Thursday, January 25
So I made a pact with myself to keep track of my reading for this year and blog about it, and I have been doing the first faithfully. Only... if I do a month's worth of books in one post, as originally planned, y'all will hate me as the spammiest of spam spammers. At the current reading rate, anyway.
So I'm dividing the month in half. We'll see how that goes, shall we?
Books Read Jan 1 - 15
Rocket Science, by Jay Lake (aka jaylake).
This was a nifty little book and a good way to start off the new year. You can tell, I think, that this is a first novel and that Lake got his start doing short stories; the writing has a staccato feel to it, but remains free of most of the typical first novel errors. The real accomplishment in it, to my mind, was to recapture the breezy, optimistic, innocent feel of 40s and 50s science fiction (admittedly, by writing a bit of science fiction set in the 40s) without replicating the myriad category errors of the time. It was also a pleasure to read some positive science fiction for a change; despite the narrator being literally beset with Nazis, bootleggers, Russian spies, and the government, it was overall a cheerful and uplifting little book. If you miss Heinlein's early stuff (you know, pre-incest-kick) you should check this one out.
With Child by Laurie R. King
This is one of the good Kings -- the ones where she balances her fascination with character and her actual plot near-perfectly, to my ear at least. A warning to those who like linear plots: the atmospheric still far outweighs the action... but the atmosphere is so spot-on, the sense of being this cop watching children die so heart-breakingly clear at times, that one forgives the lack of a clear, beginning-to-end journey from Point A to Point B.
I remain fascinated with how well King deals with her lesbian protagonist in the Kate Martinelli mysteries. When something is quite so, hrm, contested, as homosexuality, it's difficult to write a homosexual character who isn't in some way a statement. But King does it; the Lesbian Issue slips in and out of Kate's life, present but generally less important than her issues with being a cop, fights with her lover, struggles with her case load. It's as if (heaven forbid!) a character could have a non-standard sexual orientation and yet not be defined entirely by it, but remain a person in her own right... which is in itself a statement, but a subtle one. (Subtle enough that the people who occasionally write King on her blog to whine that the Martinelli mysteries don't have a warning label seem to have entirely missed it, in fact.)
At any rate, most recommended if you enjoy beautiful characterization and rambling plot.
The Ghost Brigades by by John Scalzi
What I said above about Jay Lake? Also goes for this book. Except the set-in-the-40s bit and all that stuff about Nazis.
Seriously, this is a good, fun read, far better in my opinion than his debut Old Man's War. OMW was, for the most part, a great set of ideas and witty comebacks strung together with random incidents; Ghost Brigades is a great set of ideas and witty comebacks strung together with an actual plot. The difference is most pleasant.
It's also another book that ought to be downbeat, but strangely is not. I think the difference is in the feeling that the protagonists have sacrificed for a cause, that the world at large is a better place at the end of the book than at the beginning. I'm a fan of this, as you might have gathered. The world hands me enough dismal, conflicted resolutions. I like 'em in measured doses only in my fiction.
Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Crusie (Reread)
Crusie is one of the only romance writers I read. She's also a regular on my comfort-reading bookshelf for those times when I don't have the brainpower to delve into something new: just the right mix of fluff, funny, and frightening.
Tell Me Lies is pretty patented Crusie. On the one side of the coin is a cheeky, funny little romance... but flip it over and you've got the story of a woman trapped in a bad marriage by her daughter's needs and small-town expectations. I've come to the conclusion over the years that Crusie isn't afraid of much. She's not afraid to write sex scenes that will have you simultaneously turned on and howling with laughter. And she's also not afraid to write scenes like the wife-beating one in this book, scenes that make me want to crawl under the table and stay there until I stop feeling creeped out. It's a fearlessness I wish I had more of.
Whether you read romance or not, you should really check Jennifer Crusie out. She's candy with a hard centre.
Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold (Reread)
Another selection from my comfort reading shelf. I musta been having a bad week.
Someday I'm going to dissect a Bujold book as a study on writing a character novel with good, chunky plot, and if I do, it'll be this one. Because really? The whole blow-up-the-sky-mirror plot? Total filler and background for the character bits. And we don't care. The character bits are that good.
