Richard Raley's Blog, page 6

Now Introducing: Hell Fortnight

Second MBB tomorrow.  First one was miserable.  3 hours of relief into incredible pain all night.  I'm usually anywhere from a 4 to a 6, post MBB I was at least an 8.  This is, of course, with tramadol in me, so you can imagine how bad it would have been without the painkillers.  Also, I'm pretty sure I'm incredibly harsh on my pain grading scale since to me a 9 is like...physically can't get out of bed, and some of other patients I listen to at the surgery center throw them 9 and 10s around like candy.

Some of it is probably my own fault, since the minute I had that relief I was using my hand in ways I haven't been able to, flickering my fingers about and stretching the ligaments.  Another weird side effect is I regaining feeling my my left big toe, which I haven't felt in...3 years.  So, it's definitely the right spot this time around.  Super weird since they're working on my neck, not my lower back, where the actual nerves responsible for the lower extremities are located.

Nerves are weird

Went into the dentist once for crown prep.  I guess there's quite a bit of work to be done since it's so close to the gum line, so I have to go back next Thursday, extending Hell Week into Hell Fortnight.

One bright spot:  readthrough and notetaking continues despite recovering.  Finished FM3 and the Short Book, just about to start FM4.  I have ten pages of notes now.  Good stuff.  Just little details I'd forgotten or lines I can do callbacks on or ideas for future novels I've had while reading.  Getting into the LONG novels now, so doubt my progress will be as swift.  But on the other hand the writing is better, so I'm not dying of cringe like I did with FM1...

Probably going to go directly into editing Seismic Semester after I finish this.  Then when I get to the end I'll write the last 10k and...do it all over again.  Then again.  Then release.  Then flipping back between the Vicky novel and War to End All Wars.  I don't know how much more high school bullshit I can take without taking breaks...

FM3 was really important to reread for War to End All Wars since it has all the Winter Ball and Winter War info in it.  Similar to FM2 being important for Seismic Semester since it has all the Camping Test info.  Though the Camping Test in Seismic Semester is quite different since it's under new management...

And with that cruel tease, I fuck off!!!

Hell Week Incoming

Medial branch blocks on the 12th and 19th; dental crown on the 16th.
Do not expect much, if at all, work to get done during this period, with probably a 3 to 7 day recovery afterwards.  Totally blowing a hole right in the middle of July's chest.
Just started FM3 on the readthrough.  By the way, when I say readthrough, this isn't me just blitzing through the novels.  I'm taking pretty copious notes on little details and phrases I'm planning to highlight in the next few novels.  Much more like studying for a midterm/final than casual enjoyable reading.  So, it is major prep for editing Seismic Semester, outlining War to End All Wars, and brainstorming for the Vicky novel, FM7, and onwards.
This is something I kept putting off because of how much pain I was in and needed to put all my eggs in the writing basket to get any progress made, but...it is VERY important to increasing quality and connections through the series.
Also...a few typos and mistakes I've noticed along the way.  And copy and pasting the new "also by" section for when this all gets uploaded alongside Seismic Semester and an author's preferred reading order I did up for the end of the novel so people stop hopefully skipping any book that doesn't start with "The Foul Mouth".
Weirdos.

FM2 In-Joke

This is totally at the mercy of 2012 Google translate accuracy (not very) and probably doesn't work phonetically, but Lon Ga, the Vietnamese restaurant that delivers as a distraction, if flipped to 'ga lon' supposedly means "large chicken".  So...it's a huge cock joke...

On To FM2 in the Readthrough

I have the say, the jump in prose from FM1 (which even improves throughout that novel) into FM2 is pretty large.  For all the frustrations I have with FM2 (and the reviews mentioning sophomore slump) it's a whole level above what I managed in the debut.

