote 450 words without breaking a sweat. And now I have a really excellent excuse to get Rainen into the city, and I can shed a little light on his character while I do it. I should point out that this is the first writing I've done since I started my new job - March 4, the day after my last post here. Working sucks.

Whoops... another 115 words on a completely unrelated scene - one I hadn't even thought of until it popped into my head. I love it when that happens!

Another 150 words. I've written part of the kidnapping (for some reason it's like pulling teeth) and part of the aftermath. Also came up with a spiffy plot idea for later on, but I don't know yet if it will work. Probably won't know for another 50K or so, at least. Did I mention I've just realized this is going to be a really long manuscript? I have 25K or so - which for some people would be about a quarter of a book - and I have barely scratched the surface of my outline. Scary.

I got ambushed by 300 words tonight. In the old outline, this is a scene that would have taken place offstage, before the book begins. But I like the idea of putting it in the first few chapters, showing how things are supposed to work before I turn them upside down. Still haven't written that kidnapping. I was working on the overall tone and the outline when that scene smacked me upside the head.

258 words so far. I haven't even kidnapped Rainen yet - so far I'm just fleshing out the scene I started last night. This is me stalling. I haven't really decided yet how the kidnapping scene should play out.

I probably ought to be reading research books - somehow I always forget to do that before I start writing! - but I started reading Empires of Sand a few nights ago. The beginning was fantastic - almost as good a beginning as the first chapter of Snow Crash - but I'm finding it harder to suspend my disbelief as the characters do silly things. What keeps me going, however, is the knowledge that eventually they're going to leave France behind and head off to the Sahara. Which is how I'm justifying reading the book in the first place.

Wrote 150 words exactly for the new version of chapter one tonight. Slow going, but I'm pleased with the result - and it actually adds something to the story, unlike the junk I trimmed over the weekend. I still haven't gotten Rainen into the city, but I've given him a damned good excuse for wandering around the riverbank on his own in the middle of the night. Now all I have to do is kidnap him. No problem.

I haven't written the new bit for chapter one yet, but I did cut 2000 words. Argh.

Had an a-ha moment - I think I know how to fix chapter one, and thus the entire flashback thread in the novel. -- doing a happy dance --

OK, so it's not quite horse puckey. I'm still missing some files (I'm sure they're on my laptop) and I know the problem is due to the fact that at one point I was working on four different computers, with three remote accounts for backups. How do you guys keep it all straight? My best method so far has been to make sure all the files end up (somehow) on my desktop machine at home, where I can use Dreamweaver's site synchronization feature to upload or download only the files that have changed. This is a very happy thing, but it still leaves files scattered all over creation. I read Jon Katz's Geeks in one night, and now I'm not sure why I bothered... it was amusing, but didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know. I started reading Jane Smiley's Moo during lunch yesterday, and it looks to be hilarious if I can keep the cast of thousands straight between sittings. Off to ConDFW tomorrow. I'll take the printout with me and try to be productive. (Ha ha ha.)

I'm printing the whole dratted thing so I can reread and get back into it. I'm working from a backup that's missing most of the stuff I added during November (bad me; must back up more often) and it's still well over 100 pages. I've glanced over the files as I printed them. It is quite possibly the biggest pile of horse puckey ever assembled on paper. Well, maybe better than Newt's book.

I've finally typed up the stuff that I mentioned in the last post. Hanah's scene is 75 words, and there are about 300 on the San Antonio story. I'm calling that one Local Flavor for the moment, but I'm hoping to find something better.

I wrote a quick scene during church yesterday (I'm going to hell, but I'll have a novel!) that I think will be the turning point for Hanah. Then I wrote an outline of a short story late last night, no doubt inspired by my weekend in San Antonio, about snooty people there and a mansion that wants its owners to leave. Ought to be fun to write - I'll get to bitch about the things that drive me nuts about my hometown.

I'm back. Welcome to the new and improved Bubbling Up, now powered by Blogger instead of hand coded by me! I wrote a grand total of 85 words last night, but that's better than nothing. I started (again) reading The Bedouins and the Desert, which is always good for inspiration. In the few pages I read, there was a discussion of Bedouins historically using tamed wildcats to hunt for them. Fascinating. Unfortunately the author has never seen this in practice, since it hasn't been done in living memory. He doesn't offer much speculation as to why.... but I bet I can come up with something.

Bubbling Up

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