I rather like Beatrice because it wouldn't imply ruthlessness, making it much more interesting when she first rolls right over someone.

Sara, I love the second one too.

I have had no drabbles lately. Maybe this time I'll find one.

I'm now leaning toward Philippa, even though I like Eleanor, too, because if we have another daughter in a year or two, we might name her Eleanor, but Philippa sounds funny with our last name.

Sigh. ION, I hope writing plotty action scenes eventually gets easier for me. I just tried to pass what amounted to handwavium by my CPs, because I needed a scene where one of my protagonists is captured by his enemies to work out a certain way that isn't necessarily the most logical way for the enemies in question to behave. The two CPs who are least alike, the ones where if they agree on something, I know it's a problem, have both weighed in to say, "Um, your villain's plan makes no sense at all." I think I've found a way around it, but it's going to be tougher, I'm going to have to completely rewrite the last 20 pages of my WIP (after spending the entire week rewriting earlier scenes), and I'm going to have to lose a sequence I was particularly fond of because there's no longer a way to shoehorn it in.

Sigh. As of May 1 I'll have been working on this manuscript for a full year, and I'm at least 150 pages from the end, probably more like 200-250. Someone please assure me I'll finish this thing someday...

I've known a couple of people that have been going to RWA meetings for more than a couple of years and have A) written maybe a total of a few chapters of their WIP and B) have no plans to finish their WIP. Ever.

You'll finish, Susan. You're doing the work and putting in the effort, when you can. There might be times when a couple of chapters pour out of as if you're possessed, and also times when three pages take forever to get through, but you will finish.

Susan, I have some thoughts on the "book per year" problem.

The answer is this: as long as you have no advance, and you are working on spec Na Ga Na Ha Pen. You can't produce a book a year, work full time and take of a kid. You can't even do it after your first sale, cause that will be of a book you have already written. You can produce good professional books in those circumstances, but NOT a book a year. The first time you get an advance on an unwritten book, thus are paid for some of your labor in advance, you can step up your writing schedule to the point you produce a book a year. Because when you get to that point, even if you can't eliminate your day job, you can cut your hours. But that is what it will take. When you can spend half the time you currently spend on your day job (commute included) then you can get up to a book a year. And that will happen the day someone pays for your work in advance.

Gar, I think that's a really big, if well-intended, oversimplification.

Some people can work full-time and write two books a year. I had authors like that. Some people can get paid enormous advances, quit their jobs, and still wind up taking years to finish a book. It's a highly personal thing, really. And money is only part of the equation.

Every writer has a pace that suits them, whether they're writing full-time or not. Most of the time, there's no getting around it, either. So much goes into it -- whether you write a clean first draft and plot ahead of time, whether your first draft winds up being a problem-solving process that you wind up throwing out when you hit on the real plot, whether you self-edit as you go or wait to revise until the end.

It also takes a while to figure out what to expect from yourself, and how long you can reasonably expect to take writing a book of a certain length and type.

Yeah, I don't think the problem here is that I'm incapable of producing a sufficient page count to write a book in a year. While the WIP is currently only 265 pages long, I've actually written at least 400 pages, probably more. I just keep having to backtrack and rewrite, and that's what's driving me crazy. With my previous manuscripts, I occasionally had to rewrite the beginning several times before it really clicked, but then I'd hit a groove around Chapter Four/page 60 where I could just power through to the end. I still haven't hit the cruise point on the WIP yet, and I'm on Ch. 15!

I think I'm being too hard on myself, but not in expecting a certain level of output or believing I'm capable of a book per year. My real problem is that I've made a radical change in genre, but I haven't given myself enough time to learn the new skills I need. The WIP is a better fit for my voice and I don't feel like I'm writing under a curb rein anymore, but I'm not used to juggling so many plot threads simultaneously, and I'm even finding it a challenge to have the subtle development of a male friendship as my main character arc instead of an overt m/f sexual/romantic relationship. So I keep blundering into dead ends and having to retrace my steps, and it's frustrating. I think it'll get better with experience, but meanwhile it's slowing me down.

Point taken.

So I keep blundering into dead ends and having to retrace my steps, and it's frustrating. I think it'll get better with experience, but meanwhile it's slowing me down.

But ... are you having fun with it? Because it should be just as much about enjoying the process as the finished product, really.

But ... are you having fun with it? Because it should be just as much about enjoying the process as the finished product, really.

Yes. My life exhausts me, of course, but this story is just damn cool, and I'm having so much fun with my protagonists. Well, two of the three, the ones who are grown men. The other is a nine-year-old girl, and writing a child protagonist in an adult book is more technical challenge than anything else at this point.

I think that's what it's like, absent Homicide rule 5, "It's good to be good. It's better to be lucky."