Friday 8 November 2013

Ye Olde Update

I'm still working hard on Scorpion3, so there's very little to blog about at present. It's going to be shorter than I'd expected - I was planning for 70-80k and it's more likely in the 55k area, but that's a good thing, because it means I'm done sooner withotu the sub-plot that was going to eat those chapters, and, besides, my characters were too clever to make that mistake anyway, so ... good times. It's enough to go to print, though, so, yay. No awkward "two paperbacks and an e-book" shelving. (Yes, these things are kind of important to me.) In terms of pure wordcount, I'll be done in first draft by Monday. THIS Monday.

I'm WAY behind on email, but I'm getting caught up with Goodreads email (I'm at just over 40 emails now). I did, however, answer some interview questions this morning, so that's all good on that side.

Then the Case of the Abducted Wheelie Bin has been resolved. It started a while ago when I was warned that my "green waste" wheelie bin would be taken away if I didn't pay the annual fee (£60 or so). I'd let it lapse because my garden people would always take the cuttings away, but when they left me in the lurch, I quickly called the council and paid for the wheelie bin to stay on the phone.

Two weeks ago on Saturday, my wheelie bin was abducted by the council because according to them I hadn't paid. Cue much upset and horror, especially as I was 100% sure I'd paid and I had no idea what to do with the leaves and grass cuttings (my garden is overshadowed ba couple HUGE OLD trees that are all shedding leaves now like mad). So I called, and chased them up, and called again, and was transferred to a number of people who all assured me I'd be called back in 5 days.

They didn't.

Instead, yesterday I came home and had a NEW SHINY WHEELIE BIN, no message attached.

Gods, my author life is so exciting. A few more of those, and I have a cozy mystery where abducted wheelie bins are the talk of the town for weeks. The whole thing just strikes me as weirdly and absurdly British.

L'affaire wheelie bin did leave me some time to write, so I did that, and while progress wasn't fast, it was quite steady, and nowhere near NaNo numbers: 700 words here, 1,000 words there, 1,200 words there, and once or twice even 500 words before work. I was on a huge tear yesterday, doing 2,000 words by 17:00, but was rudely interrupted by the Dude who wanted to watch Avenger Assemble, which we did, and it took forever, and before that I'd attended the gay/lesbian book club meeting in London, where only 2 other people showed up (normally we are more like 5-7), likely because nobody had read/liked the book. (It's "Mr Foote's Other Leg" by Ian Kelly, and responses ranged from "what utter tosh" to "I loved it." I'm on page 75ish and kinda stuck in the middle of those sentiments. My opinions tend to crystallise over a few days after I've finished.)

Exciting times.

No news on the job interview front, apart from a second round being scheduled.

But mostly I'm focusing on Scorpion3, getting the scenes in the right order, and trying to do a good job with all the characters. Yesterday I wrote a scene that I loved - one of the villains had to check his records why exactly he had somebody murdered. Most other films and books seem to assume that villains remember the details of their crimes in the final confrontation, but mine didn't, and that gave me a good laugh.

Anyway, just a couple more chapters, and I can wrap the series. As much as I loved it, after doing nothing else for about 6 months (or that is what it felt like), I'm quite ready to switch genres and do something different. I'll still be playing with Widow's story, but that one's separate from Kendras's story, so I'm still in the clear.

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