Second revision draft is now on chapter 22.\u00a0\u00a0 This book, thanks to the years of not writing and brain foggy stuff, may take more than one run through the “Construction Phase” to get things right, but every thing so far is willing to be nudged in the right direction.\u00a0 My metaphors for the problems are wandering all over my other skillsets, but would be covered by “following the blueprints but oh, lordy, the shoddy workmanship in places.”\u00a0 Luckily, not in ALL the places.<\/p>\n
The beginning, as it is, will not be in the book at all.\u00a0\u00a0 It would be a fine beginning for a movie, a sweeping view that the title and a few names could glide across, a quick look at what’s there: the view of the Vail of Valdaire, a quick glimpse of two particular travelers and then a dive into the city, but it’s not working as a beginning to a book that is not, after all, just a travelogue.<\/p>\n
So today and tomorrow will probably go to writing at least two completely different beginnings and seeing if either of them works.\u00a0\u00a0 One is already done and off to an alpha reader.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s amazing to be able to do that kind of thing again.\u00a0 To have WriterBrain up and running, cooperating with me:\u00a0 “Tell me what you need, about how long, and then turn me loose.”\u00a0\u00a0 It can take a night’s sleep, some thinking time, but then…there’s something reasonable close.\u00a0 And going from reasonably close to sharply focused worked for the other stuff I’ve worked on this week since the worst of the pain was down to a dull roar and now…nothing.\u00a0\u00a0 When it was working before, I wasn’t able to define what it was that made WriterBrain more than just “a brain with the knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, syntax, basic grasp of structure, insight into human behavior.”\u00a0 Having lost the rest for several years, now I understand better how it works when it’s working.\u00a0\u00a0 There’s a strong sense of Engineering going on as well: the ability to understand not just basic structure but how components interact…what a “bearing wall” is actually bearing, how to look at something and grasp how it works…how to look at a faulty thing and see what it needs to be “right” for its purpose and then make from scratch or improvise something that fills the gap.\u00a0 So this is where my parents’ EngineerBrains shows in connection with the StorytellerBrain (which, at the low end, confabulates reality, tells lies believably, though the lies themselves may be logically so flawed most can see it, and at the high end merges into WriterBrain seamlessly.)<\/p>\n
What I think now (and could still be wrong about, of course) is that the best writing needs both skill-sets, both toolboxes, and needs them in balance.\u00a0 An overload of EngineerBrain gets you info-dumping, stiffness in the works, and insufficient or cliched characterization.\u00a0 An overload of StorytellingBrain gets you the kind of person who tells long, disjointed, nonsensical episodes\u00a0 on a long train journey\u00a0 (and will ask you, if they’ve realized you’re a writer, if you’ll just take some of their ideas and write them up and share the money.)\u00a0 WriterBrain balances at various points between, depending on the writer, and books that are somewhat heavy on one or the other can be equally good reads.<\/p>\n
Finally got the permanent crown on the left-side molar w\/problems; the right side molar w\/ problems (site of the recent abscess)\u00a0 has another chance at dental work next Monday.\u00a0 Hope they look at it and say “Yeah, it’s doing great, good-bye.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Second revision draft is now on chapter 22.\u00a0\u00a0 This book, thanks to the years of not writing and brain foggy stuff, may take more than one run through the “Construction Phase” to get things right, but every thing so far is willing to be nudged in the right direction.\u00a0 My metaphors for the problems are Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,54,32,29,10],"tags":[17,55,7,26],"class_list":["post-1360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","category-paksworld","category-progress","category-revision","category-the-writing-life","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-paksworld-universe","tag-the-writing-life","tag-tools-for-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1361,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions\/1361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}