The End’s In Sight: 141,000

NewBook is still accelerating, or rather trying to, since I just cannot type any faster any longer without the machine (the one that’s living on dark chocolate and junk food on top of a healthy diet just to keep the fires going) breaking down.

It’s *almost* like being 30 years or more younger and able to write really, REALLY fast.  Almost.  But not there.

But fun.  OMG is there anything in writing like riding the story flat out while it unspools inside you in full color with sound, smell, taste, temperatures, textures, emotions, motivations, complications, plots popping like a whole sack of popcorn…everything just pouring into and through your brain as your fingers try to get it all down?  No, there is not.  I have written fiction in many different moods and ways and with different intentions and different lengths and styles and this…this is the cross-country phase in horse-speak.  No more careful patterns in a dressage ring, word by word, phrase by phrase, leaving precise hoofprints on the groomed surface.   No more show jumping, scary and tedious both, rather like writing short stories or maybe verse with a tricky meter & rhyme pattern, but full on riding a fit horse across natural ground and however many obstacles (points of view, transitions from place to place, tricky “showing” instead of “telling”)  brain and hands working together at high speed.   This is the big one, the best one, the thrill that never dies.

I can see the finish up there ahead.  But the rules are the same as in eventing, racing, anything with obstacles.   Ride every fence with intelligence and purpose.  Don’t let up, don’t “drop” the horse until you’re through the finish line and then slow gradually, then start the aftercare/repair phase.  Not quite as urgent as with a horse, but the writer needs aftercare too, as does the manuscript.

 

12 thoughts on “The End’s In Sight: 141,000

  1. Wonderful! I’m delighted to hear you’re having such a grand time. We’ll all look forward eagerly to the result, however long that takes…

    1. William: Thank you. It will take longer than some, I suspect, since I’m not on contract and don’t have a clue what the various publishers are doing about scheduling now.

  2. I now have a mental image of you grinning gleefully as you compete on Gem Twist (or similar) in one of the Gambler’s Choice/Points Accumulated classes where there are assorted fences of varying values (30, 40, 50, 70, 90, 100) and you have a certain amount of time to get over as many points as you can in that time. The fence counts as jumped as long as the horse’s hind feet are in the air before the buzzer goes off. In the gambler’s choice, there is a special fence that is plus OR minus a chunk of points that can only be jumped after time is up (200 IIRC). No penalties for knocking the regular fences (but no points either).

    1. Oh, for the days when I could possibly, if I could’ve gotten the training, have ridden a Gem Twist. I think, though, that cross-country would always have been/would be if I could my favorite thing.

  3. I am really happy for you, you have worked so hard on your recovery, you deserve every second of joy this book/series brings! And as the rest of us will get another Elizabeth Moon out of that joy it is an all round win 😀

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