WETSILVER: A novel blog by Jayme Lynn Blaschke

Interlude: The Whale Below ~Fin~

2006-09-28T07:48:00.000-07:00

Three big glasses of caffine-laden, passion fruit-infused iced tea, more than one trip to the restroom and repeated playings of my symphonic Pink Floyd and highlights from Wagner's Ring Cycle (without words) CDs resulted, ultimately, in the completion of "The Whale Below" last night around 2 a.m. Nearly four hours of work netted me a little over 1,000 words on paper, which I freely admit is an abyssmal rate of productivity. In my defense, however, I'd like to point out I wrote a good way down two blind alleys before having to backtrack and start over.

The important thing is that the beast is complete. Sure, it took close to two months when I'd planned for two weeks. Yeah, it clocks in at 7,500 words where I'd purposely set out to keep it under 5,000. And did I mention that it's a complete and utter mess? True. I introduce characters only to merge them with others at various points in the story. About 5,500 words in, I realize one supporting character is actually a fellow who already appeared in "Being an Account of the Final Voyage of La Riaza" (or rather, will appear once Interzone publishes that story) so some significant changes need to be made in order to bring him in line with established continuity.

I've got two days before Turkey City with which to shape this mongrel of a story into something more closely resembling a purebred. And after all is said and done, I'm going to have to go through again and do a major dialog polish. And there's no telling what flaws and failings the Turkey Citizens will bring to my attention. But again I say to you, the important thing is that the beast is complete. Hopefully, by this time next week I'll be posting once again about progress on Wetsilver.

Now Playing: Various 25 Classical Masterpieces

Interlude: The Whale Below--the lost pages

2006-08-31T07:00:00.000-07:00

Turns out I did not lose a paragraph or two due to Tuesday night's power outtage. It was more like a page or two, which is frustrating since I was pretty pleased with what I was writing. So last night was taken up with reconstructing what had been written before. Unfortunately, someone, somewhere, turned off the tap and the words weren't flowing. I rewrote the missing verbiage and even slogged on a bit beyond the point where I'd gotten before everything went black, but I feel I'm grasping for the right words, not quite evoking the mood and atmosphere (and--dare I say it?--drama) that came so easily the night before.

"See there? They're made to latch automatically whenever they close, so big waves or somesuch don't swamp the whale and drag her down with a belly full of seawater," Galindo said. He grabbed the latch handle and gave it a pull. It refused to budge. "Bastard's got some nasty internal pressure built up. Must be from the sun's heating."

"Rot gas, more likely," Ayala said, taking a swallow from his flask. "It's been dead the better part of a week. It's decomposing. What do you expect?"

"Huh," grunted Galindo, bracing himself against the drum and tugging on the handle again. "Stand clear. With that much pressure, when I do get this open, it's going to--"

The lid flung open with a sudden foomp, jerking the handle away and clanging against the side of the drum. A geyser of fog billowed out like whalespout. A sticky, stagnant stink settled in over them.

I expect to sharpen up all the soft spots when I do my inevitable second pass in a couple of weeks--provided I ever finish it in the first place. Wetsilver is calling to me more strongly these days, which is a good sign. Well, there's a long weekend coming up, so maybe that'll be what I need to get this thing knocked out.

Now Playing: The Andrews Sisters 50th Anniversary Collection

Czech out them pipes

2006-08-30T13:40:00.000-07:00

Betcha didn't know that there's a strong bagpipe tradition in the Czech Republic. The unique, bellows-blown pipes of the region (which overlaps some with Germany and Poland) are called Ceske Dudy or Bohemian Bock. Are those not the coolest names for pipes ever? Almost makes me want to learn to play 'em.

Wanna hear what they sound like? Of course you do.

And just in case you're wondering, yes, this is part of my writing research. Look for the Ceske Dudy to make an appearance in Wetsilver.

Now Playing: Istanpitta Chevrefoil

Interlude: The Whale Below late last night

2006-08-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

Last night I buckled down. I said to myself, "Self, this story's taking too damn long. Quit farting around and get it finished already." So with the girls in bed and the dishes done, I jumped into the story with both feet. No checking out the blogs online for more commentary on the Ellison Hugo Awards fiasco. No checking email. Nothing but writing.

And lo and behold, a groove was gotten into. Some trouble spots upstream were identified and corrected. Characters were rearranged on the playing field. Then I charged headlong into furthering the plot. The whale was lifted. I knew I wouldn't finish it in that sitting, but I knew I'd get within shouting distance--and it wasn't even midnight yet. Folks, I tell ya, I was cooking with gas.

Then the power went out. Twelve o'clock, straight up. This whole side of the county, apparently. I had a few choice words for the power company, of course. Fortunately, years of journalism have instilled in me the habit of backing up regularly, so I figure I only lost a couple of paragraphs. But still, when I'm hitting the sweet spot and the words are flowing, disturbances in the Force are not what I want to be dealing with.

Now Playing: SixMileBidge Across the Water

Interlude: The Whale Below--Monday

2006-08-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

I worked a bit on this Sunday, but I was so tired that I managed less than half a page. The old neurons just wouldn't fire like they was supposed to. I returned to "The Whale Below" last night, though, and I fell into an easy rhythm. I had to stop for a couple of research points, but on the whole I'm happy with the quality of what I put down.

Capitan Valdez shook his head. "Magda, Magda, Magda. Where's your sense of adventure? Your sense of romance?"

Magda narrowed her eyes. "You watch your mouth. Capitan or no Capitan, I can cut you up for crab-bait just as easy as Chago."

"Curiosity, Magda. I mean curiosity."

"Yeah, only I don't got none of that. It's too much trouble. Say, I have an idea: Let's take what we got and not be here anymore."

I suspect I've passed the halfway point in the story, which would bring this one in at right around 5,000 words. I know, that's a pathetic production rate, even by my slow-writing standards. I can't explain it. But I'm really, really hoping to get the story wrapped up by this weekend. Then I can let it sit for a few weeks before a quick polish prior to Turkey City. And, of course, that means I'll be returning to Wetsilver before long as well.

Now Playing: Violent Femmes Why Do Birds Sing?

Interlude: The Whale Below--Wednesday

2006-08-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

I managed a good bit of writing last night. Tuesday's rewrite helped a great deal in getting me going on this one. It's starting to turn into the fun romp I'd hoped. On the other hand, I'm starting to see some of the plot creep worm its way back into the piece. It's still leaner than I normally write, but my gray matter is seeing different elements of the story and saying to me, "Yeah, we want short. But logically wouldn't it serve the story better if...?" Example: Last night First Mate Magda and Capitan Valdez were supposed to watch a particular event unfold from the pilothouse of La Aspiva Feroz. But then I realized 1) that isolated the reader from the drama, and B) the logical thing would be for Valdez to send Magda to precipitate said drama. So what was originally intended to be recounted in a few lines at most grew into several pages. It's still tight, but there's a lot more there than I'd originally planned. Here's the aftermath, which I particularly like:

"Looks like the wreck'll float well enough. I've reassigned that grapple crew to salvage," she announced, coming down the stair. "And I'm about to have to kill that Chago, Capitan. Cut him up into little pieces and feed him to the crabs."

Capitan Valdez didn't turn from the open windscreen. He leaned out, looking over the kelper whale carcass below. "Not sure if I can spare the body, Magda. Is it necessary?"

"That sonofabitch been thinking impure thoughts 'bout me. I let a man get away with that once before. Ain't making the same mistake twice."

Capitan Valdez nodded thoughtfully. "Well, use your best judgement. But try not to spook the rest of the crew."

I realized this exchange would take place somewhere in the story as I was writing page 1. I just didn't know the context or the circumstances. Now I do. And Magda is shaping up to be a great character. Pity poor Chago--his death will be neither happy nor heroic.

