Knicks

  • Raine posted an update in the group Group logo of December SloMoDecember SloMo 7 years, 1 month ago

    Morning slomoers. I need a KICK goddammit. Please someone put a knife to my throat or something. I am translating agent/publisher silence into a complete inability to motivate myself and GAH. And now the sun has only gone and come out and I have bulbs to plant so I see more procrastination happening…

    • Maybe not allow yourself to plant bulbs until x words written/edited? Lx

      • Morning. FEEL YOUR PAIN. So… what is it that you want to be getting on with?
        Oh! That project?
        THAT IS AN AMAZING PROJECT, AND YOU NEED TO GET THIS FANTASTIC PIECE OF AMAZINGNESS WRITTEN!!!

        It’s never about publishing / publishers. You are a writer. You are an artist. Fuck everyone else. You know you’re calling. Do it because it’s play, it’s…[Read more]

        • I am liking the Fuck Everyone Else motto! I did some plot editing and then planted bulbs. Today I am going to stare at the next round of paper edits whilst dying of endometriosis. But I will be dying with my special purple editing pen in hand, which totally counts!

          • Oh, Raine – I feel your pain. Hope you manage to feel more comfortable soon. Endometriosis is a real be-arch! And yay to getting bulbs planted AND doing some writing as well. x

          • Oh Raine my daughter has endo (we think) and it’s a killer. That, plus writerly lack of mojo, definitely calls for the Fuck Everyone Else approach – henceforth FEE – and gin, and tea, and chocolate. And I just read your beautiful, heartwrenching In the Dark Garden and I am reminded again of your writerly superpowers – even if you’re not feeling it…[Read more]

        • Henceforth, this is the official Den motto:

          ‘It’s never about publishing / publishers. You are a writer. You are an artist. Fuck everyone else. You know you’re calling. Do it because it’s play, it’s creating, because it brings you joy.

          Just do it.’

          Thanks to @philippaeast 🙂

  • Athelstone posted an update 7 years, 1 month ago

    Updates losing comments:
    OK, there’s a bug, probably in the BuddyPress code or in a plugin (or somewhere), that is preventing the ‘show all comments’ button from appearing (but only sometimes) after old comments have been tucked away out of sight. Very irritating. Here’s a workaround if you get this. Not pretty, not convenient, but at least you…[Read more]

  • Athelstone posted an update 7 years, 1 month ago

    Hoorah! At last, after an overload of dithering, I am back on the path that Julie Cohen recommends and writing sh*t.
    Don’t you hate it when people put an asterisk in a word, converting a perfectly good piece of Old English into the illegitimate cousin of a euphemism? It’s as though it’s somehow more pol*te.

    • Not getting at anybody in particular and I’ve done it myself many times over the years. Anyway – main point, writing!

      • Me too Ath. As of this morning. Mine is utterly shit too. 177 words of complete garbage so far. And I don’t care! I might even try to write another 100 words of tosh before lunch!

        • But CONGRATULATIONS. If I could remember how to insert an emoji, I would. So just imagine champagne bottles popping, streamers and smiley faces.

          • 🙂

            • I haven’t written any shit today, because I haven’t written anything at all. I’m mulling stuff over. But one H*rry B*ngham once pointed out that he’d spent a whole week in his study mulling things over and not writing a single word, and still counted it as writing time because it produced results later. A murrain on daily targets, that’s wot I say.

            • Yes, but my mulling had moved on to how to add to my collection of noir films, or should I make myself another PC and had even reached the outskirts of ‘I wonder what’s on Channel 4’. Luckily that turned out to more Brexit so I started writing again.
              The most immediate problem is that my characters are having a conversation and won’t stop bloody…[Read more]

        • And congratulations on the tosh, Jane!

      • and now I can only see my original update and my own first reply. No other replies and no ‘show all replies’ prompt.

    • Your bug work around worked! I managed to find all the comments. Congratulations on all your characters talking. I rewrote the first chapter of my WIP for the thousandth time this morning. It might be getting close to being THE ONE. But there again…

  • @s-p-moss It does, doesn’t it? Quite intrigued by that

  • Squidge posted an update 7 years, 1 month ago

    I am writing again… One whole chapter further on in The Black Ruby than I was at the start of this week.

