urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:seanan_mcguire The Journal of Seanan McGuire Seanan McGuire 2009-02-27T17:05:31Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:seanan_mcguire:89025 2009-02-27T17:05:31Z 2009-02-27T17:05:31Z Outkast, 'Hey Ya!' I am currently engaged in a truly fascinating dance of projects. I'm writing <i>The Mourning Edition</i> (sequel to <i>Newsflesh</i>) and <i>Discount Armageddon</i> (first of the Incryptid books). I'm doing a full revamp and revision of <i>Late Eclipses of the Sun</i> (October Daye, book four) at the same time, preparatory to getting back to work on <i>The Brightest Fell</i> (October Daye, book five). Each of these projects is filling an important niche in my mental ecosystem, since they're different enough that I don't get them confused, and they refresh me in different ways.<br /><br />Right now, my writing regiment looks like this:<br /><br />* Day one, revise/rewrite a chapter of <i>Late Eclipses</i>.<br />* Day two, start a chapter of <i>The Mourning Edition</i>.<br />* Day three, finish the chapter of <i>The Mourning Edition</i>, process edits on <i>Late Eclipses</i>.<br />* Day four, revise/rewrite a chapter of <i>Late Eclipses</i>.<br />* Day five, start a chapter of <i>Discount Armageddon</i>, process edits on <i>The Mourning Edition</i>.<br />* Day six, finish the chapter of <i>Discount Armageddon</i>, process edits on <i>Late Eclipses</i>.<br />* Day seven, revise/rewrite a chapter of <i>Late Eclipses</i>...<br /><br />...and I bet you can catch the pattern from there. In amidst all this madness, I'm answering email, writing blog entries, finishing essays, doing book reviews, working on my website, detailing art cards, finishing comic strips, doing random pieces of promotional art, and, of course, sleeping. I've also been watching an average of twenty hours of television per week.<br /><br />Yes, we think I steal time from a parallel dimension.<br /><br />Writing something new is always exciting, but right now, it's the revision of <i>Late Eclipses</i> that really fascinates me. I have the shape of things entirely in place; I know who's where, when they get there, and what they need to do. Now I'm patching the logic problems, fixing the bits that seem out of character or don't make sense, and generally having a lovely time wading through my own world. (If it seems odd that I'd be having logic problems, consider the fact that by book four, I have roughly twelve hundred pages of continuity that needs to be acknowledged and worked with in order for things to make sense. It's both freeing and confining. Much like a really good corset, which gives you excellent support, but makes eating a big lunch a bad idea.)<br /><br />A lot of things are coming clear to me as I work on this book, and I'm really starting to think that my second trilogy is going to be made of awesome. Which is good. I sort of lose the ability to gauge the quality of my own work after a certain number of revisions -- I don't see the clever, I just see the commas -- so I really enjoy these moments where I stop, and blink, and go 'hey, wait, this is good!'<br /><br />Busy blonde is busy, but busy blonde is happy, and that helps a lot.