"And good evening, Colin."

I haven't managed to do much of note the last week or so. I arrived back from Australia and between trying to get over jetlag, catching up with some fellow local writers, and going back to work a day and a half after getting back into the country...I'm exhausted. Not to mention I've got the most ridiculously fruit-stuffed Christmas cake in the oven this afternoon. I've never made a fruit cake before. I don't even like fruit cake. But as I'm well-known as the sort of madwoman who'll bake anything on a dare (yes, Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies, I'm looking at you) my mother told me to make one for her. So...we'll see how that turns out. Although with that said it's not like I have to eat it.

Otherwise, I spent Saturday most emphatically not writing, which was at least partially because I took a break from Dany and Tyrion and my other favourites to read the book that arrived in Saturday's post. The Scottish Prisoner. I've been dying for this book for months, and...finally. I did learn a lesson about checking release dates, mind you; I knew the UK date was later than the US one (or at least I thought it was) and when in Australia I ordered it from Amazon.com. And when I was at Whitcoulls last week hunting out A Storm of Swords for a laugh I checked the new release section and almost had an apopolexy when I saw that The Scottish Prisoner was there. Cheers, New Zealand. You suck, New Zealand. God, I love you, New Zealand.

Now, I'm a bit of a rabid Lord John Grey fangirl so of course instinct demanded I buy it, but my bank account is unhappy with me after so many weeks of not working, so I actually kept my cool and didn't buy another copy when I knew I had one coming in the post. I also got the next A Song of Ice and Fire to distract myself with anyway, but you know. [slaps hand] I'm a bad fangirl. (Actually, I still haven't read Lord John and the Plague of Zombies yet either, so I am a doubly bad fangirl.) But to make up for it I'm going to have a ramble here now anyway. I hesitate to call it a "review" because it's not like I have a clue what I'm talking about at the best of times, but I want to have a little SQUEE HANDFLAIL WHEEEEEEEE moment, so here we are. It's going to be filled with SPOILERS, so ye have been warned.

Like I said above, I've been waiting for this book for ages. Mostly it's because I love Lord John like the foaming-at-the-mouth idiot woman that I am, but it's also because it promised to give some real insight into John and Jamie's "friendship." Said friendship was utterly in tatters after Brotherhood of the Blade, and although we know from Voyager and beyond that the two of them managed to come to an understanding before John married Isobel, it was obviously not something that could be overcome with mere words. It needed action -- acta non verba, if I may be pretentious enough to pretend I know anything about Latin, ha ha ha (tip o' the hat to Herself there for teaching me the Latin in the first place) -- and fortunately for us, we got an entire book of action. In words. Oh god the irony, it burns. And you know I fucking love it.

I have to say first off that I have a copy of iTunes that is possessed by some sort of music demon. Or possibly a leprechaun. I already knew from having read various generous extracts that Jamie and John would be taking a trip to Ireland, and the moment I opened the book to the first page iTunes -- which was on random -- promptly brought up The Rocky Road To Dublin. Cue hysteria on my part. Incidentally I apologise for the leading photograph of this entry; that's not Ireland, it's the Highlands of Scotland. I've never been to Ireland myself; partly it's because I am a moron, but I also have this funny little thing about Ireland. By descent I'm English and Scottish -- although a Scotsman once told me I was Danish -- but my father has a family tree on his mother's side going back to the sixteenth century that he once told me proved we were Irish. I read it, then flipped out and emailed him back wailing DAAAAAAAAAAD WE MOVED TO ULSTER FROM ENGLAND and...yeah. I'm neither a Paddy nor a Mick, I'm a bloody Pom. Oops. (Although my great-grandmother was actually Scottish; apparently my English grandmother was terrified of her. Er.) So, yes, going to Ireland in books is about as far as I get right now. (And in my head, every Irishman sounds like Dara and Ed. Ha.)

So, to get back to the book. Overall I enjoyed it -- it's not my favourite of the supplementary material, I don't think, but Brotherhood is somehow hard to top for me. (And not just because through said book Lord John saved my life in Mexico. Long story.) But there is definitely a lot to recommend it. My only complaint is that I felt it could be longer, which is hilarious in hindsight because I've felt a few of the Lord John books have been a bit overlong in the tail. It wasn't even so much the story that I felt could be longer, I think I just wanted more detail. It's the richness of Gabaldon's writing that I always keep coming back for, and I didn't get as much of that here as I usually do -- though I might change my mind on a reread, because I was chewing through this thing like the word-glutton I am. I know I took my time over various extracts when they came to light and got far more satisfaction that way, so you know. Take that one with a grain of salt.

