THE DAY

I remember the first time a resident taught me how to do a subcuticular stitch.  It was so bloody cool.  It’s also difficult to do well, but the idea you close a wound by hiding the stitches.  You do that by using a very straight, thin needle, instead of those curved needles you see in movies and on TV, and hiding the knot by going in deep into the dermis then coming up more superficially, sliding that needle just under the epidermis, before going deep again.  It’s hard to explain and much easier to demonstrate.

So that’s the challenge of stitching together a book.

See, the way the book has to end came to me today.  I turned it over a couple times in my head, looked at it from several different angles, walked away, thought about it, came back.  Of course, this ending–which is different from the way I thought it might end–means tweaking the beginning a bit (but only a little), and that’s okay.

Now comes the hard part: working backward to stitch where I am now to where I need to be.  It really is about stitching, too.  I know writers who skip over parts they don’t know and figure they’ll come back, write out of order . . . and good for them.  Doesn’t work for me.  I really have to see that straight line from beginning to end.

For me, this part of plotting is always tough because the middle of almost any book is messy, difficult, hard to navigate.  Story-telling has to seem and feel seamless, which means you get very good at throwing those subcuticular stitches.

Let’s just hope it works.  I only have a couple more days before I have to break off and start a short story.

 WRITING OUT LOUD

UNTITLED HORROR/SF BOOK

(Previously had 1500 in outline)
Day 1: 2400 (outline)         Day 11: 500                Day 22: 1000
Day 2: 2400 (outline)        Day 12: 1600              Day 23: 2300
Day 3: 2000 (outline)        Day 13: 1860              Day 24: 1270
Day 4: 2000 (outline)        Day 14: 1800
Day 5: 0 (Nu, I was busy)  Day 15: 1750
Day 6: 2400                         Day 16: 1400 (dang)
Day 7: 1500                          Day 17: 1690
Day 8: 0 (but a lot of          Day 18: ?250?
plotting and reading done)Day 19: 0
Day 9: 1500                          Day 20: 2200
Day 10: 1600                        Day 21: 2300

Blog Post:440
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What I’m Watching:
The Americans.
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What I’m Reading:
Gosh, so much, I can’t even remember.  I did start a new book on shamanism last night . . . Shamanic Worlds: Rituals and Lore of Siberia and Central Asia by Marjorie Mandelstram Balzer.  Pretty interesting stuff, though how much I’ll actually use, I really don’t know.  Also read about smallpox treatment and quarantine in Victorian England.
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What I’m Listening to:
News.  Nothing amazing, though that reusable rocket launch and return today was pretty darned terrific.  Stuck that landing like nobody’s business.