Words are inadequate

Words: 500ish, today?
Total words: 7400 or so
Neat things: My favourite Lebanese restaurant. Jack Ivey has a sweet tooth. Laine Hollister is nowhere near as good as she thinks she is.

I... appear to have a zeroth draft? It's full of holes but none of them are scene-sized. And I think the basic story works. Looks like I might make my secondary self-imposed deadline of "Friday" for a first draft.

I already know (or think I do) a couple of things I'll need to fix in revision. It's likely gonna need some chainsaw-type editing too, in addition to filling in those holes. Unless I decide to be happy with it at short-novelette length. I dunno, I have no idea how these things work. Honestly I have no idea what I'm even doing with this story. Sending it out, of course, but I don't have a particular market in mind.

Turns out writing is not easily a thing I can drop in and out of. This is at least a couple hours of Butt In Chair every day over the last four? days, plus just ... having the story at the back of my mind. Which makes sense, and it's an enjoyable place to be at least for now. It may make life difficult with school, though. Not to mention Actual Full-time Job.

Still. Story. Yay.

(lightly edited from a comment elsewhere)

The plan, to the extent that there is a plan, is to start actively building/rebuilding the life I want in June, to include actual writing.

I have an urban fantasy 'detective' story that's been theoretically done save for the Big Climactic Scene and some polishing for *mumble* years now... but the Big Climactic Scene keeps on just not working. It is possible I should ask for help on that.

I have a vague theme ("the prince kills the dragon and gets half the kingdom and the princess... what if the princess doesn't want to be gotten? what if the prince doesn't want her?") and a placeholder title (We Are Never Ever Getting Ever After) that have been rattling around for several months and are probably what I'll dig into first come June.

I have a bunch of disparate notes and scattered scenes from a secondary-world fantasy that started as "the dawn of the scientific method for magic" and somehow morphed into "Leverage, from the viewpoint of someone unexpectedly dragged into the con." That needs to be ruthlessly pared down and rebuilt before I write any more of it.

---

Packing in March, moving in April, settling in May, ready to go in June. Could happen, though it feels overly optimistic.

A thing I forgot to mention: when my grandmother died, my dad wound up with a beat-up violin that ... o, I don't recall all the history, I believe it's been in the family for at least a century. They got it refurbished and now it sits waiting for a budding Taylor-family violinist.

That's not me, but I did take it down and try it out while I was there. It's surprisingly playable with a couple years of viola under my belt. Mostly my fingers just feel even more gigantic and squished looking for the right notes. I can't imagine trying to play higher than about third position. I did a few scales, played through a few phrases of 'Canon in D' (NOT the cello part)

... although holy cow this "Antidote for the Pachelbel rant". James Ernest says there are two kinds of juggling tricks: those that look harder than they are, and those that are harder than they look. This is a cello trick that is harder than it looks. THE GUY IS HIS OWN CELLO TRIO.

... anyway, 'Canon in D' and a couple of easy Suzuki pieces. Nice to have a skillset. I don't know that I believe Tegen when she says violin is inherently easier than viola, but I don't know that I don't believe her either. Regardless, I certainly prefer the richer viola sound.

Also, tuning a violin with normal wooden pegs and fine-tuners ... difficult at best. The pegs are stiff and far too blunt an instrument, and the fine-tuners are in an awkward place. I have been seriously spoiled by the mechanical pegs on my viola.

---

On Friday afternoon at the VP reunion, I read, out loud, something I've written, to a bunch of writers.

I was pretty confident that it was decent. It's a good read-aloud bit: conversational, two people sniping at each other like you do while still getting the job done, amusing, not a lot of necessary context, and short. I'd read a fragment of it, unrevised, at Rainforest last year, and people enjoyed it. And reading aloud ... is something I can do well. It's just voice, and voice is just words in performance, and that's what I do.

I mean, I was pretty confident right up until the person before me stepped up to the podium, at which point my brain went into a minor panic. I am sure whoever was reading and did a fine job with whatever it was they read. I think I even applauded.

And then I was up. "Um. Hi. I'm Tucker, from VP 15." Brain locks up. "... My cats think I'm hilarious." Scattered laughter. "And ... this is from Blood on Her Hands And a Stone at Her Throat." And I was off.

And ... people chuckled in the right places, and 'A light-fingered dame in a red red coat...' got at least one gratifying "Hmm!" of recognition. And then it was over, and under the applause I heard Steve Brust say "That was /excellent/!"

So, you know. That went well.

---

Of particular note among the many noteworthy things read: Suzanne Palmer's "The Cover Letter", which was almost as much fun to watch TNH's increasingly horrified reaction to as it was to hear.

After the reading (after both Steve and student Karen A-- specifically snagged me down to say "that was pretty great") I went back to my room for a bit and collapsed, and then back out to dinner. And ... what I remember from the actual Viable Paradise experience, other than being totally overwhelmed, is usually the sense of having found my people. Thing is, most of that didn't come until afterwards. When I was actually at the workshop I was tired and battered and usually lonely. The first day or two of the reunion felt like that as well, both familiar and depressing.

But somewhere between the reading and dinner something sort of clicked over and I felt like I belonged. Dinner was wonderful, and musicking afterwards a delight. As an added bonus, someone played a couple of Dar Williams songs, "Iowa" and "You're Aging Well," and I got to make some progress towards reclaiming Dar from the emotional wreckage of the 2000s.

The next morning I said what goodbyes I could, rode the ferry out with a few other folks, and thence home. And it was good.

---

As an added bonus, I read over the scattered fragments of Blood on Her Hands, and surprised myself with how much I like it. Hard to say definitively that there's a good story in it in this state (though I think there is) but the individual scenes are just fun to read.

And I had what may be the insight I needed to break open the recalcitrant soggy ending, that being: if you're going to model your protagonist after John Constantine, model your protagonist after John Constantine. Laine Hollister is a bastard and she had damn well better start acting like it.

Words: 429
Total words: 5,043
Neat things: A standoff that won't end the way the guy with the wand expects it will. And Everywhere the light fell I saw more forgotten sculptures and paintings, tax write-off donations from rich heirs who wanted the stuff even less than the museum did.

Been tapping away at this off and on. I think I may be at the point where there's more plot in my head than on the page. Which means I need to write the scenes that I know will be in there, and then figure out how to stitch it all together.

One of these days I will remember that this is how my process works and that when I know what a scene is I ought to go ahead and write it. Especially if I'm stuck on how the plot hangs together in the middle.

Words: 838
Total words: 2709
Neat things: I looked at her hands, still dripping from where she'd torn out poor Daltrey's throat. "I hadn't expected to take the riddle quite so literally." "We're a literal people."

Ack. I know what I want to have happen and how I want the ending to come off, and it involves the main character standing around spectating instead of doing something. Which means I now have to figure out what she's going to do and why.

... I think I know what she's going to do and I sort of know why, but not quite why it's necessary. And after I figure that out (and I think that's the last "what's the plot" I have to solve) I get to see whether it makes a story.