Bloody Sudoku Moments

Yup, it's that time again, and early this time. The old Sudoku moment.

I'm a recent convert to Sudoku, but thoroughly hooked nonetheless. Like anyone with a gambling/drinking/reading problem, I'm in it for those moments of triumph, those dizzying heights to which my soul soars when the numbers all come together and I let loose my mighty cry, "SUDOKU!"

And yeah, that can be embarrassing on public transport.

But for every dizzying high, there are the lows. You look at the field of numbers and realize that three can't possibly go there. But that means the five over here wrong too. It's not as bad as losing the rent on a horse, selling your wedding ring in a bar for more drinks, or reading the next Dan Brown novel, but it sucks.

My characters are little jabbermouths right now. My hero's turned out to be smarter than I would've thought, and the villains and schemers around him are prety crafty themselves. They're driving things along just fine without my help.

So of course, I forced a situation, and wrote myself into a corner.

I'm out of that corner now, but it did involve unraveling three chapters and going back to the last time I was on track.

We're once again up and humming...

Those Magic Moments

98,500 words

Yup, those magic... SUDOKU moments. I've had a few days of wheel-spinning, something's-wrong-here puzzlement. Now I know why.

Better yet, I know how to fix it.

Turns out I wrote my climax and half the denouement last week. So now I'm writing the bits that go before the climax so that I'll know what else needs to go in the denouement and be able to type The End.

That day is coming, and soon!

In other news, we went to Mount Grey, where the souls of the South Island's Maori dead go to start their journey to Cape Reinga and thence to the afterlife.

In our case, a pleasant walk and lovely picnic were had, this life adhered to.

The picnic was at Lake Janet:

Which offers lovely views:

I didn't bring my camera, so had to kype these off the web. Sorry.

67,000 words (Not sure where I'm going, but I'm getting there quick!)

I started this novel a few days after Agent Anne said she'd start selling Poison Door. It was something to keep me from checking my email twenty-three times a day. Normal response time is around three months, and freelance drawing just leaves me too much time to go crazy.

Now I'm around the six week mark, both for sale and work-in-progress, and I'm not sure which makes me crazier.

But it's a happy sort of crazy. I'm chuddling along (yes, chuddling -- it's a perfectly cromulent word) with my various pursuits, and each one brings a tiny bit more joy into my life.

Still back in the early days. I'm adding, adding, adding stuff I missed before. I know one hell of a lot of it will come out (or more likely, over half of what I've written in the last month won't make it), but it's part of the process for me. I flail a lot, especially in the beginning. No worries.

I'm really in this first draft to see how the story turns out. But I'd gotten up to Chapter 40-something (my chapters are really short - about 1000 words on average) and had a 'Sudoku Moment'. That's the sinking feeling where you realize you went wrong somewhere, and you don't know where.

Instead of realizing to sixes couldn't fit on that one line, I realized Sarah was meeting up with a character didn't belong in the book nohow. But he was in something like three or four scenes. And he was doing important stuff. The guy had a bit of weight.

Dammit.

So back I went, knocking stuff around, looking for other characters to pull his weight if he left the story. And that's when I realized I had a couple of characters who *really* needed to be up to more (villains, of course -- lots n lots of villains in my work). I'd been thinking Maryanne would end up being deleted, but I realized she really had a LOT more to do. More writing....

This isn't my first Sudoku Moment in this book. Earlier, I noticed my Big Nasty Villain kept trying to be all noble. And it pissed me right off. I made my peace with the character by letting Baker know he might have his day in the sun sometime, but it wasn't this story. I rewrote Chapmann into the role, and man, is he a nasty little shithead. And he keeps getting worse!

I still don't know who's going to take Lerner's weight. Right now, it's not the important question. Right now, Helen and Maryanne have finally opened up to me, and I'm listening.