{"id":291,"date":"2016-12-17T11:06:23","date_gmt":"2016-12-17T17:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/?p=291"},"modified":"2016-12-17T11:06:23","modified_gmt":"2016-12-17T17:06:23","slug":"funny-how-time-slips-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/12\/17\/funny-how-time-slips-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Funny How Time Slips Away…."},"content":{"rendered":"

Seriously?\u00a0\u00a0 Ten days?\u00a0\u00a0 Well, Stuff Happened, and doesn’t it always.\u00a0\u00a0 Into the Fire<\/em> had been dashing along happily but suddenly planted its feet and refused to move.\u00a0 Part of it was lack of sleep.\u00a0 Part of it was…”I don’t like my beginning.\u00a0 Do it over.”\u00a0\u00a0 I explained gently and firmly that we do not do that kind of change until we have come to the end.\u00a0\u00a0 “YOU may not, but I<\/strong> want a new beginning and I want it now!”\u00a0 Followed by a cascade of beginnings, as if from a catalog of beginnings, and a whiny voice in my inner ear.<\/p>\n

I attempted to go on from where I was (interesting scene, heading somewhere definite) and the whiny voice got louder.\u00a0\u00a0 There’s this thing about books…they do have a mind of their own that feels (though obviously it cannot be) completely apart from the Author’s mind.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s good that they have a mind of their own, but not when they regress to the toddler “I don’t WANNA!” stage of development.\u00a0 If an adult suddenly regresses, something’s very wrong in that person’s world…and the same is true of books.\u00a0 It can be important to listen to them,\u00a0 encourage them to talk about the problem (however ridiculous it seems to the Author.\u00a0 Or, in the case of persons, their therapist.)<\/p>\n

It is Novel’s opinion that the original beginning is a) out of sequence temporally and b) not active enough.\u00a0\u00a0 Novel finally confessed this morning that since Cold Welcome<\/em> begins with Ky in a spacecraft uttering thoughts, nothing in the first chapter of Into the Fire<\/em> should have Ky in an airplane uttering thoughts, even if that’s the right temporal order (“NO IT’S NOT,” shouts the book into my ear.\u00a0 “It starts with UMMMPH!”\u00a0 Which, I point out with an entire beach towel stuffed into Novel’s mouth, would be a huge spoiler and we also do not do spoilers.)\u00a0\u00a0 There.\u00a0 Novel is muffled for the moment.\u00a0 I do understand about the repetition of circumstances even though… (spoiler alert! spoiler alert!)\u00a0 All right.\u00a0\u00a0 NO SPOILERS HERE, safe to read.<\/p>\n

The book wants a new beginning.\u00a0 I tried several rearrangements yesterday.\u00a0 Book is “meh” about most of them and I can’t stand the one it doesn’t exactly like but isn’t vocal about.\u00a0 It is not time to write new beginnings; it is time to get to the [redacted] end.\u00a0\u00a0 Book was not happy that I went back and read the post here about the trains.\u00a0 It still feels perfectly justified in having been bullying me and the branch-line train.\u00a0 I still feel it should LISTEN to me.\u00a0\u00a0 It still feels I should listen to IT.<\/p>\n

I’m going to make bread.\u00a0 Pounding on dough should enable me to listen to the book while working off the frustration of Book Being Stubborn (this is not, by the way, any form of writer’s block.\u00a0 I can write just fine.\u00a0 It’s a typical book-related problem that shows up in many books-in-progress and working through such things is a normal (not pathological) part of the writing life.\u00a0 It’s like the thing in horse training when you realize that the horse is now picking up canter from halt on the left lead perfectly, but still doesn’t take a smooth canter depart from a trot, let alone walk or halt, on the right lead.\u00a0 Predictable that if you want a fully supple horse, you have to train both sides, from the simplest exercise to the most advanced,\u00a0 and predictable that books will throw up certain problems at certain points in their development. )<\/p>\n

I’m still going to make bread.\u00a0 It’s that kind of day; it’s been that kind of week, and falling out the door of a friend’s house onto her concrete porch, SPLAT, did not make it easier.\u00a0\u00a0 (I’m fine.\u00a0 Just bruises.\u00a0 Thanks to hormone therapy and some experience in how to fall SPLAT without serious injury most of the time.)\u00a0 Tomorrow is Advent 4 and next Sunday of course is Christmas, which I will be celebrating with waffles & maple syrup, the traditional Christmas breakfast of my childhood.\u00a0 Between now and then, much needs to be done.\u00a0 Bread is part of it.<\/p>\n

May everyone who celebrates any holiday in this season have a wonderful celebration thereof, with those friends\/family\/others you most want to spend time with.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seriously?\u00a0\u00a0 Ten days?\u00a0\u00a0 Well, Stuff Happened, and doesn’t it always.\u00a0\u00a0 Into the Fire had been dashing along happily but suddenly planted its feet and refused to move.\u00a0 Part of it was lack of sleep.\u00a0 Part of it was…”I don’t like my beginning.\u00a0 Do it over.”\u00a0\u00a0 I explained gently and firmly that we do not do 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":[38,16,10],"tags":[39,17,7],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-into-the-fire","category-life-beyond-writing","category-the-writing-life","tag-into-the-fire","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291"}],"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=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}