The Dastardly Dungeon of Deliciously Devious Drinks

I'm always so amazed to read about people's word counts and finished novels. It's all so impressive.

I got a lovely personal R from an agent who said some very complimentary things, but passed because the pacing is a bit off (too slow and too rushed).
So and

At least I finally got a bitsy little glitter-sized piece of hope. I impulsively want to start editing again, but it's a bad idea to charge into that. And I don't know if I can trust myself to figure out where pacing needs to change anyway.

JJ Litke said:

I got a lovely personal R from an agent who said some very complimentary things, but passed because the pacing is a bit off (too slow and too rushed).
So and

At least I finally got a bitsy little glitter-sized piece of hope. I impulsively want to start editing again, but it's a bad idea to charge into that. And I don't know if I can trust myself to figure out where pacing needs to change anyway.

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Looking at pacing usually means looking at your current outline of what you have (not the one that was what you thought you would write). I have found that rereading info on three act/four act structure (four act structure being a kind of condensed "hero's journey" in which the protag moves from being an Orphan to a Wanderer to a Warrior to a Martyr with the Wander/Warrior acts essentially making up Act 2 of a three act structure). And also looking at books of a similar type to see what types of scenes occur at various page counts. (The Steampunk novel revolves around the protag learning her father is in danger and going to rescue him so I looked at books where the protag learns a family member needs help and then makes a journey to reach them. When do they get the bad news? How quickly do they decide to leave? What sort of preparation scenes are there? When do they leave? Bad things happen on the journey and also good things - how are those spread out? Do the conflicts continue to increase or do they taper off before the "black moment" and final conflict?)

It can be a tricky thing to analyze, but not impossible. And it can be broken down into manageable chunks if you take your time and start wide and work your way in.

Positive feedback from an agent is gold though. Congrats!

JJ Litke said:

I got a lovely personal R from an agent who said some very complimentary things, but passed because the pacing is a bit off (too slow and too rushed).
So and

At least I finally got a bitsy little glitter-sized piece of hope. I impulsively want to start editing again, but it's a bad idea to charge into that. And I don't know if I can trust myself to figure out where pacing needs to change anyway.

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But that's still a big deal, because so many don't even get agent rejections with feedback! Good for you JJ! What is the book about, if I might be nosy?

Congrats, JJ!

I just got word that one of my favorite authors agreed to read an ARC of my smutty space opera!

Ellipses Fracking ellipses everywhere. Working on an edit and the author LOVES ellipses. Trying to halve the darn things but some just have to be in there. Yes, it's part of his style--kind of a literary poetic thing but...

Sending out lots of hugs to those who need it.
Also congrats to the good things going on.
Taking a quick shower so I can untangle some of the elliptical rules before I screw all of this up. (needs a Chicago book of style ASAP)

Filigree said:

I just got word that one of my favorite authors agreed to read an ARC of my smutty space opera!

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Ooo, that's really exciting!

Shadowflame said:

Ellipses Fracking ellipses everywhere. Working on an edit and the author LOVES ellipses. Trying to halve the darn things but some just have to be in there. Yes, it's part of his style--kind of a literary poetic thing but...

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Must...resist...urge to...add...random...ellipses...

Crap, I didn't do that right, did I.

greendragon said:

The book cover is FANTASTIC, Aggy!!!

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+10 to this.

Shadowflame said:

Ellipses Fracking ellipses everywhere. Working on an edit and the author LOVES ellipses.

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erm...

*hides ellipses fetish/habit/addiction from Shadow*

JJ Litke said:

Must...resist...urge to...add...random...ellipses...

Crap, I didn't do that right, did I.

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Oooh...ellipses!!



I just ran for 4.5 miles on the trails after work tonight and it was glorious. Soooooo much better than 3 miles last night on the indoor track. Muddy. But much better.

Makes up for that R in my inbox today.

Yay for the feedback, JJ!

It's 07:02, my WIP is on a pen drive, and I'm off to work, where opportunities for word-count improvement may present themselves! I need to figure out how an 'angel' (or something very like it - I'm writing sci-fi and operating on the basis that a post-physical, post-singularity human consciousness might be somewhere between that of a human being's and an angel's) might be killed. Given that when it was awoken it was cocooned in the burning heart of a dying star, this is no small undertaking...

Also, I think I've finally managed to update my signature to better reflect the word count I'm actually on...

Filigree said:

Congrats, JJ!

I just got word that one of my favorite authors agreed to read an ARC of my smutty space opera!

Click to expand...

Fantastic news!!! Woohoo!

Shadowflame said:

Ellipses Fracking ellipses everywhere. Working on an edit and the author LOVES ellipses. Trying to halve the darn things but some just have to be in there. Yes, it's part of his style--kind of a literary poetic thing but...

Sending out lots of hugs to those who need it.
Also congrats to the good things going on.
Taking a quick shower so I can untangle some of the elliptical rules before I screw all of this up. (needs a Chicago book of style ASAP)

Click to expand...

I may or may not have had an ellipse addiction when I started writing. I have reigned it in, with great gnashing of teeth and creative Gaelic cursing. Barely.

