author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Note to self:

A thorough critique of a 6500-word story takes a Lot Of Time. Do not, in future, save it for the last minute.

Do not, likewise, save work on one's own writing for last minute.

So there.

Resolution the First: To submit the first few chapters of The Drowning Boy as my application to Viable Paradise. This will happen before my Mardi Gras train trip home, or by the time I've finished the current rewrite, whichever comes first.

Resolution the Second: To submit The Golden Bridle to the National Novel Publishing Year process, and to submit it to Delacorte no later than October 31, 2006. To that end, I have printed out the manuscript and am now beginning the first read-through.

Resolution the Third: To renew my commitment to One Professional Submission Per Month. To that end, I will put "Turbulence" and "Heroes To Believe In" back into the slush by the end of this month, and I hope to finish and submit "Threnody For Trilobite Blue" by the end of next month. (Speaking of "Trilobite," can anyone tell me whether any part of the mountain ranges now in Oklahoma were peeking up above sea level during the Early Devonian? I'm having a hard time finding this out.)

Resolution the Fourth: To be a member in good standing of the Critters community, faithfully submitting at least one critique per week, and submitting "Trilobite" unto their tender mercies by the end of this month.

Resolution the Fifth: To engage in more reliably money-seeking writerly behavior alongside my fictional pursuits. To that end, I have, as has already been noted, accepted a couple new work-for-hire projects, one due late January, the other mid-February.

Resolution The Highest: To act like a friggin' writer, dammit! I mean it this year!

...Wish me luck.

Nearly got to sleep on time last night, for a change. Took the Ancient Decrepit Laptop to bed with me and fell asleep around 9:45 rereading the first Amy's POV chapter. Woke up again not much later, though. Tried to really get to sleep but no go. Started working on the novel again around 2:30 AM instead.

I think I'm turning nocturnal.

I'm not sure how useful it was that, as a result of reading too many reviews of the Narnia movie and critiques of the books, as I fought to stay asleep between 10 and Midnight last night, I drifted in and out of dreams that conflated Amy and Todd from The Drowning Boy with Peter and Susan from The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe.

In any case. I'm skipping Chapter Thirteen for now because I'm not entirely sure what the Amy-and-Todd-in-Gasworks-Park interlude should consist of, and I've gotten as far into Chapter Fourteen as a description of the Depths of Ereshkegal. We haven't actually met the Shark Goddess Herself yet. I'm still deciding how that will go down. Again, trying very, very hard not to end up sounding like I'm ripping off Diane Duane (who, by the way, has a most excellent blog over here; if you are at all interested in ever seeing a sequel to To Visit The Queen, you should read this particular post). It'll be hard, if only because in Deep Wizardry she really nailed the description of a larger-than-life Great White, so that every time I reach for the right words I end up grabbing a handful of hers.

I suppose the key to this is characterization. I mean, duh. The two characters might share the same species, but they're two different characters nevertheless. I don't know that I'm looking forward to meeting mine.

Mwahahaha. My web interface works now. It lives! It lives! Well, the manuscript addition and edit bits of it, anyway. Hence the as-yet-unwritten short story linked to this entry. Mwahahaha!

Disclaimer: Science fiction alert. Research needed. Title and setting of short story subject to change without notice. You have been warned.

Sorry for the cliche, but it's not. It's an announcement that I'm working on a new short story--yeah, I do that sometimes--but that it doesn't have a title yet or has even been added to my manuscript-and-submissions-logging database, because I've been all hell-bent to get the web interface for said database up and running so I can finally use something easier than phpMyAdmin across several tables to enter new records.

Ah, HTML. HTML, PHP, MySQL. Those lovely procrastination tools that keep on justifying themselves.

Just to keep this entry from being a total waste, behold! I give you an open call for submissions to an anthology: She Is Such A Geek. Gals only. Personal essays requested. All forms of Geekdom welcome. I think. Don't ask me, I'm just passing on the link. Same with the person whose web page I've linked to. So, make sure you note the email address of the actual editors of the actual anthology; don't bug Jed Hartman about it.

Woke up quite late today, toddled down to the mailbox, and found my official form rejection letter from Wizards Of The Coast regarding The Drowning Boy. Reactions?

