Ialfa

One of the things that slowed my progress on Scent of Spring was that I’d moved on to editing, and suddenly needed to do a lot of tracing. I have mostly been working on this project while chauffeuring my kids about, and I needed a tracing technique that was simple, inexpensive and highly portable.

So, I have created for myself a portable light table.

I have a clear plastic clipboard, which fits into the large clipboard/carry-case that holds the pages I am working on and my pencils, pens, etc. And I also have a clip-on reading light, which can be coiled up and tucked away in one of the carry-case compartments when I’m not using it. When I want to do some tracing, I clip the light on upside-down, and adjust it so that it shines up from underneath the clipboard, through whatever part of the drawing I’m trying to trace. Tah-dah!

I’ve been storyboarding the changes I want to make in Black Flag, and am enjoying the task.

I have heard a number of writers complain about revisions, but for me, as long as I understand what it is that needs changing and why, it’s always been one of the fun parts of the job. I like figuring out how to fix things, and the actual work of making it better is just as fun as creating it in the first place. Best of all, when I look back at what I’ve got and can see the improvement, it’s a real thrill.

I’m sure finding a lot of stuff that needs to be redone, though. I’ve got 40 pages of new storyboards from just the first 6 Chapters. Some of those are for brand new scenes, some are insertions into old scenes (added clarifications, usually), and some are pages in need of rearranging so that the new material will fit more smoothly into the old.

In theory, I’ll need to make fewer and few fixes as I get further along in the story, though. ::crosses fingers::

My latest sprite artwork for Era of Four Moons:

…So naturally there are a bunch of things that look odd, or don’t work, or whatever.

I fixed the first one. The card game I coded a while back didn’t work when I first put it up online. Apparently the code snippet I used for sorting your hand neatly by rank and suit works great on my computer, but is too advanced for the server. So for a quick fix I took out the card sorting, and the game now works.

I still have a bunch more to track down and deal with, though.

For five years (and a couple months) I have been working on the “first draft” artwork for Brotherhood of the Black Flag, Volume One: Flag in Flames. Today I completed the last page.

I think I’m in shock. Five years. I’ve been working on this draft for five years. And it’s DONE!!! It’s done, done, done, done, DONE!!!! Yeeehaw!!!

Of course, I still have edits and betareaders comments and more edits. But I can wait to think about all that tomorrow. Today I’m going celebrate.

Yesterday I managed my best performance ever in a round of disk golf (that’s the kind where you throw frisbees into baskets). I actually finished all 18 holes. I’ve never done that before. I’ve always collapsed wheezing and shaking with exhaustion somewhere in the middle.

Of course, it was the least atheletic of all the full-sized golf courses we go to — with only one notable hill to climb. Still, the last time I tried this course I only managed 11 holes, and the time before that about 8. So, go me!

This makes up somewhat for the fact that the family greeted the New Year with a round of stomach flu, and when 2012 arrived I was curled into a ball moaning instead of celebrating. Everyone else in the house followed suit a couple days later. Um, yeah, great way to start the new year. Luckily I don’t believe in omens. I think that I was out of bed and finishing a round of disk golf less than a week later, is far more indicative of how 2012 is going to go, than what I coincidentally happened to be doing when it arrived is. I’m pretty tired today, though.

Across a Jade Sea, the book I wasn’t supposed to be writing, not only suddenly (just over a year ago) decided that I must write it, it also suddenly (a couple months ago?) decided that I must transcribe it. (It was written longhand.) I have finally finished that effort, and although the resulting draft is still pretty rough, I finally have a wordcount for this thing. As of this draft, it’s just over 230K words. (As a reference point, most publishers prefer to see “first novels” of about 100K words.)

So yesterday, I went into my database, and declared by authorial fiat that I didn’t write and transcribe one (huge) book this past year–I wrote and transcribed three 75-80K books: Serendipity’s Tide, Treachery’s Harbor, and Fealty’s Shore. (Lengthwise, dividing it in two might have been better, but structurally three is the better split.)

That means I’ve written not ten, but a full dozen novels so far.

…and it also makes me so far behind on the revising, polishing, and editing end of things that I don’t even want to think about it. Especially since I was just doing that… Serendipity’s Tide is in pretty decent shape, it’s the other two that still need boatloads of work done to them. And I still haven’t got the second Bambi book revised and polished yet.

What happened to my nice little schedule that served me so well all those many years?

I’m feeling proud of myself, because I went a little further than usual on my evening walk two nights in a row.
Here’s to hoping the new distance becomes the usual one. ::crosses fingers::

I spent hours last night and this morning telling the story of Compelled to my family. It was the first time I had told the story since I had written the script, so although many of the kids were familiar with the basic concept, this was the first time they had heard the story in full detail. Telling the story to an interested audience was very, very fun for me. But, at the same time, I kept forgetting exactly where all the little conversations went, and I kept having to back up and fill in important bits that I missed, and I never remember all the really good lines, and, and…

So I feel a bit wistful about how I didn’t really do it justice, and can’t help wishing that someday that story will get told the way it’s supposed to be told… as a graphic novel with really awesome artwork. Or maybe a movie. It would make a really good movie.

The Era of Four Moons expansion for Battle for Wesnoth now has a new campaign available for download called the Panther Lord, and I have just got another project off my to-do list. (Until we start getting player feedback with requests for fixes, of course. But hopefully there won’t be many, and none of them will be in my area of responsibility.) ::crosses fingers::