The Secret History

Haven't posted wordcount in a while, so here's our old friend the green wordcount meter to update you on my progress. Finally got some work done on A Lamentation of Swans after a hiatus of several weeks while I worked on other stuff and mostly fell into a sort of slump, writing-wise.

Today saw me being very productive during a writing jam with owldaughter: I fixed my "drowning" scene to my satisfaction and began the next scene, for a total of nearly 3,000 extra words. To say that I'm pleased with my progress would be putting it mildly.

30,104 / 100,000 (30.1%)

Today was quite productive, if I do say so myself. :::preens::: Got a whole bunch of work done on" A Lamentation of Swans."

The prince came a-courtin', as planned, and is starting to develop into a much nicer character than I originally envisioned. I'm having a bit of trouble with the transition between the current situation and the events that will lead up to Branwen's death. For one thing, the characters won't shut up no matter how much I try to make them. Also, the prince is proposing to Anne somewhat earlier than I anticipated. I thought he would wait until after the "accident" (a long time after), but it turns out he's sort of in a hurry. This isn't a huge deal: after all, he has to ask the father's permission to officially pay court to Anne, then he has to get his own parents' permission to marry (she's not even close to being near his rank, although she is technically noble-born), and then there will be lots and lots of preparations for the royal wedding. Plenty of time in which to stage a seduction followed by a murder.

I got about 4,500 words written at work, and about 1,500 during the writing jam with toughlovemuse, which is about standard for me, for a total of a little over 6,000 words in all. I am very pleased with today's progress.

20,035 / 100,000 (20.0%)

The way things are going, the seduction ploy ought to take up the next few thousand words, and then we'll actually get to the murder scene. All in all, I think this first half of the book ought to be within 35 to 50,000 words, which will be right about at the halfway mark if I've worked this out properly. It is all to the good.

Not entirely surprisingly, more writing has happened in the past few days.

I mentioned over in my main LJ that toughlovemuse and I had a very good writing jam last night. I am enjoying these sessions a lot, although I worry a bit that I'm a little too chatty for her liking. What can I say? I like to listen to myself talk. This should come as no surprise to any of my readers. :)

I worked on Cal's story today, which I'm halfway tempted to call "To A Discerning Eye," after the Emily Dickinson poem, but I'm vaguely worried that's a little too heavy-handed. Wrote a little over 1,150 words, which isn't bad at all. I'm still a little stuck because of this one scene that I'm dreading writing. Not because I don't want to write it, but because it's such an important scene that I don't want to muff it. Yes, I know, write it and then worry about it only if it turns out to be bad.


Last night I got 2,324 words written on the swan story, and one of the secondary characters decided that he was going to grow a personality and make life difficult for me. I wanted him to be a nice young man who'd eventually grow up into a stolid merchant. Instead, he informed me last night that he was going to be a knight errant and go in search of adventure. It made me want to smack him upside the head, the ungrateful brat. He's supposed to marry the middle daughter and then gracefully fade into the background

I don't even know what knights errant did after they got married. They had no land, right? So what did they do? Did they continue their life of errantry, leaving their wives behind? Did they settle down and figure out something else to do with themselves? Ah, the tribulations of writers... :P


Wrote two more installments of BTP yesterday at work, in between being driven crazy by the CAM and running around actually getting work done. This means I have a one-installment buffer in case something goes very very wrong and I can't write an installment one week. If all goes well I shall continue building up my buffer. Ideally, as I mentioned in a previous post, I'd like to write the next thirty or so installments ASAP, so that I can then turn my attention more fully to other writing projects. Not that I'm tired of BTP, far from it, but I've found that writing bits and pieces of each project a little willy-nilly is not always the best approach. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. There's something to be said for momentum, anyway.


Just because I'm completely insane, I still haven't given up on the idea of using rocking_thing for a weekly column. There are a number of subjects I could write about. The question is, which one do I choose? Hmm. Maybe I'll post a poll in my other LJ.

I have come to the conclusion that I am definitely insane. Not that this is news to anyone who knows me. However, this kind of insane actually feels kind of nice. It feels good to be writing again.


Let's make a list of current projects:

( Behind a cut tag, to spare the friends pages )

Well, it will be something to aim for. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? I likely won't be able to sustain that rate of production, but giving myself an idea of where I'd like each story to be in six months' time is a good start, I think.