Last night, I was working on Fedora some more, mainly writing up the basics for Immor (a country made for the furries) and Lamare (where Wind, Bear, and Moon takes place). I hit a point that I figured I had enough and started on the first chapter of WBM. I carefully updated it, but something felt just wrong with the writing. So, while Fluffy got a headstart on sleeping so she wouldn't be woken up by my snoring, I completely tore out the first chapter and changed it.

I'm happier with it. The original started in a manner close to Stone Blood did, with a descriptive opening. This time, it felt better to actually start with an explosion in the first paragraph and show the chapter from Welf's point of view instead of bouncing around twice. There was a time when I would change the POV every couple of paragraphs. Then, in one of the writing groups, they suggested I stick with one, or at least internal state (emotions, sensations) of one. Now, I can't stand it when I switch in the middle of a chapter. Amazing how one little advice can get so far; not unlike the "echo" discussion from Alana's journal. This time around, I'm looking for the sighs! Probably end up with a different echo this time.

The hard part is, when you don't write for a while, trying to get back into the grove. I call it "remembering how to write" but there are a couple hours, days, chapters, where you don't get that smooth joy of writing. It sputters, not flows. The first chapter is always the hardest on that. I was up to nearly midnight working on chapter 1 and its only half the done. Bah, at least the novel is already written and I know that I'm about 1.47% done (0.5 / 34 chapters). I also found a quirk with OpenOffice.org. When you write at the end, it is perfectly smooth, but editing in the middle of a long document creates a lot of redraw flashing. I'm breaking WBM into 34 chapters that I'll combine in the end to create it since writing at any speed gets hard on the eye.

This morning, I got a sort-of rejection from Steam Punk Magazine. Wrong title of the story, but I'm pretty sure New Girl was rejected, they just had an oops on the cut and paste. I sent back an email to verify, plus to ask if New Girl was appropriate for their magazine, just in case I could write a new one later for issue 3. Not sure what I'll do with New Girl, it might be too vague to actually be useful in a magazine. Maybe I should post it out on my website to give that a bit of bulk, it looks a tad anemic.

Let's try a status block!

» Wind, Bear, and Moon Rewrite: 0.015 (0.5 / 34 chapters)
» Summer Biking: 0.078 (31.2 / 400 km)