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I Got Nothin' to Say
But I think I'll say it anyway.
I've been bringing PBJs to eat for lunch, on the theory that if I eat lunch at my desk, there's a better chance that I'll do a little writing on my lunch break, too. Preferably, a little fiction, but, what the heck, an LJ entry is better than nothing. I think.
I've been grinding away on Prophecy for the eight days or so. I'm still a bit behind the curve as the end of the month approaches, but not badly. I find doing 500 words a day a bit frustrating; it feels like I'm working hard, but I'm not actually doing enough to get ahead of the game. It probably doesn't help that I've not been finishing scenes. The scene I was working on last week has run over 3,000 words -- making it one of the longest scenes in the book so far -- and it further shows no real sign of getting to the point. I gave up on it, continued a different scene, and wrote the start to another scene, instead. I keep telling myself that, as long as I keep writing, I'm bound to get to the end eventually. Every now and then I'm struck by this horrible fear that, no, I'm not. That I could just go on and on and on with tangents and descriptions and side points and never actually get it all tied together.
But, no, that's not true. I'll get there eventually. It may take a while and the book may be bad, but it'll get finished some day.
One of the many hoary cliches of writing is that the first book an author writes is never any good; that it takes a million words or three books or, possibly, never, to get it right. Well, so mote it be. It's not as though I thought this would be easy. And there's always the next book.
Apart from writing, I've not done a whole lot. I spilled Diet Coke on my keyboard at work yesterday, and fried out some of the keys. I got the tech department to bring me a new one eventually. It's a spiffy-looking black one, but the keys on it are a pain to use; they're very stiff. I dunno, maybe it'll break in. Maybe I'll ask them for a different one. My wrists hurt again from typing at it for the length of this entry. Fortunately, I don't do all that much typing in the course of the day. A lot of point-click-hit-a-few-keys-point-click.
I started yet another new story in Unfinished Tales, on Sunday, but I haven't continued with it since posting the second part. I actually outlined this story months ago and I know what's going to happen next, but I'm not all that motivated to get to it. Perhaps there's only so much fiction I can expect myself to work on at any given time. I do rather miss that spark of inspiration I had in March, when, for a little while, I raced forward on both Silver Scales and Prophecy.
I haven't decided yet when to hold the next "Just Trust Me" game. I'm leaning away from next Sunday, which would be the usual time, in part because I want the weekend free to work on Prophecy. But also because Lut doesn't like the Sunday-afternoon time slot, as it rather kills all of Sunday for doing anything else. And, frankly, I agree with him. I tend to spend not just Sunday morning, but large parts of Friday and Saturday prepping for a Sunday game, making me reluctant to get out of the house to do anything else on those weekends. Thursday games mean I'm working on the game the Monday-Wednesday prior, but I don't get out much on weekday evenings, anyway, so that's not such an issue.
Unfortunately, the Thursday time slot doesn't work well at all for some of the West Coast players. If I start late enough that they can make it home, then we've got a couple of hours, at most, before my bed time -- and it's even later for my East Coast players. So, um, I dunno. To all you JTM players/assistants -- any preferences?
I've been bringing PBJs to eat for lunch, on the theory that if I eat lunch at my desk, there's a better chance that I'll do a little writing on my lunch break, too. Preferably, a little fiction, but, what the heck, an LJ entry is better than nothing. I think.
I've been grinding away on Prophecy for the eight days or so. I'm still a bit behind the curve as the end of the month approaches, but not badly. I find doing 500 words a day a bit frustrating; it feels like I'm working hard, but I'm not actually doing enough to get ahead of the game. It probably doesn't help that I've not been finishing scenes. The scene I was working on last week has run over 3,000 words -- making it one of the longest scenes in the book so far -- and it further shows no real sign of getting to the point. I gave up on it, continued a different scene, and wrote the start to another scene, instead. I keep telling myself that, as long as I keep writing, I'm bound to get to the end eventually. Every now and then I'm struck by this horrible fear that, no, I'm not. That I could just go on and on and on with tangents and descriptions and side points and never actually get it all tied together.
But, no, that's not true. I'll get there eventually. It may take a while and the book may be bad, but it'll get finished some day.
