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I fixed the character arc scene that needed work in The Novel.  It's a lot of new writing, rather than just editing or even re-writing, so I'll need to revise it at a later point, but right now I'm just happy to have the new scene in there.  I also added ~600 words, even though I deleted a goodly chunk of the revised section, which brings the wordcount up from 92,047 to 92,630, and bring the "approximate wordcount" up from 92k to 93k.  Curse you, rounding!  Note to self: revise cover letter to reflect new wordcount.

I'm poking my nose into a few other projects that are in the research/worldbuilding stage, one YA and one grownup, but I think I'm going to return my attentoin to Trial.  I miss middle grade, and I've neglected the draft for too long.  I have a whole subplot that needs to be worked in!

Yes, I find this exciting.  C'mon, we know I'm weird that way.

Okay, truth, I know how that happened.  February steamrolled me with being sick in the first half and from-out-of-town family in the second, plus I had not one, not two, but THREE custom events to design and execute at work.

So I haven't written anything since I last worked on The Novel.

But I did go to FogCon!  Given my track record of not reporting on cons if I don't while I'm physically present, unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to give a report, but it was fun!  I was on two panels and did some volunteering, which regular congoers (especially to all-volunteers cons like Fogcon!) should try to do.  Even an hour can make the volunteer coordinator's life easier!

I shall endeavor to starting writing again, and thus get back in the habit of updating this thing.  Hope to see y'all again soon!

BLARGH.

So, when I put together the submission packet for the Strange Chemistry unagented submission period, I did a desultory review of The Novel and concluded it was still pretty tight, and I didn't need to edit it, and I could focus on the business-end stuff.  Then I spent most of November and the beginning of December working on the query letter, and then some more in January, and now I think I finally have a decent letter.

The catch?  In working on the query, I needed to check the MS for a few things (including one instance of "plot logic" someone on a query crit forum pointed out, which needed to be fixed in the MS before I could fix it in the query) and discovered that there's a whole bunch of fiddly little details that aren't quite there yet.  Some of it's worldbuilding or plot stuff that I didn't notice was a hole till a critter pointed it out, and some of it is metatextual/philosophic issues that exist because I did the original worldbuilding and writing for this book SIX YEARS ago and have learned a lot since then.

So while I'm not making big changes, they are very exacting.  I need to find exactly the right place to make the change, then exactly the right change to make in order not to disrupt the flow of the story that already existed, and I need to do this while not bogging the MS down info-dump style.

It's irritatingly fiddly and worse because I have no one to blame but myself.  Myself of six years ago, but still myself.

EDIT, five hours later: ARGH.  Race is complicated even/especially when you're making up all the rules in a fantasy kingdom!  And so is class.  And nationality.  And all the research just makes it more complicated!  And I decided that INTERSECTIONALITY IS IMPORTANT.  Writing is hard, y'all.  (I'm going to keep reminding myself that it's SUPPOSED to be hard, that means I'm thinking at least almost enough.  It's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be hard, if it's easy it's my white privilege, it's supposed to be hard, yes I'm going to screw up, it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be hard . . . )

EDIT II, three hours after the first: Writing a high fantasy while simultaneously, in the same text, engaging critically with the history of high fantasy is also REALLY HARD.

I'd forgotten why I needed to write a middle grade utopia after editing this book for six months.  Now I remember.

(I should be asleeeeeeep.)

Holidays in retail + anthology deadline of Dec 31 = 1 tired writer.

Fortunately, I did get a passable draft finished of the short story I wanted to submit.  It's not my best work--I'm too close to it, and the deadline snuck up on me, so no one else has read it--but I enjoy it and am glad I submitted something.  There's another short story deadline in February that I want to work on; this one unfortunately I don't have anything ready for, so we'll see if I can pull together a story in a month and a half.  Right now I have characters and a decent idea of what happens, but no specifics, and without specifics it won't work.  So I need to keep working on that.

In the new year I pretty much want to keep doing what I'm doing, but with more hours a week spent on writing and on reading books.  I read every day--mostly fanfic.  While I love and adore fanfic, as a writer and just a person who misses her books, I need to get back in the habit.

Also, this week I continue to be thankful I no longer live where it snows.  Stay safe if you're in blizzard territory!

In my experience, an author who wants to improve, especially and author who wants to be professionally published in today's publishing industry, needs to develop both a thick skin for critique and the ability to know when your critiquer is right (most of the time) and when they're so far off base they're in the wrong ballpark.

I use an online forum to get crituqes for my query letters, pitches and synopses, because my meatspace friends all have jobs and lives and aren't, right this very minute, devoted to working on a query letter, whereas people in query letter forums are generally devoted to working on their queries, and if everybody plays fair--crits others, gives return crits to people who critted them--it works quite well, despite the oftentimes huge disparity in writing skill and publishing experience.  I kinda love it, and I enjoy (for a certain definition thereof) both critiquing and giving critiques.  Up to a point.
( Anger is a legitimate response, but what we do with that anger matters. Also, lots of opinions behind the cut. And writerly rambling. )

In short: critique ettiquette, I have feelings and opinions about it.