Now Playing: The Smithereens 11

Interlude: The Whale Below

2006-08-16T07:12:00.000-07:00

I had a number of different things to deal with last night--some of writerly import, some not--but I was happy to eventually turn my attention to "The Whale Below" roundabout midnight, since I hadn't touched it for close to a week. I'd given it a bit of back-of-the-mind thought during Armadillocon, and was pretty clear on elements I wanted to change and rework. I've learned my lesson, to some degree, after leaving all those errors creep into Wetsilver unchallenged. So I dove into "The Whale Below" with gusto, changing the viewpoint character (major course correction, that one) and adding small, telling details throughout while cutting large swaths of description that bog things down. I really, really want to keep this story lean and tight, as my natural inclination as a writer is a more sprawling, kudzu-style prose. Here's a sample of last night's labors:

The grapples lashed out in rapid-fire cadence. The great barbed prongs
speared the smaller airships, easily piercing the outer envelopes to find
solid purchase within the superstructure. The cables tightened. The
grappling teams winched their prey to La Aspiva. Timbers groaned as the
whalers bellied up against La Aspiva's hull. Matchlocks hot and rapiers
drawn, the five boarding parties--three men each--slid across on tethers hooked
to the cables.

"I'm not hearing any killing. Why am I not hearing any killing?" demanded
Capitan Valdez. "There's always some heroes amongst the fishchasers. They
always complicate what should otherwise be a simple--"

"Mateo's signalling from the pilot house of his whaler," Magda said, leaning
forward against the glass windscreen for a better view. She frowned. "He's
shouting something." She unlatched the screen and pushed it open.

"--deserted," Mateo called out. "The whole damn ship's empty."

When all the cuts are subtracted and new stuff added, total wordcount only went up by about a page or so. Not a lot of progress, but the story's got much stronger legs now. Fingers are crossed that it will come in at under 5,000 words, I'll finish it up before long, and it will dazzle those steely-eyed vultures when I take it to Turkey City next month.

Now Playing: Robert Plant Now and Zen

Interlude: The Whale Below

2006-08-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

In between my bouts of slackitude, I occasionally get stuff done. Last night I started a new story, working title of "The Whale Below." I already see a bunch of things I want to rework, but this gives you a taste of this particular adventure's flavor:

The buitre dropped below the scattered cloud deck, a silver dart with black lightning bolts emblazoned upon its bow. Props spinning furiously from the four nacelles boxing the stern, La Aspiva Feroz swept down upon the whaling fleet with the sun at its stern. Measuring 445 lethal feet bow-to-stern, the buitre dwarfed the smaller airships by a nearly four-to-one margin.

Capitan Baldomero Valdez sat on the edge of his seat, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together with nervous energy. His eyes, almost as dark as his beard, flicked from crewman to crewman in the pilot house. "Tactical situation, if you will, Magda," he asked in a voice as soft as nails. "What does our prey look like today?"

"Five whalers. All chasers. And all anchored to a kelper whale. A big one, too, from the looks of it," Magda answered, one hand holding a spyglass to her eye, the other gripping the elevator wheel. Her shoulders were almost as square as her jaw, and her red hair was chopped short into a curly knot atop her head. She lowered her spyglass and frowned. "I don't see a barge."

"Fortunate for us. Six less bodies to worry about. Señor Tavares, inform grapple station one to hold themselves in reserve in the event one of those chasers tries a breakaway."

"The Whale Below" is set in the same reality as the story I recently sold to Interzone, the over-titled "Being an Account of the Final Voyage of La Riaza: A Circumstance in Eight Parts." The kelper whales made a cameo in that one, and I wanted to do something where their weird ecology was a little bit more front-and-center. I'm hoping to have it finished before Armadillocon next week, and I'm also hoping this one clocks in at under 5K words rather than the 8-10K most of my stories from the past couple of years have. By this time next week, we should have a pretty good idea on both of those counts.

And when I put this one to bed, it's back to Wetsilver. Yay!

Now Playing: Joanne Shenandoah and Lawrence Laughing Orenda

Interlude: My kingdom for a title

2006-08-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

I finished up the revisions to the currently untitled novelette and turned 'em in the other night. Thankfully, word has come back from Helix that my efforts are acceptable. Yay! I also understand that said story is being held to run in the spring issue, which means I'll have at least one publication to look forward to in 2007. I'm pretty proud of this story, even though I know many readers will probably have issues with it. I tried to do a number of things in it I'd never attempted before, and after many false starts and blind alleys, it appears I may have succeeded. At least a little bit.

Of course, it's still lacking a good title. Every potential title I come up with around midnight reads like crap warmed over the next morning. I've got a long list of potentials now, and none of 'em are any good. I just discovered the presumed front-runner was already used as a short story title by Charles Beaumont back in the '50s. Does that matter? I didn't recognize the story, but then again, I haven't read much Beaumont. Ah well, I've got five months or so to come up with something better.

Now Playing: ZZ Top El Loco

Interlude: Writing stuff

2006-07-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

I know I've been quiet in regards to my writing, but I have indeed been busy. I've just had nothing that's postable. The transcription of the Peter Beagle interview was finished early in the week, and I've been working on the Helix rewrite since then, as well as spending time on the Armadillocon Writers Workshop, which is coming up in just under two weeks. So, yeah, I'm not slacking.

Now Playing: Various The Best of Ravel

Interlude: Speaking with Beagle

2006-07-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

The break from Wetsilver is in full effect. I haven't looked at the novel since last Thursday, and won't again for at least another week. Since then, I've done some editor-requested tweaks to one story, looked at the bigger rewrite project for Helix with a mix of consternation and dread, and done a heck of a lot of transcribing on the Peter S. Beagle interview.

I'm quickly rediscovering one of the main reasons I stopped doing interviews. Transcribing the interviews are tedious and time-consuming. I've spent several hours on this thing already, and I'm not yet halfway finished. And that doesn't even take editing into consideration. Here's an interesting exchange we had, pauses and verbal placeholders cleaned up for clarity's sake:

You've said elsewhere that you aren't a particularly huge fan of unicorns. Do you ever feel like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Has the unicorn become your own personal version of Sherlock Holmes?

It's not quite the same thing, although it's a legitimate question. One of my very favorite writers, James Stephens, got so tired of being known only for a very successful novel, The Crock of Gold--it overshadowed several other novels of his which were very good--that he just quit writing novels all together. He spent the last 25 years of his life writing poetry and broadcasting for the BBC, which I'm really sorry about, although he was a fine poet.

I know Conan Doyle came to hate Sherlock Holmes really acutely. He wrote historic fiction which he was very proud of, he wrote a lot of different stories set in different places. He wrote the Professor Challenger stories. And yet there was this goddamn Holmes that was all people wanted to hear about. Doyle really did make a serious effort to kill him off but he was pressured into bringing him back.

No, I don't feel like that about the unicorn at all. The Last Unicorn is dedicated to Robert Nathan, and Robert called me when he read the book. He said to me, "You're going to be stuck with this the way I'm stuck with Portrait of Jennie." Robert wrote close to 40 novels, and Portrait of Jennie is not the best one. But it was made into a movie with Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten about 10 years after he'd written it and it's still considered a minor classic. Nathan said, "There are times when I hate that book, because it overshadowed so much better stuff I did--and I know I did better stuff. You'll do better stuff than The Last Unicorn. Other times I think of all the wonderful things that have happened to me because of Portrait of Jennie, and I know I can't possibly hate it. You'll go back and forth with the unicorn forever. That's just the way it is. There'll be people that know it and don't know that you ever wrote everything else. That's how it is. It's undoubtedly better to be remembered for one book than not remembered at all.”

So, it's a mixed bag kind of thing. It's opened doors, and it's given me generations of readers that I never imagined having. It was a nightmare to write, as I've told audiences often, and there are books like The Innkeeper's Song that matter more to me in a personal sense. In a way, I think of The Innkeeper's Song as my first grown-up book, and that's a personal meaning. I don't know how else to explain it.

So, no overwhelming compulsion to write "This Day All Unicorns Die"?

