Hey, I’m doing really well: I got through more than 200 pages of AAs before the Horrible Sleepies attacked me. These are not bad AAs, though I’ve had this copyeditor before and she seems to have some sort of objection to hyphens. For some reason she took the hyphen out of “extra-long” (which is to say she made it “extralong”, not “extra long”), for example, and other similar things. However, that compared to the last one is…there’s no comparison. o.o

I’ve no doubt made the Horrible Sleepies worse by doing laundry, which heats up the house like there’s no tomorrow. The obvious solution is escaping the house to do the last 200 pages of the manuscript, but somebody from the rental agency is supposed to be stopping by to inspect the place today, and I strongly dislike having people come into my house while I’m not in it.

Arright. The dryer’s stopped, anyway, so it’s cooled off a bit in here. Back on my head.

eta, several hours later: the AAs are all done but for the typing in. yay! now I shall make cookies, and when the cookies are done, I shall type all dem lil’ AAs in and get the book turned in TODAY. YAY!

currently: working

I can’t find the quote about, “This morning I wrote 100 words. This afternoon I deleted them. A fine day’s work,” or something to that effect, but that’s what this week has been. This week I’ve written about 8K. This afternoon I’ve deleted 6K of it.

*sigh*

ytd wordcount: 90,700
miles to Minas Tirith: 182.4

currently: frustrated

Actually, at the end of the day (which it very nearly literally is), I *did* make a lovely dinner, did a fair bit of triage on the office, which has only half as many boxes in it as it did this morning, got some more laundry done than what Ted started, got the kitchen sort of clean, *and* I got 1300 words written.

Oh, God, and I just popped my back and it popped in exactly the same place it did this morning when it went out, and I think it’s a little better now. *moves around very very carefully*

I have decided that I’m aiming for 1000 words every day. I don’t have to stop at 1000, and will probably often write more than that, but I’m going back to my old daily quota scheme. In order to turn this book in on time I need huge vast amounts more than 1000 words a day, but at this point I think focusing on that is just going to make me very, very stressy and that will *not* help get the book done. So I’m going to set a quota of 1000 words a day, and the book will be done when it’s done, and that’s going to be the best I can do.

So mote it be. :)

ytd wordcount: 1300

currently: accomplished

50,611 words. ‘course, that means 400 more words and I’m at 51K, and that’s just a vicious cycle, but I’m stopping there because I’m in the middle of a conflict and it’ll be relatively easy to pick up again tomorrow. Plus I did 3500 words today, which is pretty good. 28K to go. I would *kill* for a 10K day, though it’d probably help if I’d get up before 9:30 in the morning if I want one. :) Hm. Ted has to get up early tomorrow (I think) to go up to Dublin and give our former landlords the keys to the house and things, so maybe that’ll get me up earlier. We’ll see.

I should figure out what my wordcount’s at. Around 110K, I think. For the year, I mean, not for the book.

Man. I should do weekend writeup stuff, but there’s all this WORK to do. Speaking of which, I’ve noticed again that whole “reward for working is doing moe work” problem. I *must* go forth and get a life.

As soon as this book is done.

My right shoulder, from behind the shoulder blade, down through the ulnar nerve and into my pinky, is starting to ache. This is the most annoying and uncomfortable of the signs that Catie Has Been At The Laptop Too Much, and it’s compounded right now by sleeping funny a couple days ago and giving myself a stiff neck.

I have, through several years of trial and error, learned to mitigate this as much as possible. The best way to do so is to work at a table, but after four days at the kitchen table in the unbelievably uncomfortable chairs, the rest of my body was so stiff I had to pick up and move into the living room, were I am now ensconced on the couch with various blankets and fuzzy shirts to support the laptop and my arm. The fuzzy shirt does double-duty in support, as not only is it stuffed beneath my right elbow, it also has been stretched across the front of the laptop, blunting the hard (and hot) forward edge. I’ve also moved the mouse to the left-hand side of the laptop, which usually means I use the touchpad instead of the mouse, but which is at least worth a shot.

Unfortunately, no, I can’t do revisions at a better keyboard. The Nook has no setup at *all* for doing revisions (among other things, it has no mouse/pad, and selecting large pieces of text for cutting and pasting without a mouse is just a pain in the ass, but more to the point, it has nowhere at all to pile manuscript pages. This is *wonderfully* useful when writing, because it means I can’t possibly clutter up my work space, but it’s no good at all for revising.), and the upstairs computer is in a room the boys use. It is better for me to not try working in that room, because it takes approximately one nine-thousandth of a nanosecond for me to want to kill them for daring to be IN MY SPACE when I am TRYING TO WORK. It’s just all bad.

