Passing the time on a long flight ...
I finally dug out my Catspaw manuscript and started doing some editing.
Argh.
There is nothing as wonderful as reading something you forgot you wrote, and saying, "Wow, I really like that."
There are few things as discouraging as reading something you forgot you wrote, and saying, "Oh my God, that's really ... amateurish."
To be fair, I started again at the very beginning, which was the first stuff I wrote (this was a NaNoWriMo project mind you), so I'd expect it to be the clumsiest.
Still.
Glad I started work on it again. And, yes, I need to trim it substantially.
this post enabled by airblogging.com.
The muse is sitting on my shoulder, nearly invisible, whisper quiet.
"Nice blog," she says. "Good work."
And, "So you can note projects you're working on."
And, "Tsk. So many unfinished bits and pieces."
And, "So ... when you going to get back to work on Catspaw?"
I've managed to get the "Writing & Language" category from my main blog over here, and the broken out to the various categories (further revised). Done a fair amount of clean-up. Tweaked some templates and the stylesheet. Sadly observed the bit rot of the past four and a half years.
Felt noodged by the Muse to get the frelling lead out and finish Catspaw.
Things left to do:
After a several month bout of laziness hiatus, I'm back to revising Catspaw. Like all things, it needs to become a habit before I'll do it consistently.
I really do have a novel in mid-cleanup. No, really. Just because I haven't touched it in a month or two, and have several lengthy comments from a fellow writer to read through, and stuff like that, doesn't mean I'm not working on it ...right?
Finished v1.5 of Catspaw, the "Go through the whole thing and resolve the majority of the internal conflicts and sand down some of the bits that were too, too, too awkward" version.
I have enough further suggestions and things to do (not least of which is cutting out several thousands of words) for a dozen more revisions, but it's kind of nice to have finished yet another pass on it.
(And, no, it's not online for public consumption. Wait a few more revisions, or until I decide whether to actually submit the damned thing or not.)
Finally wrapped up Catspaw with a 5,500 word finale. Thanks to all my loyal readers (and wannabewhenyoufinish readers) for your support, Margie in particular. It's been a long 14 months, I know.
The final tally, including pre-NaNoWriMo 2002 words, was just over 86k. Yikes.
Now, of course, comes a massive editing job. Writing a story in sequence, with no back-editing as I realize things need to be changed, makes for a lot of story lines that stumble clumsily along and/or vanish mysteriously mid-novel. A lot of words need to be taken out, probably, and a lot of others need to be put in --some better character development for one thing, since there's a difference between many strung-together scenes that stand well on their own, and a single narrative that can stand on its own.
Or something like that.
So, fair warning, if you decide to read the dagblasted thing (and it's available on the main page by chapter or as a single download page), it's anything but polished, though it is, at last, more or less complete.
And in time for January, when Doyce, De and I are doing a mutual editing thang. I fear mine will be the light entertainment of the trio, but I have no illusions as to my own literary aspirations.
It's good to be done. Now for the hard work.
I've been busy as all get-out today, and last week as well, which has impacted the blogging today (and last week as well).
It's also impacted my writing. That's particularly irking me because I know what comes next (though I just had a keen idea that will take a few days to unfold, too, so I suppose that delay was a good one).
Maybe tomorrow ...
But best of luck and encouragement for all those who are actually participating this year.
And, with luck, I'll actually have finished my novel from last year (around 74k words and still climbing) by the end of the month.