Geralin

I’ve just posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe RP forums. This week’s update wraps up the Occulus and takes us into the Nexus. It’s part of the Malygos divergence arc.

I will be sending out The Unexiled next week. I’m sorry for that and, to make it up to you all, I will send out another draft the week after as well. I’ve gotten absolutely nothing done on it the whole time I’ve been here in the US. I have been far too pre-occupied with going out in the forest with a loaded rifle, climbing up in a tree, and shooting at deer. I managed to bag my first one yesterday. Yes, I like to hunt. And yes, we eat what we kill here in Mississippi. We’re all used to living off the land a good bit; we don’t hunt for “sport.”

I’m sorry if that offends anyone but the fact is that if we don’t kill some of the hundreds of deer out here at our farm, they will destroy our crops and we will lose the farm because we won’t have anything to sell in order to pay the taxes and assorted other costs. So, if a few dozen deer a year have to die and become our dinner versus us losing our farm…well, Bambi does make good eatin’. Bros before does, amirite?

Really, though, I’m sorry if hunting bothers anyone but it is something I enjoy doing. It’s nice to get out in the woods where it’s quiet, peaceful, and to just sit there and soak up the sun and wind. Getting to bring home dinner really is just the icing on the cake.

I’m flying back to France tomorrow and I’ll land there Sunday morning. I lose a day going east. I’m going to sit my butt down next week and do nothing but write on Alayne’s Story and The Unexiled. So, I won’t miss anymore send-outs. I promise.

I’ll cut this short right here. We’re going over to visit my niece again (play time with the baby ftw) and then I need to finish my laundry and get packed up again.

Take care, everyone!

I keep telling myself I’m going to get better about blogging and I keep letting myself down. Story of my life. 🙂 So, just a few quick announcements, a bit about my week, and then back to work!

I have just posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe RP forums. I hope you enjoy it. This week’s update of The Unexiled will be delayed until next week because I have been so slammed the last two weeks that I’ve gotten jackshit done on it.

When you’re forced to pull 12 to 13 hour days at work, by the time you stagger home, all you want is to curl up with a good book, some Jack’n’CokeZero*, and not have to think. I’m flying out to the States tomorrow to visit with my family for Thanksgiving so once I get over the jet-lag, I should be able to get some writing done over there. I’m going to try to set up my laptop to send the story to the mailing list but it may be tricky since I’ll be doing that tonight while packing, bitching, packing, complaining, packing, burning my WoW client to a DVD, bitching, charging my iPod, and wondering just when we’re finally going to invent transporters because I’d almost rather have to endure a gyneocological examine than go through airport security and actually get on that flying machine.

I’m not a fan of air travel. I’m not as bad as Alayne is about it but I don’t bother to hide my dislike of it (and my intense fear during take off and landing) either.

I’m looking forward to getting to see my niece while I’m there, too. Maybe I’ll get some pictures of her and post them here. She looks soooooooooo much like my brother that it’s eerie. Mom thinks she’s going to have his temperment as well (God help her if she gets mine. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even someone I hated!)

And now back to the grind!

*I do not advocate underage drinking. If you aren’t old enough to drink whiskey legally, don’t. Seriously. If you’re going to drink, you need to be responsible about it and the first part of that is being old enough to do it legally. /end PSA

I have just posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe RP forums.

And now to go work on The Unexiled some more.

I have just posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe RP forums. This concludes the battle in Violet Hold and starts the diversionary arc leading up to the fight in the Eye of Eternity.

I will try to send out The Unexiled tonight. However, I have gotten a little distracted this week by The Gathering Storm.

Yes, I’m a complete and utter Wheel of Time addict.

I just finished The Gathering Storm and the short review is this: This. book. is. better. than. sex!

Anyhow, back to work.

I’ve just posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe RP forums. This week we see the characters get pulled into the struggle against the blue dragonflight. While this is happening under the whole Ulduar story-arc, it’s a pretty major divergence.

I’ve also made some major strides on The Unexiled. Next week’s update on that should be considerably longer than the previous weeks’ updates have been. I’d say that, once I finish the next few scenes, I’ll be about 20 to 25% of the way through the major story. Still quite some ways to go until the end but I am cautiously optimistic that I will finish the whole thing within the next six months — life, time, raiding, and all permitting. Once it’s done, I’ll do about three months of revision on it before I start trying to track down an agent and get published.

