author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

And so it did.

Look, that doesn't mean I'm going to show you.

Worked from nine to five. Really. Worked. I'm not exactly sure where all those hours went. They Went To The Cause.

Biked home. (Three miles. Uphill.)

Rested momentarily.

Then, from seven until nine that evening, did such things as you see in these photos here.

Writing will happen tomorrow.

So. It's later. This post, I think, counts as "more."

It may not have entirely escaped notice that I've been rather absent from this blog of late. I've been sort of pendulum-swinging between hard-core goofing off and hard-core panicked productivity. The "Thunk" from the previous post marked my exiting the latter mode and returning to the former.

Let's review:

Thunk, onomatopoeia, the sound of something with a high word count and high stress level landing in my editor's inbox. (See also Thwumph, likewise, the sound of me hitting the sack after an all-night writing binge.)

So I've been goofing off a bit since. My main characters in Puzzle Pirates have been going to Atlantis a lot, earning plenty pieces of eight at their distilling jobs, and trading pieces of eight for doubloons. My most favorite paperbacks are getting a rereading work out. Sleep is happening in great quantities. Also cooking. My grandmother once gave me a copy of Kenneth Lo's The Top One Hundred Chinese Dishes and I've been working my way through the sections on noodles, rice, eggs, and tofu.

However. I've got another deadline of an even higher word count coming up on the 29th of this month, and I'm hoping to avoid the thunk/thwumph cycle. Also hoping to avoid stretching out that deadline into November, because November is holy. November is when new novels get written at a rate of no less than 1,667 words a day. And speaking of which--fiction! It's what that "hey I wanna be a writer when I grow up!" thing was all about! Might be nice to start actually submitting short stories here and there again...

Thus, the plan: After posting this, it's 1500 words on the work-for-hire contract and then a bit of fictional noodling.

And then some Puzzle Pirates. Nensieuisge needs a new sword, after all.

So, more later. And more later after that. And after that. And so on.

That is all.

More later when my brain returns.

That's it. I'm officially rewriting the trunk novel for NaNoWriMo 2007.

Ackcherly, the trunk novel is in fact three novels. First there's the story of the Mary Sue character coming of age and inheriting her mother's sparkling wonderfulness; and then there's the story of some of the not-so-wonderful consequences of that, including having all her mother's memories and being persona non grata with her father; and then there's potentially a story about what's left for her to get up to after she survives all the mindblowingness of book 2.

So NaNoWriMo 2007 will be all about rewriting, fleshing out, and finishing Stormsinger's Birth. Between now and then I'll be outlining it somewhat thoroughly via the Chapter/Scene Description inputs in yWriter. And retrofitting that outline as I tinker around with the second book, Stormsinger's Quest.

(Yes, these are in fact related to "The Stormsinger's Daughter." Same mythos, different character. Different, in fact, planet.)

...I'm gonna hafta put these novels into the database, aren't I? Boom, there they are. The first and second, anyway. I haven't wrapped my head all around the third yet. But you know what this means? It means I can't call them "the trunk novel" anymore. I might have to treat them like real, honest-to-goodness viable drafts. Which means I'm gonna hafta really scale back the Mary Sue factor and the teenage fantasies and make a real, honest-to-goodness story out of all this. I'm gonna hafta publish excerpts. That people can read and stuff. *shudder* This is all very frightening. I suppose it's what I get for declaring that there is no story that is without merit on the rewrite.

It's just as well that this rambling work of prose isn't intended for publication any time soon. If I were to try to submit it any time this year, it would come back within the week bearing a big red stamp saying, "HEROES RIP-OFF."

Which would be fair, I guess, considering that even though I've been working on this novel, on and off paper, for two decades now, the bit that screams "HEROES RIP-OFF" only came to me about two nights ago.

So, you know, just in case I lost all my inhibitions along with my sanity and took it into my head to try to publish this purplish sort of kind of real people fan fic thing, I'd have one last little element capable of dissuading me. Just in case.

Oh look! Another last-minute contest entry. It worked so well last time, I figured it would be a shame if I didn't try it again.

