sakon76 | Entries tagged with field of stars

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Oh fracking frack

New realization for Field of Stars happened in my sleep. Characters A and B left the country to the north for my main country some years ago. Character B had a toddler (father known, and sort-of dead; out of the running anyway) and was pregnant at the time. Has had serial lovers since, and children by some of them.

Now the country to the north has sent a six-man diplomatic party. (Well, two parties. Rival factions and all that.) One of them is the father of that second child. And doesn't know it. Yet. And both the mother and father in this scenario have Ratchet-worthy tempers. (Fandom Ratchet, to make it worse.)

Time to see if I need to go back and insert any hints, and also to slip a card into my rotating stack about this plot point.

Squiddle's taking an early nap today. I should be on the bike right now, but I just can't. I've been being very good about doing it five days a week, but I'm also suspecting that's what's causing the persistent ache in my left calf, and until I can stretch that away, I'm giving myself some slack.

The Santa Ana winds are blowing today. Joy. I should've suspected it when I looked at the weather forecast and saw it was going up into the 80s this weekend. Luckily, I did a spot of gardening yesterday which included watering everything. And also putting bean and parsnip seeds into the ground. I apparently had three packets of parsnip seeds. I used up the oldest, spreading the seeds liberally down the rows, and will see what sprouts in the next month or so. Of the seeds I have going in flats, right now the zinnias, alyssum, cucumbers, and the second round of corn are sprouting. Oh, and one jalepeno. :/ But the radishes in my radish-and-carrot rows are also poking their heads up, and if I can clear the space in the bed this weekend, the first round of corn is ready to go in the ground.

For dinner, I've put a pork shoulder in the slow cooker along with some homemade applesauce-based barbeque sauce. Hopefully it will turn out well and we shall have pulled pork for dinner. First time trying the recipe, and I had to make a couple of substitutions. And ran shy on paprika, alas.

Time to go make a sandwich for lunch, and then either convince myself to bicycle, or work on Field of Stars.

ETA: Wrote ten pages during the Squiddle's nap. 2239 words. Booyah!

ETA 2: The pulled pork recipe shines. This one's going in the keeper pile.

I have finished the edits from my classmates. All of them. For a novel and, um, a quarter of a novel. I have just one piece left.

Of course, that one piece is the edits from

tainry, which pretty much means me going through the entire novel again.

But holy cow, I've gone through two whole foot-high-plus stacks and found space on my desk!

Also, it is raining. Life is good.

December ended up being a decided no go on the novel writing thing (though I did manage to squeeze out three fanfic chapters for Christmas), mainly because of the Squiddle being jealous of &/or wanting to use the laptop himself. That being said, this morning I managed a page and a bit of novel writing (343 words) before everyone came downstairs and conversation and breakfast became a thing. No promises on further writing today, though.

It's been a hot weekend, so we've mostly been hiding inside until the heat of the day dies away. By opening doors and windows in the early morning, and evening, and then keeping them closed during the heat of day, we manage to keep the inside of the house about fifteen degrees cooler than the outside. The difference between 100 Fahrenheit and 85 Fahrenheit is significant!

That said, I feel like I've gotten a fair amount done this weekend. We had my parents up yesterday for brunch, the last chance we'll have before they sail off for six months in Mexico. I went through twenty pages of edits on Field of Stars. I made sun tea, swept two rooms, and realized my Italian plums weren't going to last another day, so put up four and a half half-pints of Peach-Plum Ginger Jam.

Today I've gotten less done, so feel like a bit of a slacker in comparison. I've done the laundry, swept two more rooms and the hallway, made chicken cacciatore for dinner, and edited ten pages. Wonderful Husband and I also did a bit of grocery shopping.

But mainly we've been staying cool.

I am, once again, frustrated by my writing class. Seriously, this is like my theme every Wednesday night! I ought to start a drinking game or something. "One drink if Kristin thinks her teacher needs to pay attention." "Two if a classmate fails to actually read the words on the page." Etc.

