Touch · of · Ink

It's kind of like one of those "good new, bad news" jokes.

The good news is that I planned on finishing editing my book by April 17, using my vacation time to do so. (I picked my vacation time to coincide with my son's spring break school.)

The bad news, there was a personnel shortage at work and I volunteered to change my vacation time.

The good news is that it got moved up, so I'm on vacation now.

The bad news is that I won't be able to share my vacation with my son.

The good news is that I'll have more opportunities to edit my book while he's in school.

The bad news is that we lost power last night, and my internet connection was down most of the day.

The good news is that because my internet connection was down most of the day, I had some great opportunities to work on my edits.

The bad news is that it was storming so badly, I dared not work on the computer.

The good news is that before I left for vacation, I printed out an up to date version of my book so I had a hard copy to work with.

The bad news is that I couldn't access my computer/email for a couple of crits I was going to send out today.

The good news is that my connection is back up now, so I can get started on them.

I feel like a yo-yo :)

Hm, only two hours into this and I see weird things like the fact that I've spelled it, "Tommy knocker", "Tommy Knocker", "Tommyknocker" and "tommyknocker". No clue one what my resolution will be for that, yet.

I've also discovered that "kabosh" isn't a word outside of my family/region, and changed it to read "bosh".

For my final editing round (due April 17) I'm creating a style sheet, a usage sheet, and a continuity sheet.

This isn't necessarily anything that anyone else will see, but it's really helpful to me to make sure that I'm being consistent through the story, that I understand why I'm using some words the way I do, and that if Troll Wife's knee is wounded on page 94, I don't have her walking around normally on page 105.

Next time? I'm going to create my style sheet as I go, rather than wait until the end. (For really wonderful information about style sheets, I'd recommend reading deannahoak.) I love the way she writes about copyediting.

10. When I decide to break the rules, break them gloriously and without apology, shame, or explanation. But I better know *why* I'm breaking the rules.
9. I can write for myself. I can write for my audience/mythical reader. But when I write to impress, I'll fall flat on my nose.
8. Have *fun*. If I'm not feeling that wonderful "fire in the head" feeling, then what's the point?
7. Finishing is as much fun as starting, it just takes longer.
6. I stay on track better when I have deadlines.
5. I need to know why and how things work in my world. I don't need to explain it to my readers, but I need to know.
4. I learn something new every time I write. I don't expect that to change.
3. I may be wrong about what I think are my strengths and weaknesses. Except when it comes to spelling. I know that's a weakness.
2. I have no idea what "scaffolding" is, but I have a sneaking suspicion my stories are full of it.

And the best thing I think I know about writing is:

1. No compliment will ever mean more to me than when my son was reading "Any Fae" and said, "Dang it, Mommy, you made me forget I'm a human. Again!"

Ok, "The Difference Cat" didn't last long as a title for the steampunk thing. Now, it's "Rose and the Clockwork Cat", which is better, but still not right. I think it's going to be a much longer title, with a series of commas in it. We'll see.

On the editing front, I have a week's vacation next month. By the end of the vacation, I plan to have my last round of editing done, at which point I'll be looking for critters. (Gulp! My baby, going out in the world!) I have one lined up already, but am looking for more. If you're interested, please drop me a line.

The story is "Any Fae May Apply" about a female troll that fights injustice and prejudice when she sees it, and kind of accidentally ends up becoming a tooth fairy. It's not an urban fantasy. I'd class it more as a suburban fantasy. Here's the opening paragraph:

I took stock of my injuries. I hadn't even been on the job a week and I had 14 bruises, a concussion, multiple cuts and abrasions, a broken bone, and now, a gunshot wound. Being a Tooth Fairy shouldn't be this hard.

( And here are the stats based on that meme from a while back: )

I have a tentative title for my steampunk thing. It's "The Difference Cat". It pulls in both references to steampunk novels and the clockwork cat. It's workable, for now. I do expect it to change before the book is done.

abennettstrong tagged me with the "5 weird habits" meme. Which leaves me something in a quandary. After all, this is my "all writing, all the time" journal. So, I would have to tweak it to "5 weird writing habits", in order to satisfy my sense of rightness in the world. So, in no particular order, here are my 5 weird writing habits. (You may not find them weird. That says more about you, than it does me :)

1. I write on my side. Yes, laying on my side (always my left side) in bed. I fully expect to develop some sort of mutant form of scoliosis which will baffle the medical community for years, or until I confess that I write on my side. (I already have an unusual callus on my left elbow.)

2. I collect names the way some people collect stamps. I have a file of special names I've uncovered, and sometimes I open that file just to admire the names.

3. I hide my writing because I'm ashamed of it. I don't know why I'm ashamed of it. No one has ever put my writing down. But, I hide it.

4. I can't listen to music when I write. I'd like to be one of those writers that has a theme album for their work. I keep trying to be one of those writers. But the fact is that while I can listen to music to get me in the mood to write, I can't write and listen to music at the same time.

5. I'm a rule breaker. Give me some writing rule, explain why the rule exists, and I will find a way to break that rule. It's so much more than just a habit, it's almost a geas.

Tagging five more people, ouch my head hurts! Feel free to consider yourself tagged if you want to do it, and not be tagged if you don't want to do it :)

Yesterday, I was working on some character creation, bouncing ideas off of my son. At one point, I started changing a character in a direction that I'd said I didn't want to go. My son stopped me and said, "Mommy, here's some advice from your muse. Don't let the characters take control. Write them the way you want them to be."

