Partners in Time: The Series

I've been scribbling lots of notes lately for PIT6. Part of this is fleshing out the bare bones plot in my head, part of this is fleshing out some new characters. There's something about using a favorite pen and scrawling little notes on a blank sheet of paper. That act of brainstorming tends to be more productive to me than sitting and typing it all out on a computer. You cannot scribble diagrams and charts really easily on a WP program. And I think there must be some kind of kinetic thing for me in the act of pen moving on paper.

Beyond scrambled notes, I've really not been doing much on this "break" before I get the feedback for PIT5 late next month. My job has been demanding most of my attention. It's that time of year.

-KS

Although I'm technically "on a break" from my little PIT world (at least until late November), the characters are having none of it. I keep getting hit by snippets of past, present, or future scenes from the PITtyverse, which is...not hideous or anything. Just kind of amusing to me, I suppose. It does make me want to write, even though I know that a break is the best thing for me creatively and all.

I did take out a pen today to jot down some brainstorms I had running around regarding PIT6, though. I should probably type those up soon. I have names already for some new characters, some rough sketches of 'em. And some motivating factors (regarding Why Embark On a Time Travel Trip) down. I'm still settling on an exact date and location, but I do know it will involve California Gold Rush country in the 1870s. I live near all that stuff so the research should be more hands on than I've been able to do with PIT2 and PIT5. That excites me.

Anyway...the brain simmers with ideas though the fingers are stilled for a bit at getting them out.

-K

Wow, I totally forgot to post an update last week!

Anyway, The Beast of PIT5 went off to the Betas on September 4th. I've got 8 Betas this time -- 6 gals and 2 guys. All repeat Betas. They've got until November 22nd to read and feedback me on the book. This way I can work on the outlining for my changes before Winter Break, and actually start doing the revisions on my 2 week winter vacation a month later.

Until then, I'm keeping my writing muscles in shape by dabbling on fanfic for the first time in more than a year. My brain is also sketching out the plots of PIT6 and PIT7 in bits and pieces, which is always fun.

So it may be quiet in this blog for a couple months. Just sayin'.... :-)

-K

Yay, I finished rereading PIT5!

But I have a couple other things I want to mess with before it goes to the Betas, including writing the questions and suchlike for that.

But it will be off to them this weekend...oh yes, it will!

-K

Yes, the work goes on with PIT5, draft 1.1. I'm a couple chapters from the end, but it looks like I will meet my goal in getting this wrapped up by/over Labor Day weekend. It's crazy. Life has been insanely busy for the last 3 weeks, but I think (I hope?) that it will settle down from this point on.

Overall, I'm not satisfied with this story right now. This is typical, not unexpected, but I hope the Betas won't hold it against me! I'm taking notes of things to possibly change already, and when it gets to that point, hooboy, will things be overhauled! Why, you may ask, should I bother letting anyone see the story in the current state then? Simple. The feedback of my Betas helps inspire me where it comes to changes made. Suggestions they make are often incorporated into revisions, which may actually be why I have a high rate of returning Betas. (They know I use their suggestions and comments and do not just blow them off!)

Also, a break of a couple months often helps me return with a fresh perspective when it comes to tackling the story anew.

Hopefully by Friday or thereabouts I can get the draft in decent shape to send off to Betas. In the meantime, I need to fix dinner and then, possibly, I will tackle Chapter 22.

-K

I've gone through the first nine chapters so far in PIT5...I seem to get one or two done a day, depending on what time I get home from work. (This week, one is a pretty consistent number!) I'm hoping I can pick up the pace a bit this coming weekend, but since I'm also doing lesson plans, uploading files to an online classroom, etc and so forth...we'll see.

So far, the story seems a tiny bit awkward with the pacing, and some sections seem to drag. I'll see what the Betas say. (I've got 7 ready and waiting for the MS now.) I'm not sure how to fix the problem unless I compound two days to one or something. Hmmm.

I am also realizing I'll probably have to rewrite parts of the final chapter in the past to sort of conclude the arc of two of the local characters in the tale. I left that hanging...the fates. But maybe I should figure that out. Huh. More food for thought, perhaps to deal with post-Beta.

Still hoping this can go off to the Bs by Labor Day weekend. I've got two weeks. Doable.

In other news, I thought it would be fun to start up a creative writing club where I teach. I had seventeen students show up for the initial meeting!! Way awesome.

