dr_phil_physics | Entries tagged with secret history

I didn't do any Office Hours this week, but Thursday was a big day at home (DW) (LJ), so no writing. And I took some time off from the YA trilogy to work on another project. As I wrote on Facebook:

Friday at 2:53am · I decided to edit a 20,000 word novella from a few years ago. After spending months with multivolume files of 500-700 pages, I see the counter saying 56 of 79 and am thinking OMG, have I had a catastrophic file loss? -- Dr. Phil

And novellas are LONG for short stories! Tor.com The Imprint, is doing novella submissions from 4 May to 4 June 2015. SF, especially space opera, included. Woo-hoo! Novellas are very hard to place with publishers, which is one of the reason why these "short novels" are big in the self-e-publishing biz. So I anticipate spending some more time with ANR Version 2.80 in the next week.

Despite all the progress I did make this week, it almost feels like I'm not moving. Partly because I'm just about done with another big thorny section, so my Pass 1 page counter has only vibrated a little. And I took time to insert two or three sections, both before and after where my Done marker sits. This included taking the very first entry in my Interim file of pieces that I hadn't found a place for yet and FINALLY dumping it into the novel, far further in than I originally thought it would go. But with the new parts, it all makes sense now, and isn't that what writing/editing is all about?

Actually, my Pass 1 page counter has multiple markers, so I really am much further along than it looks:

Version 1.10 Edits -- pass 1 page 555 =551= (574) (572) (581) [678] {542}

Page 555 is the number I'm using in the shiny blue counter below.

New Researches: The science of apple growing is called pomology. (Apple blossom is the state flower of Michigan.) Most apples can be grown farther north than most other fruits, because they blossom late in spring, minimizing frost damage. “To eat an apple before going to bed, will make the doctor beg his bread.” Figure skating jumps: Toe loop, Salchow, Loop, Flip, Lutz, Axel. Les XXIIIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver, 9 February to 25 February 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea. 2022 Winter Olympics (French: XXIVe Jeux olympiques d'hiver) will be elected on 31 July 2015, at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur. [So in Book 1 Part B there's a sentence that says "Almaty/Beijing/7-31-2015" that I can fix later this summer.] "Of course he has a knife. He always has a knife. We all have knives. It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians." The Lion in Winter, 50th anniversary in 2018. Transformers and Optimus Prime (Generation 1) date back to 1984.

Again, lots of editing, less new writing needing new research. Leaving the shiny counters at:

Book 1 Page Edits (Pass 1)

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.10 (05-16-15 Sa, 1357 pages)

Book 1 Part A (103,792 words, starts page 46) / Part B (90,847 words, starts page 381)

Pass 1 edits almost done on Book 1. Pass 2 will do people and place names. I sure hope by Pass 3 I get the length under control, because I right now I'm looking at 105,000 words for Book 1 Part A and 95,000 words for Part B. Or more... (excessively-long-grin) Anyway, Book 1 A/B's target has now been raised from 160,000 to 180,000 and now 200,000 words.

Dr. Phil

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Crossposted on LiveJournal

One thing about writing such a sprawling epic is that there are sections you're sure you've written -- this is coming home to roost in Book 1 Part B. (evil-grin) No wonder its word count was less than Book 1 Part A. And another thing is there are other sections you run across and say, Really? I don't remember this. And yet another thing is running into things you know you wrote a note for, but it didn't get transcribed into the notes sections -- so you'll either have to dig for it or re-engineer it.

The Pass 1 edit counter has jumped from 511 to 551 pages, but actually I am nearly fifty pages beyond that. I just have to go back to 551 and work my way to page 600 and make sure it's all complete. This is what happened in the other stalled sections the last couple of weeks. All that earlier big stuff worked out great. This current section moves faster in time, for reasons, and I have to make sure it works right and doesn't seem too slight or rushed. It's the end of a school year and everyone knows it goes fast. At the end of Book 1 Part B, it's off to America and university for the senior princess.

But we won't do the big Pass 1 edits on Book 2 for a while. Because I need to get into the Book 1 Pass 2 edits, where we cement in place all the people and place names, recheck a few research bits, verify dates. This SHOULD take little time, except I suck at naming characters and this time I have to integrate all the relationships, since they're all related to each other. Ack!

Book 1 Part A Edit Pass 3 is where we'll end up with the Beta reading version. It's coming, it's coming.

New Researches: Valbyparken in Copenhagen. You can usually bring your dog with Copenhagen public transport, but if it is not small enough to be carried in a bag, you need to buy a ticket for it. Discourses and Sermons for Every Sunday and the Principal Festivals of the Year (Google eBook) by James Gibbons / J. Murphy Company, 1908 - Church year sermons - 531 pages. W. Shakespeare, Henry IV, part 2: "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown". "It is no easy thing to wear a crown, Catelyn thought", GRRMartin, A Clash of Kings. As of 21 June 2014, Star Wars Episode VIII has release date of May 26, 2017. That could mean Episode IX in 2019 or 2020, but I suspect these schedules will slip. CinemaxX Copenhagen in Fisketorvet Shopping Center, which opened in October 2000 with 10 screens and 3,200 seats. A commercial IMAX screen was added in 2015. First commercial IMAX in Norway also 2015. Where the Trains Used to Go (2003). A 4½ minute IMAX film -- Norway's first 15-perf/70-mm film celebrates a 100-year old narrow-gauge railway in South Eastern Norway. The camera required a surveying theodolite for shooting along the old route, one frame as a time. V-E Day celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms. 9 May in Soviet Union). 75th anniversary will be in 2020. Hitler suicided on 30 April 1945. Denmark celebrates Befrielsen (The Liberation) on 5 May. Cinco de Mayo (5 May) celebrates El Día de la Batalla de Puebla, NOT Mexican Independence Day (16 September). RentTheRunway.com was mentioned on NPR last week -- overnight shipping of designer clothes. They have a Chicago store. Letitia – means Joy or Happiness. Achsah (or Acsah) – Daughter of Caleb. When Caleb promised her to Othniel in marriage, she requested that he increased her dowry to include not only land, but springs of water as well.

Book 1 Page Edits (Pass 1)

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.10 (05-09-15 Sa, 1332 pages)

Book 1 Part A (103,792 words, starts page 46) / Part B (83,158 words, starts page 381)

Book 1 Part B has now exceeded its 80,000 word estimate and so I'm over the revised 180,000 words for both Parts A and B. The only reason I'm not disheartened is that I expect to be a little brutal in tightening up some of the technical geeky bits which I needed when I was writing, but most readers probably won't give a flying fuck-all about. Which may allow me to trim a few thousand words or so. (yikes-grin)

I also spent a little time in Books 2 and 4 this week, though it was to get some stuff started and didn't bother totally up those books separately.

Progress!

Dr. Phil

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Crossposted on LiveJournal

This has actually been a good week, though short. These blog posts about my writing used to come on a Friday or Saturday, but lately they've been on Monday. So... I am trying to get back on track. It's May, after all. New month. Spring cleaning. Etc.

What? We went out on a weekday to do doctor appointment, early dinner and a movie? And tomorrow we are going to do some shopping... which doesn't involve groceries or Amazon. How is this possible?

The title in this post refers not to "not writing", but the slow progress I am making in an important part of Book 1 Part B, which turned out to be much more written in my head than actually typed up in the file. Gaack. No wonder Part B was short in word count. (evil-grin) I am hoping that once I get through this section, pages 485-506, that the rest of Part B will fly by and I can finish Edit Pass 1.

New Researches: Denmark is one of only two countries which have two official national anthems. Der er et yndigt land (There is a lovely country) and Kong Christian stod ved højen mast (King Christian stood by the lofty mast), which is primarily used at military and royal occasions, but is also sung on New Year's Eve. The first anthem originally had twelve verses, but only the first and few other parts are sung today. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow did a translation of the second anthem into English. Holbæk, Denmark, is served by Danske Statsbaner's line from Roskilde to Kalundborg, which runs through the city. Vestsjællands Lokalbaner connects Holbæk by rail to Nykøbing Sjælland. The Mo i Rana, Norway, airport just south of the Arctic Circle has an 800 meter runway. Built as part of the Norwegian STOLport network. Oh, they're building a new airport to handle jets. One site says opening in October 2015, but I can't seem to find it in Google Satellite View -- but there are clouds obscuring some of the target area, and I don't know how old the data is, so... look later.

Book 1 Page Edits (Pass 1)

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.10 (05-01-15 Fr, 1273 pages)

Book 1 Part A (103,757 words, starts page 45) / Part B (73,897 words, starts page 380.)

And heaven help me, on the drive in to work today, I came up with an idea for continuing the story into the next generations, to around 2060... Yes, I started making some notes and putting in some writing for Book 6 of the trilogy.

The Lost Kingdom Sixth Novel Version 5.10 *** (05-02-15 Sa, 16 pages)
Book 6 (1629 words)

As you can see, it's only a dribble, so it didn't take a lot of editing time from the main section. Besides, you can't do the same thing over and over. Onward.

And... I am up to date and on schedule again. Yay.

Dr. Phil

*** Yes, Book 6 is in file 5.10. That's because file 4.10 has both Books 4 and 5 in it right now. If the series sells, it'll get moved later. Besides, book numbers clearly don't mean much at this point.

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Current Music: Mama Luba /Serebro (Russian)

Another slow week. I took Saturday off to do a day trip to Penguicon, which also meant that I couldn't stay up Friday night until 4am -- seeing as I was getting up at 5:30. (grin) In addition to an Office Hours day on Thursday, Tuesday was a short "work day" as we went out to dinner and then to the Last Days in Vietnam event (DW) (LJ).

As far as the current writing effort, I also had to work my way through editing another tough section -- a couple of To Be Written Later bits, which Now Had To Be Written. And the addition of another section which required me to readjust the ordering/time of two events in order to make things work out right. This is why you have to read through carefully and see what is what.

At Penguicon I was also able to talk about some aspects of my YA novel project -- things are still going in a direction which seems realistic from both a writing/selling point of view and a story which seems to interest people.

We shall see...

New Researches: Þjóðvegur 1 or Hringvegur around the perimeter of Iceland -- 1337 km. Speed limit 90 kph. In Iceland, 9-1-1 is 1-1-2. Keflavíkurflugvöllur or Reykjavík-Keflavík Airport (KEF). It's 10,000 foot long, 200 foot wide runways were Space Shuttle rated. Range Rover Discovery. Maître d'hôtel. In 1769 Christian VII of Denmark invited the Hungarian astronomer Miksa Hell (Maximilian Hell) to Vardø. He observed the transit of Venus, and his calculations gave the most precise calculation of the Earth–Sun distance to that date (approx. 151 million kilometres). Spent much of his reign (1766-1808) being ruled by others. Queen Christian VII was the sister of England's George III. (You remember him...) She was married at 15, divorced, died at 23. French irregular verb conjugations. Miyamoto Musashi 宮本武蔵 (c. 1584 – 13 June 1645) was a famous Japanese swordsman, believed to have been one of the most skilled swordsmen in history. He founded the Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryu, or Nito Ryu style of swordsmanship and wrote Go Rin No Sho (The Book of Five Rings) a classic work on strategy, tactics, and philosophy. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Bronies. Perhaps 10 million in U.S. The Knights Templar wore a white surcoat with a red cross and a white mantle also with a red cross. Saint Thorfinn of Hamar (died 1285).

Book 1 Page Edits (Pass 1)

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.10 (04-27-15 Mo, 1273 pages)

Book 1 Part A (103,757 words, starts page 44) / Part B (69,156 words, starts page 379)

Not a huge increase in the numbers, but forward progress nonetheless.

