Left: Corythosaurus + dude. Right: Allosaurus. Implicit: Awesome!

None. None at all.

I told you what I’d do when I got my hands on modeling clay. After Steve Kubica kindly emailed me to tell me the clay I had failed to survive the Great Purge, I went and scored some.

Then the above ensued. On – yes, that is my dining room floor.

This really is something I do to justify spending money on toy dinosaurs help me write. Yes, this really is a scene, although I rewrote it a few days ago, before I got the modeling clay, and hence had to make do with just the dino models. Which really was what I needed.

The beast on the left is, as stated, a Corythosaurus. It’s a kind of hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur. In the book it’s usually referred as a Morion, after the style of helmet. If you hit the handy link you’ll see why. (Hint: it’s the crest. “Corythosaurus” means, “helmet lizard.” Seriously.)

On your right is a big meat-eater called an Allosaurus. In my fantasy it’s more commonly called a Matador, which means Slayer (and has nothing in reality to do with bullfighting; that’s a toreador.) Or as he might say, You Can Call Me Al.

The dude is Jaume, Comte dels Flors. The title means Count of the Flowers in Catalan. He’s a Hero. Capital H. Which you might gather from the fact he’s, you know, stabbing an Allosaurus in the chest with a freaking spear.

And yes, in the book he has an actual head. We’re dealing with Plasticine and very small scale, here.

Another reason I took and posted the picture is that Steve “S. M.” Stirling, in our last writers group meet, asked if humans weren’t like pimples on dinosaurs. And the answer of course, is, some of them, sure. But not these dinosaurs. Nobody’s riding into battle on a 130-foot Amphicoelias.

Currently I’m rewriting a scene that really has me stoked: the book’s first inside view of a big Dinosaur Knight vs. Dinosaur Knight battle. After a brief, supernatural prologue the book opens with a battle, in fact a larger one. But it’s all viewed from the perspective of a bystander. This is getting down and dirty and participating.

I’m stoked because I feel as if it’s shaping up to be the bangingest battle scene I’ve ever written. Though I’m confident that once I throw a rewrite through the final battle, it will surpass this one. Still, I really am having fun with this. Walking Emma Dog along the ditch this afternoon I was declaiming a particular passage that had just come to me over and over out loud. Emphasis on loud. Fortunately there was no one else on the ditch to have me committed.

(Emma is smart: she manifestly understands a fair amount of spoken English, and also manifestly understands that most of what Daddy says is not worth paying attention to. So she was, y’know, cool. Also, she already knows I’m nuts.)

The toys will come in very handy rewriting this battle. Of course I’m not reproducing it on any complete scale, even though Dinosaur Knight contingents tend to be small, for various reasons (most of which are, “expense.”) Which is largely why I’m not doing it: these “museum replica” grade dinos cost money. Also I don’t have the time, or inclination, to make a bunch of other inch-and-a-half tall clay dudes to ride on them.

Fortunately, most of the action I’m describing is one on one. Equally fortunately, I have another hadrosaur toy,  which by remarkable coincidence is the other common war-duckbill, a Parasaurolophus. Which is also called a Sackbut. No, that’s not an insult. It’s Renaissance for trombone. If I need a third combatant, I can fake it with Al. He won’t mind.

By the way, getting the shot wasn’t as easy as it might seem, given that the subjects aren’t actually alive, and can’t escape or bite me (if you don’t think a twelve-inch Allosaurus could give you a nasty bite, go back and look closer at the little fucker.) The biggest difficulty was the tendency of the spear to droop. Yes, insert dick joke here; I’ll wait. I even tried taping it in place, which probably would’ve been a good idea if only the tape had stuck to the damn dinosaur. Eventually I cheated and propped the tip of the spear – which is actually some kind of dried weed stalk from right next to my front porch – on the Allosaurus’s far shoulder where you can’t see it.

Oh, dear, I’ve gone and given the secret away. The illusion of reality is shattered!

That may not be the best angle from which to have photographed the little tableau. But I simply could not resist capturing the way Al seems to be smiling and waving jauntily at the camera. To get the full manic effect, click on the pic or, indeed, right here.

As mentioned yesterday, I needed to figure out how to rearrange some scenes in the sequence I’m rewriting as I close in on the midway point (yes!) And I’ve made progress on that, although the solution seems only short-term.

Short-term solutions are not to be despised, however. That’s one of my most cogent bits of Advice to Writers: Use whatever works.

Also, if you don’t successfully negotiate the short-term, what good is thinking of the middle and long terms?

What I did today was: get up, feed the critters, check the blood sugar and weight (not bad), do some joint mobilizations, and settle in with a cup of cocoa-and-vanilla laced coffee to read and critique the first of several massive submissions to the July authors group. Polished it off, too. Good stuff.

