Tim Pratt's Blog, page 7

Eleven and a Half

NaNo: Not a single word written yesterday. I worked from 8:30 am to 8 pm yesterday at the day job, with a lunch break during which I was unable to write — it was a particularly brutal deadline day at the magazine — so, yeah, I was pretty much done working by the time I got home. I drank a couple of glasses of wine and played a lot of Skyrim instead.

As I've mentioned once or twice, we're going on vacation soon. (We depart a week from tomorrow.) In the interests of not working while I'm on vacation, I have to do a lot of work before then. I got my editorial letter for City of the Fallen Sky, which my editor would like as soon as possible, ideally before I leave. I need to do a last pass through Grim Tides (which needs at least one new scene) to send to my copyeditor before I leave, so she can actually read the thing and send me corrections before I start serializing the book on January 2. I have to write dust jacket copy for a book that's coming out early next year. And I'd like to get another 18,000 words or so written on the current novel-in-progress.

I am confronting the sad realization that I might not get everything done. My aim is to get as far through Grim Tides as possible today. My wife and I are dividing up childcare — she'll watch him half the day so I can work, I'll watch him the other half so she can (she's got a freelance writing gig). And I guess I'll try to get some NaNo words tonight after the boy goes to bed. It's a work party… and nobody but me is invited.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

Stories. For your buyings.

NaNo: Another late writing session last night netted me about 1450 words. It's deadline week at my day job, and the last couple of days in the schedule are always rough, and tend to turn my brain to mush by the time I get home. It's remarkable I got any writing done at all, and since this is deadline day itself, tonight I may accomplish nothing. (I would not be surprised to work an 11 or 12 hour day today, though I hope we finish before that.)

Last night I… sat around a bit, in a mush-brained state. Played some Skyrim, walking up 7,000 steps to the top of a mountain and killing an ice troll along the way. (There's something satisfying about spraying torrents of flame from each hand into the face of some virtual indigenous wildlife.)

I have posted some e-books to the Amazon Kindle store (BN.com will follow shortly). Some 99-cent stories for your reading pleasure:

"Little Better than a Beast," a Marla Mason story, featuring time-traveling monsters and sexist jerks.

"Mommy Issues of the Dead," another Marla story, this one set early in her career, when a semi-evil sorcerer hires her to plant a bomb inside a rival… who happens to be his brother. Soon Marla gets entangled in a truly dysfunctional family feud.

"The Christmas Mummy," by Heather Shaw and I, a heartwarming holiday tale of mummies, ninjas, and other things.

"Rangifer Volans," a very cryptozoological Christmas story, about the quest for that most elusive of all cryptids: the flying reindeer.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

Raise Up the Sky

NaNo: I wrote 1900 words last night. Back in the saddle. Or, rather, back in the rocking chair in the corner by the bookshelf where I sit with my laptop and type.

Otherwise: I got my editorial letter for City of the Fallen Sky back, and it's not a demand for a complete teardown (always a relief). Actually, it's all fairly minor stuff, probably only four or five hours of work to get the novel into shape. Unfortunately carving out four or five hours to finish this book before Thanksgiving and our departure for our vacation is going to be tricky, at least if I want to do so without sacrificing forward momentum on drafting this other book. And, you know, giving up Skyrim, which is basically my only form of relaxation at the moment. I'll just have to sleep less, I guess. (This is also deadline week at my day job, and my wife has a freelance gig she has to finish this weekend, so time is short all around.) Oh well. That's the writing life.

Oh, and I have to do a last line-edit pass on Grim Tides to send to my copyeditor, also before I leave on vacation. Ergh. This is a bad week to lose my day off.

This is normally my day off, but we're going to press on the magazine tomorrow (short schedule due to the upcoming holiday), so… I'll be at work. And so will my kid. It's the return of officeboy! Wish us luck.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

NaNope

NaNo: No writing last night. I did do some writing-related stuff — copyedits to a story, some notes I'd promised one of my roleplaying game tie-in publishers — but no new words, the first day with no writing in 15 days. But a 15-day uninterrupted run is almost unheard of for me, so I don't feel bad. I'm still a couple of days ahead of schedule, and expect to get a good number of words down over the weekend, too.

