Charlie's Diary

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Fri, 02 Jan 2004 Today's work I cheated slightly; yesterday I did a thorough re-org of the directory tree I stashed the notes and previous two books in, to pave the way for starting work today. I went through the previous 39,000 word stalled draft and excised the 19,500 clearly salvagable words from it, ready to recycle. And I set up the file templates to use, and mucked around a bit more doing the computery housekeeping. Then I caught myself writing about 250 words -- barely a first page -- just to warm up, and made myself stop. Today the work stands at 4,600 words, so I guess I'm not exactly blocked on it. Mind you, it took me three hours to write the first thousand words, and about one hour to write the last fifteen hundred. Now if the quality holds up, and the output rate holds up, I might even nail down the first draft before I get to go hang out in a courtroom for a couple of weeks. (Except that would entail averaging 4500 words a day for seventeen consecutive days, and I'm not that mad -- I mean, I've done it before, but I've never planned on doing it before, because after writing at that speed for just two weeks I end up in a state approximating a jellyfish in the Sahara desert at noon. First law of writing: don't screw your health over to meet a deadline, because if you do, you won't meet the next one.) [Discuss writing] posted at: 22:47 | path: /writing | permanent link to this entry That time of year again It's the time of year when I get the itchy urge to write a novel. In this case, I've got a deadline, a 7000 word detailed outline, and a sense of urgency (see deadline). I've also got some interesting variations on the writing environment to try out. The novel in question is titled "The Clan Corporate". It's the third volume in a fantasy series, to be published by Tor in the US (British publication details not yet decided). Book #1, "A Family Trade", is due out in October this year. Book #2, "The Hidden Family", is due probably around summer 2005. This one should appear in winter '05 to spring '06, assuming everything goes according to schedule. Books #1 and #2 were written as one text; my original outline for "The Clan Corporate" was long enough that to fit it into the length Tor decided they wanted I'd have to take three volumes. So I've spent the past couple of months re-thinking everything, and now I'm about ready to get back to work. The only antidote to the mallaise of a long period of writing is to write about something different. So I'm probably going to vent about the writing process in this blog from time to time over the next few weeks. More later ... Oh yeah. Once more, with feeling: genre category is a label they pin on your work to make it easier to sell. What matters is what you write. [ Discuss writing ] posted at: 13:59 | path: /writing | permanent link to this entry

specials: Is SF About to Go Blind? -- Popular Science article by Greg Mone Unwirer -- an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction Inside the MIT Media Lab -- what it's like to spend a a day wandering around the Media Lab "Nothing like this will be built again" -- inside a nuclear reactor complex Quick links: RSS Feed (Moved!) Who am I? Contact me Buy my books: (FAQ) Missile Gap Via Subterranean Press (US HC -- due Jan, 2007) The Jennifer Morgue Via Golden Gryphon (US HC -- due Nov, 2006) Glasshouse Via Amazon.com (US HC -- due June 30, 2006) The Clan Corporate Via Amazon.com (US HC -- out now) Accelerando Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB -- due June 27, 2006) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Free download The Hidden Family Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) The Family Trade Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Iron Sunrise Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) The Atrocity Archives Via Amazon.com (Trade PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (Trade PB) Via Golden Gryphon (HC) Via Amazon.com (HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (HC) Singularity Sky Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.com (US ebook) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Toast Via Amazon.com Via Amazon.co.uk Some webby stuff I'm reading: [ Engadget ] [ Gizmodo ] [ The Memory Hole ] [ Boing!Boing! ] [ Futurismic ] [ Walter Jon Williams ] [ Making Light (TNH) ] [ Crooked Timber ] [ Junius (Chris Bertram) ] [ Baghdad Burning (Riverbend) ] [ Bruce Sterling ] [ Ian McDonald ] [ Amygdala (Gary Farber) ] [ Cyborg Democracy ] [ Body and Soul (Jeanne d'Arc)  ] [ Atrios ] [ The Sideshow (Avedon Carol) ] [ This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) ] [ Jesus's General ] [ Mick Farren ] [ Early days of a Better Nation (Ken MacLeod) ] [ Respectful of Otters (Rivka) ] [ Tangent Online ] [ Grouse Today ] [ Hacktivismo ] [ Terra Nova ] [ Whatever (John Scalzi) ] [ GNXP ] [ Justine Larbalestier ] [ Yankee Fog ] [ The Law west of Ealing Broadway ] [ Cough the Lot ] [ The Yorkshire Ranter ] [ Newshog ] [ Kung Fu Monkey ] [ S1ngularity ] [ Pagan Prattle ] [ Gwyneth Jones ] [ Calpundit ] [ Lenin's Tomb ] [ Progressive Gold ] [ Kathryn Cramer ] [ Halfway down the Danube ] [ Fistful of Euros ] [ Orcinus ] [ Shrillblog ] [ Steve Gilliard ] [ Frankenstein Journal (Chris Lawson) ] [ The Panda's Thumb ] [ Martin Wisse ] [ Kuro5hin ] [ Advogato ] [ Talking Points Memo ] [ The Register ] [ Cryptome ] [ Juan Cole: Informed comment ] [ Global Guerillas (John Robb) ] [ Shadow of the Hegemon (Demosthenes) ] [ Simon Bisson's Journal ] [ Max Sawicky's weblog ] [ Guy Kewney's mobile campaign ] [ Hitherby Dragons ] [ Counterspin Central ] [ MetaFilter ] [ NTKnow ] [ Encyclopaedia Astronautica ] [ Fafblog ] [ BBC News (Scotland) ] [ Pravda ] [ Meerkat open wire service ] [ Warren Ellis ] [ Brad DeLong ] [ Hullabaloo (Digby) ] [ Jeff Vail ] [ The Whiskey Bar (Billmon) ] [ Groupthink Central (Yuval Rubinstein) ] [ Unmedia (Aziz Poonawalla) ] [ Rebecca's Pocket (Rebecca Blood) ] Older stuff: June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 (I screwed the pooch in respect of the blosxom entry datestamps on March 28th, 2002, so everything before then shows up as being from the same time)

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