W0K

The postponed July 4 fireworks display was last night, so we took the girls out to watch and didn't get back to the house until after 10. Factor in the decompression, prepping the girls for bed, reading a chapter of The Last Unicorn in there, and I was too bushed to write anything. Which sucks. I'm more hopeful for tonight.

Since I don't have a chapter excerpt to post, I thought I'd comment on something I've been mulling over for quite a while now--mainly why I suspect earlier attempts at writing Wetsilver have failed (at least in part). Other than The Broken Balance, the epic first book of a high fantasy trilogy I wrote back in high school, all of my fiction has been of the short fiction variety. I hadn't realized it until fairly recently, but every time I've started a novel--yes, even The Broken Balance--I approached it as I would short fiction. That is, in my mind, each chapter was the equivalent of one short story. I don't know where this mindset came from, because I didn't read those famous "fix-up" SF novels from the '50s and '60s (Simak's City and the like) until college or thereafter. But that view was firmly entrenched.

Whenever I wrote a chapter, I built is as a self-contained story unto itself. There was a beginning, middle and end, even if said chapter didn't have narrative elements that lent themselves to this approach. The result was that I essentially encouraged potential readers to put the book down at every opportunity. "Oh, here's a good stopping place then. I'll go ahead and watch the nightly news then pick up again tomorrow." This is exactly the opposite effect a writer wants--the goal of a novel (one of the goals, at least) is to suck the reader into your fictional world and get them so engrossed that they don't want to leave. Showing them the door at every chapter break isn't the way to do this.

Now, I'm not saying I'm building in a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter. Well, there is one at the end of chapter 1, but that's a special case, right? What I am doing is ending each chapter with a little question, a little void of knowledge, something to provoke a sense of anticipation in the reader, a need to know "What comes next?" At least, that's my hope. I have no idea how successful I've been thus far, and undoubtably much will change in the second draft. But I'm pleased that even the evil, uncooperative chapter 9 end with a promise of Interesting Stuff that should pique the reader's interest. And I think the novel-in-progress is much stronger for it.

Now Playing: Various Celtic Moods

Monster House? Where's the mojo?

Am I the only person in the whole world who see the new Monster House trailer and thinks "They've ripped off Joe R. Landsale (His Ownself's) YA novella Something Lumber This Way Comes"? I didn't think so. Even Chadwick H. Saxelid's Clueless Observations is getting in on the action, although they point to Champion Joe's short story "The Shaggy House" as the purloined source material. Either way, Hollywood has no shame. No shame at all.

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W1K

The beast, it is slain! After a thousand words written last night, the Chapter from Hell is over and done with. It took me almost two weeks to write the thing--including the time lost due to Armadillocon and prepping for the Peter Beagle interview--and it fought me every step of the way. I'm now almost exactly a week behind on my production schedule, and I don't know if that's deficit I'll be able to make up. The good news is that I shouldn't have nearly as much difficulty with this thing for the next half dozen chapters or so. Knock wood.

A full week after reaching the first road fort, Ctibor reined the coach to a halt in late afternoon. Snow fell steadily, as if it were determined to not let up until spring. The constant wind whipped it around into a pale fog. It was shin deep on the ground, but still light and powdery, easily passed through.

"What's wrong, Ctibor?" asked Vondra, opening the coach door.

"Nothing, Excellency," he answered, jumping down from the driver's seat. His boots left deep impressions in the snow. "I wanted the boys to see this."

Radek came out of the coach behind Vondra. Jachym and Gauthier--watching each other warily--climbed down from opposite sides.

"What do you see, boys? Tell me what you see out there."

Jachym peered into the distance. At first, all he saw was more of the irregular, white landscape he'd seen for the past few days. Then he realized part of it was darker than the rest. A wall--close, too. Less than a stone's throw ahead of them. It wasn't much--maybe the height of a man--but it stretched out of site in either direction, broken only by a gap directly ahead for the road to pass through.

"It's a wall."

"That it is," Ctibor said. "And do any of you know what's on the other side of it?"

Jachym, Radek and Gauthier looked at each other in bafflement, more concerned with keeping their feet moving to stay warm than the other side of a wall.

"You shouldn't try to be dramatic, Ctibor. You're not good at it. And definitely not in this kind of weather," Vondra said. "That's a wall of boundary, boys. On the other side is the Rokanyky basin. We've made it."

When I wrap this novel up--late September is still my target date--there's going to he a whole heck of a lot of rewriting and revisioning left to do before Wetsilver is in anything close to coherent form. And chapter 9 is at the top of my list for wholesale slash-and-burn editing. When the whole thing is finished, I'm pretty sure I'll have a better overall vision of the story and a clear idea of how to make trouble spots like chapter 9 contribute more effectively to the overall narrative. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

29,000 / 90,000 (32.2%)

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Happy Fourth of July!

Before humongous thunderstorms swooped over New Braunfels, flooding streets and washing out the planned fireworks display (we got 2.5 inches a the house in a little over two hours, and north of us in Gruene they got 4 inches) there was the annual 4th of July parade downtown. The girls got to participate this year, riding on a float with their Brownie troop.



Their group won the "Most Patriotic" award. All together now: Awwwwww!

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W.6K

Wrote 600 words last night, give or take. They were nowhere near as sucky as those from the previous night. That, or the beer was clouding my judgement. Fingers crossed that I can finish up the Chapter From Hell tonight and get on with the rest of the book. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it.

Oh yeah. Happy 4th of July, everyone! We're in the middle of a sizeable thunderstorm, so it looks like the city's fireworks display is gonna be a washout.

27,850 / 90,000 (30.9%)

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Cross Plains Universe

Via Chris Roberson--who's publishing the book, so he should know--the upcoming World Fantasy Con anthology now has a name:

This year marks the centenary of the birth of pioneeering Texan pulp writer Robert E. Howard, and in celebration of the event Scott Cupp and Joe R. Lansdale have assembled a collection of original stories by Texas writers inspired by Howard, written in his style, or featuring Howard or his creations as characters.

CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE: TEXANS CELEBRATE ROBERT E. HOWARD is a co-publication of MonkeyBrain Books and the Fandom Association of Central Texas with the cooperation of Paradox Entertainment, and will be a limited-edition anthology. Each attendee of the 2006 World Fantasy Convention, hosted this year by FACT, will be presented a copy, but at this time there are no plans to make copies commercially available, and no plans for a trade edition.

I'd originally heard that a mass-market edition was to follow later on, but it appears now that isn't the case (or hasn't been finalized yet, at least). Still, this is going to be one sweet collection. I particularly like how the title references the obscure, yet ground-breaking Lone Star Universe anthology edited by Steven Utley and George Proctor waaaaaay back in 1976. I'll have to write more about that one some day. But for now, I find it interesting that only two of the writers in that earlier volume--Howard Waldrop and Neal Barrett Jr.--are appearing in the new book (although to be fair, Robert E. Howard is the subject of CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE, so I suppose it's safe to say that he's represented as well).

Can. Not. Wait. To. Read. These. Stories.

Now Playing: The Ventures Walk–Don't Run: The Best of the Ventures

W.25K

Two hours and only 250 words to show for it. Ouch. And I'm not happy with any of those 250 words, either. This chapter's doing its damnedest to derail the whole book. Tonight I'm going to try a different tact. Goodness knows it can't be any less effective than what I've been doing.

27,250 / 90,000 (30.3%)

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