No, no nothing like that. I do, however, belong to a small, informal group dedicated to writing stories that have no bloody elves in them! That's another matter. The word we use isn't "bloody" either!

I should finish the transcription in another day or so, depending on how much time I'm able to devote to it. It's a good interview, a really good interview, and I'm looking foward to seeing it in final form.

Now Playing: Martin Hummel and Karl-Ernst Schroder 17th Century German Lute Songs

W.6K: Slamming the brakes

2006-07-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

Wrote 600 words on Wetsilver last night, wrapping up chapter 10. I just discovered two new characters that I hadn't anticipated, who will be interesting supporting players the rest of the way. One, interestingly enough, is a composer in the mold of the great Viennese composers of the 17th-18th centuries. I certainly didn't see that coming.

32,750 / 90,000
(36.4%)

I had a section picked out to post here--in fact, I'm looking at it now--but I've decided not to. I'm not happy with it. I'm not happy with a lot of what I've written on the novel the last two weeks. The feeling's been growing steadily that this train jumped the tracks a ways back, and the increasing difficulty in writing anything that works has convinced me. When I'm in trouble with a story, my tendancy is to flail around, narratively speaking, writing and writing in the vaguely-realized hope of somehow finding the right path again and moving on.

That's not happening. Rediscovering the right path, I mean.

I've written some good stuff, don't get me wrong, but the whole is disjointed and inconsistent. Something's got to give. I just don't know what. It may be that I visualized the opening quarter of the book strongly, but my imagination and planning got fuzzy beyond that, and outlining would help. I'm not convinced on that count, though, since I already know what's coming next. It could be that I'm creatively drained on Wetsilver. I've been working on it steadily for two months without coming up for a breath (Apollocon excepted). I've never pushed myself that long and hard on any single project before, and coupled with the decline in sleep time, well, it's wearing and wearying. And that's certainly possible, although I have no valid personal comparisons for reference. It may simply be a case of all those minor errors and imperfections I noted in earlier chapters accumulating and developing enough gravitational mass to throw the plot off. Which is possible, as leaving trouble spots alone and pressing on isn't my normal mode of operation. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to deal with the problem.

I don't want to step away from Wetsilver, because I'm more than a week behind my self-imposed schedule already. But I don't want to keep throwing good effort after bad, especially if it adds to my growing frustration. I may put it aside for a week or two, let it lay fallow so I can develop a clearer perspective on what's going wrong. I do, after all, have plenty of other projects that could fill the time--that Peter Beagle interview, a radio script I'm supposed to be writing with Mark Finn, a near-future short I've been discussing with Chris Nakashima-Brown, and two other short stories that would be offshoots of "Being an Account of the Final Voyage of La Riaza: A Circumstance in Eight Parts," which I recently sold to Interzone. And then there's that other rewrite I owe Helix. So, lots of stuff I need to do, and a Turkey City workshop coming up on the horizon.

I expect I'll at least tackle the Beagle interview, since although it's time-consuming, it is relatively stress-free. And there's a paycheck waiting for me on the other end of it. After that, I've no idea. But happily, I've fallen into a good rhythm of nightly work, so I will be productive. Just maybe not on Wetsilver.

Now Playing: Buffalo Springfield Retrospective

W.9K: Rokanyky

2006-07-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

I sat down last night resigned to scratching out maybe a page worth of story, so imagine my surprise when I got rolling and ended up with 900 words--just short of my increasingly rarely-met nightly goal of 1,000. I stayed up somewhat later than usual in doing so, but I'm not hurting as badly this morning as I expected. And guess what? Jachym's finally in Rokanyky!

Ctibor turned them onto an avenue so wide it had a medium lined with winter-bare trees running down the middle. A band of two clarinets, a violin and bagpipes performed a whirling, bouncing tune on the edge of a park filled with naked trees and still-green bushes. A handful of people had gathered to watch, and passers by tossed coins into the upturned hat on the grass.

Jachym turned around to watch them as they passed. He'd never seen a band like that before. But then again, he'd seen more people in the past hour than he had in the entirety of his life up to that point.

"Nevermind that lot. They're just scroungers. Lucky they even know which end to blow into. Where you're going, you'll be seeing real musicians soon enough," Ctibor said. "Turn around now, I want you to see this. You being desert-bred, this ought to be quite a sight for you."

The coach crossed onto a bridge as wide as the avenue. Trees continued to grow in the medium. Flanking the bridge on either side was a low, arched wall of gold-veined ivory marble. Upon this wall, evenly spaced, were elaborate sculptures of dozens upon dozens of women, each one double life size.

"This is the Nádherny Bridge, the largest in Rokanyky--and Rokanyky's got plenty of bridges to choose from," Ctibor said. "We're passing over the Trpytit se Jezero. Glitters like that year 'round, as long as the clouds hold back. The falls over the dam at the far end that are pretty impressive, too. You can get a good view of them from the barge docks."

"What--who--are the statues?" Jachym asked. One woman stood proudly, holding a staff tipped with a znak above her head. Another, leaning on a crutch and missing her right leg, reached out to children gathered about her.

"Those, young Jáhen, are the likenesses of every Mysl that ever was. There's 154 of them, if you care to count," Ctibor said. "The opposite side has statues of the Krev. There's 162 of those."

I also managed to work on that short story rewrite for a good bit last night as well, before I picked up Wetsilver. The rewrite's is something of a challenge, because the climactic scene must be dramatically rethought. I'm having to make some tough decisions with it, so my fingers are crossed that they'll be the correct ones.

32,000 / 90,000
(35.6%)

Now Playing: Sheena Easton No Strings

W.25K: Slow going

2006-07-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

Only around 250 words went down on the page last night, and damned if I know why. This is one instance where I clearly saw what came next in the narrative, and even had fully formed snippets of dialogue forming amidst all that gray matter filling my head, but... The closest I can come to describing it is that the words didn't come out in the right order. Weird, I know. One character would say something. But he hadn't been established in the scene yet. So I had to work backwards and establish him. But then he was addressing something that hadn't been established yet, either. But addressing that issue disrupted the opening of the scene. I'm not allowing myself to be a perfectionist with this first draft, but the prose has to at least be coherent enough for me to understand when I come back through later to fix it. I'll tell you, last night was downright maddening. Hopefully tonight will be an improvement.

31,050 / 90,000
(34.5%)

Now Playing: Aerosmith Greatest Hits

W.5K: Tales of Schism

2006-07-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

I suppose I ought to post my writing progress from last night, lest you folks think I'm slacking. Only about 500 words, but that's not bad considering I didn't get to sit down and work until 11 p.m. or so.

"They killed them all?"

Vondra nodded solemnly. "All of them in the Great Církev. Between Vladislav's betrayal of the true Strelecs, and the confrontation with Mysl Agáta... a single day was all it took to end the line of Strelecs, unbroken since the time of Gert. Eighty-three men died, both true and apostate. Maybe half that number were away in other cities, plotting other blasphemy. The Warrant of Apostasy fell on these, too. When Tvůrce withdrew his Blood Gift, they fled civilized lands. Few were ever seen again."

Jachym thought for a moment. "Were you... were you in the Great Církev with the Mysl?"

Vondra laughed loudly. "I look that old to you? Oh, Jachym, my vanity'll never be a problem with you around!"

Jachym reddened, ducking his head.

Vondra touched his hand gently. "Jachym, no. You didn't offend. I love your innocent honesty."

He tensed at her words.

"No, I wasn't there. The Schism happened ten years before my time. There are a handful of Tsukrs and Knězka who witnessed those days, but they're very few these days. And the Knez are fewer still. They are old men, Jachym, most older than your Knez Borivoj, and when they die there will be no more."

I'm worried that most of this chapter will ultimately end up in the Big Info Dump In The Sky. There's lots of explanation on parade, but more cryptic questions will manifest shortly. Ah well, that's what first drafts are for, right?

