Haus of Rhi

The hard-copy read-through of Black is now complete, finally. It took roughly a week, given the three-day weekend break I took from it. Problem spots identified, and I've one or two scenes to expand upon, a few minor alterations to make, through the middle of the story, to get things flowing properly. And then it will be ready for synopsis-writing. *cringes* I laugh at myself, every time I get scared by the prospect of writing one of those. It's hilarious. I know how to write an executive summary of a detailed business report, after all. How hard can a simple synopsis be? Not hard, Rhi. Get a grip. Jeez. Third round edits will be coming my way from Aleks, soon. Going to knock out what I can until then, and then Black will take the back-burner for a few days while those are addressed. I expect I'll have Black off my desk and on his way to the editor at Carina by the middle of the month... Fingers crossed, hoping it goes that smoothly at least. Life does seem to have a...

Like, big cheeseburger-eatin' LOLcat grin. Editor sent back FOAT for round three tweaks. This is the last of it. From here on out it'll be all line edits and typos. She was absolutely ecstatic with the way Aleks and I reworked the ending/plot climax & resolution. It's a much stronger story for the changes, Just some minor content changes to be made... and we're still a couple weeks to the good. Creating a hard copy of Black is turning out to be my saving grace. Actually reading  it on paper seems to be resolving the issue I was having reading it on the screen. Mainly, I couldn't remember what was actually in the story, and what had been there versus what I'd altered. It was all... getting muddled. This is the "cleaning pass" read. Red pen in hand. I don't understand where the lack of clarity was coming from, but this is working much better than I even hoped for. I can see where the development tweaks need to be, and after reading it this wa...

I got called into the day job on my day off, of course. Returned home that evening to a huge box with a UPS label sitting outside my door. Latest addition to the writing space is a nice shiny laser printer. And pardon my geekiness, but I think it's sexy. Of course, I had to use it right away. That's Black , in all its 370 pages of glory, sitting on my newly acquired office chair. Printing it out had become a necessity. It's too huge a file for me to handle edits on the computer. I needed to see  it. To be able to spread it out on my desk a few chapters at a time and see the various threads of the plot at a glance. I'm a skim/speed reader, but it's difficult to get that same at-a-glance effect of summarizing on a computer screen. Word can throw up four pages at a time but the text at that point is too small to be practical. Unless I had a 32-inch hanging on the wall serving as a secondary desktop. Yeah, maybe some time in the future. If nothing else, this will h...

...Of being stuck at The Day Job. And have the muses enlighten me with how, exactly, to fix and finish Black's story. I was flailing. It was hilarious, in hindsight. There I am, doing the artistic equivalent of a pee-pee dance, trying to hold it all in until my hour-long meal period. Chanting in the back of my head, "for fuck's sake, just hang on a little longer, please don't go away, just WAIT A LITTLE LONGER, ohgodohgodohgod..." I have no idea how many people backed slowly (or quickly) away from me during those couple hours, praying for a safe retreat from the crazy lady with the psychotic, schizophrenic expression on her face. I scribbled furiously in my notebook (a small 4x6 leatherbound thing that I go Nowhere without for reasons that should now be obvious) for an hour straight, and managed to catch it all. And then stayed up until 2 a.m. typing with the same passion-driven fury. Okay. Caffeine-driven. Hello, Organic Mayan Black Onyx brew, I love th...

Some time back before Christmas, Carina had emailed the official contract to Aleks and I to be signed and returned to them. From London to Pennsylvania took roughly one month. The editor was stressing out a little bit, trying to figure out if we were just being spastic. Under normal circumstances, the transit shouldn't take more than a week. Under normal circumstances, it doesn't. But holiday glut, and less than optimal weather on both sides of the Atlantic put a substantial crimp in the travel time. All's well that ends well, though, and yesterday I received an email notification that the release date was officially set for August 15th, which means they've received and countersigned the contract. I expect I'll receive my copy some time in the next week or so. In the meantime, we're still hammering away on the second round edits, which are demanding a heavy rewrite to the final couple chapters of the book. I'm confident that it'll be done long bef...

But for good reasons! I swear! Black's "Meet The Muse" interview is on hold, for the moment. Mostly because I have someone who would like to perform the interview, and the prospect of sinking into character for the conversation is a great idea. I'm eager to try it and see what comes of that approach. And finding the time for that...well. It's going to have to wait a little bit. The line edits for FOAT came in a couple days ago, and everything is taking a back seat to getting a handle on this. Getting it under control, making sure the alterations that need done are plotted and manageable, and making time to schedule the tandem writes with my partner in crime. Those things have priority. I'm discovering that I'm one of those writers who can have many active projects on my desk, but can only work on one of them at a time. It was that way with the trunked novel. It was that way during Black's formative years. And it was that way with FOAT. Each proj...