Today I kill a man

Work on Shadow Trail is moving along briskly, I am happy to report. Camp NaNoWriMo has really helped me stay on task, so even though I'm behind in word count, I'm way ahead where I would have been otherwise. I'm up to 21,000 words total, although almost 6,000 of those words were written pre-June.

I have an outline, but I've added so much to the plot that I need to rewrite it. And I hadn't planned on this book being so fast-paced, so some of the chapters I had planned are going to be jettisoned starting today. For instance, according to the outline, the chapter I'm about to write should have had my main characters Marian and Jacob* hiking a few miles with a group of other refugees, with Marian getting increasingly worried about the noise they're making. Instead, in the New, Improved Outline, the chapter starts with the camp getting raided overnight and Marian and Jacob--who wisely camped well away from the others--discovering that everyone is gone. And I will probably have at least one person die.

And of course there will be a couple of people who escaped the capture, although I'm not sure what to do with them yet. But I'll figure it out.

This is a YA with light SF elements and a sweet romance between the two main characters, so with its pace being so fast I think I can wrap it all up in no more than 65,000 words. It would be wonderful if I could finish the whole thing by the end of June, because I've got another project, working title Wharf Rat, that I want to work on next. I started Wharf Rat a few weeks ago to see if I could write grimdark fantasy that's so popular these days. Well, I can't, but instead it's turning out funny as hell.

*Remember guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex? Who I said one day I would use his real name for a character? That's him.

He lives!

I had to drop something off at the cashier's office at work today, and who should I get in line behind? The guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex! I hadn't seen him in several semesters and had assumed he'd transferred to another college or graduated. I must have been right, because he was paying for a transcript. He smiled at me too. He smiles at everybody, because he's just that nice a guy.

That was a bright moment in an otherwise exhausting and dismal day. At least tomorrow I'm off work (I swapped with today, my usual day off) and I can sleep late and get caught up typing some of the thousands of handwritten words I've written on Bloodhound this week.

Sugar! It's what's for breakfast!

I've been feeling shaky and blood-sugar-bottomed-out all day, and finally (duh) figured out that it was due to the Coke I had with breakfast. I've been trying to cut soft drinks out of my diet entirely, so have been slugging down unsweet tea instead all week--until this morning. Ugh. Bleah. I'm going to have to run out and get a big chunk of meat or something to keep me from crashing this afternoon.

But it's about to storm again (thunder, and it's getting dark!), and guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex is actually right outside the office working with a math tutor and looking more than ever like Alex, and I have tomorrow off work and plan to spend it hiking in Clear Creek (in the morning, before it gets too hot) and writing (finishing the rewrite of "Cult of the Butterfly"). So if I can keep from fainting or bursting into hysterical tears due to low blood sugar, this'll be a good afternoon.

Holy crap! It's the internet!

I read about the Internet Mapping Project over at Boing Boing a few days ago, and of course I had to print a blank map. I spent several glorious hours yesterday drawing the Internet. I'll be sending the original to the Internet Mapping Project, but I wanted to save a copy for myself so I scanned it. Here it is:

I know, you can't really see it in that picture. So I put a giant version on my website at http://kcshaw.net/internetmap.html. I warn you, it's a humongous .gif. ETA: Hey, I just realized if you click the picture above, it embiggens! I've probably just used up all my blogspot picture space with that one.

Totally changing the subject now. I saw guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex at work today! I hadn't seen him for months and was starting to worry he'd dropped out, but no, he's still in school and doing well. I'm so glad!

I rewrote the query for The Weredeer this afternoon. I still want to tinker with it, but it's about ten billion times better than it was. Next step: fix the appallingly bad synopsis for The Weredeer.

Up and down

Not to alarm anyone who knows him or make people feel sorry for me, but things have been rough the last two days with my dog Jasper. He's not doing very well. I'm hoping it's a temporary issue, but if I'm not my usual chipper self--okay, my usual vaguely-annoyed-and-100%-self-centered self--you'll know why.

Anyway, I'm glad guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex came in to test this afternoon at work, because seeing him always makes me happy. He's changed his hair again. He's so cute.

I'm working on The Taste of Magic, my Nano book, and yes, I'm actually writing it. I want it to be a bit over 80,000 words total, so my goal is to reach 30,000 words by the end of October and then write the next 50,000 as the "official" Nano part. I'm about 15,000 words in and I've only been working on it a week or so, so it's entirely possible that I'll reach 30k by Halloween. I don't have an outline, though, which feels perilous to me. I've been working with outlines since my first Nano book in 2005, so it feels odd and without-a-netty not to have one now. On the other hand, so far the plot is holding together and I kind of know where it's going.

I'm at the fun part of writing, where everything's going swimmingly and when I think, "What shall I read tonight?" nobody else's book seems as interesting as my own.

Story sale to MindFlights!

Much to my surprise, I just got an acceptance from MindFlights! It's one of those slam-dunk moments, because they were the first market I sent the story to. Call it a case of researching the right market very carefully, particularly since this story, "Gaming Real Life," is hard to categorize.

