Happy…uh, Wednesday, squiders! I have survived the second weekend of the leadership training I was helping lead (though there were many tears, and I’ve picked up some sort of respiratory illness). I will still need to help and guide my team over the next 18 months as they work through their projects, but that’s practically nothing at this point.
And, so, I am free to get back to my revision! (And submitting queries, which I admittedly haven’t done at all this month) Except I am so tired that I just want to sleep for a week straight. BUT unfortunately you’re not allowed to do that, so on we go.
I did my themes and arcs on Monday, and yesterday I started the readthrough/chapter list, although I’ve just remembered I was going to make notes on problems and I forgot to do that too. Well, good news, I’m only two chapters in, so I can catch back up on that pretty quick.
This morning I started the map of the Hope’s Redemption based off a note in chapter two about where the hammocks are, but have found a bit of an issue in that I’m not sure how exactly to put it on the map, because I know there’s two or three hammock areas, and also the medbay and galley are on this deck, as well as an open area for eating. Maybe I need to just make notes until I have enough information to lay things out.
(But this does show that this was a good idea, and eventually if I run into areas where I’m contradicting myself, then decisions can be made and everything can be streamlined.)
Chapter wise, again, only through Chapter Two. Chapter one needs a complete rewrite. I wrote it in 2014 so I wouldn’t forget it and then promptly went off and did other things for five years before I wrote the rest of the draft in 2019-2021 (I couldn’t really write fiction in 2020, which is why the draft took so long), and man, does it show. I was still doing the double spaces between sentences!
I mean, like, the general content of the chapter is fine. A little out of character for some people, but easily remedied. There’s a line in my conlanged language that I think needs to come out, because of language drift and blah blah blah.
(Basically, I conlanged some of my language for the Trilogy–but not a lot because I find conlanging VERY difficult. However, this story takes place 700 years before the Trilogy, and at this point there’s two separate dialects that will become separate languages by the time the Trilogy events roll around. So ideally I would drift back 1000 years to create a common ancestral language, and then go forward 300 years on this other dialect and good god I sometimes forget where my phone is when I’m holding it, I’m not Tolkien, I’m not cut out for this.)
ANYWAY
Chapter two feels pretty solid as is.
I would like to finish my chapter list/maps/problem list before I start changing things (in case I need to add in correlations or anything) BUT I do need to get stuff to the critique group to read by, like, the 20th, which I’m realizing is only four-ish days away. So I may need to fudge that estimate a bit, or else put my nose to the grindstone and stop playing phone games.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
See you probably next week, squiders, unless I am wildly productive and have something to tell you about on Friday. Ta!
