Sailing Venus: Progress is as progress does

After several nights of consistent word-making, last night was the proverbial problem child. After two hours, I'd only managed 250 words. That amounts to a single page. I could take solace in the fact that they were quality words, except for the fact that they are not.

This isn't terribly unusual for writers to experience. Sometimes the words simply refuse to flow. In my experience, this is often a direct consequence of the story not working. And, unfortunately, that's the case this time as well. Sometimes it's the subconscious trying to clue the active writer in, but at the moment both my conscious and subconscious are in perfect sync. I know this chapter has problems. Very specific problems. Problems I haven't quite figured out how to reconcile.

Follow: In the current chapter (Chapter 12 if you're keeping score at home) certain things have to happen for the plot to progress as it needs to. Like Chapter 11, this is a slower chapter that provides answers to long-standing questions whilst presenting new issues to be dealt with. Essentially, I'm positioning the chess pieces to launch into the final act. Going in, I've long known that A had to happen, which directly leads to B. But in the course of writing, I realized that C was sitting there, off to the side, waiting for me to notice. C is a significant character/plot issue that is glaringly obvious once you realize it's there, and can't be ignored without undermining the rest of the story. So here's the thing, the character interactions involved with A can just as naturally lead to C. But once they're at C, there is no natural route (outside of Author Intervention) that would lead them to B as well. And likewise, there is no natural path from B to C. Prodding my characters to bring the focus around to one or the other is meeting with lots of resistance. I know I'll figure it out eventually, but at this point I don't want resistance. I don't want eventually. I want golden prose gushing forth like Niagra Falls.

World Fantasy begins in 21 days. At the moment, I'm at the cusp of 50,000 words, a significant psychological milestone if nothing else. It is possible that I'll hit the 60,000 word mark by World Fantasy, far short of the completed novel I'd hoped to have, but effectively 2/3 complete. But these darn problem spots need to stop making nuisances of themselves for that to happen.

Pissing and moaning aside, progress is progress, even if it's a mere 250 words. Here are a few lines from last night. Tensions are rising amongst the various characters at this point, and tempers start to fray. Suffice to say, Erica frays back.

"Is it just me?" Paol said. "Doesn't anyone else see how insane this is?"

"Yes, Paol, I agree that our current situation is quite madness-inducing," Adina said. "Since you're so good at pointing out our failings, what would you suggest?"

"We need to stop wasting time and fix the transmitter," he said. "That dog. Take it apart and use its transmitter instead."

"No!" Erica shouted, tensing up.

"Connex is a low-power, short range transmitter," Adina said. "The amount of power necessary to reach the comm sats would burn it out in an instant. I'm not even sure if the sats can detect connex frequencies."

"That's a chance I'm willing to take," Paol said.

"You lay one finger on Sigfried," Erica growled, "you lose that finger."

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Sailing Venus: Reality bites

When I last wrote about Sailing Venus, I was optimistic about getting back into a regular, productive routine following the lost month of July. Alas, I jinxed myself with that post, because the very next day events conspired that led me to writing this unfortunately cryptic post. The emotional and mental stress, coupled with the massive amount of time I had to invest to deal with the situation, completely wiped out the second half of August for me, as far as writing goes.

Additionally, once I finished Chapter 10 in early September, I realized almost immediately it wasn't working. Something was off. Some of the events that were necessary in the chapter felt forced and unnatural, the author imposing his will on the narrative in an obvious, not-good way. Ultimately, this meant starting over and rewriting that chapter entirely, which meant more lost time. On the bright side, the chapter's better now for the extra work. I inflicted it upon my writers group last Sunday and apart from some blocking and orientation issues (which I kinda recognized in advance, but now have a solution that nicely harkens back to the early pages of the book), the critiques characterized it as "harrowing," "intense" and "powerful." They also deemed it an "Important" chapter, pivotal, and something I'd been building up to from the very beginning. They also wanted it to be longer. It is pretty close to the average length of this book's other chapters, but for one so conceptually and thematically big, it needed some physical heft to go along with it. The chapter was also was relentless, and that giving the reader a moment or two--even if said moments were fleeting--to catch their breath would ultimately make that chapter stronger. I can see that, and more importantly, can see some obvious opportunities for expansion that would flow organically, as opposed to being shoehorned it. But that shall wait for the second draft rewrite.

Last night I wrote another 500 words, which seems to be my standard output in the 10 p.m.-midnight writing window I have. That was a definite improvement over the meager 100 words I wrote the night before. Put them together and I've finally cleared the 45,000-word milestone. If, as I suspect, the finished novel will clock in at approximately 90,000 words, this puts me square in the heart of the book. That's good, considering the fact that chapter 10 capped the first half, and the stakes are significantly higher from here on out.

