Meh week. Between family stuff and a crunch at the dayjob there was little time for writing, and only about half of that time was spent on the book.
Deep edits are done on 5 of 7 sections. About 1 section behind where I wanted to be by the end of the week.
Only big fixes remaining are the shot sequence, and the clues about the good Doctor’s growing stress. Also playing with an alternative conspiracy theory: what if Dr. Banks and Drake arranged to be on the wall that day in order to let the refugees in, vs. it being a random event? This alters only a few lines of dialogue, but it significantly changes the flavor of events later in the story. It makes the Taft stuff work better (plot and counter plot vs moustache twirling evil), so I think I will go with it; but it also implies the protagonists know a lot more about what is going on than I had intended.
Showing posts with label Key Decisions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Key Decisions. Show all posts
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Blogging as procrastination
I have seen other writers touch on this briefly, but most seem to avoid the subject. The simple fact is that I should be working on the book right now, instead, I am writing this. It takes the same amount of time to bang out the words, the same amount of concentration and brain juice. Yet by doing this, I can put off some unpleasant bit of business I need to attend to in the book.
So, dear reader, know that by keeping the blog I am ultimately burning away many hours that could have gone toward finishing the book. At the end, I’ll try to remember to post a total so we can see how much time this cost the book. To date, I have spent ~6 hours on the blog, most if it over a 4 day weekend. That's about how long it takes me to write the rough draft of a chapter. So, blogging has procrastinated away an entire chapter. Ouch.
Decision of the Day:
A decision I am grappling with: keep story in Perth or move it to Seattle. For me, Perth is more interesting but I don’t know the city well enough to portray it accurately. Seattle I know well, but if I set it there, I will feel compelled to actually walk through all the locales I depict, checking facts, looking for little secrets most people don’t know. This would be fun, but it would burn days, maybe weeks and like this blog, would amount to little more than a form of procrastination.
Right now I’m thinking accuracy doesn’t matter because the story is about growing up in a zombie wasteland, not the trivia and culture of real place. But I ask myself: will the fine citizens of Perth hate me if I get their city wrong?
-McToad
So, dear reader, know that by keeping the blog I am ultimately burning away many hours that could have gone toward finishing the book. At the end, I’ll try to remember to post a total so we can see how much time this cost the book. To date, I have spent ~6 hours on the blog, most if it over a 4 day weekend. That's about how long it takes me to write the rough draft of a chapter. So, blogging has procrastinated away an entire chapter. Ouch.
Decision of the Day:
A decision I am grappling with: keep story in Perth or move it to Seattle. For me, Perth is more interesting but I don’t know the city well enough to portray it accurately. Seattle I know well, but if I set it there, I will feel compelled to actually walk through all the locales I depict, checking facts, looking for little secrets most people don’t know. This would be fun, but it would burn days, maybe weeks and like this blog, would amount to little more than a form of procrastination.
Right now I’m thinking accuracy doesn’t matter because the story is about growing up in a zombie wasteland, not the trivia and culture of real place. But I ask myself: will the fine citizens of Perth hate me if I get their city wrong?
-McToad
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