Claw

Claw Update

PETERMBALL Works in Progress ,

Claw Draft
Projected Total: 25000
Total Words to Date: 12,556
Words Done in Previous 24-hour Period: 2,081
Deadline: April 30th

And now there is a Sixth Chapter, although it is currently the roughest chapter since the first and in possession of even more notes about what might need to be done. I predict that the future chapter six will share very little beyond the present chapter six beyond the protagonist and locations. I also have a bit of Chapter Seven sorted, in which I start making myself particularly unpopular with folks who like kittens.

I’m a little demoralized by last nights stint, after so many days of letting the story run itself and things coming up okay. Still, it got done, and as long as I don’t give in to my lethargic urges tonight I think everything will sort itself out. I’ve managed seven days of this now and I’m tempted to see how far it can be pushed.

Other things achieved today: two story drafts finished, in preparation for flensing and polishing over the next couple of days; reading of big thick Years Best SF anthology; reading of Candide; curry.

Claw Progress

PETERMBALL Works in Progress , ,

Claw Draft
Projected Total: 25000
Total Words to Date: 10,475
Words Done in Previous 24-hour Period: 1,931
Deadline: April 30th

Chapter five is done. Which means I’m now settling into a comfortable rhythm of a chapter per night, more or less, with tinkering time and short-story writing occurring in the mornings. In theory, if my plan is to be trusted as a guide (it shouldn’t), I am now halfway through the novella. While I’m running lower than the anticipated wordcount at this point, I’m not too stressed about that – I’m thinking the next draft will see the story balloon out dramatically, requiring a third draft to cut things back.

I am freaking out a little about the pacing of things though, since by this point in Horn there had been much death and destruction, while by this point in Claw there is only scratch marks, minor-character death, snark, and romance subplots which are not inherently doomed from the outset. I’m a little wonky on writing the last one, for many reasons, not the least of which is my general fascination with doomed romances (see my fascinationwith the Gothic novel).

I think I’ve also managed to peg down a bunch of stuff about the past and future of Aster and a bunch of the other characters, complete with a rough timeline about where and when things occurred and why it ends with Aster being the kind of protagonist she is. And started writing a list of tropes to tackle, should I be lured into doing a third one of these. And, you know, built a Miriam Aster folder to keep the details in once place, so I don’t have to keep going back over the last manuscript in order to work out whether or not I’ve actually mentioned things like a character’s eye-colour or apartment before. This is most unlike me, so we’ll see how long such ordered recordkeeping lasts.

Claw Update

PETERMBALL Works in Progress ,

Claw Draft
Projected Total: 25000
Total Words to Date: 8,544
Words Done in Previous 24-hour Period:2,229
Deadline: April 30th

I think I’m settling into a process that works for me here, although it largely involves having an early night (around 8 or so) and taking the laptop to bed in order to write until about midnight. Does a good job of getting words down, but impractical in the long run given that the majority of the world doesn’t run on writer-time and will, eventually, require me to go out. I’m slowly – slowly – starting to feel like I’ve got that deadline in my sights now, which is a long way from what I was thinking this time last week.