The characters, again, are what stood out for me. Naturally I adore Lord John, and even though I am not actually a huge fan of Jamie's, I do like his narrative voice. And yes, you heard that right; I am a full-blooded presumably straight female who wouldn't jump Jamie Fraser's bones at first opportunity. I'm not sure why that is; I find him to be a fascinating character, but he doesn't appeal to me the way I know he does to most other readers. I suspect it's just because my tastes are odd, but there you go. I do, however, love his narrative voice; Voyager is one of my favourite books in the series because we get to hear from Jamie. And considering the way this book deals with Jamie and John's friendship, I thought it was a very good idea for Gabaldon to have it told from both viewpoints rather than just John's. There's a running theme through the book about the two of them meeting as equals, and by sharing the narraitve rather than it being strictly from John's only really gave that a strong resonance. I enjoyed that. It also gave plenty of opportunity for warm fuzzies between Willie and Jamie, which considering the state of their relationship by the end of An Echo In The Bone...ooh, yeah, fluff is handy right now.

So, John and Jamie. Brilliant. But their supporting cast is wonderful -- Tom Byrd, I just want to squishle. And it says something for Diana's writing -- and perhaps my own gross stupidity -- that I fully thought Tom was going to die in Ireland. (I say "gross stupidity" because I've already read an extract of Plague of Zombies that says Tom is alive, and I know that happens after Prisoner.) I was very, very sad. And then very, very happy. I also have a thing for John's brother Hal, who is a stubborn son of bitch with an honourable streak a mile long; Jamie makes a comment towards the end of the book that he envies the brothers their company, and I can see why. Hal and Johnny are just...Hal and Johnny. As someone with two brothers and one sister, I can safely say that there is nothing in this world quite like a sibling who has your back. And though Jamie still has Jenny, it's...different. I love my brothers, but my sister is the one who knows me best. I imagine it to be much the same with men and their brothers and sisters.

Hal's wife, Minnie, is also a revelation in this book -- although I was fond of Minnie anyway. Harry Quarry is a force unto himself -- a very poetic force, albeit one best suited to the saucier imprints of Mills and Boon -- and I had a little snicker when John Hunter turned up again. Oh, that man is a prick and a half; when I was in London earlier this year I went to the Royal College of Surgeons and saw his collection. Tsk, tsk. I've seen "interesting" anatomical collections before, being that I spent so much time wandering in and out of the Lindo-Ferguson Building at Otago, but even I was taken aback by what the man had. (I was particularly revolted by the half-child's head, which says a lot as my previous "worst ever" was the conjoined twins who did not look to me like they'd died at birth; they seemed far too old in my admittedly limited experience.) But it was a nice touch to bring him back for the concluding duel of the story.

As to the story itself...it was actually a good deal easier to follow than some of John's other stories. That may be just because I'm an idiot, but there you go. It flowed like a river, picking up pace and flotsam along the way, and then hit a dam before spilling over into a very nice conclusion. I did have one complaint, but the more I consider it...well. A month or so back I made a smart-ass remark on the compuserve forum that my wilful brain has a happy-ever-after scenario that involves John running away to Germany to live with Stephan von Namtzen where they can raise sausages ever after. Said sausages referring to dackels (dachshunds), naturally, but only on the surface of the matter. Ha ha ha. I have a particular fondness for dachshunds, you see; ever since I was eleven or twelve I've been of a mind to acquire one and name it Colin. Which is entirely the fault of Prince George. ...ironically enough set in the same time period as this novel. Ha. So you can imagine I was overjoyed when Stephan reappeared.