Life: My wife went out with friends last night, so I consoled myself by playing more Skyrim. I ended up committing a bit of highway robbery, I'm afraid. (But, look, if I try to make friendly conversation with you as we all trudge along the same remote road, and you call me a "dirty peasant" and then remark that you're carrying a large number of valuables, what do you expect? Hint: you should expect me to shoot your bodyguard in the head with an arrow and then shower you with torrents of magical flame, all prior to stealing your stuff.)

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

When in Doubt, Send in a Man with a Gun

NaNo: Last night I wrote 1922 words, and the manuscript stands at 38,799. (I know, it seems like I would've just written one more word to hit the round number, but then why not write 200 more for the even rounder number? There's no end to it when you let yourself get caught up in the significance of the arbitrary. Which doesn't always stop me from doing so.) I was stuck on a scene, so I quite literally sent in a man with a knife. Which turned out to be exactly the right thing to do, I think.

Otherwise: Uh, I worked, at work. So that was workish. And did the usual evening things (cooking, washing up, TV). I played Skyrim a bit, though not as much as I might wish. I managed to slaughter a mine full of bandits and get my newly-acquired house carl killed, though, so that's something.

I may take today off NaNoing. Can't work on my lunch break because I have to do a bit of work on another book, and I'm on solo kid duty tonight. May be too tired. I should do some outlining instead. I've done two weeks without missing a day; tonight I'll only write if I feel overwhelmed by inspiration.

Twelve days until I leave on my vacation. Time is slowing down a little more every day. That subjective slowness will last right up until the moment I arrive at my destination, at which point time will accelerate mightily, I'm sure.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

The Rim of the Sky

NaNo: I broke down and bought Skyrim. (Or, rather, asked my wife to buy it for me while she was out running errands. Which she did. Because she = awesome.) I was afraid buying that game would be the End of NaNo, at least for a day or two, and indeed I did spend a couple of hours playing last night, and had to tear myself away as midnight approached. I was prepared to mark down a "zero" for the day… but I hadn't missed a single day yet. I thought, okay, sit, write for 15 minutes, get a few words down, so today isn't a total loss.

I actually got 1,465 words written. Not quite the NaNo minimum, but okay for my purposes, as I'm a few days ahead anyway. I'm approaching the halfway point for the book, and this week I need to make some notes and work out some blocking and timeline issues so the rest of the novel runs smoothly. Exciting!

Besides killing bandits and undead not-Norsemen in a virtual world (where I am a sneaky backshooter by preference), what else did I do yesterday? Went to the park with the kid so he could launch rockets skyward and play in the sand for a while. Ran a few very boring errands around Berkeley. Watched some TV with my wife. Attempted to nap and failed. Your standard Sunday, really. But I love a nice unscheduled day.

And only two weeks until I get an Actual Vacation, a full week of relaxation. First one in nearly four years. (I mean, we went camping once for a long weekend, and did a day in Disneyland, but they were not exactly days of languor.)

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

Rex Klaw, Agent of R.O.C.K.E.T.

NaNo: 2001 words written yesterday. Zipping along nicely.

Otherwise, yesterday was pretty much All Party All The Time. We booked the Kindergym at the YMCA, so River and about a dozen of his friends (and some miscellaneous siblings) ran around madly climbing, building, jumping, giggling hysterically, and essentially bouncing off the (fortunately padded) walls. Then we retired to the party room for cake, freeform balloon bouncing, and some arts and crafts. River was beside himself with joy. Making your kid happy is a pretty good path to happiness for yourself, I find. Thanks to everyone who came! And special thanks to my awesome wife, who did pretty much everything in terms of planning and preparation, and made a beautiful cake besides.