-KS

I read over the first two chapters of PIT5 today. So far, so good, though I'm noticing a lot of typos. (Typos of words being omitted or tense being off...typical if I write something out and don't reread over it. Since I'm reading over stuff I wrote last summer, I really have no remembrance if I reread it after I originally wrote it.) Nothing substantial has really changed so far...I suspect that stuff may do that a lot more in the later chapters.

I also noticed that the first two chapters are sort of long and don't really spend a lot of time in Sam and Meg's home time. (Or any in Sam's!) But, again, this was something different I was trying...I'll see how the Betas like it. (I've got 7 "for sures" on Beta-ing PIT5 so far, which is awesome. I have such awesome friends!)

Hopefully I can get through 1 chap/day (at least) during the week.

-KS

13 months...that's how long it took me to the day to finish Draft 1 of PIT5! Yep, I wrapped that puppy up this morning! Now I get to reread it and do the construction work that is going to be my life for the next year.

It feels good to have it wrapped up, but I know that the real fun is just beginning.

Anyway, Draft 1 clocked in at just over 97,000 words. I think that is currently the longest PIT story ever. It also opens differently, does not use the same POV in the final chapter as is used in the first and...yeah. I like to try different things, mix it up, stop things from getting too clichéd.

Tomorrow is Friday. I plan to spend a blissful weekend sleeping in late, polishing the beast, and possibly seeing The Time Traveler's Wife. I wish it was already Friday afternoon!

-KS

I'm not done with PIT5's first draft yet, despite the fact I go back to teaching tomorrow. (Yes, my district begins school tomorrow...as in the kids return to the classroom. It's crazy early!) However, I do feel confident that within 1 week, I'll get it done.

Currently I'm about halfway through the second-to-last chapter. I know exactly what is to happen; it's a matter of sitting down to focus and concentrating to write it all out. We all know that me writing on weekdays is a JOKE, in that after work I'm pretty much fried. But next weekend makes me optimistic. And, who knows, maybe I can get some stuff done this week. Maybe the first week won't be super grueling. (Yeah, right.)

After Draft 1 is done, I'll go back to reread and retweak and rewrite some stuff before the Betas get it. I'm hoping I can get it Beta-ready by September or the end of Labor Day...but we'll see, as always.

-K

The end is nigh! Or at least two chapters away. I have noticed that I tend to write gangbusters every other day or so, which is interesting. (Like, why can't I do it every day??) Today I felt that sense of power, almost of pent up writing fury, and I got the "writing high" where I lose all track of time, etc, which is always most pleasant.

Unfortunately, after today, my writing fun will be severely curtailed. This coming Friday my summer break ends, and in the days leading up to that I've got a lot of things to tackle from lesson plans to cleaning to oil changes. Fun! Or not. If I do a little each day, I should still save some of me to write, but we'll see by how much. There's also the ? of how good I am on my attention span every day.

I may start in on Chapter 23 tonight...I know what's gonna happen. It's a matter of focus...and I think I can focus enough to write the first part of it out.

-K

Back in California now, at rest from the stress of traveling (and living out of a suitcase for a few weeks), I'm trying to hunker down and write. My summer break is over two weeks from today, so I feel some pressure to actually be productive...a final push to finish Draft 1 of PIT5.

Strangely, I've actually been able to accomplish some work at home. The past two nights I've brewed some decaf coffee after dinner, shut off all televisions, fired up some classical music, and forced myself to write at least one page. I'm kind of amazed this is working...better than going to coffee shops has been as of late. I find the last gasp of summer break to often be filled with almost desperate creating, as if I'm trying to loot the palace before the cops show up. It's definitely the most rested I am of the whole year!

I think I have about 2.5 or 3.5 chapters left to write. Actually, I'll probably finish the current chapter I'm on tomorrow or Sunday. One more push and I think that will be done, since it's a meaty scene.

I started the beast on July 13, 2008, and I'm still not done. I hope I can get the first draft done by August 13th...we'll see. This birth has definitely been a laborous process, not at all like the smooth gush of PIT4.

-KS

PIT5 so far, in some numbers:

Numbers of Chapters So Far: 21

Number of Projected Chapters: 24

Current Word Count As Of This Second: 84,098

Date Began: 7/13/08

Days Left of Summer Break: 22.

