“If they weren't solidly real dragons... it wouldn't have been worth doing.”
Jo Walton

author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

actually writing blog

Not Dead. Quite The Contrary.
Tue 2006-10-10 21:28:26 (in context)
  • 59,193 words (if poetry, lines) long
  • 128.50 hrs. revised

I am in fact on Martha's Vineyard, in the middle of the Viable Paradise, and things are splendid. The latest freelance deadline has been met, albeit less satisfactorily than I would like. I have taken a flight lesson out of the Katama Airporrt in a red Citabria--taildraggers are fun! I have biked all over most of the east end of the island. I've seen glowing jellyfish. And the first three chapters of Drowning Boy have been critqued by four different instructors and five different students, and I am simultaneously encouraged to stick with the story and disappointed in my draft so far.

Summary of average verdict: Beginning moves too slowly, main character's too passive, mermaid worldbuilding is just fine but author needs to trust it more and not be so cagey about it, and don't wreck it by overdoing the whole Descent of Inanna thing--oh, and medical emergency airplane diversions don't in and of themselves cause media frenzy, but medical emergencies mistaken for terrorist scares might.

Today, Tuesday, I had my second one-on-one critique. With Teresa Nielsen Hayden. (Pause for fangirl *gasp* and *wheeze*) I told her how I feel embarrased by the synopsis of my novel--"makes me realize I've written something I can't show my mother, at least not until it's published." She just smiled, flipped over page 1 of the synopsis, and wrote on the back, "CERTIFICATE: That's OK, it's Art." And she signed it. "You are officially given permission," she said.

That piece of paper is totally going up on the file cabinet next to my writing desk.

Also, she wants me to try, just as an excercise, using the Evil Overlord button to liven up my synopsis. I told her I'll turn it in tomorrow. ("You fool!" said my roommate. "Aren't I," said I.)

What else? Oh. Right. OK, so, in addition to being in the middle of the best writing workshop I have ever attended in my life, and being in awe at conversing daily with people who publish short stories in F&SF and people who edit for Tor and people who inspire reverence everywhere they turn up online--in addition to all that, I say, as though all that needed adding too--I have a new blog.

That's right! One I get paid to do! And one which it won't turn out the editor wants me to pretend to be a porn star at! Bonus!

It's over here.

Right. That's all I've got for now. I should sleep. I consumed far more alcohol than is my norm this evening, between James D. Macdonald's Maker's Mark and extra special rum and Bill Boyke's stash of Glenmorangie and super-fine potato vodka and Teresa Nielsen Hayden's so-called "scurvy cure" which also involves vodka... Two ibuprofin and a tall glass of water better be enough, that's all I'm saying.

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