In related news, in like the tenth reread of this book, I have finally gotten to the end without Eskaterin making me cry. Now if I can just make it through the dinner party in Civil Campaign without ending up in a small, horrified ball of sympathetic humiliation, I'll be all set.
It was odd reading this book back-to-back with Tell Me Lies, because they have a similar trapped-in-bad-marriage theme... I'd never noticed before how similar. It was interesting that both women defended their marriage with "he never hits me..." damnation by weak praise if there ever was. But the differences are striking too. In TML Maddie doesn't want a divorce because she fears what it will do to her reputation, her mother, and her daughter, in reverse order of importance. In Komarr Eskaterin is afraid of what divorce (which she regards as oathbreaking) will do to her, not to mention what it will do to her dependent, emotionally damaged husband. The Edie Brickell line "suicide to stay and murder to leave" sums up her situation rather aptly. They end up with cages that look quite different from the inside, all too similar from the out.
So that's my light, cheerful, fluffy reading. On to....
The Eyes of God by John Marco (Unfinished)
Well, there had to be one wash in the batch, and this was it. It was a WF freebie; I picked it up because I was in the mood for a bit of high fantasy, a genre I love dearly when done right. This wasn't.
The book did three major things wrong, each of which could have been made bearable by a success in other regions but which, piled on top of each other, made the book utterly unreadable. The writing was.... well, stylistically I can only call it workmanlike; there weren't any actual errors, but neither was there any sense that the author had any ear whatsoever for sentence rhythm or turns of phrase. The pacing was utter crap, and the author's apparent need to give readers every bit of information at least three times and in the most blatant way possible stretched the book's length to an unbelievable 779 pages. The setting and plot were both derivative, the first a regurgitation of generic-medieval with a few serial numbers filed off, the second an utterly predictable replay of the Arthurian love-triangle, with additional, um, predictability.
Now, both of these things could have been salvaged by good characters; I like me some character, and will forgive many sins if it is delivered. But alas. The Arthur-analogue is Good. This is his only defining characteristic. There is no indication as to how he became Good or why he's Good or anything else; no, he just sits there in the middle of the plot, smugly Good. The Guinevere-analogue is a chameleon, growing and discarding personality traits as best suits the plot. The Lancelot-analogue is the most consistent and believable of the three; too bad he's a consistent and believable asshole.
I think there may have been a decent book in here somewhere -- there were hints at a quest plot and some intriguing stuff about crippled children -- but with 779 pages to hide in, it wasn't worth my while looking.
(See? See? I knew what I was talking about. Now I am only... uh... a sort of medium f-list spammer. Maybe. *hangs head*)
So I'm dividing the month in half. We'll see how that goes, shall we?
Books Read Jan 1 - 15
Rocket Science, by Jay Lake (aka jaylake).
This was a nifty little book and a good way to start off the new year. You can tell, I think, that this is a first novel and that Lake got his start doing short stories; the writing has a staccato feel to it, but remains free of most of the typical first novel errors. The real accomplishment in it, to my mind, was to recapture the breezy, optimistic, innocent feel of 40s and 50s science fiction (admittedly, by writing a bit of science fiction set in the 40s) without replicating the myriad category errors of the time. It was also a pleasure to read some positive science fiction for a change; despite the narrator being literally beset with Nazis, bootleggers, Russian spies, and the government, it was overall a cheerful and uplifting little book. If you miss Heinlein's early stuff (you know, pre-incest-kick) you should check this one out.
With Child by Laurie R. King
This is one of the good Kings -- the ones where she balances her fascination with character and her actual plot near-perfectly, to my ear at least. A warning to those who like linear plots: the atmospheric still far outweighs the action... but the atmosphere is so spot-on, the sense of being this cop watching children die so heart-breakingly clear at times, that one forgives the lack of a clear, beginning-to-end journey from Point A to Point B.
I remain fascinated with how well King deals with her lesbian protagonist in the Kate Martinelli mysteries. When something is quite so, hrm, contested, as homosexuality, it's difficult to write a homosexual character who isn't in some way a statement. But King does it; the Lesbian Issue slips in and out of Kate's life, present but generally less important than her issues with being a cop, fights with her lover, struggles with her case load. It's as if (heaven forbid!) a character could have a non-standard sexual orientation and yet not be defined entirely by it, but remain a person in her own right... which is in itself a statement, but a subtle one. (Subtle enough that the people who occasionally write King on her blog to whine that the Martinelli mysteries don't have a warning label seem to have entirely missed it, in fact.)
