August - Return to the Grindstone

Only two appointments this month and no procedures (assuming they don't surprise me with the RFAs instantly instead of October like I expect).  Yay!

Probably the hottest month in all of recorded human history.  Boo!

Back at working on the series, specifically the readthrough.  Halfway through FM4.  Just hit 100 on my numbered notes for that book alone.  Almost 20 pages all told.  I'm definitely paying for my past self's laziness on not already doing this.  The Great Asylum School Year file grows and grows as I insert every odd, random, casually mentioned student across the whole of the series.  Ideas for the upcoming books are flying in.  Ideas for callbacks as we wrap up the school story as well.

Like...in FM4 during the recruiting trip I mentioned a 14yo girl named Marybelle who was good at making prized jams and assumed to be an Ultra Floromancer.  It's a one off reference without any real impact on the story but...that means she's Class 2013.  Thus, 2015's competition in the Winter War.  So remembering these things are very important.

Just...busy.  12 hours each, the last couple days.  Super glad I've done this.  Though having Seismic Semester sit at 10k words from being first draft complete is an itch in need of a scratch, I will say.

We'll get there, we'll get there!

July/August Seismic Semester Tease

I caught sight of Max returning from the showers already, towel thrown over his shoulders and flippered hands scrapping his knees on account of his freakishly long wingspan.  “Hey, if Tat chases Juliette then you have my permission to tackle her and hold her down until she comes to her senses.”

Max did not blanch.  Max blushed.  Guessing he had more than a few dreams that started exactly like that.  “I’m…I’m not sure I can…she’s…a whole lot of woman…”

“Well, that whole lot of woman ain’t ever gonna let you kiss her, much less do anything else with her, until you prove you’re her match, so think of this as practice.  Just…you’ve seen what she can do to a soccer ball, so make sure you cross your legs.”

“Don’t say things like that out loud!”

“The ball thing or the kissing thing?”

“All of it!”

Taking at least a week off, maybe two.  Very beat up from all the dentist and medical procedures.  Also, it has been so stupidly hot in Fresno for so many days in a row that I can barely think at the moment.

Now Introducing: Hell Fortnight

Second MBB tomorrow.  First one was miserable.  3 hours of relief into incredible pain all night.  I'm usually anywhere from a 4 to a 6, post MBB I was at least an 8.  This is, of course, with tramadol in me, so you can imagine how bad it would have been without the painkillers.  Also, I'm pretty sure I'm incredibly harsh on my pain grading scale since to me a 9 is like...physically can't get out of bed, and some of other patients I listen to at the surgery center throw them 9 and 10s around like candy.

Some of it is probably my own fault, since the minute I had that relief I was using my hand in ways I haven't been able to, flickering my fingers about and stretching the ligaments.  Another weird side effect is I regaining feeling my my left big toe, which I haven't felt in...3 years.  So, it's definitely the right spot this time around.  Super weird since they're working on my neck, not my lower back, where the actual nerves responsible for the lower extremities are located.

Nerves are weird

Went into the dentist once for crown prep.  I guess there's quite a bit of work to be done since it's so close to the gum line, so I have to go back next Thursday, extending Hell Week into Hell Fortnight.

One bright spot:  readthrough and notetaking continues despite recovering.  Finished FM3 and the Short Book, just about to start FM4.  I have ten pages of notes now.  Good stuff.  Just little details I'd forgotten or lines I can do callbacks on or ideas for future novels I've had while reading.  Getting into the LONG novels now, so doubt my progress will be as swift.  But on the other hand the writing is better, so I'm not dying of cringe like I did with FM1...

Probably going to go directly into editing Seismic Semester after I finish this.  Then when I get to the end I'll write the last 10k and...do it all over again.  Then again.  Then release.  Then flipping back between the Vicky novel and War to End All Wars.  I don't know how much more high school bullshit I can take without taking breaks...

FM3 was really important to reread for War to End All Wars since it has all the Winter Ball and Winter War info in it.  Similar to FM2 being important for Seismic Semester since it has all the Camping Test info.  Though the Camping Test in Seismic Semester is quite different since it's under new management...

And with that cruel tease, I fuck off!!!

Hell Week Incoming

Medial branch blocks on the 12th and 19th; dental crown on the 16th.

Do not expect much, if at all, work to get done during this period, with probably a 3 to 7 day recovery afterwards.  Totally blowing a hole right in the middle of July's chest.

