Slow and painful, as always. I have a head full of bees and am perpetually distracted.
Word count (opens in a new tab)
NaNoWriMo 2015
I am taking the plunge. But I will be cheating a bit– I need (let’s say) another 20K words for Blood Rain, and 30K for Downward Dog. So my NaNoWriMo experience won’t be focused on one project. I know it’s against the rule. I don’t care. Do you think I became a writer because I was interested in rules?! (And, yes, the edge of hysteria in the last sentence is part of the NaNoWriMo crazy that hits me every year).
The word count as of this moment (link opens a new tab)
Phone meeting
Tomorrow I have a phone meeting with a publisher regarding Blood Rain. I am still weighing the pros and cons re: a small traditional publisher vs. self-publishing.
Looks like I might be reading at a Steampunk/Science Fiction/ Fantasy convention on the Hallowe’en weekend. I love giving readings! (That’s another blog post).
Blood Rain news
The good news is . . .
Blood Rain only needs about 3 more chapters.
The bad news is . . .
I missed my self-imposed Sept 30 2015 deadline.
The good news is . . .
a small publisher has expressed interest in it.
The bad news is . . .
I don’t have any victims beta-readers yet.
The good news is . . .
I feel re-energized about this project and may actually finish the thing!
A Writing Process
QUESTION: Do you write more by logic or intuition, or some combination of the
two?
I do a bit of both. I wish I did wholly one or wholly the other. I fantasize that would make writing easier.
This is what I usually** do:
Sub-plots?
How much sub-plot is too much sub-plot? Is it a mere robust sub-plot or am I actually writing two novels simultaneously because I’ve succumbed to the madness? How do I know? I don’t know. I don’t even know how I’d start to know. *sigh* The Interweebs tells me it will always be less than six. Blood Rain has less than six, so I must be ok. *maniacal laughter*. I mean, it’s not like the Interweebs would lie to me.
fragment from chapter 7
Just as proof that I am actually sometimes writing, here is a little bit of chapter seven . . . remember please that Blood Rain is in it’s first draft.
On the shelves
The book my work is anthologized in went into my alma mater’s library:
Saving Seeds is officially in circulation at the Simon Fraser University library. A selection from Blood Rain is cheek-to-jowl with the work of Joanne Betzler,Val Mossop, Gomathy Puri, Jen Ryan, Tabatha Visutskie, Valerie Parks, Toni Levi, Julian Worker, Lana Hill, David E Burnell and Fauzia Rafique.
36 Plot lines
An American-born French writer named Georges Polti developed what he called the thirty six dramatic situations. You can see his book here on the Internet archive if you want to read it. If you want to read a quick synopsis about it, try this one. I’ve been pondering which plotline comes closest to what I am doing in Blood Rain. I think it comes down to POV. From the POV of the main character, Suzanne, it’s probably best described as number three, “Crime Pursued by Vengeance” (which I think is a pretty self-explanatory title) or possibly number eleven, “The Enigma” (wherein the interrogator poses a problem to the seeker and the seeker gains an improved ability to reach the seeker’s goals). But from the POV of the black hats, I think it might best be understood as number 30 “Ambition” (wherein an ambitious person seeks a thing coveted), number 16 “Madness” (an insane person acts out and harms a victim) or even number eight ‘Revolt” (in which a cruel tyrant is plotted against by a conspirator).
Chloe Cocking 
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