Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Maggie -- The beginning

I'm beginning work on Maggie.

This is all rough draft stuff here.
I'm not even sure I won't throw most of this away ...


8200 / 120000 words. 7% done!
Rough draft of MAGGIE

14 comments:

  1. Yay!!! So looking forward to learning more about Maggie! What a lovely mushroom!

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  2. Please don't throw it away! Maggie is definitely worth knowing more about!

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  3. Hello,

    So, I wandered over here from Sherry Thomas' page when she linked you you. Your page piqued my interest so I began to meander through your archives.

    Eventually I began to see stuff about Jessamyn and Sebastian. The names sounded so familiar and I realized I had read them before on Miss Snark's crapometer. I went and looked and sure enough, your synopsis was my very favorite and one of the very few I read all the way.

    Here's the thing, I remember being so sad when I read it that it sounded so good and I would never be able to read it. I was sure that if it did get published the names and title would be changed and I'd never find it. I didn't even think it would be worthwhile to look without more to go on.

    I can't tell you how happy I am that the book found me again and that I was wrong after all.

    Heartfelt congrats on your book. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of it now. :D

    ~Moth

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  4. Hi Precie --

    Mushroom?

    (jo looks blank)

    You know how there's this standard advice for newbies?
    Goes something like:


    "That your manuscript?"

    Beams. "Oh, yes."

    "This here's the first ... one, two ... three chapters?" Peels them off.

    "Right."

    Tosses chapters one, two and three in the trash. "Start the story here."


    Which is standard advice because everybody always starts the real story about the end of Chapter Three.

    You must picture me making this newbie mistake. For all the newbie reasons. There's 5000 words of disposable fluff up front that I just keep refusing to shave off.
    I'm fond of it.

    I keep taking it out and putting it back in.
    I am so weak.

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  5. Hi Tara --

    I am very disgruntled with Maggie and not working well.
    I do things like weed.

    As to the beginning.
    What it is ...

    I have been playing with the opening. I was going to have dreadful things happen to poor Maggie. So I needed some softer introduction so we didn't just plunge the reader into the middle of horror everywhichway.

    Then I decided I wouldn't have the horrors happen quite so badly,
    because I was horroring myself, me being a gentle soul and all.

    But because I'd wimped out, I didn't need the softer opening.
    But I still have it and I like it. It's sticking to the front of the story like taffy.

    So maybe we can just open with a little bit less than a huge bang. Sorta sliiiide in.

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  6. Jo -

    You may already know this, having a much more intimate association with your Amazon listings than I do, but...

    Did you know that copies of Her Ladyship's Companion are now going for $100+?!? (I noticed this when I logged on to preorder ML&S.)

    Glad I got my copy of HLC when I did. *g* Still need to find you at a book signing so I can get it signed, too. Any plans for a grand tour when #2 comes out? (Hint, hint...)

    And glad to hear Maggie's getting some time. I did enjoy meeting her and can't wait to know more.

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  7. Hi Moth --

    Oh Wow.

    Y'know ... Miss Snark was like this salon where all the glitterati congregated.

    I went to Sherry Thomas' blog and saw that she had Miss Snark listed on her links.

    So we'd both -- and you too -- and just about everybody else -- been reading her.
    Very strange feeling.


    Re Sebastian and Jessamyn -- and isn't this a good reason to give character's interesting names --
    I am blown away that you remember the synopsis.

    I'm going to have a real website pretty soon. A month? Six weeks? When I do I'll put an excerpt up from Jessamyn and Sebastian -- which is Lord and Spymaster.

    I am especially please with that title because it is not cluttered up with any least relationship to the story. It's kinda an 'ideal' title that floats around in space and doesn't relate to any earthy reality.


    Re: S.T. --
    I'm reading Priv. Arr. very slowly because it has all my 'writer mind' tentacles stretched out full and I keep hitting sentences and rereading them three or four times and thinking about them and this is no way to speed through a piece of fiction, is it?

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  8. Hi Jenny --

    This whole HLC price is just one of those silly things. Folks are not actually paying that. It's just some weirdo asking that.

    And it certainly isn't worth it. No.

    I think I said somewhere else that HLC is honest work and I'm not ashamed of it. But it was the very first fiction I wrote.
    This (cough) shows.

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  9. Jo -

    Well, it's 8 weirdos, actually. *g* On Amazon. Alibris has it for the bargain price of $78.50. Are people paying that? Dunno. To me it shows your popularity, like someone tracking down a first-run copy of Nora Roberts' first book or something. Before SL came out, HLC was going for $0.99 - not $99.00. But then you became somewhat of a sensation. *w*

    I found mine on *cough* PaperBackSwap, way back when. I did enjoy it, and having seen snips of your work on the forum (this being before SL released) I could definitely see your style shining through. I also love authors who set their books in the same world, wherein we meet the same sets of characters, even if only briefly. So Giles' cameo in Sl was neat for me. *g*

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  10. Hi Jenny --

    It was good practice ... going back and looking at Giles-the-adult-hero as a teenager. Trying to see where his relationship with Adrian came from. I know what he became. What kind of fifteen-year-old was he?

    Hmmm .... Working this out, this makes Giles the younger son of an Earl and the son of Galba's sister. I haven't looked this up, but I think he's an 'Honorable'.

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  11. I will read anything you write! :D

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  12. Hi Katie(babs) --

    You are so kind.

    When I find myself staring at this two-liter chaos sitting in a file called
    'Early Chapters of Maggie'
    I will think of your words and refrain from complete discouragement.

    The night is always darkest just before
    something explodes,
    says I.

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  13. Ah, I can't remember who at the Forum coined "mushrooms"...maybe Diana G...peripheral characters who are so interesting they sort of demand that more of their own story be told. :)

    And even if those 5k words don't stay in the beginning, I hope they find a place somewhere in Maggie's story...I trust your fondness for pieces.

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  14. I have apostrophied without cause. In one of the replies I say ...

    To give character's interesting names.

    Ouch.

    Why would I do something like that? I swear ... there are little mean trolls that live in the progamming code who sneak in and put mistakes in folks' messages.

    I am so grateful to my copyeditor. She catches this stuff in the mss.

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