Onward!

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

The last week had been very productive, but not particularly for either word or page counts. Finished taxes, had one night out for the Mythbusters and another for the monthly Game Night -- all important things to do. Dinners in and out.

Also, I spent a little time this week on a detour over in Book 2 which was pretty important. Even while editing, I can't quite stop the spigot of ideas, so sometimes one needs to put something down or realize you now understand how something is going to work. As I've said before, writing is not a linear process with me.

Other detours come up during the editing. Continuity checks, foreshadowing details -- what and when do the characters know things, or even when they appear.

Dead ends, on the other hand, represents things you come up with which either are inappropriate for the current work or unnecessary (or even impossible). The creative mind comes up with things which you might have to file away as stuff the author needs to know about. As wonderful a tapestry we weave, just don't need to put it all on the page for the reader.

Book 1 Part B Pass 1 continues to be a sticky wicket -- but I am almost through the difficult section from page 411 to 440 or 450 probably now. It continues to fascinate me how many things I think I have written, only to find markers or the odd line of dialogue followed by a buncha blank lines. Fill Me In Later. Oh. Well, duh, later is now, I guess.

Hard, too, to continue to write for and flesh out a character who you already know is not going to survive the next thirty pages... What, you're dying to know the story I'm writing? Well, here's this week's "hints" based on:

New Researches: Top 10 Fastest Sedans In The World. (The winner? An American... The 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat with a 707 hp V8 and tops out at 204 mph, even with four doors.) Large stretches of the German Autobahn network do not feature any speed limit except a recommended 130 km/h (81 mph). 2015 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG - V12 biturbo engine 621 hp - electronically limited top speed of 300 kph (186 mph). 1998 BMW 850Ci – M73 V12 engine 322 hp - electronically limited top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h). Gillardeau oysters, since 1898 from Bourcefranc-le-Chapus near La Rochelle and the Île d'Oléron in western France.

Yeah, this week heavily used existing notes and expanding the existing story.

Book 1 Page Edits (Pass 1)

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.10 (04-20-15 Mo, 1253 pages)

Book 1 Part A (103,757 words, starts page 44) / Part B (63,588 words, starts page 379)

Since I've already blown the 80,000 word limit for Book 1 Part A and Part B is heading towards 70,000 words, I upped the total for Book 1 from 160,000 to 180,000 words. Annoying, but necessary for now.

So, a short entry from me this week, but I really want to get back to writing. Someone needs a glass of water and some aspirin for their hangover... (What? You think it's me? Whoa -- I don't drink.)

Dr. Phil

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Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: Turn The Page -- Bob Seger

Farmers, especially in New England, are familiar with the concept of stones showing up in their fields every spring. That's why there are so many stone fences in old farms. Every year you clear out the stones and the next year, there's a whole new crop of stones to harvest before you can get any work done. Frost heaving is the technical explanation.

Writers can experience the same thing, due to what I call churning. You work on a sketchy section of rough draft and spend forever time going over the same section. Turn a series of blank lines or a single note or scrap of dialog and flesh them out into the whole scenes they were supposed to be in the first place. Writing here at A, requires tendrils to wander off to points B, C and D. Sometimes it seems you are writing new bits everywhere but on the section you are supposed to be working on. But that's how I have to end up making a story. You can't foreshadow something without having a foreground story and its shadow.

And sometimes you have to rewrite or change the order of events so that your characters learn things in the correct progression.

Yeah, I'm late in writing my weekly update -- usually they show up on Friday -- but it's been a very busy week. In-laws visiting, conference on Saturday, dinners out, doctor's appointment (foot is doing great), etc. All this and I didn't go to Kalamazoo this week due to rain -- and so spent a regular home work day doing my PowerPoints for Saturday. In fact, this is still really a weekly update since I haven't gotten too much progress done on the YA project since Friday. (grin)

A week ago I hit a big milestone, finishing the edits for:
Book 1 Part A Pass 1 Page 368 -- completed ‎04/‎03/‎2015 16:28:59

Book 1 Part B Pass 1 doesn't look so good, with the marker only at page 411 -- and Part A had ten more pages added to it -- but that's not the whole story. The current section, some thirty-forty pages, is all in play. Page 411 was the last marker where I had declared myself "done" with Pass 1. Once I finish the current bit, the marker will make a big jump. And story coherence across Parts A and B will also go up.

It's a process.

Also I had to start a new Research file, R-10A, because I'd bonked into Word's limit of redlined words again. A whole bunch of old Norse and Latin had proved too much for its itty bitty little brain. Honestly, Microsoft needed to have upped those limits a decade ago. Forget this shit about changing the deckchairs of the Start Menu or making desktop Windows look like a smartphone, Redmond, let's work on functionality. The last new "feature" I like in Word came with Word 2010's ability to create a respectable PDF file without needing a full copy of Adobe Acrobat, folks.

New Researches: Mercedes V-Class passenger van. The new Copenhagen Opera House (in Danish usually called Operaen) is the national opera house of Denmark, and among the most modern opera houses in the world. Cost half a billion (US). The Queen's Box is just past 1st Balcony Row 1 Seat 59 and is located on the side, not centered, so Her Majesty can watch what's going on in the wings. Bus Route 66 goes to the Operaen. The Bojesen at the Opera restaurant is located in the front house with a breathtaking view over Copenhagen, especially during sunset. You can have coffee, cheese and sweet courses with dinner -- or they'll save your table and wine for intermission. Carl Zeiss 3x13.5mm Teleater opera glass, made from 1907-1929. Margrethe Alexandrine Þórhildur Ingrid is Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and turns 75 on Thursday. She is one of two queens regnant currently on the throne and is the longest serving of the Scandinavian monarchs. The official Copenhagen residence is Amalienborg Palace, directly across the harbor from the Operaen by design. CEST – Central European Summer Time -- does not follow the revised US DST2007 schedule, so Copenhagen/Oslo/Bodo were off by five hours and not six for a couple of weeks in March. Stupid DST2007. Scandinavian rune variants are also known as futhark or fuþark (derived from their first six letters of the alphabet: F, U, Þ, A, R, and K). Copenhagen Zoo (Danish: Københavns Zoo) is a zoological garden in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1859, it is one of the oldest zoos in Europe. Mercedes-Benz Unimog, an amazing medium duty go-anywhere truck. The name Unimog is an acronym for the German "UNIversal-MOtor-Gerät", Gerät being the German word for machine or device. How to drive a 1976 Unimog 404. Brynhildr is a shieldmaiden and a valkyrie. A cross pattée is a type of cross which has arms narrow at the centre, and often flared in a curve or straight line shape, to be broader at the perimeter.

Research is both blessing and curse -- one can lose hours of writing time trying to track down spellings, history and nature of places and objects and people. And maps. Don't get me started on maps... (sigh)

So the shiny counters display:

Book 1 Page Edits (Pass 1)

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.10 (04-13-15 Mo, 1225 pages)

Book 1 Part A (103,743 words, starts page 42) / Part B (59,217 words, starts page 378)

Still not pleased that Book 1 Part A is over 100,000 words, because it's only going to get longer. I have now exceeded the 2x80,000 word goal for Book 1 Parts A and B. Yes, another author would aggressively pare down Part A, but there's a lot of stuff one has to understand and anyway, I covered that debacle last week. (evil-grin) I could move the goalposts, or rather the midfield, and put the division between Parts A and B in a different place, but right now we're at a powerful natural break in the story. And the current chapter counts are pretty consistent:

Book 1 Part A: 24
Book 1 Part B: 25
Book 2 Part A: 26
Book 2 Part B: 26
Book 3 : 33

Through Book 5 there are currently 153 chapters.

We continue onward!

Dr. Phil

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Crossposted on LiveJournal

Wow, where did a week go? And I am behind several blog entries -- Insurgent review and a Game Night from two weeks ago, a lovely lecture on General Relativity this week. Despite staying up a good chunk of the night, there's never enough time.

Well, that's not true. It's really what one budgets the time to do. In addition to a very productive Wednesday Office Hours (DW), my main push this week was editing Book 1 Part A.

For me, at this level the word counts only go up. I am filling in blanks that had been left in the story, connecting scenes which have to be written, descriptions broadened, etc. In the last week, Book 1 expanded by 8%. But that's not the whole story. As the novel evolved and worked on the timeline, some things have changed or expanded since I first wrote them. The result is that a couple of locations and people are now mentioned earlier than they used to be. So descriptions and introductions have to be moved. But this primarily has meant moving them from Book 1 Part B into Book 1 Part A (with a few from Book 2). With the inevitable result that while the total Book 1 word count is still on track, the once pretty even split between Parts A and B is now heavily tilted towards Part A -- 100,505 words to 51,918 words. Ouch. There goes the attempt to keep each book/part to 80,000 words.

There currently is a natural break between Book 1 Part A and Part B. I could move the division earlier, but I'm not happy with that. Also, I have to get to the edits for Book 1 Part B to see how long that ultimately becomes. The next obvious thing to do is hack 20% off of Book 1 Part A, but it's story! It's words! It's my precious! (grin)

Yeah, I'm sure I'll have to be merciless later, when the Beta readers finally get it and start carping about parts which bore them, drag on or aren't necessary. But I'm the kind of writer who often when I move to cut words, ends up with a longer word count. Happened to several of my published short stories -- and the editors in those cases agreed with me that my edited down, i.e. longer, version was better. (evil-grin) A couple of my writing acquaintances, Ferrett Steinmetz and Martin Shoemaker, have been talking on Facebook about these massive cuts they've been inflicting on their stories, and I'm like -- how do you do that? I just can't find enough justs, haves, hads and thats to cut anything by 10%, let alone 20%. (that-grin)

So no hacking back with a machete just yet. Not until the whole first draft is done.

I'll tell you, though, it felt like I'd never get past file page 269. Spent days with the page counter stuck there, but this was because I was moving things around and changing scenes. Adding chapters. Yesterday I burst past page 272 and out to 339. Go me.

Still too many characters named Xxx. And one character had been named Stassen in some places and Stesson in others. The one with bigger numbers ended up winning. Another scene had been written in summer, but was now like April 3rd weather here in West Michigan -- sun, snows gone but nothing growing yet.

New Researches: Umanori hakama and andon hakama, worn over a kimono. Kamishimo worn by samurai and courtiers during the Edo period, the outfit included a formal kimono, hakama, and a sleeveless jacket with exaggerated shoulders called a kataginu. 2000 BMW E38 750iL Armored, with a 5.4L V12 engine also used in the Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph. Berlingske is the oldest Danish newspaper still published and among the oldest newspapers in the world. Selkirk is a Scottish name meaning manor church. King Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands are going to visit West Michigan in June 2015. (PERFECT!) Omaha is 500 miles from Chicago -- about the same as Copenhagen to Amsterdam. Denver is 1000 miles. Holland and Denmark have no common border. Whoops! There are no trams in Copenhagen anymore (1863-1972), they were thrown away. Thirty years later, a light-rail Metro system opened, the M1/M2. M3/M4 ring routes to open in 2019. Three-car trains have no one at the controls. Apparently the report that suggested getting rid of the trams was off and Copenhagen wishes they had efficient and frequent trams in the streets again. Sporvejen Byens Burger Bar is built to look like the inside of an antique tram car. Danish Modern furniture came out of the 1920s Bauhaus movement, hugely popular from after WW II to the 60s. And it turns out to be Totino's Pizza Rolls, not Tostino Pizza Rolls. Huh, who knew? (This is why you do Research, kids. Hey, I never bought 'em.) Also, they are not generally available in Canada, though I did find some people in 2011 who claimed that Wal-Mart sometimes had them. So, strike the ignorant "Tostino Pizza Rolls from Canada" mention. The Danish Long John cargo bicycle.

