Posts Tagged ‘the white raven’

You’ve got red on you

May 20th, 11 / Comments Off

I have spent this week scribbling with red pen on my manuscript.  Ten chapters down, and I am at a crossroads.

I have made one discovery: the title The White Raven is all wrong for this book.  The previous title I had used – Thought and Memory – is the right title after all.

And I seem to have several superfluous characters.  They worked for the previous version of the book, and while I really love them, I think I may need to excise them.  It’s going to make for a lot more work and rewriting, but I think this version of the book will be better for it.  It also pretty much means that most of the second half of the book will be thrown in the trash.

And I still don’t know if this is going to result in something that I’m going to be able to send to agents or publishers.  But I guess even if it doesn’t, I’ll have learned something.

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Are you tired of seeing my desk yet? (aka I have the power of red ink)

May 18th, 11 / Comments Off

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And the desk starts to get messier ;)

Two chapters of The White Raven decorated with red ink today.  And some more of my story background and mythology worked out.

I really had forgotten how much fun I have editing.  I was having a ridiculously good time today.  All I need is a manuscript and a red pen!  Of course, I am in the section of the book that doesn’t require massive changes.  Give me a handful of chapters more and I’ll probably be complaining.

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Back on the horse and going somewhere

May 17th, 11 / Comments Off

This morning it is raining.  Good, proper rain (though it seems to have stopped for now), which we haven’t experienced in Perth for a very long time.  There’s a chance of a thunderstorm today, too, which I hope pans out.

(And we pause for a moment while my kid decides that the back of my laptop is tasty.  Well, Mummy, it has an apple on it!)

I got actual proper sleep last night – seven solid hours.  Here’s hoping that the current bout of teething is over, so I can catch up on sleep a little.  The kid woke up earlyish at 6:30am, but that’s entirely doable when I’ve had actual sleep.

Yesterday, as you will have seen, I spent a lot of time printing out the last draft of The White Raven, along with my character sketches and story outline.  I started working on inputting my character sketches into a fresh Scrivener document yesterday and will continue to keep working on that today.  Then, I read through the last draft and see if I can get a working outline.  I’m going to be ripping out the guts of this draft, which is something I really enjoy.  If I could employ someone else to write my first drafts, I’d be happy, I think.  But we all have stages of writing that we don’t like.

Reading yesterday: I finished Sue Isle’s Nightsiders, the first of Twelfth Planet Press’s Twelve Planets books.  Enjoyed it thoroughly, and now I also want to work on my dystopic Perth book.  I’ll be starting Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Love and Romanpunk today, which I am looking forward to greatly.

More Game of Thrones last night, which I am still enjoying enormously.  Giving serious thought to reading the books at the same pace as the show.  I have read the first two books in the series, but it was long enough ago that I’ve forgotten the details now.  And I have to give mention to the latest episode of Doctor Who, which is up there with my favourite episodes of all time.  How can you go wrong with Neil Gaiman and Doctor Who.

 


 

And so it begins

May 16th, 11 / Comments Off

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The desk, newly cleaned in preparation to begin work on another draft of The White Raven.

Manuscript all printed out (minus a chunk that was still printing when I took this) and ready to be attacked with red pen.  Some reference books and caffeine.

Now, I get to see if I can make something useful of this book.

(Also, anyone who’s beta reading the last draft for me, it would be helpful if you could get some general impressions back to me soon – thank you to those who have!)

Tumbr

Jul 19th, 10 / Comments Off

Since I seem to be working primarily on The White Raven right now, I started another Tumblr account, this one devoted to inspiration for this book.

Things like this:

The Drop

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Meet Alanna

Jul 16th, 10 / Comments Off

I’ve been working on The White Raven, and, along with writing a very detailed outline (in which the book is becoming very, very different from its last incarnation), I’m also putting together a new playlist.

This is Alanna’s song:

I’m not sure what I’m looking for anymore
I just know that I’m harder to console
I don’t see who I’m trying to be instead of me

All this running around, well it’s getting me down
Just give me a pain that I’m used to
I don’t need to believe all the dreams you conceive
You just need to achieve something that rings true

There’s a hole in your soul like an animal
With no conscience, repentance unknown
Close your eyes, pay the price for your paradise
Devils feed on the seeds that are sown

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