Kim Harrison's Blog, page 136

The tree went yellow, overnight

It's going to be a rough couple of days for me as I try to cram as much work through my desk as I can, so I'm glad I had a great weekend to sustain me.  It was a fabulous couple of days, weather-wise, with temps in the high 70s, low 80s, and sun, sun, sun.  Saturday was taken up with cross-country.  (Out at Portage for the huge invitational they had there) and then Sunday was mine, mine, mine, with lots of digging, rock moving, and plant planting, with a little bit of waxing leave with my mom thrown in.  With Guy's help, I now have a nice little mound of dirt and plants to look at outside my office window.  It's not done yet, but I got done what I wanted, and the rest will fall into place in due time.

And here's the weird thing.  As I was putting this piece of landscaping together, I was seeing bits and pieces of other landscapes I've worked with over the years.  The basic plan of the dirt to give the eye something to rest on and travel over came from the very first ten yards of dirt I had dumped in my corner yard in my first house, the foundation for a handful of firs and daffodils to help block a stop sign.  The rock wall I built to hold back the dirt and create interest was from my most recent landscaping projects just a few years back, when I was desperate to tame a steep hillside and create a little balance.  The bird bath and waterfall (which won't go in until spring unless I find one prefab I like on sale) was from my first house in SC, built to bring in the birds.   I will be planting crocus thick on this mound, again, an idea that has its beginning elsewhere in space and time.  Bits and pieces of the last 20 years, culminating in a small ten by twenty bit of earth.  It's sort of like how a story is made, using ideas sparked and skills honed in the past.

Or maybe it's just a hunk of earth with some plants and rocks. . . .  ;-)

The tree went yellow, overnight

It's going to be a rough couple of days for me as I try to cram as much work through my desk as I can, so I'm glad I had a great weekend to sustain me.  It was a fabulous couple of days, weather-wise, with temps in the high 70s, low 80s, and sun, sun, sun.  Saturday was taken up with cross-country.  (Out at Portage for the huge invitational they had there) and then Sunday was mine, mine, mine, with lots of digging, rock moving, and plant planting, with a little bit of waxing leave with my mom thrown in.  With Guy's help, I now have a nice little mound of dirt and plants to look at outside my office window.  It's not done yet, but I got done what I wanted, and the rest will fall into place in due time.

And here's the weird thing.  As I was putting this piece of landscaping together, I was seeing bits and pieces of other landscapes I've worked with over the years.  The basic plan of the dirt to give the eye something to rest on and travel over came from the very first ten yards of dirt I had dumped in my corner yard in my first house, the foundation for a handful of firs and daffodils to help block a stop sign.  The rock wall I built to hold back the dirt and create interest was from my most recent landscaping projects just a few years back, when I was desperate to tame a steep hillside and create a little balance.  The bird bath and waterfall (which won't go in until spring unless I find one prefab I like on sale) was from my first house in SC, built to bring in the birds.   I will be planting crocus thick on this mound, again, an idea that has its beginning elsewhere in space and time.  Bits and pieces of the last 20 years, culminating in a small ten by twenty bit of earth.  It's sort of like how a story is made, using ideas sparked and skills honed in the past.

Or maybe it's just a hunk of earth with some plants and rocks. . . .  ;-)

Heavy workload, but it's Friday!

I've got a heavy workload today as I try to meet my week's goal of pages, but I should be able to make good progress once I push through the chapter sitting open on my desk.  This week was not bad, now that I look back on it.  I made some major decisions and worked to see them start to unfold.  The next couple of weeks are just going to be "fixing" what those changes broke, and perhaps a new chapter or two to move the story along.

It's the ending now that I'm mulling over in my mind.  It is so very logical, but not satisfying, and so I'll be working through the next 300 pages with the thought of that in my mind, looking for the slightest clue as to how to handle the end differently.  This new guy might play into it nicely.  yeah . . .  He's more than just pretty. . .

Happy Friday, guys.  It's supposed to be a fabulous sunny and 72 all weekend in my area, and I hope you have weather just as nice.  I'll be in the garden for one last push.

Heavy workload, but it's Friday!

I've got a heavy workload today as I try to meet my week's goal of pages, but I should be able to make good progress once I push through the chapter sitting open on my desk.  This week was not bad, now that I look back on it.  I made some major decisions and worked to see them start to unfold.  The next couple of weeks are just going to be "fixing" what those changes broke, and perhaps a new chapter or two to move the story along.

