Dr. Catherine Schaff-Stump

Today was mostly revision.

Here's the count.

43,733 / 80,000 (54.7%)

( And here's the clip )

See you tomorrow. All new material tomorrow, so nothing printable!!!

Catherine

...and the winner is Beverley!

Today's writing time was spent reading about and researching Beverley, England, close to York. It's the winner for the location of Rowther. It has many of the features of York, with a smaller population. It also has the oldest state school in England, which makes me think it's progressive. It will now be the site of the first integrated magical/nonmagical school in England.

Why England, you asked? First of all, the Klarions and the Gales are from Hathersage. For those of you new on the boatride, I am a second generation on my mother's side, being Scottish. I'd like to write a story in England, so here we go.

Don't worry. Gossamer and Veridian will be right back in Iowa.

Anyway, Beverley. If you know of any good Beverley information, or links, I'm amassing them.

Catherine

ps Also got a lot of really good information on the England and Wales systems of child custody from bucketgirl's attorney contact. Thanks, Yo!

First of all, word count.

27,135 / 80,000 (33.9%)

Bryon has read and given chapter 3 the content thumbs up. Chapter 4 is well underway. I hope to be done with it by the end of the week.

***

Here's a piece of it. It is another Errol piece. Next time, I will try to give you a Stephan piece.

( Errol Goes Shopping )

***

Went to Convergence this weekend and in addition to playing and having a good time with friends, also worked on writer edumatation. Learned that YA Fantasy and Paranormal Romance are hot, and learned a lot about who's doing what kinds of writing. Know your area, oh writer. Approach it cleverly. Know who's doing what, and how you compare, not superficially, to your peers, rather than your idols.

Onward. A few things left to do today.

Catherine

Like a good writer, we did our words before we went out for the festivities.

Now?

26,788 / 80,000 (33.5%)

A friend of bucketgirl is going to help me with the custody information I need, and chapter 3 is all but done, except for any modifications I have to make based on that research.

Chapter 4 goes all the way back to its original version, so there will be a lot of rewriting and expanding. I like the feel of the original better than the first attempt at rewriting in so many ways. I introduced the villain faction in Chapter 3. This is the chapter where I really flesh out the opposition students, so I have to really work hard on giving them proper motivations and personalities. Wish me luck.

Best to all of you! Enjoy fireworks if you're in the US, and if you're elsewhere, just have a great day.

Catherine

First of all, the word count.

21,313 / 80,000 (26.6%)

Chapter 3 is, in fact, two scenes from done, but they're from scratch scenes that require a little bit of research. It'll be a little while longer.

My old writing strategy seems a tried and true one: lay the pipe, layer on the details, edit. TAKE YOUR TIME is also important, n'est-ce pas? At least let things sit. I'm feeling pretty good about the sitting on this one. :)

***

I don't know if you've seen this scene from the version 2, which is making it into the final version. It's the first Errol/Shari scene. I am rather fond of it.

( Binders shouldn't be in church )

Some new reading reveals that most YA novels are 40K to 60K, so I've reduced the number I'm shooting for to 80K, and I'll hope to shorten it more to a conventional length. Please note that the patchwork stuff I put together tonight is NOT real writing. It's about 4 scenes and some notes about what I need to do to make this all smooth. Some of it will be chopped out, but mostly it will be added to.

I've decided chapter 3 is where we deal with humanizing Isolde, Atreus (yeah, like that's going to happen), and the opposition forces. Writing chapter three will take me a while longer than the preface, chapter one, and chapter two.

I didn't work on it more than a half an hour tonight. Bryon was kind enough to read what I have so far, and help me with stupid corrections, and since there were already 78 pages, that took a while. Meanwhile, I got my first agent query already to go when this is ready. Yup, did my homework for that one.

Here's what we did tonight:

20,496 / 80,000 (25.6%)

Wow, it looks more impressive. Less #K=more impressive!

No writing tomorrow. Wedding tomorrow.

Began Substance revision tonight. It's time to make this into a book that will attract an editor or an agent. Here we go.

I have a prologue/1 chapter jump on it, thanks to Delirium. Here's the word count, because I like doing this! I figure you've got to have 90K-120K to get to first novelville, so we'll shoot for an even 100K.

12,433 / 100,000 (12.4%)

This is me, crowing like Peter Pan. Things will move at a rapid pace, because of course I'm really rewriting, but there will be a lot that I have to re-envision in the middle bits. I'll be looking for readers, but only after I am done with the WHOLE thing. Let me know if you're interested and if you'd have time for that.

Catherine

I am sending sonyamsipes another story, Sister Night, Sister Moon, for consideration for her anthology for Cat's Scratch Press. She'll only take one, if she takes either, but I had another story that I though might suit. This occurs after our man Ted has performed Romeo and Juliet with Rumor.


Catherine