Arrant Nonsense

Yesterday morning, I figured out that I had a scene that needed to be chopped, rearranged, and basically re-written. Not from scratch, but it definitely needed ingredients added and then a Blender Treatment. Stuff happened in the completely wrong order and the psychology was not as complicated as I wanted it to be.

So, rather than working on the New Scene (which is going to be its Own Brand of Fun), I edited the old one. And now it makes actual sense. Of course, whether it's actually going to stay in the story at all is an open question at this point, because there's a lot in there that's going to be cut. But I really like the bit of character illumination that goes on here, and the fact that this is the first time where Ange isn't basically taking over and saying "sex me now," but it's more mutual, is important. Because Ben's just lost another piece of himself.

And now I need to buckle down and finish the New Scene. Which should give me the rest of the words I need for the week, Muses willing. And then I need to figure out how in the hell this isn't a deus ex machina and what the Cost is going to be--and how it's going to bite him on the ass at a critical moment.

Because that's how I roll.

Oh god I so do not have the chops to pull this off.

It's an expansion of the paragraph I posted yesterday.

( Long snippet is long. )

Comments are ♥♥♥.

(A) I love love love it when all Ben's sarcasm circuits are firing.

(B) Ben should not go to sleep with his Glock .40 in his hand. Ever. No matter how threatened he feels in the middle of nowhere. Because waking up with the thing under his chin and his finger on the trigger is bad.

(C) I came across a werewolf book called "Naked Brunch" by an author named "Sparkle Hayter" while on my agent hunt the other day. The fact that this person has been published since 1994 (and thus long before Twilight) does not make this any less funny.

(D) Have my favorite paragraph I've written today: He'd seen the petroglyphs around; you couldn't throw a rock anywhere in Moab without hitting one. He hadn't realized that the Anasazi people had been carving the pictures of horned creatures wearing their hearts on the outsides of their chests from life. The goblins of Goblin Valley were apparently real, only they weren't small, blue, or prone to nose-picking accidents. And holy shit, no wonder they were worshiped as fertility gods.

(E) We're taking the Cessna up to Odgen and the Auger Inn for a hundred-dollar hamburger tomorrow. Good times.

Giving hope, and then snatching it away with both hands. No, Janni, Ben is not dealing well with this. At all. He's having a hard time forgiving himself for what he sees as a moral failing on his part, no matter that you don't care what he did with that vampire bitch. Even if you think it was rape, he doesn't. His mind very possibly broke in the lab (what with the needles and the wolfsbane and the being tied down). The 3/4ths of a bottle of Glenlivet he just consumed is, probably, Not Helping.

So, yeah, as you all should know by now, I'm all over the Broken Characters like whoa. And now I'm turning my attention to Patrick Jane, of "The Mentalist." Because I realized yesterday that there's no other show I'm watching right now where I'm sitting here waiting for a character to snap right in half. All the other shows I watch have pretty mentally stable characters. This is the only one I can think of right now that hits my "broken dude" kink right where it lives. Even "Dollhouse" doesn't do that (other than in "Epitaph One," and I'm not sure that counts because it's just the one ep).

The thing is, Jane isn't good with weapons, like, at all. Or violence. He's the one cowering in a corner when violence of any kind starts ensuing. He's planning on killing Red John when he finds him, but whether he can actually Do The Deed is up for question. And if he couldn't, I don't know if that would break him more, or less...

In Query Letter of Doom news, I've already got a rejection back from one place, but it didn't appear to be a form rejection and it was somewhat encouraging, so I'll take it. I'm still wibbling, though.

Have a real snippet, this week. I'm cutting it not for length, but subject matter.

( Ben is suicidal. Again. Please to be considering that a warning. )
Ben can't win, and neither can I. You know I love your comments...

It's Friday and I finally have actual new words in the novelthing.

Yeah, Ben just tried to commit suicide. Again. In his sleep, this time. The poor little sod. And now he's not sure he actually wants Janni to find him, because he thinks he might be broken beyond repair and doesn't want her to waste her energy trying to put him back together again (for the third time). Because there comes a point.

And this, I think, is why he ultimately takes off, after he gets home, with a Glock loaded with silver bullets.

