Finished near midnight with 11011.
Not my lowest, but not the 12-14k I aimed for. Today will be a hard slog if I want to break the 20k ceiling for the first time. Saturday is easier usually because I'm following the characters around and exploring the world. Sunday the characters need to do something, and I start to second-guess myself about what they should do and how it will lead to a resolution. However, in the last couple of hours I decided to write from the child-goddess's pov, and that perked things up. (I should remember this! Alternating storylines are a Good and Helpful Thing.)
Last lines written last night:
Only I wondered sometimes, as I was washed and painted for the day, why only the Little Girl aspect took a mortal vessel, and the Fierce One went unbodied?
Monday, September 5, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Saturday wordcount
Yesterday's progress:
Sitting at the laptop by 7 AM with a cup of tea.
8 AM broke for breakfast with a wordcount of 1002.
1:20 PM stopped for lunch, wordcount 3045
6:30 PM stopped for dinner, needing food, although my wordcount was only 4682, not the 5k I'd aimed for.
Closed at 11 PM with a wordcount of 6763, shy of the 7-8k I'd wanted, but still my highest Day 1 count ever. Previous highest was 6555 in 2009.
Title is Vessels.
First line: The day began with portents. That's never a good sign.
Last bit written last night:
Virgie thought it over, tearing her muffin into blue-stained crumbs. "There are only two groups? Not more?"
"Lots more," I said, taking my turn at the cookpot. "But only two that want a public fight for dominance."
Sitting at the laptop by 7 AM with a cup of tea.
8 AM broke for breakfast with a wordcount of 1002.
1:20 PM stopped for lunch, wordcount 3045
6:30 PM stopped for dinner, needing food, although my wordcount was only 4682, not the 5k I'd aimed for.
Closed at 11 PM with a wordcount of 6763, shy of the 7-8k I'd wanted, but still my highest Day 1 count ever. Previous highest was 6555 in 2009.
Title is Vessels.
First line: The day began with portents. That's never a good sign.
Last bit written last night:
Virgie thought it over, tearing her muffin into blue-stained crumbs. "There are only two groups? Not more?"
"Lots more," I said, taking my turn at the cookpot. "But only two that want a public fight for dominance."
Friday, September 2, 2011
on my way to bed
Because this weekend is the 3-Day Novel Contest, and I must be well rested. And sparkling with brilliant ideas and thick with fully-rounded characters and chattering with witty dialogue! Or at least rested.
In other exciting news, Mark suggested that I take over Chris's old room for a writing room. He's been using it to sort & store antiquities and take photos for the website, but if I got my desk and the futon-couch out of the 'computer room' he'd probably have room to do that in there.
I could move my stacks of research books into one place and put them on shelves - of course we'd need to build floor-to-ceiling shelves on two walls. Maybe move my children's books in there as well.
A room of my own, just for writing.
I had been longingly browsing shed designs (Summerwood lets you customise your designs online, plus has immense design galleries to play around in) and occasionally looking at cabins at realtor.ca. (I classify this as house-pr0n, lusting after things impossible to perform) But having my own room would be pretty much as good as having my own building, with access to electricity, refrigeration, and tea.
So now I'm browsing Where I Write and the Guardian's series on Writers' Rooms.
Bed time! I'll try to post my 3-Day progress.
In other exciting news, Mark suggested that I take over Chris's old room for a writing room. He's been using it to sort & store antiquities and take photos for the website, but if I got my desk and the futon-couch out of the 'computer room' he'd probably have room to do that in there.
I could move my stacks of research books into one place and put them on shelves - of course we'd need to build floor-to-ceiling shelves on two walls. Maybe move my children's books in there as well.
A room of my own, just for writing.
I had been longingly browsing shed designs (Summerwood lets you customise your designs online, plus has immense design galleries to play around in) and occasionally looking at cabins at realtor.ca. (I classify this as house-pr0n, lusting after things impossible to perform) But having my own room would be pretty much as good as having my own building, with access to electricity, refrigeration, and tea.
So now I'm browsing Where I Write and the Guardian's series on Writers' Rooms.
Bed time! I'll try to post my 3-Day progress.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
more Pennsic photos
It's difficult to pick what's representative of the 'Pennsic experience' when I just photographed whatever took my fancy. I'll try to provide some context.
About 12000 people attended the Pennsic War, most camping onsite. The Cooper's Lake campground was long ago filled, and I think they rent surrounding fields to cover the overflow and allow room for fighting fields etc.
There are two large marketplaces with about 300 merchants, a dozen tracks of classes (hands-on, seminars, etc.) running every day, performances of music, dance and drama, processions, craft demonstrations, ...
oh, and a war, with battles and stuff. Somewhere. But it was really hot.
Various groups, from kingdoms to households, prefer to camp together, and there's a complicated system for allotting space. Having won their land, most groups mark it with fabric walls and gates made of anything from fabric to plywood to stone. I liked the paint job on this one, a pretty decent trompe l'oeil.
Midweek there's a late-night shopping spree called Midnight Madness. Merchants drop their prices, offer odd bargains, and sometimes do silly things like shave their heads. The markets are full of people, it's a great night for buskers (three very young ladies outside our booth performed 'What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor' and Leonard Cohen's Alleluia, an odd juxtaposition), very carnival atmosphere. This photo is of some 'dead' being carried out, complete with Monty Python quotes.
"I'm feeling better!"
One of the many streets at Pennsic, photographed towards the end of the event. This area is residential, so not many people are about. They're either napping in the heat of the day, or off taking classes, or fighting, or wandering the market.
Hoping this gives at least a hint of how big the event is.
Artisan invasion! A number of artisans arrive in the market street with their tools and materials, and work through part of the day, then vanish, reappearing elsewhere another day.
Mark points out that almost everything they do is 18th century, but it's still fun to watch.
About 12000 people attended the Pennsic War, most camping onsite. The Cooper's Lake campground was long ago filled, and I think they rent surrounding fields to cover the overflow and allow room for fighting fields etc.
There are two large marketplaces with about 300 merchants, a dozen tracks of classes (hands-on, seminars, etc.) running every day, performances of music, dance and drama, processions, craft demonstrations, ...
oh, and a war, with battles and stuff. Somewhere. But it was really hot.
Various groups, from kingdoms to households, prefer to camp together, and there's a complicated system for allotting space. Having won their land, most groups mark it with fabric walls and gates made of anything from fabric to plywood to stone. I liked the paint job on this one, a pretty decent trompe l'oeil.
"I'm feeling better!"
One of the many streets at Pennsic, photographed towards the end of the event. This area is residential, so not many people are about. They're either napping in the heat of the day, or off taking classes, or fighting, or wandering the market.
Hoping this gives at least a hint of how big the event is.
Artisan invasion! A number of artisans arrive in the market street with their tools and materials, and work through part of the day, then vanish, reappearing elsewhere another day.
Mark points out that almost everything they do is 18th century, but it's still fun to watch.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
writing? oh yeah, writing.
No pics yet, because they're on a camera card and I'll have to do it through my EEE which has a card slot. Instead, a return to the ostensible topic of this blog: my fabulous writing career.
Ahem.
Okay, my writing. There.
You'll recall that before leaving for Pennsic I was in a mad rush to cut free and mail off the first 'half' of The Cost of Silver for my agent's opinion on how I should proceed. In that narrow window between my return from Pennsylvania and my departure for Fort Rodd Hill, she emailed her assessment (yes, she is speedy like a speeding thing), having read the mss while on holiday with her family.
While containing phrases like 'spooky and compelling', 'carries absolute historical authenticity', 'raced through it', the gist was that the narrative was headed in the wrong direction and that my research was showing. (what a surprise, right?)
I imagine her reading and reading, with a sinking feeling getting stronger and stronger, and her wondering how to break it to me gently.
Well, I emailed back, and we had a bit of discussion, and I'll be working up a revised--severely revised--synopsis for her after Labour Day. I think I can keep the storyline I care about, of the commoners and fenfolk and their fight for their land and livelihood, by tying it more securely into the revenant story. Which means building up characters and plot for the courtiers, royalty, and fen-drainers, so that they appear on-stage, not just referred to by the commoners. With the revenants being in various ways supporters of the enclosures, because enclosing land for the gentry means driving commoners off, creating a dispossessed, powerless population that's easy prey, in place of tight little villages where everyone knows everyone else.
Maybe the revenants have fond memories of the abolition of the monasteries, too? Some number of them must have been around at the time.
This also means more scenes with revenants, because there's bound to be conflict among them, with some liking the idea of influencing the powerful mortals, and others thinking it dangerously rash and risking discovery.
She's suggested working in a modern-day plotline, with perhaps a Cambridge researcher discovering papers that lead back to the 1600s story. I talked this over with the others at Fort Rodd Hill, and what sparked from it I quite like, involving Wicken Fen (the last untouched fenland in East Anglia) and the discovery of a 'bog body' which perhaps ain't as dead as all that.
So, I am quite excited, not least by her suggestion that 'you have it in you to write a big commercial historical fantasy novel' that could be sold to a mainstream editor. After I had curled up in a corner and twitched for a while, then wandered around the house muttering 'but, but,' that is!
I'd pretty much pinned my future as 'quirky midlist author with small cult following', but the point of having an agent is for advice and guidance, right? So I shall work on reassessing. Then on massive revising.