And now, back to work on The Unexiled!

I’ve just posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe RP forums. This week finishes up the Halls of Lightning storyline and begins Diversion Number One from Ulduar.

This is where things may start getting really muddled. I wrote a LOT of this in August and early September when I was still in shock from my brother’s death. I’ve tried to go back and correct some of the repetiveness but I know I missed a few things, probably. I finally had to stop trying to fix it all and tell myself I’ll hit it when I’m in the break between Parts III and IV (yes, Alayne’s Story is going to continue on into Cataclysm and beyond, probably).

The latest round of The Unexiled will go out tonight as well, tomorrow at the latest. I’m having trouble with a scene and just have not been able to progress much on it so the update will not be very long. Fair warning. However, I’m taking a “mental health holiday” from work next week (vacation days I have to burn up before the end of the year) so I will hopefully get more work done on it after I clean up the disaster area my husband and I call “home.”

And now, back to work!

I’ve just posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe RP forum. This week’s update takes the characters inside the Halls of Lightning.

In other, semi-related news, I finally got in a Yogg-Saron kill this week. Also, work is progressing quite well on The Unexiled. I had hung myself up a few days with worry over how long the tribal section is running. In the end, I’ve decided not to worry about it and wind up hamstringing myself. It’ll run for as long as I need it. Once I get the draft completed, I can go back and rework it to shorten it as needed. For now, I just need to let the characters flow, do their thing, and I can give it a critical read when it’s ready for one. I think that’s what has held me up on the previous attempts. I was always trying to edit and write it at the same time. Let me explain.

Writing and editing are not the same thing. What I do with Alayne’s Story is to just write it out. I don’t do any editing other than a quick pass for typos (which I don’t always get) and grammar (ditto). I have done what I call a “critical read” of Parts I and II. I printed it out and read them over the course of a few days, making notes on things I intend to go back and change or rewrite. However, I want to get Part III finished before I do that. Why? Because editing is not writing. Editing is revising. Editing uses different modes, different methods, and has a much different flow to it. Since I was never planning (and still am not) to publish Alayne’s Story, I never let myself get caught in the write-edit trap. However, since I am planning to publish The Unexiled, I fell right into it several times.

Why don’t I edit Alayne’s Story? Because, once again, limited amounts of time. And, it kills the flow of writing Alayne’s Story. I should have realized this a while back. I do work as a copyeditor. My job involves editing and proofreading. When I edit something for a publication, I’m reading it much differently than when I proofread or just read. I’m not really certain how to describe what goes on in my head in these processes but I’ll give it a try.

Writing: I’m just letting it flow. I correct obvious typos, grammar errors, and logic issues but I don’t worry about it. I always have the meta-story in mind but I focus more on each scene as a stand-alone.

Proofreading: I read more carefully, looking for unobvious typos (your for you’re, its for it’s, etc) and grammar errors. I also check for better ways to say something (balancing between repetiveness and sounding like I ate a thesaurus).

Editing: I take out my scalpal, my butcher knife, my axe, and a blowtorch and attack the nuts and bolts. Here, I’m looking for anything that weakens or fails to strengthen the story. Every scene is judged on if it does what I needed it to do. If it doesn’t, I rework it. If it won’t fit, I cut it. If I don’t like it, I rewrite it.

For my old short stories, I could write one day, proofread the next, and edit the third. For something long, though, I can’t do that. It really is a flow thing and once I get started looking at something in “edit mode,” I find it difficult to get out of it and go back to “writing mode.” So, if you’re reading The Unexiled (or Alayne’s Story), you’re reading a very rough draft. I am refusing to let myself do much critical reading of either so that I will not talk myself into editing them before they (and I) am ready to take that step.

Okay, lesson over. Back to work. My job is not going to do itself. 😉

I’ve just posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW-Europe RP forum. This week starts the beginning of the Halls of Lightning expedition.

Tonight’s draft of The Unexiled will go out after my Ulduar run, probably. I need to finish up the scene I’m working on and make some edits to a few previous scenes. I may cut out part of the scene that was giving me so many problems because it’s running longer than I would like it to.

And now, back to work!