That word count, 45,000, is also significant in that it's the most I've written on any fiction project since my very first novel--a 90,000-word monstrosity of dubious literary merit or even coherence completed when I was a wee lad of 17. Curiously, I've not progressed much farther than about 20,000 words on any novel started since then. For good or ill, all of my completed work has either been short fiction or non-fiction. Novels have been relegated to the back burner.

Which is, in my typical style, my way of saying that Sailing Venus won't be complete by the time World Fantasy rolls around, hence, the "reality bites" of this post's title. That's a damn shame, but I've got nothing to blame but my own lack of discipline. If my productivity is on the positive side of average, I figure I'll have 14 chapters done by then, which is about three-quarters complete. "Substantially complete" is good enough for an informal pitch, and I'd hope my track record, modest though it may be, would warrant a little bit of credibility for me in the eyes of the editors present. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

I am enjoying writing this book like nothing I've ever done before. I'm still one of those writers who prefers "having written" to the actual act, but Erica and Sigfried have become real to me in a way no other characters have. They surprise me, doing the unexpected and driving me nuts on occasion. They know who they are. That's made the writing easier, even if it doesn't come any faster. And I have developed a deep affection for Erica, such that I feel for her, and the trials she has to endure in the future after already having gone through so much:

Erica sipped from the small cup. The flat, lukewarm water burst through her mouth like monsoons breaking a months-long drought. Nothing had ever tasted so good. It took all her willpower not to gulp it down. She dipped a finger into the water and wiped her eyes with it. That helped, some. At that point she realized some type of bandages wrapped her hands.

"You've got second-degree burns on your palms. Your arm, too, where your skinsuit tore," Adina said.

Erica instinctively checked her arm. A thin film of gel did little to hide the raw scrape and blisters beneath. She felt none of it, though, so the gel must be doing its job.

"And first-degree burns over about twenty percent of your body. Head and neck, arms--wherever your skinsuit was in direct contact with your skin. They're not good insulators."

Maybe I'll finish chapter 11 tonight. Maybe it'll take tomorrow as well. After that, chapter 12 marks Erica's last bit of respite until we see this thing through to the end, wherever that may be.

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Sailing Venus: Making up for lost time

July was a lost month. I knew it would be, with several weeks devoted to travel. For various reasons I won't bore you with, writing whilst traveling was not an option. Unfortunately, I didn't get any writing done when I wasn't traveling, either, which puts me behind the 8 ball, so to speak. As I look at my calendar, there are 77 days remaining until World Fantasy, which means I have to produce a minimum of 500 words a day to have a shot at finishing the darn thing. Trouble is, 500 words has been my average daily production, but I know with all certainty there's at least a dozen days in there that no writing will happen. So, substantially complete is a worthy goal, right?

The good news is that I've been moderately productive thus far in August. After getting only a page or two into Chapter 9 prior to the July disruption, I've completed it and am very close to finishing Chapter 10 as well. Interestingly enough, when I started 9 I was worried I wouldn't have enough story to fill the entire chapter. Well, it was more than enough, and a major sequence had to be split off for Chapter 10. And naturally enough, I worried that 10 would be unnaturally short, because I couldn't possibly have enough story to fill it. Guess what? It looks like 10 will end up almost exactly on average with the rest of the chapters. I guess my subconscious narrative construction is more reliable than my objective analysis, huh?

Tuesday I logged just a little north of 750 words, and last nigh around 500, give or take. That 500 is deceptive, though. While writing Tuesday, I had a notion to frame some actions in a certain way. Looking at the blocking of the scene within the chapter, it simply didn't make sense. It was pointless. So I didn't. I wrote it a different way and thought no more about it. But last night, I had to go back to a previous chapter to check a reference one character makes, and, lo and behold, I discover that way back in June I'd set up the scene to take place at a 45 degree angle. In light of this discovery, my initial urge to write the previous pages make complete and total sense and the way I'd actually written them, well, my descriptions and the actions of various characters were physically impossible. The literary equivalent of an Escher drawing, so to speak. So a great deal of last night was taken up with rewrites (happily, my rewrites go much more quickly than the initial writing) before progressing on to new stuff. The moral of this story? Trust my subconscious. My subconscious knows more than I do. It knows where the story's going, remembers where it's been. I could save myself a lot of grief by not over-thinking things.

Ultimately, I have to be pleased that I've returned to a consistent level of productivity, even if it's not as voluminous as I'd prefer. Here's a sample of what's happening in Erica's adventure on Venus:

Erica wrapped a hand around Wind Sprite's anchor cable and pulled herself up through the lock. She braced her feet against the angled rim of the access tunnel, one low and one high. The sailplane shifted treacherously beneath her, not quite in sync with the shudders of the ruined outpost above. Slowly Erica stood, both hands gripping the cable for stability.