Less research needed this week because I'm editing and not writing as much new stuff. Naturally.

The shiny counters are up to:

Book 1 Page Edits (Pass 1)

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.10 (04-03-15 Fr, 1188 pages)

UPDATE: Note that we have smashed through the 300,000 word barrier and I had hardly noticed. (grin)

Book 1 Part A (100,505 words, starts page 42) / Part B (51,918 words, starts page 368)

Book 2 Part A (73,090. words, starts page 40) / Part B (46,653 words, starts page 303)

Book 3 (starts page 40)

There are times when it seems hopeless, especially when you run across old clunky parts or heavy handed writing or a whole lot of characters named Xxx. But... the end of Book 1 Part A (1st pass) is in sight, and that's pretty exciting. Pass 2 will all be about the names and then Pass 3 should produce a completed First Draft. That's The Plan, anyway. It's the beginning of April. End of the month? Sure... why not? What could possibly go wrong?

Dr. Phil

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Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: Lad Det Ske / Maria Lucia Heiberg Rosenberg

I don't want to give the wrong impression that I've just spent the last ten days watching basketball games. I've had some very productive days. Sunday, in the middle of all the games, I put in 3000 words. On Wednesday, I wrote over 4000 words, but most of them went into Books 4 and 5. I've also continued on with editing Book 1.

Still have to come up with some names of minor characters. Some are written on a piece of paper which I haven't dragged out in a while, because I wanted the naming to jell.

I ended up not going to the office this week, but pounded the keyboard all week.

Of course, not all is laughs and giggles. I was looking in my Publishers subdirectory to see what I had on Lulu.com, since I've talked about printing up a couple of Beta copies of Book 1 Part A for people to read the book like a book. Anyway, I found a file "LuLu Titlescorer November 2010.doc" and you can Put your title to the test.

Enter your novel title in the field at the top of the page.
Use the drop-down menus to choose the variables which best describe the attributes of your title.
Click "Analyze my title!"

Score represents the percentage chance of its being a number one hit. Results are between 9% and 83% chance of bestseller success.

I tried three variations on my current book title. Each of them scored:

The title... has a 10.2% chance of being a bestselling title!

To put that in perspective, back in 2010 I had scored four titles:

My second massively unfinished novel scored a 
"26.3% chance of being a bestselling title!"

As did my first completed novel which needs a rewrite 
and has never been shopped.

My second completed novel, which has been shopped twice, 
had two variations in title, both of which scored:
"79.6% chance of being a bestselling title!"

Personally I like that it won't deliver either a 0% or a 100% -- the cynical part of me wonders if 10.2% is the lowest possible score, to make you feel better than getting 9%. (evil-grin)

Now... I have no problem with being told my titles suck. The title to my Analog story "The Brother on the Shelf" was written by Stanley Schmidt -- my working title was "The Johnson Boys of Ames, Iowa" and was originally part of a much larger story called "Home Front". This is what editors are needed for. Of course Lulu doesn't think much of either Stanley or me:

The title "The Brother on the Shelf" has a 10.2% chance 
of being a bestselling title!

The title "The Johnson Boys of Ames, Iowa" has a 10.2% chance 
of being a bestselling title!

So I'm not putting much stock in this, but gee, it sure woulda been fun to get a high score. (wishful-thinking-grin) This is, of course, in lieu of finishing this great project and SELLING IT.

Just for fun, I took Book 1 Part A, still in Book Antiqua 12-point and formatted it single spaced for a 6x9 Trade paperback, no Table of Contents, page breaks for each new chapter and ended up with an estimated cost of 448 pages: $7.32.

But there are still blank lines I put in for writing, so let's kill those and clean it up:

After Ctrl-H ^p^p^t ^p^t -- 335 pages
And Ctrl-H ^p*** *** -- 332 pages
Removed a blank page, added a line after each 
Chapter Title by hand... 331 pages
Manufacturing cost per 331 page book: $5.68

Formatting is everything.

Remember, this is not for sale, but only for Beta reading purposes when I get that far. I am using the same formatting I did for my Christmas and New Year's PDF stories, so the same file will also be usable as an e-book. I'm guessing it will be about a month before I start sharing Beta versions with people.

New Researches: Chef de cuisine, Sous chef, etc. Law on quoting music lyrics. Æbleskiver, traditional Danish spherical pancakes. Also Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Scottish pancakes. The first use of "katana" (gatana) as a word to describe a long sword that was different from a tachi occurs as early as the Kamakura Period (1185–1333). The holy swords of Masamune. Kanemitsu created some of the sharpest swords ever. Both 14th century. The distinctive curve of a samurai sword is created by differential heat treatment, not by bending the metal. Rattus norvegicus, the Norwegian brown rat is not Norwegian, or from Hamburg -- both victims of smear campaigns. There are very few places on Earth where the brown rat cannot live. Brudkronan, the Swedish wedding crown, a symbol of the bride's virginity, though "in some cases possible to convince the priest to overlook a premature pregnancy with a bribe or sometimes by atoning for the sin by paying for a new gilding of the crown". Sony Professional HVRZ5U HDV High Definition Handheld Camcorder. Sony HDR-CX330/B Full HD Handycam. Sámi people, previously known as Lapps or Laplanders. Quareg -- Tasselli quadrati. 2016 Acura NSX sports car. Consulate General of Denmark, Chicago, Suite 3950, Hancock Center Chicago. Currently there is a 29,008 sq.ft. office available for rent in Suite 4100. David Burke’s Primehouse – 616 North Rush at Ontario in The James Hotel Chicago. The Consulate General of Japan in Chicago is about two blocks south of the Hancock Center.

With a lot of time spent editing, not as much research is needed.

The broad shiny counters are up to:

Book 1 Page Edits (Pass 1)

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.10 (03-27-15 Fr, 1148 pages)

And since there was a big jump in the later books:

The Lost Kingdom Fourth-Fifth Novels Version 1.10 (03-27-15 Fr, 68 pages)
Book 4 (4874 words) / Book 5 (11,573 words)

It might look like I got much less editing done this week than last, at the 222 page mark versus 138 pages, but one has to temper things -- page counts aren't story. And right now the story doesn't begin until page 40 of 520 in the Book 1 Version 1.10 file. So we are really at 98 of 448 pages lat week and 182 of 480 this, which makes for 98 pages edited last week and 84 pages edited this week -- plus a lot of writing in other sections.

Yeah, the accounting is such that I don't mind if you don't actually get down this far in the post. (sad-grin) But it looks like I might break 300,000 words in the original trilogy this next week...

Still fun!

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Mood: refreshed

In the last post (DW) I had the quote about fjords:

"Look at me - I design coastlines ... I got an award for Norway ... I've been doing fjords all my life ... for a fleeting moment they become fashionable and I get a major award."

-- Slartibartfast (planet designer)
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy / Douglas Adams

Before I eat my lunch, I thought I'd see if I could find a YouTube video. Oh, Bill Nighy of all people was Slartibartfast in the movie!

Alas, couldn't find the movie clip yet, but here's from the BBC serial:

"Slartibartfast on fjords" (Watch on YouTube)

Nobody natters like Douglas Adams...

Sigh.

Ooh and here's the movie version!

"Slartibartfast (Bill Nighy)" (Watch on YouTube)

It was in the mosaic of links after the BBC clip. Clever YouTube.

Note: This does not imply that my YA trilogy is an absurdest comedy. I just think the fjords bit is funny.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: NCAA Men's March Madness Real First Round

There are three kinds of word counts:
-- Raw word count -- necessary to have enough bulk for a story or a novel. This is where you try to pour your brain and overactive imagination, and maybe your enthusiasm, onto the page. This is where you are given permission to write crap. Words which can be cut, drawn, quartered and sent to the four corners of the kingdom never to be spoken again. Words which are more seeds of what might come. And of course the brilliant stuff. Isn't that all everyone writes? (grin)

-- Quality word count -- this is where the grace and glory of the story comes from. Also, sometimes, your darlings you have to murder. Either way, whether it makes it to the final story, these words are most definitely not crap. They are the ones which define the story. There will be less of these than raw word count. Focus only on numbers and days of quality words can look discouraging. A good writing day, however, isn't just numbers.

-- Edit word count -- the payoff. Sometimes it's tweaking a word or two. Or stomping on those damned typos which can date back MONTHS and you've reread many times. Stupid typos. Some days you can fly through the pages. Sometimes you can spend all day working on one section. And then there inevitable I am sure I wrote this because I can see this plainly in my mind what do you mean I never actually wrote this whole scene down but just a placeholder or the opening and ending lines?

Eventually you have a completed, readable draft. And usually the process starts all over again. Another inevitability is that if this is really going to go forward, someday you have to release the story or novel to your beta readers. Or in the case of a short story, just ship it to some market and go on to the next story until you get this one back.

Until you've released the story into the wild, or least to beta, writing is just a solitary entertainment.

I've been able to take some pressure off this phase with my YA trilogy project, because I released online two chapters at Christmas and New Year's, and read from the opening to a nearly empty room at ConFusion in mid-January. Not as much feedback as I'd like, but I wasn't pelted with rotted vegetables either. And I've been keeping myself honest by obliquely talking about my progress here on these blog pages.

In the wee hours of Wednesday though, between 2 and 3am, a nagging problem suddenly earned its solution. And even better, it was in the correct context for the novel. I even dumped a quick triumphant crow about it on Facebook:

Philip Edward Kaldon
March 18 at 3:03am

Ooh, I am so thrilled. There been this issue in my YA novel which has bugged me from the start -- and tonight, when I tried to map it out for real, I discovered I didn't have to. The problem literally was written away, in the context of the story. Perfect.

In the words of Colonel Hannibal of the A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together."

Dr. Phil

It is no secret that The Lost Kingdom YA trilogy is about a secret kingdom. Nor is it a secret that it in Scandinavia -- I mean, Vikings and all those Research notes about Norway and Denmark. But from the start I've had to resolve two competing issues:

(1) The desire to make this story as "photo realistic" as I can.

(2) The need to co-opt a piece of the coast of Norway just above the Arctic Circle to locate my Lost Kingdom.

Have you ever really looked at the coast of Norway? I mean, REALLY looked at it? As in zoom in Google Maps looked at it?

"Look at me - I design coastlines ... I got an award for Norway ... I've been doing fjords all my life ... for a fleeting moment they become fashionable and I get a major award."

-- Slartibartfast (planet designer)
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy / Douglas Adams

It's not just the fjords, it's all these treacherous little rocks and islands off the coast.

I looked and looked, and there just wasn't anything like I wanted where I needed it. Either I needed to structurally change Norway -- a difficult thing to do when you are trying to write photo-realistic fiction -- or I had to radically change my precious story. NO! MY PRECIOUS!

And then it hit me.

Maps.

Ever look at ancient and old maps? You can laugh at how far they diverge from reality, yet still seem to contain some of the right features. And then there's the old cartographer's trick of deliberately mislabeling or moving minor things around, in order to establish copyright violations. Rand McNally certainly has done this. Even, as I understand it, with the atlas of the lunar surface. Don't steal from the big boys.

So what if the maps... are just wrong? The Lost Kingdom is secret. They've been protecting their secrets for 1550 years. They started out as Romans and early Vikings. You don't just walk into the kingdom without an invite and expect to get out alive. So why should they advertise where they are? The maps you see online, why hardly anyone lives there and who would notice? And if you had a whole vast chunk of miles of tiny islands and jagged rocks sticking out of the sea with strong currents -- the strongest current in the world's seas is near here in real life -- would you risk taking a boat into there? The map screams, Stay Away.