Weirdly enough, I wasn't a hundred percent satisfied with it, but it may be because I am, in the words of Jamie Fraser, something of a "wee pervert" myself. I wasn't quite satisfied with the change in Stephan and John's relationship, and at first I thought I was just being a jerk because of a lack of detail. (I've been rereading the other stories in Red Velvet and Absinthe the last few days, you see; explicitness is the name of the game there!) I then realised that for all John was clearly over Percy, I was not getting the same sense of intimacy between John and Stephan that we were treated to with Percy and John in Brotherhood. And I don't mean in the sense of sex -- the emotional intimacy wasn't the same. And for a bit I couldn't decide if it was because John was pulling back, or if it said something else. From the lovely scene in Brotherhood it's very clear that John and Stephan are emotionally close, and the end of the book sorted it for me. Stephan sent John a dackel, and invited him hunting. And I grinned. Not just because I mentally named the poor creature "Colin," but also because I realised what it was. I love Stephan, and I love him with John, but they strike me as friends more than anything else now. And not in a bad way. Much as I wanted them to be something more, I think they are best as friends. Not that I'd object to being proved wrong, but it's all good. They're friends, but not exactly confidants in the way John was with Percy, or even with Jamie.

The relationship between Jamie and John was particularly lovely to watch develop anew. I was particularly struck by the ending, where Jamie, John and Willie are watching the horses and John opens with the Torremolinos Gambit. It was a wonderful callback to the first time their friendship went balls-to-the-wall in Voyager, and it also put John, Jamie and William together. I've always been fascinated by that triad, particularly as it is one of the things that I believe ties John and Claire together much much later. While John is no-one's "woman," neither is Claire -- they're both partners to Jamie in terms of his two children, and this lovely little scene almost has them as a peculiar little family. Yet they're all unaware of it, which gives it a nice echo we'll see later. I love that sort of thing; I think that's what makes both reading writing prequels and supplementary material so much fun.

Of course, I have the brain of an idiot and I was watching The Venture Bros. earlier yesterday, and for some reason as Jamie and John began to work together I started mentally picturing them as Brock Samson and Rusty Venture. Which is perhaps a bit of a disservice to John, because he's nothing like Rusty. It was just the juxtaposition of the huge guy ostensibly working for the much smaller man and yet the two of them having a laugh together as the relationship's more equal than that...although yes, I do have days when I mentally picture Jamie as a red-headed Brock. ...nice ass, Samson. But that's the heart of it; I absolutely adored how John and Jamie went from John's hilarious "I wouldn't piss on him were he burning in the fires of hell" comment to playing chess again by the end of it. And it was believeable. Though we already knew it was a given, they had to work for it. And they did. That's what I liked so much about this story; as I said above they came together as equals, and that was what allowed them to work through their issues with one another and part as something very much like friends. For being the one to set that up and make it possible, I wish Hal would take me on the hearth rug. Ha.

The particular stand-out moments to me were Jamie rescuing John from the castle, which was a lovely bit of irony considering there was some vague talk of Jack Randall through the whole thing. I've always wondered how much John knew, you see; I couldn't imagine Jamie ever telling him, but John does know something happened in Jamie's past and I can't help but wonder if he'll ever put it together. After all, John's not stupid -- and I liked how he came to realise why Jamie stayed at Helwater. I actually thought it was a bit cruel of Jamie to lead John to think it was for Betty, because while I harbour no belief that Jamie would ever want John the way John wants Jamie, I thought lying about something of that nature was a bit unfair. But John was a lot more magnanimous than I was, and it was a nice way to lead him to realise that Willie was Jamie's son. I also liked how Isobel, Jamie and John became connected through Wilberforce, as it says a lot to me about how John came to wed Isobel and why Jamie was a bit apprehensive about it considering the circumstances. Also, Lord Dunsany arranging for John to become Willie's guardian even before John weds Isobel was nicely done. These people are connected, in so many ways. One of my favourite Stephen King novels, Bag of Bones, talks about how the TR-90 (a "town" of a sort) is filled with people connected by "underground cables" you can't see but you feel, and that's what I got here. Heartstrings, strung out between them all. And even though you already know these people will be connected to one another long into the future, you can see why even now. I read the first book as Cross-Stitch rather than the US title of Outlander, and though I like the latter better for the series as a whole it feels like a callback to the former title to me. It's a tapestry, and the threads move in and out of the weaves of the others. I love that. That's why I read these books.