So it’s the laptop for me. And a profound sense of anticipation about being done and moving back to my wonderful comfy Nook.

(eta: see, there, yes? that’s me using the touchpad instead of the mouse. but at least i’m using it with my left hand.)

I got about 60 pages done, up to page 250 (well, 247, close enough), with one entirely new chapter that replaces the old one that just wouldn’t work. The transition scene’s still rough going into the next bit, but I can smooth it out. The next scene I have to rewrite is okay as it is, but should be really painful and explosive when I’m done rewriting it, which should make the follow-up scene which needs comparatively little work all the more powerful. I hope. I need to work at least one more confrontation with another character in, which should replace a chapter that’s currently in place, and then I have to cut away the parts that make the end too easy and make it harder.

The final chapter, at least, while it needs some cosmetic work, will mostly get to stay as it is. That’s something, anyway.

I spent far, far too much time today talking about Chance with my friend Spidey. My confidence in myself as a comic writer is now badly shaken and I wonder if I know what I’m doing at all. Or if I can convince someone else I know what I’m doing. *wry look* I’ll get over it, probably. I do need to remember I’m doing this for myself as much, or possibly more, than anything else, at this stage. Except, of course, I do want to create a publishable story (which means, one that somebody else will pick up the production costs for).

I should stop thinking now, and go to bed so I can get up and do another big chunk of book tomorrow.

85 pages done so far and now my brain is gone. I don’t *want* to go to the gym very much, but I’m going to anyway, because right now I can’t tell if this stuff should be kept or tossed, and presumably moving away from it for a while will help in that matter. Or maybe I’ll just go walk, but anyway, I’ll get away from the work and the computer and with any luck that’ll help. And if I still can’t tell, I’ll…I donno what.

Yeah, okay. Just going to go walk now, and stop trying to think.

65 or so pages of revisions done so far today. There’s more actual rewriting and new material than I hoped, but it’s going well and I’m chugging along and feeling like I’m actually starting to have a *book* here. This makes me very cheerful, and being cheerful makes me that much more willing to keep diving into the story. It’s a vicious circle. The good sort of vicious circle. :)

Ted, may a thousand gods rain blessings on his head, has gone into Dublin in search of a new printer for me. I have the *best* husband.

Okay. Lunch has been eaten, some of the dishes have been done, and I have gloated over my artist some more, so I should go back to work now.

Cheeeaaaaarge!

A hundred pages rearranged and revised so far. I have to write an all-new scene now, instead of modifying and rewriting older ones, and I still have some things to add into the revisions, but Is Better. 300 pages and huge amounts of work to go. Feeling good about it, though. *chugga chugga chugga*

I went through about the first half of the manuscript (a little shy of it) earlier today and decided at that point I needed to actually put the changes into the manuscript so I had some sense of what I was doing. I’m almost certainly going to need to get access to a printer by tomorrow evening. Hopefully by late tonight, actually, as I’d like to get through these first fourteen chapters today. I’m going into chapter ten now, so I might do it. But it’d be a hell of a lot easier to wrap my brain around if I can print out the changes I’ve made so far.

Well. I’ll worry about it tomorrow. Right now I gotta write a new scene.

(I imagine my mom is reading this and thinking, “Writers are weird,” just about now.)

i have regained most of my temper, at this point, and feel less screechy. this is in large part because i have the best daddy in the world and he got me a printout of the manuscript, which means i am now capable of doing meaningful edits on it. i will work very hard tomorrow and friday and send it to those beta readers i have contacted friday evening (my time).

which translates to: thank you, *all* of you, who volunteered as beta readers. i’ve got my victvolunteers, and i have notes back from one of them on the Absolute Crap Draft already, which is going to be insanely useful tomorrow.

i am, at the moment, pretty much emotionally exhausted. i actually napped on the train on the way into dublin, which is completely unlike me. i hoped to work on the ms on the way back, but the train was chock full, so no room to do so. rather than try to get myself involved in it tonight, i’ll just go to bed early and work hard tomorrow.

i had no idea how critical the printed manuscript stage was to me. i mean, i knew i needed it to do decent edits, but i did not know my brain would seize up and send me into a raging fury/panic/freakout/whatever. gah.

it was good to see mom and dad. they cheered me up. :) so did tammy, who was silly at me until i was more chipper. i have good friends and family.

bed now. so tired.

miles to mount doom: 404.5