But this is March 2015. We not only have Google Maps, we have Satellite View! Gotcha there, sucker! Don't we? Uh, no. Roman conquerors, Viking raiders, 18th century pirates -- what would be your kingdom's business model in 2015? That's right. The dark net. Hackers. Satellite View has been hacked to match the fake maps. Oh sure, a few countries know from their military satellites, and Norway is rather pissed to have These People stuck like a pimple on their coastline, but otherwise, who would know?

It's a neat solution and I am very happy about it. Rather than forcing me to rewrite the story, it gives me MORE story. And that's how I know that this thing is really working and firing on all cylinders.

Wednesday I drove into my office at WMU and got my Lonely Planet guides to Norway and Denmark from Amazon. And quite frankly, the Norway guide has already paid for itself within the first five pages I looked at last night. My senior princess's college roommate is from Holland MI, which provides some nice humor between the Michigan Holland and the European Holland. And from LP Norway, there on the Nordland map is a little town on the coast of Norway near the Arctic Circle called Holand. You can't make this stuff up. (That and most of the online maps with detail, and Google Maps I'm looking at you, do NOT bother to show you where the damned Arctic Circle is. So LP Norway is very much appreciated.)

New Researches: The Chicago St. Patrick's Day parade is the Sunday before St. Patrick's Day, as needed. Always starts at noon. Erin go Bragh is an English corruption of the phrase Éirinn go Brách in the Irish language. In 1095, Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to holy places in and near Jerusalem. The canonization of Saint Udalric, Bishop of Augsburg, by Pope John XV in 993 is the first undoubted example of a papal canonization of a saint from outside Rome; some historians maintain that the first such canonization was that of Saint Swibert by Pope Leo III in 804. Pope Formosus (c. 816 – 4 April 896) was Pope from 6 October 891 to his death in 896. His brief reign as Pope was troubled, and his remains were exhumed and put on trial in the notorious Cadaver Synod. Twice. Norway employs a weak form of mandatory military service for women and men. While 63,841 men and women were called in for the examination of persons liable for military service in 2012 (mandatory for men), 9265 were conscripted. Catholic baptism and infant Communion. Odin (Old Norse Óðinn), the chief god of Norse mythology, was referred to by more than 200 names in the skaldic and Eddic traditions. Alföðr Alfodr Allfather, Father of All. In Norse mythology, Ask and Embla (from Old Norse Askr ok Embla)—male and female respectively—were the first two humans, created by the Gods. Phantom of the Opera staged at the Det Ny Theater, Copenhagen (2000–2001, 2003–2004, 2009). Sequel Love Never Dies, 2013. 2005 Mercedes S500 4MATIC AWD sedan. Noma, one of the top restaurants in the world in Copenhagen, is located in an old fish warehouse on a wharf. Twice they've closed to take their whole kitchen staff to pop up restaurants, first in London and then in Tokyo. Nasjonal sikkerhetsmyndighet is the Norwegian security agency, established in 2013. Christmastide and the Twelve Days of Christmas, liturgically. Bodø, located just north of the Arctic Circle, and Mo i Rana, just south of the Arctic Circle. The three largest communities north of the Arctic Circle are situated in Russia and Norway: Murmansk (population 307,257), Norilsk (175,365), and Tromsø (71,295). Rovaniemi (in Finland), which lies slightly south of the line, has a population of approximately 60,000, making it the largest settlement located in the immediate vicinity of the Arctic Circle. The largest North American community north of the Arctic Circle, Sisimiut (Greenland), has approximately 5,000 inhabitants. Of the Canadian and United States Arctic communities, Barrow, Alaska is the largest settlement with about 4,000 inhabitants. Greensushi in Copenhagen. Mercedes-Benz GLS 350d 7-passenger diesel SUV. Kongens Nytorv, King's New Square, is a cobble-stoned square in Copenhagen dating to 1907, containing a royal equestrian statue of Christian V. The Politiet is the Danish police agency.

Got the plot all figured out in your mind yet?

The shiny counters are up to:

Book 1 Page Edits (Pass 1)

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.10 (03-20-15 Fr, 1108 pages)

These weekly updates get written to Dreamwidth, crossposted to LiveJournal and linked in Facebook. Most of my blog readers probably see things via Facebook. Alas, FB is notorious for deciding what things you should be allowed to see. When I made the FB post shown above, I had one of my friends from WOTF XXIV comment "I did not even know you were writing a YA! Where have I been? So cool!"

So, for all of you who need to catch up on what I'm doing:

You can follow the tags to this posting or use this handy link to The Lost Kingdom tag...

... and the first entry here. These links also include the Christmas 2016 and New Year's 2017 entries.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: NCAA Women's March Madness Round 1

Ah, non leap years. We had a Friday the 13th in February and it was so much fun, we decided to do it again in March.

On Thursday, the YA trilogy project hit not one, but TWO milestones: (1) we passed the 275,000 word mark and (2) the main file exceeded 1000 pages. Now, as I've said before, the page count really doesn't mean anything, except that it was getting a bit unwieldy. I'd already offloaded the Research notes to a separate file and I've been debating dividing the main file into three files, for Books 1, 2 and 3. By itself, it makes things a little more complicated, having to balance three files instead of one. But there's a bigger reason: I now have enough story that I can reasonably contemplate spending time editing Book 1. My tentative timetable suggested having some sort of Book 1 worked up in April, so I guess I am sort of right on schedule.

For the actual five volumes -- Books 1 Part A/B, Book 2 Parts A/B and Book 3 -- I am running about 20 chapters a volume, 125 chapters total for the big file. For simplicity's sake, I am doing continuous chapter numbering, rather than have multiple Chapter 1s. Which makes me wonder WHY Microsoft Word has never let you set the starting number for AutoNum fields. Oh, I have a kluge using a page of nothing but Chapter XX fields, where XX goes from 1 to (N-1) so the new file starts with Chapter N. But come on... NO ONE has ever wanted to start numbering from something other than 1? You can change where page numbers start. You can start fields anew if you're doing outlining. Why is this so weird?

Also, Book 1 has some of the oldest writing from when I started Plan D of the YA novel, and every time I go poking around in there, I sometimes go Ugh..., because as the story has matured and I began to figure out where I was going with this, there has been some change in tone. Not to worry, this always happens to me. (grin)

Hammer and tongs. Fire up the forges. Get the quenching pools ready. It is time to start beating this into a novel.

Oh, I suppose that Thursday had a third milestone: (3) I haven't really spent any money on this project since September 2014, other than buying more flash drives for backups. So I was waiting for something to finish yesterday, I was glancing around the room and spied my research pile of Lonely Planet books on the bookshelf. Sure, I've made excellent use of web resources, but there are times when leafing through a book is a good thing. So I hopped onto Amazon and ordered the Lonely Planet books for Denmark and Norway. Naturally, they're 2011-2012 editions and both of them have 2015 editions -- coming out in June and July. Sigh. Nope, I need them now, so at the risk of updating them later this year, let's go for it. The web still awaits. And since the total was over $25, I was able to use some Amazon Add-ons to buy a couple of bags of Dentene Arctic Chill gum for really cheap. Amazon is surely laughing their collective corporate head over us.

Speaking of Amazon, I got a notice about something called Amazon Matchbook, whereby if you buy certain titles from Amazon itself, you can be eligible to buy the Kindle edition for $2.99 "or less". ($9.99 for textbooks.) When I clicked on the link, it listed all the eligible books -- some stretching back to around 2005 purchases. Don't need that, but it's sort of like buying the music CD and having Amazon Prime make the MP3s available to you for free. And you don't have to buy the digital book copy at full price, which makes it a bit of an improvement.

And as I noted yesterday (DW), my researches have uncovered the sad tale of Foster House, the dorm I spent four years of my life in at Northwestern 1976-1980, which was apparently swallowed up into the residential college CCS next door, and exists as an all men's mostly singles dorm no more. The fire escape door outside Room 308 I guess is now an enclosed stairwell. Progress. Sigh. After some 109 years. And people say nothing ever changes...

New Researches: The custom of clinking glasses and meeting a drinking partner's gaze when you ‘skål’ them, is rooted in the Viking warrior tradition of ensuring that no one had poisoned their drink. Skål means bowl in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic. In the British Royal Navy, the officers' noon mess typically began with the loyal toast, followed by a toast distinctive for the day of the week. In Sweden, the Loyal Toast is "Hans Majestät Konungens skål". French Gauloises began in 1910, later adding an American-style lighter, filtered tip cigarette: Gauloises Blondes. How to get hens to lay eggs in the winter. Ducks do better. Chicago Bulls, White Sox and Blackhawks. (I already know plenty about the Cubs and Bears -- grin) The United Center. Oh, there still IS a Carmen's Pizza in Evanston IL -- it just moved. And there's a Lou Malnati's nearby -- their store west of the Loop operates a shuttle bus to Chicago Bulls games at the United Center. Bandholm is a small port town and parish on the coast of northern Lolland, Region Zealand, Denmark. East Sealand Railway Company (Østbanen). Current running 1878 steam locomotive ØSJS 2 bears the name KJØGE, although that was the name of ØSJS 1, which was scrapped in 1914. The Farøbroerne are two road bridges that connect the islands of Falster and Zealand in Denmark by way of the small island of Farø which is approximately mid-way across the Storstrømmen sound. Oslo's Alex Sushi opened a Copenhagen edition in 2011, right near Kongens Nytorv, previously in play. CTA #22 Clark bus south of the Howard Street El station. Hobart House, also known as Northwestern University’s Women’s Residential College, is the only all-female dorm located on the campus. Residents like to refer to the house fondly as the Ho House. (This is from their website -- I can't make this stuff up.) B&W GRAND BALLROOM is a new event venue, and located at the old historical Burmeister & Wain shipyard in Copenhagen. The 1960s SAS hotel -- think Pan Am building in Copenhagen -- Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, designed by Danish architect Arne Jacobsen (The Egg and Swan chairs). Room 606 has been restored to its original Jacobsen furnishings. Royal Suite on 19th floor. Alberto K restaurant on 20th floor. Copenhagen and suburbs: Albertslund Municipality. Saltholm (Salt Islet) is a Danish island in the Øresund. Its neighboring island to the south is the artificial island Peberholm (Pepper Islet), which is a part of the Øresund Bridge and was named to complement Saltholm. And I couldn't resist last night namechecking in the story, Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015).

Sometimes it is amazing where research -- and maps -- take you. Microsoft Bing, for once, actually had a satellite view map with a better angle from space that Google Maps. Well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day... (evil-grin)

The shiny counters, just before going to Version 1.10, stand at:

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.09 (03-13-15 Fr, 1002 pages)

Book 1 Part A (79,682 words, starts page 39) / Part B (46,741 words, starts page 302)

Book 2 Part A (68,620. words, starts page 473) / Part B (45,119 words, starts page 722.)

Book 3 (starts page 888)

The Lost Kingdom Fourth-Fifth Novels Version 1.07 (3-13-2015 Fr, 50 pages)
Book 4 (1846 words) / Book 5 (10,561 words)

The new files have version numbers 1.10, 2.10, 3.10 and 4.10, with R.10 for research. Not that you care, but these blog entries are as much a journal for me as letting you know what's going on.