At any rate, most recommended if you enjoy beautiful characterization and rambling plot.
The Ghost Brigades by by John Scalzi
What I said above about Jay Lake? Also goes for this book. Except the set-in-the-40s bit and all that stuff about Nazis.
Seriously, this is a good, fun read, far better in my opinion than his debut Old Man's War. OMW was, for the most part, a great set of ideas and witty comebacks strung together with random incidents; Ghost Brigades is a great set of ideas and witty comebacks strung together with an actual plot. The difference is most pleasant.
It's also another book that ought to be downbeat, but strangely is not. I think the difference is in the feeling that the protagonists have sacrificed for a cause, that the world at large is a better place at the end of the book than at the beginning. I'm a fan of this, as you might have gathered. The world hands me enough dismal, conflicted resolutions. I like 'em in measured doses only in my fiction.
Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Crusie (Reread)
Crusie is one of the only romance writers I read. She's also a regular on my comfort-reading bookshelf for those times when I don't have the brainpower to delve into something new: just the right mix of fluff, funny, and frightening.
Tell Me Lies is pretty patented Crusie. On the one side of the coin is a cheeky, funny little romance... but flip it over and you've got the story of a woman trapped in a bad marriage by her daughter's needs and small-town expectations. I've come to the conclusion over the years that Crusie isn't afraid of much. She's not afraid to write sex scenes that will have you simultaneously turned on and howling with laughter. And she's also not afraid to write scenes like the wife-beating one in this book, scenes that make me want to crawl under the table and stay there until I stop feeling creeped out. It's a fearlessness I wish I had more of.
Whether you read romance or not, you should really check Jennifer Crusie out. She's candy with a hard centre.
Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold (Reread)
Another selection from my comfort reading shelf. I musta been having a bad week.
Someday I'm going to dissect a Bujold book as a study on writing a character novel with good, chunky plot, and if I do, it'll be this one. Because really? The whole blow-up-the-sky-mirror plot? Total filler and background for the character bits. And we don't care. The character bits are that good.
In related news, in like the tenth reread of this book, I have finally gotten to the end without Eskaterin making me cry. Now if I can just make it through the dinner party in Civil Campaign without ending up in a small, horrified ball of sympathetic humiliation, I'll be all set.
It was odd reading this book back-to-back with Tell Me Lies, because they have a similar trapped-in-bad-marriage theme... I'd never noticed before how similar. It was interesting that both women defended their marriage with "he never hits me..." damnation by weak praise if there ever was. But the differences are striking too. In TML Maddie doesn't want a divorce because she fears what it will do to her reputation, her mother, and her daughter, in reverse order of importance. In Komarr Eskaterin is afraid of what divorce (which she regards as oathbreaking) will do to her, not to mention what it will do to her dependent, emotionally damaged husband. The Edie Brickell line "suicide to stay and murder to leave" sums up her situation rather aptly. They end up with cages that look quite different from the inside, all too similar from the out.
So that's my light, cheerful, fluffy reading. On to....
The Eyes of God by John Marco (Unfinished)
Well, there had to be one wash in the batch, and this was it. It was a WF freebie; I picked it up because I was in the mood for a bit of high fantasy, a genre I love dearly when done right. This wasn't.
The book did three major things wrong, each of which could have been made bearable by a success in other regions but which, piled on top of each other, made the book utterly unreadable. The writing was.... well, stylistically I can only call it workmanlike; there weren't any actual errors, but neither was there any sense that the author had any ear whatsoever for sentence rhythm or turns of phrase. The pacing was utter crap, and the author's apparent need to give readers every bit of information at least three times and in the most blatant way possible stretched the book's length to an unbelievable 779 pages. The setting and plot were both derivative, the first a regurgitation of generic-medieval with a few serial numbers filed off, the second an utterly predictable replay of the Arthurian love-triangle, with additional, um, predictability.
Now, both of these things could have been salvaged by good characters; I like me some character, and will forgive many sins if it is delivered. But alas. The Arthur-analogue is Good. This is his only defining characteristic. There is no indication as to how he became Good or why he's Good or anything else; no, he just sits there in the middle of the plot, smugly Good. The Guinevere-analogue is a chameleon, growing and discarding personality traits as best suits the plot. The Lancelot-analogue is the most consistent and believable of the three; too bad he's a consistent and believable asshole.