There are a lot of other things I could say, but my brain is dying this afternoon. And like I said, I need to reread the book anyway. But there's just...a richness to the story that I enjoyed. I must unashamedly admit that John is my favourite character, but I think it was because John finally got to do something with Jamie that was meaningful. Because they were equals. I liked John from the moment I first started reading from his POV in Voyager (I don't recall thinking much of him in Dragonfly In Amber), and I can assure you that I remember very well reading that book in Christchurch. I all but shrieked at him when he made his Torremolinos gambit after the chess game and reached out for Jamie. I knew it was not the time. It put them on an unequal footing that went beyond the standard governer/prisoner thing, and although we knew they worked through it we never knew how. And to finally see it, all these years later...I feel quite privileged, somehow. It's such a vital and strong part of John's character, this constant love for Jamie, and seeing how the two of them can deal with it to the point that they can be friends...

The duel struck me deeply. I loved how it was told through Jamie's eyes but with John's words in his mind; they were principle and second, and almost in a way they were one body in that moment. Considering they can never be one in the way John might wish -- and my heart broke for him when he heard Jamie calling for Claire and ached to be someone who could give him solace -- this did my poor bruised heart right in. There's a lot of things in this book, in terms of the different relationships between people and the reasons for it -- love, honour, duty, filial association, that sort of thing. John gets brotherhood from Hal and a more physical kind of love from Stephan, but from Jamie...it's an understanding. It's not romantic, but it's not platonic either. It's something else entirely. It acts, actually, as a very strong reasoning behind the oddity of John and Claire's consummated marriage, but that's entirely another discussion.

But yes, this is all getting very disjointed. I just loved the little details of this book, too; John's repeated motif of the master couplet said so much for the theme of equality, and I also had a good little snigger at the poem Jamie was reading early on about the woman scorned. I tended to read it as his quiet unease about John; as far back as my reading of Voyager I could see Jamie held a concern about John's intentions towards him for a long long time. And I mean that in the sense Jamie didn't realise for quite a while the nature of John's honour. Fair enough, considering his experience at the hand of Jack Randall; it was no wonder Jamie would believe John's fake impossible "love" (you can't hear my sarcasm in the written word, believe you me) could turn just as easily to resentment and hate. Which is why I loved how Jamie refused to let Quinn kill John. And I also understood the last bit with the names. I loved how John suddenly got annoyed and demanded that Jamie stop calling him "my lord." And the fact that Jamie wanted to but knew it was better not to...it was lovely and sad and made me think of their meeting all those years later in Jamaica. That was where the equality truly began. But it was there earlier, just...it was never quite the time.

So, I am looking forward to In My Own Heart's Blood in a couple of years. I love Jamie and John, and I love them together. Even though my slash fangirl self will always wish John could have what he wanted, I do love them as friends. It's such a rich and fascinating relationship, one once again in tatters, and seeing how it was between them the last time they patched it up...it gives me hope for this time. It also makes me slightly philosophical; much as I wanted Stephan and John together, I think they're better as friends. It's the same with John and Jamie. They have their own paths, but they're just...there are heartstrings, as I said. They stretch out between us and all the people that we love. And I particularly like how a Scot and a Pom had to go to Paddy-Land to become friends. Something about that just amuses me deeply.

In other news, I should probably go and do something like writing myself. I have LOTS OF FEELINGS about writing, mostly something between despair and hope, but that's for another day. In the meantime...just write. As they say.

Goals, Tries and Having Something To Score

 

At the start of the year I’m sure I made some sort of goal post in this blog, but I really have the memory of a goldfish. I’m not sure that it matters, anyway, but I was thinking that I should sit down and work out what I need to achieve over the next few months. I turn thirty in February, and aside from having a fit about where I want to spend my birthday – I’m leaning towards Peru, although I was having thoughts of camping in South Africa – I want to be seriously dedicated to my writing to a point I can see it as a viable part of my career. I don’t think I have the necessary talent or ability or pure dumb luck to make a living off writing, but I’d like to be able to go back to being a pharmacist but kick back my hours a bit. Four days a week instead of five, or something. But I’ll get to that part in a minute.

I am the queen of unfinished novels. But I do have two that are finished. I’m not really up for submitting either to an agent, however. The first, an urban fantasy romance, has a very solid and interesting first half and completely turns to lumpy scorched custard by the second chapter of the second half. Bollocks. I can rewrite it, and I know that at some point I will. I just don’t think it’s where I want to start my publishing career. The other novel was intended as a children’s book, then a young adult novella, and now…it’s still about thirteen year old kids, but it’s a kid’s book the way Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials is a kid’s series. Kids could read it, sure. I know I’d have read it. But then I was reading bodice rippers and Stephen King at the age of ten, so I don’t think I’m the best judge of reading material suited to age, here. So, I’ve set that aside for the meantime even though I am on and off working on its direct sequel.