Probably because I didn't immediately go into writing FM2, like you would guess from the release dates (six months after FM1).  FM1 was done far before it's release date in that stage of my career were I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to go the digital publishing route or try to get myself a traditional publishing contract ("you have to remove all the 'fucktards'."  Never!!!).  And there was actually a half dozen chapters of a Betrothal sequel and three or four??? other standalone novels I started and shelved (Gush is one, which I will finish one day I SWEAR TO GOD!!!  Also Sky-Island, a novel about a very violent treeman called Leafed For Dead and what you would basically label an Isekai nowadays called Where Dreamers Go To Die).  And, uh...there might have been a 500 page Star Wars fan fiction I wrote in the summer of 2010 which I've erased from the Internet.

I think all that experimentation, even if many were "failures", shows.  Not that FM2 didn't have its own complications.  It was originally meant to be much longer, with an added plot involving a Coyote warehouse that King Henry destroyed and for the school plotline I imagined the students managing to leave the Asylum grounds, finding a ShopsMart and King Henry stealing breakfast and cigs (this was snuck into FM4 during the road trip).  In the end, I just kind of accepted that it was a bridge novel with the sole purpose of introducing King Henry's classmates and the Coyotes/Vega and settled for the shorter novel where KH "failed" but as an adult showed character growth and was able to gain from making peace with his brother-in-law.

One of the surprises that I added to the novel was Meteyos.  This seems crazy now, but Meteyos and the Geo-Realm weren't supposed to be introduced until FM6.  One lesson I've learned from writing the King Henry Tapes:  everything will come faster than you ever expected it to.  Or...Richard Raley just doesn't have any patience...

AND FM2 has the best chapter one hook of any of the books in the series.  It's a banger.  Seriously, anyone read "Jordan Josephine Price...found her at last" and put the book down?  Or did you groan in pain when you saw the next chapter was in the school timeline and realized you were in for an all-nighter?

Root Canal Done In One

My endodontist is a machine.  A five-foot, tiny-fingered, tooth-grinding machine.  Guess my problem was having a massive cavity inside the actual gum line, below the cavity my dentist could see even with his normal dental x-rays.  So...yeah, 3 hours in the chair as she cleaned it out, did a root canal, and built the whole core up so the dentist could finish the job later this month.

Good News:  I'm two appointments below where I thought I would be for the month.

Bad News:  I'm fucking super sore.  My jaw is a wreck.  My spine...heh.  Going to be in bed a couple days!

Happy 4th to you all.  

Fun Little Fact

Fun note from the FM1 readthrough.  This paragraph:

“I wouldn’t necessarily need to kill you.”  Annie B, back to licking her lips.  Winter clothes or not, the hungry look returned when she talked of me as a shell.  “You’d just . . . hold me for a while until I could find a suitable replacement.  It’s not painful . . . it can even be enjoyable.  Like an invisible friend.”

Was originally included because I planned to have a scene in FM4 where they had to do something similar so Anne avoided detection as a stowaway, but never found the right time to include it.  Always another novel, I suppose... 

Month of Misery About the Start

Well...I failed.  First draft isn't done yet.  2 to 3 writing days from finishing, maybe 4 max.  But...pain has still been elevated just enough to keep from getting any kind of on/off routine going.  Won't know how bad and tight the appointments in July will be until Wednesday, maybe Thursday.  Might have a few days before the first MBB procedure to manage it.  Maybe not if the root canal intrudes.  Going to be very tricky.
Been watching Copa and the Euros.  Fucking Team USA!!!  Why can you never be normal!!!  Working my way through Shogun, which is incredible.  Though it's so good I find myself wanting to savior it and not binge.  Such a clash of foreign cultures to each other that it almost works as a time travel story, right?  Can put yourself in Blackthorns shoes.  Hopefully not in place of the guy that got boiled alive though.  Am taking a diversion to quickly binge season 3 of the Bear.  Which has 100% won the Emmy in its category.  Everyone should just give up.  Race is done.  OVER.
Gamewise I'm currently addicted to Cobalt Core.  Which is a deckbuilding Roguelike with a cutsie Sci-Fi story with great gameplay mechanics revolving around board placement.  Totally recommend it if you're into that type of game.  Surprisingly funny.  Made me laugh out loud a few times.