I think there may have been a decent book in here somewhere -- there were hints at a quest plot and some intriguing stuff about crippled children -- but with 779 pages to hide in, it wasn't worth my while looking.
(See? See? I knew what I was talking about. Now I am only... uh... a sort of medium f-list spammer. Maybe. *hangs head*)
Wednesday, January 24
... oh, yeah. Blogging. That thing I have time for now and am yet not doing....
*cough*
Look! A purple rhinoceros!
More seriously, I'm on part-time now, and yes, I have tons of free time. Most of which I've been wasting. But I've also been doing other things, things I should have been doing all along. Working on web stuff for the farm. Going to the gym. Cooking. Writing.
The cooking and the writing have been the fun part. I joined matociquala's Novel in Ninety Days challenge, and to my surprise, it's working. No surprise that publicly declaring my wordcount helps, of course -- I've always been a sucker for peer pressure -- but it looks like 750 words a day, for this book, at this time, is about the perfect pace for me. Most cool. I haven't always met the quota, but I'm keeping up, and I've written at least a few words every day since the challenge started.
Behold the power of mock!
As for cooking, one of our coworkers gave Dan a Russian cookbook called Please to the Table, and I have been having all manner of fun with it. Including the cornmeal Jell-O monster (aka mamaliga), this incredible sour cream pastry, and a savory pie that I should perhaps have paid more attention to the quantities involved before I made it. But hey, we ate it all! Eventually.
I've also been experimenting with curry, which led to my borrowing my mother's Hot and Spicy Cookbook. The results have been a thing of great joy for Dan especially. I'm thinking I may have to buy a used copy off Amazon sometime, as this one was a gift to my mother from my great-great-aunt and as such I have to a) be careful with it, and b) give it back.
Next up, one of Mom's Italian cookbooks. I love having time to experiment with new recipes.
And at some point I will get around to blogging about the books I've consumed in my off-time, but for now I leave you with:
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 691
Comments: So far. Yes, I know that's not quota, it's just where the damned chapter ended. I'll write more later, okay? Shutup.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: matociquala is mocking my transitions. Deservedly.
Snips: I am snipless today. All the clever things would take far too long to explain.
*cough*
Look! A purple rhinoceros!
More seriously, I'm on part-time now, and yes, I have tons of free time. Most of which I've been wasting. But I've also been doing other things, things I should have been doing all along. Working on web stuff for the farm. Going to the gym. Cooking. Writing.
The cooking and the writing have been the fun part. I joined matociquala's Novel in Ninety Days challenge, and to my surprise, it's working. No surprise that publicly declaring my wordcount helps, of course -- I've always been a sucker for peer pressure -- but it looks like 750 words a day, for this book, at this time, is about the perfect pace for me. Most cool. I haven't always met the quota, but I'm keeping up, and I've written at least a few words every day since the challenge started.
Behold the power of mock!
As for cooking, one of our coworkers gave Dan a Russian cookbook called Please to the Table, and I have been having all manner of fun with it. Including the cornmeal Jell-O monster (aka mamaliga), this incredible sour cream pastry, and a savory pie that I should perhaps have paid more attention to the quantities involved before I made it. But hey, we ate it all! Eventually.
I've also been experimenting with curry, which led to my borrowing my mother's Hot and Spicy Cookbook. The results have been a thing of great joy for Dan especially. I'm thinking I may have to buy a used copy off Amazon sometime, as this one was a gift to my mother from my great-great-aunt and as such I have to a) be careful with it, and b) give it back.
Next up, one of Mom's Italian cookbooks. I love having time to experiment with new recipes.
And at some point I will get around to blogging about the books I've consumed in my off-time, but for now I leave you with:
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 691
Comments: So far. Yes, I know that's not quota, it's just where the damned chapter ended. I'll write more later, okay? Shutup.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: matociquala is mocking my transitions. Deservedly.
Snips: I am snipless today. All the clever things would take far too long to explain.
Wednesday, January 03
We bought a car! *squee*
That sucking sound you hear is my pitiful cash stockpile going down the drain.
