Me, me, me
Jan. 4th, 2007 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceIt's my birthday, and I shall do as I please. Including getting stray and unexpected things pushed through my letterbox at unexpected times; this pleases me inordinately.
I was up here checking my e-mails when the posty-noises came. But the post had been already, so we went to look, Barry and I: and behold! Birthday gifts. Little kitchen gadgets - a pastry brush, a pastry mat, baby whisks, like that - and a newspaper. A newspaper! On the very day I'm allowed to take the time to read a newspaper, do the crossword, do the Su Doku, everything! Oh, joy...
So I'm going to do that, over More Coffee. I might go into town and drift around the shops, making-believe I have money to spend; but it's windy out there and I'm old now, so I might just not bother. I might stay home and read a book. Or go to the pub and read a book. Or I might go to the pub with some work, but only if I really really want to.
Work: last night, I finished the first draft synopsis for 'The Dragon-in-Chains' (I'm starting to wonder about those hyphens; do we prefer 'The Dragon in Chains', O my LJ?) and its sequels. That's the basic plotting (well, fading later into story-arc) for three novels, plucked from nowhere in a week. Don't ask me how that happens, it just does. 'Course, the books as written will start at variance and move wildly further from this laid track; books aren't trains, to run where and only where you tell them. If I were a transport buff, I would stretch that metaphor (is it a metaphor, when you say one thing isn't something else? which it conspicuously and absolutely isn't?), and books would become, oh, something wildly unlikely and free, hot-air balloons or some such, and the whole thing would go 'poof!' and collapse under its own weight of absurdity.
So: because I have missed word meters, my own and other people's, this last month or so; and because I wrote c 300,000 words last year, which was almost unparallel'd; and because I know that a peak is not a target, and it's stupid to set goals that are too ambitious, but I'm a writer and so by definition must enjoy the whole palate of tastes that come with falling short - the bitterness of failure, the sourness of defeat, the salt of tears, the sweet of rot, and, oh, something for umami - therefore I am aiming at no less than that this year. So far, then, the year-to-date:
Or, in pages:
...and we'll see how far that goes. I won't post these often, but at the moment I don't have a big project to pursue, so it seems handy to have a counter that will pull together all the little stuff. Not that there will be much this month: work for the next week or two is revising last year's urban-fantasy novel, and then a redraft of the play, neither of which will yield countable pages. I shall start by falling way, way behind my target. Sigh...
I was up here checking my e-mails when the posty-noises came. But the post had been already, so we went to look, Barry and I: and behold! Birthday gifts. Little kitchen gadgets - a pastry brush, a pastry mat, baby whisks, like that - and a newspaper. A newspaper! On the very day I'm allowed to take the time to read a newspaper, do the crossword, do the Su Doku, everything! Oh, joy...
So I'm going to do that, over More Coffee. I might go into town and drift around the shops, making-believe I have money to spend; but it's windy out there and I'm old now, so I might just not bother. I might stay home and read a book. Or go to the pub and read a book. Or I might go to the pub with some work, but only if I really really want to.
Work: last night, I finished the first draft synopsis for 'The Dragon-in-Chains' (I'm starting to wonder about those hyphens; do we prefer 'The Dragon in Chains', O my LJ?) and its sequels. That's the basic plotting (well, fading later into story-arc) for three novels, plucked from nowhere in a week. Don't ask me how that happens, it just does. 'Course, the books as written will start at variance and move wildly further from this laid track; books aren't trains, to run where and only where you tell them. If I were a transport buff, I would stretch that metaphor (is it a metaphor, when you say one thing isn't something else? which it conspicuously and absolutely isn't?), and books would become, oh, something wildly unlikely and free, hot-air balloons or some such, and the whole thing would go 'poof!' and collapse under its own weight of absurdity.
So: because I have missed word meters, my own and other people's, this last month or so; and because I wrote c 300,000 words last year, which was almost unparallel'd; and because I know that a peak is not a target, and it's stupid to set goals that are too ambitious, but I'm a writer and so by definition must enjoy the whole palate of tastes that come with falling short - the bitterness of failure, the sourness of defeat, the salt of tears, the sweet of rot, and, oh, something for umami - therefore I am aiming at no less than that this year. So far, then, the year-to-date:
| |
3,841 / 300,000 (1.3%) |
Or, in pages:
| |
12 / 1,000 (1.2%) |
...and we'll see how far that goes. I won't post these often, but at the moment I don't have a big project to pursue, so it seems handy to have a counter that will pull together all the little stuff. Not that there will be much this month: work for the next week or two is revising last year's urban-fantasy novel, and then a redraft of the play, neither of which will yield countable pages. I shall start by falling way, way behind my target. Sigh...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 11:29 am (UTC)~ from a reader who has taken much pleasure in your work over the years.
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Date: 2007-01-04 11:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-01-04 11:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 12:09 pm (UTC)Chillies! A belated reply.
From:Re: Chillies! A belated reply.
From:Re: Chillies! A belated reply.
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Date: 2007-01-04 11:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 12:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-01-04 12:26 pm (UTC)300,000 words is just amazing. I am awed.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 12:35 pm (UTC)Even a good year just gives guilt & fretfulness. Sigh.
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Date: 2007-01-04 12:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-01-04 01:43 pm (UTC)(I prefer the dragon without hyphens)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 10:01 pm (UTC)And I could live without the hyphens, too. How about Dragon in Chains (without the definite article, or any other. It's what you've been saying, after all...)
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Date: 2007-01-04 02:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-01-04 03:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 03:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 03:42 pm (UTC)I hope you have a wonderful day -- and what a lovely creative storm of which you're in the midst.
I kind of like the look of the Dragon title with the hyphens, for some reason. Not sure why, gut response.
Lots of love for a happy, happy day and a happy, happy year!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 08:11 pm (UTC)I can't, so Happy Birthday Chaz.
May your inkwell never run dry my friend.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 10:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 10:19 pm (UTC)Fifty five, on the other hand, is trying to bite your way through the superfluous packaging on a printer cardtridge when there's a Stanley knife on your desk, for whatever reason.
And may all your words - however many - be the right words.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-04 11:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-05 01:31 am (UTC)I shall remember this. One of my hobbies is making people think back on their words at some distant future date with something best described as amused semi-regret. "Y'know, when I said that thing about the letterbox, I hadn't thought about a brace of greased squirrels loaded up on caffeine."
"baby whisks" for example, could be misinterpreted in so many lovely ways.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-05 09:53 am (UTC)Oh, but just think what fun Barry would have - he'd love that...
*snerk*