Haus of Rhi

FOAT's first-round edits and rewrites have been completed, and the revised ms is back with the editor at Carina. My OCD internal editor would have been more than happy to continue altering and mutilating until the end of time, but I'm learning to rein it in and draw the line. So then, back to the second drafting of Black. I'm still not entirely pleased with it, have hit that stage of flailing book!hate where I feel the urge to drag-and-drop the entire file into the trash and be done with it. Four years of muse effort reduced to recycled electrons? In lieu of that, and despite the fact that the climactic scene remained only half resolved, I sent the ms off to a rather benevolent beta. There are times when, especially with heavy rewrites, you get so close to the story that all you see is wood bark and the forest itself ceases to exist entirely. Need stronger plot thread, need greater tension between the characters, need to resolve blatant character flaw so narrator doesn...

I need to acquire a pair of solid black Manx cats, and name them Chaos and Mayhem. So I have someone tangible to blame when things go to shit. As it is, I hold myself accountable, and that…just sucks. Can't muck about in denial when you're the only one around to blame. The FOAT edits are going well, on track to be completed before the deadline. It's been stressful though, and engaged much of my spare time. Thus the one-week delay in getting Black's excerpt up. Not that it takes a great deal of effort to cut/paste a scene into a post, but…gah. I manage to stress out about anything and everything. So I went through the whole ordeal of "what's an appropriate excerpt for a muse with a novel-length story" and a bunch of other OMGWTFBBQ shit that was utterly useless and unneeded, to say the least. It's the one thing I seem to excel at. Spectacularly. Yep that's me, The Worrywart. One year ago, I wanted nothing more than to have the entire year just f...

Or, where the magic happens, I guess? Either way, a writer's little corner of the world usually speaks volumes about their personality, among other things. Some have an office to sequester themselves in, to shut out the outside world and focus. I don't have the space for that -- nor is it really a requirement, when Lap Dog Monster and I are the only ones about, the majority of the time. So I thought I'd share with all of you what my workspace corner looks like. Feel free to draw your own psychiatric conclusions *lol* A corner of the living room, fashioned from a pair of solid wood desks handed down to me from my grandmother. And a matching chair, which, though it looks horribly uncomfortable, keeps me from falling asleep at the desk. Yes, my walls are some strange, sickening purplish plum color that screams "paint me". I've lived with it for the past six years, so I notice it only subconsciously. Want to come over and help me redecorate? I'd prob...

A four-week interval for edits and rewrites to a 93k manuscript. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm trying not to dwell on the time constraints beyond that which is required to actually reach the deadline in a timely and appropriate fashion. Preferably ahead of it, yes? The biggest points in the process revolve around altering character behavioral responses in the latter part of the story, and altering plot development to trigger greater conflict from said character. In other words, someone needs to put up more of a fight. Which is, inherently, what soldiers are born, bred, and trained up to do...so I'm fine with that. It did a world of good, not looking at the story for a few months. The prose is "fresh", so to speak. I can see the errors, the rough spots, without executing excessive headdesk maneuvers. Sadly, I think my 40 hours of free Pandora will be exhausted before the deadline is acquired. I like the high energy of the trance genre station a g...