Just started FM3 on the readthrough.  By the way, when I say readthrough, this isn't me just blitzing through the novels.  I'm taking pretty copious notes on little details and phrases I'm planning to highlight in the next few novels.  Much more like studying for a midterm/final than casual enjoyable reading.  So, it is major prep for editing Seismic Semester, outlining War to End All Wars, and brainstorming for the Vicky novel, FM7, and onwards.

This is something I kept putting off because of how much pain I was in and needed to put all my eggs in the writing basket to get any progress made, but...it is VERY important to increasing quality and connections through the series.

Also...a few typos and mistakes I've noticed along the way.  And copy and pasting the new "also by" section for when this all gets uploaded alongside Seismic Semester and an author's preferred reading order I did up for the end of the novel so people stop hopefully skipping any book that doesn't start with "The Foul Mouth".

Weirdos.

FM2 In-Joke

This is totally at the mercy of 2012 Google translate accuracy (not very) and probably doesn't work phonetically, but Lon Ga, the Vietnamese restaurant that delivers as a distraction, if flipped to 'ga lon' supposedly means "large chicken".  So...it's a huge cock joke...

On To FM2 in the Readthrough

I have the say, the jump in prose from FM1 (which even improves throughout that novel) into FM2 is pretty large.  For all the frustrations I have with FM2 (and the reviews mentioning sophomore slump) it's a whole level above what I managed in the debut.

Probably because I didn't immediately go into writing FM2, like you would guess from the release dates (six months after FM1).  FM1 was done far before it's release date in that stage of my career were I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to go the digital publishing route or try to get myself a traditional publishing contract ("you have to remove all the 'fucktards'."  Never!!!).  And there was actually a half dozen chapters of a Betrothal sequel and three or four??? other standalone novels I started and shelved (Gush is one, which I will finish one day I SWEAR TO GOD!!!  Also Sky-Island, a novel about a very violent treeman called Leafed For Dead and what you would basically label an Isekai nowadays called Where Dreamers Go To Die).  And, uh...there might have been a 500 page Star Wars fan fiction I wrote in the summer of 2010 which I've erased from the Internet.

I think all that experimentation, even if many were "failures", shows.  Not that FM2 didn't have its own complications.  It was originally meant to be much longer, with an added plot involving a Coyote warehouse that King Henry destroyed and for the school plotline I imagined the students managing to leave the Asylum grounds, finding a ShopsMart and King Henry stealing breakfast and cigs (this was snuck into FM4 during the road trip).  In the end, I just kind of accepted that it was a bridge novel with the sole purpose of introducing King Henry's classmates and the Coyotes/Vega and settled for the shorter novel where KH "failed" but as an adult showed character growth and was able to gain from making peace with his brother-in-law.

One of the surprises that I added to the novel was Meteyos.  This seems crazy now, but Meteyos and the Geo-Realm weren't supposed to be introduced until FM6.  One lesson I've learned from writing the King Henry Tapes:  everything will come faster than you ever expected it to.  Or...Richard Raley just doesn't have any patience...

AND FM2 has the best chapter one hook of any of the books in the series.  It's a banger.  Seriously, anyone read "Jordan Josephine Price...found her at last" and put the book down?  Or did you groan in pain when you saw the next chapter was in the school timeline and realized you were in for an all-nighter?

Root Canal Done In One

My endodontist is a machine.  A five-foot, tiny-fingered, tooth-grinding machine.  Guess my problem was having a massive cavity inside the actual gum line, below the cavity my dentist could see even with his normal dental x-rays.  So...yeah, 3 hours in the chair as she cleaned it out, did a root canal, and built the whole core up so the dentist could finish the job later this month.

Good News:  I'm two appointments below where I thought I would be for the month.

Bad News:  I'm fucking super sore.  My jaw is a wreck.  My spine...heh.  Going to be in bed a couple days!

Happy 4th to you all.  

Fun Little Fact

Fun note from the FM1 readthrough.  This paragraph:

“I wouldn’t necessarily need to kill you.”  Annie B, back to licking her lips.  Winter clothes or not, the hungry look returned when she talked of me as a shell.  “You’d just . . . hold me for a while until I could find a suitable replacement.  It’s not painful . . . it can even be enjoyable.  Like an invisible friend.”

Was originally included because I planned to have a scene in FM4 where they had to do something similar so Anne avoided detection as a stowaway, but never found the right time to include it.  Always another novel, I suppose...