Tonight's bout of consternation is brought to you by the eternal struggle of "you have too many characters." Which about half my class commented on. Mind, I don't know how many of these comments are add-ons in class and thus basically "me too!"s following the teacher.

The thing is, though, the book I am writing is high fantasy. It's about an international war. It's continuing with both the upstairs and downstairs characters from book one. I have a goddamn game plan, I know where all these plot threads eventually lead, NO I NEED ALL THOSE CHARACTERS. They're not throwaways. Go read Lord of the Rings. Go read Game of Thrones. That's my genre. But no matter how many times I say this, it never seems to sink in.

For whatever reason, genre writing limits my audience. Being a genre reader, I don't get it. I can read mainstream and get it, I can read scifi and get it. It's all good. Similarly, those of my class who get it, GET IT. They realize I'm not writing Waiting For Godot, or a romance novel that only needs two people plus some distractions. But for whatever reason, over half the class has problems with "different genres have different rules and expectations." Now, granted, whenever the time comes, a romance or a mainstream book would probably be easier to sell. But that's not the book I want to write. It's not the book I want to read.

Which leads to me being frustrated by half the feedback I'm getting, and subsequently having long conversations with Wonderful Husband about this series and why I'm writing it and if it's worth it. Sorta. Something along that line, anyway. I am seriously considering whether I should stop submitting this book to the class, and eventually give them something else instead. Even I can only bash my head against a wall so often before ceding to the headache.

Sigh. I don't know. At this point I'm just vomiting words and frustration onto the Internet. I should go to sleep, and tomorrow hopefully I'll find some clarity.

Ha! Have gotten better at using the pump, and tonight Wonderful Husband experimented with Squiddle and found that, yes, he will drink from a bottle. Squiddle also got taken in to my writing class this evening (I am not attending this term, but will start doing so again in January), and unsurprisingly had an adoring audience.

Given that Queen's Choice was written very much from an emotional point of facing infertility and childlessness, with a goodly portion of my pain from that experience poured into the writing, I wonder how actually having a child now is going to affect Field of Stars. When I can get back to it, that is!

Start: 17,719
End: 18,637
Daily total: 918
Monthly total: 4,673

Got through a card and a half. Started setting up stuff that will become relevant and Very Very Important later on for Max and Owen. Went back and smoothed some of this month's writing. Falling asleep on feet, and I have writing class, which I'm not submitting at, and not looking forward to, tomorrow night. Joy. 'Night, all.

Start: 16,225
End: 17,719
Daily total: 1,494
Monthly total: 3,755

Doing absolute crap at writing this month, obviously. Maybe I should switch back to letting myself write some fanfic every day, because today it obviously worked to get me writing on this. Got through another two and a half prompt cards (leaving off in the middle of Owen having an existential crisis), and skipped one more because I can't move that plot thread any farther along yet. I was thrown a lovely curveball for what's happening with Max, and I got to work in the backstory of the mage wars around Estellia's founding, and the Glass Isles in specific! Which are a horrible, terrible thing that persists to this day in Estellia, and which no one has the power to fix. Except I've gotten a plot nudge that maybe Alain will, eventually? But he's got a war to get through first.

Start: 15,138
End: 16,225
Daily total: 1,087
Monthly total: 2,261

Have punched my way through two and a half more prompt cards, including hitting a piece of backstory/motivation that is quite bloody (literally) and which I did not see coming. Indeed, the Fae are nasty pieces of work! Stopping here for now to head over to ALA and have dinner with people; I hope to keep writing once we get back, as I'd like to average a thousand words a day this month, and am woefully behind.

Start: 14,617
End: 15,138
Daily total: 521

I got through the preliminary bit about touch pieces. Researching the purity of ancient silver coins didn't pan out so well, alas, so I winged it. And since I'm supposed to go get my blood drawn again before work tomorrow morning, I'm stopping at this point rather than pushing on.