This leaves me with four options for my first punt on an agent, none of which are fully complete. The first is Greywater, and this really is the best option save for the fact it’s straight-up fantasy. I think I’m going to have to go waaaaay outside the New Zealand channels here, though I am aware thanks to SpecFicNZ that I’m by no means alone here. It just depends on how hard I want to hit. I’m fairly certain I can get somewhere with this, but we’ll see. The current manuscript is at 112k and is maybe twenty or thirty thousand words off a first draft, after which I can tidy.

The other three options are more complicated. People In Looking-Glass Houses is easily the most marketable idea I’ve got – it’s also an urban fantasy romance – but while I wrote a good deal of it back in 2002/2003, the characters have changed a lot to suit the canon of the world it edges up against, and I’ve decided most of what was written ought to be scrapped or reappropriated. Writing it would take a lot of time over the next few months. I may have that time, but I’m not sure. I will write this story at some point, I’m just not sure how soon is now, or something to that effect. Ha.

Hibernaculum is a tricky one. I love these characters, and I love their story – two of the centrals are my first true OTP, and the novel is nearly finished. Maybe twenty thousand words out, too; I drag my heels with it because it’s a complex ending and I’m a moron. But not only is it also fantasy, it involves one of the other central characters getting into a very complicated relationship with another man and therefore might be hard to market. I’m not sure on that front; it would depend on the publisher. And I suppose I oughtn’t to care considering a) I won a competition last month with a short story with clear elements of homoeroticism and b) my first print publication was with a light erotica story, het or no, and…er. Yeah.

My other novel-in-progress is never going to be a publisher’s choice, mind you. But how much I want to finish it! ^_~ The Juniper Bones is my baby. And of everything I write and share, it’s the one that’s generated the most interest. But not only is it ungodly long in its current form, it just involves so many difficult things that I suspect a publisher would rather just shove me off into Charybdis with that barge pole rather than use it as a debut novel. Ha. Yet every time I open one of the associated files or look at some of the commissions I’ve had done, I end in hysterics. I love those characters, and I love that story. So hard. And I want to share it in its fullness with people, and not just because Morgan will one day give me that partial lobotomy she’s been promising if I don’t.

On the short story front, I want to keep poking away at various markets. Wily Writers has a call for submission for a young adult post-apocalyptic short story that I have a solid idea for; its due date is the end of October, so I can swing it. Yesterday I also ran across this blog fest that sounds fascinating, and I’m fairly certain I will be signing up later today because the fact the first submission sits so well with the dates of my trip to Egypt next week…it seems a sign, to me. So we’ll run with it. Besides, I’ve really got to get back to networking and sharing with other writers. One thing I regret about leaving New Zealand is the loss of my writing groups, and I’ve been really slack about spending time on the wonderful and wondrous CompuServe Readers and Writers forum. So, writing and reading stories for a joint Blog Fest universe sounds like a hell of a way to meet new writers…

Speaking of blogs, I have a few links that I got from CompuServe the other day, relevant to our interests. They’re about writing a query and then a synopsis, and even though I am not at that stage yet they’re actually very useful links for someone like me. Because I have problems with focus and structure. But I was so happy to see that Greywater fit very well into the basic synopsis template, and after writing a test query for the novel I feel that writing a synopsis in that format actually might help me a lot with finishing the novel. So, we’ll see? I would do it today, but I want to go to the Museum of London, and I have no idea how much longer I’ll be in town…

