Drowning Nor Waving

April 27, 2010 Progress Notes:

"When Your Number Isn't Up"

Words today: 500.
Words total: 5300.
Reason for stopping: Reasonably round number, and I have an early shift at work tomorrow, so I don't want to get too far into it.

Darling du Jour: One shot, two shot, he thought, and closed his eyes. You could maybe stumble it. Maybe jangle the rope before tottering a few steps further, sliding to those white and slender knees—

Mean Things: I finally found out what Jake's problem is. I...well. I'm a bad person and will be promptly going to hell.
Research Roundup: When showers got popular, versus baths.

Books in progress: David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
The glamour: Dayjob, mild errandry of the usual sort.

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I have not been blogging a lot. This seems to be symptomatic of spending enough time doing things that by the time I get home, I'm not so inclined to write up what I've been doing. But in case you were wondering, this weekend I went to Scalzi's reading/signing at the Merrill Collection on Friday (and for drinks and snacks afterwards); did a scavenger hunt with wistling, ksumnersmith, dolphin__girl, thesandtiger, and Stephen Kotowych on Saturday, followed by sushi for dinner and pie and tea late into the night; spent Sunday grossly oversleeping, reading, clearing ideomancer work and finishing said pie; went out for drinks with a friend I haven't seen in a space of years last night; ran errands tonight. Tomorrow is the Coach House Press launch party, and the day after a panel discussion on paranormal fantasy and vampires again at the Merrill, after which I think there will be coffee with a division of The People. And then Jane's Walk and a possible brunch date this weekend, and then we're back into it for the new workweek. I won't even list the things I skipped or didn't make it to.

This is kind of the reason I haven't been blogging a lot. I, ah, appear to have got busy.

The whole social life thing? Decidedly not bad! I enjoy it! But the work/life balance around the Casa, while historically unhealthily into the work side of things, is recalibrating some this month. This is taking a little adjustment.

I will try to be better about the blogging thing. Promise.


Laptop Debt Kill:

14850 / 17000 words. 87% done!

March 15, 2010 Progress Notes:

"When Your Number Isn't Up"

Words today: 500.
Words total: 4700.
Reason for stopping: Getting late here.

Darling du Jour: The drapes had come loose on their curtain rod again; they gaped at the middle, pouring sickly evening light over Jake's legs and onto the floor. His feet sweated like ants under a magnifying glass. He jerked them up, left quicker than right, and kicked the blankets away.

Mean Things: Inadvertent actions that are going to look really, really guilty later. Sass.
Research Roundup: Cost of breakfast in 1949. When they invented blister packs, which, it turns out, was too late for this story.

Books in progress: Janni Lee Simner, Bones of Faerie.
The glamour: A bunch today, actually: dayjobbery, slush, catching up on Ideo tasks that accumulated while I was away, answering support mail, getting groceries for this empty fridge, and making some bread, since I was out of bread. Pretty much all catching up on stuff that sat while I was away and/or getting back into the swing of things.

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Visiting with the novella tonight almost by accident; I was fussing around in my music folder and hit one of the soundtrack songs, and well, there you go. This is most decidedly not (Not!) what I am supposed to be writing, though, and I will have to be better behaved tomorrow. I have two stories to finish for May 1st here.

Laptop Debt Kill, which I forgot to do for a while:

6350 / 17000 words. 37% done!

All right. Bedtime for monkeys.

February 22, 2010 Progress Notes:

"When Your Number Isn't Up"

Words today: 100.
Words total: 3700.
Reason for stopping: I am really too messed up on Benadryl right now to be writing fiction. And that became apparent very quickly.

Darling du Jour: Not tonight, Virginia.

Mean Things: I am really too messed up on Benadryl right now to be writing fiction.
Research Roundup: N/A.

Books in progress: Paolo Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl; Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos.
The glamour: Pajamas, TV, a bit of washing dishes and Ideo e-mail. And Chinese takeout, since I am feeling even more sorry for myself than I was last night and required soothing wonton soup.

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I knew I should have never admitted to being sick. Because now I'm sick: coughing up gunk and achy and dizzy and brainmussed and hoarse. This never happened before I gave it tacit permission to exist.

Well, at least I already had a doctor's appointment lined up for Thursday?

Laptop Debt Kill:

2100 / 17000 words. 12% done!

January 1, 2010 Progress Notes:

"When Your Number Isn't Up"

Words today: 250.
Words total: 2850.
Reason for stopping: It was a fully athletic crawl to the finish line.

Darling du Jour: He saw afterimages: a faded blue silk dress, rucked up at the knees; the ambulance men's boots on the streaked wood floor; an ankle, thin and white.

Mean Things: Nothing we hadn't already done.
Research Roundup: Cost for a pay phone call in 1949; paramedic uniforms.

Books in progress: Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man.
The glamour: Slept late, as is the custom of this household on New Year's Day, and spent most of it futzing around, cooking a bit, and doing OWW stuff. There is beautiful, beautiful snow on the ground.

