The reasons for this blog: 1. To provide basic author information for students, teachers, librarians, etc. (Please see sidebar) 2. I think out loud a lot as I work through writing projects, and I'm trying to dump most of those thoughts here rather than on my friends.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Did not work on the swordfighting ms today, because there was no time to sort out which versions to send to son's laptop before I had to leave. Instead I worked on the former GN, picking up where I left off on whichever day it was that I left off on. At the moment I'm at a very familiar place in the writing process with that ms, because I've got a bunch of scenes that I don't know how to tie together. So I look at them and try to see a common thread--one overriding point they come together to make or lead up to--then put them in order and weave them together. Then that doesn't work for whatever reason, so I look at them again and try to see a different common thread. Repeat, repeat, repeat, for weeks, months, years. Eventually, if I don't die or quit, it has to fall into place. It has to. There are a finite number of scenes, and only so many ways they can go together. Since I'm smarter than the proverbial monkeys typing into infinity, since I'm not working randomly but with thought, since I can cut things that clearly aren't going to work (thus reducing my pool of scenes), and since I don't repeat a series that I know to be wrong, it's a mathematical f*cking certainty that this will eventually fall into place and make sense.

I'm working around page 30 or so, and I remember distinctly that at some point I was doing this with the pages before 30, and I'm pretty sure they're good to go now. So I am making forward progress. I think.

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