"Don't look down. Don't look down," Erica muttered to herself before impulsively stealing a glance. Wind Sprite looked impossibly small, wedged amongst the wreckage of the outpost's docking port. Erica's feet straddled the edge of the abyss of billowing clouds. "Bad idea. Stop acting on bad ideas. Concentrate. Focus."

Sweat stung her eyes as she hooked her elbow around the cable, freeing a hand to brush uselessly against her mask. Annoyed as much by the sweat as her unthinking response, she shook her head vigorously to clear her eyes. That helped, a little.

Leaning her full length along the cable and extending her free arm, Erica could just reach the edge of the hatch. She slapped it with the flat of her palm, but the surrounding roar swallowed any sound she may have made. She didn't see any way she could open the hatch from the outside. She certainly had no way to push it open, not precariously perched as she was against the cable.

If there were survivors on board, they'd have to open from their side. But how to get their attention?

Why don't these damn breather masks have radios? she thought. I wish I could talk with Sigfried.

Wind Sprite shifted beneath her. Erica lost her balance, slipping to the side. Instinctively, she flung her free arm and legs around the cable, catching herself before she fell.

Dangling from the cable, high above Venus, Erica felt acutely alone. Tiny and vulnerable.

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Sailing Venus: Verdandi Outpost

I am remiss. It's been some months since I last posted an update on Sailing Venus, and there's really no excuse for that. I have not abandoned the project, although work progresses slowly as usual. My writer's group continues to meet, and provides valuable feedback every few weeks. More importantly, it provides a looming deadline that inspires frantic writing whenever time gets tight. That, possibly more than anything else, has kept me plugging away at this novel despite the myriad interruptions, distractions and setbacks that come my way.

Between you and me, chapters 6 and 7 were real bears to write. Originally envisioned as a single chapter, a good chunk into 6 I realized there was no way I could cram in everything that needed to happen without giving all the events and character moments short shrift. At that point I did what writers do and split the chapter in two. For some reason, twice as many words took me four times as long to write. With 7, in particular, I knew where things ended up, but little of what happened on the intervening pages. That proved to be quite the learning experience for me, and necessitated quite a bit of crash research into the Pyrenees Mountains (I was probably more surprised by that than you are).

With those trouble spots behind me, I'm happy to report that chapter 8 is also complete, with work on chapter 9 begun. I've topped 34,000 words--possibly, but not definitively--the most words I've committed to a single work of fiction since The Broken Balance, a terrible, derivative high fantasy mess that I completed when I was 17 years old. That word count places me beyond the 1/3 mark but not yet at the midpoint of the novel. I've hit two of the big milestones set up in my outline (which I'm already deviating from significantly, but it's still proving useful) with the first big action sequence on the horizon. The next two chapters are clearly defined in my head, and have been generally present as a concept from the earliest glimmerings of this story as a potential novel. It's always nice to make these long-gestating writerly ideas tangible on the page.

As I look at my calendar, I see I have 18 weeks to go before the World Fantasy Convention arrives in San Antonio. That gives me 16 weeks--I have two weeks coming up where I will be traveling and unable to do any meaningful writing--during which to complete roughly 12 chapters. At a glance, that should be do-able if I just hit a chapter a week. But I've been averaging maybe a chapter every two weeks, so that looming deadline is nervous-making. In my defense, I seem to be producing good words on the page. My writer's group members have varying degrees of experience, some being published a lot more than me, others a lot less, but they all have offered valuable insight at various times. The last two meetings, more than one has stated that they're reading my submissions less to offer critique and more to find out what happens next. I'll take that as a win.

Here's a sample from chapter 8. Erica's impulsive, leap-before-you-look nature has gotten her into progressively worsening trouble, but that's barely scratching the surface of what awaits the poor girl. Enjoy.

A confusion of voices assaulted her. Strong hands grabbed her and hauled her up from the floor. Ozone tinged the stale, steamy air. Erica blinked. Several ill-defined figures stood around her, all shouting at once. She blinked again, trying to focus. Wan yellow light streamed in through a row of small portholes. Bunks. The portholes were in open bunks, the privacy doors rolled up. Blankets and personal items lay strewn about.

"My dad," Erica managed at last. "I need to see my dad."

"Who are you?" The speaker stared at her intently, his sagging, sallow face crusted on one side with dried blood, his wiry hair glistening with sweat.

"My god, what's wrong with her skin?" a second voice asked.

Erica realized her tattoos had taken on a linear fractal pattern. In the poor light, it appeared as if maggots swarmed beneath her skin. Annoyed, she turned them off.

"I'm Erica Van Lhin. My father's Geraard Van Lhin, Risk Management Chief Inspector," she said. "He's here with his inspection team. I need to see him. Now!"

The cascade of voices fell silent. The Venusian winds howled mournfully outside.

"Child," said a bald woman gripping a bunk for support, one arm in a sling. "The three of us you see here, we're... we're the only survivors.

"Your father's dead."

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