    About bloomin’ time! Oh – and for those who’ve read Rurik’s story (which is now about Tilda!), remember I said the publisher didn’t like ‘Mage of Merjan’ as a title cos they thought it gave the plot away too much? Am I being daft by…[Read more]

    • HUGE well dones on getting writing again! That’s fab news. 😊 Re the title, quest just makes me think of the six BAZILLION dragon quest books, so for me it’s too tied up with that. But given the age bracket, I wouldn’t have worried so much about LOTR overlap. Not much help, sorry.

      • I know – Beast Quest too… Ring Hunt sounds a bit dodgy if you say it quickly (!) but the search for the ring is central to the story, and there’s only so many ways you can describing hunting for something! Thinking cap on again…

    • Thanks Raine…will see what Bink think… Mind you, not heard from them for ages.

  • Brilliant, can’t wait to read. I’m so sorry, @bric but I don’t think I’ll make the launch, but I will be getting my copy for sure!!

  • Philippa East posted an update in the group Group logo of December SloMoDecember SloMo 7 years, 1 month ago

    Hi guys,
    Hope you’re all getting on well. I have been mostly crying in a corner since getting a further round of edits from the publisher / editor. 😭
    I honestly though I was done when I sent her my draft in January, so this really knocked me for six. I am (once again) slowly working through them. Please send writerly fuel and hugs!

    • Oh Philippa, I’m sending tonnes of hugs and tea. That’s a hard thing to face, but you’ve got this. You really have.

      • Sorry being brief as on my phone I have the most insanely small typing window! You’re so close now, and your editor must be so invested in your story to be taking such time over it. It’s A GOOD thing, I think. Although it must feel like a kick in the teeth. Hang in there. It’ll be so so worth it. X

        • sending hugs and chocolate and repeating everything Raine said.

          • oh @philippaeast how bloody EXHAUSTING. I’m sending a lovely batch of re-fuelling scones, some good Ceylon tea (do you like Orange Pekoe?), chocolate and some gin. you can combine as you see fit. But you have definitely got this and this book is going to be polished to a painfully high sheen at the end of all this. It. Will. Be. Worth. It! xxx

    • Oh gosh…just when you feel it’s there, and then you find it’s not quite as there as you thought. Keep going. You are this *pinches finger and thumb together with a hairsbreadth between them* close. Sending love and writerly energy x

  • Oh, thanks for sharing @kazg!

    I just put this note up on the December SloMo section, because the forums were empty for it so it looked like there was no one here!

  • I’m going to the launch on 2nd April. Local bookshop will be there with a goodly supply.

    But thanks Daeds, for an excellent interview.

  • Hopefully it might work for me @kazg. Especially if I don’t have to start until April.

  • Thank you Daeds for uncovering some of my deepest, darkest secrets!
    Couldn’t have done any of it without the Word Cloud that was!

  • KazG posted an update in the group Group logo of December SloMoDecember SloMo 7 years, 1 month ago

    and thanks @elle! Still NO NEWS and I can’t bear it…:-(

    • Oh my God, Kaz, you must be going out of your mind!!! Has your agent been in touch? It might be time to ask her what the next step in the game plan is…

      • Tell me!! Yes my agent has been in touch – apparently the re-read was only, finally, happening from the end of last week. But that was the end of last week. And here we are. I’ve gone into a strange state of numbness…!

        • Oh Kaz. Don’t know what to say. Waiting for publishers to come back is the worst, horriblest thing. Try to think about something else…

        • Oh Lord. But at least they are reading it! And they’ll have to get people,across the whole team to read, and that can take time. But an, I feel your pain. I can imagine how you’ve just numbed out! Sending all kinds of soothing and supportive vibes. This publishing malarkey really is a painful process…

        • Oh dear, no wonder you’ve been going out of your mind. At least it sounds like things are moving now. Hopefully the wait won’t be for much longer.

  • Is this where we post now? (bit embarrassed to admit I still don’t quite know how to navigate all the Den byroads…)

    This popped into my intray and for me its good timing – Camp NaNoWriMo for April. You commit to a personal writing target for a month, much like NaNo but you choose the word count. I’ve been in planning and plotting mode for book…[Read more]

  • What an interesting idea, @bellam. I think this could defintely work.

    Maybe one way to play it would be writing Molly in a slightly unreliable narrator way, so the reader is never quite sure whether it really is the house narrating, or Molly’s mental state projecting her own anxieties. I like the Stockholm Syndrome possibilities here too – the…[Read more]

  • Fantastic interview, @daedalus and @bric! I read an earlier version of this book and I LOVED it back then – can’t wait to read the new shiny published version 🙂

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