1. Darn! I could have sworn my three-chapter excerpt was irresistable!
2. Figures. My synopsis and chapter outline were teh suxx0r.
3. Whew! Now I don't have to worry about racing the phone call with my rewrite!
4. Whoo-hoo! Another number located! Mine is 166! ...I have no idea what that means.

Like I said in the AW thread, I'm going to keep working on this one through December, hoping to have the rewrite close to finished. Then in January I'm going to primarily do whatever the NaNoPubYe Plan says to do with The Golden Bridle, making sure to schedule time for other projects as well. Like short stories. And work-for-hire projects. Etc.

So. Time to hit chapter 13. More later tonight. Probably.

This is a public announcement that Chapter Twelve is done. It contains things that were not planned as part of the original chapter outline, even considering that I've diverged from the structure of the original chapter outline already anyway. There's the potential beginning of a "keep swimming or die" theme, and the achievement of oceanic satori, and a cameo by the fabled Leviathan.

Next up: A conversation with the Shark Goddess, and an interlude with Amy and Todd back on land. I'm not quite sure in which order these will appear. If one sequence doesn't work out, the other probably will.

I'm a little worried. We just met the great beast Behemoth, and now I have to establish that the Shark is in fact all that and twice the bag of chips. I mean, it's pretty easy to say "it could have eaten the Leviathan in two bites," right, but how the hell am I supposed to convince anyone of that? I mean, it would be like C. S. Lewis trying to describe Aslan after having the children meet King Kong. Divinity, yes, it's divine and all that, but we're comparing it with Frickin' Huge here.

Of course, pretty much everything seems impossible when you're sleep deprived. With your permission, I think I shall collapse now. G'night.

Another quick writing session at Cafe Bravo today after visiting Computer Renaissance. I swear, what with the ongoing saga of the dead Averatec 5100, we're all on a first name instant recognition basis at those places now. I walk into Comp Ren, and it's all like, "Good morning everybody!" from me, and "Hey Niki, you're here to see Ryan, right? Go on back," from Brian. And then I cross the street over to Bravo's, and it's all, "Hey Josh, Merry Christmas," and "Hi, another tea today for you? How's the computer doing?" Totally scary, I'm telling you.

Comp Ren: So, last week I reinstated my Thunderbird profile on the desktop in the backroom (which we playfully refer to as "ROXXOR" because of having acquired it specifically to play Guild Wars simultaneously with John--what a cruel, cruel move it is to get someone addicted to real-time gaming when all they have is a laptop). Only, all I reinstated was my Mail folder. Then I deleted the rest of it to save space. Thursday I discovered what I'd forgotten: my address book. So today I came in with the Toshiba Satellite's hard drive in the USB adapter so I could have those files copied to me again. Ryan was holding onto my backup for just this eventuality. He'd been sitting on it for a week, all 37 GBs of it. When I told him this was all, he encouraged me to take the files home and make double sure before he hit the delete key. When I did, and I imported the address book, and I called back, he was all like, "Are you sure?" Total sweetheart. Totally.

So now across the street for tea and a sausage Breggo (like a breakfast burrito, only more Italian than Mexican--more like a floury foccacia than a tortilla) and two hours of writing. I didn't quite hit Chapter 12; instead, I went back through all of Part Two up until now with a grocery list of What Changes Happen (Or Get Noticed) When. The grocery list looked something like this:

• Moon--Brian notices he can sense phase/movement of moon (tides)--
  • upon leaving Amy Friday night, moon is setting, will be down by the time we leave the shipping canal
  • it's up again when Brian runs into Alexis on the fishing boat Sunday dawn
• gradual adjustment to "seeing" mostly via ear
  • "watching" salmon swim away outside shipping canal (hearing water motion)
  • thinks mermaid's song is making an illusion of crowds, then discovers there really is a crowd of other mermaids in the big cave (hearing echoes of voices, adjusting to what the echoes mean)
• When does Brian become aware of sea's voice? (sort of a bass pulse, like what you hear underwater in a swimming pool only much much deeper)--
  • leaves shipping canal; hears relative quiet (reinforces how noisy human civilization sounds underwater), but--
  • still plenty white noise in the inhabited depths; doesn't hear sea's voice until the silence of the Shark's domain

It was the "sea's voice" stuff that got me back-tracking. I was rereading the first version of the book in order to start writing about Brian's meeting with the Shark. There always has to be a Damn Big God-Like Shark in books like these, hasn't there? I promise I am not trying to rip off Duane's Deep Wizardry, despite what it may sound like! Trying not to, anyway. Damn, but there are an awful lot of similarities. I suck. Mustn't concentrate on the suckage. Must just finish book--

Rejection letters, supposedly, went out yesterday. Or thereabouts. If I don't see anything in the mail by Tuesday, it might be a sign of That Blessed Dilemma--a request-for-full when the novel isn't finished--in which case no one will be hearing from me for about a week. As a sign that I am allowing myself to hope, no one will hear much from me tomorrow, either. Well, aside from the inevitable mass family phone call session, it being Christmas and all. Hi Mom!