And I am still having a whole lotta fun.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: Run To You / Bryan Adams

I've been on a tear with writing lately. And that's a good thing. This week, however, there were other things going on. And that's a good thing, too. Read a good book, Flex (DW). Had a doctor's appointment. A fabulous meal out on Monday night, which I need to write about. Movie and weapons grade mac & cheese yesterday (DW).

I also spent a little time, as I sometimes do, hopping through the 954 pages of my main file, finding holes, filling in details. Getting rid of more characters named Xxxx with real names. (grin) Funny thing, I see the Xxxx with the red underlining from Chrome's spellchecker and I want to check the line and figure out what the name is supposed to be. But it's supposed to be Xxxx here! (OCD-grin) What? OCD isn't in its spellchecker? Outrage! (right-click-Add-to-dictionary-grin)

One of the things I always admired about Dune were the beginning of chapter quotes. They added some depth -- as well as history both back and forward from the events going on. I already had a "quote" at the beginning of Book 1 and decided that I need to put in something for the starts of all the parts. Books 1 and 2 Parts A/B and Book 3. To that end, I had already written a first draft of the words to the kingdom's national anthem -- there's a stanza right there -- and added an Advice to Princes attributed to the kingdom's patron saint, plus the openings to the First and Third sagas. Didn't know the kingdom had sagas? Oh, they do. Come on, Vikings? Sure.

New Researches: Second generation Subaru Legacy BK flat roofed wagon (not Outback). Left-Hand Traffic and Right-Hand drive. Sunday, 3 September 1967, Swedish as Dagen H (H-Day), the 'H' being for Högertrafik or right traffic. Swedish trains did NOT change from left-side to right-side, due to costs. For the Copenhagen to Göteborg X2000 train line, I found on Google Maps satellite view the flyover-type crossover north of Malmö. Malmö is the third largest city in Sweden. Together with Copenhagen, it constitutes the transnational Øresund Region, the most densely populated area in Scandinavia. The Øresundsbroen is a double-track railway and motorway bridge across the Øresund strait between Scania (southernmost Sweden) and Denmark -- trains on the lower level. Longest combined rail/road bridge in Europe. 8 km bridge on east end, the artificial island Peberholm in the middle, 4 km Drogden Tunnel on the west end, comes out near the Copenhagen airport. Bœuf bourguignon, Julia Child's recipe. Frederiksberg Runddel ice rink in Copenhagen. Free if you bring your own skates, otherwise skate rental is 50 DKK. For 2015, open from 1 January to 1 March, so you're out of luck for this year. Café Phenix nearby. Easter eggs in Scandinavia. Polish drapanka style pysanka Easter eggs -- we did something like this growing up, using hot wax to lay down batik patterns in different colors of egg dye. Яйца Фаберже́ -- Fabergé eggs. There are seven lost imperial eggs, but only three have known photographs, including the Royal Danish egg, the largest of the Fabergé eggs. Norwegian Dawn of the Norwegian Cruise Line -- larger than RMS Titanic. Norwegian Dawn is the de facto official ship of Rosie O'Donnell's R Family Vacations, a cruise designed for gay and lesbian families. Vista Garden Villa Suite #14500 is portside -- it has a private upstairs sundeck. Accommodates 30 for parties, three staterooms. Visiting cruise ships to Copenhagen generally dock at Langelinie Pier, Norwegian Cruise Lines at Ocean Quay. Hot cross buns. Fastelavnsbolle (Danish and Norwegian) for Shrove Monday. Stollen for Christmas in Germany, Dresden Stollen (originally Striezel). Allerheiligenstriezel, a braided form of stollen. Constitution Day (Danish: Grundlovsdag), observed on 5 June, is also Father's Day. In Norway, Father's day (Farsdag), is celebrated on the second Sunday of November. Tesla Model S luxury sedan -- the top selling electric vehicle in Denmark -- optional third row with two rearward facing child seats with shoulder harnesses. The three Copenhagen seaforts -- Trekroner and Flakfortet have ferry service during summer, Middelgrundsfortet is privately owned and currently under development. Museum Maribo-Bandholm is an antique train museum in Denmark, volunteer run, with limited tourist schedules -- but you can rent the steam train for a group up to 50 for any day of the year, 5600 DKK. Optional dining car. Oseberg Viking ship in Oslo, one of three well preserved Viking ships that had been used for burial -- hence their preservation. Tharsis, western volcanic plain on Mars. The name Tharsis is the Greco-Latin transliteration of the biblical Tarshish, the land at western extremity of the known world. Ira Glass’ This American Life on Trouble, a little restaurant in San Francisco that serves four things: Coffee, cinnamon toast, coconuts and shots of grapefruit juice.

The grand total is now 263,121 words.

The shiny counters are up to:

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.09 (03-07-15 Sa, 954 pages)

Book 1 Part A (78,100. words, starts page 46) / Part B (42,201 words, starts page 304)

Book 2 Part A (61,804 words, starts page 458) / Part B (44,730 words, starts page 680.)

Book 3 (starts page 845)

Hmm, exceeded the revised goal for Book 1 Parts A/B? Guess it really is going to be two books then. Up the total to 160,000...

Book 1 Part A (78,100. words, starts page 46) / Part B (42,201 words, starts page 304)

Probably going to Version 1.10 next week, so we'll restructure all the shiny counters. Still trying to decide if I want to break the main file into pieces for Books 1, 2 and 3. Maybe.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Jai Ho / Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack

Saturday, with very little effort, I passed on through the 250,000 word barrier in the main YA novel file. Saturday was a 4001 word day alone.

It's been just a shade over two weeks since I reached 200,000 words (DW). This is twice the pace of a NANOWRIMO win, but that's not a fair comparison, as we are deeply involved in the middle of things and not starting from scratch. Middles of novels/stories are very different from beginnings and ends.

The thing is, I'm really not writing just one book. I need to know the story -- and I have to get ideas turned into words fast -- so it wouldn't work in this case to just write the first book and then say And there will be more... This is foolish, from the stand point that no one is paying me yet. But I am on sabbatical, more or less, so I have the time to let my fingers fly on the keyboards.

-----
Have I mentioned backups recently?

It seems that I sometimes have to remind students that if you don't have copies of your files, you are basically wasting your time. It is never a matter of IF you are going to need a backup, it's always going to be WHEN.

On the other hand, backups are notoriously difficult. I dislike automatic cloud backups, because I want to control how I use my bandwidth. And the cloud? Also known as remote storage? The closest I get is to email myself critical files as attachments. But... having just one backup on one type of media AND in the same room as the computer, gives you only a false layer of protection.

Anyway, I was thinking about backups yesterday because I made a mistake. I should've hit Fn+F3 on ZEPPELIN to put it to sleep, but instead I did Start | Shutdown -- while Word 2010 was still open.

Of course, I am an old programmer and longtime computer user. I make extensive use of DOS Batch Files in the MS-DOS box -- COMMAND.COM in the old days and CMD.EXE on Windows NT4/2000/Vista/XP/7 NT-class machines -- which is way faster and gives you more control over the GUI Windows Explorer. I keep a Shortcut to CMD.EXE right on the Desktop, and it's usually the first icon I call upon.

C:\utility>copy con backout.bat
@echo BACKOUT Version 1.00 / 28 February 2015
@xcopy *%1*%2*%3* BACKFILE^Z          NOTE: ^Z = Ctrl-Z or F6 key.

You can run this with up to three arguments, such as:

E:\WORK(7A)\NTOVELS>backout prin 09 doc
BACKOUT Version 1.00 / 28 February 2015
E:A Princess of a Lost Kingdom 109.doc
E:A Princess of a Lost Kingdom Chapter List 109.doc
E:A Princess of a Lost Kingdom R-09.doc
3 File(s) copied

The first time you run this, XCOPY will ask if BACKFILE is a (F)ile or a (D)irectory. Hit D and boom -- files are backed up in a subdirectory. So if your main files get hosed for some reason, you have the last saved version right there.
-----

Fortunately, Word 2010 is smart enough to decide during a Shutdown to make a last moment copy of the current file. A simple Save As replaces the previously written file with the newer text. No work lost.

Older versions of Microsoft Word would give you Recovered files, which almost always were OLDER than the last version of the file I saved!

The moral of the story: Save often. Have Automatic Saves enabled -- I have it set for 10 minutes. Have "Always create backup copy" enabled. Make your own backups. Carry a copy of your backups to the office or to home, as needed. In case of fire, grab the kid, the cats, the spouse, the flashdrive with the backups... (grin)

WHEN, not IF. You're welcome.

The current shiny counter:

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.09 (02-28-15 Sa, 919 pages)

Now if you excuse me, I have some ice skates to put on and some motorcycles to ride. Or rather, my characters do. It says so on this little piece of paper I scribbled on at 4:04am just before I went to bed.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: Sweet Caroline / Neil Diamond

It has been a busy week and much writing has happened. I go to add one little thing and it blossoms into several tentacles reaching forwards and back in the story -- it is marvelous to behold.

One thing to watch out for -- my princesses may be inexperienced in the world, but they are smart and not naïve. And while bad things happen, or rather Bad Things Happen™ because... story, I refuse to advance the story of two young women on the basis of rape. There is quite enough of that out there, that I don't need to be a part of the problem. So there.

I am sure I have plenty of other issues in my novel -- especially since we're dealing with descendants of Vikings, we have a distressing number of tall white blondes. Argh! Uber default settings from Central Casting! Can't change that... well...

Hell, I don't look like these people either.

While there are dangers in doing research by Internet -- Google, Wikipedia, travel sites, business sites, etc. -- come on, I'm married to a librarian and have worked in libraries -- I am constantly amazed at what you can find. Google Maps shows you the street layouts and markers for good places you didn't know you needed to know about near the ones you do. Google Maps satellite view shows parks, turn lanes -- even the ferry terminal so your character can walk to the triangular parking lot in front. Street view shows storefronts and Google Images shows interiors of all sorts of places. Wikipedia can provide a bewildering array of leads for further research. The Copenhagen-Hamburg train used ICE TD equipment. Wikipedia reports "Starting at the end of 2007, the class 605 has been deployed on the Hamburg-Copenhagen route. This route, using the Fehmarn Belt train ferry needs diesel trains for both the railway and the ferry, as neither has an electric supply." Ferry? Look up Fehmarn Belt and discover the ferry will be replaced by an 11 mile tunnel in 2021. And on and on and on.

Besides pictures, you can find video:

Train from Denmark to Germany, boarding ferry!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVZwq498erU

German ICE Train Boards a Ferry to Denmark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX__eVq6YWU

I've been on three large ferries on the Great Lakes -- one crossing an arm of Lake Huron and both ferries which go from Michigan across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin -- and the seagoing ferry across the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki to Tallinn. The S.S. Badger was also built to handle railroad cars, though the largest thing I ever saw loaded on it was this giant machine which turned out to be a potato picker. It barely got aboard. More recently they're shipping wind turbine blades, so they don't have to go through Chicago. So I understood the different between roll-on/roll-off and single-ended ferries, and knew about ferry slips and terminals, which helps in doing the research.

