Arrant Nonsense

And I'll say it again:

Ben is going to kill me in my sleep one of these days.

Why, yes, I've just been randomly cruel to him once again. Why do you ask? I'm not even sure what purpose this scene serves in the book other than to feed my h/c kink and to actually show one of his flashbacks rather than just telling about it. Whether this is a legitimate function for a scene that goes on for 1500 words, I guess I'll leave up to my alpha readers.

However, having attained my requisite wordcount on the day, I feel I can now dive into the edits on the Cow Story. And the very first lines in the thing are problematic.

Why are they problematic, you ask? Because (a) I'm not sure they actually belong there; and (b) I love them.

They're great lines. They're a great HOOK. Were I to expand this into a novel, they would totally go into the query letter. But. Since the question they ask is answered right there in the very first scene...

Yeah. Kill your darlings. I know.

In other news, I've got the cutest, floofiest little juvenile House Finch on my thistle sock right now. He's so floofy that he looks bigger than the adults. And he's still sort of clumsy and not flying very well. Daawwwwwwwwww.

Oh, hey, speaking of the Cow Story, I'm thinking of posting it up for the usual suspects to pick over. Who wants to see it?

And the Cow Story has an END at the bottom. Go, me.

Under 10K. Barely.

Now I get to edit it into something that doesn't suck and ship it off to Writers of the Future.

Oh, and a title. A title would be good. I'm not sure I can call it "The Cow and the Beanstalk."

Although maybe I can. Yeah, I don't even know.

the secret to becoming un-stalled is to write an LJ entry complaining that I'm stalled. Then one or both of the Muses will come out of the woodwork just to prove that they're around.

Yeah, I just cracked 9,000 words in the Cow Story.

And I realized that when my protags turn Mary back into a girl, she's going to be nekkid.

Good times.

Also, I should totally turn Thomas into a toad, y/y?

I have two projects.

I'm stalled on both of them.

Send booze.

And thus time for...

THE WEEKLY WORD COUNT.

This week, I've been working on two projects: The NovelThing, and the Cow Story. Let's start with the NovelThing.

Last week's word count: 54,497
This week's word count: 60,089
Word count for the week: 5,592

And now the Cow Story:

Beginning word count: 1,769
This week's word count: 8,202
Word count for the week: 6,433

So, total count for the week: 12,025

Considering the fact that this is more words in one week than I've ever managed to accomplish since I started keeping track, I think I'll shove my bloody stupid neurosis aside and choose to be pleased by that, rather than angsting about the fact that it's not 2,000 more than that (which is sort of what I wanted). It's nearly seven times my goal, for Heaven's sake.

60,000 words.

I have opening paragraphs that don't actually suck. I've established Ben's marital status, the fact that it's the night before his wedding anniversary (yes, I'm evil, you knew that, shut up), the fact that he works for a private detective, the fact that he's good with computers...

Oh, and the fact that he's a werewolf. I did that part badly and awkwardly, but I'll go back and fix it later.

I've mentioned Alex and Megan in passing. Understand that I'm going to have to go in here and do between-scenes stuff that shows us what Janni is doing while Ben's in vampire prison.

I'd like to get another 250 words in on this. And then I'd like to go back to the Cow story and crank out another 730 or so on that, because I've done 270 on it today. It's up past the 8,000 mark (oh, god), but I'm not sure where to take it next, because it seems to me that a longer period of time should pass before he actually finds her. It's only been two weeks...

Will I be able to? Probably not. Woe. BUT. I've done a thousand on the day, which isn't chump change. It's half what I'd like to do, but I'm neurotic right now.

Good mornin', flist.

In the last two days, I have scribbled over 2500 words in the Cow and the Beanstalk story, and over 1700 words in the new!Ben&Janni thing. Wordcount on Cow is over the 4300 mark, and I cracked 56K on the novel.

I've figured out where to go Next on the novel (finally), so rather than scribbling filler scenes (although the one yesterday where Ange acquired a weight bench for Ben and then took him outside for the first time in EVER was lovely to write--I had to figure out if she was going to ruin the mood by attempting to seduce him again and decided to let them have the moment for once. See, I can shove Antubis aside on occasion and be nice), I can move the Actual Plot forward again.

And the Cow story is trucking along. However *glares at Flaubert* this thing that was supposed to be your basic Fractured Fairy Tale has developed legs and now I think I'm going to be lucky if it tops out at under 10K.

Why do I do these things to myself??? I'm a glutton, I tell you, a glutton for punishment. Oh well, as long as I finish it by the end of the month, I'm good. The way it's moving, this shouldn't be a problem.

For those of you new to my flist *waves* Antubis and Flaubert are the anteaterpomorphic personifications of my Muses. Antubis is the anteater in the basement in Kingdom Hospital (which I haven't actually seen, go figure), and Flaubert is Miss Piggy's pet anteater in Muppet Treasure Island, who ruins her entrance. Antubis gives me dark and gritty, and Flaubert is in charge of silly. Sometimes they work together to give me stuff that's completely bizarre.

Well, I've been up since way too freakin' early this morning. HOWEVER.

In order to make up for the utter fail that yesterday turned into, I managed to scribble an entire week's worth of words today. I plugged the aforementioned Plot Hole (as well as I could, anyway--boy, is her thought process messed up). And then I had no idea what was Next, so I opened the Cow and the Beanstalk story to see if I could make any progress on that bad boy. Slightly over 1500 words later, I think the answer to that question is a resounding YES.

Of course, this wouldn't be ME if I wasn't banging my head on the keyboard over something stupid. Keep in mind that this was supposed to be a quick and dirty story, get in, get 'er done, get out.

Yeah, I'm over 3000 words into it with no end in sight. If it stays under 10K, I'll feel fortunate. On the plus side, it's truckin' right along, and I'll probably be able to stick an END at the bottom of it pretty quickly, especially if I manage to keep up this pace. So...yay?

Also, I made wallpaper today. Very inspirational.

My dental crap is done, y'all, except for routine maintenance.

Yay. *weak fist-pump* Now, if I could just feel my face, that'd be peachy.

In other news, I'm still putting Plot together for both Cow & the Beanstalk and not!kkbb. We'll see how that goes. They're percolating.

I may have Plot coming together for the sequel to the not!kkbb/im novelthing. It involves vampires kidnapping werewolves and using their blood for nefarious purposes. Or perhaps it's just very tasty, especially with the extra added elixir of wolfsbane. I haven't quite decided yet.

But, 'tis percolating. Yes indeedy.

In the meantime, I should be working on the Cow and the Beanstalk story...

Why would a gnome need magic beans?