30,800 / 90,000
(34.2%)

Now Playing: Patsy Cline 12 Greatest Hits

W0K: Other writing

2006-07-10T08:37:00.000-07:00

Zero words written on Wetsilver, but that's not indicative of a wasted night. I did get a pressing book review finished for SFSite.com. Also handled some other writing-related tasks that needed handling, as well as exchanging email with an editor who has some significant rewrite requests for a particular story of mine. So the long and short of it is that I had a productive night, but Wetsilver languished.

Oh, yeah. Then Calista started throwing up in the middle of the night, so I didn't get much sleep. The joys of fatherhood.

Now Playing: Cheap Trick Greatest Hits

W1.3K: Things that go pee in the night

2006-07-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

Despite unexpected company and an enormous load of distractions, I had a productive night of writing and have finally passed the one-third milestone. I actually made up a tiny bit of my wordage deficit, although I'm still 4,700 words short of where I need to be. After a disturbingly slow start, I fell into a pretty good rhythm, and could've kept going for a while longer if I hadn't started nodding off. It was at that point I looked at the clock and realized it was 2 in the A.M. Suffice to say, I'm a wee bit punchy this morning.

After dinner, Jachym lay in his bed, wrapped in a warm quilt. Gauthier snored loudly across the room. Jachym stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep despite a full mug of beer and two bowls of barley soup. Sighing, he kicked off his covers and put on his bondsash.

"What're you doing?" mumbled Radek from the bed next to him.

"Gotta piss," said Jachym, slipping out the door.

He did have to piss, he realized as he walked down the hall. But he didn't want to go back and use the chamber pot where Radek and Gauthier could see. And it was too cold to go all the way out to the outbuilding. By way of compromise, Jachym opened the back door of the Kostel and pissed off the rear step. Looking at the muddy puddle he'd made, he made a mental note to watch his step in the morning.

I've mentioned before how this book keeps throwing surprises at me, and last night was no exception. I finished chapter 9 fully expecting chapter 10 to open with Jachym and the rest of Tsukr Vondra's party rolling into the great city of Rokanyky. Nope. Turns out they're stopping at some of the towns along the way for much-needed rest and good food leavened with infodump. Imagine that. And Tsukr Vondra is about hear some news of what's been going on in Rokanyky while she's been gone that she finds quite troubling.

30,300 / 90,000
(33.7%)

Now Playing: Three Dog Night Joy to the World: Their Greatest Hits

W0K: Chapter mindset

2006-07-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

The postponed July 4 fireworks display was last night, so we took the girls out to watch and didn't get back to the house until after 10. Factor in the decompression, prepping the girls for bed, reading a chapter of The Last Unicorn in there, and I was too bushed to write anything. Which sucks. I'm more hopeful for tonight.

Since I don't have a chapter excerpt to post, I thought I'd comment on something I've been mulling over for quite a while now--mainly why I suspect earlier attempts at writing Wetsilver have failed (at least in part). Other than The Broken Balance, the epic first book of a high fantasy trilogy I wrote back in high school, all of my fiction has been of the short fiction variety. I hadn't realized it until fairly recently, but every time I've started a novel--yes, even The Broken Balance--I approached it as I would short fiction. That is, in my mind, each chapter was the equivalent of one short story. I don't know where this mindset came from, because I didn't read those famous "fix-up" SF novels from the '50s and '60s (Simak's City and the like) until college or thereafter. But that view was firmly entrenched.

Whenever I wrote a chapter, I built is as a self-contained story unto itself. There was a beginning, middle and end, even if said chapter didn't have narrative elements that lent themselves to this approach. The result was that I essentially encouraged potential readers to put the book down at every opportunity. "Oh, here's a good stopping place then. I'll go ahead and watch the nightly news then pick up again tomorrow." This is exactly the opposite effect a writer wants--the goal of a novel (one of the goals, at least) is to suck the reader into your fictional world and get them so engrossed that they don't want to leave. Showing them the door at every chapter break isn't the way to do this.

Now, I'm not saying I'm building in a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter. Well, there is one at the end of chapter 1, but that's a special case, right? What I am doing is ending each chapter with a little question, a little void of knowledge, something to provoke a sense of anticipation in the reader, a need to know "What comes next?" At least, that's my hope. I have no idea how successful I've been thus far, and undoubtably much will change in the second draft. But I'm pleased that even the evil, uncooperative chapter 9 end with a promise of Interesting Stuff that should pique the reader's interest. And I think the novel-in-progress is much stronger for it.

Now Playing: Various Celtic Moods

W1K: Evil trembles at my keystrokes

2006-07-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

The foul beast, it is slain! After a thousand words written last night, the Chapter from Hell is over and done with. It took me almost two weeks to write the thing--including the time lost due to Armadillocon and prepping for the Peter Beagle interview--and it fought me every step of the way. I'm now almost exactly a week behind on my production schedule, and I don't know if that's deficit I'll be able to make up. The good news is that I shouldn't have nearly as much difficulty with this thing for the next half dozen chapters or so. Knock wood.

A full week after reaching the first road fort, Ctibor reined the coach to a halt in late afternoon. Snow fell steadily, as if it were determined to not let up until spring. The constant wind whipped it around into a pale fog. It was shin deep on the ground, but still light and powdery, easily passed through.

"What's wrong, Ctibor?" asked Vondra, opening the coach door.

"Nothing, Excellency," he answered, jumping down from the driver's seat. His boots left deep impressions in the snow. "I wanted the boys to see this."

Radek came out of the coach behind Vondra. Jachym and Gauthier--watching each other warily--climbed down from opposite sides.

"What do you see, boys? Tell me what you see out there."

Jachym peered into the distance. At first, all he saw was more of the irregular, white landscape he'd seen for the past few days. Then he realized part of it was darker than the rest. A wall--close, too. Less than a stone's throw ahead of them. It wasn't much--maybe the height of a man--but it stretched out of site in either direction, broken only by a gap directly ahead for the road to pass through.

"It's a wall."

"That it is," Ctibor said. "And do any of you know what's on the other side of it?"

Jachym, Radek and Gauthier looked at each other in bafflement, more concerned with keeping their feet moving to stay warm than the other side of a wall.

"You shouldn't try to be dramatic, Ctibor. You're not good at it. And definitely not in this kind of weather," Vondra said. "That's a wall of boundary, boys. On the other side is the Rokanyky basin. We've made it."

When I wrap this novel up--late September is still my target date--there's going to he a whole heck of a lot of rewriting and revisioning left to do before Wetsilver is in anything close to coherent form. And chapter 9 is at the top of my list for wholesale slash-and-burn editing. When the whole thing is finished, I'm pretty sure I'll have a better overall vision of the story and a clear idea of how to make trouble spots like chapter 9 contribute more effectively to the overall narrative. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

29,000 / 90,000
(32.2%)

Now Playing: Don Henley California Desperados

W.6K: End in sight

2006-07-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

Wrote 600 words last night, give or take. They were nowhere near as sucky as those from the previous night. That, or the beer was clouding my judgement. Fingers crossed that I can finish up the Chapter From Hell tonight and get on with the rest of the book. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it.

Oh yeah. Happy 4th of July, everyone! We're in the middle of a sizeable thunderstorm, so it looks like the city's fireworks display is gonna be a washout.

27,850 / 90,000
(30.9%)

Now Playing: Leroy & Stitch

W.25K: Whole lotta nuthin' goin' on

2006-07-03T07:15:00.000-07:00

Two hours and only 250 words to show for it. Ouch. And I'm not happy with any of those 250 words, either. This chapter's doing its damnedest to derail the whole book. Tonight I'm going to try a different tact. Goodness knows it can't be any less effective than what I've been doing.

