Category: General

Used the Brookfield Zoo Site extensively today, and found out the name of cheesecake in India is burfi. Mmm, burfi.

Today in Hulk Hercules, I wrote the Labor Day trip to the Brookfield Zoo, introduced Diana, Polly, Hannah, and her family, and wrote the Stymphalian Birds. Then, I found Tony and Bianca’s school: Jane Addam’s Elementary, and I rewrote the first scenes there. I also did some more research on Chicago Amateur Wrestling.

Our word count has expanded to 38, 289, and here’s where we are on the meter.

4 / 38 (10.5%)

***

On to Substance of Shadows. I’ve revised the first third of Chapter One. I’ve shored up family names, changing Geoffrey to Gregorius and Stephan back to Stephanas to latinize more. I’ve also put Errol’s interior back in after the Gales leave. Our next stop with Substance will be to rewrite Milo and his brothers invading for the birthday party, and then breaking for chapter 3.

Word count meter:

25 / 372 (6.7%)

Today’s Hulk Hercules session: research. I am working on a section where we see Leo at work at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, so I visited the Brookfield Zoo site to learn a lot about it.

And then, since Tony and Bianca with Nonna and Leo in Little Italy this year, I did general Little Italy research.

What I’m having trouble finding is where you go to school if you’re in the 4th grade and in the 6th grade in the Little Italy area. If any of you are Chicago-ites who happen to know, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll be buying a map and writing the school districts soon.

Bob, I’m considering coming to Chicago either the weekend of October 18th, or November 8th. FYI for you and Tasha. Of course, I have to contact Brookfield and the gym, see how it works out for them.

***

The rest of the evening’s work will be taken up in finishing the restructure of Substance’s Prologue, and perhaps putting the final buff on it. Revision meter should not substantially change.

Catherine

Deena Fisher of Drollerie Press was kind enough to put a notice up on the Drollerie blog about Blood is Thicker than Water, the novel I’m publishing for free at Las Habladoras. I only meant to share the information with the Drollerie authors, but this is really much nicer. 🙂

So, here’s a lovely bit of publicity for myself and (ultimately!) the other Las Habladoras.

Deena’s Write Up at Drollerie.

Thanks, Deena.

Back to works in progress.

Next installment of Blood and first installment of Chapter 3 up at Las Habladoras.

This also: YA for Obama. Check it out. Responsible for one of my favorite campaign images.

Catherine

Yesterday was an arm day. I took some time off to rest the broken limb.

Today, we worked some more. Here’s where we’re at.

Hulk Hercules

2 / 38 (5.3%)

That represents 14 pages, and the first chapter. This has been sent off to Sonya for the Cats Curious party on October 4th at Fen Con.

***

The Substance of Shadows

The prologue will take longer to revise than thought, as I’m moving things around to test Erasmus’ wit less transparently. We’ll be stuck here for the next couple of days while I hammer this out.

14 / 369 (3.8%)

Catherine

With apologies to Karen Mahoney, who probably should receive royalties from me every time I use the term Revision Cave.

From today on, the Herc-o-meter will be done by revised scenes. All told, there are 38 scenes in the novel that are key. Some of them are in great shape, others are exceedingly sketchy. There’s also a fair amount of gluing that must occur between some of them to smooth the path. However, the scenes will be my milestones for the meter.

1 / 38 (2.6%)

***

And, revision for Substance will be done by page count. My subconscious must come up with a test of wits for me to insert into the prologue, so that seemed like a good stopping point for today. Other highlights of revision include making my dialogue less stilted. Check!

6 / 368 (1.6%)

***

Now, to have some lunch, take a small break, and put on my English teacher hat in order to check some papers.

Catherine

To be honest, this is what I look like at the end of the day. Note the lack of makeup and hairdo. Note the addition of stylish sling.

The Rules:
Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.

Thanks to seeing it in many of your journals, I’ve decided to join JoNoWriMo, a month and a half of writers working on projects. See yesterday’s plan. It’ll be nice to have a support group.

If you add the work curriculum into that mix, it’s going to be a writerlicious month and a half.

Catherine

Delusionally, I have determined to work on the rewrites of Hulk Hercules: Professional Wrestler and The Substance of Shadows at the same time. The plan I’ve sketched out for myself gives me a surprising amount of time in the remainder of September, October, and November to do both, with ample room for flex. It looks like all of November is flex.

Tomorrow, we’ll crank up those new meters. HH: PW goes first each day. Today we rest the arm.

Catherine

The first draft of Hulk Hercules: Professional Wrestler is done. It weighs in about 38K.

38,118 / 38,118 (100.0%)

***

What happens next? About everything. We’ve laid all the pipe, and have gotten a sense of the characters and plot. The only character who remained as planned was Tony. The rest of them went in interesting directions, Nonna in particular. I need to make sure I weave plot threads all the way through the story in both directions, and firm up sketchier scenes and subplots with important details and research. The revision will be a serious firming, with a conscious injection of edgy yet whimsical humor (oh my God! jacket coooppppyyyyyy!!!)

I expect an overall expansion of the wordage. How much we shall see.

The salient detail, however, is that we are done 12 days ahead of time in the month of the broken arm. Go me.

Hope you are all flourishing out there in writer land. It always feels good to get to this point. My rough drafts are really so crap usually. Now we can pull back and focus.

Catherine