More action, please!

A quick update for today: I’ve written 638 words so far. Not much, I know, but they’ve been good methinks. Chapter Fourteen continues one major action sequence of the book and it’s going rather well. I’ve written something from Ares’ POV that ends creating some nice suspence and I brought a character into the game that some other players might already have forgotten about, or not?

Anyway, I’ve been pretty frustrated trying to find my overall notebook this morning (I just can’t find the damn thing, it’s in one of those moving boxes, but heck if I can find it!). But I’ll just have to do without it or use another one for now (the latter option is more likely because I tend to be a scatterbrain at times).

Plot Synopsis

Here is an interesting link to a project by Joshua Palmatier on LiveJournal collecting a couple of plot synopses published authors used to sell their books. We’re not talking about a blurb or even a one-line summary, but the 3-5 page synopsis that is submitted to agents along with query letters etc.

I think it’s an interesting project to look into, no matter at which stage of publishing you are. If you’re like me, then summarizing your plot that doesn’t make you sound like a complete, rambling idiot is usually a major pain in the ass. Personally, I find myself losing focus when I’m trying to summarize my plot, even though most of that might be due to Light just not being finished yet. Some things are totally open still, but sooner or later I’ll have to write a good synopsis for this thing 😉

 I was talking to a friend who also writes on Friday night and we both decided that sometimes plot summaries just go a little out of hand and if you’re like me it usually ends up being too long and more or less rambling. So a little peek into how other authors have accomplished to shut out the rambling temptation can’t hurt, methinks.

Anyway, check it out 😉

Music

Believe what you want, but I sill love to write while listening to the most depressive songs. No, seriously, I’m not an emo. I’m not thinking of slitting my wrists or anything of  the gory and suicidal sort. I just like it.

Right now Dream On by Aerosmith is the song of the day. It just fits that scene’s mood, but since my writing is a wee heavy on the dark side, Evanescence and Nightwish work great too.

I remember when I used to listen to Gary Jules’ Mad World a lot. My mom just loooked at me and was like: “Hey do I need to be worried about you?”

 No, seriously not. It’s just a great song, that’s all. Anyway, right now the Aerosmth Greatest Hits album rocks the day 🙂

One thing I’ve learned…

…is looking over my script again a day after I’ve finished a chapter. It helps me a lot to refocus on what I’ve written and correct grammatical flaws as well as add or scratch bits of writing that needed to be added or are superfluous.

Anyway, looking over Thirteen I noticed some good things that I added making it a better chapter. There weren’t too many things I had to scratch, nor really many mistakes that I’d made. I was wondering if I should add in more from Ares’ POV between the Orpheus and Jay sections, but the more I’m thinking about it, the more I like it as it is.

Ares will probably open chapter Fourteen, but I’ll also have Veleine and Raeyn appear, along with someone we haven’t seen around yet. I’m looking forward to writing about a member of the Shadows that I will need to add more about in the sections I’ve already written, because he has a more complex role in the new setting. It’ll be interesting and the action goes on 😉

The total updated wordcount for chapter Thirteen is 4,283 words and the total overall wordcount for draft 1 of Light is 55,069. Not bad not bad. I’m kinda wondering if it might not end up being less than 200,000 words, but that might not be a bad thing. After all I’m calculating with something in between 150,000 and 200,000 words.

Cheers!

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Another one down!

Yes, after lots of revision, pondering the general outline and completely switching the setting to a more modern one, I finally finished Chapter Thirteen! Took me long enough, I have to say, but I think despite all the doubts, headaches, sleepless nights and caffeine (yes, don’t forget the caffeine!) the muses have come back and I’ve finally finished chapter Thirteen, which will be the first chapter I’ve written in the “new setting” if you want to call it that. Actually the story hasn’t really changed THAT radically, but I daresay a little more modernity and definitely starting to use dialogue a LOT more has made it a much better plot.

This chapter kind of shows how many changes I’ve made in Light compared to when it started out last November. First off, it’s pretty much an action chapter and I have to admit they’re not my best thing to write, but honestly I think this one’s a good one. It’s full of dialogue and short (yes, SHORT) sentences (I’m not beyond learning though :p) and I just killed my second major character. Some may complain that it was a little quick, but I assure you it hasn’t been one of those meaningless deaths (I hate it when authors kill off characters without any reason).