One of the many hoary cliches of writing is that the first book an author writes is never any good; that it takes a million words or three books or, possibly, never, to get it right. Well, so mote it be. It's not as though I thought this would be easy. And there's always the next book.
Apart from writing, I've not done a whole lot. I spilled Diet Coke on my keyboard at work yesterday, and fried out some of the keys. I got the tech department to bring me a new one eventually. It's a spiffy-looking black one, but the keys on it are a pain to use; they're very stiff. I dunno, maybe it'll break in. Maybe I'll ask them for a different one. My wrists hurt again from typing at it for the length of this entry. Fortunately, I don't do all that much typing in the course of the day. A lot of point-click-hit-a-few-keys-point-click.
I started yet another new story in Unfinished Tales, on Sunday, but I haven't continued with it since posting the second part. I actually outlined this story months ago and I know what's going to happen next, but I'm not all that motivated to get to it. Perhaps there's only so much fiction I can expect myself to work on at any given time. I do rather miss that spark of inspiration I had in March, when, for a little while, I raced forward on both Silver Scales and Prophecy.
I haven't decided yet when to hold the next "Just Trust Me" game. I'm leaning away from next Sunday, which would be the usual time, in part because I want the weekend free to work on Prophecy. But also because Lut doesn't like the Sunday-afternoon time slot, as it rather kills all of Sunday for doing anything else. And, frankly, I agree with him. I tend to spend not just Sunday morning, but large parts of Friday and Saturday prepping for a Sunday game, making me reluctant to get out of the house to do anything else on those weekends. Thursday games mean I'm working on the game the Monday-Wednesday prior, but I don't get out much on weekday evenings, anyway, so that's not such an issue.
Unfortunately, the Thursday time slot doesn't work well at all for some of the West Coast players. If I start late enough that they can make it home, then we've got a couple of hours, at most, before my bed time -- and it's even later for my East Coast players. So, um, I dunno. To all you JTM players/assistants -- any preferences?
no subject
As for JTM ... well, not much for me to say on that. I hope you can get it to a good wrap, and if I happen to be conveniently available whenever you run it, I may try to lend a hand, but I don't want to make any promises. (Not unless it's some crazy thing where that's exactly what you're *hoping* for - that somehow my presence lending a hand would be the deciding factor on whether you run a given week or not! =P ) Maybe we could trade email brainstorms or something over whatever plot points you might be stumped over, if that's the issue.
If you've got a bed time issue going on, maybe you can run some short sessions - just ONE GROUP AT A TIME - even though you'll have the possibility of the groups running into each other and thus having to call an early end to the session. It may be short bits, but you could move things along, if the alternative would be to have to *skip* a week. This wouldn't help much if you happen to have people from opposite coasts in the same "group" - I don't recall if that's presently the case or not, since I didn't read the most recent logs. (Oops.)
Oh yeah. Must edit logs. Hmm.
(One reason I like tabletop games. I'm guaranteed that everyone is in the same time zone! Hee hee!)
no subject
The notion of roleplaying out a problematic scene is interesting. Maybe I'll give that some thought. Though the first thing that comes to mind is that the problems I have with scenes are exactly what makes Sinai logs poor novels -- they ramble on without getting to the point. Partly because, of course, the players don't have a handy script to tell them what the point is. But still, there's a tendency to fill up the screen with words even if you're not sure where you're going, and I feel like I've been doing that with Prophecy. :)
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Just an idea, though. I mean, with JTM and everything else, when would you have the time? ;) (And I worry about your wrists, how they seem to be hurting on you a lot. I worry about things like carpal tunnel or whatnot, though I really don't know anything about it.)
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I said, "A different one will be fine, I'm sure. I don't think this keyboard was any good even when it was new." :)
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no subject
Oh wait, what am I saying?
I love hoary cliches. Hoary cliches and I go way back.
Unfortunately, they cause my writing to suffer.
Speaking of which, I agreed to a challenge/proposal/dare thing from my friend Bill to write a 12,000-word story by October 12th.
Y'know what my first sentence is?
(I'm not asking you to guess. I'm as curious as you are.)
So far, I think he's 3 words ahead of me. (Which means he has a title.)
If I botch this, I may reconsider that WeiNerRaMa thing.