Writing
Got together with Kate to write again tonight. Went well; half an hour or so of chatting, an hour to an hour and a half of writing, then another half-hour or so of chatting again until the bookstore/café (Books Inc., in downtown Mountain View) closed and kicked us out.
I added perhaps 1300-1400 words to my story, and got a slightly firmer grasp on where it's going. It's interesting: I'm usually very good at seeing the path to an ending from any given point in a story (and btw, anyone interested in joining me for a game of Once Upon a Time (or any of Jo Walton's storytelling card games if I manage to order them in time) at WisCon while everyone else is off playing Mafia all night?), but in this particular story I'm kinda flailing. I've decided to just keep going, making things up and feeling my way through it, with the expectation that I'll eventually have to cut a whole bunch of it, possibly including the first couple thousand words and an entire plotline. We'll see how it goes.
This is a story idea that I first tried to write in college, as a kids' story, and then later planned to turn into an erotica story (with adult characters) for a Circlet anthology, and am now trying to write as an adult fantasy story that contains elements of both of the previous incarnations. I'm not at all sure it'll work. But some of the seemingly intractable problems are working themselves out now that I'm putting words on (metaphorical) paper. In my GMing days (I do miss roleplaying; some day I hope to have time for that again), I found that I could think and think and think about a plotline and get nowhere, but when I started typing things up, I could brainstorm and come up with usable ideas. My father always used to say that he couldn't think without a pen in his hand; I guess I can't think without a keyboard.
I keep meaning to post here about the weekend: birthday, party in the park, etc. But no time now. I didn't get enough sleep (and no, not for fun reasons); among other things, I realized late Sunday night that that day had been the e2ink anthology's deadline, and stayed up way too late formatting stories, and then woke up way too early. Oh, and also Sunday night I learned the hard way just how expensive locksmiths are. This week has been kind of hazy. Still a little short on sleep, and I have several stories left to read before tomorrow night's weekly editorial meeting. Think I'd better go read a couple and then to bed.
(Oh, and that phrase reminds me to mention a certain Connie Willis story that I just read, but it'll have to wait.)