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I finally cracked open the bread machine I bought in *cough* this evening. And oh my lord, I am so glad I did:



My first loaf of Robot Bread is apple blossom honey and wheat, and I have already had two fat slices of it. It is breathtakingly freaking delicious, and even rising, it smelled so good I was almost driven mad. My whole apartment smells lingeringly like honey right now.

The way I know my life is awesome is that tomorrow morning, I will get to wake up and make French toast out of it. With butter and maple syrup. Mwah hah hah hah hah.

Goodnight, internet.

December 16, 2009 Progress Notes:

"When Your Number Isn't Up"

Words today: 300.
Words total: 2300.
Reason for stopping: I'm not squeezing much more out of this tonight.

Darling du Jour: N/A.

Mean Things: Some times are good times to make a joke. Some are not.
Research Roundup: Types of fish in the Chicago River; options for carpet cleaning in 1949; the history of VA hospitals; names of WWII generals; Chicago VA hospitals circa 1949, polio rehabilitation.

Books in progress: Patricia McKillip, Harpist in the Wind.
The glamour: I am to be reminded to eat food regularly and to take my vitamins if I don't want to be emotionally fragile. This is a thing you'd think I'd have learned. You would sadly be wrong. Luckily, a half-carton of milk contains enough vitamin D to interrupt this cycle and buy me working time.

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This thing continues to be viscerally difficult.

I did find the final (I think?) chapterlet title, which gives me a better sense of the narrative structure and what's supposed to be doing in those scenes, and that'll be a help. I wonder if that's why people name chapters, for the guideposts; to hold up the arc when you don't have a story to rest it on yet. I can see the thing arching like a roof frame now, all naked against the sky. The shape and pace reminds me a lot of Sugar, which means that 1) this'll potentially be a slog and 2) it'll also potentially work.

Out after work tomorrow -- I actually kind of have a shockingly awesome social calendar going this week and next -- so more dispatches from the front Friday night.

So if I were to have one character on the floor, in shock, with a nasty, bleedy, but ultimately not life-threatening gunshot graze on the head, and another who's pondering feeding her a codeine pill for the pain, would this be a good idea or a bad idea on his part? As in, is this destined to cause terrible complications and/or endanger her life further?

Your writer thanks you.

November 22, 2009 Progress Notes:

"When Your Number Isn't Up"

Words today: 550.
Words total: 1300.
Reason for stopping: It's a good round number, and no reason to push it. Also, my teapot's empty. I don't have to work anymore when my teapot's empty.

Darling du Jour: There was blood in her hair, like light. It caught the light and spilled it, thick and sticky, through sleek black curls like spilled rye. Her face was red, and the patched cream rug was red, and her fingernails were red on the hand that held the stubby pistol. The window was shut, and the bathroom door.

Mean Things: Trauma, bodies, a very quiet haunting.
Research Roundup: Invention of the record player/phonograph, Brit as a male name, where telephone technology was at in 1949.

Books in progress: Emma Bull, Territory.
The glamour: I did, in fact, cook. Hooray for me!

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Went back to work tonight partly because stillsostrange was available for a race, and partly because it's just tickling in my head tonight and I wasn't really going to be content with watching more TV. It got a little recalcitrant at the end, but it wasn't a bad decision to make.

The mini-chapter breaks developed names today; notably, names that are all in lowercase and bits of phrases and very mekkavandexter. I will note that I just work here. Regardless, they seem to fit very nicely. I still have no idea what I'm on about with this thing, but the first chapterlette is mostly continuous narrative and not jumbled pieces anymore.

I feel like a Real Writer (tm) today for the first time in a good while.

It feels good. Clean and sharp and steady. Now, if only I can keep that up during the actual workweek...

November 16, 2009 Progress Notes:

"When Your Number Isn't Up"

Words today: 250.
Words total: 450.
Reason for stopping: I have to get to bed. Dayjobbery demands it. I'm already up too late.

Darling du Jour: Niklas Shevchenko had been a dockman before the St. James lost its night porter. He still moved like one, wide and swinging, black shoes blurred against the patched burgundy of the hall carpet. Jake Beaton had been a junior welterweight, and he wasn't even that anymore. The bad leg dragged behind him like a body out of the river.

Mean Things: Physical exertion; bloody hands; terrible, terrible beauty.
Research Roundup: Slavic surnames, boxing weight classes, first use of forensic fingerprinting, dried blood. By the way, don't image-google that last one. Hello, war atrocity photos.

Books in progress: Nicole Kornher-Stace, Desideria.
The glamour: Today was the dreaded 11:00-7:00 shift, which meant I came home, ran some laundry, had a frozen pizza for dinner, and then the day was already pretty much over. This is not, shall we say, my favourite shift in the world.

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The second I put mini chapter breaks in this, it proceeded to maybe not put out like a charm, but at least cooperate grudgingly. I'll consider the implications of that tomorrow, I think.

I will also stop worrying about whether I'm cannibalizing other projects, picking the wrong voice, being historically inaccurate, not having enough to say, pushing it, not pushing it enough, avoiding what I'm supposed to be working on, or producing crap, and just love the fucking bomb already.

After I go to bed.