There’s also a petty graphic scene, but to my defense I got to say that I’ve been rather mild on the gory side (it’s not been a chapter from Daimian’s POV after all ;))

With 4,144 words it’s not one of my longest chapters, but rather average and I think I cut it before it’d have gone on for too long (we don’t want over-sized giant-chapters after all, I’m really trying to hold back on that). 1,920 words is how much I’ve written today and that’s including some editing. I’m happy to see how it’s flowing again, even though I’ll have to read over it again to erradicate grammatical flaws etc, but all in all today’s been a good day 🙂

New Laptop!

It’s finally here! Well it was delivered yesterday, but after Stephen went on a rampage, installing and uninstalling all kinds of stuff, plus arguing with Dell on the phone (he got me a second 9 cell battery and a $100 refund in the deal) I finally can use it to its fullest. It’s awesome and I LOVE it! Really, it’s been worth the wait, even though it was a lot of hassle to finally get it, but it’s a great laptop. Ultra portable with the 13″ LED screen, long battery life (yay for the 9 Cell battery!) and with 4 GB RAM and 2.2 dual core processor pretty dang fast.

In short: Nym’s pretty happy and will enjoy writing a lot on this thing, now that she has transferred all her files 🙂

With that I’m off to putting more music on here to stimulate the inspiration 😉

 Cheers!

Some more ranting to come…

No, browsing amazone.com today really didn’t make me happy at all. Sure, a great thing was finding out that George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons will apparently be released this year -finally- in September.  But what definitely disappointed me was that Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves has been delayed from August 2007 to February 24th 2009. So nope, not happy about that. After all it’s been the book I’ve been looking forward to most for this year.

So here’s an updated list on my personal top 7 books that I’ve been waiting for to be published in 2008 only to realize that 2 of them have been delayed into 2009:

Last Argument of Kings  by Joe Abercrombie – March 20th 2008 – already came out, but already out of stock at amazon.com, though only temporary. Let’s hope for them or Barnes&Noble getting it back soon

The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers – May 12th 2008 – his second book and sequel to The Electric Church, awesome Noir!

Kushiel’s Mercy by Jacqueline Carey – June 12 2008 – the final book in the Imriel triology and one that definitely promises some more of Carey’s awesome plotting combined with great characters and a certain kink 😉

The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan – August 21 2008 – Richard Morgan’s first take on pointedly “different” fantasy

A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin – September 30th 2008 – the eagerly awaited 5th book in Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire saga

Republic of Thieves  by Scott Lynch – February 24th 2009 – third volume of the Gentlemen Bastards sequence

The Bastards and the Knives by Scott Lynch – May 15th 2009 – a collection of Gentlemen Bastards short stories and novellas

Now there’s you another promising read…

…and one that definitely resides in the top ranks of my “Must Read” list for 2008 (frankly, this year is going to be great in new releases, even though I’m already grumpy because I’ll still have to wait to lay my hands on this year’s most wanted releases *substracts 50 Brownie points for living in the US of A now and thus not being favored with UK publishing dates*)

Anyway, after reading about it on Westeros and being linked to a rather intriguing post on Joe Abercrombie’s blog I’m pretty hot on getting my hands on Richard Morgan’s upcoming book The Steel Remains.

Browsing amazon was rather disappointing though, well not really, but you might share my impatience about having to wait till August 21st when it’s supposed to be published (which by the way, is almost at the same time when Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves is to come out and the Gods know I can’t wait for that one and August is waaaaaaayyyy far off…)

Ah well, rant done. Just check it out 🙂 *concludes another “Nym pimps a book”-post*

Random pine…

I really miss writing with Dovan….*pining for all the great Ged/Dovan/Adem* mentor/mentee and gay/semi-gay roleplays. We really had a good time, but it was way too short before uni sunk its claws into him and I haven’t seen him for ages. So here’s to hoping there will be some more Ged and Dovan stuff though I’ve taking to NPCing Dovan and Adem quite a bit….Ah well…