Good news: My publisher has put my pre-order for Call of the Morrigu up on Amazon! But they're taking their sweet time in posting it. I keep checking. Every ten minutes. Or less. It's been the 12 hours minimum time, and getting closer to the 24 hour mark. Sigh.

Black-Marlin said:

Also, I think I've finally managed to update my signature to better reflect the word count I'm actually on...

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It's different from where it was yesterday, so I'd say you did indeed make the change. You're in the home stretch now!

JJ Litke said:

I got a lovely personal R from an agent who said some very complimentary things, but passed because the pacing is a bit off (too slow and too rushed).
So and

Click to expand...

Congrats!

Filigree said:

I just got word that one of my favorite authors agreed to read an ARC of my smutty space opera!

Click to expand...

Exciting!

tiddlywinks said:

erm...

*hides ellipses fetish/habit/addiction from Shadow*

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*hides her own ellipses habit under Tiddly's ellipses habit*

I usually get rid of them in editing, I swear.

Makes up for that R in my inbox today.

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Arg, still sleepy. My main plan for the morning is to charge head-first into the wordage because later will be further housecleaning time.

Yesterday I got more beads for jewelry designing because coupins. I think I have the makings for 5 necklaces at this point and I also have yarn for several small fashion projects. This means I should be able to consistently post one item to my Etsy shop every week for at least a couple months I think. Sometimes I wonder if I should just put them up as I get them done rather than space them out but then I kind of think it's better to keep my shop consistently active for a longer stretch of time than to put a bunch of things up at once and then have my shop sitting on idle for a month or more until I get something new made. That makes sense, right? Right?

Makes perfect sense...

I completed my peacock necklace while at the art show this weekend... if anyone wants to see...

Ooooh, that's purty!

Shadowflame said:

Ellipses Fracking ellipses everywhere. Working on an edit and the author LOVES ellipses. Trying to halve the darn things but some just have to be in there. Yes, it's part of his style--kind of a literary poetic thing but...

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...um.... :s

E.F.B. said:

*hides her own ellipses habit under Tiddly's ellipses habit*

I usually get rid of them in editing, I swear.

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^^^ Yeah! This, exactly! :

Call of the Morrigú has a cover! Amazon still hasn't gotten off its butt to post the pre-order yet, though. My publisher has been trying desperately to talk to them, but that department is email only. She thinks it's because there's a foreign character in the title, and it's being classed as a foreign language book, so on 72 hour rather than 12-24 hour posting

But yay! Cover! Must go change my avatars

Ooooh! So pretty! (tries some mental poking in Amazon's direction to get them to hurry up)

Ventures in for the first time. Not sure about this... Sits at a table and bangs his furry head (not too hard, mind you) because he is editing, but then he goes back to the beginning and finds some more things to change. Yeah, I could get professional help for this novel but I can't afford thousands of dollars. Must... do... it... myself.
Ouch... I better stop banging my head and get back to editing. Read aloud, read slow, savor the words.
Hi, nice to meet you *wags tail*

Greetings, newbie! Careful you don't bang one of Elizabeth's tentacles between your head and that table. She doesn't take kindle to such things. Use a smibble instead. They're soft!

Oh, don't worry. I've stopped banging.

What's a smibble?

My whistling dragon wants to know what a smibble is.

Thekherham said:

Oh, don't worry. I've stopped banging.

What's a smibble?

My whistling dragon wants to know what a smibble is.

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Smibbles are a cross between a smeerp and a tribble. Small, furry, cuddly, taste great roasted. Also make handy dandy subjects for scientific experimentation. Or so I've heard. *shifty eyes*

Kidding. I'm not very sciencey.

I've almost nailed down the cover for the other novelette I'm releasing this summer. (Because, yes, I thought that having four different "books" coming out this summer would be a great idea. Two self-pubbed novelettes - including SparkleGoat - and the last Southern Gothic novella (plus the combined edition of all three novellas) and the Ring of Fire/1632 anthology.) I might need more coffee.

Anyway. Spending the afternoon formatting SparkleGoat for print. Then will put together the ebook ARCs and send some copies out. (Ping me if you want to read it and leave a review on Goodreads.)

Aggy, considering a nap too

Okay I've started a publication/promotion group on FB. If any one would like to join, let me know.

Ugh - head is wrecked today. A long time ago, after I'd written 81,000 words of the WIP, two characters had a conversation. One of those characters is - for want of a better phrase - untethered in time. As a result, I wrote a conversation that had three key phrases in it that I've had to bear in mind ever since. So the conversation occurred 81,000 words in; the first phrase became relevant 173,000 words later. Today, 207,000 words after that conversation, the second phrase comes into play.

The crazy thing is that that conversation was written a long time ago and hasn't been changed since; that it continues to work now suggests that I have just about managed to avoid continuity errors despite having written more than 200,000 words of story since then.

Head. Wrecked.

Black-Marlin: my subconscious sets up stuff for me that I don't even realize 'til I write later scenes. Kind of amazing what our brains can do. (And one of the things that prompted me to start asking myself questions when I would get stuck because I knew that on some level I would work on it until I found a solution.)

ION, done with basic formatting for SparkleGoat. Just have to plug in the bio, other works and front matter and it should be ready for assembly with the cover.

Aggy, busting something today