Goal Of Draft 1 Being Done: 9/2009.

Still hope for a summer or fall release in 2010....

-KS

Written on Sun, July 12th, 5:17 P.M. PDT

As I sit here on a plane on a very very long day of traveling -- flying from England to Oregon involves about 24 solid hours of being in motion...this would be twenty-four hours to your body, not to any clock since you pass through no less than 8 time zones -- I find the current confines to be a great way to force me to write. Seriously. You are trapped in a seat for many hours; there is no Internet; there is no cell phone; and you need to do something to make the hours bleed into one another.

The additional factors of me being completely brain dead and conscious only by sheer force of will -- I am one of those people who is incapable of sleeping on planes, trains, or automobiles -- and a near constant stream of coffee also feed into it. Caffeine tends to sort of stoke the fires of creativity, and being so exhausted means it is easier for me to sort of slip into that hazy fantasy world I create.

In the two weeks I've spent in another country, I sucked in a lot of research. Yesterday, which seems like a lifetime ago, I got to check out the reproduction of Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London, which was super awesome; it fed into the ideas I have for a long-plotted PIT story that involves this, and I was able to get a lot of research -- both historical and personal experience -- done.

I also got to check out some real (old) castles and manor houses and see some real garderobes. (Seriously...they had discovered some and kept them as they were in the Tower of London...they were even marked as garderobes!) I got to have the experience of being a foreigner, of being in a position where people know from the moment you speak that you do not belong there, which can alter the way you are treated. (Also, I really really am no closer to faking any British accent than I was before I started, though after being in the country for going on 2 years, my sister-in-law can do a spot on impression.)

I also am getting the experience of being awake for more than 24 hours straight, fueled by coffee primarily, and suffering from a total mind warp experience of time lag -- er, I mean jet lag. Since I often push my characters in ways like this, I suppose it's par for the course that I have this experience on occasion to remind me how miserable it can feel. Ick.

I am trying to ignore the fact I felt like a total slacker these past two weeks since I did nothing with my writing...but I suppose churning out several pages in one sitting on these very long plane rides helps alleviate that. And there's the fact I was spending every day experiencing a variety of things that I planned to mine later in my writing.

At this point, though, my summer break is more than half over -- due to adjusting the beginning and end of semesters, we have this singular super short summer break -- and so this is adding a bit of self-pressure trying to get the book done before I go back to work on August 7th. (I'll be in Oregon another week-ish as well.) It may be a photo finish, or the first draft may not be done until after Labor Day. Urgh. So it goes, I suppose.

I started Chapter 21 today and already have 2 full pages down. With about 40% of my battery left, we'll see how much I can get done before I am forced to stop.

-KS

I've been traveling like crazy over parts of England this past week, and today my family hit up Warwick Castle. It's an old castle that has been bought by the same company behind those wax museum statues (Madamn Tussaud's) and they've tried to recreate Medieval England more or less.

In the course of exploring a lot of the rooms in the place, I came across a Real Medieval Bathroom. And I was delighted it looked just like the one I described in PIT2, which I'd done research about!

( The passage from PIT2, narrated from Sam's POV )

I snapped these two photos here, which I uploaded to Flickr with some notes: Medieval Toilets for Manor Houses & Castles

There are clearly some differences, but I was delighted things were so on the money with the research I had done.

It's always so awesome to discover things like that!

-K

Right now, I'm visiting England for the first time. Actually, this is the first time I've ever left the U.S. (aside from the 24 hour trip to Vancouver B.C. that my homeroom class took my junior year of h.s.) It's already given me scads of experiences that I can use in my writing, particularly the sense one feels when they are a foreigner. I mean, the second I open my mouth I think it's fairly obvious I am not from around here...if the way I dress and behave does not already give someone that impression. I've never had this experience firsthand before, so I'm trying to take a lot of mental notes and impressions for writing. TIme travelers get that sort of thing all the time, after all.

Between jet lag, spending time with family, and seeing a lot of sights, I've really been lousy with writing progress. On the flight over here on Saturday, I managed to hack out the whole of Chapter 20, which was awesome. Five pages in one sitting! But after that point I had drained my battery a lot and the layover before the super long flight (to England, which was 8 hours) didn't give me much time to suck up more power. I suppose I could think of it as I got five days worth of progress done at once.