The contest: Write a bit of Yohoho Puzzle Pirates fan fiction. Specifically, give the Antediluvian Conch an origin story. As far as I can tell, the Antediluvian Conch is a whisk token. If you have it, you can transport yourself to Atlantis. Whee! I love game expansions! (complete contest rules)

You can read my entry here. It is much less purple than my previous last-minute fiction contest entry. But it's just as last-minute. Deadline's in about 14 minutes, I think.

Anyway, thought y'all might like to know that my sprained fiction tendon appears to be healing up nicely. (Also, I think I began a new novel the other day. It's cyberpunk. Ish. But that's another story.)

Aaauuugh! I think I strained my fiction! In the the writing place! Ow! Ow! With the hurting and the ouchies!

[Please excuse the noise. Our Author has suffered from atrophy of the storytelling muscles and is consequently undergoing physiwritteral therapy. Some discomfort is to be expected during the adjustment period. Thank you. -The Mgmt.]

Ow ow ow ow stoppit ow YEEEERGH!

[Actually this is all quite normal. -Ibid.]

*whimper*

I have Good News. The article about the hand-knit bikini experiment? It really really will be published. At any rate, I was recently asked to turn in a slight (very slight) revision to it along with a bio and a nice headshot of me. And money arrived in my PayPal account. So it all looks like getting published. Hurrah!

However, the publisher has started sending me emails with strangely spam-like rhetoric. "Nicole Do you know the TRUTH about knitting?" "The insider secrets that you should know before you even THINK of starting a knitting piece!" Fear! Feeear the knitting! Without our help the knitting will surely defeat you! It's like the headlines from a cover of Reader's Digest. Should I be worried?

Meanwhile, I'm under a deadline that is two days gone, and two more deadlines have sprung up looking scary in the distance, and I haven't touched any fiction in almost a month. This makes me cranky.

However! There is extracurricular good news. I am this close to being able to legally act as Pilot in Command again--it's likely that after tomorrow's lesson the instructor will sign off on my flight review (he did! Yay! I can has endorsement!)--and John and I have been taking beginner rock-climbing classes at the neighborhood gym. Both of these do wonders for one's sense of competence. Yesterday I walked into the gym in a tank top and ill-fitting shorts, horribly self-conscious about being short and pudgy and hairy and a total n00b. (Shut up. I know.) Then I started climbing, and then I got to the top of the route, and then all I could think was "Ha! Who cares how I look? I don't care how I look. Ain't nobody gonna talk to me about how I look. I look bad ass." Bad ass for a n00b, sure, the route was only labeled 5.8, but still. A highly recommended experience.

No, really. Getting back to work now. Laters.

So I showed the story to one more person. She liked it, too, but mentioned two things that could be changed. So I thought, "OK, quick revision and send it off!"

Which I did today (having been felled to uselessness by the heat yesterday).

Only, aside from those two things, I kept running into *klunk* and *ick* and *oh give me a break.* So I did a lot of revising on the sentence by sentence level. And I read it to myself and thought, "Hot damn. That's great!"

Then I gave to my husband for a final read through.

He wasn't happy with the changes. That's an understatement; what he actually said was, "It died."

ArrrggghhhhH!!!!!!!!

So we went back and forth as to what killed it and how to revive it. The big things I agreed with: too much detail nails down the ineffable and makes it sound like a police report. The little things, though... "Doesn't this sentence just sound better?" "Well, no." "Why not?!" "Not sure. It just doesn't work."

So I have not submitted this story anywhere yet. I've sent copies out for second opinions. And I'm going to sleep on it.

Thing about my husband is, he may not be able to articulate exactly why something doesn't work, but he can definitely tell me when something doesn't work. If a piece sings, or fails to sing, he hears that. So I trust his diagnosis. I just can't get over how the old draft clunks here and there and apparently sings for everyone but me.

And that's the problem. Sometimes feedback leaves me feeling like there's absolutely nothing I can do. Like I can't trust my own judgment. Like I suck at revising, so why try? Which is not to blame anyone giving me feedback, of course. Absolutely not. Anyone who's willing to give me feedback, I treasure that. If only I could figure out how to use that feedback rather than get paralyzed by it.

Like I said: Sleep. Tomorrow for working miracles. Miracles are over for tonight.