What It Will Take

[dr_pretentious]

32,290 / 50,000 (64.6%)

New words: 2288

Current deficit: 4384 Coming back down again!

Working conditions: After hours of percoset sleep, after dinner, after watching House, after dicking around on the internet for way too long, after the spouse went to bed, I finally sat down to write. Every minute, my first thought was, "I'm really tired," and my second thought was, "What cool thing could happen next in the story?" Should have put the writing first before something.

Notable story incidents: Nonetheless, some cool things did happen in the story. I backtracked to Chapter 5, the one in which the shapeshifter spies come in their buzzard forms to examine Stisele while she's knocked flat on the battlefield. Next thing I knew, Stisele was recovered enough to be present while Trebin and his Miaaran opposite number negotiate about who can use which bits of terrain for funerary rites. There's conflict, sure, but I haven't yet figured out what there is for Stisele to do in this scene other than witness it so the reader can find out about it. Sometimes having just one viewpoint character is a pain in the ass. If I could pick whichever character from the cast had the most to do in a given scene, and narrate from that head for the length of a short chapter, the draggy bits would be less draggy. But no. In the interest of eventual marketability, if Stisele doesn't see it happen, it's nothing but hearsay.

This book will be short enough to sell. Dammit.

But first, it has to get longer for a while. What it will take to get to the 50K mark by the 30th: I will have to average 2250 words/day. That's not impossible. It's not even all that improbable.

Comments

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Are they good filing cabinets, or cheap filing cabinets? My cheap filing cabinets have locks, but if you tip them up, you can see that they're actuall open on the bottom. The metal sides have a little lip, and that's all that holds the weight of the whole apparatus. Tipping the cabinet over, you can see the underside of the drawers, and plenty of open space around the drawers for the sliding tracks, etc. A person who knew anything about locks could probably open the cheap lock by unwinding a wire coat hanger and sliding it inside, around the drawers.

If the cabinet is small, your MC could just abscond with the whole thing.

Also, you can just write the islands. You know he gets the file somehow, and in December you'll have time to find a locksmith and pick his/her brain, as it were, about your lockpicking options.

If your MC knows ahead of time that he's going to need to pick a lock, and has an idea what kind of lock it is, you might be able to add a locksmith character, a relationship of some kind between the locksmith and your MC, and some practice at lockpicking.

[(Anonymous)]

The cabinets, although I should go back and pay more attention to them, are the five-drawer sort, with the type of lock that catches at the top of the drawer. They could be forced with a screwdriver or crowbar, though not silently. There are people in the next room that would not appreciate breaking and entering.

The locks are actually pretty easy to pick on these old buggers, and though Richard the Maimed Bullshit Artist could conceivably have such a skill--I mean, the narrator stubbornly calls him "Trick," which I have yet to truly justify, even--I think that even were I to just go back and give Richard the lockpicking so he and Tom can use it for Quatermaster's stores mischief (plausible; war or peace, tons and tons of gear our taxes paid for is stolen yearly) I -still- want him to experience what I forced him through.

That is, a tense minute and a half where he's hiding under a dinky office table near the door, trying not to wet himself, while someone is grabbing the very files he wants. It was my backup plan, and I'm not thrilled with it (though I resisted the temptation to leave them carelessly unlocked), though it might improve with that person being Larry Reagan and an embarrassing confrontation.

Reagan's careful with his words, and talks like he's on the witness stand. If he's got something to hide, he's got -no- reason to be there, and it might introduce some fun-to-write levity or even force him to drop the bullshit. It also puts Tom in a difficult place; Reagan's clearly got the files in hand, but he's not going to give them up, and indeed what -will- he do? There's a client in the next room; he couldn't play hitman even if he wanted to. I want to somehow explain that he's ever-so-slightly squeamish and so forth, but I'll have another opportunity. I can have one more confrontation as soon as Tom has a good reason for knowing that the deaths of certain brothers have been greatly exaggerated.

He wouldn't shoot Tom, anyway. Larry's more of the smoke-and-mirrors type and abhors killing people unless he can convince himself that they're bad or it's necessary, and "pursuit of the truth" is a pretty pure goal, even if it IS only out of stubbornness and a childish testing of his limits.

I'm actually pretty psyched about my disposable story now. It leaves me to believe that the First Novel, which I'll attempt next, is going to be pretty good provided I plot and scheme ahead of time, but don't get married to the plan.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Dude, you've passed the 40K mark! I don't think there's any danger of my passing you, at least not in November.