I don't know. But I think it's weird I suck at sex scenes, but I write kickass archery and hand-to-hand: sword, staff, fists, whatever comes to hand. My sons took martial arts and they and their friends used to practice at our house. I've done some study on the philosophy of kendo, bushido, jeet koon do, etc., but I've never actually practiced.

I just think it's the bloodthirsty side of my pacifist self coming out in the writing.

Is it cool or lame that I get heated up writing sex scenes?

Normal?

Chapter 11 is done. That puts me at about 73,000 words. My wife found Chapter 10 to be problematic. We communicated in the same house via E-mail to leave a recorded conversation and notes have been written. There is minimal impact to the plot so I'm plunging onward for now.

As an interesting note, I think I mentioned I had a character that might end up having a ambiguous sexual orientation where gayness is left as an exercise for the reader. One of my wife's notes about that very character was to the effect of "Hey, wouldn't it be interesting if this character swung both ways." I found that highly amusing.

::sigh::

I just killed a massive darling to the tune of 1700 words. Needed to be done, but damn, I love this scene.

but damn, I love this scene.

Sounds great.

I might get to killing a character today. I had killed one, but since then have decided to yank the character from the story entirely. His death had so little impact that there didn't seem to be a need for the character at all.

Sounds great.

Heh. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Killing a darling means I deleted a scene. One I really, really love, but when it came down to it, didn't really advance the plot beyond a small (if key) point. I kept a paragraph that got across what I wanted and cut the rest, wailing and gnashing my teeth the entire time.

Now, I think I shall rent my clothing and go cover my mirrors.

Heh. I don't think it means what you think it means.

I totally got that wrong. I'm finding I've squashed a number of scenes I though would be cool, but didn't contribute anything.

It's sort of what Jennifer Crusie talks about with her "Don't Look Down" draft. You just get it all out, and then you go back and figure out what goes where, what fits, what's missing, etc. I never used to do that, but I had a book that took me three false starts before I figured out what it was about.

I do a little writing for my job - straightforward items in our monthly magazine - but I find that the first and biggest step is just getting something written. Editing and fixing up can come later, but getting that first version written is the biggie.

It's sort of what Jennifer Crusie talks about with her "Don't Look Down" draft. You just get it all out, and then you go back and figure out what goes where, what fits, what's missing, etc.

That sounds like what I'm doing right now. My wife is reading it behind me and I know some changes I'll be making based on her comments, but I'm just making a few notes and going forward.

Chapter 12 is done. I've got about 79,000 words now. Sounds like 11 and 12 will need some tweaking but no massive problems. I love the ending of chapter 12. One character gets separated from the rest of the group and is assumed dead. She'll drop out of the story for a bit.

I started chapter 13 and two major characters get killed in rapid succession. Unfortunately I'm not entering a place where I don't have a good visualization of what comes next before hitting my mental image of the end of 14.

From the stuff I have deleted or am planning to delete, I'm thinking my final word count is going to be about 150,000 words instead of 200,000 words. It might grow a bit in revision though. There seem to be more notes about adding more detail or additional scenes than taking stuff out.

I got further into chapter 13 yesterday. I put in somewhere around 1500 words net. I have to delete the last bit I did yesterday because it totally did not work for the characters involved.

I need to do a minor fix of something I wrote last night as well. This is the problem of have all day to think about what I wrote the night before.

This morning while on the treadmill I think I figured out the rest of chapter 13 and part of chapter 14 as well. Chapter 15 has been figured out for awhile, but it is going to be really short. After that, just selected scenes and major plot points with foggy places in between. The ending I know really well, but I think there needs to be a little bit of epilogue and I don't have that all figured out yet.