The kid received an immense pile of gifts, and spent all afternoon and evening after we got home playing with them. One of the toys is a vast reconfigurable mass of interlocking machinery, so that you can make airplanes, rockets, helicopters with variable numbers of rotors, etc. It even has tiny spring-loaded missiles you can launch. But, best of all, it somewhat randomly comes with a big T-Rex that you can connect to the other parts too — so I created a missile-launching T-Rex with a jet-pack and helicopter blades (you know, for hovering). I also devised an elaborate mythology about his creation and goals. And, uh, River enjoyed playing with it too.

The kid and I were out in the yard until full dark playing with the "stomp rocket" one of his friends got him. (You know — a hose attached to a big air bladder you stomp on, fixed to a tripod, with little styrofoam rockets that get blown into the sky by the pressure of the expelled air.) Once he discovered he could get the rockets stuck in a tree, thus necessitating amusing antics on my part with a long stick to dislodge them, getting rockets stuck in the tree became the goal. Fortunately, his aim isn't that good yet. I've promised him we'll take the rockets to the park today… so I'd better do as I said.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

Surf's Up

NaNo: 2138 words written yesterday. The book's total stands at 33,411, of which 23,512 have been written since November 1. The goal is to get to 60,000 words by the end of the month. (The book is due in February. I could knock out the last 30-40K in December, and have January to revise. This plan may not survive impact with reality.)

Yesterday I went to work, and worked, mostly laying out World Fantasy Convention photo spreads. Drove home in the rainy black dark. Once home I played with the kid a bit, and otherwise… mostly wrote, as you may have gathered. I also read Ken Bruen's Headstone, the latest Jack Taylor novel. Just as bleak and brutal as always.

Today is the boy's fourth birthday party! We rented the Kindergym at the YMCA, so a bunch of his school friends and he can run around like crazy for an hour, then gorge themselves on cake in the party room. Heather outdid herself decorating the cake. The kid wanted a Mickey Mouse cake, and we're going on a beach vacation later this month (a trip which looms large in his mind), so we got cake toppers including Mickey on a surfboard, Minnie laying on a beach towel, plastic palm trees, etc. Heather baked a cake, frosted it with blue icing artfully swirled to resemble ocean waves for Mickey to surf on, and then created a "sandy beach" of atomized vanilla wafers for Minnie to lounge on. The kid will love it.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

Eleventy

NaNo: A mere 1,079 words last night! But, since I didn't write those until well after 11 p.m., when I'd already resigned myself to actually writing 0 words for the day, I consider it a victory snatched from the jaws of extreme lethargy. Next up I get to write a polite interrogation, with lovely subtextual threats of horrible violence.

For those of you embarking on a three-day-weekend today, enjoy; for those of you observing Veterans Day in a more serious way, may it give you comfort. For those of you like me who are at work today as usual — well, so it goes. And for those of you who have the shared cultural referent of making a wish whenever you happen to glance at a clock that says 11:11 — today, make a BIG wish, because, I mean, it totally has to count extra. And if you still hold to the old ways and observe Armistice Day, I hope the minute of silence at that time gives you peace. And for those of you who are going to play Skyrim all day or all night or both, know that you have my undying envy. I'm not allowing myself to buy it until I get the draft of this book done, so it'll be Christmas before I can slay dragons, I'd wager.

That paragraph was an odd mixture of the sacred and the profane and the banal, wasn't it?

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

Totland

NaNo: Managed to write 3,295 words on Wednesday, about 800 on my lunch break, the rest in the evening. Nice to be back on track, even if I am still coughing disgustingly on an intermittent basis.

Sorry this update is so late. Thursday is my "day off" (AKA the busiest day of my week), so I had to do grocery shopping, hang a shelf, wash dishes, put away books, take the kid to the library, spend hours at Totland park in North Berkeley, walk a few miles in the interest of getting some exercise, etc. Any fiction writing I do today will have to happen after the boy goes to bed.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.