I've read through the seventy pages I had, and edited it down to sixty-nine. I have decided that I hate the first scene, possibly the entire first chapter. I can tell that it's not good because I actually hit a point where my brain said, "Finally! The good stuff!" But I don't know how to fix it just yet. The funeral is important, and introducing the seamstress and her son doubly so. So I'll leave it and press on for now.

In unrelated news, one of my cats (Sushi) has gotten some kind of injury on his front right paw. The animal clinic I take him to was closed today, so I'm probably going to take him in first thing in the morning and then keep him with me in the carrier at work. Which he is just going to looooove.

ETA: Not sure exactly where I started, since I didn't check word count before editing, but I have for sure written 653 words today, ending at 14,617. One prompt card has been discarded, as that event is finished, and I'm now staring at a note on one of the others, wondering what I meant by "militia vs. mage stabilization"...

Since it was raining off and on yesterday, Wonderful Husband and I went to see The Hobbit. It was fun, but not quite as good as the LotR films. I think part of why it seems to drag a little bit is the inevitable problem with making one book into three films. Part of why LotR paced so well was the ruthless cutting out involved; there was no Tom Bombadil, there was no razing of the Shire. The Hobbit, in contrast, seems to have the filmmakers stuffing every single bit of padding they can think of in....

That said, Martin Freeman is brilliant and I was quite pleased to discover that my hindbrain was not hearing and seeing him as Watson through the entire film. :)

And, of course, I wrote. I will likely stop posting fanfiction relatively soon, as I have made a pact with myself that January is a month to concentrate on writing novel #2, Field of Stars. And oh god I am not looking forward to going back through Queen's Choice for like the fourth time to add tension and drama to it, but I know it needs to be done. It's non-saleable the way it is now. I'm also still debating whether or not I'm going back to Maralys' writing class. My frustration with her reigns supreme.

There are a handful of fanfic writers about whom I can honestly say "I will read any and everything they write." This is because they are superlative writers, and even if I don't know the series they're writing for, they will paint the world such that I live in it, love it, and understand it.

Corollary to this is the fact that there are a few fanfic reccers whose every recommendation I will read. Because they rec the good stuff.

issen4 is among this latter category, and recently recommended Gadarene, which is a Merlin fic. Now, I am not a fan of Merlin, but I read this story. And then read it again. And again. And sat a while, trying to figure out what it was that drew me to the story. And how I could take that ineffable whatever-it-was and apply it to my own work.

All writers have themes we cycle to again and again, usually because we keep thinking of (hopefully witty) new things to say on the subject. Lois McMaster Bujold and mules, for instance. :) It's why fanfic writers write multiple works on, say, a particular pairing (~~Prowl&Jazz~~), or a series predicating on a single what-if (~~Simulacra~~). Something draws us to an idea and we keep gnawing away at it.

And I think I've identified what I like in Gadarene. It's not the pretty slashiness so much as the heartbreak and fear when things must be kept hidden, and the beauty that unfolds like a flower when it becomes all right to display them. So last night I went to Field of Stars and found my first scene with Alain Lowsturm and Bastian Tel Amo, and reread it. And realized a part of the story that I hadn't even known, predicating on Alain's heritage as the son of a demon. (A completely consensual conception; Alain's mother is complicated, powerful, and awesome. So was his father, for that matter.) Demons, however, being stolen ("perverted") shards of gods, are the product of what the Tel Amo clan classifies as the darkest of magic.

Because of what he was born as, Bastian and every single teacher at the Tel Amo-sponsored university Alain studies at would be obligated to kill Alain in his sleep if they knew.

What stress does that add? How high does it raise the stakes? How does he cope? What are Alain's plans once he finishes university? And what will happen when/if this all comes out?

This is part of why writers read. So that we can learn better how to write.

Finished filling in all the terminology holes I'd noted in Field of Stars, and decided to just go the easy route for names. Prince Placeholder is now named Prince Justin. His brother, with whom he is contending over the throne of their recently ~~deceased~~ murdered father, is Prince Malcolm. Anyone who can tell which one I'm rooting for based on the names alone gets a cookie.