27,250 / 90,000
(30.3%)

Now Playing: Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1

W.5K: Tusk

2006-06-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

I will be so, so, so glad when this chapter is finished. It's an utter and complete struggle to get anything on paper. It's like that section in The Fellowship of the Ring after they escape the Balrog but before they reach Lothlorien. Not a whole heck of a lot happens, but you can't get from point A to point B without it. Still, it does give me a chance to reveal some interesting (at least, I think it's interesting) information about Lidozrout anatomy:

Jachym snorted. "I still hate them. I hate them from their piggy noses to their curly horns."

"They don't have horns."

Jachym stared at Ctibor as if he were mad.

"They don't have horns," Ctibor repeated. "Lidozrout have tusks. They grow from the upper jaw up through the snout. That's why most of the ones you'll see have them jutting straight up between the eyes, with only a small curve to it. It's the old boars that get that corkscrew look to 'em. Those tusks get so big though, it pushes their eyes out of the sockets. Can't see worth a damn."

"Tusks?"

"Tusks," Ctibor nodded. "The older the boar, the more cockeyed they get. The big ones might be the toughest and strongest, but they're also the easiest to kill. That big boar in the Kostel, he sent his young warriors to attack first. That wasn't cowardice, it was strategy."

I love it that the Lidozrout are far more complex as a society than they appear at first glance. Which is to say they're not mere cannon-fodder hordes of orcs with a hard-to-pronounce species name. And they're not evil, at least not in a strict sense. While the Lidozrout have a presence all the way through Wetsilver, they're never front and center, which I think makes them all the more intriguing and mysterious. If Wetsilver sells, however, I have the vague outlines of a sequel--or rather a follow-up, since none of the Wetsilver characters would appear in it--in which the "Matter of the Lidozrout" is very much the crux of the story, indeed. But, ah, first things first as they say.

27,000 / 90,000
(30.0%)

Now Playing: The Police Message in a Box

W.7K: Return to work

2006-06-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

I'm in a quandry. I actually got back to writing last night, and managed 700 words, but it was a struggle. After an hour or so of staring at a blank screen (not entirely staring--a couple of false starts were scattered in there) I realized what my problem was: I had no idea what happened next. The next major beat in the story doesn't happen until the following chapter, so this one is mostly bridge work with some additional characterization. Once I actually realized and internalized this fact, I was able to shift mental gears and make something suitable up.

The long layoff from working on the novel did gave me a bit of perspective on what I've written thus far, and--revisiting that Tetris analogy--I'm seeing some significant gaps in the narrative. Particularly in the last two chapters. So I'm torn between going back and fixing these shortcomings now, while they're fresh in my mind, and forging ahead with the intent of coming back to them at some future date once the overall novel is significantly closer to being finished.

The thing is, I don't entirely trust myself to remember these specific trouble spots--or rather, remember my current "obvious solutions" to fix the individual problems. I could make notes, sure, but my notes are either brief to the point of being cryptic, or so detailed I might as well just go ahead and make the changes now. Decisions, decisions...

26,450 / 90,000
(29.4%)

Now Playing: Eric Clapton 24 Nights

W1.1K: Rytír honor

2006-06-22T07:48:00.000-07:00

I'm discovering that writing a novel is much like playing a slow-motion game of Tetris. As I'm writing along, oddly-shaped pieces of the story suddenly present themselves to me, and I have to figure out just how they fit. And fit they do, often in unexpected ways. But on occasion, when the unexpected piece is obvious in its role--the perfect element to make a particular sequence work--it also exposes holes I've left in the line of Tetris blocks several layers down. Holes I didn't know existed when that particular level (or chapter in this case) was written. The difference between playing Tetris and novel writing is that I get to go back and fill in those holes on my timetable. And last night's output--1,100 words or so--exposed several holes that, once filled, will make me look like a clever and shrewd plotter.

"Let me accompany you, Excellency. Please."

"I don't need your blade to finish this, Ctibor. Help our injured boys. That's where you can do the most good." She placed her hand on his cheek, cutting of his protest. Her thumb traced a znak. "You've acquitted yourself well, Ctibor. Your Rytír honor is fulfilled. Don't taint it with misplaced pride."

Ctibor lowered his head, and the twin blades of the krukh melted back into the hilt. "Yes, Excellency." Without another word, he ran to the coach.

Satisfied Ctibor would care for the wounded, the Tsukr turned, grim faced, and followed the Lidozrout into the Kostel.

"She can't... can't go after them alone," said Jachym as Ctibor returned.

"She's a Tsukr, boy. She can do any damn thing she wants."

For my reading this weekend at Apollocon I'm planning on doing a section from Wetsilver. In fact, I'm leaning toward a chapter excerpt in which the passage above concludes things. I read chapter 1 at Armadillocon last fall, and it generated positive response, so I'm anxious to test out this more action-oriented, multi-character sequence from deeper into the book to see how it plays to the masses.

Last night I reached the end of the current chapter, and instead of figuring total word count by adding that night's production to the previous total, I recalculated using the cumulative page count. The resulting additional 500-word jump is reflected in the progress meter below (just so you folks don't think I'm intentionally cheating or anything).

25,750 / 90,000
(28.6%)

Now Playing: Lynryd Skynryd Skynryd's Innryds

W.3K

2006-06-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

Over-tired and congested is not a good combination for good word production. I packed it in and went to bed last night after managing just 300 hard-fought words. The scene's not particularly difficult. It was a case of struggling to remain focused enough to put down one word after another. Here's hoping tonight goes a little better so that I might make up some of that 700-word deficit.

24,100 / 90,000
(26.8%)

Now Playing: Andean Fusion Spirit of the Incas

W1K: Lidozrout

2006-06-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

Wrote another thousand words last night, despite the slight handicap of not being able to breathe. Turned out to be a difficult passage to get down on paper because of the need to convey the choreography clearly. Sometimes scenes play out theatrically in the mind's eye very clearly, but translating that vivid imagery into effective prose can be challenging.

Gauthier and Radek burst into the room, hooting and catcalling. Their momentum carried them several steps in even as they saw the Lidozrout and tried to stop. Gauthier's foot slipped on the bloody floor. Radek ran into him, and they both fell.

The pepper-blue Lidozrout leapt over Jachym to block the doorway.

Jachym lay as still as he could, choking back the pain and terror. His right hand covered the searing wound in his left breast, pressing his bondsash into it to try and stanch the bleeding. He couldn't move his left arm, but it felt as if a thousand tiny crystal shards had buried themselves in it. Through the fog of pain his mind grasped two things-- if he lay where he was, he would bleed to death. And if he moved, the Lidozrout would kill him quicker.

Fun stuff, eh?

On a related note, I just now looked at the calendar and realized I'd be in Houston for Apollocon this weekend. Which means I'll not likely have any time at all for writing. It may be good to take a break and recharge the batteries for a few days (my old Compaq laptop died a year or two back), and technically I don't shedule any writing for the weekends, but still. I worry, with my history of procrastination and slow writing, that if I fall behind now I'll not catch up in time to have this book finished by World Fantasy. Such is life.

23,800 / 90,000
(26.4%)

Now Playing: Blue Öyster Cult Workshop of the Telescopes

W1K: Sklo Kostel

2006-06-19T08:06:00.000-07:00

I wrote a thousand words over the weekend, which pleases me because of how on-the-go we were, with little time to spare amidst all the family activities. I continue to be fascinated by all the unexpected details and revelations that are cropping up in scenes I'd long thought cut-and-dried in my mind's eye. The Sklo Kostel, for example:

They rode deeper into Braclev. The buildings grew progressively larger and grander. Jachym stared with wide eyes, craning his neck as they passed beneath high towers. The avenue opened to a broad plaza. The rubble from a destroyed building lay strewn about, surrounding the broken remnants of walls. Shards of brilliantly colored glass glittered everywhere. Trees that had once ringed the building had been cut, and weedy grasses and candleleaf crowded for growing space around the long-dead stumps. Most of the buildings bordering the plaza showed scorch-marks from fire. Ctibor halted the coach.

"Is this the right one, Excellency?" Ctibor asked.

