Archive for March, 2007
Monday, March 26th, 2007
Free to Good Home (Part One)
ricka mentioned that I should save all my deleted fragments. But that gave me a better idea. Why not let you all see some of them?
Here’s a scene that I hated to delete. I hadn’t planned to delete it. But I started from the top. On revisions, it was obvious […]
6 Comments » - Posted in Ornithology, Writing by CM
Saturday, March 24th, 2007
And more writing pain….
‘ve been spinning in circles on revisions for Ornithology, mostly because I had this really nasty problem.
Plot A was originally going to be the plot of the book. It became quite clear to me when I first started writing that Plot A couldn’t possibly sustain the length of the book. But B and […]
10 Comments » - Posted in Ornithology, Writing by CM
Friday, March 23rd, 2007
Writing Towards Hooks (or why I need to give my CPs a raise)
he biggest lesson I learned writing my first book is that you can’t craft a story, or even a scene, if you’re writing towards a resolution rather than a hook.
What do I mean by that? In the first book, I figured out what problems were arrayed against my heroine, figured out how to get […]
10 Comments » - Posted in Ornithology, Writing by CM
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
The trouble with kissing
o you want to write a kiss. If you’ve ever tried to spend more than about two sentences on the scene, you’re probably familiar with my quandary. There just aren’t enough good synonyms for “mouth” and “lips.” He moves his mouth. She opens her lips. And then . . . […]
9 Comments » - Posted in Writing by CM
Tuesday, March 20th, 2007
Pre-Freud
h, how difficult it is to have my characters give one another advice pre-Freud!
So, I firmly believe (heh, I said firmly–that tells you what kind of mood I’m in) that one of the ways that lust shades towards love has a great deal to do with ego. I don’t buy–never have–that unrequited lust is […]
4 Comments » - Posted in Writing by CM
Friday, March 16th, 2007
Voice
ne of the things I’m worrying about in revisions is voice. I have two main point-of-view characters, and I have to say that I’ve been foolishly letting their voices elide into each others. And so I’m making lists now, on the second time through, of characteristics of speech. Subtle things that distinguish one character from […]
4 Comments » - Posted in Ornithology, Writing by CM
Sunday, March 11th, 2007
Pain.
o I’m planning revisions. I know that thing up there says 85%, but pay it no mind. I really only have a few connecting scenes to write, and besides, that number is of no moment because if you look at my page count, it’s pretty high. Like over 400 pages. That’s […]
8 Comments » - Posted in Ornithology by CM
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
More dialect
‘m trying to seep myself in the speech of Leicester. In the story as it’s shaping up to be, speech is a counterpoint, a counter-theme if you will, to the heft and weight of money. Not a heavy-handed one, I hope, and not anything more than a few notes. And so I’m reading, and listening, […]
8 Comments » - Posted in Writing by CM
Monday, March 5th, 2007
Swept away
really thought I knew the basics of how Book 2 was going to work. I had an idea of what happened first, what happened next, the two climactic points in the book. I knew what the heroine was like, and the hero had a minor, but rather important role in Book 1, […]
10 Comments » - Posted in Legalese by CM
Saturday, March 3rd, 2007
Various Things
‘m getting to the point in the book where I need to be very careful.
Why? Because stupidly I have refused to think about this book as a whole, and as I’ve been working on it, I’ve figured out four sequels. Two of them are–for me at any rate–plotted pretty thoroughly. So in wrapping things up, […]
