Back at it! Edited chapters 21-25—it’s definitely rougher now, I haven’t had as many passes over these chapters and you can tell. Plus it’s sort of where the aftermath of all the action happens, so the pacing is a little slower—I think that’s something that has to happen by this point, but of course I don’t want the book to drag, so it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.
Progress report
Whoo! I went back and fixed a few things that had begun to bother me, and then I edited chapters 15-20. Although actually it was 15-21—I merged two shorter chapters together, which I think works better.
It’s good! I’m enjoying it! I guess that’s the advantage of this taking forever—I have enough distance on the material that I can actually get some pleasure from it.
Progress report
Edited chapters 10-14. Whoo!
As expected, it’s less-polished—more missing words and whatnot. But it’s really exciting.
Progress report
Chapters 6-9 have been edited! Yay!
It’s not taking that long because these have been gone over quite a few times. I suspect that later chapters are going to take more effort….
Progress report
Edited chapters 4 & 5, whoo!
Hiya!
Yeah, things got really busy, but fingers crossed—I’m hopeful I can now get into a routine that allows for some friggin’ editing to happen!
To that end, today I edited the first three chapters—again, I know, but I thought they actually looked pretty good, and I was able to polish out the things that had been bothering me. So: Yay!
Still chugging!
Yeah, a lot is going on, but today I found some time and edited chapters 3-6. Some things I’m happy with, but I’m not sure how well I’m balancing the need for exposition with the need to keep things interesting—I feel like, OK, you don’t have to explain EVERY last thing….
Behold, I live!
OK! I am now living halfway across the country, but things have calmed down enough that I decided to take a shot at editing Trials some more! I’m starting at the beginning (because it’s been a looooong time), and I did the first two chapters!
An announcement
Obviously I haven’t been very focused on the novel lately—part of the reason is that it’s tax time, but the other part is that my mother (who lives in Texas) has been doing more and more poorly. I’d pretty much decided that I was going to have to move there, and a recent visit has made it clear that I’m going to have to move as soon as possible (i.e. after April 15, for none dare challenge the Tax Gods).
So I’m going to be very focused on all of that for the next few-to-several months. Hopefully once things settle down and there’s a good routine going, I can dive right back in and finish Trials!
Fantasy, race & romance
Via Isobel Carr, there’s an interesting article up about how race is used in the fantasy genre, and how that might be improved.
I’ve read a couple of fantasy/science-fiction romances that I felt were a little…weird this way. The way that they work is that the Protagonist is secretly an X. Then they meet Romantic Object…who is also an X! This means that they are soul mates who will bond and marry and live happily ever after, the end.
I mean, I know I’m a hard sell on romance, but I can’t be the only one to think this is lazy as shit. Why bother trying to generate chemistry between two characters when you can just make them both, I dunno, androids or empaths or Greek gods or aliens from the plant Blorn! Easy-peasy!
Except it’s not very engaging, and it’s got this weird, forced, essentialist element to it. I mean, if I’m from Blorn, and you’re from Blorn…there are probably a billion or so other Blornians back on our home planet, so what makes our relationship so damned special? Maybe we feel a connection because we are two lonely Blornians on Earth, but it’s going to take a bit more than that for our relationship to move past the hot fling stage into love eternal.
Progress report
I went through the first three chapters today with the express purpose of fixing the exposition—I think that worked well, so yay. I feel like it’s more readable, anyway.
Progress report
I did a little editing today—ugh. I fixed one part but I feel like I have to go back to the beginning and REALLY sort out how the background is being introduced. That is such a hard balance to strike….
ALIVE
The year end/beginning of tax time is a real bitch, huh?
There’s also some personal & family stuff going on, so we’ll see how much I can get done. I’m hoping to resume editing in a few days, so fingers crossed.