"I believe so, Ctibor. Thank you," Vondra said, climbing down. "There were seven Kostels in Braclev before the Apostasy. All were destroyed. This would've been the Sklo Kostel, I think. Its walls were said to be completely covered by cut crystal that caught and reflected every mote of light to reach it. Even in moonlight it was said to dazzle."

Jachym stared at the wreckage. It hurt to even imagine how beautiful it once had been. Gauthier, Radek and Dobromil climbed down from the rear bench and joined Jachym.

Jachym knelt and picked up a scarlet crystal the length of his thumb. It glittered brilliantly, even under overcast skies. He tested the pointed edge with a fingertip, and jerked back. A bead of blood, the same color as the shard, welled up on his finger.

22,800 / 90,000
(25.3%)

Now Playing: Herman's Hermits Greatest Hits

W.7K: The Deserted City

2006-06-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

Very tired. Hitting that weekly sleep-deprivation wall after staying up too late to write night after night. But I put in 700 good words, and Jachym's finally reached the deserted city:

Reaching high ground, Jachym bent over to catch his breath. The rectangular, powdery-green leaves of a salt-the-earth vine curled around his feet. He looked up, and sucked in his breath.

A great wall stood in the distance, thick with turrets. Behind its protection was a city, full of soaring towers and enormous buildings with walls of faded whites, reds and yellows. On all sides of the city sprawled vast fields crisscrossed by canals--all of which were as dry as the river. No people moved. No dogs barked. No sheep bleated. In the sky, far above, a vulture circled, riding a thermal.

On what was once productive cropland, now only salt-the-earth vines grew. As far as the eye could see, thicker than Jachym imagined possible. It was a desert of green. The leaves rustled dryly as the hot wind sighed over them.

"What is this place?" whispered Jachym.

He should enter during tonight's writing, and I'm excited about that. This whole sequence is one that existed in my head, fairly well-developed, since the very first draft of this story I attempted mumbley mumbley years ago. But the scenes have evolved. Realization struck me last night that certain things have changed in the way events will unfold, and there's a heightened degree of complexity in the coming events. For example, I had no idea why Dobromil suddenly showed up in the narrative several chapters back. Now I do. It's fascinating how the mind will put the proper pieces of the puzzle in place even when you've no idea how they ultimately fit into the Big Picture.

21,800 / 90,000
(24.2%)

Now Playing: The Beatles Abbey Road

W1.1K: Blood Gift

2006-06-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

A good writing night, despite a late start for me. I've got a fairly clear idea of where things are headed these next two chapters, so the flow of words is much more robust. Jachym is finally getting some much-needed one-on-one time with Tsukr Vondra, and finally learning just what he's gotten into. It's not something he'd have chosen had he other options, but compared to being eaten by Lidozrout, it ain't half bad.

"Do you know why you are here?"

"Not exactly. There's some kind of religious training in Rokanyky you're taking me to. So I can be a better bondservant for the Kostels, I guess."

She shook her head. "Your being a bondservant has nothing to do with this. At least, not directly. Have you ever heard of Strelecs?"

"No."

"Well, you, Radek, Dobromil and Gauthier are all Strelec candidates. It's a religious vocation for men. It demands great dedication and devotion. And yes, there is much training and leaning that go along with it."

"So then, it's like a Knez?"

"More than a Knez. Much more. Strelecs are equal to Tsukrs."

"Will I work blood magic?"

Vondra winced. "Yes. But we prefer it called 'Blood Gift.' It's a gift to men from Tvůrce."

What's particularly interesting to me is the way the current chapter is unfolding. I'd planned for the events approaching at the end of this chapter to take place at the conclusion of the last chapter, but that one grew too long. I'd worried that the held over scenes weren't enough to support a full chapter, but it's shaping up now to be one of the longest chapters I've written thus far. Funny how that works.

21,100 / 90,000
(23.4%)

Now Playing: Salsa del Rio Que Siga La Tradicion

W1K: 20K edition!

2006-06-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

Last night's writing produced a thousand words, bringing the total word count on Wetsilver up to 20,000. Yay! That's roughly only a fifth of the way through the book, give or take, but it's a significant psychological milestone for me. Except for the wretched, not-quite-famous-enough-to-be-infamous Broken Balance, every novel I've ever seriously started tended to fizzle out somewhere in the 15-20,000 word range. Reaching 20K without any significant hiccups is encouraging. The fact that I started this novel reclaimation project back on May 24 and have worked steadily and productively on it since then is also encouraging. That's four weeks, and I'm averaging 5,000 words a week--exactly on my arbitrary, self-imposed productivity target. At this rate--barring any inspired bursts of productivity or major writing disruptions--I'll have 60K words in the bank by Armadillocon and have the whole thing finished by September, with more than a month to spare before World Fantasy rolls around. Knock wood.

Here's some of last night's production. Again, we're seeing Jachym come out of the shock of recent days and start to assert himself more. Also, the relationship between him and Ctibor is developing differently than I'd originally envisioned it.

Three times they emptied the coach and pushed it up a stairstep of boulders when the horses couldn't manage on their own. After the third time, with the day's shadows growing long, Ctibor announced they'd make camp there, under the shelter of a low cliff. The location troubled Jachym.

"Um... Ctibor?" he said finally, having screwed up his courage for twenty minutes before approaching the older man. "I mean no disrespect to you, sir, but you see... well, is this really a good place to camp?"

Ctibor eyed him. "What do you mean, kid?"

"I just thought, you know, this might be a bad site." Jachym dearly wished to be someplace else. Wished that he hadn't managed to work up his courage. "You and the Tsukr, you're not from dry lands, right? So, ah, you might not know that dry streams don't always stay that way. Not with storms about like they have been. Calfa--he's my cousin--Calfa and me once got cut off by a dry stream that rose higher than my chin in the time it takes to shell a sand scute."

Ctibor nodded his head thoughtfully. "You might not be as dumb as you look, after all," he said, then looked upstream. As he turned, his overcoat folded back to expose his hip. On his belt hung an ornate hilt of ivory inlaid with enamel. It sported an elaborate hand guard of intertwined metalwork that shone like gold. But there was no blade attached. Jachym swallowed and tried not to stare. Where was the scorpion-tailed blade?

"This bed we're following isn't just dry, kid. It's dead. The river found a new course long ago."

"How can that be? Rivers don't just... change like that."

Ctibor's jaw clenched, and something akin to regret flickered in his eyes. "They don't, do they?" He sighed. "That's something you'll have to take up with the Tsukr."

Posting my writing progress on Gibberish has helped me maintain my commitment, I suspect. With so many eyes looking over my entries every day--even if most of them come here looking for chupacabra pics--I feel a profound sense of failure if I don't have progress to post daily. I'm even thinking of setting up a tangential blog to host my writing posts exclusively. I don't know about anyone else, but I think I'd find it quite useful.

20,000 / 90,000
(22.2%)

Now Playing: Dave Davies Chosen People

W.5K

2006-06-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

Produced 500 words last night. Discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that this particular chapter was a short one as opposed to an exceptionally long one, and the events I had planned for the latter pages instead want their own chapter. I was also startled to see Jachym stand up to Gauthier in wholly unexpected fashion. That certainly wasn't in my mental outline! I think something changed in Jachym at the end of the previous chapter--he may be burdened by guilt and consumed with anger, but he's no longer the passive victim he'd been before--which I'd thought he'd continue to be for quite a ways longer. Fascinating.

19,000 / 90,000
(21.1%)

Now Playing: Ry Cooder & Ali Farka Toure Talking Timbuktu

W1.3K: What's In A Name?

