Arrant Nonsense

So, I'm dinking around Yahoo Answers today (as one does), and some kid is lamenting the fact that he might have to get a real job while he works on the dream of becoming a fantasy novelist.

Well, yes. Starving in a garret is only romantic if you're not the one starving, and if you don't think about it too hard. Suck it up, sunshine, and welcome to the real world. I wasn't quite that brutal in my answer, but there is Dream, and there is Reality, and making the two come together is Hard Work.

I then detailed my to-do list for the foreseeable future:
1. Graphics worksheet, bio, photo, and a bunch of other stuff for "That Which Is Hidden." Due, well, tomorrow.

2. Synopsis for Sold Soul to send to a place that apparently thinks "write us a synopsis" is easier than "send us the manuscript and don't worry about the formatting."

3. Edits on Cyborg Werewolf. This one needs a rewrite from the ground up from midway through the story. Fun stuff. That's due at the end of the month. Oh, look, it's October.

4. Outline the rest of Angry Bitter Angel. Then write it. Am I a novelist? No, I am not. Do I have any earthly idea what's supposed to happen in my putative Act Two? No, I do not. Awesome.

5. (Backburnered.) Finish the synopsis for not!KKBB/IM, revamp the query, and start sending that damn thing out again.

That's just the writing plate, and it's assuming I don't get any rejections I need to flip today. Look full to you? Yeah, it looks full to me too. But I also have other responsibilities.
1. Today is Laundry Day. Whee.

2. It's a school day. I have to keep the Boy on task while we do that.

3. Somewhere in there, I need to feed my family.

4. Since the Hubby is going to work tomorrow, I have to make sure the house is vacuumed. White pets + black work pants = unmixy.

5. Half hour on the bike.

6. Television has started up again, and that's Family Time. We have Agents of SHIELD and Person of Interest tonight, plus an episode of Last Man Standing to catch up on from last week.

WELL. I guess I should get off the damb interwebs and get my ass in gear, huh.

And I love them all.

HUZZAH.

The Revelator is finished and off to the Salt City Steam Salty Dog Contest.

De-Wolfed Ben has garnered a bit of crit from the Hubby, but really nothing major. He liked that one a lot, and thought the end was good and didn't fizzle or come too abruptly.

I should be getting crit on Chambliss's Story from my Writing Buddy soon.

George and the Meerkats is just a fun little story. It's my fifth entry in my spaceship crew saga. I sent that one to my Writing Buddy this week.

The only one I have yet to look at is Cat-Hoarding Dragon, and I did sneak a peek at the ending just now. Eheehee. I am amused.

That one, however, is going to take a lot of work to beat into shape. It started in first person, and then I realized a few thousand words in that it wouldn't work in first and switched to third. It's got three POV characters and is already banging on 9000 words. Which means I've got a bare thousand words to play with if I want to send it to Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Considering the fact that I rarely write secondary-world fantasy, I really do want to send it to them.

Fortunately, the other three I have left won't actually take much to complete, I don't think. They're pretty solid as they sit, and I am well-pleased with the results of this NaNo round.

If you're going to put a chronophotographic derringer on the mantle in the first act, well, it'd better do something cool in the third. And now I know what that is, and it won't require much of a rewrite.

HUZZAH.

Day 7 of the NaNo Project o'Doom was an abject failure. I missed the "to 50K goal" by 348 words, and the "1700 words per day" goal by 579.

Several factors were involved. One of them was the fact that this outline, while extensive at first blush at over 700 words all by itself, isn't actually giving me what I need to write the story in a comprehensible fashion. It's borked like a big borked thing.

Another thing is the sheer amount of research I'm having to do on the fly. Until you get into a project like this, you don't know what you don't know. And sometimes, digging out information is nigh impossible even with excellent google-fu. Did the wide spot in the track that I've picked for my protag's hometown have a bank? I don't know, nor can I apparently find out. But I need one for my plot, so screw it, I put one there.

And, of course, the day was filled with distractions of all kinds. I had not-writing projects to do. Hubby got home from a three-day trip, so we rented a movie. Boy went off on a camping trip, so I had to make sure he had everything he needed for that. The interwebs are shiny, and there are morons who need smackdowns, although that particular thing has slowed. And on it goes--today I need to go grocery shopping so my mens will have actual food while I'm gone, and I need to start getting ready for the WEx retreat.

But I do hope to stick an END at the bottom of this thing today. I might even get it into the 5K wordcount limit. I'm at the second pinch and roaring toward the conclusion, oddly enough. I thought I had more plot there (see: 700-word outline), but apparently not. That is a good thing, and I will embrace it after the over 9000-word behemoth the last thing turned into.