Things Happening
Pleased to share there are Pleasant Happenings in the writing nook at Herkes House.*
Firstly, Ghost Town came back from the agent with positive strutural-level feedback and notes, I’ve had a great initial convo with co-author, and I’m now excitedly elbows and eyeballs deep in the first stage of developmental edits.. I’ve copied the draft and begun the exciting job of hacking out large chunks of material, tracing their connections to other scenes so the mentions of the material can be cleanly excised, and adding in new elements that will improve the whole.
Judging from what other writers say about this process, I’m in a tiny minority who actively enjoy it. An I truly do. I rewrote my first novel four times—and that’s only counting the times I started over from scratch. Counting the additional times I took it apart and put it together again each of those times, I did a dozen different developmental edits on that one plot. And I probably would’ve happily kept taking it apart and putting it together forever except that other people convinced me that there were better outlets for my creative energy. They were right. That book still sucks. But it taught me a lot about the how-to part of writing, so I have great affection for it.
It’s somehow deeply satisfying to take apart the whole gorgeous 3D woven tapestry of the story, pick apart its component pieces and rearranging them into new configurations. It might be the way people who like jigsaw puzzles feel when they step the completed one into the box, shake it up and start over again. (Only I don’t like jigsaw puzzles. And it’s more like I throw away a bunch of specific pieces before I start over, cut some new ones, and make an almost-identical picture out of the result.)
ANYway. I’ve embarked on that excitement.
Second happy is that I also still managed to put more words into Angry Women Chat About Cats Over Tea despite every thing. I should have new scene for alpha reader later in the week, gods willing and the river don’t flood.
Thirdly, in semi writing-related news, a thing happened that I really did not expect would ever happen: someone BOUGHT an ebook off my tiny new website bookshop page. There I was being all happy people actually grabbed free copies of Relics from the Gumbo Fiction link & multiple freebies from the initial “help me test me new shop” freebies page, and then someone BOUGHT a book!
If Controlled Descent brings that reader even half the happiness I got from seeing someone bought themselves a copy of MY book from its page on MY VERY OWN website, well—they will be happy indeed.
Short happy notes: I’ll be doing critiques for The WindyCon Writer’s Workshop again this year. I forget how many years in a row that’ll be, but it’s a few. I always love it and it’s always a great experience. And I guess I don’t do a bad job since they keep asking me back.
The next Introvert Hidey House will be this Friday, and once again it’s shaping up to be cozy and quiet with a side of silliness. Rumor has it there may be pumpkin brownies and a slushiemaker this time around. I always get some solid work done on Introvert afternoons thanks to the amazing power of body-doubling, so I’m really looking forward to low stress creative togetherness n relaxation.
And now, I have banana bread to make, because that’s what happens when there are banana in the house, and there were banana in the house since I was on mushy foods early last week. That’s all for this edition. Enjoy some Pippin pics, and a shot of the house looking autumnal with an ICE helicopter flying overhead.
*NOTE: I may miss an upcoming Bubble or two. All is well at home, but there have been some super sad developments in the wider family, and when I divide my energies between life and creating there isn’t always leftover for the creative reports.
That’s a wrap on post 110.