2006-06-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

A doubly-productive weekend for me. I did some much-needed work on Voices of Wonder and also wrote approximately 1,300 words on Wetsilver over the weekend--which is good, seeing as how anything I write over the weekend counts as bonus. I got over the rough patch that stalled my production Thursday night, fortunately, but the going is still tedious. This is a character chapter, it turns out. Several new characters have been introduced--characters I wasn't expecting--so I'm finding out about them along with potential future readers. I wonder what role they'll play in events yet to unfold? In any event, this is one chapter that I'm sure will undergo extensive cleaing up once the book is done and my subconscious sowing of future plot seeds becomes apparent.

Jachym, for his part, doesn't care about any of that. He's still trying to get over the fact that he isn't quite as rid of Gauthier as he'd earlier thought:

Jachym took his hand and climbed up onto the bench, gripping its edges with white knuckles.

"Go on," Radek nudged him. "Help your friend up."

Without looking, Jachym held out his hand.

"Hey now, Stinkbug! You weren't thinking of leaving without your best buddy, were you?" Gauthier said, taking Jachym's hand and pulling himself up. He sat beside Jachym, reeking of sweat and fresh horse manure. "You wouldn't last half a day out there without me looking out for you."

"Stinkbug? Why d'you call him Stinkbug?" asked Radek with entirely too much interest.

Jachym gave Gauthier a withering glare.

"Why? Because he comes from a long line of Stinkbugs. His matka was a Stinkbug, his otek was a Stinkbug," Gauthier said, ticking off his fingers. "Just smell him! Smell him and tell me he's not a Stinkbug."

18,500 / 90,000
(20.6%)

Now Playing: The Gipsy Guerrilla Band Ernie's Pot of Gold

W.3K

2006-06-09T08:46:00.000-07:00

So much for "narrative momentum."

17,050 / 90,000
(18.9%)

Now Playing: New World Renaissance Band Live the Legend

W1.1K: Altar Service

2006-06-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Good writing last night--I logged 1,100 words, a definite improvement over the previous two nights' work. And I did it in spite of yet another string of interruptions. I'm not entirely sure the pacing of the chapter works, but I did manage to include the key story elements I needed without having the chapter balloon into something monstrously long. I'm particularly pleased with the sequence this sample comes from:

Late that night, long after the midnight vigil had concluded and everyone in the Kostel slept soundly, Jachym crept into the Muzsky Chapel. His hair had been cut away, leaving only stubble. He circled the altar warily, regarding it in the thin slivers of moonlight that slipped in through the cracks of the shuttered windows.

He stopped at the wetsilver font. Breathing heavily, he knelt, sticking a finger into the wetsilver. Nothing happened. He swirled his finger around the metallic liquid, then pulled it out. He considered his finger a moment, then licked a silvery droplet from it. He spat.

Placing his hands atop the altar, he hoisted himself up. He stood atop the marble slab, feet straddling the blood basin.

"Almighty Tvůrce," he said softly, "your humble servant wishes to offer proper thanks for all the blessings you've bestowed upon me. It may not mean much to you, but I mean it with all my heart."

So now that the big transitional chapter is behind me, I get to dive into the interesting meat of the story. I'm excited, because I'm finally building up some internal narrative momentum, in a creative, writerly sense. Jachym thinks the choices he's just made will make his life easier. To be fair, anyone in his situation would've made the same choice if they had any spine at all. But Jachym doesn't have clue one that the wider world is much wider than he could possibly imagine.

16,750 / 90,000
(18.6%)

Now Playing: Alanis Morissette Jagged Little Pill

W.5K

2006-06-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

More interruptions and time sinks yesterday ate into the writing last night, but I did manage a solid 500 words on Wetsilver. I also realized I'd miscounted somewhere along the line, and was shortchanging myself 500 words or so. So boom! I'm farther along than I thought. At 500 words a pop, I ought to recount every night--I'd be finished with this novel in no time.

15,500 / 90,000
(17.2%)

I learned an interesting thing last night. A major supporting character--who'd made brief appearances in several of the previous drafts--had no name. At least none that I could recall. I checked the previous versions of the story, my copious notes compiled over the years... nothing. Which I find very odd indeed. It's not like me to work up as much backstory for a character as I've done for this guy, and then not bother to name him. That realization stopped me in my tracks (obsessive as I am) and sent me on a name quest before I could continue writing. My search was very narrow, with a number of specific parameters. And sonofagun, wouldn't you know I found the perfect name for this guy? Ctibor. It's a variation of the Polish name Czcibor, and means "an honorable fight" or "an honorable battle." Either way, it fits this guy in every way imaginable--so much so that I'm left wondering it I had named him Ctibor in an early draft, and just lost those references.

Sometimes, you just gotta believe the magic works!

Now Playing: The Bangles Greatest Hits

W.5K: Cementing the Relationship

2006-06-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

Managed to squeeze in a little writing time last night, although interruptions made it difficult to get a good rhythm going. Thus, I only managed to put down 500 words, some of which I share with you now:

"You also seem very nervous, for one so devout," she said lightly, leaning against the Kostel wall.

"I'm not nervous."

"No? You've mortared the same stone three times since we started talking."

Jachym stared at his hand holding the stone. Mortar oozed over it, covering his wrist and forearm. "Holds better that way." He shoved the stone into the hole.

This is a transitional chapter, and is proving to be as difficult to write as I anticipated. There are several key scenes/events that have to take place over the next 10 pages or so, but I don't yet have a clear idea of how they flow together or play out. Looks like I have something of a challenge ahead of me, eh?

And, since everyone else and their dog is doing it, I've decided to go ahead and put up one of those niftly little word count meters to track my progress. Mind you now, if it gets too depressing, I reserve the right to take it down.

14,500 / 90,000
(16.1%)

Now Playing: The Police Message in a Box

W.6K

2006-06-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

The weekend was full, and I got almost no writing done. Finally managed to hammer out 600 or so words late last night. The prose doesn't exactly sing, but I did manage to accomplish a couple of nice touches here and there. The real question is whether or not I'll be able to boost my production up to a thousand words again tonight or if a mere 2-plus pages is going to be my high water mark from here on out.

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W1K: Blood Sacrifice

2006-06-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

It's official--I've now officially overrun all previously existing materials on Wetsilver. I completed a thousand words last night, finishing the chapter, but again, that productivity was boosted somewhat by several unexpected passages I found in earlier drafts I was able to use with minimal changes.

"Glorious Tvůrce, Creator of All, please accept this humble offering from your humble servants." The Knez cupped one hand gently against the underside of the goat's neck, the other over the back of its neck. The goat jerked sharply, but did not bleat. Blood began to ooze from between the Knez's fingers. First a few drops, then a trickle. The blood streaked the Knez's arm and goat's legs crimson, pooling in the altar's shallow stone basin. The goat wobbled slightly, then stooped down to its knees.

Jachym adjusted his grip, watching with interest. He'd never seen a blood sacrifice before. His Matka had taken him and his sisters to the Kostel before--several times in fact--but they'd never been on a feast day.

The warm blood filled the basin, finding its way to the drain spout. A tiny rivulet flowed through it to fall, drop by drop, into the wetsilver font below. Each bloody droplet flared and sparked as it struck the wetsilver, and an ethereal flame crept over the surface of the font.

I tried starting the next chapter, but sleep deprivation coupled with uncharted literary territory tripped me up just a few sentences in. I've had a very productive start--I've logged more than 14,000 good words in something like a week and a half, which is more than I had any reason to hope. But now the hard part starts, since I've reached the point in the narrative where my forward momentum has stalled out several times before. Hopefully this time around I've gotten it right, and we'll finally see what's in store for Jachym once he gets out of Neu Braclev.

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W2K: The Tsukr

2006-06-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

Completed just over 2,000 words last night on Wetsilver. I'm pretty impressed with that number, but it's another deceptive one. I unexpectedly found several significant passages from an early draft of the material that was not only salvageable, but was pretty darn good at that. The kicker is that I never reached this section of the storyline in my last attempted rewrite from a year ago, so it dated to some time before that. I could tell because certain name and place names hadn't been changed to their current incarnations. But it also shows that my thinking on the story structure today dovetails nicely with what I was thinking then. And I'd completely forgotten about writing any of this. Isn't that bizarre?

