Hello, Internet!
I’m gonna try something of a different format this week. Use headings and things, see if I can organize this as opposed to my usual word-vomit.
Writing
Week’s gone alright, I feel. I spent a few hours typing up “How the Thrun Earned His Wings” and sent a couple copies off to interested readers among friends & family. (I think I caught all the transcription typos.) It was a fun project, and I’m hoping people will enjoy reading it. I don’t really know if I’ll actually use “Thrun” for anything (although I may polish it up and toss it in the direction of a literary magazine), since I’m not sure that there’s a market for fairy-tales. In the end, I wrote it for me, though, and enjoyed the process. If a few people read it and like it, that’s good enough for me.
I’ve gotten a little bit back onto my editor’s chair this week as well. The Rule of Iron is like a dirty sink – it’s a big, messy problem that I don’t want to deal with (and may very well be growing life of its own). I think I’ve found a condition called ‘editor’s block.’ It’s like writer’s block – in that it’s based in fear – but settled on changing your work.
I know damn well that I have a big set of changes to make the moment I step past the portion I’ve already revised. (I have completed about the first 5 chapters [10,000 words] of revision.)
This week, I didn’t work on punching further than that point, but I did go through some reader comments and brush up a little of the prose. I had been fiddling with a couple different notions for denoting thoughts ‘spoken’ by my character. (I’ve been writing in 1st POV.)
I think editor’s block, for me, is the fear of tackling this great big mess of a revision. The solution (realized as I write this) is probably to chop it into smaller, more manageable pieces.
Just gotta figure out how to do that.
For the upcoming week, I’d like to develop a battleplan for revising Rule. This needs to get worked on again, just so I don’t regret leaving it half-finished in the future.
I’m also getting the itch to return to my nonfiction interests. This will probably manifest itself as a review of something I’ve been reading recently, but I also think there’s a nascent article comparing the Delian League and modern American politics rattling around in my brain. That’d require some actual research to write.
Reading
I finished reading The Book of Lost Tales 2 this week. Together, the two portions were a very interesting look into J.R.R. Tolkien’s early thoughts. It was interesting seeing how The Silmarillion eventually came to be (there’s very, very little of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings in the works). I may move forward onto The Lays of Beleriand right away (the next in the series), but I’m not planning to unless the spirit takes me.
I’ve also been reading a TON of the Discworld books (by Terry Pratchett) lately. Just sort of picking and choosing my way across his bibliography. If you’ve never read them, I highly recommend it. They’re a loosely-connected series of comedic fantasy novels (and you don’t really need to be into fantasy to enjoy them). I find them to be like potato chips for the brain, although healthier. Maybe fruit. They’re funny, they’re a quick read, and they’ll have brief moments of poignancy which can really make you think.
As with all readers and writers, my to-read list is monolithic. However, I think I’d like to tackle Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books next. I’ve heard many good things about them, and I haven’t actually read much in the YA Fantasy area lately (even though Rule is written for that audience).
Anyhoo, until next week.
Akhelas 