Thursday, March 26, 2009

Yute progress, and elvish angst.

Quite a while ago, I wrote a scene for the book that I knew would come waaaaay later, and it sat at the bottom of my document (along with various notes and reminders) waiting for the main flow of writing to catch up to it. It was missing a few names and details, but I loved it.
I kept on writing, and knew that scene was coming up. Finally, I flowed into it. It needed a lot of edits to fit just right, but it still went well. It's a scene of one of the significant confrontations, and puts one of the major storylines on it's path to closure.

Dang I'm being ambiguous. I don't know how many spoilers I want to make public... heck, in the first edition of Lifehack, I didn't even want to reveal until the last second possible that there was a human to blame for all the zombies, but that was silly.
At some point, I'm going to have to give away some big plot points to make the book sound interesting. Otherwise, the back flap of the book will read:

In a world, where something happens, and other things don't, one man, or woman, I'm not telling, will have to do some thing or things. Or try not to do them. In the process, he or she may find love, adventure, and a big sammich. Or he/she won't.

I might call on my volunteer editors to help me decide some of that.. We'll see. Right now the book is only 160 pages. I was hoping to get to 230-ish.. I think that's still very reasonable, when I consider all that still have to be tied up, and that this is only the first draft.
A few people said that Lifehack seems to rush though the story. This was a fairly conscious decision. Personally, I hate books that ramble on and mosey through at a snail's pace.

I think of Tolkien's epic descriptions of Strider going out for a smoke into the sullen alley, where the smell of burnt greasy burgers drifted over from the burger king 3 blocks away, and the sky had 384 stars visible in it, which we will all now name in elvish song, whilest Strider picks his nose with his left pinkie finger, which to the draven folk is considered a fell err, ever since Nosebleed Hemophelicutter died at the great nosepick in the first age. At this point, Strider might have gotten as far as patting his pockets looking for his pack of smokes, and the smoke break goes on for 47 more pages, and NOT A ****ING THING ABOUT HIS SMOKE BREAK HAS ANY ****ING IMPORTANCE TO THE STORY.

Ahem. Point is, I like to get to the point sooner rather than later. Still, I'll probably elaborate on some parts when I revise.

Yeah.

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