July 2024

S M T W T F S
 12 3456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031   

Navigation

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Not Nanoing

ritaxis: (hat)
Saturday, November 1st, 2014 09:36 am
...because I have too much work to do on already committed projects.

That's pretty darn cool, actually.

So my commitment for the month is to do an equivalent amount of work each day on those projects.
Tags:

Status of the cheatmo

ritaxis: (Default)
Friday, October 7th, 2011 08:51 am
I have written 9.8K words n the cheat outline since September 10: which is respectable for this stage, I think, especially considering that I have been advancing my bagatelle stories at the same time (I hope to conclude the 2 current bagatelles before November 1st. I think there's something wrong with me, that I'm writing a light-romance novella about a person who has had erectile dysfunction his entire adult life, and the other one involves a threesome which pivots on one of the characters having ridiculously low self-esteem -- oh, that one is supposed to be a romantic comedy -- no wonder nobody ever believes me when I say that about my writing).

I was just looking at the bookshelves last night and I noticed that I seem to have succeeded in giving the nice fellow's military history books away. I thought they were still up there collecting dust. That means I'm going to have to struggle with finding out stuff. Anyway, I've outlined 24 chapters out of probably less than 30 depending on how the last bit sorts itself out. My experience is that as I work on a novel-length thing the chapters tend to increase a bit especially in the beginning and middle, but I've been working on this in my head for a long time and I think most of the increase will be in the second half of the book. Also, I noticed that I've been using a lot less flashback material in the later parts of the book and I am not sure that is a good thing for my sense of the rhythm and tone of the book, so when I go over the outline again in a week or two I will have to evaluate that.

I continue to accumulate highlighted questions for research at an accelerating pace.

Favorite highlighted questions so far:

*Look up army organization. Choose silliest for Empire
*What citified knowledge? Probably political
*Figure out dashing young officer
*Mutualism in Plants
*Military telegraphy
*Prisoner exchange
*Ethnic cleansing as described by LanguageHat
*Ponies

There's apparently another weird little Polish horse, the Konik, which I thought was its own (sub)species but it turns out all horses belong to equus ferus caballus. Isn't it at least a little bit dd that a domestic animal has as part of its name the word for "wild?"

I do not have time to gush about the upturn my career has taken, or why it doesn't matter that it won't increase my earnings, or the very exciting event the day before yesterday where I got to watch a kid conquer crawling in the course of the day, step by step. Later, maybe.
Tags:

nanocheatmo notes

ritaxis: (Default)
Friday, September 30th, 2011 08:41 am
So I am utterly cheating on nano: I've already spent a month on a detailed outline and I will spend October on it too. As I go along I am making research notes, and I intend to do that research before November also. I have a file with bits of information I might need to peruse later, and the outline is peppered with questions.

Notes like: PONIES
NEED FIRE (That's a noun phrase, not a verb phrase)
MILITARY TELEGRAPHY
19th CENTURY MILITARY ORGANIZATION (get the silliest version for the Empire)
MILITARY TECHNOLOGY MORE OR LESS OBSOLETE BY 1900
STUDENT SOCIETIES
COMMENSALISM AND SYMBIOSIS IN MOSSES
AMPHETAMINE HISTORY (but I can't remember why I wanted to know this)

I've been reading about 17th-20th century Central European history almost kind of randomly, hopping around as an enticing reference comes up. Why, since it is a fantasy set in a place that is not turn-of-the-19th-20th-century Europe? Because the best foundation for fantasy is reality. And the real history and politics and economics and anthropological stuff of the real word has solved several story problems for me already, including ones I didn't know I had. Also, fun.

On another front, I'm actually getting better vis-a-vis my legs, even though there is clearly some underlying damage to the joints. I believe this is because there is a component to the problem that is strained back muscles pressing on nerves. I think that either my old back exercises are not relevant here, or I've forgotten how to do them right, because I think I made the situation worse this summer when I was doing them. I have decided to end the practice of lifting babies over the sink to wash their hands for meals: I'm bringing them washcloths to the table instead. That's because I was pretty much all better one morning and in agony by afternoon one day and thinking back over the day it was that that stood out most clearly. I will have medical insurance on November 1st and I am sooo going to the doctor. For that, and the weird toenails, and finetuning the medication, especially the asthma medication and the pain management stuff.

On yet another front, I have a young friend moving in for a couple of months in exchange for working on the house. Now if only I would start working on the house too . . .
Tags: