Wednesday, May 30
First, a point of business... a couple of people have asked whether it's better to comment on this blog or on the LJ feed. I see the comments either way (I don't respond to them because I'm a jerk, not because I don't see 'em) but the LJ feed disappears after a month and takes all comments with it into oblivion, so if you have something substantial to say, you may wish to click through and say it here.
On the topic of not answering comments, indigofire was confused over my reference to weaning calves and whifflebats. Ah, yes. Technical terms. In this case "weaning" refers to that time period when we stop giving the babies milk and start encouraging them to eat grass, hay, grain, and other grown-up food, and "whifflebats" are what we use to beat their little heads in when they mob us and try to suck us to death in protest. I'm actually quite proud of the whifflebats, because they were my idea. If you beat them with your bare hands, you hurt your hands, and if you hit them with an actual stick you risk actually hurting the wee buggers instead of making them blink stupidly at you ("my head just went thunk! Why did my head go thunk?") You could not hit them at all, of course, but then at best you end up extremely damp, and at worst you get knocked down and danced on by, um, 96 little razor-sharp hooves. The "babies" weigh 120 pounds each at this stage, and they outnumber us by a factor of many.
Anyway, the whifflebats work pretty well. We still haven't got the Mennonite girl to put her shoulder into it, but the rest of us can whale away guilt-free. The calves are reduced to lurking in the tall grass and bawling loudly at anyone who goes by.
At any rate....
Rewrite Progress
Comments: Of the nine pages revised I only threw out two, so it is seemingly a better day. I'm not fooled, though. I was really going through picking out the good bits to put them in proper order. There's whole reams of crap lurking deep in the manuscript waiting to be waded through and chucked, and now they have their good bits removed.
High Points: Made the antag work for his antagonism. Added actual tension to the Bestiary scene. Gave the Naxan scene a point.
On the topic of not answering comments, indigofire was confused over my reference to weaning calves and whifflebats. Ah, yes. Technical terms. In this case "weaning" refers to that time period when we stop giving the babies milk and start encouraging them to eat grass, hay, grain, and other grown-up food, and "whifflebats" are what we use to beat their little heads in when they mob us and try to suck us to death in protest. I'm actually quite proud of the whifflebats, because they were my idea. If you beat them with your bare hands, you hurt your hands, and if you hit them with an actual stick you risk actually hurting the wee buggers instead of making them blink stupidly at you ("my head just went thunk! Why did my head go thunk?") You could not hit them at all, of course, but then at best you end up extremely damp, and at worst you get knocked down and danced on by, um, 96 little razor-sharp hooves. The "babies" weigh 120 pounds each at this stage, and they outnumber us by a factor of many.
Anyway, the whifflebats work pretty well. We still haven't got the Mennonite girl to put her shoulder into it, but the rest of us can whale away guilt-free. The calves are reduced to lurking in the tall grass and bawling loudly at anyone who goes by.
At any rate....
Rewrite Progress
| |
35 / 172 (20.3%) |
Comments: Of the nine pages revised I only threw out two, so it is seemingly a better day. I'm not fooled, though. I was really going through picking out the good bits to put them in proper order. There's whole reams of crap lurking deep in the manuscript waiting to be waded through and chucked, and now they have their good bits removed.
High Points: Made the antag work for his antagonism. Added actual tension to the Bestiary scene. Gave the Naxan scene a point.
Blogarama