But first! The 3-Day Novel Contest this weekend. I even have an idea for it, at last. An artists' colony on Saltspring Island, populated by retired gods and heroes, stirred up by the arrival of a young girl who was recently the incarnation of a goddess and has issues therefrom.
Ahem.
Okay, my writing. There.
You'll recall that before leaving for Pennsic I was in a mad rush to cut free and mail off the first 'half' of The Cost of Silver for my agent's opinion on how I should proceed. In that narrow window between my return from Pennsylvania and my departure for Fort Rodd Hill, she emailed her assessment (yes, she is speedy like a speeding thing), having read the mss while on holiday with her family.
While containing phrases like 'spooky and compelling', 'carries absolute historical authenticity', 'raced through it', the gist was that the narrative was headed in the wrong direction and that my research was showing. (what a surprise, right?)
I imagine her reading and reading, with a sinking feeling getting stronger and stronger, and her wondering how to break it to me gently.
Well, I emailed back, and we had a bit of discussion, and I'll be working up a revised--severely revised--synopsis for her after Labour Day. I think I can keep the storyline I care about, of the commoners and fenfolk and their fight for their land and livelihood, by tying it more securely into the revenant story. Which means building up characters and plot for the courtiers, royalty, and fen-drainers, so that they appear on-stage, not just referred to by the commoners. With the revenants being in various ways supporters of the enclosures, because enclosing land for the gentry means driving commoners off, creating a dispossessed, powerless population that's easy prey, in place of tight little villages where everyone knows everyone else.
Maybe the revenants have fond memories of the abolition of the monasteries, too? Some number of them must have been around at the time.
This also means more scenes with revenants, because there's bound to be conflict among them, with some liking the idea of influencing the powerful mortals, and others thinking it dangerously rash and risking discovery.
She's suggested working in a modern-day plotline, with perhaps a Cambridge researcher discovering papers that lead back to the 1600s story. I talked this over with the others at Fort Rodd Hill, and what sparked from it I quite like, involving Wicken Fen (the last untouched fenland in East Anglia) and the discovery of a 'bog body' which perhaps ain't as dead as all that.
So, I am quite excited, not least by her suggestion that 'you have it in you to write a big commercial historical fantasy novel' that could be sold to a mainstream editor. After I had curled up in a corner and twitched for a while, then wandered around the house muttering 'but, but,' that is!
I'd pretty much pinned my future as 'quirky midlist author with small cult following', but the point of having an agent is for advice and guidance, right? So I shall work on reassessing. Then on massive revising.
But first! The 3-Day Novel Contest this weekend. I even have an idea for it, at last. An artists' colony on Saltspring Island, populated by retired gods and heroes, stirred up by the arrival of a young girl who was recently the incarnation of a goddess and has issues therefrom.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
here presently
Back home from our Living History week at Fort Rodd Hill. After a slow start because of being so recently returned from Pennsic, followed by two days work panic, I got myself sorted out and immersed in daily life of the fourteenth century. I didn't go online, turn on my EEE, or read, except for one brief trip to 'the fried bread shop' on the day it rained a lot, when I read a couple of chapters of The Book of Air and Shadow, by Michael Gruber.
Now I am back home, a home strewn with un-unpacked baskets and bags, clothesline heavy with freshly-washed linens and lawn covered with tarps and carpets. My brain appears to be in a remarkably similar state.
So. More later, and pics. I will never catch up with the pics!
Now I am back home, a home strewn with un-unpacked baskets and bags, clothesline heavy with freshly-washed linens and lawn covered with tarps and carpets. My brain appears to be in a remarkably similar state.
So. More later, and pics. I will never catch up with the pics!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
random Pennsic pics
A small selection of the cool stuff at the war. First, labyrinths of various designs appeared by the barn, in the food market, and along the paved pathways. Every morning they were drawn fresh. You can imagine how happy I was to discover them on my early morning walks, and to take the time to walk or run them on my way.
Another new thing: parchment makers in the market. The Meyer family has been making parchment since the 1500s, reportedly, but this is the first time they've come to Pennsic. Next year they hope to have a proper tent, but I suspect no one really noticed anything past the OMG PARCHMENT!!!eleventy.
Another thing that might almost have been chosen to make me personally happy: Alexander, apprentice to Arab Boy, is making Aldrovani-style enamelled beakers. These are the very objects that caused me to fall in love with enamelled glassware in the first place, and to work on faking them up with thriftshop glassware and low-fire enamels. Alexander is doing them for real. When I found out there would be a demo of the process on Saturday, I was all bouncy.
By the food market we met the labyrinth maker, who had just finished a gnomen sundial nearby, and was adding another classic labyrinth to the path.
I wanted to add a video of Dru and Osprey playing cigar-box and cookie-tin banjo, but there isn't room on this post, so it will have to wait.
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