Richard Raley's Blog, page 4

Crazy Part of the Edit

I'm currently searching words that I consider wishy washy for possible removal.  The entirety of my night was going through every "maybe" and "possibly" in the novel and removing about a third of them.  Maybe more.  See!!!  Fuck you "maybe!"  Get back in your box!

Next up is "even".  Then the biggest pussy of them all "was".

There are 2,500 uses of the word "was" in Seismic Semester btw.

*whimper*

"That sounds like something a crazy person would do, RR, are you--"

Yes, I know!  But it makes the prose better for some godforsaken reason!

Don't even get me started on "that".

Asshole unneeded word half the time.

Grrr.

URGH

Spent the last four days in bed 24/7, watching the Iron Chef channel on Prime (some serious college nostalgia for late night Food Network twenty years back!).  Might finally feel decent enough to work some tomorrow, we'll see.  That's one nasty respiratory infection thingy going around!  The things I'm coughing out of my lungs at the moment...ewww.

Dodge it if at all possible!

Sick Christmas

Of course, why not?

Doesn't seem TOO bad, a head cold for the most part, but any coughing and sneezing with this spine can be very dangerous.

Finished FM6 notes, almost finished with Dread Fortress.  Still on track for March release for Seismic Semester.  Maybe even early March.

Currently each dose of Dayquil earns me about an hour of work, outside of that I'm miserable.  Finally catching up on a little TV.  Watched Dan Da Dan on Netflix, very solid wild anime with a bopping opening song that's been stuck in my head for the last few days.  Plays quiet a bit like a romantic comedy with battle elements more than the other way around and if you get through episode 7 without balling your eyes out, you have zero soul.  Moving on to Season 2 of Oshi No Ko now.

I don't know why anime is so much easier for me to focus on than American TV.  Maybe, because I'm having to read subtitles and there's an element of having to pay complete attention to it, where when it's English my mind wanders to other things, mostly writing at the moment.

Am also 6 episodes deep into Season 2 of Arcane.  Mixed feelings.  Prefer Season 1, for sure.  The fact I haven't instantly devoured it probably says something.  It's still beautiful, but...the characters feel less like characters and more like action figures.  Which isn't great.  Also goes against every drop of storyteller blood in my body.  And even outside of that it's super rushed with way too much going on.  When I have too much going on, I write thousand page novels, Riot!

But in comparison to the Dan Da Dan episode, there's supposed to be this poignant, sad event at the end of episode 6 and I didn't really care.  Total fridge moment.  Got to create emotional connection to elicited emotions, ya know?  Hard to feel for a plastic action figure.

This negativity is probably the sore throat talking...

Happy New Year to you all!

Heh.

Second Draft Done and Seismic Semester Cut Jokes

So, that's wrapped up!  In fact it's so wrapped up, that I'm not going to bother with a subtraction edit.  I already cut what I'm going to cut.  I mean, might be a sentence here or there, but nothing huge.  Despite the length, I feel I was actually really disciplined when it came to stream of conscious and big huge asides this go around.  Probably cuz every word I wrote hurt!
At this point, anything more being cut would require entire subplots to be removed and...I don't want to, so there!
So what do we have ahead?
Conclude FM6, 3 Ancillary Novel Noteapalooza.Common Errors Search-a-thon. (now that I'm using modern spellcheckers, the typo issue is SO much easier BTW)Ellipsis Hunt and the Defuckening.Formatting.Kindle Copy Edit.Beta Reading.Release.
After that, I plan to work on The War to End All Wars until I can't take the teenager drama any more and switch to finishing the Vicky Novel.  After that I'll go back to WtEAW and again, switch to FM7 if I can't take it any more and just flip back and forth until those are both written.
Here are some of the jokes I cut mostly for mood reasons.
1.

Want to grunt and hump at the Asylum, do ya? Hope those privacy curtains are enough to hide your shame. Secret closet you stole the key for? Still someone walking past that door every few minutes, so best not squeak like a chipmunk or you’ll give the game away. Favorite spot in the Park takes three turns off the main thoroughfare, past one extra aggravated peacock and a malfunctioning water fixture tries to wash out your ass crack? Why hello, Mr. Gullick! You ever seen your daughter’s uterus? Just give me a sec, she’s pretty wide open down there so it shouldn’t be too much trouble if I angle her just right…

2.
Almost two years later and she still fucking ain’t done it, kiddies. What that fucking tell you about Bonegrinders? Granted, she hasn’t talked to me since graduation, being we’re both so busy. But I got fucking email now, ya know? King Henry’s Hidden Treasures has a Facebook page! Not that the old ladies buy the teapots know how to use Facebook without asking their grandchildren to reset their password every week, but Val probably does.

3.

I mean…I stick things in strange holes too, but not my hand.  And a snake never bitten it…yet.
Ever.
Ain’t that kinky.  As far as animals go, leave ‘em to Jesus.  Don’t even like ‘em in the room, not after this one time where a college girl’s cat just sat on the edge of the bed throwing its ass in my face the whole time.  Get me too, Papi Enorme!  Faunamancers got it rough, even if they ain’t fucking the animals.  All that commentary on your moves gotta be soul crushing.
Why you sound like chipmunk, mistress?  Is he hurting you?  Can I bite him?  No, no, not God.  It’s ‘dog’.  People make that mistake all the time.  Like when I pooped in Mrs. Dingle’s yard and she said, “God damn it!”  No, it’s dog.  And my name isn’t Damn It…why are you glaring at me, did I do something wrong?  I’m a good boy!  I don’t want to eat cat shit, but I can’t help myself!  I haven’t done it today.  Want to smell my breath to check?  Here, smell.  I’ll pant like you are.
4.
Bad way, more like.  Shit saying.  Ain’t a good way to lose a hand, I’m thinking.  Snapped off by a corpusmancer’s over-exercised monster coot coot?
Still ain’t good, but if you gotta lose a hand that’s a unique way to go about it…
Tell your grandkids about it one day.
Well, Timmy, your grandma got herself addicted to the Suzanne Somers ThighMaster and I am the G Spot Messiah…put the two together and Grandpa hasn’t been able to jerk off for forty years now.  Sure, could use the other hand, but…nothing feels worse than jerking off with the wrong hand.  There a better metaphor for life?  I don’t think so, Timmy.
I.
Don’t.
Think.
So.

