Not a lot worth talking about at the moment, I think. I’m nose down to the grindstone, trying to fight my way through a revision that’s fighting me back. The only saving grace is that as much as I’m whining and complaining about the restructuring and rewriting that I’m doing, I can see/feel the book getting stronger and better. It’s so hard though! This year, I’ve really been working on the idea of letting go of perfectionism–because it takes me forever to get shit done if I’m trying to make it perfect. And “it” could be anything: a comment on Facebook (better think about how to say something for ten minutes!), a blog post (is this really that interesting, what’s the point?), an outline (is this as clear as it could be if I showed it to someone else–not that I’m going to show it to anyone else), and of course, my fiction.
I’ve taken a big deep breath and said, “good enough is good enough”. I used the wrong word on Facebook the other day and… I didn’t correct it! I let it go! (I’m still thinking about it, but that’s another issue.) I’ve written emails that I didn’t rewrite three times! I’m trying to be more relaxed about whether a post is “interesting enough”. Which is why you’re getting this ramble.
But the fiction? There, I’m running into trouble because two parts of my mind are in total disagreement. The part that says “You haven’t put out a book in a year, what is WRONG with you!” is attempting to rush things. The perfectionist is saying, “No, you know what? Good enough is NOT good enough for this book. We ARE going to rearrange all the events from chapter 12-18 inclusive. And it will be better for it.” I just might die of waiting. Revising is SLOW.
So there’s been frustration baking, which is no good. Because it encourages me to be inventive or aggravated or careless–you can not actually write and bake at the same time. At least, I can’t.
So I have made failure bagels–so bad I threw them out after my poor roommate was brave enough to test them. (A combination of screwing up the rise time, and the bath not being hot enough, I think. Though the recipe seemed suspect. She kept talking about a stiff, dry dough and mine was quite wet.)
There were NEAR FAILURE BISCUITS, ffs. My mother’s from the south; we make biscuits in our sleep! But these just didn’t get as fluffy as I like, or as golden. At least the cast iron skillet ensured the bottoms were crusty and golden and buttery, yum! So those got eaten with lashings of cinnamon honey butter. (Local honey! So good!)
I almost screwed up Rice Krispie Treats. C’mon, brain! But no, my brain’s in book mode. And the important things like marshmallow to krispie ratio get … skipped over. (8 marshmallows, btw, per cup of rice cereal.)
I did manage to find time to see Ocean’s 8, which I had wanted to see very badly. I… liked it? But that was a movie in dire need of an antagonist and some conflict. The most mellow heist movie ever! Or, more likely, Leverage ruined me for heist shows.
And a snippet of what I’ve been working on:
Silla asked, “What drove him mad?” Her curiosity sounded perfunctory, but Ferrus felt all the remembered pain and horror of Robere’s death crashing back over him. Rhi rested a hand in his hair, stroked her fingers down his neck, soothing. Her touch unlocked the catch in his throat and he finished the tale he hadn’t meant to begin.
“The spell work. Robere said, before he went mad, that spell casting is like looking into the inner working of the world, a vivisection of sinew and blood and bone and that it fights back—”
“It’s like living light,” Silla said absently, her pale eyes nearly glowing. “Like hot fingers rummaging through your mind, changing the way you perceive, turning your gift in new directions.…”
“You have a spell book?” Ferrus said, attention sharpening.
“No,” Silla said. “It must have been Lanbourne that damped my gifts.” She tipped the water pot over in a fit of temper and Rhi remonstrated.
“We might have had tea,” she said.
lane robins 