Nov. 8th, 2009

stillsostrange: (Bone Palace)
The Bone Palace


84023 / 100000 words. 84% done!

The winner of the costume/story contest is [livejournal.com profile] desperance, since I used a good chunk of his idea. My version--as well as an excellent example of how I avoid naming things as long as possible--goes like this.

In Selafai, brides wore red--the color of life and life's blood, virgin's blood, the blood of childbed, blood comingled in children. A color of fertility and fruitful unions. Veils had mostly gone out of fashion, and those who wore them still usually chose gold or silver, or more crimson if their complexions could stand it. Black veils had been made famous decades earlier by the playwright Kharybdea, who chose the color for X in the tragedy Y, the priestess who was broke her vows for love of Z, only to be betrayed and abandoned on their wedding night, after he had stolen her temple's greatest treasure. She killed herself on her saint's altar, and haunted Z in revenge, driving him to madness and finally death. It was probably the most relentlessly miserable story Savedra had ever seen on stage. It took a woman of morbid or vicious humor to dress as X for a masque; that three had done so tonight would surely be called an ill omen.

Now if someone wants to name X, Y, and Z, I'll be all set.


I've had anxiety dreams the past two nights. First I was trying to find a dress in a store full of hundreds of gorgeous dresses, but none of them fit, and the store was about to close, and my friends had already bought theirs. Then last night assassins broke into my apartment and I had to fight them off with a kitchen knife, then was stuck in the apartment with their not-quite-dead bodies waiting for help to arrive. (I got in a surprising amount of violence, since my dreams are the slow-running, crawling-through-peanut-butter kind, with any physical action muted and completely non-tactile.)

Yes, subconscious, I know we have a deadline. Anxiety dreams won't make it any better.
stillsostrange: (Agony)
And lo, from the distance roes a great lamentation, and all who heard it did despair. The deathmarch had come upon them.

My first draft of The Bone Palace is due November 15th. My Adorable Editor has indicated that I can probably have a little more time if I need it, but I don't want to blow my first deadline any more than I have to. And so begins a deathmarch, and public accountability.

My goals for the next week are:

Today - 2,000 words
Monday - 500 words (I'm going climbing after work, because climbing keeps me from becoming a large and moving torb)
Tuesday - 2,000 words
Wednesday - 2,000 words (I will not be climbing on Wednesday unless I have my 2k beforehand)
Thursday - 1,500 words
Friday - 500 (more climbing, unless I'm behind)
Saturday - 0 (I'm kayaking in the morning and closing at work, and even deathmarchers need a day off)
Sunday - 1500 words

That has me writing 10,000 words by the end of Sunday, and hopefully finding most of the end. Since this is the zero draft, I'm allowing myself as many [transition]s and [description]s as I need. I may also be spamming LJ, Facebook, and Twitter as I try to cling to sanity.

And now my tea is ready, and so we begin.


Oh, and happy birthday [livejournal.com profile] arcaedia and [livejournal.com profile] retrobabble!
stillsostrange: (Elbow sex)
Okay, I think I adore Bioware now, despite Dragon Age's cheese and stilted dialogue and Claudia Black's atrocious not-a-shirt. People threw a shitstorm over Mass Effect's blue-alien-lesbian nookie, and now Dragon Age has even more queer. I'm kind of in love with Zorro the Gay Elf.

You can also have hot demon sex (lesbian or otherwise), but sadly the hot demon in question is wearing stripper pasties. Just say no to pasties, my friends.

(Also, Zorro the elf happens to bear a more-than-passing resemblance to Legolas. And you can play a dwarf. I don't endorse Gimli/Legolas, but I still want to smooch the writers.)

Oops, I think I see my novel...

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