How did he get so smart?

Goal: 400 pages
Current time: 12:30 pm
Current pages: 29

Ok, I admit that's a sucky figure, but in my defence I want to say that my son has the day off from school today and he wants to keep telling me about One Piece and Naruto. And legos. And Dragon Ball Z. And Pokemon.

Now that I am finally finished with my first editing phase, I'm moving on to the second phase. I'm going to try to get it all done today.

Goal: 400 pages
Start time: 7 am
Current pages: 0

We'll see how it goes :)

When I talk about how I want to use symbolism, most people don't understand what I'm trying to convey. The fault lies with my inability to articulate the idea and that most people are never trained in symbolism. There are groups of people that are trained or in some other way learn about symbolism. Writers, for one. Many types of Pagans for another. And this result (from Google Cache) also deals with symbolism, and how to warn people away, when you can't speak the language.

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:iG1W_bBjxpAJ:downlode.org/etex

Cool stuff, very thought provoking. I saved a copy to my hard drive.

My son is doing a "History Day" project. It's a big multi month project and this year's theme is on people who took a stand in history. My son is doing his project on Stanislav Petrov (the man who averted a potential nuclear war).

If you would like to share where you were in your life on Sept 26, 1983 for his project, please send an email to 1983sept26@gmail.com

Please include a name and the age you were at the time. And if anyone would like to spread this request for help around, I'd appreciate it!

Editing on "Any Fae May Apply" is going well, I'm about half way through. This editing pass is the finding-every-missing-scene-and-check-for-continuity pass. Again. Since my last one got derailed by ex-drama.

In my editing for "Any Fae..." I have realized that I will have to remove a subplot that just isn't working. The problem is that the subplot sets up the ending, so I will either have to change the ending or find a different subplot to tie the ending to. Argh!

I'm having a lot of fun thinking about the steampunk thing, too. But I know the fun is masking my fear. And what is that fear you might ask? It is the fear of not having enough plot for a story. Every time I sit down to write, that's what I worry about most.

I've also realized that I'm rushing too hard and not working hard enough on "Any Fae...". On the one hand, I feel like I have to have a finished and polished novel by June. I'm not sure why I think this. Maybe it's because I'm comparing myself to other writers (always a bad idea) and they write faster than I do. I'm afraid that taking "too long" on a book is just another way of not writing, or that taking "too long" to write a book means you're likely to be a "one hit wonder". (If it takes long enough to finish a book, then you'll only have time to finish one.)

So, note to self: Do not judge your pace against anyone else's.

At the same time, I'm also afraid that I'm not working hard enough on "Any Fae...". This is actually because I have a terrible record of finishing things unless I'm being held accountable to an outside due date.

Note to self: Create goals and work towards them.

I'd been thinking about giving Miss Snark a little unasked for advice. (That would be my first mistake.) I was doing in the spirit of trying to help, and give her inside information about something that she may not know.

Finally, after a couple of days of dithering around, I decided to send her an e-mail. (That would be my second mistake.)

My third, fourth and fifth mistakes happened in quick succession.

As anyone that reads my journal knows, I am a terrible speller. (Note to any kids reading this journal: don't try to get by with memorizing your spelling words just long enough to be able to regurgitate them for the test. You're only hurting yourself.) I decided to spell check my email before sending off to Miss Snark (mistake number three).

I hadn't used this particular spell checker before (mistake number four), but went ahead anyway. After all, I reasoned, it would be a mistake of a serious order to send Miss Snark an email with a word spelled incorrectly. The spell checker thought I spelled many words incorrectly, but it was wrong about most of them. I ignored those and went for the one that was obviously wrong, and got that corrected.

Mistake number five happened when I accidentally sent the draft version to Miss Snark. So now, a great many words are underlined in red. One word is underlined in green. About 50,000 suggestions for corrections for the other words are listed at the bottom of the email.

My only hope is that her spam filter catches it, and she never sees it.

(And I swear I will not give unasked for advice again. Or at least, not for the next 12 hours.)

Thank you to everyone that offered advice about my non-fiction piece. You're right, I need to write it.

Today's quote of the day on Google was too good to pass by, and perfect for my new steampunk story.

No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.
- Edward Abbey

I can totally see Aunt Abigail (Aunt Agatha? Whatever her name will be) saying something like this.

I've been meaning to write this non-fiction piece for a while. I guess the problem is that I don't know whether I want it to be a book or an article. Or maybe start with an article and expand it into a book?

The title is "Mike is a verb" and it's about my son, who has ADHD. When he was first diagnosed, I did some really intensive researching and couldn't find the information that I wanted anywhere. Lots of places recommended "behavior modification" but no sources spelled it out. Over the years, my son and I have found things that work for us. I really want to share these with people, but I'm not sure I "know enough". And he's only 12. Should I wait until he's 18 (or older) and show that these things have a track record?

This article is like an itch between my shoulder blades that I can't reach.

This round of editing is going well. I've rethought a few scenes to bolster character and plot development, while at the same time throwing rocks at my MC.

I'd like to say that I'm organized enough to only be doing scene level editing at this point, and put the sentence level stuff off until later, but basically, I'm editing whatever catches my eye.