Book...melting....brain...yet I still must blog.
Seriously, I have 88,243 words and I don't know how close I am to the end of this bloody thing. I remember hitting the magic 50,000 words and thinking, "Hey, I'm half way there now." But no, clearly 50,000 words was not the half way mark. I'm beginning to fear that 88,000 words might not be the half way mark.
Yes, I know that I keep venting about this thing, but it's the biggest writing challenge I've ever set out for myself. And unsurprisingly, it's proving to be hard. Much harder than I originally thought. When I was around 40,000 words and everything was flowing with ease, I got all cocky about how easy it was. Now it feels like I'm on a death march.
I know, some of you will be tired of hearing about the book. But hey, good news. Curling starts soon. And I know how much all of you love reading about that. Although that does remind me, if you live in Iqaluit and are interested in curling this year, drop me a line. We have beginner clinics this Thursday and Saturday. There's an opening bonspiel the last weekend of October. The regular league starts on Oct. 30.
And now, two links. I suspect pretty much everyone has heard that Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) will play Scotty in the Star Trek remake coming out next year. Now, I don' really care much about this remake. I would just as soon see the franchise expand into new areas rather than just strip mine the past.
But this article made me laugh and would be a good idea for a Trek movie. That it should be told from the point of view of the poor, beleaguered engineer who has to deal with a madman captain who keeps getting the ship in one insane situation after another and he has to keep bailing him out while the ego-maniacal bastard takes all the credit.
Now that would be a fun movie to see. Pegg could do something really fun with that.
Then there's this story which I have shamelessly lifted from Neil Gaiman's blog. And it's not the idea that women may go into "heat" once a month, which as you can imagine is a touch controversial, that amuses me. It's just the way the "scientists" went about their "research." You can just see some of them going to their wives, "sorry hunny, I have to go to the strip club again this evening for more research.
I'm trying to decide if it's actually useful research or a future Ignoble Award winner.
5 comments:
Forgive my ignorance but I have completely forgotten what the book is about.
I have simply become engrossed in the ongoing takes of pain at writing it.
Why does the bloody thing now seem to be growing exponentially? Hope you don't get Tom Clancy disease - longer books, less filling.
I'm not sure if I've ever said what the book is about, to be honest.
It's about a reporter working at a community newspaper trying to redeem himself for the spectacular mistake he made 10 years earlier while working as a student journalist. The story is set in the present with flashbacks to 10 years ago.
I have friends who are alternating between curiosity and fear about how all of this will turn out.
As for the length, I keep telling myself this is the first draft so it means nothing. Massive chunks of the book will have to be reworked in someway.
But I honestly have no idea how long a book should be. National Novel Writing Month wants 50k words, but that's actually only a novella. So 88k, where I am now, is probably just a short novel.
If I exceed 150k, then I'll get worried that I'm going on for too long.
Chris Pine is said to play a young Kirk.
Ugh.
And don't worry about the writing for now, just do it. You will end up culling much of it, and those scraps might turn into something else later.
i think i already read it. it was called "the shipping news." : )
Someone writes one crappy novel about a journalist working in Newfoundland...
And yes, it might be the height of ego to call a book that won the Pulitzer Prize "crappy", but I never could stand that book.
Besides, I'm trying, with limited success, to make my book fun. And whatever you might call The Shipping News, fun isn't it...
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