Part of it’s stress. As July goes on, I know I’m coming up on less money fast, and I don’t know how the hell I’m going to live on 25% less income. I don’t know how I live on what I get now, what with my extravagant lifestyle of dinner-parties and world travel.

And we’re all in the same damned boat, I guess. So I’ll stop whining. You row, I’ll bail.

…got any shark repellant?

Stupid muses.

So now here we are. I said I’d decide when I got all the changes input.

Do I go back to the beginning, now that I have a better idea what I’m doing with this story? Do I go on from where I am? Do I go do something else?

Here’s the thing. July looms ahead, and the thought of editing anything ever again makes me cringe. I have, for serious, been editing one thing after another for most of six months. I dunwanna do any more!

So I’m pondering…a plotfest. Maybe even some–gasp!–writing. Fidelis needs a second volume. I could, though I have only the vaguest inklings of a plot, conceivably come up with enough to write 35K in July.

First, though, I want to re-plot Ben. Now is the time to fix anything and everything, and I’ve got it all fresh in my head now. What works, what doesn’t, what needs to be burned at the stake…

Seriously. I kept removing stuff like “he asked the question he’d been wondering, since she was in a talkative mood.” Because I was afraid the reader hadn’t noticed him wondering, I guess, or that all that dialogue Eve was spouting might not make it clear she was in a talkative mood…

Augh. But anyway. You have your orders, guys/voices/muses/madness. We need to get some things done.

Nope. Though I tried. Spent two days poking at proofs, and now copies of Taro’s book and of Rafe’s book are winging their way towards me. I used mostly the same cover for Rafe’s book, but the pic of Eve wasn’t appropriate, and I didn’t have a blurb handy, because I’ve never queried Rafe. (Never edited him, either…)

So I put in my warning.

Warning!

This writer will write, pretty much on a whim: sexual situations, strong language, violence, talking about sexual situations and violence in strong language, bisexual persons, transgender persons, homosexuals and the people who love them, heterosexuals who may find love too, pansexuals who get laid more than the rest put together, black magic, white magic, sacrifice-a-chicken magic, evil dudes, evil babes, guys with wings who are not angels, possible angels, demons, aliens, geese, persons of every ethnicity, ability, orientation, religion, or gender she can respectfully cram in there, gods who aren’t yours (who have sex), gods who have (or try, anyway) to have homosexual sex, gods who don’t have sex, may include mention of YOUR god,  characters who have suffered evilness, Boys (and Girls) Behaving Badly, ANGST, BOYSMUT, sexual situations, unsportsmanlike behavior, and squid.

Probably not all in one story.

Probably.

Now I stumble back to editing. Yay.

Fifteen pages of updates in the computer today. Also swimming, laundry, and dishes. Even cooked dinner! (you do NOT want to know how bad for you boxed mac-n-cheese is, especialy when you put hot dogs in it. >_> )

Two years ago today, in my quest to avoid whatever I was working on, I added up what I’ve written over the years. Talking about Ray Bradbury’s million words, it went like this:

295,000 words for Eve
60,000 in Donte’s book
83,000 Taro
113,000 Rafe
64,000 Keen
51,000 Damsel
61,000 Joss
37,000 Xmas
17,000 on miscellaneous stories

780,000 words in Eve’s galaxy. Not counting notes or false starts or cut scenes. But don’t be disappointed yet. Flame is 38,000 words. Fidelis is 6,000. Melissa…I dunno, forty some pages not in the computer. And somewhere back there is Natalia (I will find her again!) and Shelly (thankfully buried.) Both at least a hundred pages long (Shelly more probably two hundred…) Manes, complete at sixty pages and so good, but sadly lost…

But let’s forget those. If I don’t have the words in my computer, they don’t count. How about that.

Think that will keep me from my million words? Than let’s go ahead and add in my fanfiction. All 186,000 words of it.

780,000
186,000
038,000
006,000

1,010,000

Oddly enough, here I am avoiding work again. So let’s see how many new words I have since then, shall we? Not counting the (zomg endless!) editing yet.

Hiro Book I:               78,622
Hiro Book II:              53,651
Embrace the Beast:  12,641
Not Gay:                          5,017
Fidelis (minus 6K) :  32,295
Barefoot Assassin:       1,853
Ben (new scenes):      10,961
Various bits:                   6,071

201,111

100,000 words a year? That’s not too bad, especially when you consider that yes, there was a lot of jumping around, but also: I finished (meaning, got to the end of the first draft) four works-in-progress in that two years. That’s two novels begun and finished, one short story, and Fidelis’ wordcount increased 8x to do it. Sure, I could do better–but remember, much of that time I spent editing. In the last two years I’ve edited:

Ben twice
Hiro Book I
Fidelis
Taro
Joss twice

Seven novels. While working full time, raising a kid on my own, and submitting at least a few queries.

Damn. That’s…not too bad?

Along with stumbling about trying to fix the implausible plot in this book, I’ve flailed quite a bit about Ben’s flaws. In the first draft, the only thing about him that could be called a flaw was that he cared too much about others. Where “too much” = “got himself in lots of trouble.” Not that he took over their lives or tried to harass them into being safe or stuff that actually looks like a flaw…Yeah. Can you say “Gary Stu?”

He grew, though, through the other books I wrote. Going back–well, it’s been something of a struggle coming up with what Ben would be like (if not perfect), back before all the things I’ve done to him over the years. I would have said of all my characters, Ben was in the top two of those I know best (because Eve? She’s in my brain. Srsly), but he didn’t want to come clean.

I think, maybe, I’ve got it now. I know that Ben has always wanted to be a doctor. His father died when he was five, and he formed that goal then. But I think…somewhere along the way of working his butt off and getting into med school early and being something of a Wunderkind, he lost sight of why he wanted to be a doctor. His compassion and caring is buried under a layer of self-centeredness, of privilege, and yes, some prejudice. He does come from one of the oldest families in the Union.

A month or so with Eve, though, will strip that veneer of asshole right off.

So. I’m putting in the edits I’ve already made, to avoid confusion. (got thirty pages done today!) I’ll decide when I get to the end of that if I’m editing on, or starting at the beginning again, or just letting it go to ruminate upon a bit longer.

Whatever I do, if I’ve really figured out Ben, I’ve made huge progress.