In other news, the Harlequin cluster-foxtrot continues apace. The RWA, MWA, and SFWA have all reacted, well, unkindly, to what I'm referring to as HarHo and the predatory practice of pointing rejected authors in that direction in the rejection email. Part of my problem with this is that they're talking out of both sides of their mouths on the issue. On the one hand, they're telling the rejected writer, "Jump on in, the water's fine, you'll be 'published' by us and we'll watch your sales and yadda yadda yadda," making it seem as if they're going to be shelved with the Big Girls on bookstore shelves. And on the other, they're telling their established writers, "LOL, no, it's not our branding, no one will get you confused with those amateurs over there, pft."

Which, okay, it's not their branding now--but until the RWA said "Hey, waitaminute, vanity publishing means you're not actually a real publisher, money flows to the author, remember?" they were quite happy calling it "Harlequin Horizons" and would have continued blithely on if they'd not been called on their shenanigans.

If anything actually good comes out of this, I hope that people will figure out the difference between self-publishing and vanity publishing. Self-publishing can be a viable business model for a niche market, or even for getting a foot in the door (which, don't count on it, but it could happen; on Discworld a million-to-one shot is a sure thing, after all, and people get struck by lightning and win the lottery all the time). *waves at the handsome and talented Larry Correia* Vanity publishing is throwing your money down a rat-hole. And the rats are hungry.

Here, have a link salad, for the curious:
Smart Bitches
Scalzi
My post at Clairvoyant Wank
Fandom Wank (which has a great link roundup)
Lee Goldberg (who is actually making sense this time, go, him)
PubRants
Stacy Boyd wondering what all the fuss is about, and is dismayed that HarHo met with such disapprobation! BRB, LOLing 4ever.

And, I'm done. Good grief.

And thus time for...

The Weekly Word Count. /reverb

Last week's word count: 118,444
This week's word count: 120,500
Word count for the week: 2,056

I'll take it, although I'm not actually sure that the latest "kill me please" scene I scribbled last night is actually going to make the Final Cut.

In other news, this week is going to be taken up with outlining the first novel so I actually have an idea of what happened in each chapter, and then I'm going to hammer at the Query Letter of Doom. Because the first one needs to start pulling its weight around here.

Well. Now that I'm actively thinking about it (and I've run out of horrible things to do to Ben in prison), I've got the next couple of try/fail cycles for Janni in mind. One involves an "I'll kill you!" promise that a disgruntled divorced guy makes at Ben after Ben uncovers some stuff in his finances that causes said divorce.

Not so sure about the other one, but it'll probably have to do with someone who recently got out of prison, who was put there because Ben sent him there.

Six hundred or so words today. I am making progress. And I should update my little word count widget on my userinfo page. *goes to do so*

The lovely and effulgent amonitrate has written an Iron Man/Dollhouse crossover that you must GO READ RIGHT NOW.

Boy, howdy, I missed the Every Shade of Wrong this fandom brings to the table sometimes. HOLY SHIT. And I say that with the greatest admiration.

In other news, my time in the Word War Room was productive today and I managed to bang out about 1200 words, so, yay. Not finished the scene yet, but very close. I do suck so very much at the Comfort part of Hurt/Comfort.

Darling du jour:

"But this isn't about me and my latest non compos mentis episode."

Oh, Ben.

Have a snippet. No, I'm not setting it up, you know the drill by now. Yes, it's out of order. Most of them are these days.

"What the hell were you doing in my apartment, and how did you disappear from it like that?"

"Hey, I've never been in your damn apartment. Are you kidding?" The Janni lookalike crossed her arms. "That'd be way too risky."

"Oh, good, that one was a hallucination," Ben muttered. "Nice to know."

"The others haven't been, though." Angeline poked the other vampire in the chest with her forefinger. "So tell me who asked you to stalk him, and I won't stake you and feed your bones to my wolf."

"No skin off my nose." She shrugged and pointed. "Those guys over there paid me to do it."

Ben's entire body stiffened when he saw who it was, and Angeline sucked in a breath. West, with two friends. Oh, god. That idiot probably had no idea that his game of Taunt the Wolf had suddenly become deadly serious. Hair sprouted on Ben's shoulders and his eyes turned amber. He reached up and snapped the silver lock off the collar, ignoring the scent of burning flesh, and then methodically unbuckled it. Bar patrons began backing away as the collar swung back and forth from the end of the leash Angeline still held in her hand.

"Ben, no!" She missed her grab at his arm. "There's no way you come back from this--"

"Don't care," was his unruffled rejoinder.

Icon is particularly apropos today. You know I love your comments...