Which brings me to my next thought – I have an opportunity. It occurred to me last Friday as I was sitting in St. James Park that I could go back to Western Australia and just…write. I’m not Australian – GOD, I’m not Australian! – but my father is on a project near Perth and my parents live in a lovely seaview apartment with three bedrooms, one of which doubles as an office. I’ve been to see them twice there over the last year, and it’s a lovely place (which I’m not saying just because Margaret River has the best goddamned nougat IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, nuh-uh). I remember thinking the second time in particular how nice it would be, to marry an engineer and live a life where I could get up at six in the morning, have breakfast, do Zumba, go for a walk for an hour around the mangroves then return home for a day of writing. It struck me at the park that I could actually do this, if only for three or four weeks. I floated the idea to my mother, asking if I could stay in order to write if I contributed to the bills, and she green-lighted it. So…I’m not sure. I came to the UK with the intent of living and working here for a bit, but it’s not really as I’d thought it would be. I do love London; I had no real feelings towards the city the first time I saw it in 2006, but it’s grown on me. I’m just not sure I want to live here – or in the UK – after all. It feels like a step back, to the life that I both loved and hated four years ago. And I want to move forward as a writer, not go back to the world pharmacy. I can do my job, and do it well, but I need something more than that to keep me going. I have to be honest with myself about that, otherwise it's just not fair to any of us.

So, that’s my decision. It’s a bloody difficult one. I keep reminding myself that not every writer gets this sort of opportunity, and considering I have no real ties to anywhere, I should take it. And once I’ve had that sabbatical, I can return to New Zealand (maybe via Cambodia, ha) and move back to Wellington. There, I can get a full-time pharmacist position with my finished novel(s) tucked safely under my arm. Maybe then I can go back to the nine-to-five knowing I have a way of altering my own destiny, so to speak.

I’m scared as hell. I suppose that’s the way the cookie crumbles. But when I was looking something up about The Juniper Bones the other day I found a little file I’d made last year during NaNoWriMo in which I’d kept some of the feedback I’d received from the fantastic individuals at the CompuServe forum, and things like this just brought and still bring tears to my eyes:

When I read your writing, it makes me want more. I don't want to stop. And then I get to the end, and my brain is like a little puppy, all kind of like, where's the rest? What comes next? Huh? Huh? You have an absolutely stunning talent, you know. Your characters are beautifully put together, your story is compelling and mysterious- there's no question at all I'll be buying this off the shelf at a bookstore within a couple of years, and I'll just have to twitch impatiently and hang out for snippets until then.

I need to remind myself that I can write, and that I must write, if only for my own sanity. My sister keeps watching Dragon’s Den, and last night they were talking about how pitches need passion, because no company is going to succeed unless the person wants it enough to spend so much time with it. I could say the same of my writing. I love doing it. I want to do it. I just need to believe. And I was giddy yesterday to finally have run across a review of Red Velvet and Absinthe that mentioned me by name; while I’ve seen a lot of positive feedback about the collection as a whole, I’ve been craving something personal whether good or bad. And this…yes.

Tea For Two is a heart wrenching story that had this reader on the verge of tears. The poignancy of this love story and the loss that the two main characters suffer is so tenderly written, making the whole scenario come alive before your very eyes. Congratulations Ms. Buckingham for a truly tremendous and well thought out short story.

I can do this. I can, I can! So…here we go. Although as I said, it’s half-nine in the morning here in ol’ London Town and I might go out. I need to make the most of the city while I’m here, because I suspect I may have to leave her soon. We’ll see.

"What about the Twinkie?"

I think I've decided to try and do a bit of a "Wall of Shame" thing this month in order to keep myself on track writing-wise, though with that said it might be a bit interesting anyway because towards the end of the month I will be packing up and wandering off god alone knows where. ...actually, that's a lie, as I know I will be in NYC for a few days, then London for a couple of days before the eleven-day trip to Turkey, and after that my sister and I are going to tool on over to Suffolk to see my great-aunt. I also have the urge to go to Peterborough to pay my respects to Catherine of Aragon and I also want to go climb up Glastonbury Tor, but we'll see.

...but yeah, I can still do some writing. Actually, I'd like to go sit in the reading room in the Schwarzman branch of the New York Public Library and write a little bit of something. That would be heaven. ...hell, with the odd direction conversations between Cira and Otho have been taking the last couple of days, I could even get away with an anecdote about an unexplained mass sponge migration. Even if they do only move a foot and a half. Ha.

