![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
All's (mostly) quiet on the writing front
I got back my corrections on the novella from my beta. Her major changes mostly agree with things that my gut was already telling me about the story, and she had lots of minor suggestions that will improve it immensely. Utterly fantastic. Now I need to brace myself for a big rewrite, and then I *might*, just might, have something I can try to sell.
I had a "click!" moment on the novel (not the YA, the other one) when several ideas suddenly came together. I'm starting to see the shape of it now. With this one, I already know the end -- the major events of the climax were one of the first things that came to me. So I'm working backwards, figuring out the plot from there. Sadly, my 12,000 words I've already written on the beginning are starting to look less and less suited to the overall shape of the novel; I think I'm going to have to scrap them, because events are very different now. However, they helped give me a feel for how the characters think and speak, which was very useful in the long run. The world-building in this universe is a delight -- I've been creating languages and cultures from scratch, and, hopefully learning from my mistakes, trying to avoid the appropriation issues that plagued "Raven's Children".
I've also been reading true-northern-adventure memoirs, and thinking about my Alaskan childhood, which led me to the idea of using this journal as a catch-all for anecdotes of growing up in the Bush. I'm not sure if it would be as boring as all get out, since my life wasn't exactly the stuff of which exciting adventure novels are made, but it would give me something to post regularly, and keep me focused on writing rather than surfing Youtube when I'm supposed to be working. (Oh! And we did get the well drilled! I have pictures; I need to get them off the camera. Not that it's an especially photogenic process, but it *is* interesting.)
I had a "click!" moment on the novel (not the YA, the other one) when several ideas suddenly came together. I'm starting to see the shape of it now. With this one, I already know the end -- the major events of the climax were one of the first things that came to me. So I'm working backwards, figuring out the plot from there. Sadly, my 12,000 words I've already written on the beginning are starting to look less and less suited to the overall shape of the novel; I think I'm going to have to scrap them, because events are very different now. However, they helped give me a feel for how the characters think and speak, which was very useful in the long run. The world-building in this universe is a delight -- I've been creating languages and cultures from scratch, and, hopefully learning from my mistakes, trying to avoid the appropriation issues that plagued "Raven's Children".
I've also been reading true-northern-adventure memoirs, and thinking about my Alaskan childhood, which led me to the idea of using this journal as a catch-all for anecdotes of growing up in the Bush. I'm not sure if it would be as boring as all get out, since my life wasn't exactly the stuff of which exciting adventure novels are made, but it would give me something to post regularly, and keep me focused on writing rather than surfing Youtube when I'm supposed to be working. (Oh! And we did get the well drilled! I have pictures; I need to get them off the camera. Not that it's an especially photogenic process, but it *is* interesting.)
no subject
So, now to people who live in the bush always capitalize it?
no subject