careful, at least

[aamcnamara]

264 / 350

Seventy-five percent! This means I get a new color. *g* (To 260 the day before yesterday, the rest yesterday; I proceed onward apace.)

On the revising-a-novel front, yesterday I took markers to my Glorious Closet Door Of Notecards and color-coded things. (Categories include various themes, settings, and "trains".) Going back to look at the Scrivener files based on my ponderings, I separated Part Four into parts four and five at a pivotal point. The five parts/acts are 15k 20k 15k 13k 16k, respectively, each of which has a general main Thing that happens in it and the beginnings/ends of which sort of make sense. Which is rather respectable, really!

I want to switch current-part-two to be part three, and rearrange some things, and have some plot threads going on at the same time instead of "um and THEN they tried this OTHER thing, and THAT didn't work either!". One of them might even work out so that a secondary character can have an arc! At any rate, it's neat to see how my brain worked things out for me to start with, and there is a framework/skeleton there that, with modifications, might hold up a second draft.

So that's good.

More political cartoons in the archives yesterday. If you had asked me "how's it going?" I would've said "Well, McKinley just died, and we just managed to settle the coal strike..." Of course, these things happened a hundred and eight/nine years ago, but time elides easily there.

Anyway, I've reached the end of November in 1901/1902--it's odd, but earlier in the year there was much more similarity in topics. Then there was the coal strike in 1902, and McKinley died in 1901, and for a while I didn't even need to double-check what year cartoons were from. (Hint: the "oh noes anarchy!" ones were from 1901; the "hey, arbitration kinda works" ones were from 1902.)


The Court of the Air, Stephen Hunt. This is someone's cup of tea, but not mine. I kept reading it in snatches (my long reading times are on the bus these days, and hauling around thick volumes has particular cost-value considerations), which didn't help, but I kept getting lost in politics and names and things, and still am not sure I knew exactly what was going on.

At any rate, I read it because it was recommended on the Politics of Steampunk panel at WisCon. It seemed to mostly Say Things about Politics by having characters stand around and talk about how terrible it is when people become obsessed with one idea. Which, you know, I am all for, but... well, actually, given how confused I was by the time I got to the end of the novel, I have no idea what the plot was saying about politics. Um. However, I feel peculiarly uncompelled to read it again and find out.

Heroes of the Valley, Jonathon Stroud. I read this because I liked the Bartimaeus trilogy, though I'm actually not sure that I ever read the third book of that, and, well, anyway Viking-type people are good and the prologue was funny. I found the ending a bit implausible, but most of it worked pretty well for me, really. Stories and how they get passed down and changed and what's true, what's truth, all that good stuff.

Libyrinth, Pearl North. Libraries! (Even if much of it takes place, disappointingly, not in or orthogonal to the actual library.) I liked this. Some of confused me or didn't quite make sense, and none of the protagonists were quite "oooh, I like you!" material, but that's okay. I liked the bits of books dropped in; the fact that they were all from this-world books, as far as I could tell, just made me curious for the sequels to see how the whole world is set up. So far, it was nice but a little bit too-flat too-neat fantasy-land for me to dive into it fully. But some of the fantastical/SFnal(?) concepts were really nifty, so there's that.

(There's one thing, though--The Buzz about this book had informed me that yay there are lesbians but the lesbians die/are broken up/? at the end and the straight couple is just happy and together. Which, the second part definitely yes (and I didn't believe their relationship, but when do I ever like straight romances in books; hint, the answer is very very rarely) but it seemed to me like the lesbians had marked potential for getting together in The Next Book. So that was... good? Although a little confusing because I kept expecting them to die or something.)


About six of my reserved books are In Transit to the library right now (including Delany's About Writing, the fourth Attolia book, the sequel to Graceling...) so those should keep me busy for a while when they get here. Yay, libraries.

Comments

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

Last year when you went off to college, I posted in your blog (here or in Codex, I don't recall which) about "care packages" and then promptly forgot all about sending you one.

I suck.

To make up for it, I ordered bought you a shiny hardbound copy of what I think must be the best fantasy novel written in the past ten years. I took it with me to New Mexico last month. "Why?" you ask? Because on my way to the Taos Toolbox, I stopped off to have dinner in Albuequerque with the book's author, Daniel Abraham. I explained to Daniel about the careless package, and he agreed to write something to you in the book so I could redeem myself.

So, let me know when you'll be back at school, and I will send you this spiffy book. Okay?

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

Oooo. I will be back round about Labor Day weekend, and I look forward very much to receiving said spiffy book. Did I give you my college address?

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

If you did I'm sure I have long since managed to forget it.

Send it my way and I'll package up your prezzie.

[vcmw]

Daniel Abraham's books are astonishingly delicious. Just totally completely tasty and satisfying with no bad aftertaste.

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

Sure, sure, give me another reason to be impatient for September, why don't you. *g* (Yay!)