Saturday word count starting: 105, 994
Saturday word count ending: 105, 700.
Argh. Had to add things. I have this annoying feeling that I could either combine some scenes or take them out, but there isn’t enough brain power to process it. I R Dumb.
So much to do this week. Need to get the France schedule, need to finish tax filing, need to cut IRS a check, need to do hair, nails, face. Small Magics signing pages. IRA contribution. Alarm system dude. Trash removal. All on top of edits Oy.
And I still haven’t had my tea this morning.
I cannot curl into a ball and nap. Although that would be lovely. Do you remember when you were little and your parents tried to make you take a nap, and you were like “No! Naps are stupid!” I bet you wish you weren’t so mean to naps. Naps are awesome.
Had to unravel the shawl a little. Forgot to purl every other row in lace and knitted it instead. Lace looked a mess.
Need to figure out some sort of audio books for the trip. I do best with the Martian and Black Jack Geary series, so I’ll have to find something similar and engaging. Need to make a doctor appointment to get sleeping pills for the flight. You put me in the car, on a ship, or on a train, and I fall asleep. Plane is a no go. No matter how tired I am, I can’t sleep, and this will be an overnight flight over Atlantic.
I keep meaning to recommend Death, Love, and Robots and forgetting. It’s a new show on Netflix which consists of short animated films unrelated to each other. It’s not a kid show; there is violence and nudity, but it would be really good for a high school age teen interested in weird and fiction. It will blow their mind.
Don’t start with the first episode. It has a message and it’s very blunt in its delivery. I almost didn’t continue after watching it. The rest of the episodes are much more subtle, so I would recommend starting with either of the following episodes: Suits (#4), Sucker of Souls (#5), or Fish Night (#12.) Once you watch one of those, then you’re good to watch everything else. The werewolf episode is amazing. I’m not recommending starting with it because to me it was a highlight.
Your battle quote:
“We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalog of human crime. That is our policy.”
It has to be Churchill. I can just hear him saying it in that gritty voice over the crackly radio. I also assume he really did say that and of course it was in the recent movie Darkest Hour.
Have a good holiday. I am going on a landscape photographic holiday. I use the term holiday loosely – up before first light and out until after dark. I am not sure why I am doing it.
I thought of him too, and also Patton.
Quote either sounds like Churchill or FDR during WWII.
Better to rip than be unhappy and let it sit not using your fabulous yarn!
Audio rec. Did you finish the Linesman Trilogy? And if yes did you pick up Stars Uncharted, the first of their next trilogy? All are available on audio if you haven’t already done them. Figured it was a good recommendation since I found S.K. Dunstall through you! 🙂
Have you tried Monster Hunter International. You get into the series right from the start.
FYI, the episode order for Love, Death & Robots is different for everyone so telling people to skip episode 1 might mean they skip the best episode. Netflix is trying to be clever with some sort of algorithm determining what episode order each user gets.
Apparently there’s four different episode orders that Netflix chooses from and I seem to have the same as you. The episode 1 in this order is Sonnie’s Edge.
Thanks for sharing with us all, the craft of writing. My last writing was for university, but it helps me have an apprciation for all the hard work that you do for us. We enjoy all the work that you and Gordon do, so we can enjoy the worlds that you create for us.
I’m a knitter, so I winced with you as you realized that you had to rip out the rows. We all have projects like that.
Barbara
When you get to France, you will be FREE!!!!!! In the sense of whatever happens in Texas, you can’t do anything about it. You will be able to be in the moment completely. Split up today’s tasks between you and Gordon and enjoy the prettying process.
Bon Voyage!!
I highly recommend “Endurance: Shakleton’s Incredible Journey” by Alfred Lansing as an audiobook. It reminded me a lot of the Martian, constant adventure and challenges to overcome, and it’s incredibly well-done.
Is there anyway to pay for the extra words. I’ll donate 50$ + the cost just to buy a longer book. You both haven’t written a book I didn’t like…. no love. I read and listen to your stories consistently and this is the only blog I follow.
Ditto for me on all points.
+1
I have to agree with Stephen. Is there anyway to buy a writers cut? I’d pay extra to see what got deleted or rewritten.
+1
Yes!!!
That was Winston Churchill’s first speech to Parliament as Prime Minister in 1940,
doing his Henry V ” Band of Brothers ” thing.
This is a great example of why a great speech is like a great book —
Write, Edit, Repeat. Only an idiot thinks he can stand in front of a microphone and
ramble and ramble some more off-message.
Any book by Wen Spencer is going to keep you happily occupied during long flight. Each one of them is great. The characters, the world building, the stories – everything is superb.
