Going over to the Dark Side

[ksmith]

I just became a paid LJ member. Loaded more pics. For some reason, though, iJournal is still only picking up the first three, even after I logged out and restarted. I wonder if they have a limit?

My S2 format looks a little different as well--not as easy to read. Did the colors become more vivid just because I'm paying for them now--how bizarre.

Looks like it's time to reformat...

Comments

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Three actually, but one's a collaboration and not yet sold, so that's less urgent.

It's...challenging.

Time to Get To Work. Though not tonight. Tonight I think will be about Sleep.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I wish I could work on multiple projects at one time. I think it's a great thing to be able to do...assuming the foot isn't pressing down too hard on the neck.

I think it helps keep the brain nimble. The few times I have been able to work on things outside the current series box, it did me a lot of good.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

The foot is on the neck. One book a year would be bliss. But.

Have you started the book yet or are you at the glaring-at-outline stage? I have one of those, and one that is started and needs to have more pages in it.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

>The foot is on the neck. One book a year would be >bliss. But.

One book a year is too much for me with the day job. Took 4 books for me to figure out I'm a slow writer.

>Have you started the book yet or are you at the >glaring-at-outline stage? I have one of those, and >one that is started and needs to have more pages in >it.

I have a first chapter. I don't like it, but it's a start. I am trying to bribe myself with the fact that if I slog through a couple of chapters of set-up and Byzantine Political Maneuverings (tm), I can then move on to the initial meeting between my protag and ex-lover-who-will-not-stay-ex. Those are fun.

Multiple carrots inserted along the length of this book will help. For once, I think the danged outline may do me some good. This will most likely be the last book in the series, with much tying up of loose ends and relationship resolution. I need a map.

One problem is, I put so much into the outline that part of me feels I've already written the book. My outlines are 50-90 pages long, double-spaced, with snatches of dialogue and asides about motivations. This is probably my best outline. Now I need to shake the feeling that it's time to move on.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Please do save Cary Elwes. He is well worth saving.

I Worried about the whole outline thang when I had to do the formal (as in you write it, you get paid for it) proposal dealie for Luna. It's not my culture, dammit. But it turned out to be OK and 10 or so pages was fine. Whew. I would tend, like you, to figure I'd written the book if I got any more detailed.

Of cuss now I have to write the book. Meanwhile I'm insisting on tackling the one for Roc, which is a historical, which means I have to reread key parts of the research first. Work, it's too much like work.

What we need is a very attractive male wielding a scorpion whip. Harder, Westley. Harder!

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

>Please do save Cary Elwes. He is well worth saving.

La voila! Or is it "Le voila"?

It''s a good picture. Hope it comes through.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I saved Cary. I need to go out and save more Cary.

Outlining is not my culture, either--I am a set-of-the-pants plotter, a point that I prove every time a character squirms out from under and does what s/he will. Agent tried to get editor to forego outlines, but editor was adamant.

I find that the outline detail helps me work out motivation and get a grip on the mystery subplot that is usually present. I didn't have a mystery in the last book, which was a nice change of pace. No clues to set out. No midnight realizations that a character was talking about something on page 300 that they didn't find out until page 375.

For the last book, which was late, they actually planned and executed the cover based on the outline. Lucky for me the turns the story took weren't too sharp.

OTOH, my covers have only the loosest connections to my plots, so maybe it doesn't matter all that much.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

That's "seat-of-the-pants" plotter.

Words are my life. Getting them right is something else entirely.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

The latest cover was one of those "Is your outline really like the book?" deals. I had to say no, then send them chapters. Urk. Never again.

I don't mind writing outlines as long as the editor understands that I treat them as guidelines, sometimes very general ones, rather than Holy Writ.