Category Archives: 2002 – Catspaw

Should old creations be forgot

Posted on by
1

SeleneA week or two back, someone in a writing group I’m in (!) mentioned an Amazon novel submission contest in mid-February. My initial reaction was, “Well, I’m certainly not going to write a 50K+ novel in a month” sort of thing (I reserve that madness for November).  But it did make me think …

Of my 2002 NaNoWriMo novel, Catspaw …

So I dug up all the old info I had on it (extracts from a Movable Type website, fergoshsakes).  And I read it through.

Hmmm. Not bad.

Not great. Some problems. Some places that didn;t quite work. Though, honestly, some things I recall being less than enthused about read better now with some distance.  And, of a wonder, it’s already had some peer review (waves at De) way back in the day.

The novel actually started as a character sketch for an ADRPG game that Doyce was running back in (gack!) 1998. It got turned into a novel in November 2002 — but, of a wonder, went through a full, reviewed/fedback  revision up through Jan/Feb 2003.

And then sat there for a decade.

So I’ve loaded it into YWriter, and am staring to go through it in much more detail, drawing on ten years of writing experience (ha!) and trying to get it further cleaned up and coherent.

I don’t know that I’ll end up submitting it — but I’m kind of pleased with the effort I’m putting into doing so.

The Muse Arises

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t know what tree she was snoozing underneath, but the Muse is definitely awake. She’s had me busy on some technical work, of all things, but she’s also been giving me some stray ideas for something new, as well as a slew of ideas for Catpaw — a new framing device, a couple of bits of dialog that help explain some things. Once WIST is put to bed, I think I’ll be returning to Selene and try to get another draft finished.

Revisions, revisions …

Posted on by
1

Passing the time on a long flight …
I finally dug out my Catspaw manuscript and started doing some editing.
Argh.
There is nothing as wonderful as reading something you forgot you wrote, and saying, “Wow, I really like that.”
There are few things as discouraging as reading something you forgot you wrote, and saying, “Oh my God, that’s really … amateurish.”
To be fair, I started again at the very beginning, which was the first stuff I wrote (this was a NaNoWriMo project mind you), so I’d expect it to be the clumsiest.
Still.
Glad I started work on it again. And, yes, I need to trim it substantially.
this post enabled by airblogging.com.

Little cat whispers

Posted on by
Reply

The muse is sitting on my shoulder, nearly invisible, whisper quiet.
“Nice blog,” she says. “Good work.”
And, “So you can note projects you’re working on.”
And, “Tsk. So many unfinished bits and pieces.”
And, “So … when you going to get back to work on Catspaw?”

Bloggy goodness

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve managed to get the “Writing & Language” category from my main blog over here, and the broken out to the various categories (further revised). Done a fair amount of clean-up. Tweaked some templates and the stylesheet. Sadly observed the bit rot of the past four and a half years.
Felt noodged by the Muse to get the frelling lead out and finish Catspaw.
Things left to do:

  1. Clean up the DDtB category to delete entries that really belong only over here.
  2. Make some observations on DDtB about using the default MT3.2 templates and stylesheets.
  3. Start pulling down and making permanent copies of what writing I have out there on other sites that might (like the Lexicon) vanish softly and silently away.

Revisions

Posted on by
2

Finished v1.5 of Catspaw, the “Go through the whole thing and resolve the majority of the internal conflicts and sand down some of the bits that were too, too, too awkward” version.
I have enough further suggestions and things to do (not least of which is cutting out several thousands of words) for a dozen more revisions, but it’s kind of nice to have finished yet another pass on it.
(And, no, it’s not online for public consumption. Wait a few more revisions, or until I decide whether to actually submit the damned thing or not.)

One long-outstanding resolution completed, thank God

Posted on by
10

Only a few months behind schedule.Finally wrapped up Catspaw with a 5,500 word finale. Thanks to all my loyal readers (and wannabewhenyoufinish readers) for your support, Margie in particular. It’s been a long 14 months, I know.
The final tally, including pre-NaNoWriMo 2002 words, was just over 86k. Yikes.
Now, of course, comes a massive editing job. Writing a story in sequence, with no back-editing as I realize things need to be changed, makes for a lot of story lines that stumble clumsily along and/or vanish mysteriously mid-novel. A lot of words need to be taken out, probably, and a lot of others need to be put in –some better character development for one thing, since there’s a difference between many strung-together scenes that stand well on their own, and a single narrative that can stand on its own.
Or something like that.
So, fair warning, if you decide to read the dagblasted thing (and it’s available on the main page by chapter or as a single download page), it’s anything but polished, though it is, at last, more or less complete.
And in time for January, when Doyce, De and I are doing a mutual editing thang. I fear mine will be the light entertainment of the trio, but I have no illusions as to my own literary aspirations.
It’s good to be done. Now for the hard work.

Busy

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been busy as all get-out today, and last week as well, which has impacted the blogging today (and last week as well).
It’s also impacted my writing. That’s particularly irking me because I know what comes next (though I just had a keen idea that will take a few days to unfold, too, so I suppose that delay was a good one).
Maybe tomorrow …