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Sunday Round-Up
Dec. 14th, 2008 03:53 pmGreat night out at liisa ladouceur's, in the land of skulls and electro-jazz. Her apartment is a cornucopia of Dios de los Muertos stuff, including a tree of life votive image with a skeleton as its centrepiece (it reminded me weirdly of a skinless dancing Shiva), and her sound-system even reaches into the bathroom, where the shower-curtain is adorned with pirate flag cut-outs. I read through "The Underneath", and caught about five not-so-major errors which need a paper edit to track, after which they could be safely inputted and the whole thing brought up to speed again (too bad I already sent it somewhere, eh?).
Then I came back to find cristalia's kind feedback on "Hell Friend", which raises a considerably larger bunch of structural problems: Burying the lede (a common flaw in my writing), over-exposition on the subject of Hungry Ghost Month (you never know), the cognitive "wrench" accompanying Wu Mingshi's first appearance (intentional, but apparently not very well-done, on my part), etc. This means a whole new draft, essentially, while I also try real hard to break fully into "Strange Weight" Chapter Four--I've done about 500 consecutive words so far, all the while continuing to muck with/add to the notes and spine for the rest, but it's slow like molasses in that "oh shit, here comes the crunch" kind of way, right now. So much so that I actually spent time figuring out the spine for that "Sown From Salt" sequel yesterday, rather than have to hammer at the designated fucker of choice any further.
Still, her reply has wonderfully clarified the big thing people who aren't me don't seem to be getting, vis-a-vis "Hell Friend": That the friend of the title is not in fact Mingshi, so much, as Grandmother Yau. Which makes Jin's relationship with her the central--and thus indispensible-with--one. Again, this is my bad; it comes directly from the story having been brainwormed inside MY psyche for the last little while, so much so that there are large sections of it I didn't think needed to be explained (along with all those ones where I obviously explain too much)...and that's why you always want fresh eyes/opinions on your shit, anyways, in the long run. So there.;)
Meanwhile: Usual crap with Mom (oh, I get it: I should just assume your utter disinterest in anything I do for myself rather than Cal as a default, and roll with it; Coolio. Makes for great breakfast conversation). Cal pantsless, more often than not. Steve out for much of the day, in the process of once more filling the house with mail-out boxes. I still have to read the bulk of that book about World War II, and it's sub-Follett-awful. Interlog has apparently decided to claim my email address has "changed since the beginning of the session" every time I try to send a piece of 'mail, which makes replying to correspondence a very special sort of chore indeed. Two weeks to Christmas, which means that every time I go shopping I get to hear "SIMP-ly HAV-ing a WONDERFULCHRISTMASTIME!"--or, as I like to sing it:
It's Christmastime
The snow is here
And in each store
I always hear
That SONG which MAKES ME want TOPOKEOUTMYEYES!
MAKES me WANT to POKEOUTSOMEBODY'SEYES!
Etc., etc., etc.
Then I came back to find cristalia's kind feedback on "Hell Friend", which raises a considerably larger bunch of structural problems: Burying the lede (a common flaw in my writing), over-exposition on the subject of Hungry Ghost Month (you never know), the cognitive "wrench" accompanying Wu Mingshi's first appearance (intentional, but apparently not very well-done, on my part), etc. This means a whole new draft, essentially, while I also try real hard to break fully into "Strange Weight" Chapter Four--I've done about 500 consecutive words so far, all the while continuing to muck with/add to the notes and spine for the rest, but it's slow like molasses in that "oh shit, here comes the crunch" kind of way, right now. So much so that I actually spent time figuring out the spine for that "Sown From Salt" sequel yesterday, rather than have to hammer at the designated fucker of choice any further.
Still, her reply has wonderfully clarified the big thing people who aren't me don't seem to be getting, vis-a-vis "Hell Friend": That the friend of the title is not in fact Mingshi, so much, as Grandmother Yau. Which makes Jin's relationship with her the central--and thus indispensible-with--one. Again, this is my bad; it comes directly from the story having been brainwormed inside MY psyche for the last little while, so much so that there are large sections of it I didn't think needed to be explained (along with all those ones where I obviously explain too much)...and that's why you always want fresh eyes/opinions on your shit, anyways, in the long run. So there.;)
Meanwhile: Usual crap with Mom (oh, I get it: I should just assume your utter disinterest in anything I do for myself rather than Cal as a default, and roll with it; Coolio. Makes for great breakfast conversation). Cal pantsless, more often than not. Steve out for much of the day, in the process of once more filling the house with mail-out boxes. I still have to read the bulk of that book about World War II, and it's sub-Follett-awful. Interlog has apparently decided to claim my email address has "changed since the beginning of the session" every time I try to send a piece of 'mail, which makes replying to correspondence a very special sort of chore indeed. Two weeks to Christmas, which means that every time I go shopping I get to hear "SIMP-ly HAV-ing a WONDERFULCHRISTMASTIME!"--or, as I like to sing it:
It's Christmastime
The snow is here
And in each store
I always hear
That SONG which MAKES ME want TOPOKEOUTMYEYES!
MAKES me WANT to POKEOUTSOMEBODY'SEYES!
Etc., etc., etc.
