jpskewedthrone | Jul. 6th, 2006

Jul. 6th, 2006

So yesterday I sat down to start working on Vacant Throne after the trip to Seattle and the subsequent return to the flood . . . and found I'd lost the head space. *sigh* So I spent most of the afternoon rereading everything (well . . . almost everything) and looking over my notes and refreshing my memory and THEN I started writing. Only got a few pages done, not worth doing an update on the LJ yesterday, but figured I'd check in today. Goal: finish chapter 3 this week.

That may be more difficult than it sounds (since I'm already halfway done at least) because I'm still cleaning from the flood. I'm done throwing things out, but now I'm cleaning all the glassware and flood mud sticks like glue. Very fine mud. A slick, a little oily. So of course you clean it in ammonia and it looks clean so you dip it in bleach water and you set it on the rack to dry . . . and return later to find that there's still silt on it. So you start the process over again. The mud vanishes once it's wet, which is the problem, because it's still there but you can't see it.

This wouldn't be such a chore except that I have far too much crackle glass! And all of this has little fine cracks (on purpose), and some of it has little fine ribbons of glass on it with nooks and crannies that just LOVE the mud, and some of it is very deep and vase-like . . . but with a teeny-tiny opening at the top that you can't fit your hand through nor most brushes. And so it goes.

So I'm dividing my time between that and writing. Mornings, I wash. Afternoons, I write. I hope to get right into it today and get 3/4s of it done at least, hopefully more. I may skip the gym tonight as well (it's only cycling and I've cycled twice this week already), get more writing done. I've got to start sacrificing other things for the writing if I'm going to get the novel finished this summer.

Well, I emailed amazon about how to get on the "New and Forthcoming Releases" list . . . and they actually emailed back. I'm not sure they answered my question. At least, I can't find the answer based on what they sent me. I've hit quite a few of the links on the website they sent me to but don't see anything much on my specific question. Lots of other questions got answered, and I have a few new "projects" regarding my books on amazon now, but not how to get it on that specific list. So here's the site they sent me to:

Coop page

This is interesting info, but not what I wanted, so I clicked to the following interesting pages:

Paid Placement: Which tells you how to get a specific pairing with a discount on amazon, but of course you have to pay for this. Interesting but . . .

Info Page for Authors: This page pretty much gives you the links you need if you have a book up on amazon and want to change something like a typo or if you want to add things to the page, like a description of the book, more pictures, etc.

I did not submit to see how much it would cost to do a pairing of my book with something else on the site, although I might try to pair Skewed Throne hardcover with the Cracked Throne hardcover when it gets closer to Crack's release. Note that to do a pairing you have to give them at least a month's notice, but no more than three month's notice, if you were interested in this. I'm also thinking of adding some other content to the page, like my own description of the books and reviews from other readers, things like that. We'll see how much creative time I have for this with everything else going on.

Perhaps this amazon info will help some of you other writers out there, answer some of your questions. I hope so. It certainly didn't answer my main questions. If anyone runs across the answer to that while checking this out, let me know.

Well, I managed to get chapter 3 done today after all! And it included a battle scene (in which I'm sure I used the words "screamed" and "mutilated" far too often) and one heavy duty emotional scene. But it's done. I did not elect to start chapter 4, although I did set up the file for it.

The loss of the head space thing got me thinking about structure though. Because while I was trying to get back to that head space, I realized that the head space is completely entwined with the structure of the novel. The more I read of the old stuff and my notes, the more I realized that what I was missing was what my initial intention was for the structure of the third chapter. So by the time I got to where I'd left off, I'd "refound" the structure of that chapter and was thus back into my head space. And that's why it was so easy to finish the chapter today.

Now I need to contemplate the structure for chapter 4 so I can polish it off quick too. One other thing I noticed again today (I bitched about it in an earlier post) was that I have too many freaking characters now. I really should have killed more off in book 2. Book 1 was simple: I introduced a character and by the end of the chapter had killed him/her. So the characters didn't pile up on me (well . . . living ones didn't pile up). In book 2, I kill lots of people, but apparently not enough. I find I have too many plot threads to follow in this book. So each chapter I start, I begin with the question: "What plot threads do I HAVE to advance RIGHT NOW?" Some others get shoved back into later chapters. I think this problem will resolve itself once I hit a certain spot in the book, because I'll suddenly only have about half of the characters to follow that I have right now. That will be nice.

And this is still first person. You'd think you'd only need to follow one character in a first person novel. But NNNNNNOOOOOO! Not in MY first person novel! I don't even have all of my character from the same time period!

Anyway, here's official Word-Count-O-Meter: