avalanching

5008 words for Labor Day.

It isn't labor if you love what you're doing.

Almost done. Almost. It was five thousand because this was the climax; yesterday I wrote the first of the two scenes I've been wanting to write since I put together this proposal more than a year ago, and today I wrote the second. Ding, dong, the plot is dead, but the denoument lives on. There's a bit of work to be done yet -- at least one day's worth, possibly two. We'll see.

So very nearly done.


Word count: 130,090
LBR census: Blood and love, and some horrible, horrible rhetoric.
Authorial sadism: Memento people know I was never sure which Merriman I was crueler to, Francis or Philip. There's no Philip Merriman in this story, but Galen's taken his place. 'Nuff said.

things I have a profound disagreement with

But before I get to the disagreeing: I've been so brain-deep in finishing A Star Shall Fall, I overlooked the fact that Podcastle's audio of "A Heretic by Degrees" has gone live. So go, listen, enjoy.

***

Right, so, the disagreeing.

I find it interesting that Dean Wesley Smith begins this post with the assertion that "No writer is the same" -- and then proceeds to make his point (on the topic of rewriting) with such vehemence and absolutism that it could easily be mistaken for divine, universal law. Which is a pity, because I think he has a good point to make; but the force behind it drives the point way deeper than I think it deserves to go, and as a result, people who find themselves disagreeing with the full version may miss the value of the reduced version.

I think he's right that rewriting can hurt a story. It can polish the fire out, like focus-testing a product until it's bland pablum that doesn't offend anybody, but doesn't interest them, either. Sometimes you get it right the first time.

But. He seems to be arguing (with the force of an evangelical preacher) that your critical brain will never be useful to you as a writer. This works because a particular rhetorical trick:

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