New Researches: Best places in Copenhagen for coffee and smørrebrød (open-faced sandwiches). Conditori La Glace er Danmarks ældste, og nok også bedste konditori. The book "Fairy Tale cakes from La Glace" contains the recipe for French Macaroons from the fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea". Boef & Ost. 38 weeks. Nausea gravidarum. 2021-22 Northwestern University Calendar. 07:43 KOEBENHAVN H 19:00 AMSTERDAM CS 11h 17m 2 connections (Hamburg, Osnabrück) ICE Train 1st class €295.4. Includes a 50-minute crossing by train ferry between Rødby & Puttgarten, the Fugleflugtslinjen, one of the few places left in Europe (or indeed, the world) where a train physically goes onto a ship -- to be replaced by the 42 billion DKK Femern Bælt-forbindelsen tunnel in 2021. BMW i3 electric car. Hotel d’Angleterre’s restaurant Marchal. Norway invaded and Denmark occupied 9 April 1940. Netherlands invaded 10 May 1940, surrendered 15 May. Hongerwinter 1944 - discovery of the cause of Coeliac disease may also be partly attributed to the Dutch famine. Amsterdam Centraal railway station - reconstruction to end 2017, station closes 10pm weekdays. Amsterdam nightclub scene -- note trams stop at midnight. Amsterdam to Paris train 8 hours 30 mins – 8:05 AM - 4:35 PM – what? This is ridiculous, to go via Germany, Google... what were you thinking? Direct Thalys high-speed train connects Amsterdam and Paris. Patrilineality, agnatic succession, agnatic seniority, absolute primogeniture, elective monarchy. Originally, the Kings of Sweden were elected by all free men at the Mora Thing. The Scandinavian kingdoms were united under the Danish crown by Margaret I of Denmark in 1389. DFDS Seaways Copenhagen/Oslo ferry leaves at 04:30 pm (CET), crossing time is 17 hours on the Crown Seaways and Pearl Seaways -- pre-book meals to save money. MS Pearl Seaways was once the largest cruiseferry in the world. 'Lead on Macduff' is a misquote: I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!' Dates to 1855. Norway’s National Cake is called verdens beste in Norwegian. Fjordbyen is an urban renewal project for the waterfront part of the center of Oslo, Norway. Red Sea Star Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurant in Oslo.

Closing in on a quarter million words for the main file -- have exceeded that adding in two other story files chronologically before and after.

The current shiny counters, after splitting Book 1 and Book 2 into parts A and B now, and adding a big new chunk to Book 3:

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.09 (02-27-15 Fr - 904 pages)

Book 1 Part A (72,582 words, starts page 44) / Part B (34,401 words, starts page 286)

Book 2 Part A (61,301 words, starts page 411) / Part B (44,381 words, starts page 632)

Book 3 (starts page 796)

* Note: the numbers for Books 1-3 don’t add up, because there is text which is in a section which hasn’t been assigned to a Book and Chapter yet.
** Note2: Page numbers are subjective. I do not write in Standard Manuscript Format, so this is Book Antiqua 12, single spaced, extra space between paragraphs, 1¼” margins for readability.
**** Note4: I officially haven’t decided to split Books 1 and 2, calling them Book 1 Part A/B and Book 2 Part A/B for now, reset to 120,000 word goals.

I've upped the total word count for the "trilogy" to 300,000 words, though I should note that yes, I can do math, that 120,000+120,000+80,000= 320,000 words.

Am I close to done? Yes. No. Maybe. I'll let you know in two weeks. I think that's when I start to really look at things and edit the first draft. Maybe three.

There's a lot of stuff to consider.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: Killing Me Softly / Roberta Flack

Despite the weather getting down to -13°F last night and other temps all week +/- the zero mark in the Fahrenheit scale -- this was a very productive week.

For example, last night I remembered that I had a submission that might (or might not) have been sitting in the 15-day penalty box before shipping to new Editor CCFinlay at F&SF. (The might not part comes from the fact that the last rejection was not to the general F&SF e-sub but the last of Charlie's special F&SF issue e-subs. Technicalities do not trump politeness. When you have the time.) I had the whole sub and cover letter ready to go -- checked the story and lo, found a nit, which I fixed. By the time it was shipped and I checked Gmail for the confirmation email, there was a rejection from another market. Oh well. Hop to Ralan's to look at the current Flash markets -- ah, here's one at SFWA pro rates! Re-shipped. +2 - 1 = +1 gain in stories out. Yay.

Then 10:30 this morning, as I was getting up from my morning nap -- since I went to bed at 3:40 and got up at 7:00 -- I had a sudden story idea. By 1:20 I had the story fleshed out. By 1:40, I'd converted it to printer formatting (Standard Manuscript Format, which is not what I usually write in), read it aloud, printed it. I've already proofed the printout and left it for Mrs. Dr. Phil to read. -- Ze Beeg Question is, at 1650 words is it sufficient or should I really make it longer? It's not Flash, but there are a number of markets perfectly happy to see sub-2000 word SF stories.

Posted this yesterday on Facebook about my researches for the YA trilogy:

Clever Google.

Trying to get a character from Copenhagen to Monte Carlo at the last minute. All the evening flights are two stops with an overnight layover.

Google suggests I try Nice -- only 11 miles from Monte Carlo. Hey Lufthansa has 18:40 Copenhagen to Frankfurt, 50 minute layover, Frankfurt to Nice. Arrive 21:55.

My character will be happy.

COMMENT: And does it advise on transport from Nice to Monte Carlo? Taxi? Rent-a-car? Train? I think the Nice airport is a bit outside of town. Just saying'. xo

REPLY: Oh, they definitely need to rent a car. Nefarious deeds ahead. Also a silver Lamborghini is involved. -- Dr. Phil

Don't know what the 2022-2023 model Lamborghinis are likely to be called. Given recent history, probably not a $237,250 Huracán. But do I invent a name? A Lamborghini Toronado? (Oldsmobile-supercar-grin) Or just leave it as a Silver Lambo? This is the problem with writing near-term-but-future fiction.

Here's the other funny thing about research -- it can lead you into places you never expected (DW).

I was doing Google Maps to locate The Jam Pot, the bakery store of the Holy Transfiguration Skete, Society of St. John, a Catholic monastery of the Byzantine Rite. It's off M-26 on the northern shores of the Keweenaw Peninsula -- north of Houghton, just past Jacobs Falls and before Copper Harbor MI. And with Google Maps, you can scroll around. I was looking at Brockway Mountain Drive and then decided to see the northern terminus of US-41 (1990 Miles to Miami). And then I decided to see how far the private road goes to Lake Superior...

And there on the edge of webpage, along the tip of the Keweenaw, past the end of the main road, was a tag for Keweenaw Rocket Range.

Hell we lived there in the time between the last launch and the laying of the commemorative stone -- and didn't know anything about this. (geeky-grin)

New Researches include: Göteborg, Sweden. Répondez s'il vous plaît. Lange Luger (long-barreled). Siriuspatruljen (Sirius Patrol) elite Danish navy Arctic unit -- "The weapons carried also reflect the harsh conditions. Only bolt-action rifles (M17/M53) performs reliably. The standard SIG210 Neuhausen sidearm was recently replaced by the 10mm Glock 20, as the stopping power of multiple 9mm rounds proved to be insufficient against a polar bear." Glock 26 9×19mm "subcompact". Google Maps satellite view of Kalundborgvej in Holbæk, Denmark. Swedish X2000 train KOEBENHAVN H to GOETEBORG CENTRAL, €172 OW. (Accounting is complicated on websites, as prices get listed in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish kroner, euros, GB Pounds, US dollars, sometimes at whim -- one time Google Translate in Chrome translated a Danish PDF menu for me AND converted the DKK to GBP!) Porsche 991 is the internal designation for the seventh generation Porsche 911 -- 2013 Porsche 911 Cabriolet Turbo in Guard Red, black interior. The Porsche 918 Spyder is a limited edition plug-in hybrid, so you know it's economically friendly, priced at only US$845,000. (No doubt I can't fit in it. But the super-rich mid-life executive?) Linje Aquavit is named after the tradition of sending oak barrels of aquavit with ships from Norway to Australia and back again, thereby passing the equator ("linje") twice before being bottled. Kongens Nytorv square in Copenhagen. Det Kongelige Teater. Googly eyes. Sprung -- the state of being very attracted to a person, obsession often mistaken for love. Sankt Ansgars Kirke—Katolsk Domkirke. 11am Solemn Masses on 2nd and 4th Sundays are partly in Latin. Café Oscar, not to be confused with Oscar Bar Café in Copenhagen, the latter is the most popular gay bar. The former is a block away from the cathedral and serves Luksus brunch-buffet SØNDAG 11.00 - 14.00. Le Sommelier is a fine French restaurant across the street from the cathedral, but doesn't open until 18:00 on Sundays. (Research!) Sankt Elisabeths Kirke, Holbæk. Brennivin is Akvavit without the flavoring. Romersk-Katolska Kyrkan Kristus Konungens Församling (Christ the King Roman Catholic Church), Göteborg. Charon's obol. Scandinavian gullgubber, small and fragile gold-foil pieces replacing the coins for the ferryman. Roman Catholic funeral rites. Borzoi, also called the Russian wolfhound (Russian: Ру́сская псовая борзая). Copenhagen to Monte Carlo 17h 35min (1,730.1 km) driving via A7 -- ferry to Germany, Austria, short excursion into Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Italy, France, Monaco. (Probably less time in the Lamborghini... just saying.) As noted above, Google advised flying into Nice late in the day, otherwise it's overnight somewhere en route. Pizza Grandiosa refers to the most popular brand of frozen pizza in Norway. They've had commercial jingles as pop hits. Either tastes "great or like cardboard". (grin)

And in the category of "Things That I Thought I Knew But Had Never Verified", I have been trying to explain to people for years that Europe is more northerly than the United States -- that Chicago in the North is the same latitude as Rome in the South. Well, I checked:

-- 41°54′N 12°30′E Rome
-- 41°54′N 12°27′E Vatican City
-- 41°53′N 87°38′W Chicago

And I was right -- only off by one minute of arc, which is nuthin'.

Also, I've been using The Weather Channel app on the Kindle Fire HD to observe the daily weather in Bodo, Oslo and Copenhagen -- and despite the first one being north of the Arctic Circle, they're all getting milder winters than West Michigan this year. Or Boston. (sn*cker)

The shiny counter for the main workfile, without breakdown, stands at:

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.09 (02-20-15 Fr - 874 pages)

That's 25,371 actual story words (not notes) in the past week, not including the 1650 word new short story and some edits of other documents. Very happy about this.

In addition, Version 1.09 now includes Book 1 split into Parts A/B, as I had done with Book 2. Doesn't mean that the trilogy is now a pentalogy (1A/B, 2A/B, 3), but it could be. Raising the Grand Total from 240,000 words to 300,000 words might make sense. Man, I hadn't even realized I'd hit the 98% level in the current "trilogy" counter!

The next major version of the story files will probably break things into Versions 1.10, 2.10 and 3.10, for Books 1-3. Or create a Research only Version R.10 file. Things are getting unwieldy given the amount of text I'm scraping into notes and the pictures I'm copying, including bunches of Google Maps in map and satellite views, sometimes even street view. One hates to depend solely on the Internet, but it is so much better than just winging it about things and cities and languages that I just don't know.

Dammit, I need a healthy five-figure advance, so we can go reconnoiter all this stuff. I've told my one sister-in-law, who studied German and Scandinavian languages in college and graduate school, that we'll drag her along as our translator. Also as our expert on pastries. (ooh-la-la-grin)

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: Mad World / Susan Boyle

Busy, busy, busy. Short stories going into and out of the meat grinder. (grin) And on Wednesday, the main file for my YA trilogy exceeded 200,000 words of story across the three books. Yay!

Yesterday was a good day and I wrote on my Facebook wall:

I am easily amused.

Not only can I find the finest five-star hotel ballrooms in Copenhagen, as well as brands of good champagne drunk in that city, online. But I can spell mademoiselle without having Word 2010 flag it in red. The Kindle Fire HD, on the other hand, changes that word to "marsupials". I don't think they were being invited to (the) dance, at least not at this private social function.