But yes, I ought to do something to account for what I do and don't write, so...here we go? Because I decided to do another couple of commissions, I spent the weekend writing about either Arosek and Ryenn, or Cira and Otho, and it's really got me back into the rhythm of Greywater. In between arranging my ESTA, scanning bills and obsessing over Nigella Lawson (don't ask), I managed to get a very little bit done. I'd already written maybe a couple hundred words this morning before I decided to take count, but at that point the .doc was 70,551. It's now 71,473. I'm guessing the novel's slightly more than halfway done at this point, though I can't be sure. Certainly it keeps changing shape on me -- not least of all thanks to that damn Rylea, and I'm terrified of Nan making an unexpected cameo -- but I think its key theme is always and ever going to be about rescuing others, and ourselves. And which one is possible, and which isn't. Hmm.

Right now, though, I think I've earned an early night. <3

Slash and Burn

For those of you interested in such things, unfortunately the title is not referring to slash fiction. ^_~ No, I'm going to complain a little bit about editing, mostly as a means of procrastinating from doing that very thing. Although with that said, I've been having little fits of GLEE all week because I commissioned a lovely English girl to do me a little drawing of Araben and Aleksandr, and she's been sending me sketches and whatnot and...yes. Niiiiice, is all I have to say for myself. <3

But the fact that I am speaking of editing at all means that yes, I finished the first draft of The Neverboy on Wednesday night. It's almost been a little anti-climatic, but that's likely because I've been away from it for a while now and therefore the thought of going back and rereading from the beginning properly isn't at all anaethema to me right now. In fact, I will be doing that shortly, as I need to really start tidying up the story in order to have it sing the way I know it can. It stumbles along fine the way it is, of course, but...it could be so much more.

But yes, it's quite odd, having something semi-finished that I can now seriously consider in a more critical light. I mean, with The Juniper Bones, even when I have a first draft I have no real belief that anyone would ever publish it. I have a similar problem with For What We Drown, though it is more palatable; it's just set in New Zealand, which seems to kill a story dead when it comes to the international market. And Hibernaculum is a pseudo-fantasy story without all the things most fantasy writers seem to want, so...I don't know. I can't write anything anyone would want to publish. The Neverboy is probably the closest thing I have to a "marketable" manuscript, so...editing it? It's a giddying, sobering, and terrifying thought.

It did strike me, though, that it's almost like writing an essay. I've always been an intuitive writer, essays or otherwise, but most of the other stories I've finished over the years were pretty solid the way they were. My writings these days...aren't. I don't know if it's that I am a worse writer (which I doubt) or if things are just more complex, but...looking at The Neverboy, I know that I have to go back over my introductory stages in order to strengthen the end, I have to cut out the chaff and emphasise the main points in the body chapters, and then I have to really sum things up and end with a bang at the end. The elements of all these things are there, I just...have to start smoothing out the rough edges. I'm not quite sure how this is going to work, but I'm actually excited about it instead of just terrified, so I figure that's what sane people would call "progress."

I also need to start communicating more with other writers. One of my fellow local writers is all for accountability week by week, which I think would be fantastic. I need to start swapping chapters with another writer again. And I need to spend more time getting involved on the CompuServe forums. And somehow, in amongst all that, I have to write. Ha.

In the meantime, my other local writing group is having a Christmas gathering on Wednesday night and I need to write a tiny Christmas story to share aloud. Being contrary, I now want to write something about the equivalent holiday in Nylurea. But told by Kavaan, who would be living at that point with Luchandra in Sarin. It's going to be so complicated, particularly as I decided to limit myself to three thousand words (!). How I am going to achieve anything in that space, I have no idea. But then...slashing and burning a manuscript means one needs to be concise and selective. I suppose there's no time like the present to get started...

Things Wot I Learned Yesterday

...ah, bad grammar and spelling, you do start off the day well. <g> Not that this entry is my first writing effort for this morning, even though it's only nine-thirty; I've been a busy little bee and have been catching up on the CompuServe NaNo wrap-up thread. It's been an absolute pleasure, discovering and then being absorbed into that place, and I am really glad and grateful that I found it. I started flagging halfway through the month with NaNo, not out of a lack of motivation, but more of...loneliness? I had some friends who were doing NaNo too, but strangely? No-one seemed very interested in just talking about it. So, the NaNo threads at the Books and Writers Community became a real godsend...though I was completely behind on commenting on posts and snips by the end of it! So, I've spent an hour or so this morning catching up. It's been fantastic. There are so many talented and wonderful and generous writers there to share the ups and downs with, and I am really hoping to keep stealing their energy so I can keep writing through December and into the new year. <g> I'm also slightly embarrassed to admit that I've been cutting and pasting some of the kind comments on my own work into a little .doc file for when my Inner Editor's ranting and raving about how terrible my work is. We all need a little jar of sunshine we can open when the rain is beating the windows of our little writing cottages, and this will be mine. <3