Today my brother and his wife worked, so my mom and I were at their house all day. But I pretty much used that time to catch up on uploading photos, doing some reading about the destinations we're hitting this weekend, and catching up on news back home. The weekend will be quite busy, and I may not take my laptop with me at all.

My mom did ask me if, after what I've seen these few days, would I write PIT2 differently, since that was set in medieval England. I can't say I would. The biggest thing that shocked me is the sunrise and sunset this area has. Being summer, the sun is setting after 10 P.M. and rising around 3 A.M. PIT2, set in January 1191, the sun would probably rise late and set early.

Also, I am going to get so much awesome research done for PIT 7 while here, even though I'm years away from starting it. That probably sounds kind of cryptic, huh.

-K

With a working laptop again and being back in my home state, I feel in a better frame of mine to write. There's something about Oregon that tends to stir up my PIT world, quite likely because the characters live in the state and so much of my life in Oregon inspired so many aspects of my series.

Progress-wise, I'm creeping along. I am still getting more done outside a house than in it. When I stay with my parents, I tend to have no decent place to set up shop and be undisturbed, so it's better for me to leave and hit up a coffee shop in the area. I keep looking at my notes and scratching my head at how little is left of the story to write, though. Huh.

Hopefully I can finish the current chapter soon...maybe before my mom and I fly to England at the end of the week! We'll see.

-K

The first week of summer break is usually wasted for me. I'm a person of routines and when my routine is disrupted I tend to flounder and flail a bit. Fortunately, it takes maybe a week to get a new routine established...unfortunately, this whole summer is going to be pretty unusual. Oh well.

I've made very slow, halting progress on PIT5 since school let out. My brain honestly feels like it's stuffed with cotton and it's hard for me to focus and plunge into the story. I think part of this does have to do with an inconsistent writing routine (as well as having my MO with writing totally disrupted and derailed since early May, when my laptop died...fortunately, next week, I will finally have my new one in my hands).

Writer's block, to me, does not happen too often...and even when it sort of does, it's not a block per se...I can write, I know where I'm going, but the zest and enjoyment is sapped from the activity. And that blows.

I've been kind of dreading the long solo drive (and a transatlantic flight) that lies in wait for me in the next week or so...but now I am wondering if that will be a great time to let my brain wander undistracted and force me to focus. I also hope that being in England in a few weeks and checking out some things for a future PIT storyline will also bring back my zest.

I could still get the rough draft of PIT5 done by August, which is my goal...we'll see.

-KS

With school now out for 7 weeks, I have some free time. Time that I can spend writing.

But not having a laptop is a downer. This is the best I can do when I want to get out of my bedroom/office and work:



For some reason, I am more easily distracted from writing when I use a pen and paper than I am with a laptop. I kept pausing to people-watch and sort of zone out. Huh.

-KS

Today, feeling stifled in my room and at my iMac, I went to a coffee shop with the intent of sitting outside and writing by longhand.

I forgot how much of a pain this can be. The weather was great, save for the breeze that kept trying to whip away my papers. And I kept wishing I could scroll back and check something, but alas....

I get my new laptop two weeks from tomorrow. I am counting the days, as I am counting the days left in this school year. (Four, BTW.)

-K

Wow. So last week I was hideously bad and unproductive, writing-wise. I blame burial of essays to grade at work. Seriously, I felt that I just was grading non-stop all last week when I wasn't tweaking lesson plans, teaching, having meetings with parents, etc. Also, due to the state budget woes -- California is way in the red -- there's been added stress because my job next year is in danger...again.

Next Thursday is the last day with students, and next Friday is our last day. So the end is in sight! After that, my output should, I hope, shoot up tremendously!

I did get a page written finally today, though. I started on the weekend a sort of "false start" for Chapter 19. Then I decided, feh, let's time jump an hour or so and summarize instead of walking through everything. (I do wonder how much cutting will be done on PIT5 eventually...the draft is probably 75% of the way done and I'm 75,000 words in. I believe all the prior PIT books fell in the 80,000 - 90,000 range.) That helped my little patch of writer's block because I was...I am...so sick of the current event in the story and ready to move on to the next! Finally, finally, I am creeping towards that!

Beyond that, no real updates or news to share. And I'm still title-less. I suspect PIT5 will not be bestowed an original non-numeric moniker until after the first Beta read. Funny only because I've got a great title set up for PIT6.

-K