And of course, having the Amazon Echo unit in the house not only allows me to play my playlists -- currently with about 80 songs for some six hours of music without a repeat, yet familiar enough that it is not distracting -- but Echo can answer simple queries without have to switch windows or stop typing. "Alexa, what is the temperature in Oslo?" "Alexa, what is 239 divided by 7."

Researches include: Location of the spare tire in a 1972 Corvette. (BONUS: Got cool new Windows wallpaper from a 1972 Chevrolet Corvette brochure with the body shell lifted off the frame and drivetrain.) The Danish Monarchy can be traced back more than 1000 years. HRH = H.K.H. Hendes Kongelige Højhed Kronprinsessen. Firearms on Amtrak trains. Ash Wednesday. Sacraments vs. Sacramentals: The Catholic Church allows the placing of ashes on the forehead even if you are not baptized. Dutch tradition holds the custom to eat salted herring on Ash Wednesday to conclude the carnival in the Netherlands. The El line to Evanston is now the Purple Line. France produces 50 and 60 million hectolitres of wine per year, or 7–8 billion bottles. 1 hL = 100 L. Typical bottle is 750 mL. St. Francis de Sales Church, 13th Street, Holland MI. Liquid Air Plant I-94 west of Exit 22 / US-20 in Indiana. The boiling point of liquid air is approximately 78 K (-195 °C)(-319 F), just above that of liquid nitrogen (77 K). Basic oxygen steel making. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra lists three Clarinets, the co-principal doubles on the E♭ Clarinet. Pepperidge Farms Milano cookies solved the messiness problem by sandwiching two Naples cookies together. The milspec Cammenga Model 3H Tritium Lensatic Compass (-50°F to +150°F). The Hotel d’Angleterre (1755) in Copenhagen. The Palm Court and Louis XVI Ballrooms. Connecting doors offer the option to extend the 150 m² Royal Suite with two additional bedrooms, making it 250 m². The Copenhagen Marriott Hotel's Vesterhavet Ballroom has a gorgeous riverfront view of the city. André Roger Grande Réserve Grand Cru, 239.00 DKK per bottle, about $34 US. "As is often the case, the French believe the universe revolves around, well, France, naturally, so their terroir is unique." Holbæk is a town in Denmark halfway between Copenhagen and Kalundborg -- about 44 minutes by train. Hotel Strandparken, Holbæk. EuroCity, InterCity and EuroNight trains. "The Intercity network of the Danish State Railways consists of IC trains and their faster version, Lyntog (Lightning Train), which is identical but with less stops. Quite unusual in the world, some trains will consist of both electrically and diesel-powered units coupled together."

If you've been following along with all these Research reports, then you obviously have figured out the story. (sn*cker)

The current trilogy file has gotten unwieldy with Research notes, plus it's above 200,000 words, so it's about time to create Version 1.09. My new proposal is to try to print the Research notes as 6-ups using selective pages from all the files, rather than create a Master Research file. Plus the header with the version number so I can find things later. This does assume we can read the 9- and 10-point type I’ve been using in the Research notes at the 6-up level. We do have a new color cartridge, and the black cartridge was replaced “recently”. Amazon Prime for more supplies?

The current shiny counters before the new version are:

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.08 (02-13-15 Fr -- 830 pages)

Book 1 (starts page 120)

Book 2 Part A (starts page 406) / Part B (starts page 599)

Book 3 (starts page 762)

* Note: the numbers for Books 1-3 don’t add up, because there is text which is in a section which hasn’t been assigned to a Book and Chapter yet.
** Note2: Page numbers are subjective. I do not write in Standard Manuscript Format, so this is Book Antiqua 12, single spaced, extra space between paragraphs, 1¼” margins for readability.
**** Note4: I officially haven’t decided to split Book 2, calling them Book 2 Part A and Part B for now, but it has now exceeded the 80,000 word goal. Even better, the natural split between Part A and Part B is reasonably centered at 53,200 and 44,059 words respectively. As it, too, has exceeded 80,000 words, Book 1 may be similarly split.

Although Books 1 and 2 have both exceeded their YA target lengths, they are neither finished nor whacked back for bloat, so it's hard to tell how long they really are. Dividing both Books 1 and 2 into Parts A and B does not necessarily mean that they are each now two books, just finding natural breaks in the action

As always, the princesses soldier on...

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: La Den Gå (Norwegian Version of Let It Go) / Lisa Stokke

When I hit 42, I got bifocals for the first time after using glasses since the third grade. My GP at the next physical smiled and said, "Right on time." Sigh. Some years later I decided to go to progressive lenses -- continuous change from distance to close-up. They work pretty well for me, except for one thing. There's a lot of distortion in your field of vision because all the areas of view are different focal lengths. So I went in and got bifocal reading/computer glasses -- this way I can look at computer screens and circles remain circles.

I can tell when I need new glasses, because the distance setting gets off. I can tell when I have new glasses, because I can't use the progressives for detail work close up. Today it was the tiny Fujitsu U810 UMPC Windows XP Pro machine. I had started using my current reading/computer glasses the other day with ZEPPELIN. Rather than carting those all over, I knew where an earlier pair of bifocals were, and I have one pair here on ZEPPELIN and one for SUMMER -- which also is the pair I take to the office to use with OUEST on days I go to the office.

In the last 24 hours I've shipped two short story submissions to market. A third is waiting for the 15-day clock to run out from my last F&SF rejection on Wednesday. It's interesting that in Fall 2013 after I got out of the hospital I managed to get a bunch of subs out. But in 2014, where I taught in Winter/Spring and Fall, I didn't have many subs. On the other hand, I have this massive YA epicology in progress since the beginning of September 2014, so in that sense I am way ahead of the game.

Speaking of which, the first 155,000 words is really filling in nicely. I am going to have to go the storage unit and find the box shipped up from Greensboro which has Wendy's HP LaserJet 1102w printer -- it's decent enough but the key feature is that it prints at 19 ppm. As opposed to my HP LaserJet 4ML, which runs at 4 ppm. (I've printed novels with the 4ML - it is very tiresome.) Or the HP DeskJet 6980 which spec says prints at almost 10 ppm in black normal print, and 36 ppm in draft mode. Never have tried the draft mode. But I don't think I want to chew up the 6980 on printing novels.

The point is that I am getting to where I have to start marking up things, settle on the expanded cast list, things like that. I still think that I might have the first two books ready for looking at in about two months. And that's with Book 2 spanning Parts A and B, on its way to being split into two books itself. (grin) Or just a long book.

Note: when I get far enough in the process I may set up a PDF and have Lulu or someone print me a couple of copies for beta readers.

Anyway, my princesses are much better thought out than some of the Hollywood models -- Jupiter Ascending, I am looking at you. (evil-grin)

New Researches: J-1, F-1, H-1 visas. Passport colors used around the world. Red DANMARK DIPLOMATPAS. "As a British passport is issued in the name of Her Majesty, it is unnecessary for The Queen to possess one. All other members of the Royal Family, including The Duke of Edinburgh and The Prince of Wales, have passports." 4K video (4096 x 2160 at a 19:10 aspect ratio) versus 4K UHD (3840 x 2160 at a 16:9 aspect ratio). The American Standard Stratocaster® HSS Shawbucker. $1,299.99. Available mid-February 2015. (About now...) Wiener Schnitzel, the national dish of Austria. "It has however become common in Northern Germany to serve it with lemon, cucumber slices, sardines and capers, to achieve a pleasant appearance." The 6 Year Med program at Northwestern isn't six years anymore. The Honors Program in Medical Education is now a 7 year program, with an optional 8th year -- 23 HPME students entered NU Medical School proper as the Class of 2018 in August 2014. Regina iubet, sequere me. Script for audio commands for an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). The Indian first name Sneh means Love.

I built a scene using the AED's script and then putting the action and dialogue around the voice from the AED. This turned out to be REALLY hard, partway through I was practically in tears, especially as I had not yet decided whether the person was going to be resuscitated. As it stands right now, they were taken away by EMTs to the hospital -- I think they survived, but they are not coming back to the dorm...

Funny business this writing stuff.

Never had trouble killing characters and this person wasn't even in the book until this scene. But I remember that scene in The Abyss with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Good lord, I just looked her up to check on the last name and she's only 74 days younger than I am.

Meanwhile the main trilogy shiny counter is up to:

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.08 (02-07-15 Sa -- 763 pages)

** Note2: Page numbers are subjective. I do not write in Standard Manuscript Format, so this is Book Antiqua 12, single spaced, extra space between paragraphs, 1¼” margins for readability. Also, there are 76 pages of notes before the story starts.

Currently 101 chapters in the main story file.

There will, of course, be a certain amount of crap that is in the story now which I need to know, but the gentle readers may not care about, plus other details which actually need to be bloody described, so this count is far from definitive.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: Bohemian Rhapsody / Queen

Fantastically busy on the writing front in the past ten days. Last night I shipped a new 5000-word story. I am unusually confident that it will find a market in its first three tries -- I am realistic to know that fit with an editor is always important.

As for the YA project, last time I wrote I mentioned that I had lost a year in the chronology, which left me scrambling not only to put in the "missing" chapters, but also rearrange chapters. Also, my Interim section, consisting of fragments and stories which hadn't yet been placed in order, had gotten too large. So I've been pulling those out and putting them in place. I've been printing the Chapter Lists and the Interim section as 6-ups (six pages on a single landscape piece of paper). The old HP DeskJet 6980 is one of their professional series and it has a very fine inkjet drop which makes even these tiny letters sharp enough to read -- and it saves paper significantly over even my usual 2-up printouts for editing.

Because of the missing year, Book 2 has blossomed considerably. I've added a temporary split into Parts A and B. As a result, the combined Book 2 has now exceeded the 80,000 word goal. Even better, the natural split between Part A and Part B is almost perfectly centered at 41,824 and 42,612 words respectively. Time will tell whether Book 2 just ends up being long, or permanently split into two parts. Given how Part A ends, it might be good to have Part B also ready to go so I don't get lynched by my mythical five readers... (evil-grin)

New Researches include: Northwestern's 2017-22 academic calendars. Top Chef Season 12 Boston. The ArtPrize in Grand Rapids should have the same schedule in 2018 as it did in 2012. From Amsterdam to Copenhagen is 8h 17min (790.9 km) driving via A1 and the ferry or 8h 30min (925.4 km) the long way around via E20 and bridges. Universitetet i Oslo (UiO) offers a Master's in Peace and Conflict Studies. Easter Sunday 2019 is 21 April. The latest Easter can be is 25 April -- the next time this occurs is 2038. Mass schedule at Northwestern's Sheil Catholic Center. "Take Me Out To The Ball Game". Chicago Lyric Opera. Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. John Hancock Tower is in Boston. John Hancock Center is in Chicago. (There is no "Willis Tower" in Chicago, BTW.) Observation venue at the Hancock Center is now 360 Chicago -- last entry at 10:30 PM daily. "TILT Outward 1,000 feet above The Magnificent Mile!" Menu for Russian Tea Time in Chicago. Sheepshead (Wisconsin card game). Regional names for soft drinks in the United States. Current NU ISP courses.