So I've updated my pitiful website to reflect the sale. I'm very impressed by the Double-Edged Sword submissions process--it's all completely automatic, right down to the contract! I like getting a contract immediately after acceptance.

This afternoon at work, guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex came in again, which delighted me almost as much as selling a story. He's changed his hair so he looks less like Alex than before. That's probably a good thing.

He's so adorable!

ZOMG guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex came into the testing center while I was working today and I got to talk to him!

For the uninitiated, Alex is a very minor character in a book I revised this spring. The guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex is a student at the college where I work as a test proctor, and as you may have guessed, he looks just like the minor character Alex--to a degree that it is actually eerie. In addition, I noticed that he seems very happy to be in school, so I've sort of been keeping an eye out for him (in a non-creepy way, I promise) and sending good thoughts his way.

I'm happy to report that he is a very nice guy, just like his namesake. He didn't argue about the testing center policies like so many people do, and cheerfully solved the dilemma of all his stuff not fitting in the lockers we provide for students' stuff, without complaining at all. I did, of course, offer to show him how the lockers work--which I often do for students if we're not busy, because those lockers really are kind of weird--and held his calculator while he put his things away. He kept up a pleasant running commentary and apologized for taking up my time. I so badly wanted to say, "Oh, no problem--I can't wait to get home and blog about you under the 'stalker' label!"

Yeah. I think I just crossed the line into creepy.

I know his name now, or at least his first name (because I never pay attention to last names and anyway his is unusual). I wish I could report that it's Alex, but no luck. I won't tell you his name, of course, but I know I'll end up using it as a character name eventually. I won't be able to help myself.

Hearting Blogs

I've been tapped twice for the I Love Your Blog meme. Thanks, Catherine J. Gardner and Jeremy Kelly! Catherine J. Gardner writes dark fantasy and horror (for kids too!) and I think she's sold more stories in the last two months than I've written in my entire life. Jeremy Kelly is a writer too--horror, I think (judging from his recent sale to Northern Haunts), but I'm sure he writes in other genres. Also, he has a picture of a guy riding a zebra on his blog, which is just cool.

I'm going to take a quick page from Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware, who was also tapped for the meme but declined to list favorites. In her case, she was probably just being politic. I just don't know all that many people who would be interested in me passing on an I Love Your Blog award. :) All you have to do, though, is check out the link list over there. ---> The blogs I list are all ones I like well enough to check them every day. You'd probably like them too!

In a complete change of subject, I saw guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex today! I hadn't seen him since about July and I was so worried he'd dropped out or something. Today I even talked to him. I said, "Thanks," when he held the door so it wouldn't swing in my face as I entered the library building behind him. Then he went off to the library and I went off to my job, me feeling much better about the world in general. So remember, guys, if you ever feel down--you never know how many strangers are quietly pulling for you.

Toad

I have a toad living under my deck. I just saw him. I hope he eats up all the slugs that ate up all my bean plants.

I saw guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex again today. He's so cute! I know I sound weird and stalker-ish, but the guy looks so much like I imagined that character that it's almost eerie. Alex is an extremely minor character, but he was meant to have a slightly larger part so I'm fond of him all out of proportion to the two small scenes he's in. If I'd known he was going to drop by to get tutoring in algebra, I'd have given him a bigger part after all.

Title Woes

I saw the guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex today, which made me happy. I was starting to worry about him, since I hadn't seen him since the first day of classes. I almost didn't recognize him--he'd put his hair back in a little ponytail, probably due to the heat. So adorable.

I tried very hard today to come up with a title for the book that comes between The Weredeer and Stag in Velvet, but without luck. I did think of The Hunted Hart, but it's not really all that good. I may end up going with Stag at Bay, which was the original title of The Weredeer. That won't confuse me at all, oh no.

The mimosa trees decided overnight that it was summer. They're all blooming! God, I loves me some mimosa trees.

Seeing happy makes me happy

Last week I helped proctor a placement test for students over 21 years old. Proctoring gives me the excuse to look closely at people who are concentrating so hard they don't know I'm watching them, a mildly voyeuristic delight--it's rare to get the chance to actually look at a stranger. I distinctly remember two of the guys in the room: one because he was the dead spit of Mr. Tumnus (without the goat legs and horns, of course) AND he pulled out an actual handkerchief at one point to clean his glasses, which was just adorable; and the other because he looked just like a minor character in the book I was revising last week.

Summer term classes started today, and this morning the minor-character guy showed up in the study area outside my office. I overheard him ask if it was okay if he hung out there for an hour while he waited for his next class to start, which of course it was, and he sat down and spread his books out to study.

All this is rather ordinary except that it's not every day you see a guy who looks just like a minor-character. But the thing is, this guy was happy. Not in a goofy way or an excited way or anything like that. It was just clear that on this particular day, all was right with the world for him.

I kept thinking of him all day, and every time I did I felt good too. It's deeply satisfying to see a person taking joy in something so innocent and good as starting college classes for the first time. Godspeed, guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex. May the happiness you feel today last you for the rest of your life, and may your academic career bloom like the hyperactive rosebush in my front yard.