In the meantime, what on earth was the badly-crafted title of this entry referring to? Well, as I said, I'm on hiatus from The Juniper Bones in the meantime. I just need to let it sit and simmer a bit before I can really go back and finish the draft (which is a bit sad, as Ico really wants to read it but won't until it's finished; I can understand that, as she knows all too well how long I can leave things unfinished!). But I have my other projects, and right now The Neverboy feels like it will be finished by the end of the year (!). After much procrastination last night, I finally forced myself to sit down in front of chapter ten and just got writing.

My relationship with this particular novel is an odd one. It disturbs me, somewhat, in that I can't remember quite how it even got started. I mean, I had decided to write a novel dedicated to my nephew, who was about one at the time, so this must have been in late 2007 or early 2008, as I only met him when I returned from the UK in November 2007. I figured that because he was so young I could safely take years writing it, because it wasn't like he could even read yet. <g> Although he's just turned four now, so he's catching up to me. With that said, the book's aimed at twelve/thirteen year olds, I think? It was originally a bit younger than that, but the sheer length of it, combined with the thematic tilt, means I aimed it a bit higher and increased the ages of both Kit and Calden to account for it. But yeah, I can't remember when I wrote most of it, or when the idea even hit me. Tagged on the end of my current .doc is a peculiar note:

01/11/08: 29,641

 I believe that I may have intended to do it for NaNo in 2008 and this was the count of the original .doc? The wordcount is now 107,340. So definitely too long, but that's standard in my work. It'll lose at least twenty thousand words of padding by the time it's fully readable and integrated. But I must have written most of it in 2009, because I don't remember doing anything much to it this year. But basically I had seen it through almost to the end; the manuscript I started playing with the other day had every chapter laid out, the last five save two in dialogue, and there was a huge chunk missing from chapter ten. This is because of how I constructed the story; the first ten chapters are a mini-story that eventually comes back to haunt Kit at the end of the novel, and for some reason I just couldn't finish it. (There's a theme here, of me not being able to finish a damn thing.) So, the last three nights, I have forced myself to come back to this chapter and just...write. Last night I was rewarded, and it was finished.

What was amazing to me, though, was what I needed to realise in order to write it. I understand Kit, my protagonist, a lot better now -- because what had stopped me short originally was the fact Kit was doing very little for himself. And if the hours of my life I have wasted at tvtropes.org have taught me anything (aside from the fact I have no self-control on wikis), it is that main characters? Have to be the fulcrum on which the story turns. Kit's been very reactive throughout the whole story, mostly because of the situation but partly because of his personality, but to really progress as a character...he needed to act. And in chapter ten, he finally did. It sets up the ending, which I now understand a bit better. Before I had disliked it and refused to write it further because it sounded so weak. But I think...I know how to strengthen it. There are two antagonists in this story, and I hadn't realised until I reworked chapter ten and finished it that Lady Moon is the primary one. I always thought it was Ryenn. But Ryenn...is the prelude antagonist. He'll be back. Lady Moon won't be (or at least, I hope she won't be). So, knowing and understanding this? Is what is going to push me over the finish line at last.

I also found that I started linking the tenth chapter back to how Kit and Cal met in the first, and the circularity of it all make it resonate and sing for me as I wrote. This was an incredible feeling, and I was hitting the Zone. I had planned to work on Tea For Two today, one of my short stories, but I think I might just stick with rereading some of the preceding chapters of Neverboy before really getting into the dread chapter twenty-one (there's a weird monster in that, I'm not so hot with monsters!). What amazes me, though, is that even though I said I wouldn't write The Juniper Bones? Last night, while doing my reflection on NaNo for compuserve, I decided to post Morgan's entry in the Menhir journal, and...I had to fix up the gaps in it first. It wasn't painful at all, and the Inner Editor had nothing to say. I'm looking forward to getting back to Morgan and Eliot and Tess and the rest later, but for now...Kit wants me to find him his name. And I am off to do it. <3