I’ve made a bit more progress on SanClare Scarlet, but I’m backburnering that for now so I can focus on La Cause. The stories are just too different to try to work on at the same time, especially with La Cause still being new territory I’m discovering. It’s hard not to work on the next SanClare book, though. I love those characters very much and want to get them to their next adventure. If only I wrote faster…

I have a new short story done I need to go back and edit. I rarely write short, so this was a fun change of pace. Now that I’ve let it sit for a bit, it should be ready to be reviewed with clear eyes. I hope I still like it as much during the editing as I did during the writing.

Denvention is less than a month away now. I need a vacation and some quality time with friends and fen. Can’t wait. I’ll have just had a birthday, so if anyone wants to bring me a present, feel free ;)

The metaphor extends: Or doesn’t find the perfect outfit and one has to go out shopping again the next day.

In the grand tradition of Being Me, I started the novel too far into the story.  I do love to in medias res things up, but this happened in early drafts of SanClare Black, too, where I started so far into the story, I would have ended up having to do  a lot of klunky flash-backing to get certain scenes to make any sense at all and then they make no sense because you’re flashing-back every few sentences to explain things.  Awkward.  So what do I do while working on La Cause? The same damn thing. So yesterday and today’s wordage was all about going back and putting a new beginning on the story. 

It all starts with a game of hide ‘n’ seek in the woods–a sort of mutant version that bears much more of a resemblance to the game “ghost in the graveyard” my brothers and friends and I used to play when we were little which was sort of hide ‘n’ seek meets tag but played at night. There were other rules, too…

Childhood used to be so much fun. I feel sorry for modern kids who don’t seem to get (or even want) to roam the neighborhood, playing all kinds of crazy, made-up games and only coming home when their dad’s shout or whistle called them in for supper.

I’m averaging about 1000 words a day so far for my Nano book; not on target for the Recommended Daily Average, but as I was a bit busy during those first few days, I’m doing pretty well.

WFC was so much fun, but to do a proper report takes energy, and I’m still very tired-out.  All energy regained was used up with errand-running and catching-up-from-weekend today.  So maybe tomorrow. 

 But yay.

Also, Nano looks like a go, so I need to review my notes for La Cause and make sure I’m read to Do This Thing!  I tried in 2005 and didn’t have a good enough grasp of my idea so gave up.  I used 2006′s Nano month to work on major revisions to SanClare Black (didn’t quite make my personal target but came very close; didn’t count for “real” Nano in any case), but this year, I’m going to try to do it correctly and stick to it.  Just ’cause I think it might be a fun and liberating way to get a really bloody awful first draft of La Cause done.  I’m already telling myself to just write whatever including “this part sucks; fix later” and then DO the VITs and move on, always aiming for the final 50k target.

That’s my idea, at least.  We shall see.

Nanowrimo starts in a couple of weeks, and I think I’ll put making major progress on the book my Nano project.  Either that, or I’ll do La Cause as my Nano project–and idea I like rather better since it needs the jump-start more.  Hrm… Well, we’ll see how I feel closer to time.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I’ll be out of town the first few days of November at World Fantasy about which I am EXTREMELY excited.  But I’ve never been before, so–any advice anyone?  Stuff I should know? Stuff I should do? Stuff I should pack?

I’ve been dabbling around trying to figure out the way magic works in this world.  It needs to be very structured and organized and almost academic, but there are also hidden, much wilder strains out there.   I think I may have it figured out after tonight. 

I also found a great site with detailed, fin-de-siecle maps of Europe.  I am now trying to come up with alt-names for my violently reworked Europe.  Some things won’t change much (France); some things won’t change much, but will have very different names (Great Britain, for backstory reasons I may never spell out in the story); and I may just make some things up entirely.  All the good alt-London names seem to be taken…  This will be an Edwardian-flavored Europe still very much riddled with principalities and kingdoms randomly sprinkled all around the behemoth nations.  It is also a world teetering on the precipice of violent change–some of it good but much of it Very Bad and To Be Avoided If At All Possible.

Ye Agent asked a couple of questions on his blog about process.  Here they are with my answers:

What is your favorite part of the writing process?
I don’t have a favorite part. I like pretty much every part of the process. After about the zillioneth round of editing the same thing, I can get pretty sick of it, but otherwise, I do like it all.

What do you do when you know you’ve done something wrong and haven’t yet figured out what the source of that wrongness is?
That depends on the work in progress. If it’s something I’m steeped in (such as the SanClare books), I almost never get that stuck. I go back and reread, and the bit that’s gumming up the flow usually reveals itself. With a newer piece (such as La Cause Sociériste), I generally go back to the plotting and look for the problem there. If I get really hung up (short stories — not my forte), I hand it to my First Readers to diagnose.

What would your answers be?

In the meantime, conflict enters the father/son-esque relationship of two of the main characters in SanClare Scarlet.  People aren’t speaking to each other.  Someone is justifiably angry about secrets kept from him.  And they haven’t even reached the capital yet!