"Six" chapter up

So, the latest chapter of "Six" is up. The bad is that I must now place the story on suspension, but I'm hoping that won't last too long.

The good is that I like this most recent chapter quite a bit. There were one or two things I was unsure about, like the appropriateness of the pseudo-pun in the middle (if you read it, you know what I'm referring to), but overall I'd say it's the best chapter I've posted on FFN. (Of course, that's not saying too much, but hey.)

I've had a lot of ranty posts about writing I've been meaning to do, but I'll save those for another time. For now, I have to go provide slave labor for band camp.

Difficulties

So, I've been stuck in the same place for the past few days with "Six." The trouble isn't that I don't know what to write; it's that I don't know how to sequence things for the best possible read.

I've written and deleted a few scenes, but that's fine. Right now I'm trying to figure out where things need to go, and though this isn't the funnest part of writing, it's definitely worth it.

Progress

So, I finally have a decent handle on the face, and I'm back to working on "Six." This next chapter's going to be a pretty fun one to post.

I've also been doing a bit of thinking about some of my other stories, and I still want to write a oneshot to get my mind out of Six-loops. We'll find out where all this goes, eventually.

A Podcast on Editing!

So, today I got a pleasant surprise. While I wasn't looking, the Unsheathed podcast put out an episode on editing.

For those of you who don't know (probably a lot), Unsheathed is a furry-themed writing podcast recorded by Kyell Gold and K.M. Hirosaki. They are both amazing writers, and Gold has won more Ursa Major awards than anyone else to date and has received all kinds of awards outside of the fandom.

They've done shows on editing before, but what they do in this one is a bit more in-depth: they and a guest spend about an hour discussing revisions for a small selection of prose sent in by one of the viewers:

People from outside the tribelands feared its sharp angles and perilous heights, deadly jungles with creatures only whispered about since prehistoric times, and endless plains with not a drop of exposed water to be fond. They avoided it like a black mark on the maps, merchants and traders making half-a-thousand mile detours around its perimeter. At least one civilization, near the northern rim, had made a practice of banishing unwanteds into the tribelands, with three days worth of food and water, a knife, and their wits to accompany them.

People from inside the tribelands feared the outside world as desperately as the foreigners feared the tribes. Layered in generations of ritual and ceremony, their terror of the outside world was enshrined in their beads and feathers and the dances they danced around the fires at night, like the one that looked like a chicken but was supposed to be an eagle. They worshipped everything within their microcosm of the world just as fervently as they didn't worship anything from the outside. At least one tribe, who lived along the northern face of the labyrinth, thought that the sun and moon shone only on the Tribelands, and every once in a while, a poor, untutored soul would wander in from the outside, with three days worth of food and water, a knife, and a dazzled look on their face like they were seeing the sun and moon for the first time. The tribe would take them in, nurture them, teach them the stories of father sun and daughter moon, then free their soul to fly with the stars (who also shone only on the Tribelands) by throwing them bodily from the top of a special plateau.

If the outside world and inside tribes ever bothered to meet, they would agree on only one thing, and that would be that they should never meet again.

If you're interested, check out Unsheathed #45. I was going to post a link here, but decided against it.

A word of caution: I would not recommend the show for everyone. There's a bit of humor, but most of it is a serious discussion about writing and storytelling; if you're interested in writing and learning to write better, it will be of great help. There's also a bit of innuendo, but if you read my "Bed of Lies" and lived, you'll have no problems. (Though note that the podcast is technically rated explicit.)

And yes. If you want to be a good, successful writer, you will have to do exactly what these guys do. No exceptions. I've learned from experience that writing a draft is mostly easy; it's turning it into a story that's difficult.

Been doing a lot of nothing

So, uh.

The last few weeks or so I've spent mainly reading and doing trumpet stuff, though I did write 5000 words in the span of two days, once.

I'm a bit worried at this point, because I'm seriously doubting my ability to finish "Six" before I leave for school. But if I don't--and I doubt I will at this point--then we'll just take things as they go.