But at least it's no longer my time going down the drain -- if I never see another used car lot again it'll be too soon -- and in the end both Dan and I are happy with the car we bought. It's not too old (a 98); it's not too high-milage (75K); Honda Civics have a good reputation; and the price was fair. My mechanic looked the car over and announced that not only could he find no problems with it, but the car showed every signs of having excellent care taken of it. So what the hell.
It's not perfect. I would have liked a car with a standard transmission. Dan would have liked something with a bit more design flair and attention to comfort, something that didn't scream "mid-income cookie-cutter car!" We both would have liked the price to be lower. But yanno, if we wait around for the perfect car... we're gonna be driving this buttfuck ugly gas-guzzling van for a looooong time.
(In the "Kat is shallow" category: it is a rather pretty shade of red, and it has a moonroof! *squee*!)
In other news, I made good on my decision to be better with the ol' meat puppet and went to the gym. And... ow. Just OW. I swam a single 100 meter leg of freestyle and I was *dying*. Okay, yeah, got the message, I'm out of shape, now STOP RUBBING IT IN.
An hour swimming and I racked up a measly 1200 meter total. Bah.
Amusing quote of the day: Dan, after my explanation and (brief) demonstration of the butterfly stroke, decides to try it for himself:
"I am a sea serpent who's stuck in place."
Swim geekery! Now that is life.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 730 words.
Comments: So it's slow, painful progress when I thought I'd be able to fly. It's still progress. I'll take it.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: Fucking. Inability. To. Describe. (In related news: visual people? I hate you so, so much.)
Snips: News flash: Elliot is not really a nice person.
It was also empty. Listening, Elliot heard no footsteps, neither kin nor human coming to greet him. It occurred to him that, given the lack of response from the dome, Giles might not even know he was here and had likely rid himself of the kin that would ordinarily announce his presence.
Elliot smiled a predatory smile and set off down the hallway on light feet.
That sucking sound you hear is my pitiful cash stockpile going down the drain.
But at least it's no longer my time going down the drain -- if I never see another used car lot again it'll be too soon -- and in the end both Dan and I are happy with the car we bought. It's not too old (a 98); it's not too high-milage (75K); Honda Civics have a good reputation; and the price was fair. My mechanic looked the car over and announced that not only could he find no problems with it, but the car showed every signs of having excellent care taken of it. So what the hell.
It's not perfect. I would have liked a car with a standard transmission. Dan would have liked something with a bit more design flair and attention to comfort, something that didn't scream "mid-income cookie-cutter car!" We both would have liked the price to be lower. But yanno, if we wait around for the perfect car... we're gonna be driving this buttfuck ugly gas-guzzling van for a looooong time.
(In the "Kat is shallow" category: it is a rather pretty shade of red, and it has a moonroof! *squee*!)
In other news, I made good on my decision to be better with the ol' meat puppet and went to the gym. And... ow. Just OW. I swam a single 100 meter leg of freestyle and I was *dying*. Okay, yeah, got the message, I'm out of shape, now STOP RUBBING IT IN.
An hour swimming and I racked up a measly 1200 meter total. Bah.
Amusing quote of the day: Dan, after my explanation and (brief) demonstration of the butterfly stroke, decides to try it for himself:
"I am a sea serpent who's stuck in place."
Swim geekery! Now that is life.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 730 words.
Comments: So it's slow, painful progress when I thought I'd be able to fly. It's still progress. I'll take it.
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: Fucking. Inability. To. Describe. (In related news: visual people? I hate you so, so much.)
Snips: News flash: Elliot is not really a nice person.
It was also empty. Listening, Elliot heard no footsteps, neither kin nor human coming to greet him. It occurred to him that, given the lack of response from the dome, Giles might not even know he was here and had likely rid himself of the kin that would ordinarily announce his presence.
Elliot smiled a predatory smile and set off down the hallway on light feet.
Monday, January 01
Welcome to 2007. Please turn off all electronics during takeoff and keep your seats in their upright and locked position. Your ticket is not refundable.
Frankly, I can't say I'm sad to see it go. There were good parts: no year spent with Dan is entirely wasted, and getting married turned out to be both fun *and* (since everyone obligingly gave us money as wedding presents) profitable. But it was a hell of a roller-coaster ride. I will take my next one with less unpleasant surprises and stress, kthanx.