Too bad you have to wait to read it. Heh, heh. (Mine’ll be massive, too. Sorry, crit-group kiddies!)

Then I hopped on another read-through of the summaries of the next chapters I need to rewrite.

The problem I referred to in yesterday’s post nvolved how I play around with the scenes until I get them in effective order. The overall issue of which this dilemma plays a part is that in my last draft, which turned into my first complete draft of the fantasy (after various fits and/or starts) I split the two main narrative lines and dropped them in one after the other. As soon as I started sending in chunks of the Big Rewrite to the crit group it became apparent that was not the way to go. For all kinds of reasons I needed to blend the lines back together. Which overall I think goes very nicely, thank you very much.

The problem I just hit is a very nuts-and-bolts kind of thing:  how to reshuffle the scenes for maximum effect?

The classic way to do it is the famous 3 by 5 cards, a technique I first encountered, if I recall correctly, in David Gerrold’s The Trouble with Tribbles – not the Star Trek episode, but the book about how he wrote and sold it.  In it you write down the significant interactions and events that have to happen on 3 x 5 cards, then basically play solitaire until you figure out an order you like. On a recent visit to Ian Tregillis’ digs I saw he was currently making use of them.

(Stop. Time out. If you have not yet read Ian’s debut novel Bitter Seeds, the mind-fryingly awesome opening shot in his splendidly-named Milkweed Triptych, you owe it to yourself to go check it out now. And hopefully buy it {thank you for using the helpful Amazon Associates link above, and supporting this site, and also me!} You will be seeing more about this book here anon. Hint: it’s made of win.)

The cards were an option for me, but not one I favor. First, I’m a digital kind of guy. Second, I have abysmal handwriting, which even I have trouble reading. A fact not unconnected to #1, above.  I like doing stuff in easily saveable, cut-and-pastable form. (And third, I seem to be obsessed with numbered lists. Ah, well.)

Reading through the summaries again today, I hit on another way to go about it: copied the necessary scenes into a new file all their own, so I can munch ‘em up more readily.  Looking through that, it quickly became clear to me what I need to do.

First: reread the chapters involved. Figure out, foremost, what I can cut. (I’m doing Big Cutting on this pass-through – as is needful, given the first complete draft weighed in at a bookshelf-busting 275,000+ words. That’s working out quite well: I’m trimming much gristle whilst adding necessary vitamins and spices!)

Second: after cutting with a broad blade, I can see the exact order the scenes need to fall into. Or close enough to be getting along with.

Read that last sentence otra vez: close enough to be getting along with. For me, at least, that’s key. It’s a concept I need to pound into my brain, my soul, my very DNA again and again to fight the all-consuming menace of perfectionism.

(Quick real-life snapshot: Emma’s barking just announced the FedEx Guy bringing me a prezzy! Thank you, Mr. FedEx Guy: I love getting prezzies on my porch – except for ones like this. This prezzy isn’t for me. That’s fine: I love giving prezzies!)

Anyway … if you’re prone to the evils of perfectionism, you might try that on for a mantra too:  close enough to be getting along with.

And – that’s enough. Didn’t intend this to run on so long. But I needed a break before diving into rereading the material. So I thought I’d give you one of those promised peeks behind the scenes.

Thanks for reading! And stay tuned. Big things coming soon!

To get my spirits up, thanks to io9 I could always raise my spirits by watching the credits sequence Firefly deserved:

No, I can’t figure out how to center it. Deal. I was fortunate to be able to persuade it not to be too wide for my text column. Anyway, who cares? It’s a cool video.

And it reminds me I need to finish watching my Firefly DVDs.

It wasn’t an unproductive day. I do need to figure out a good way to rearrange the scenes remaining in the first half of the rewrite. I’m hoping I don’t have to print ‘em out, cut ‘em out with scissors, and rearrange ‘em.  That would be too old school.

Suggestions, anybody?

Update, 7-11-10 9:10 PM: Centering issues with embedded video resolved. You could probably tell. Thanks, Mike Blessing!

Somewhere, you know. Safe.

If my calculations are correct, Captain, right now you’re wondering, “Why the hell is it bad news this dude can’t find his clay?” And the answer is: “Because that means I can’t show you a cool behind-the-scenes photograph of how I actually write!” Duh.

The bad news I meant to talk about, though, is that I’m gonna have to lay aside these two extremely suave novels I’ve been reading: Layer Cake by J. J. Connolly, and Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Each is, in its own wildly different way, entirely awesome.

The good news? I have to put them down because I’ve started getting the July submissions for our writers group.

