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To sum up, Scrivener is the best thing ever. It is precisely what I have been missing all this time, it is just what would have saved me in 2003, it is something I have been needing since about 1992, and I am officially asking for a paid license for it for Christmas because I cannot live without it.
So anyway, that's my NaNoWriMo-- I didn't really write much that's new, but I combed through my hard drive and found everything I've ever written on Barbarians_Novel, including the first scribbled notes, and all the abortive drafts since. One document alone is over 190,000 words long, and is utter nonsense, but contains some compelling scenes, which are not usable in any way but may go into another book in another life, and are immensely useful in delineating for me precisely why I no longer participate in NaNoWriMo and similar foolishness.
I might mention there are over 75 documents, ranging in length from about 50 words to the one above. Not many on that low end, either. Most I'd say hover in the 30,000-word range. I'm serious about that, by the way. In 2003 I went through all my writings and tallied them up and counted over a million words, of fiction. Not counting journaling, which I did intensively. Over a million words.
I do not need NaNoWriMo.
I need a fucking editor.
It is fascinating to watch the development of the kernel of a tellable story. It is fascinating to follow the innumerable dead ends. It is a bit heartbreaking to see where sheer disorganization did me in. I have poured so much work into this thing, and at this point the usable, final draft stands at somewhat under 5,000 words.
Five thousand words.
The rest is... well, optimistically I can mine it. But the usable portions don't even constitute a skeleton. But they do have enough points to plot a line, so I at least can scout the direction.
Still not sure if it's a romance. Or what. Lots of sex and violence. The stuff I like. The new draft is going to be a little less conversation and a lot more action. I'm asking myself What Would Martha Wells Do, as she's one who really keeps things moving; I'm also asking myself what Jennie Crusie would do, as she lets her characters chatter like little birds, but makes all the chatter serve something. (I have to say, I love her writing and hate her books. Hate is too strong a word. But I love all the components of it; I love her writing about writing, I love her self-awareness and her wit; I love how she puts a book together. And then I read it and throw it across the room. I feel terrible about that last bit and I just can't figure out why it's true. I've bought several, which is more than I ever do. But I don't love them, and I feel cheated, but I don't blame her one bit for it. Obviously she's got an awesome system and tons of fans, and I don't resent that at all. She's not alone-- there are tons of authors whose blogs I follow ravenously, whose books leave me cold. Weird!)
Anyway.
Things have to happen in this book, and weirdly that's meant adding in more POVs, and cutting down on the chatter from the main ones. Fine by me and I'm enjoying it a lot and Scrivener is making it so easy.
Which was all a long aside.
All of this posting was to say, I have a writing roadblock, and would love to ask you, O Internet, whoever has not deserted me for Facebook, for help.
I have this character.
He is an adorable and sincere and valiant young man. Not the 'hero' but a good guy nonetheless. When the protagonist (female) first encounters him, he says something along the lines of "Where the hell have you been?" to the hero. They are speaking the heroine's language, which is not their native language, because they are polite even in extremity (the hero may be getting stabbed at the time). He speaks it very well, but of course, he learned it from a tutor and not on the street, and so he speaks it sort of, well... he sounds like that guy who spoke in between the beeps in health class. He's got the equivalent of vintage 1962 academic English.
So he doesn't know any actual swear words. So what he actually says is approximately, "Where the dickens have you been?" in the sort of crisis where a really emphatic swear word would be called for.
Buuuut... I don't want to say "the dickens" because a modern English reader is going to say, "Charles Dickens?"
It's important, because he doesn't introduce himself (action scene!), so the POV character, the heroine, a native speaker of the language they're speaking, refers to him as "the dickens boy" in her head for the rest of the scene, and may do so for the rest of the novel. And "the dickens boy" is going to read like "the Dickens boy" and so... you know, a proper name like that is just going to be too jarring.
So I need something like that. Not a rustic thing-- not "Where in tarnation have you been", for example, because him sounding rustic isn't going to work. He has to sound antiquated, out of touch, silly, and harmless. (The harmless part is really important; people are getting stabbed, and his antique quirky accent changes the tone a great deal for the terrified and injured heroine, who hears him before she can see him.)