Halfway Done With Second Draft

For real this time!

Only one doctor appointment this month (next Monday), so hoping to at least get through the second draft and all the readthrough noteapalooza that remains, maybe even formatting.

Only cut 4 pages so far.  Mostly just KH inner monologuing and a few jokes that undercut moments or distracted too much.  I'll post all of them later for your enjoyment.  I'm very aware it's a huge novel and I could hack a hundred pages out of it, but I'm just...fine with it be indulgent and everything being back and forth and interconnected?  They don't have to kill trees to print it, ya know?

That said, the first half of the novel is much more set than the back half, so we'll see.  The first half has been sitting on my computer for years.  Probably fiddled with it a dozen times at this point and already cut a ton before I even started this edit.  Back half is all the stuff I worked on this last year and half while the spine started improving, so that's much more malleable.

My note list is more than half crossed off.  Only a couple rewrites and not like whole scenes, just a line or paragraph to fix the Camping Test problem I created for myself and a few other small inconsistencies or things I noticed while rereading the series that I wanted to reference.  Or adding foreshadowing with the novel itself.

Outside of editing stuff...playing the Bazaar to keep occasionally entertained.  Like...I'm really just focused in on the edit right now.  Not reading anything.  Barely watching TV/Movies.  Haven't got back to the Penguin, started Diplomat S2, only watched 4 episodes of Arcane so far...like...I'm a bad horrible consumer at the moment, yes I am!

If I don't write another update before the holidays, everyone enjoy themselves and stay safe while traveling!

Halfway Done With Second Draft*

 *by chapter.

Please ignore the fact that chapters 7-12 are 600 of the 850 pages.

Minor Update

 6 chapters left on the FM6 readthrough.  20 pages left to type into the laptop from Session 92.

Oh, I'm also losing my mind.

I think the reason why I hate the noteapalooza is it's 100% non-creative grunt work.  Probably speaks to why I put it off for 8 years.  But...not enjoying it...at all.  It just takes FOREVER.

On a positive note, my spinal pain has dropped quite a lot, overall from like 7s to 4s.  Not nearly as much as I hoped, but I can type for much longer periods, including about 1k of new material I came up with while inputting the edited pages into the laptop.

Biggest hindrance is midback pain while sitting for so long and muscle weakness in my left arm.  That grip just feels very light and the movements are very sluggish still.  I'm also quite gun shy about leaping out into new experiments at the moment.  Don't want to reinjure anything by overdoing it.  Like I have about a dozen times in the last three years.

We learn eventually!!!

Don't see the spine docs until next month, will know the next steps then.

Until then, noteapalooza continues and then Edit Slightly-Slower-Than-Usual-Hell.

So I'm Addicted to The Bazaar

My days are pretty much:  play Bazaar run.  Type 4 pages of edits into laptop.  Play Bazaar run.  Type 4 pages of edits into laptop.  Play Bazaar run.  Read chapter of FM6 while taking notes.  Huh, time for another Bazaar run, huh?
It's like Hearthstone Battlegrounds meets Backpack Battles except with a much higher quality level art and polish wise.  In closed Beta now, needs some work on bugs and balance, but full release is supposed to be in January.  FTP, so check it out when it drops.

October Burnination Week #2

Predictably, my left side is just finally starting to heal and feel better as I need to get the right side burnt out on Wednesday.  I swear, I never type Wednesday right.  Wed-there's an n somewhere-day.  Anyway, I've managed to finish the main rewrite/edit/whatever-the-**** on the last chapter, the one bit of work I accomplished this month, looks like.

Means the TO DO list is something like:

Type Session 92 changes into laptop.Finish Readthrough Notepalooza on FM6 + 3 MancyVerse Moments novels.Upload 2024 Editions to KindleSecond Draft of Seismic Semester (sans Session 81 which is locked, you're a good chapter, yes, you are!)Post Session 81 Preview and Cover RevealSubtraction Edit of Seismic SemesterFormattingKindle/Copywriting EditBeta ReadRelease (reminder that I do not release during the Holidays, so even if all goes smoothly [it hasn't been] the soonest would be mid Feb-there's an r somewhere-ary)But in the near future, back in rest and heal mode for a couple weeks looks like.  Season 2 of Arcane and the Diplomat coming out in that time, two of my favorite shows of the last few years, so I will be entertained at least.  HIGHLY recommend both.  Arcane is a must for anyone.  Diplomat is the most West Wing feeling show I've watched, except if not limited by tv network censoring laws.  Same producers and Alison Janney has been cast as the VP, the West Wing bloodline is very present.

A Fitting Seismic Semester Tease

Apologizingto patients being a grave sin as far as Evelyn Strange was concerned.  Only slightly less problematic than rootingfor the Yankees.