Wow, That Was a Month.

So this is good, instead of once a week I seem to be keeping very nicely with a monthly posting rate.

Oy.

I finally started editing again, life and being generally in a funk having kept me from it almost completely. This week has been good, though. I'm almost done with part two, and I seem to have different opinions on things than I did while anticipating problems, which is both good and bad. Good because some things don't need to be cut or completely rearranged as I had thought, but bad in that I need to add a lot, especially to part two. I also have found myself thinking things like this:

(Photo: actual note on the manuscript that I found minutes ago)

One habit I've discovered is that of making half-baked characters. Especially with fantasy stories, the cast of characters can become overwhelmingly large, and I'm not that experienced with handling that kind of responsibility. Apparently I can kill hundreds at a time, but God forbid I actually develop a minor character past a name and vague profession.

So I have a lot of that kind of thing to fix.

This weekend I'm going larping again- one of the few activities I've kept up with this summer and is keeping me relatively sane.

Or at least, as sane as someone can be when they rely on larping for a sense of normality.

So I won't be getting any editing done tomorrow through Sunday, but there are people at the event I'm going to ask about some things. I know of others who write, and certainly most everyone there is familiar with fantasy writing. (Seriously, so many there are such amazing storytellers.)

Hope everyone is having a good summer so far!
Have a safe Fourth of July!

On! To the Second Edit

Greetings!

Due to life and school interfering, I have not gotten back to editing until tonight. As it is I'm typing this from backstage of my school's rendition of Macbeth. Someone just walked by me covered head-to-thigh in fake blood; I've been braiding hair all night; it's all crazy fun.

So. Today was beautiful; Spring in Kentucky is the most beautiful season I've ever seen. My college campus is gorgeous, and it's really inspiring. I've also been doing a lot of good reading for school; Macbeth of course, Emma, Murder in Amsterdam, etc. and now that tech week is dying down for the play I'm ready to use all this momentum and good energy and imagination towards my own projects.

I'm working costumes for Macbeth, and between that and knowing I'll be back in town for the next larping event has made me super pumped about redesigning my costume and sketching characters again. I'm super rusty so no sketches to post yet, but soon.

Today I looked at my editing notes again and decided on my game plan this time around. Last edit I was mostly just fixing whatever I could and making it so I was comfortable with the size and quality of what I was really going to work with. Now I have to do the major changes and heavy cutting and pasting, as well as fixing major plot holes and character and scene inconsistencies.

Right now I have a small list beside my original outline (which turned out to be mostly accurate, besides not including the events of two full chapters and almost the whole of Elle's trip to the Mountains) but it's not very detailed and I'm sure I missed some problems. So I've decided on a three-part plan.

First I'll read through the whole manuscript, without stops. I'll write down all the problems I have and where they affect the story and just general problem areas.

Second comes a revamped outline. On Scrivener everything is set up as an outline in the left margin, which will make it much easier to outline and remember chapter names and things. This outline will concentrate on the main plot and goal of each chapter or part and the things that need fixing to accomplish the goal for that section. I'll code things that are local problems and the ones that are farther reaching-that need fixing in multiple places, such as agreement with a certain scene or character trait. This should give me a good guide to what I have to do.

The third part then should be relatively easy- it's daunting now to say "just go and fix everything" but once I have done the first two parts I'll know exactly what needs to be done and a better idea of what specifically I need to do to fix it- I will use my new outline/editing guide and do the fixes. This will involve mostly cutting and pasting and adding or deleting or tweaking scenes to make things agree.

I'm going to go continue my outline now. Wish me luck!

LAIRE Again

So I still haven't done much of anything more in editing, which is very bad. I've been working and excuses.

However I did get the chance to go larping at LAIRE again, which was really fabulous. I need to make so many additions and repairs to my costume... but now I have quite a few months until I will be able to go again so I have time to do that.

This is the main design of my character, Wilsa.

Yeah ignore those feet there. Maybe once I fix the costume up I'll post a picture of me actually wearing it.

So I've put up plenty of sketches of Elle, but none of her familiar. He's kind of a mixed jungle cat, with markings all along the back, and the size of a medium sized dog. Of the two he's the sarcastic, realistic Hobbesian one. That's not a final sketch, I'm still working on the specifics of what he'll look like.

Oh and his name is Taim for now.

I'm editing right now, I actually have the manuscript open and everything. So no updates for now. Sorry.

Fantastical Worlds

I forgot to write about something very exciting last week- I went LARPing for the first time! Live Action Role Playing, really. But they call it larping. It was really fun, I made my own character and spent the weekend running around dressed in a homemade costume as my character "Wilsa" and robbed people and played Kill Your Killer and just had a ball. (By the way my character has really loose morals in regards to money.) I can't wait to go back next month.

I will eventually include a picture of my costume, but I don't feel like putting it on right now- it's too HOT. So eventually.

In Story news, I've made a bunch of progress. I didn't edit any yesterday because I was barely home, but since my last post I did around ten pages of editing a night, and five so far today. It's nice, and not unbearable.

I split another chapter (or two I can't remember) so now I'm working on chapter seven. Yay! I've messed around and incorporated more of my other characters' backstories. I already had another idea for the very beginning, too, so I'll catch that on the second edit and change that around a bit. I kind of feel like I know what I'm doing here.

This morning I was listening to some lectures by Brandon Sanderson- he puts a lot of his classes on Youtube, so you should check that out if you're interested. It's really interesting and informative.

I'll start posting my page progress, I think. I'm almost a fourth of the way there! (small steps.)

80/415

Problems I'm Thinking About:
-general suckage
-character consistency
-mastering the use of dialogue
-well-rounded character stories