Things are proceeding nicely. I’m at 2900 words for today, and I may or may not get more done tonight, but Lime and I have a dinner meeting, and I think I’ll go climb the mountain and grade a little in the three hours until then. As for the breakdown, it’s pretty round in terms of numbers: I put in 2300 words on To the Happy Country… and 600 words on what I’m currently calling “McWar” (though I suspect it’ll have a new name when I finish it). I’m not sure why, but working on both things — something very long, and something relatively short, is working in some ways.
I’m sure that “McWar” is going to need some serious editing later — I think the somewhat longer-voice of the novel style is rubbing off in places I can’t see right now, and also because the story is still uneasily settling into being somewhere between a re-treatment of an old and somewhat ineffective trunk story of mine titled “Like Gandhari” (funny idea, boring execution) or something new and much more insane, a kind of cross between Fight Club and McLibel and No Logo and something out of P.K. Dick’s most gnostic fantasies — but in other ways, it’s working well for me. I’m consciously switching between telling a very long story, and telling a brief, short one, and the energies of both are helping one another along.
As for To the Happy Country…, I’m working on the Prologue right now, which is interesting. I’m swimming through the childhood of the two main characters in my story, who won’t meet until somewhere far into the story, when they will be enemies fighting for (basically) the same thing. Their childhoods are so different, though there are a few common threads.
A glimpse, you say? Maybe later this week, when I have more done. I’m thinking about 7,000-8,000 words for the Prologue, and then I’ll be jumping ahead to after the stuff that happens in the novella, I think. If I keep my pace, I’ll be on to that section by Thursday, and I’ll pick a bit from the Prologue (or maybe it’s just section 1) to share.
Till then…