"Who," whispered Jachym, "is that?"

Gauthier glanced over, and gave a snort. "Huh. Remember how I said I'd been up all night because of visitors? She's one of them. The important one."

"She's so... so..." Jachym managed.

"Hah. Like she'd beard someone as rat-nasty as you. Take a closer look at what you'd be getting yourself mixed up with, and tell me if you don't have second thoughts."

Jachym started to ask for an explanation, but the woman turned then, glancing back the way she'd come. On her left cheek, a stylized znak dazzled in the sunlight. A wetsilver tattoo.

"Oh. Oh!"

"Damn right. You could probably be killed for what you were thinking just a moment ago," Gauthier said.

Because of the integration of the new material, the chapter's running too long right now. I'll try my hand at editing out a page or so of content tonight, but then... then the fun really begins. I'll have exhausted all my pre-exisiting copy (even though maybe 75 percent of the story this time has been all-new) and anything that comes after is uncharted territory. And that, my friends, is when I fear these 2,000-word nights will become a thing of the past, and I'll have to settle for a mere 150 words or so at a go.

Now Playing: Electric Light Orchestra Balance of Power

Tuesday writing

2006-05-31T09:32:00.000-07:00

I did not do any work on the novel last night. Instead, I revisited "Y.V. 7650.1," a short story that's had a long and difficult evolution, finishing up a much-needed edit I'd been putting off for months. Then I sent it on its merry way to Jetse over at Interzone. It's as unpleasant a piece as I've ever done, with more graphic violence and sex than anything other story I've written. I actually got the idea for it way back in college, when it would've made a pretty dramatic statement, not to mention an original one. But the intervening years have quietly stolen some of its thunder. It's taken me close to 15 years and no fewer than four very different takes on the material to even come close to readability, because my writing skills were woefully overmatched by this one. And even now I'm not convinced it works on any level. But hey, that's what the editors are there for, right?

Well, that's enough of an interlude. Tonight, it's back to Wetsilver.

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Productive weekend

2006-05-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

To my shock and amazement, I did a significant amount of writing over the Memorial Day weekend. More than 3,000 words. That's fantastic, because weekends are normally lost for me as far as writing goes, with way too much family stuff going on to squeeze in any writing time. Anything I get done on the weekends counts as a bonus.

A blurt of laughter cut him off. "Our Gauthier is right now hiding under the bed in his cell, praying that I don't come 'round to visit him once I'm done with you. The only arse Gauthier looks out for is his own."

"Th-that's not true," Jachym said, backing away. "He came for me tonight, when I was hobbled. There were Lidozrout."

"Lidozrout, you say?" Burgh's hand shot out, lighting quick, fingers digging into Jachym's shoulder. "If there really were Lidozrout out there, and they'd gotten you while you were in Gauthier's charge, you know what would've happened?"

Burgh pulled him close, beard scratching against Jachym's face, and whispered into his ear. "Your ten years would've gone to Gauthier. Think he came back outta the goodness of his heart, now?"

Jachym's pretty much hit rock bottom at this point. He's got a whole heck of a lot of challenges awaiting him, and his life is about to get far more interesting than he even has the capacity to imagine, but at least it doesn't get any worse for him. Although I suspect Jachym would take little comfort in that.

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Novel progress

2006-05-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

Met my writing targets for last night, finished the chapter and moved on to the next. Yay! For someone who is as easily distracted as I am by any excuse not to write, this week has been an amazing success story. Here's a passage from the fruits of my sleepless labor:

"You were close to being freeholden?"

Jachym nodded. "In the s-spring."

"Gads, your parents must be real greedgrubbers," Gauthier said, shaking his head. His expression softened. "What'd you do to make them hate you so?"

"I don't know," Jachym answered. "I worked hard for them. Harder, after the floods. Matka and Otec didn't bond me last year, even when the drought got so bad that the river dried up and you could walk across and not get your feet wet. I never thought my parents would bond me. Our crops died. We had to sell our goats to buy bread. So this year the rains came. And never ended. Tvůrce is a twisted sort of god, if that's the way he answers prayers."

"No younger brother they could've bonded instead?"

"Two sisters. Ama and Dru. They're twelve and ten," Jachym said, tears welling in his eyes again. "Matka says there aren't enough girls in Neu Breclav, so they'll bring a good bride-price in a few years."

Gauthier whistled lowly. "Gads, you never had a chance."

"I wish they were dead. Let Tvůrce deliver that prayer."

I know my production is going to drop off at a certain point, because right now I'm covering ground that I've plowed before, so to speak. I'd love to be cranking out 2,000-plus words a night, but that's not something I'm capable of as a writer. At least, not when I'm having to stay up past 1 in the a.m. to achieve the current production levels. I'm pretty darn bleary in the mornings these days.

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Good writing

2006-05-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

Exceeded my goal for writing 1,000 words last night. Granted, there were some pre-existing passages from earlier drafts that I was able to incorporate into the narrative, so that wasn't 100 percent new copy. Even so, anyone who's ever written knows that the effort involved in making older copy mesh seamlessly with newer can be as challenging as anything. At any rate, I'm encouraged and hope to finish the current chapter tonight.

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Bad times for Jachym

2006-05-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

Talk about biting off more than you can chew. I've got a couple of short stories in need of work. There are three reviews I've committed to writing but haven't yet started. The follow-up to Voices of Vision is sitting there, waiting patiently for my attention. And that's not even counting the radio script and viking longboat article I've been monkeying around with for far too long. So it's safe to say that my plate's very full, and my time is very short.

So last night I sat down and wrote. Not on any of the above, worthy tho they may be, but on my long-neglected novel, Wetsilver. I've farted around on this thing for too many years to count, junking the whole thing and starting over from page one at least twice. No longer. World Fantasy Con is coming up in November, and I committed myself back in December to having this novel finished by then. That gives me less than six months to get my ass in gear and meet my deadline. Here's a sampling of what I wrote:

Jachym tried to run. The hobble held firm, and he pitched forward onto the ground, needlefingers gouging his shoulder and cheek. He bit his lip to keep from crying out.

To his left, maybe a stone's throw away, he heard low snuffling.

"Tvůrce, Tvůrce, Tvůrce," he whispered urgently, but no prayer came to him. The Lidozrout would find him, no matter how still he lay. The they would kill him, eat him. And not necessarily in that order.

Slowly, his blood thundering in his ears, Jachym rolled to his side. Then he doubled over, reaching the hobble.

The Lidozrout grunted softly, then rattled off a quick string of barks and coughs more hushed than before. The second one behind Jachym answered softly, and the first replied. Both of them had moved closer. Farther away--to his right?--Jachym thought he heard a squeal. Three of them. Stalking him.

Total production was only about 750 words, which was a little disappointing since I was shooting for 1,000. But that's still 750 words farther along than I was at this time yesterday.

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Welcome to WETSILVER!

2006-05-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

June 16, 2006

Why the heck does this moron have a different date listed at the start of his post? Because, good reader, this is an introductory blog entry, designed to lay out the general philosophical impetus of all ensuing missives. And as such, it needs to come first. Only it was written somewhen in the middleish, thus necessitating the timestamp jiggery-pokery.

This, friends, is a retroactive blog. When I began writing this incarnation of Wetsilver, I was content to chronicle my progress on my main blog, Gibberish. After several weeks of writing, however, I found that it was growing more and more difficult to keep track of and locate previous posts relating to the novel. And I found myself regularly referencing them for various reasons as I continued writing.

So, hey, why not just cut to the chase and set up a dedicated blog? And that's just what I did. I've imported all the pre-existing Gibberish posts, and will continue to post my novel progress over there. But this blog will be exclusively devoted to the novel and the process of writing it, uncluttered by chupacabra photos, convention updates, pictures of the kids and other mundane, non-Wetsilver topics. I hope you enjoy!

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