KJ

I got about half of Twelve drafted this morning, along with a small but important section of Thirteen.

I am so addicted to this thing. And it doesn't help when new chapters come along at the exact moment that I should be running out the door for work, and then leave me with cliffhangers... Heh.

I was talking to some friends about my new past-time at dinner last night, and regretting the timing; a year ago, I wasn't working, and I would have had so much more time to devote to writing. But SE disagreed; she said that it's probably better this way, that I can let my work be my work and my creative outlet be something completely separate. Upon consideration, I think she's right. I like my work (although not always my job -- there is a difference), but it's not my life, and shouldn't be.

It turns out that my reputation for fast writing may be actually earned after all -- as of this morning, Eleven is largely finished. It's not quite ready for prime time yet; there's a section that's still rough, a small but key bit that I want to get exactly right. If it rings false, everything falls apart. So it won't go up until I'm happy with it. I don't expect to have time to work on it tonight, but it could be ready as soon as tomorrow.

After that, I'm not quite sure what to do in terms of pacing myself. Finishing Eleven catches me up to RyRy and puts me two chapters ahead of Lee. I know that the only restriction is that I not pass up Ikon (and I don't think there's much risk of that at this point), but I'm not sure how I feel about setting plot. Paine's big moment of action, saving Nooj from the sand-bear, has passed, and that's the only section, really, in which she drives the story forward. Paine reacts, Paine observes; she doesn't usually take the lead. Also, Ry and Lee have both been so good at coming up with secondary plots, and I'm not sure I can live up to them. I'm mostly a character-driven writer, not so much a plot-driven one. (I think that may be why I'm drawn to fanfic: the plots are mostly already there for me. I just need to plug in holes here and there, and then I'm free to write character studies and backstory to my heart's content.)

So I think I will take another pause, or at least make an effort to write at a more measured pace for awhile. This could be a really good thing; Ten came out quite well, I think, and I am sure this is at least in part because I was forced to slow down, to consider it all very carefully and work on it slowly over several days instead of during a burst of productivity. There is time for inspiration and time for deliberation, and I think this may be the latter.

Well, enough musing on company time. ;) I'm off to take stock of the book room.

All in all, the weekend was quite nice. My best friend arrived from Boston on Friday evening; we spent that evening hanging out, cooked dinner on Saturday, and had a long lunch today with a large group of people whom we know from our alma mater. Tonight she left to join her husband, who came into town today. Between our activities, I relaxed and enjoyed the warm days -- we have been in the 80s, which is unusually hot for San Francisco in July. I bask in hot weather and sometimes feel the lack of real summer days here. I also finished a delightful book, Catherine, Called Birdy, which is the tale in diary form of a fourteen-year-old girl in Medieval England who is determined not to marry unless and until she wishes, despite her father's efforts to find her a husband. It's written for preteens, but I found it more than readable at an adult level. The main character is strong-willed, thoughtful, and very very funny. Definitely recommended.

In the end, though, I couldn't stay away from the work entirely. My houseguest was gone for much of Saturday with another friend, and went to bed much earlier than I on both nights, so I did end up spending some time writing after all. Ten is basically finished and Eleven is partly drafted. I will hold posting anything until tomorrow, though. Ten needs to season over one more night at least, and we did all say we'd be taking the weekend off!

OMC Eight is here.

I seem to be writing Nine and Ten at the same time, the days they cover coming to me all at once and out of order. I admit to having some impatience with Nine, since it is largely a transitional chapter in preparation for the red meat of Ten. But I have to do it justice; otherwise Ten will lose all its impact. A challenge, one of the many I have faced on this project. Successfully, I think, so far.

I confess to often falling behind on reviewing the work of my partners in crime. I read the chapters as soon as I can after they come to my attention, sometimes multiple times over, but then I can have trouble gathering my thoughts to comment. I will always get to it eventually, honest.

Spent yesterday night polishing Five and writing Six, and now both are up.

I feel like I finally got the chance to start working in some meaty backstory with Six. Paine's character is thoroughly established as someone who doesn't talk about her past much, so I'm having to work in tidbits organically rather than present a backstory dump, which would probably ring false in a personal diary anyway. It's more challenging but also much more interesting, and I think will make for a better story in the end.

A lovely YAC chapter came along while I was writing, with lots of inspiring bits for my own Seven. Thank you Lee!

ps to RyRy, re. the two vs. three comment in your review of Five: no, three is what I meant. "...trysting with all three of them", as in Nooj worries that Paine is sleeping with all three of the men. But you're right about the other one; it's awkward. I think I may have written it that way to refer back to a turn of phrase which I used earlier in the chapter and then changed.

OMC Four is largely finished; it just needs some polishing. I expect to post it tonight. (Edit: Done.)

Then it will be time for a Potter break. I'm not obsessed with the books, though I do really enjoy them, but I waited a mere two weeks to read the last one and still ended up far more spoiled than I like. So I want to get this one read as quickly as possible. I got my copy this afternoon, read the first chapter, and practically had to pick my jaw up off the floor. I suspect this book is going to be rather different from its predecessors.

Once that's done, unless everyone else become very prolific in the meantime and I feel the need to catch up, I'll get cracking on AGL 29. When that's finished, I expect to put Auron's tale on temporary hiatus and devote my writing time to Paine. 29 should be a natural pause point for AGL, and I want to take as much advantage as possible of the lightning in a bottle that we seem to have captured with the Confessional quartet.

I just posted the first chapter of my meta-fic, "One More Confessional" (Thanks for the title suggestion, RyRy, hope you don't mind that I snagged it!) a few minutes ago. It should be here. I hope that it lives up to expectations, though I fear that my fellow authors have set the bar very high...

Part Two is drafted and with luck should be up tomorrow, and I have bits of Three, Four, and Six written as well. Going last is a bit of a challenge, since I have to work with everything in all the other stories as well as canon, but that's also part of the fun of it. I'm already really excited about where all this is going to go. Whee!