it begins . . . .

[swan_tower]

Actually, it began a while ago, when my agent asked me to write a sample of the next Onyx Court book to send out with the proposal. I already had nearly eight thousand words in the bank when I announced the deal.

But today is the real beginning, the day when I sit down and start cranking out words at a steady pace. The LBR icon will come back, I'm sure, for progress posts, but this first one gets my brand-spanking-new comet icon. (It really ought to be a pic of Halley's comet, but the sad truth is that the 1986 return did not produce any pictures half so spectacular as this one -- whichever comet it is -- and the various older depictions don't make great icons. You'd all be wondering what the white smudge is, or why I have a Bayeux Tapestry icon for an eighteenth-century book.)

Anyhoo. 1093 words: a hair over quota, to cross the 9K boundary and make myself feel good. I'll talk more later about Galen, the mortal protagonist of this book, and the ways in which I'm going to have to stretch to write him, but so far, so good. I think it's safe to say Galen is not in much danger of being boring.

Tomorrow, I get to play with a centaur . . .

Comments

[astres.livejournal.com]

Do you write a really solid draft or do you do lots of revisions? I'm curious :)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Generally a pretty solid draft; in fact, part of the reason for my standard 1K-a-day pace is that it's usually about the speed at which I can figure out where I'm going without having to backtrack and change things. There have been exceptions, though: both Onyx Court books so far have required me to substantially rewrite their beginnings, for some reason.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

YAY!

I am so looking forward to these books!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Me too, which is always a good sign. <g>

[findabair.livejournal.com]

Hi, I took the liberty of friending you so I can easier keep up with what you write. I'm just a random reader in Norway enjoying your work :)

Glad to hear the Onyx Court series will continue!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Velkommen! (No, I don't speak Norwegian, beyond about four words. I do have a bunch of ancestors from there, though, if that counts for anything.)

[findabair.livejournal.com]

Cool! I love that about the States, that random people I meet tell me they have Norwegian ancestors and start speaking what little they know of Norwegian to me (a hotel concierge in Chicago being the most recent).

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Well, we're a bunch of mongrels over here, all descended from immigrants of one stripe or another (except the full-blooded Native Americans -- and even them, if you go back far enough, though that's pushing the point).

The language thing, however, I will do with any language at my disposal. I am a linguistic dilettante: not fluent in anything, but possessed of odd words and phrases in many things.