Their names are, admittedly, somewhat more pedestrian than the major characters in the first book, but I have Max and Owen and Lily and Kitty (real name Melinda) and a few far more background characters with real-world names too in Queen's Choice, so maybe it works. And Karje is the next kingdom over, anyway. (Of the other Karjeans, Arion and William Tanner are complex chains of punnish associations that amuse me; Pemberley gets his name from Pride and Prejudice [as, incidentally, do most of Kitty's sisters], Flora is named for her alchemy hobby, Stasia and Tasha are truncated real-world names, and Jessalind... well, anyone who guesses who I derived her name from gets not a cookie, but a whole cake.)

Most bizarre item of the day: the CIA recruiting ad which played on the radio this morning. I mean, National Guard, Army/Navy, those recruitment campaigns I expect. But the Central Intelligence Agency? I wonder if this is a sign that their enrollment is at an all-time low, or just that they've got someone fresh and new in charge of their recruitment strategies.

Spent part of last night going through Wikipedia and online baby names websites trying to fill in the holes that 'Netlessness left in Field of Stars. I literally have a character currently named Prince Placeholder. Haven't found a perfect name for him yet, but then I've only gone through the front half of the alphabet. I am quite pleased, though - my four main characters from Queen's Choice are (more-or-less/mostly) elementally aligned, and I managed to tie that in to the Tarot deck. Air person uses a sword, Fire person uses a staff, Water person is a sorta-hydromantic seer (though I haven't actually given her a chalice/cup yet), but the kinda-Earth person I was never able to tie in to coins/pentacles before now. Also, Wonderful Husband helped me hammer out some of the background theology last night, and I now have an idea as to where demons/angels/spirits (whatever you want to call them) came from.

So there was a thing. And a plan. It was basically a writing retreat weekend for whomever in my Wednesday night writing class wanted to do it. Last year it was Pat and Nancy. This year we hoped for more, but it ended up being just Pat and me.

On Friday we went out to the Hilton in San Bernardino and sequestered ourselves away in our rooms, working like mad little squirrel writers on our projects. She was editing, I was writing.

Which is how/why I now have 13,736 words, 61 pages, or 2 3/4 chapters written on Field of Stars.

Edited a little more on Queen's Choice last night, after Wonderful Husband gave me his comments on the most recent ten pages. Have it ready for the copy shop after work. Spent the bulk of the evening planting, weeding, cooking, and sewing. I was up far too late with that last, but the final tier is finally sewn onto the green petti! I still have to go over the seam two more times, finishing it with ribbon, but that will go quicker since (1) the foot won't keep catching on the netting, and (2) I won't have to stop every couple inches to take the pins out.

As a diversion, I've started writing out the Dramatis Personae list for Field of Stars.

...I'm up to twenty-one characters, and haven't even gotten to the other kingdoms! Some of them are less important than others, of course, but none of them can actually be dropped. Four are new, but then there are characters from Queen's Choice that won't be showing up so maybe it balances out?

Ah well. On to listing out Savoy and all its civil war problems....

While editing Queen's Choice, I'm feeling things start to come together in my head for Field of Stars. I'm to the point now where I'm probably needing to buy a spiral-bound notebook just so I can scribble it all out and find how the various puzzle pieces fit together and write myself a basic outline. Which is something I didn't do for most of Queen's Choice, and which I also don't do for my fanfic writing. But toward the end of writing QC, I did list out the remaining plot points I knew I needed to hit, which is kind of like an outline, right?

There is, of course, going to be drama going on in Estellia, but almost as important are the three countries surrounding Estellia. One of which, I have figured out, is in a state of civil war at the moment as the two sons of the dead king fight over who gets the throne. The two diplomatic delegations from Savoy trying to ally with the new ruler of Estellia is going to be fun... particularly since I know what the one who gets turned down does afterward. Ha, that's one little connective chunk put together right there!

Still, I'm only a third of the way through editing. And once I get done with this pass, I need to go back in and add cause and urgency and attitude to what's already there....

Le sigh.

But then I can start on FoS.