« Day 11-12: First Setback--Dang! | Main | Day 16: Little Known Author Displays Uncharacteristic Technical Competence »
August 26, 2005
Day 13-15: 5000 Steps Forward; 5000 Steps Backward
When not afflicted with diabolical, endless headaches--and sometimes when so afflicted anyway, just for the sake of doing something other than clutching my head, going, "arrgh"--Author Boy has been busy this week flapping the flippers at the keyboard.
This week I managed a pretty poor effort, and managed to bang out 5000 words in five days. Thursday I didn't do any scribble at all; on that day I spent a lot of time in bed, going, "arrgh", when not interrupted by telemarketers attempting to sell me things surplus to requirements, so to speak. The trouble this week was finessing the transition from where the ECLIPSE storyline ran out and where this book's storyline came into its own, as it were.
And I really cocked it up. Cocked it up to the tune of 5000 words of capital K Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap! You know things are going badly when, just at the point when things are meant to get more interesting, with more complication, and more peril, where things really ought to be ratcheting up into the next gear, instead you're sitting there thinking that life looks pretty straightforward and pleasant for your protagonist now. Wrong wrong wrong!
So today I did about 1300 words of a new ending for chapter 7, one which definitely makes things worse, and did a big chunk for the start of a new chapter 8, making things worse again. Now our protagonist knows for a fact that somebody on this ship wants to kill him (having just made a pretty good attempt at it), and that things elsewhere are deeply bad. He's only an android, and he's only 12 or so days old, but the idea that somebody tried to kill him is really messing with his head, freaking him out. It's a hard thing to cope with, your own mortality, and he's not really prepared for it.
So all the stuff I did today was fine. Yay! Everything else from this week? Had to go. Once I finished chopping, I was left with 20,476 words. This means that, since last Friday night, when I was very happy to have racked up 20,000 words and change, I've produced only 476 good words for the week--and 5000 stinking turkeys.
* * *
Pixel Update:
Yesterday we had to take our pooch, Pixel, to the vet to have her surgical stitches out. We'd expected Pixel to complain in no uncertain terms about this prospect, and that the vet would probably need to take her aside and give her some anaesthetic to calm her down enough for the deed to be done. Instead, with some firm guidance from Michelle (whom Pixel recognises as the alpha dog in the household pack), she went along with it just fine, with no extra help. It was amazing. The two lumps she had removed were harmless, but the most worrying one--a bulbous reddish thing that was growing--was only odd and worrying because they don't normally occur in dogs as old as Pixel.
Posted by adrian at August 26, 2005 08:36 PM
Comments
I've just upgraded to MT 3.2, so I'm testing the comment system.
Posted by: Adrian at August 29, 2005 07:36 PM
what treefen said!
Posted by: river selkie at August 27, 2005 12:28 AM
Yes indeedy, what Treefen said. You now have the story aimed in the right direction, which is in and of itself a large step forward, word count be damned. After all, quality over quantity, eh?
Posted by: Charlie at August 27, 2005 12:05 AM
I'm so glad that Pixel is okay! As for the word-smithing, you knew that you had to have a bad day eventually... things were going awfully smoothly. But, it sounds like you've got a better story than you did at the beginning of the week, and that's the important part, yes?
Keep up the good work!
Posted by: treefen at August 26, 2005 09:32 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)