Enjoy your trip to Paris. You will want to come back again
Have you read Dana Stabenow’s sci-fi trilogy? I wasn’t blown away, but tastes differ. If you are at all interested in Alaska stuff her Kate Stabenow series is good.
No recs for audiobooks, but I want to say thank you for how great the Kate Daniels audiobooks are. I’ve never been able to get into audiobooks despite wanting to use them for knitting so when I started this most recent reread of Kate’s series & saw that our library had most of the books in audio as well as Kindle I checked out both. I love Renee Raudman as a narrator she makes the characters sound distinct without going so far with it that it becomes a distraction. Her voice flows so smoothly with the story that it is like reading for me – I can picture it in my head. I have tried some audiobooks that had truly awful almost monotone narrators and I’m also picky about voices and pitch due to sound sensitivity which doesn’t help. Finding enjoyable audiobooks has given me hope that there are more out there.
Audio books – Any of the Dresden Files.
The day of your flight, check with your airline and see if there are lay-down seats for a reduced price. It’s a long shot but you never know! If you ever fly to London, Delta /Virgin Atlantic now has a “day” flight from NY and American has one from
Chicago. You leave around 8 am and you arrive at 8 pm. Your jet lag is greatly reduced. Took this last summer and it was fabulous.
John Adams:
Oh good God! Fishing rights? How long is this piddling to go on? We have been here for three solid days! We have endured, by my count, more than eighty-five separate changes and the removal of close to four hundred words. Now, would you whip it and beat it ’til you break its spirit? I tell you, that document is a masterful expression of the American mind!
“1776”!!
Did you play Adams?
(Love his 2nd act number “Is Anybody There?”)
My first album purchase and favorite Broadway musical! Good God!
Can’t we just pay a little extra for the book and leave it alone?
Then you don’t have to change it any more.
Also fall asleep when traveling even airplanes. An hour after being fed, I fall asleep and don’t wake up until we stop. One time was on a short flight when we were descending, my body decided it was nap time. My head kept nodding forward and I was jerking back to keep from falling asleep. Wide awake when we stopped.
Might try Hunter, Elite and Apex by M Lackey. More for teens but interesting . Also Bailey Cates if you like murder mysteries that involves a witch with a bakery.
Best advice is to get a library card, and then go to the web site and try out different audio books.
Keep up the good fight. Can’t wait for the next book to come out.
If you’re still having trouble with word count, however, I’d recommend slimming down the gun facts. No offense, but they’re a little jarring to read, especially since I’m in the competitive shooting circuit and the facts aren’t always correct. I know that they’re what you might find on the internet or hear from a layman, and most readers don’t know or care, but it detracts from the story IMO. I have three Rugers for competition, and I would rather bring a brick to a gunfight than all three of them and four extra arms to shoot them with. Maybe not the advice you’d want to hear (you’re obviously the published author, not I), but maybe it will help.
That being said, I don’t care about any of that if you would just please publish the book right now or let us pay extra for the current copy.
I hunted down audio of his speeches. I LOVE Churchill’s speeches but the audio is strangely monotone to me. Maybe radio was too new so he toned it down. It maybe he knew it was going to be a long tough haul thru hell and conservation of energy was important.
The best audio books I’ve ever listened to were the “Cat who…” series by Lillian Jackson Braun. The narrator will ruin all other audio books for you.
Good luck with all of your preparations for the trip! I look forward to seeing the results of all of this editing.
I think you would like Joel Shepard. He has written 2 series that have absolutely grabbed my attention. The Spiral Wars Series is excellent space opera with riveting pacing, interesting twists and good tech. The first few books of this series are in audio form.
I think his most interesting series is about Cassandra Kresnov. She is so much more than an android. She is such an interesting character. The writing is visceral and the time I laughed was probably matched by the time I was choked up. I swear I could not tear myself away from the audiobook.
This popped up on the Mary Balough page: “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me”
C.S. Lewis.
Would love a blog post on word counts. I’m not in the book business so don’t know the why of it. It’s seems….80ish. With the vast majority of books published digitally – why worry about number of words? Isn’t content, flow, etc the key?
Have you tried Jodi Taylor’s interesting take on time travel? Just One Damned Thing After Another: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book One is the start of the mayhem. Don’t mistake this for the run of the mill time travel, they are time observers, there for scientific study, ( yup, that’s what they say anyway). There are sentimental moments, sad moments, and many more outlandish moments. The story revolves around a few main characters, who explore all over the timeline.
Sorry for the second post, but I forgot to say that the narrator, for the Chronicles of St. Mary’s series is Zara Ramm. She does an excellent job.