Sunday, March 11, 2012

Silent Running

In one month and ten days, I must turn in The Tainted City to my editor.  This week, something I thought would be one chapter multiplied into two, which leaves me with (still!) 5 chapters to go, and not much time to write them.  I'm going to need every spare moment to do it - so, for the next month or so, no more Book Rec or Thursday Adventure posts.  I might do a few super-short "progress update" posts as I close in on the book's end, mostly for my own benefit.  I'll also still occasionally be around on twitter, since it's easy enough to fire off a 140-char tweet as I zoom past the computer in pursuit of my toddler (writing actual story prose in scattered five-second bursts sadly does not work for me).  But other than that, I'll be pretty scarce.  In the meantime, wish me luck, have a great spring, and I'll see you in late April.

Tainted City Stats:
Current manuscript length: 120,918 words.
Deleted scenes file length: 21,307 words.  (Sigh!)
Chapters left to go: 5
Number of times I've used the words "bitter," "sardonic," and "wary": far too many.

3 comments:

  1. Wishing you luck! ;-) Hang in there, Courtney, you'll make it. Let me know if I can help.
    T

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  2. Five chapters in five weeks, all revised and ready? Wow. I'm reminded of this quote from Lillian Hellman on Dashiell Hammett:

    Life changed. The drinking stopped, the parties were over. The locking-in time had come and nothing was allowed to disturb it until the book was finished. I had never seen anybody work that way; the care for every word, the pride in the neatness of the typed page itself, the refusal for ten days or two weeks to go out even for a walk for fear something would be lost.

    Lots of focus, flow, and inspiration to you. And no matter what Hammett did, get in some walks!

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