Uncertainty

Remember how last week I said I had a story out that I reread and it was horrible? I just got a note from the editor, and they're holding it for a second look.

I now see that I am completely unable to evaluate my own work.

Anonymous, ticks, and other important stuff

For those of you who don't read Elizabeth Bear's excellent blog, she posted a link to a fantastic site that keeps track of Anonymous's activities against Scientology. I've never read a word of her fiction, but I love Bear's blog. Maybe I'll pick up a paperback of hers today as a way to thank her.

I'm meeting my mom to see Wall-E today! I've heard good things about it, but didn't get a chance to see it yesterday. Instead, I did a decent amount of writing during and after work, then went out to pick blackberries. I got enough to make a very tiny cobbler, I think. I may pick up some peaches at the store to bulk the cobbler out a little. Then again, that may turn out really nasty; I've never tried a blackberry/peach cobbler. The flavors may not blend.

I made the mistake of wearing shorts to blackberry pick--not shorts, actually; I guess they're some variety of crop pants, where the cuffs hit around mid-calf. I forgot to change into jeans and paid the price. By the time I got home, my ankles and calves were so scratched up that I looked like I'd crawled out of one of the milder horror books, maybe one for younger readers, maybe subcaptioned "Was it berry juice--or blood?" Also, I got two ticks on me, although that's not bad considering that I was wading through what amounted to Tick Country, USA.

Now it's a cool and rainy morning and I have only pleasant things to do today. And the Fourth of July is coming up! Life is good.

Bunny will have a mouse

I just ordered a mouse for my eee. It's blue! The mouse, I mean, not the eee--Bunny the Laptop is white (although still very pretty, of course). I'll probably get it around August, but maybe I'll get lucky and it'll arrive in July.

Work tomorrow, ugh. Hopefully it won't be too busy and I can get lots of writing done. I'm almost to the masquerade scene (Yeah. A masquerade.) and then I'll have the abduction scene and then the big chase, and that's it. Except for the revisions.

Vaccuuming the cat

I forgot to check my starting word count, but I'm now 112,000 words into Stag in Velvet. I'll probably get another thousand words before bedtime. This book is so freaking full of stuff! I keep remembering things I have to include. I suspect the revisions for this thing are going to be a real bugger.

I would have done a lot more writing today except that I slept late, and then I had to play some Exile III (I'm at the Tower of Shifting Floors, which I hate, so since I wasn't having fun I figured it was somehow good for me to play Exile III instead of writing), and then I had to walk up to the town center for a Coke, and then I had to--well, you get the point. But I did finally settle down to write around 1pm. I think I've probably written a good solid four hours today, all told. Not bad.

And yet, somehow, I still feel as though I wasted the day. How can this be? Even if I hadn't done any writing at all, at least I cleaned out the refrigerator and picked up all the dry dog poo from the yard. Doesn't that count for anything?

Not even a little bit of cleaning

Tomorrow is Thursday, and those of you playing along at home know that means I'm off work. I'm going to write all day. Yes, I am! I have no plans, except I have to call to make an appointment for my car's oil change and I want to walk up to get the mail and a Coke while it's still cool.

I will not turn on the TV. I will not run out to the store for anything. I will not, God help me, go see Kung Fu Panda again. I will not even clean the house. Nothing but typing all day long. I'm really close to finishing this book. Wouldn't it be freaking awesome if I could finish tomorrow?

Dreaming in Ink

I'm interested to know if other writers ever dream about their characters, or if their characters show up as people in their dreams. Because mine never, ever do and I often wonder why.

The people we know best and spend the most time with show up in our dreams all the time. I dream about my mom, my pets, my coworkers. And yet I spend more time with the characters I'm writing about than with any real person in the world.

I used to think it's because I don't dream about fictional characters at all--but characters from TV shows or other people's books do sometimes appear in my dreams as bit players. Then I thought it might be because the characters I write are really just aspects of myself--but aren't all people in dreams just aspects of the dreamer? Now I've decided that it's a vital mental-health issue, that somewhere in my subconscious I feel the need to wall my real life self off from my fictional character selves. I suspect that's the real reason, although it feels vaguely creepy.

Plans

Almost the first thing I did this morning was turn on Bunny the Adorable Laptop. I finished a scene I started last night, and then on impulse I opened up White Rose for the first time in months.

I read the first 30,000 words or so and you know what? It's not nearly as bad as I thought. It's kind of scary to think that what I write when I'm allowing myself to write badly isn't actually much different from what I write when I'm making an effort to write well.

Once I'm done with Stag in Velvet, I think I'll finish White Rose. By the time I'm done with it, it'll be close enough to November that I won't want to start a new long project and I can hopefully get some short fiction written. And then, NaNoWriMo 2008! I've been saving Charmed Circle for NaNo, incidentally. Can't wait, can't wait!