Monday

Tired, not writing easily today.  Everything I write seems choppy.  Still, managed 644 words, and am leading up to the first drama of the book.  It references the last one, showing that things have, if anything, gotten worse.  It also provides an opportunity for Bryn & Mer to interact...

Anyway, I'm exhausted, and need to get back to work.  Until next time.

Working Title: Damnatio Memoriae
Word Count: 5,107
Writing Mode: No, but seriously...tired

What Do We Do? We Swim.

959 words yesterday, 583 today.  I’m in the middle of an interesting scene that not only furthers the story and sets the tone, but links this book more firmly with the last.  I’m enjoying it, not least because I get to show someone being callously cruel and thoughtlessly evil—always a fun time.

Working on the book also seems to have shaken loose other writing ideas—I had a great idea for a podcast, though heaven only knows when I’ll find the time to write (much less record) that.  Still, it’s an interesting idea, and I’m going to let it percolate for now.

Anyway, back to the grind.  I won’t be updating over the weekend, but at least getting started on writing again is a great early present for my birthday  :}

Working Title: Damnatio Memoriae
Word Count: 4,468
Writing Mode: Just keep swimming

Pandora clapped the lid on, just in time to keep Hope from flying away…

“You know, I know you feel like you did a good job, but this is just your first book.  It’s probably not very good at all…maybe you should give up on it and just write a few more before trying to get published.”

“Maybe it’s time you focused on something else.”

“You’re so good at articles…why don’t you write those, instead?”

We all have doubts about our writing.  Unfortunately, not all of mine are solely in my head.

People have been telling me, lately, to work on something else.  That Traditor’s lack of success shows that it is subpar, unworthy, somehow fatally-flawed.  They’re not fans of me working on Damnatio Memoriae, either.  Fruit of the poisonous tree, I guess. 

Honestly?  They’re probably right.  But I’m just not ready to give up on Bryn & Mer.  I’m not ready to abandon their story, their world.  Even if I’m the only one who ever travels this path, I have to see it through. 

557 words today.  And I wrote a poem.  I can’t stop: this is who I am.

Working Title: Damnatio Memoriae
Word Count: 2,926
Writing Mode: Trudging 

When They Catch You, They Will Kill You

Still writing, though today’s word-haul wasn’t as good as yesterday’s: only 574 words.  Still, that’s the 500 I need, and I’m only just getting back into the swing of things.  Anyway, I was in the middle of kind of a tough scene…it’s a mob scene and I didn’t want to play it out too much, but I still wanted to get across the visceral horror with which Mer is filled at the sight of the mob.  Did I succeed?  Only time (and delayed re-reading) will tell.

Anyway, I think I’m going to try to keep these posts much shorter than I had in the past…that way I’ll be more likely to actually update this blog, rather than just ignoring it for weeks at a time. 

So with that, allow me to draw this posting to a close.

Working Title: Damnatio Memoriae

Word Count: 2,369

Writing Mode: …but first they must catch you

...And It Freezes Me

659 words.

I wrote today at lunch, sequestered away in a dingy corner of my building’s mezzanine, trying to work while listening to screaming abuse from the interior courtyard.  I had to force myself to focus, force myself to struggle through, the way I struggled through the beginning of Traditor.  But it felt good to finally, finally work again, to ignore the abyss around me and get lost, once more, in Bryn & Mer’s world.  I think—I hope—I’m giving them a good beginning. 

I’m planning to print a copy of Traditor so that I can do one final edit on my way back and forth to work.  There’s more than enough time on my new commute, and the book certainly could use a little more polishing.  Besides, I’d like to reread it, to reassure myself that I finished a novel once, and can do it again.  What a novel thought. 

659 words.

It's not much, but it's a start.

Working Title: Damnatio Memoriae
Word Count: 1,795
Writing Mode: I want the fire back.

I Touch the Fire

I'm still writing.

Not much.  Not regularly.  Not even well.

But I'm still going.

* * *

The last few months have been…hard.  I feel increasingly disillusioned.  

Disconnected. 

But I re-read Traditor for the first time in a long time, recently.  It is flawed, and rough…and I still love it.  I may be the only one, if the responses from agents and publishers (and grad schools…and writing contests…and friends…) are any indication.  But I love it.

I feel like maybe the only purpose I have in life is to tell Mer’s story.  It’s all there, in my head…waiting to be free.

I think I’ll give 500 words another try.