Ialfa

Monday's Word Count: 26242

2291 words for Monday. When Bambi and Algernon start sniping at each other the words just flow. Now if only I could find the right dynamic for Serena and her Hworill Prince…

I've gotten comments on Cantata from 4 critters now. Two people who “got it” by the end of the first chapter, and two whom I lost completely. 50% would be an improvement from the last set of critiques, but how many people who got lost didn't bother to reply at all?

At least I've got a nice list of places where I'm being too subtle in my explanations (especially vocabularly-wise), so I know where to apply a bigger cluebat. As for the pov thingy, I just can't figure out how to be more obvious than to have one character explain to another what is going on. (Boyd says, 'You need to accept that some people are just never going to get it.')

I'm thinking of translating the name of Ikhsior's ship to make one (or two, someone put it on their list twice because it showed up in the text twice I assume) fewer “strange terms” for people to deal with, and the rest I can hopefully just make a little clearer.

It would only be one chapter, except that I took some stuff out that I decided needed to go back in elsewhere and I'll have to hunt it down. Then I'll be *finished* because the last chapter doesn't need any revisions… er, at least that's the theory. And, um, that's not counting clean-ups and spell-checks and line edits and… Oh well. I'm still counting it as almost done.

The roleplaying game I am trying to get started did not happen… again.
I have tentatively decided that week nights are just not good, and am attempting to reschedule for Saturdays.

Cantata progresses. I know what I'm doing, and I just have to finish doing the connecting bits and write in the (mostly minor) changes needed for the rest. I only have one totally new scene… and I think even for that one I can grab a bit of dialog that I removed from elsewhere and stick it back in. We'll see.

Yesterday fairly late in the evening, I had an idea for what comes between where I was and the finale. I started writing it, wasn't entirely happy with how it was going, but I've been thinking about it since then, and I think I know how it works. I'll fix it tomorrow, I hope.
There just isn't very much book left, so I should be able to finish this draft in a couple of days.
I joined critters so I'd have somewhere new to send it. My Chymera critique group has seen the opening already, and knows too much about the setting to come to it fresh. Joining critters worries me a bit. The last time I tried to get another critique group it just didn't work out very well.

Boyd, Ben, Jasmine and I played Merchants of Venus yesterday. It had been quite a while since we played it, so about a week ago I tried to get a game going, and it sort of fizzled due to lack of time and various distractions. So we tried again on a Saturday, and it went very well. Boyd won, but I think I would have gotten my winning total in a turn or two… I had a quadruple demand space spice run in the works when he declared his win. [sigh!]

I've been working on my Bazomi character in Poser. I modelled her hair in meshwork, so it's a lowres model, and the bangs looked way more like a helmet than actual hair, and the whole thing was too smooth. So I've been playing with transparencies and textures for it, and I think it looks much better, although I find myself wishing for better tools. I also made a bump map for her vest so it would look a little more like the birds are stitched on rather than painted.

I've been working on updating the world icons for my webpages. It's fun, and Boyd's coming home late, so I'll probably get at least another one done before I go to bed. Ironically, updating all the bits of the webpage that use the icons almost takes longer than making the icons in the first place.

I've also spent a great deal of what little free time as I've managed to find pondering what is supposed to happen next in Cantata. This rising tension business always seems to fuddle me. There must be something that comes next and makes sense and fits between this and the ending which I still think is the right ending. I hope there's something. I hope I figure out what it is soon. I'm already past my due date, and my due date to start on Eyes is rapidly approaching.