I'm drawing a blank on non-swear-words that are charmingly retro without being rustic.
Help?
So anyway, that's my NaNoWriMo-- I didn't really write much that's new, but I combed through my hard drive and found everything I've ever written on Barbarians_Novel, including the first scribbled notes, and all the abortive drafts since. One document alone is over 190,000 words long, and is utter nonsense, but contains some compelling scenes, which are not usable in any way but may go into another book in another life, and are immensely useful in delineating for me precisely why I no longer participate in NaNoWriMo and similar foolishness.
I might mention there are over 75 documents, ranging in length from about 50 words to the one above. Not many on that low end, either. Most I'd say hover in the 30,000-word range. I'm serious about that, by the way. In 2003 I went through all my writings and tallied them up and counted over a million words, of fiction. Not counting journaling, which I did intensively. Over a million words.
I do not need NaNoWriMo.
I need a fucking editor.
It is fascinating to watch the development of the kernel of a tellable story. It is fascinating to follow the innumerable dead ends. It is a bit heartbreaking to see where sheer disorganization did me in. I have poured so much work into this thing, and at this point the usable, final draft stands at somewhat under 5,000 words.
Five thousand words.
The rest is... well, optimistically I can mine it. But the usable portions don't even constitute a skeleton. But they do have enough points to plot a line, so I at least can scout the direction.
Still not sure if it's a romance. Or what. Lots of sex and violence. The stuff I like. The new draft is going to be a little less conversation and a lot more action. I'm asking myself What Would Martha Wells Do, as she's one who really keeps things moving; I'm also asking myself what Jennie Crusie would do, as she lets her characters chatter like little birds, but makes all the chatter serve something. (I have to say, I love her writing and hate her books. Hate is too strong a word. But I love all the components of it; I love her writing about writing, I love her self-awareness and her wit; I love how she puts a book together. And then I read it and throw it across the room. I feel terrible about that last bit and I just can't figure out why it's true. I've bought several, which is more than I ever do. But I don't love them, and I feel cheated, but I don't blame her one bit for it. Obviously she's got an awesome system and tons of fans, and I don't resent that at all. She's not alone-- there are tons of authors whose blogs I follow ravenously, whose books leave me cold. Weird!)
Anyway.
Things have to happen in this book, and weirdly that's meant adding in more POVs, and cutting down on the chatter from the main ones. Fine by me and I'm enjoying it a lot and Scrivener is making it so easy.
Which was all a long aside.
All of this posting was to say, I have a writing roadblock, and would love to ask you, O Internet, whoever has not deserted me for Facebook, for help.
I have this character.
He is an adorable and sincere and valiant young man. Not the 'hero' but a good guy nonetheless. When the protagonist (female) first encounters him, he says something along the lines of "Where the hell have you been?" to the hero. They are speaking the heroine's language, which is not their native language, because they are polite even in extremity (the hero may be getting stabbed at the time). He speaks it very well, but of course, he learned it from a tutor and not on the street, and so he speaks it sort of, well... he sounds like that guy who spoke in between the beeps in health class. He's got the equivalent of vintage 1962 academic English.
So he doesn't know any actual swear words. So what he actually says is approximately, "Where the dickens have you been?" in the sort of crisis where a really emphatic swear word would be called for.
Buuuut... I don't want to say "the dickens" because a modern English reader is going to say, "Charles Dickens?"
It's important, because he doesn't introduce himself (action scene!), so the POV character, the heroine, a native speaker of the language they're speaking, refers to him as "the dickens boy" in her head for the rest of the scene, and may do so for the rest of the novel. And "the dickens boy" is going to read like "the Dickens boy" and so... you know, a proper name like that is just going to be too jarring.
So I need something like that. Not a rustic thing-- not "Where in tarnation have you been", for example, because him sounding rustic isn't going to work. He has to sound antiquated, out of touch, silly, and harmless. (The harmless part is really important; people are getting stabbed, and his antique quirky accent changes the tone a great deal for the terrified and injured heroine, who hears him before she can see him.)
I'm drawing a blank on non-swear-words that are charmingly retro without being rustic.
Help?