Writing-wise, last year's goals were:
Draft the Babel series.
This failed to happen so totally that it's laughable. Instead, I got stuck at 34K, moped around for a bit, wrote 10K on the sequel to Harmony I promised I wasn't writing, moped some more, and finally got sucked into my side project Beastiary. Oh well. The best laid plans, and all.
Plan and begin drafting the untitled, vaguely conceptualized new story, hereby working-titled the Beastie Story.
... See above. Oh, well, considering I'm 28K or so into this one, I guess I get to count it.
Keep sending Harmony to agents and publishers until someone accepts it or I run out of addresses.
The stats for Harmony:
31 queries sent
28 rejections (counting 2 rejections by no reply. Damn you! I want my stamp back!)
2 waiting on replies
4 partials requested: 3 were rejected, 1 I got just before Christmas and haven't written the extended synopsis for yet.
So I guess I get to count this one as well. This pretty much exhausts my list of agents. I'm eying my list of publishers, but... my faith in this novel is low right now, not because of the rejections (I mean, four partials! That's not half-bad for someone with no writing credits) but because I've done that thing where I, yanno, kept writing, and my skill level is... so much higher than it was this time last year. I could do so much better with this idea if I wrote it now.
Bad Kat! No rewrites!
Remain sane.
... uh, I think I need a second opinion on this one.
So that's two of four with one a draw. Huh. That is actually a lot better than I thought I'd done. Let's hear it for low expectations!
This year, I resolve to... uh... make some resolutions that don't involve writing. Because I have a life! No, really! (I think it's under the couch somewhere.)
- I will take care of my body. I've been very lucky, body-wise. Sure it was cranky sometimes and useless frequently, but it's generally behaved itself and stayed out of my way, traits I also look for in cars and computer operating systems. This year, though, was finally too much for my body, and it's made itself heard. So okay. I will start eating like a real human instead of a college student. I will walk places instead of driving like a lazy-ass. I will start going to the gym. I will keep going to the chiropractor. I will even do the stupid hamstring stretches he proscribed me, though I reserve the right to whine when they hurt.
- I will work on my time management. Thing is? Most of the stuff I list above I actually like doing. I like cooking, I like eating real food, I like walking, and I like swimming (sorry, still don't like the hamstring stretches). And there's plenty of other things I'd like to be doing more of... reading, writing, keeping up with housework, spending real time with Dan. But most of it gets pushed aside because I "don't have time". The truth is closer to "I have time, I just don't have much discipline." Less excusing, more doing.
Writing-wise, I want to:
- Finish Beastiary. I'd like to have it done before calving season, which should be somewhere around the 20th of March, and it would be wonderful to have it revised and ready for submission by the end of the year. But life happens. I'll settle for having it done.
- Begin working on the Dual Worlds book. This is a rather cool idea that's been kicking around in my head for a month or two, though I need to find a plot and file off more Tough Guide to Fantasyland serial numbers before it's workable. If there was one thing that the failure of Babel and the success of Beastiary taught me, though, it was not to skimp on either the worldbuilding or the necessary cogitation time. Four months slow but steady work has given me a much better foundation to work on. Again, in an ideal world, I'll be writing this sometime in the fall, but I'll settle for having it in a state to start by next year.
- Write and submit at least two nonfiction articles. Because I really fell off the wagon with this one, and I miss it. Both the validation of having something published and the quiet pleasure I get from writing them. And I know I have two article ideas ready to be polished up, so there.
- Remain sane. Because it bears repeating. Mmm, crunchy sane brains!
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 589 words.
Comments: I don't know what it is, but this book seems to require more stopping-and-thinking than anything else I've ever written. I mean, I know where I'm going, whereas before I was flailing blindly. So why did the flailing result in a steady 1K per day, whereas following my own breadcrumb trail requires much stopping and thinking and scribbling in notebooks?
I blame the birds. Darn birds! Get away from my breadcrumbs!
(Less blind alleys this way, though.)
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: Note to self: sentences must end.
Snips: No. There was some kin body language that I'm rather proud of, but it doesn't snip well.