Vienna: Hotel/Café Sacher, Café Demel, Café Landtmann, Café Sperl for pastries. (Thanks, Rebecca!) Schönbrunn Palace in Austria is the court bakery and "the center of the universe for Viennese apple strudel." $1,473.00 USD for 3 First-Class (2+1 seating) Amtrak Acela tickets New York to Boston RT or $245.00 each OW in 2015. (Recall that in 1972: New York to Boston $9.90 OW, TurboTrain $14.90, later $10,90 and $15.90, and New York to Washington $19.90 OW, Metroliner $29.90, and $49.90 or $59.90 Metroclub first-class 1+1 parlor car seating. Acela trains do not stop at Newark International Airport station, but you can take PATH from the Newark Airport and pick up the high-speed train in Newark or Penn Station in New York. (Newark platforms are easier and are in daylight.) Stupid Avis Rent-A-Car, website talks about convenient to Boston South Station, then gives you the airport location and not the address near Boston South Station. Apartment hunting around 2220 Sherman Avenue, Evanston IL near Noyes El station, the newer D&D Finer Foods, ISP House and the Technological Institute. $1500/mo for 1-bedroom. Model 1867 Rolling Block .45 Danish rifle.

With all that, the shiny counters stand at:

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.08 (02-02-15 Mo -- 712 pages)

Book 1 (starts page 78)

Book 2 Part A (starts page 343) / Part B (starts page 492)

Book 3 (starts page 648)

The Lost Kingdom Fourth-Fifth Novels Version 1.07

* Note: the numbers for Books 1-3 don’t add up, because there is text which is in a section which hasn’t been assigned to a Book and Chapter yet.
** Note2: Page numbers are subjective. I do not write in Standard Manuscript Format, so this is Book Antiqua 12, single spaced, extra space between paragraphs, 1¼” margins for readability.
*** Note3: Decided to go ahead and insert a book between Books 3 and 4, so the extra file is technically now Books 4-5. We’ll see if I keep this configuration. The extra file version number was jumped from 1.03 to 1.07 to stay current with the main trilogy efforts.
**** Note4: I officially haven’t decided to split Book 2, calling them Book 2 Part A and Part B for now, but it has now exceeded the 80,000 word goal. Even better, the natural split between Part A and Part B is almost perfectly centered at 41,824 and 42,612 words respectively.

As they say in one of my favorite movies, Until The End Of The World, "The accounting is beginning to get very difficult."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get my head out of the science fiction realm and back into The Lost Kingdom...

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: Who Wants To Live Forever / Queen

Or more accurately, I misplaced it or forgot about it.

So yesterday I posted at noon with the current progress report about The Lost Kingdom YA project. Did some more writing, but for the late night session after midnight I decided it was time to do something that I had been meaning to do for a long time -- pull all the chapter titles out into a file.

I did that with the last novel I wrote, which was handy for tracking things and setting up the Table of Contents. There's little point to doing it before things are quite far along, because of the organic way I write. I guess the in-crowd amongst writers talks about Plotters vs. Pantsers. Do you plot out everything ahead of time? Hardcore would be the outlines who merely have to insert the words into their outline and voilà they have a novel. I hate those people. Full contact Pansters write off the seat of their pants. I'm much further over on that side of the spectrum, but sometimes I make notes, and I do insert chapter titles with no text into the manuscript file or with just a phrase or minimal setting or a line.

But yesterday I began to get the nagging feeling that maybe I had a mistake or a problem or something with the chronology. It all came when I had to put a date to something and I chose March 2020. It worked, it had some significance and I did some research to make things come out right. But was it really 2020?

Turns out that after I finished my chapter titles across five books, I had 100 chapters, but a couple of them are just titles and two are Chapter NN - XX placeholders without even a title yet. Insert Finished Novel HERE. Just add water and stir. Done! Currently not resetting the numbers for each book, so they're just Chapters 1-100. Looks like I am running around thirty chapters to a book -- the last three books have far less writing completed that the first two. As it should be.

So I started marking up the printout and realized that current Chapter 45-47 can't happen in 2020. With the story starting in 2016, they have to be 2021.

Crisis. Horror. OMG. All the usual.

Then the brain takes over, despite the 2am hour. What happened is that the main character's sophomore year Fall semester in college was direct connected to their junior year Spring semester. (Okay, so I'm actually using academic quarters not semesters, but since most of you haven't worked under the superior 10-week quarter system, I just translated it for you. You want to know what goes on? Read the books when they come out.)

This is right smack in the middle of Book 2. And the split between Books 2 and 3 is Really Important. Geesh, do I have to break Book 2 up into Book 2A and 2B, making the whole project even longer? Well, that could still happen, and there is a critical juncture where that split could work and I might even do it. But let's not go crazy here, just yet. It's terrible, merely writing down this as a possibility and I had to pencil in the possible 2A/2B split and start thinking about it. When Will This All End?! NEVER! It's the Infinite Book Series! (If only I knew it was sold and I had an audience, I could live with this...)

ANYWAY... at the moment the big panic is down to a simmer. I can safely fly through some months in the middle of college. I mean, I'm not detailing every single damned day and hour, so clearly some time jumps are going to occur.

But... I have to redo some of yesterday's researches. Still Active: How long do shaved legs last? (Sorry, this has to be a research question as I've never shaved my legs -- and the last time I shaved my beard was Friday 1 May 1981.) Konzentrationslager Auschwitz liberated on Saturday 27 January 1945, a day now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Foreign language tours, i.e. not Polish, are 40 złoty -- 30 złoty for those under 26 with a student ID. There is a French tour starting at 12:30, the same time as an English tour. The złoty is currently at 0.27USD, so about $8. There is a left-luggage window for travelers. The Mourners Kaddish (קדיש אבלים). The Arbeit Mach Frei gate at Dachau was stolen in 2014. (What? WHO would do such a thing?) Szaraka Zimierz is a top Kosher restaurant in Krakow -- menus online. Marynowany śledź is pickled herring. Discards: 2020 is the 75th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. The 2019-2020 NU calendar has Spring Break end the week before Palm Sunday. Central European Summer Time begins Sunday 29 March 2020 at 2:00 AM -- applicable for Rome and Frankfurt airports. Sunset in Frankfurt on Sunday 29 March 2020 is 19:53, which is after a 17:10 departure to Toronto.

Because of the changes, I closed out Version 1.07 and started in on 1.08. The final shiny counters for Version 1.07 are:

The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.07 (01-24-15 Sa -- 638 pages)

Book 1 (starts page 92)

Book 2 (starts page 334)

Book 3 (starts page 573)

The Lost Kingdom Fourth-Fifth Novels Version 1.07

*** Note: the numbers for Books 1-3 don’t add up, because there is text which is in a section which hasn’t been assigned to a Book and Chapter yet.
**** Note2: Page numbers are subjective. I do not write in Standard Manuscript Format, so this is Book Antiqua 12, single spaced, extra space between paragraphs, 1¼” margins for readability.
*** Note3: Decided to go ahead and insert a book between Books 3 and 4, so the extra file is technically now Books 4-5. We’ll see if I keep this configuration. The extra file version number was jumped from 1.03 to 1.07 to stay current with the main trilogy efforts.

Whew. But really, better to figure this stuff out now, when everything is fluid, than wait until we are into editing the second draft. (evil-grin)

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: Boston and St. John's / Great Big Sea

Despite being unnecessarily busy working on a grievance form with our insurance regarding a dozen PT sessions which should have been covered during May-September 2014, and my first visit of the year to my office to let OUEST get its update fever out of the way... I managed to get a lot of writing done. Maybe not the most in terms in number of words, but several major holes in three different books of the YA five-book trilogy now have significant progress. Yes, as I've mentioned, I have chapters which are nothing more than Microsoft Word's automatic number field and a title. We all do. Unless you're one of those people who ridiculously plot outlines for every detail before you even write.

Not knowing where the bulk of the story is going to go, but letting time and the characters do their thing, is so very much more fun. (big-happy-grin)

And the plastic toilet flush arm almost broke today, but you can manually flush the main toilet for now. A simple fix once parts are here. At least with plastic parts we shouldn't have to deal with rust seized nuts.

Researches this week have included: Old Norse name Dagmær, derived from the elements dagr "day" and mær "maid". History of Bitcoin hacks. In 2015, the Arctic Circle lies at latitude 66°33'46"N. While the equator and geographic North Pole are fixed, the Arctic and Antarctic Circles and the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn drift ±2° over a 41,000 year cycle. Currently the Arctic Circle is moving north at 15 meter/year or about a second of arc every 2 or 3 years, by my calculation. The Somewhere in Time Weekend at the Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island is 16-18 October 2015 -- presumably similar in 2018. No tipping in the Grand Hotel. Weekend stays vary considerably by about a factor of seven between off-season and big weekends. The Main Dining Room serves a five-course dinner. Menus online. "Evening wear is required in all areas of the hotel after 6:30 p.m.: Dress, skirt and blouse or pantsuit for ladies, and coat, necktie and dress pants for gentlemen. No denim please." The 31st biennial Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference will be held in September 2015 on Mackinac Island, Michigan -- also the 32nd in 2017. Andrew Zimmern of Bizzare Foods on Travel Channel goes home to native Minnesota. Lake Superior roe is salted and mainly sold in Scandinavia. Lake herring is more like whitefish than the usual pickled herring one sees in the states. And the Minnesota State Fair has serious caloric food. A Goober Burger – big patty with like half a cup of peanut butter on it, placed on the grill, then put in the bun with a big dollop of mayonnaise. As opposed to Redamack's in New Buffalo MI by the Indiana border, whose "Legendary" burger is available with Velveeta. Michigan's Vernors is the oldest surviving ginger ale sold in the United States, but not the first. Spring Break at Northwestern is 21-30 March 2020, alas, two weeks before Easter on 9 April 2020. European citizens can use an Interrail pass instead of a Eurail pass. Interrail includes more countries, including Poland -- useful if one is making a pilgrimage to Auschwitz near Krakow. Dachau is near Munich. Convertible bed seats on Chicago-Frankfurt Lufthansa 747-830 (center seats 3D/G are the only double seats in First Class) and the Frankfurt-Toronto leg of Rome-Chicago in Air Canada 777-300ER business class (alternating rows of 2-2-2 and 1-2-1, with seats 5A/C in the former). The FRO-FRA-YYZ-ORD Lufthansa/Air Canada flight is currently the only midday flight connections that would allow you to attend 9am Sunday Mass at St. Peter's Basilica and still make it to Monday morning classes at NU.

And a little humor:
Q: What does the Kingdom of Eisbergen look like?
A: As usual, we go to the Interwebs for the answer – in this case XKCD:

http://xkcd.com/1472/ This would be looking south, of course. (sn*cker)
Actually, this was hilarious when I first saw it, because it's just like my map, except for the volcano... and the desert... and the mesa... and the glacier... and the river delta...

Meanwhile the shiny counters are up to:
The Lost Kingdom Project YA Trilogy Version 1.07 (01-23-15 Fr)

The Lost Kingdom Fourth-Fifth Novels Version 1.07

The second file looks so anemic, but that's because I just decided to split it into two books, so the target word count got doubled in the last report. Not bothering to do the individual book counters this week.

Onward. Ever onward...

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Current Music: West End Girls / The Pet Shop Boys

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Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

Those Who Lie In Wait, Dream Deep

Entries tagged with secret history

Spinning Wheels

The Long Slog Continues

There Are More Ways to Write Nothing

A Week of Gentle Plodding... Or is it Plotting?

Detours and Dead Ends Along The Way

Where'd All These Stones Come From?

Moving Things Here and There

We're Jellin' On A Roll

Speaking of Fjords...

Big Things Working Themselves Out

And Now We Are Three

A Practical Slow Down

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It Is All Coming Together Nicely

Amazing Progress

200,000

Compared To The Movies, My Royalty Is Better

The How-Did-It-Get-To-Be-February Writing Report

Yikes! A Whole Year Between 2020 and 2021 Disappeared!

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