For now I've paused work on my query.  I still feel like I have a good draft, it just needs a few tweaks, and I need to seriously consider several things one of my later critquers said.

Also, I had no idea before I started asking for query critique HOW MANY people would be confused by the fact that one of my main characters is a unicorn.  Everyone who crits the query seems to assume that either a) she's a unicorn in human form, or a human with unicorn magic, or otherwise somehow human-shaped, or b) if she actually is no joke a unicorn, she must not be a main character and should be removed from the query.

SERIOUSLY.  I am fairly certain I wouldn't be having this problem if she were almost any other kind of mythical creature.  Which, admittedly, is part of the culture I'm talking back to with The Novel, but still.  It never occurred to me that anyone would question her being a unicorn.

So I've been worldbuilding for my newish YA project--I actually had two days off in a row this week (my work schedule is funtastic)--and spent the first doing mythological research and worldbuilding, and the second doing real-world research and worldbuilding.  I feel this is what happens when you write urban fantasy: research about yokai and research about which season American high schools play certain sports end up equally important.

In other news, I think I'm going to wander back to Trial for December.  The holidays are always crazy and I think it might be easier to fit editing into my schedule than writing or worldbuilding.  I'll probably still do all of the above, depending on my mood, but I like to focus on a project and Trial is due for some attention.

I also need to get back to writing that YA spec-fic diversity short story for kaleidescope . . . it needs a fair amount of editing as well.

This is why, in my heart of hearts, I'm still a DC girl.

Right now it feels like my BFF is on the bad drugs, has robbed and hurt people, isn't admitting they're addicted or that there might be a problem, and has punched me and left me somewhere sketchy to find my own way home.  So I'm not interacting with them right now, for my own safety and mental health.

But I can't forget the good times, or stop hoping that maybe someday, they'll join AA.  Things might not be the same--they weren't perfect before by a long shot--but things could be better.  Maybe.  If they get their shit together.

Till then, I'm not seeing them or giving them money.  But I'll read my back issues and my fanfic and watch Marvel movies and work really hard to help make a culture where DC can get better again.

. . . the rats *really* aren't afraid of the laptop.

Hardison struck his head over the monitor from the back--not a new thing--and then did some sort of rat-ninja move and hopped up onto the screen.  Yep, my rattie was walking on the top of my LAPTOP screen like, "Ooh, this is a fun game.  Why are you squeaking at me?"

EDIT: Before I posted this he did it again.  Twice.

Spoilers!

After meaning to ever since I started working seriously on Forest War, I finally sat down and watched the Tinker Bell movie.  I was dreading it--I never really got what Disney was doing with the whole Disney Fairies thing, and it always seemed girly and mindless and commercial.

Well, while it was definitely girly and its track record shows commercial success, the Tinker Bell movie is not mindless.  It's a simple story told well, and a story with a some messages I can definitely get behind.  It has the somewhat-standard "Accept and love who you are" plot, but it also adds a whole new dimension to Tinker Bell's character--mainly, emphasis on the tinker part.

Basically, Tinker Bell is a kickass inventor and engineer, and after screwing up a bunch of stuff trying to be a nature fairy, she goes back and uses her building and inventing talent to fix her mistakes.  Even better, she does it in a whole new way, so not only is she 1) accepting who she is 2) which is a girl who is an engineer who is 3) inventing in new ways with objects previously thought useless, thus making her effectively The Best engineer.

Seriously, she saves spring with a bunch of re-purposed flotsam.  Take that, Tony Stark.

About a year ago, I wrote my first-ever picture book manuscript.  For quite awhile it appeared to be the only picture book I'd ever write, and I know nobody wants to publish a one-off, so after I worked really really hard on it and ended up with something I was actually pretty proud of, I shelved it.  I had novel work to do, and I'm definitely a go-the-distance girl where novels are concerned.

But once I'd written a picture book, I knew I could do it again, if I ever had any ideas.

I've had a few, but one arose from a teasing conversation at work.  There's a picture book series called Captain Flynn and the Pirate Dinosaurs, because the author knows what four year old boys want, and it was discussed that we could make pirates out of all kinds of things.  Somehow mermaids came up, and while we were laughing, we were also surprised we couldn't think of a single book--picture book or chapter book--about pirate mermaids.  (I know of one short story, but it's not aimed at children.  At all.)

Until today.

The manuscript's a mess, since I was still figuring things out as I wrote it, and it's a little long--I'd like to cut at least 35 words, 50 might be better--but there you have it.  I've written my second-ever picture book, and it's about pirate mermaids.

BECAUSE WHY NOT.