Frankly, I can't say I'm sad to see it go. There were good parts: no year spent with Dan is entirely wasted, and getting married turned out to be both fun *and* (since everyone obligingly gave us money as wedding presents) profitable. But it was a hell of a roller-coaster ride. I will take my next one with less unpleasant surprises and stress, kthanx.
Writing-wise, last year's goals were:
Draft the Babel series.
This failed to happen so totally that it's laughable. Instead, I got stuck at 34K, moped around for a bit, wrote 10K on the sequel to Harmony I promised I wasn't writing, moped some more, and finally got sucked into my side project Beastiary. Oh well. The best laid plans, and all.
Plan and begin drafting the untitled, vaguely conceptualized new story, hereby working-titled the Beastie Story.
... See above. Oh, well, considering I'm 28K or so into this one, I guess I get to count it.
Keep sending Harmony to agents and publishers until someone accepts it or I run out of addresses.
The stats for Harmony:
31 queries sent
28 rejections (counting 2 rejections by no reply. Damn you! I want my stamp back!)
2 waiting on replies
4 partials requested: 3 were rejected, 1 I got just before Christmas and haven't written the extended synopsis for yet.
So I guess I get to count this one as well. This pretty much exhausts my list of agents. I'm eying my list of publishers, but... my faith in this novel is low right now, not because of the rejections (I mean, four partials! That's not half-bad for someone with no writing credits) but because I've done that thing where I, yanno, kept writing, and my skill level is... so much higher than it was this time last year. I could do so much better with this idea if I wrote it now.
Bad Kat! No rewrites!
Remain sane.
... uh, I think I need a second opinion on this one.
So that's two of four with one a draw. Huh. That is actually a lot better than I thought I'd done. Let's hear it for low expectations!
This year, I resolve to... uh... make some resolutions that don't involve writing. Because I have a life! No, really! (I think it's under the couch somewhere.)
- I will take care of my body. I've been very lucky, body-wise. Sure it was cranky sometimes and useless frequently, but it's generally behaved itself and stayed out of my way, traits I also look for in cars and computer operating systems. This year, though, was finally too much for my body, and it's made itself heard. So okay. I will start eating like a real human instead of a college student. I will walk places instead of driving like a lazy-ass. I will start going to the gym. I will keep going to the chiropractor. I will even do the stupid hamstring stretches he proscribed me, though I reserve the right to whine when they hurt.
- I will work on my time management. Thing is? Most of the stuff I list above I actually like doing. I like cooking, I like eating real food, I like walking, and I like swimming (sorry, still don't like the hamstring stretches). And there's plenty of other things I'd like to be doing more of... reading, writing, keeping up with housework, spending real time with Dan. But most of it gets pushed aside because I "don't have time". The truth is closer to "I have time, I just don't have much discipline." Less excusing, more doing.
Writing-wise, I want to:
- Finish Beastiary. I'd like to have it done before calving season, which should be somewhere around the 20th of March, and it would be wonderful to have it revised and ready for submission by the end of the year. But life happens. I'll settle for having it done.
- Begin working on the Dual Worlds book. This is a rather cool idea that's been kicking around in my head for a month or two, though I need to find a plot and file off more Tough Guide to Fantasyland serial numbers before it's workable. If there was one thing that the failure of Babel and the success of Beastiary taught me, though, it was not to skimp on either the worldbuilding or the necessary cogitation time. Four months slow but steady work has given me a much better foundation to work on. Again, in an ideal world, I'll be writing this sometime in the fall, but I'll settle for having it in a state to start by next year.
- Write and submit at least two nonfiction articles. Because I really fell off the wagon with this one, and I miss it. Both the validation of having something published and the quiet pleasure I get from writing them. And I know I have two article ideas ready to be polished up, so there.
- Remain sane. Because it bears repeating. Mmm, crunchy sane brains!
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 589 words.
Comments: I don't know what it is, but this book seems to require more stopping-and-thinking than anything else I've ever written. I mean, I know where I'm going, whereas before I was flailing blindly. So why did the flailing result in a steady 1K per day, whereas following my own breadcrumb trail requires much stopping and thinking and scribbling in notebooks?
I blame the birds. Darn birds! Get away from my breadcrumbs!
(Less blind alleys this way, though.)
Crappy Writing Skill De Jour: Note to self: sentences must end.
Snips: No. There was some kin body language that I'm rather proud of, but it doesn't snip well.
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