As I planned, I've started rereading FM1 with the idea of going through whole series in the next month to refresh myself on the facts and maybe a bit of inspiration before I get into Edit Hell.  Already found a typo that's somehow existed for over a decade without anyone ever mentioning it.  Outside of that it's so very cringe reading your older work, especially stuff from the very beginning of your career.  I was...like 25, maybe 26 when I wrote this stuff.  Which in writer years is like...you are wearing those inflatable armbands when you get in the pool, child!
Do find myself smiling over the early Ceinwyn/KH scenes, but I'm so beyond better than what I managed in 2010.  Miles and miles and miles.  Like...the Annie B intro scene is extremely rough.  Actually wrote that chapter before the T-Bone one if I recall correctly.  Though the school story was written before anything in the mainline.
And King Henry Price of all people thinking this:

I didn’t say anything witty.  I was never witty before a fight, rarelyduring too.  All business.  Showboaters pissed me off.

It's not how the character has played out AT ALL in the school timeline once I started understanding his psyche.  It's a phrase that might work for 14yo version, not the recent Asylum graduate.  Yes, KH is often a hypocrite, but...mega delusional.  And a mega whiplash moment after writing Seismic Semester, since the levels of trash talk Welf and KH throw at each other in that novel is MASSIVE.  And that's only a bit over a year before the mainline starts.  Oh well, we'll put it down to Old Man King Henry not remembering exactly what he was like then and handwave it away!

So...what's your favorite FM1 moment?

Crawling to the Finish Line

I don't know if it was that burst of writing 4 in 5 days or if I did something else stupid I didn't notice at the time, but the spine called it quits and I spent all of last week in bed more or less, in an extra amount of pain.  So, not a lot of work done.  Did finally get back at it yesterday and pumped out about 3k.  Going to have to be very careful with the urge to rush to the finish line on this one.  Same when we're in Edit Hell.  Only three scenes left to go.  All wrap up and launching us into War to End All Wars.

SO CLOSE!!!

July is $*%#ed

So, I'm starting next month off with my usual monthly appointment at the Spine People, then we're getting into my branch block as prep for the RFA later in the year on my C4-C7, so that's three appointments, two of which will require three days to a week of recovery time.  THEN, my tooth that had a filing fall out is in need of a root canal, which starts on the 3rd.  If it goes the same as my first root canal, that means crown prep, root canal part 1, root canal part 2, and final crown placement, all in a miserable dental chair pressing right on my spine.

TOTAL EXPECTED JULY APPOINTMENTS:  8.

In 100 degree weather, such an added bonus!

Thank you, Fresno, love you too!

I have zero hope for any new writing to be done through this hassle.  It's probably when I'll do the full series readthrough I've been procrastinating.  If I can even do that, since that's like a LOT for my spine to recover from one after another.

But..

THE GOOD NEWS:  finished the penultimate chapter and I'm now 5k words into the last chapter.  5 scenes and one transition left to write.

I went...maybe too far in that penultimate chapter.  Not sure.  Didn't escalate quickly but once it escalated...it's all earned, just...how I wrap it up also needs to be earned.

Have two appointments left this month, so its going to be about sneaking in time here or there to finish it.  Might not make it and will need to push finishing it to August, which would likely push release back to November.

Wish me luck and cooler weather!

June Seismic Semester Tease

Listening to Miss Strange chew out Singles for being stupid fucktards was the unexpected highlight of my night. 

“Why did you climb up the rock in the first place, Yates?” 

“I was trying to see over…I suppose over the trees. It was completely logical at the time…” 

Could easily imagine Strange's furious expression.  Ya know, having been responsible for it a few hundred times. “And was the rock taller than the trees?” 

The small boy didn't answer, you didn't answer when Miss Strange used that tone, or you'd get an orange across your forehead.  Boy might have been a coward who abandoned two of his classmates, but for a mentimancer he had unexpectedly solid interpersonal skills.