It's the ending now that I'm mulling over in my mind.  It is so very logical, but not satisfying, and so I'll be working through the next 300 pages with the thought of that in my mind, looking for the slightest clue as to how to handle the end differently.  This new guy might play into it nicely.  yeah . . .  He's more than just pretty. . .

Happy Friday, guys.  It's supposed to be a fabulous sunny and 72 all weekend in my area, and I hope you have weather just as nice.  I'll be in the garden for one last push.

Pirates and closeups of funny dogs (no hats)

My agent has had several articles in the past month about electronic pirating ranging from what the UK is proposing to do about it, to professionals giving their opinion on the morality of it.  But his post Tuesday I thought one of the best.  (But I'm a category kind of girl, and the parceling out of shades of badness appeals to me.)  As far as where I stand on the issue?  Well, I think it's rather stupid to be giving your credit card information to a crook in the first place.  Duh….  They are doing something illegal.  Why would they care about keeping your financial information secure, if not parceling it off to someone else for their benefit?  Here's the link to see where you fall, if you fall at all, on the scale of one to seven.  Seven Types of Pirates: Which Are You?

And if you want to ignore it, here's a close-up picture of Xander.  I just wish I had a funny hat to put on her and a way to pipe in the theme song for Benny Hill.

Pirates and closeups of funny dogs (no hats)

My agent has had several articles in the past month about electronic pirating ranging from what the UK is proposing to do about it, to professionals giving their opinion on the morality of it.  But his post Tuesday I thought one of the best.  (But I'm a category kind of girl, and the parceling out of shades of badness appeals to me.)  As far as where I stand on the issue?  Well, I think it's rather stupid to be giving your credit card information to a crook in the first place.  Duh….  They are doing something illegal.  Why would they care about keeping your financial information secure, if not parceling it off to someone else for their benefit?  Here's the link to see where you fall, if you fall at all, on the scale of one to seven.  Seven Types of Pirates: Which Are You?

And if you want to ignore it, here's a close-up picture of Xander.  I just wish I had a funny hat to put on her and a way to pipe in the theme song for Benny Hill.

With bravery come the spoils of war

And trust me, writing is a lot like a war sometimes.  Yesterday wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be after girding my armor on here at the blog.  I bravely went forth and cut out every cool thing associated with my lost character in the first four chapters, and found it still read pretty good.  The tiny bit where we see the new character was intriguing, not in how it reflected upon Rachel, but on how it reflected upon himself, as short as the passage was.  He was alive in 600 words, his own person, someone who didn't need Rachel to be fleshed out and important.

I guess what I'm saying, is that if you have to cut, then cut and cut ruthlessly so you can let go and open your creativity completely upon the new.  If you don't, you will have regret, and regret can lead to a mish-mash that is harder to make into strong, effective writing.  I'm not talking about blending two characters into one, because that can be a capital solution in some cases.  I'm talking about trying to fit a set of responses and rules onto a character they don't sit well in just so you can keep a passage of writing you like.  (Sorry, I don't think I'm explaining it very well.)

Do I mind throwing out chapter-size chunks?  Not in rough draft.  I spent very little time (comparatively) on what I'm tossing.  If I had gone over and over and over these chapters to make them perfect, I might be sick at the wasted effort.  That's why I always tell people to not go back and make changes in earlier chapters when you're in rough draft.  Just make a note in the margin of the chapter you need to change so you don't forget, pretend you made the changes, and keep forging ahead.  Rough draft is quick, fast, and dirty, especially for the new writer still evolving his or her method.  Trust me, you will be rewriting this monster several times before publication anyway.  You have chances to tweak and polish.

Do I mind throwing out a chapter once I'm through with rough draft?  Not really, because at this point, there will be a very clear and definite reason for it.  The first and last chapter you guys read is often not the chapter that I've been working with for the last two years.  First and last have very definite goals, and they often need to be molded last-minute to reflect changes in the middle.  And that's okay, too.  ;-)

Nothing is wasted.  I likely won't ever use the character I'm cutting.  He won't show up in a short story, and he won't appear in another series.  But pieces of him will.  ;-)

With bravery come the spoils of war

And trust me, writing is a lot like a war sometimes.  Yesterday wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be after girding my armor on here at the blog.  I bravely went forth and cut out every cool thing associated with my lost character in the first four chapters, and found it still read pretty good.  The tiny bit where we see the new character was intriguing, not in how it reflected upon Rachel, but on how it reflected upon himself, as short as the passage was.  He was alive in 600 words, his own person, someone who didn't need Rachel to be fleshed out and important.