It took me a while really to get into reading the submissions, I must admit, even though we have some truly wonderful writers in the crew. I don’t honestly know why.

Now that I have gotten into it, though, I really look forward to reading the new subs each month. The downside is some months we get slammed, either by innumerable submissions or by multiple huge ones. This month’s shaping up as the latter.

The (helpful) custom is to send in really mongo submissions at least two weeks in advance of the meeting, instead of the usual one week.

This month I’m also, definitely, going to be part of the problem. Which is, however, a Good Thing because of what it implies. Yes, the rewrite proceeds apace.

Not at a pace as brisk as I want. But coming along. And I am very, very pleased with how the novel’s shaping up. Very pleased.

In other news: I’m almost done with shrink appointments. Apparently I’m not crazy enough. Which is actually good. (Seriously, my doctor, his superior, and I feel as if I’m getting better from the severe clinical depression I was diagnosed with, you know, in the hospital.)

However, because my nut doctor’s schedule’s changing, today we had an appointment on a new day and a new time. Which I knew. But I had no feel for, as it were.

So I got to writing. And lost track of time. And bang, next thing I know it’s 12:48.

My appointment’s at one.

Away we go. Fortunately, if the traffic’s not appalling, it doesn’t take too long to get there. More fortunately, traffic wasn’t appalling.

Except … driving down I-25 I almost got wiped out by a hay truck. A HAY TRUCK!!!

What were you thinking, God?

And finally: the following exchange shows why I love Twitter -

TonyMast Dear Fantasy/Scifi writers, if your stories are in English, why do you make up new words for periods of time? (link)

VictorMilan @TonyMast Because we have done so for many myrtazecs. (link)

TonyMast @VictorMilan Remind me to punch you when you are at Archon (link)

- and so many, many people hate it.

I can use the exposure, Gods know. As Cory Doctorow says, a writer’s worst enemy is obscurity, not piracy. And amply obscure am I.

Notwithstanding there are actually some of you kind enough to read this damned thing.  Some people who for their own good reasons will never comment here even read it to keep abreast of events in my life, I happen to know.

Thanks for caring. Seriously.

The problem I have with blogging is the same thing that drove me out of role-playing games: the muscles I use to blog are about the same as I use to write my fiction. You know, the stuff I get paid for.

And there’s the time thing, of course. There’s always time. Or maybe, there’s always not time.

And that old devil perfectionism always seems to get a claw in. I’m forever  looking for the ideal picture, the cute caption (and mouseover! Do not neglect the mouseovers!) Forever trying to make sure everything’s worded just right.

So I find myself burning too much time and energy when I blog. Hence not blogging enough. So, screw perfectionism. From now on I’ll be content to leave my posts here imperf

Of course the fact I spent pretty much the whole day writing and rewriting didn’t come without cost: namely that, especially since I’m still a tad short on sleep, for the second day in a row Emma Dog and I will not get our walk.

Reproach

Stuff. Happens. I know I need to exercise to get better. I’m trying to get to where I walk four miles every day. And I will.

But right now I feel as if I’ve been beat like a germophobe’s throw rug. So: sorry.

Actually, I’m still trying to get to walking two miles plus every day for a week. Haven’t managed that yet. At the same time, I can’t see it’s been out of avoidance or laziness much. If at all. My stamina still ain’t good, and I’m still regularly not sleeping all that well. I’ll keep at it.

But I’m making loads of progress on the writing. I’m getting it done, and I’m getting more done. That’s potentially epic.

Oh – got some really cool news the other day. Annnd … I can’t share it yet, either. But it’s cool.

While I’ve done a good day’s doing, I’m going to try to do more revising on The Dinosaur Lords. I’m getting some great momentum rolled up on that … finally having fun with it. I also may or may not get laundry done; may or may not muster energy to watch War, Inc. from Netflix. Whatever. I’ve done well, and that’s to savor.

Crowdsourcing Fun Request Time: my friend C. F. writes:

I have a book question for you. What exactly are the differences between: flavor text, a blurb, and a tagline? What I am really trying to find out is, what are the short one or two sentence lines of text that are on the covers of books? For example the cover of the book “The Coming of the Strangers” has the title at the top, the name of the author (John Lymington) and underneath it says, “a rustling in the night…and then death, horrible and sudden”. This is not a subtitle nor is it a quote. Is it a tagline?

First reaction: I have no Earthly clue.

It seems as I should know this. I suspect I’m blank on it as another lingering effect of anesthesia. I’d say tagline. It’s palpably a sort of tagline. But is that the technical, book-publishing-biz word for it?

So, my ever-so-knowledgeable fans and friends: what do you call that text? Please?

And all that said and done – yay! Got a new proposal out!

Be nice to have some money coming in…