So, I'm not sure how much I've said about my previous work-for-hire project (or if I ever linked to the finished product for sale over here), but it looks like I'm taking a couple more on from the same company. More will be said after completion. Actually, there will probably be some whining about it during the process, because underneath my hard-working exterior is a lazy ass trying to get out, but it will be non-identifying whining, because of confidentiality agreements, and because there's really a limit to how much whining my sense of dignity--what little of that I have--will allow me to do.

Anyway, work will start on that after Christmas day. You have been worked.

Meanwhile, I've finally finished chapter 11. All that sidling up on the story finally caught me some dinner: I've figured out how Brian manages to hold his inner beast in check for long enough at a time to interact with the mermaids at all. Without going into a lot of detail, it has to do with channeling the urge for violence through his more noble intentions. OK, that sounds kinda woo-woo, but in context it's rockin' cool. Or at least it's viable, and consistent with both character and plot. And now everyone's off to see the wizard--I mean, the shark. Big difference there. Wizard, shark. One of them sits behind a curtain and tries to scare you. The other has like a million teeth as long as your arm and doesn't have to try. Anyway, off to see the shark.

I like to say that I symbolically fill my Midwinter's Night with those things that I want filling the coming year. If that is the case, then apparently I want a year full of cooking, cleaning, rum & bourbon, too much to eat, and not a heck of a lot of productivity. But Oh Well.

Every year, on the night before Solstice Day, I stay up all night burning a Yule log and keeping the door unlocked so that friends can drop by. I bake a fruitcake and start it marinating in time to offer some to Midwinter guests. I try to follow Bridget's egg nog recipe despite my not really knowing what it means to whip egg whites and heavy cream "until fluffy"; the results tend to be scrumptious despite my ignorance. I put holly over the door and encourage Pagan friends, fellow NaNoWriMo participants, John's gaming groups, and random neighbors to drop by. And then at about 5:30 or 5:45 I take off with a car full of whoever stayed all through and we go to Red Rocks for Drumming Up The Sun.

This year is a little different, mainly because I didn't do a good job of making sure people knew what was going on and when, but also because it's a weekday. And it's mid-December, just like it is every year. Bridget helped me pick out the Yule log (heck, she totally spotted it, and then helped me lug it home), but preparations for an out-of-town stint are keeping her too busy to come over. John brought Dave over for chess, but he's gone home now. Sarah (co_butterfly) dropped by, what with already being in Boulder, but she had to get home for, y'know, sleep, what with having a full day tomorrow. Thus it's looking like there won't be a DUtS carpool, and I really don't want to drive all that way all by myself after a night of no sleep. I may just tend the fire until sunrise and then hit the sack.

It's a huge damn Yule log, by the way. I'll be surprised if it takes less than a week to burn that sucker. I've been propping up grocery store firewood against it and burning them in hopes that it will catch on and follow suit.

As for what I want to fill the year with... Well, I didn't see as much of my husband as I'd like, but it's a Tuesday, and Tuesdays are notoriously busy. We sat about five minutes in front of the fire together to show the new year willing. I also don't have a working laptop yet. My Averatec 5100 series laptop turned out to need a new motherboard, so now I'm waiting on Warranty America Corp. or whatever they're called to decide whether they'll buy me one or buy back my machine. (The latter would not be so bad. I am currently drooling over the Averatec 3225 on display today at Computer Renaissance.)

But as always I have my Ancient Decrepit Compaq. Also pens and paper. Writing is a low tech activity. Working motherboards come and go, but writing never forsakes. And I hear that WOTC's calls for full manuscripts won't go out until the first week of the new year, giving me a little more time to get out of chapter 11 and through the rest of the book. So it's off again to the races for me.

More after sunrise (and possibly some coffee). Stay tuned.