I guess what I'm saying, is that if you have to cut, then cut and cut ruthlessly so you can let go and open your creativity completely upon the new.  If you don't, you will have regret, and regret can lead to a mish-mash that is harder to make into strong, effective writing.  I'm not talking about blending two characters into one, because that can be a capital solution in some cases.  I'm talking about trying to fit a set of responses and rules onto a character they don't sit well in just so you can keep a passage of writing you like.  (Sorry, I don't think I'm explaining it very well.)

Do I mind throwing out chapter-size chunks?  Not in rough draft.  I spent very little time (comparatively) on what I'm tossing.  If I had gone over and over and over these chapters to make them perfect, I might be sick at the wasted effort.  That's why I always tell people to not go back and make changes in earlier chapters when you're in rough draft.  Just make a note in the margin of the chapter you need to change so you don't forget, pretend you made the changes, and keep forging ahead.  Rough draft is quick, fast, and dirty, especially for the new writer still evolving his or her method.  Trust me, you will be rewriting this monster several times before publication anyway.  You have chances to tweak and polish.

Do I mind throwing out a chapter once I'm through with rough draft?  Not really, because at this point, there will be a very clear and definite reason for it.  The first and last chapter you guys read is often not the chapter that I've been working with for the last two years.  First and last have very definite goals, and they often need to be molded last-minute to reflect changes in the middle.  And that's okay, too.  ;-)

Nothing is wasted.  I likely won't ever use the character I'm cutting.  He won't show up in a short story, and he won't appear in another series.  But pieces of him will.  ;-)

Trust, and a very sharp knife

Yesterday morning I sat down at my desk, hardly able to stand it.  I had read over book ten on Friday, and all weekend I had changes I wanted to make going through my head.  I was so very eager to hammer them into existence, it was almost a fever.

Today, I'm still eager to get to my desk, but the excitement has been tempered with the reins of indecision.  I am taking out a new character and replacing him with someone else, and the more I pick at the threads to remove him, the more emotionally harder for me it becomes.  He's got some very cool lines and makes some interesting observations that only he can do because of his background.  Letting go of these elements is hard, and I'm torn as to let them go completely, or try to have another character, or even Rachel herself, come to the same conclusions.  I know it will smooth out in a few chapters when this new character starts exerting his own ideas and conclusions, but right now it seems all I'm doing is taking, not giving.

I don't have a reader between me and my editor, so no one is ever going to meet this fully-written, compleate guy, and that's some of my reticence.  He's very cool, and I miss him already.  It can be hard to take out sections of your work if you don't trust yourself as a writer to replace what you are taking.  I know the new character will have ten times the impact on Rachel and the story once I get him in there, but today . . .  Today is hard, even as it's exhilarating seeing the changes begin and working to make them seamless.  It takes trust in yourself, and a very sharp knife.

Trust, and a very sharp knife

Yesterday morning I sat down at my desk, hardly able to stand it.  I had read over book ten on Friday, and all weekend I had changes I wanted to make going through my head.  I was so very eager to hammer them into existence, it was almost a fever.

Today, I'm still eager to get to my desk, but the excitement has been tempered with the reins of indecision.  I am taking out a new character and replacing him with someone else, and the more I pick at the threads to remove him, the more emotionally harder for me it becomes.  He's got some very cool lines and makes some interesting observations that only he can do because of his background.  Letting go of these elements is hard, and I'm torn as to let them go completely, or try to have another character, or even Rachel herself, come to the same conclusions.  I know it will smooth out in a few chapters when this new character starts exerting his own ideas and conclusions, but right now it seems all I'm doing is taking, not giving.

I don't have a reader between me and my editor, so no one is ever going to meet this fully-written, compleate guy, and that's some of my reticence.  He's very cool, and I miss him already.  It can be hard to take out sections of your work if you don't trust yourself as a writer to replace what you are taking.  I know the new character will have ten times the impact on Rachel and the story once I get him in there, but today . . .  Today is hard, even as it's exhilarating seeing the changes begin and working to make them seamless.  It takes trust in yourself, and a very sharp knife.