Day 200

Spoiler Alert! May contain planning-stage plot/character details or other spoilers!

16 May 2017

Read a blog post by Neil Gaiman on George R.R. Martin, among other things, and was pleasantly surprised at the casual daily-life approach he took. Just like mine, except with first class flights, personal assistants and questions from readers on international celebrities. But other than that, y’know, so like mine. Lol.

Webcomics update: currently following Skin Horse, Questionable Content, Narbonics (Director’s Cut) & Sinfest, with occasional catchups on Gunnerkrig Court. This is what I spend time on when I’m not writing, lol.

Life update: I really need to sort out my meds and figure out what country my healthcare should be in… it’s like being 15 again just now. Shitty skin, gross hair, fat ’n pimply and generally unfit for public. I know it’s all ‘in’ to be body positive in 2017, but bleagh. Fortunately, I currently hardly have to go out in public; working from the couch in sweatpants and hoodies is totally my speed. Unfortunately, there’s a family wedding this weekend, so obviously it must be time for my skin to break out like it’s 2003. Hooray.

In other news, made it through 5 chapters yesterday with more text-level rewrites than I’d expected, so although that was my minimum target… yay, I made my target! And also spent the morning working on the book map! And the evening doing research and rewriting the same chapters to switch the dream/nightmare monsters to ‘Mara’, which comes out with a nicer effect. Spent most of the time streamlining language (who am I kidding, it’s still way too wordy, but anyways) and trying to boost the world-building orienting language, which seems clunky to me, but since readers all seem confused as to what’s going on all. the. time. it’s probably necessary.

Today I really get into rewriting Ravel for the first time since I wrote his backstory long form, so that should be challenging. So hard to rework existing text without ruining the flow, but the way he’s being portrayed just isn’t working. Today will also hit a bunch of challenging points where information needs to be conveyed without breaking point of view or characterization, so yay. 5 chapters minimum, 10 optimal, 15 ambitious, and… go!

Part 2

Well, so much for productivity and exceeding targets today. Decided to go along for a run by the river. Not to actually run, mind you, just as a chance to skip out on work, kill time that I don’t have, collect some allergens and generally shoot myself in the foot. Ate too much for lunch, I guess, or the fresh air knocked me out as I pretty much passed out for the early afternoon. So. Back at it. I’m running into the usual problem in this stretch, which can be summed up as: communicating information and characterization through dialogue is hard. People interact. It’s confusing and nuanced and not at all straightforward. I feel clever and readers feel confused. facepalm So, back at it…

Part 3

Ugh, so definitely pushing to hit the minimum targets of 5 chapters/day, which probably means I’m gonna be pulling late nights and scrambling at the end of this period, but assuming I don’t have major mid-stream changes, at least the deadline is still doable.

Tuesday

Start Time: 10 am, 3:30 & 7:30 pm

Location: Abbotsford; home; couch

Drinking: Iced Green Tea

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