THREE THINGS ON TUESDAY

Hello, Dear Readers! A short post today (especially in comparison to my normal lengthy ramblings). But it has three things in it, so it still totally counts. Shut up, yes it does. Do you want a post today or not? OK then.

Firstly an explanation for the short post. I've been rather under the weather lately. But, as we all know, Denial is not just a river in Egypt: it is my firm policy when I want to put on my imaginary princess crown and pretend that I live in a magic kingdom where my thoughts and feelings actually have some concrete affect on reality. So despite being - looking back on it - quite frighteningly ill for a couple of days last week, I insisted on working anyway, including in the evenings and all though this weekend. As a result, I got some pretty decent work done. IN YOUR FACE FLAWED HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY! But sadly, doing this has resulted in a very strong desire to curl into a ball and sleep any time when I'm not actually knee deep in these edits. Including right now. I practically have matchsticks propping my eyelids open typing this. True story.

Anyhoo, this means I am not feeling full of my usual thinky thoughts that seem worth sharing. Hence the short post. Thursday's post might be short too, depending on if my energy levels have passed through Great Sloth and started to approach Slug.

Next! An update on the Machiavellian Labyrinth that is edits on The Name of the Blade Book #2. It's not getting any easier the longer it takes, let me tell you. I do not think I have EVER revised anything this slowly. EVER. Not even when I was a complete beginner teaching myself how to edit with the help of How To Write Books For Dummies. I've been at work on these edits since the 14th of March and I am *still* only on page 43. Of 201! And that's despite the aforementioned working in evenings and on weekends.

I had a phone conversation with Super Agent yesterday, during which she said lots of kind, soothing, encouraging things to me. At one point I told her (at least, I think I did - there was a lot of babbling on my part) that writing a middle book in a trilogy calls on completely different aspects of the writing craft than writing any other kind of book. The things you've written in the first book are immutable because it's finished. But everything in the final book that you've barely started on is in a constant state of flux as you work things out in your head. So the middle book occupies a unique middle ground. Half fixed and finished. Half changing and evolving. And the half that's fixed and finished is all mixed in and jumbled up with the half that's changing and evolving and it's not always easy to tell those two apart, or pry them apart if you need to.

Anyhoo, that's where I am. Not quite a quarter of the way through this first round of revisions and with a strong feeling that several more rounds of revisions will be required before it, too, is finished. And Book #3 is sitting in the back of my brain sullenly, occasionally muttering or throwing a tantrum if it feels it's been ignored too long. By the time I get to it, most likely it will have buttoned its lip and be refusing to talk to me at all. I really, really hope that all the stars will align to allow me to run another InCreWriMa this year. I'm going to need all the help I can get.

Now to the third thing! At one point this weekend I got stuck with the edits for an hour or so, but I didn't want to try to do something else because I was too dozy and tired. So I got out the matchsticks, propped my eyelids open, and updated the ALL ABOUT WRITING page. Hopefully all the writing advice that deserves the name is now on there, if somewhat haphazardly arranged. If I've missed out something that you're particularly fond of, just let me know in the comments and I'll see about including it.

Anyhoo (sensing a theme here?) that's my three things. And because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, here's a fourth. Aha!

  

(With thanks to Roccie!)

 See you on Thursday, chums.