Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: geeky
  • Music: Glee, "Red Solo Cup."

Quiet milestones.

Parasite is the first book I've written largely in secret. Not because I was ashamed of it, but because first it wasn't sold, so I couldn't say anything about it. Then it was sold but unannounced, so I couldn't say anything about it. Then, when it was finally announced, I was so far into the writing process that I couldn't force myself into the normal flow of word counts and benchmarks and all the other things I use for motivation.

Pro tip: I work better with word counts and benchmarks. I know this now.

Friday I wound up staying home from my day job, thanks to an inability to breathe that was only resolved when I had another of my amazing fire hose nosebleeds, or, as I like to call them, "blood vacations." (It's not high blood pressure, it's a weakness in one of the blood vessels that runs through my sinuses. My doctor and I have discussed it. So please, no medical advice.) And once I mopped up the blood and got some clean clothes on, I got to work, and quietly, without any real fanfare, passed 500 draft one pages.

It's not a perfect book, by any means; for one thing, it's missing about 8,000 words still, and for another, it hasn't had any editorial, which means that all the Mira Grant "tics"—repetition, over-explanation, Joss-y dialog—are in full display, with no mitigation. But I can see the shape of what will be a good book, once we finish kicking the crap out of it, and that's very reassuring to me.

It will be awesome.
Tags: being productive, good things, medical fu, parasite, writing
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    Help
  • 100 comments

zombiefruit

June 11 2012, 19:24:49 UTC 5 years ago

Oh god, I used to get such amazing nosebleeds as a kid - it was especially bad in hot weather. Once upon a time, on holiday in France, the doctor had to shove a metric fucktonne of cotton up it and tape it shut because he couldn't make it stop! Awful. I hope they stop sometime. Ugghh.

Also: I just got my review copy of Blackout and I AM SO EXCITED! I've just finished reading a mosaic novel I'm in (it's not out yet; I'm doing some beta reading for the editor), so it's like winning the awesomeness lottery :D I actually got so impatient waiting for it I almost bought it myself ;)

seanan_mcguire

June 12 2012, 00:20:17 UTC 5 years ago

Hooray! (And dude, you'll never hear an author object to "I bought it myself." We like paying the electric bill.)

zombiefruit

June 12 2012, 17:03:46 UTC 5 years ago

It's cool - I bought Feed and I bought Deadline twice (I essentially badgered a friend into borrowing Feed, knowing she would love it, and then got her Deadline as a present)! And I reviewed both, too :)

Funnily enough, I wrote a first draft to a zombiepocalypse novel, which I finished a month or so before I picked up Feed... But I Mary Sue'd the crap out of my protagonist. I finished the first draft and I found I just wanted to punch that girl in the face. Sucked. Made me unsure that I'm ready to write something novel-length, to be honest. And the particular storyline of my zombiepocalypse story now just makes me angry, because that irritating better-than-everyone arsehole is in it ;)

zombiefruit

June 12 2012, 17:05:09 UTC 5 years ago

Here and here, respectively.

seanan_mcguire

June 12 2012, 17:59:14 UTC 5 years ago

Keen!