Novel Watch #38: +2 pages [98.5 total]
Well, I’m approaching 100 pages, a nice little milestone. I’ve still got a long way to go to the end, however, and no one knows how many of those 100 pages I’ll be cutting out later or rewriting entirely.
Today I worked on a little scene between Iggsle and Adrianna. Simplifying the dialogue helps it move along faster, and in this case I had a very strong idea of what I wanted the interaction to be, so that helped a lot. It wasn’t like I was rambling on and on, like I sometimes do — the whole scene was less than a page long, but it helped to set up some boundaries and conflicts and do a little foreshadowing. Fun.
And, just for kicks, here’s a quote that’s almost guaranteed to get a snarky response from Jacob:
She sipped at her soup and was surprised to find it flavorful in a way that wasn’t overpowered by onions and leeks. Bits of cabbage graced her bowl, and the broth was red with what could only be tomatoes. She looked up in surprise and Iggsle gave her a sly grin. “Don’t tell Fink. He won’t notice if ye don’t. I went to the market in town while ye were toiling.â€
“My lips are sealed,†Adrianna told him.
“Nay, nay, eat your soup. ’Tis the purpose of lips alderfirst.â€
October 13th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
With great shaking, a crevice in the ground opened with a cascade of rock and and heaved forth Jacob, his locks of long blonde hair flowing behind him as though blown by the breath of a thousand angles.
“I have been called upon! What have we here?” Jacob’s voice rang out loudly and powerfully. He shook his mighty sword, the Orc Slayer, and the trio of voluptuous nymphs hanging off his arm swooned and fainted, the muscles rippling under his bronzed skin too powerful for their weak female minds to grasp. “Aha, a story!” He stared towards it, surveying its batlike wings and nine hissing heads, acidic saliva dripping from the blood-stained fangs of each, wetly sizzling as it oozed over the ground. He grinned fiercely, the sun glinting off his immaculate white teeth, and gripped his sword powerfully with his massive, rough hands. “I eat stories for breakfast.” With a sound like a supersonic whip crack, Jacob dashed forward, plunged his sword deep into the beast’s side, and laughed his trademark laugh, a powerful, booming sound like thunder, which immediately caused his three companions to wake, cry out orgasmically, and begin wiggling out of their two-sizes-too-small bikini tops and soaking wet thongs. “That ain’t tomatoes makin’ the broth red,” Jacob remarked wittily, “that’s called blood. And I win again.”
October 13th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Hmm. Jacob, can you explain to me again how angles breathe? ‘Cuz I thought angles were just when two lines shared a common endpoint.
(”weak female minds” can snark too :P)
Curtis: there should be a celebration of sorts when you pass the 100-page mark!
October 13th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
…God damn it, you just had to ruin my fun, didn’t you? I knew there was a typo hiding in there somewhere. And here I thought I had written the perfect cliché paragraph. Rippling muscles, useless women, unlikely monsters, big swords, … and geometry. Neh!
I blame it on German. No, really. The better I get at German, the more idioms I learn, the more quickly I’m able to think in the language, the worse my English gets. I pick the wrong vowels when I try to spell, I use the wrong auxiliary verbs, I mistake words that sound similar, I can’t remember definitions for things, I can’t get my sentence structure straight.
At some point, my German and English will be equal. At that point, I’ll be illiterate in both. Oh the humanity.
October 14th, 2007 at 3:21 am
Jacob: Wow, that was almost exactly not where I thought you’d go with that. I bow before your unpredictability. Good work.
Except, you know, for the angles thing. ;—)
As for your language woes, oh the humanschlichkeit, indeed. Oh wait. Argh. Now you’ve got me mixing up German and English words. Yeesh.
c1: Oh yeah. Party time!
Hm. How does one party again? You’d think after being around for 24 years I’d have figured that one out by now…
October 14th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Don’t worry. It’s just my way of saying, “Your story is a hideous beast that should be slaughtered.”
(I actually had no idea where you were expecting me to go with it.) And I believe the word you’re looking for is, “Menschlichkeit.”
October 15th, 2007 at 1:52 am
3gf: I believe “party” involves you, me, our brother, screwdrivers, and Star Trek: TNG…
Jacob: I couldn’t figure out where 3gf wanted you to go with the quote either. What’s going on in HIS brain??!?
(I’ve never had trouble with my English when learning a foreign language; I’ve just had trouble with mixing up the foreign languages. It’s irksome when you can only remember French when you need Italian, and only remember Italian when you need the French…)