Development diaries, 1-12-2015: None of you fuckers loved me enough to tell me

theClaimDev

Spent most of the weekend indoors with the kids, although they got out a bit on Sunday afternoon when it was warmer. My son R. is 15 months old—old enough to get into, over, or around almost anything, young enough to have at best a schematic sense of what one does not do if one wishes to continue breathing, which means he needs constant watching. My daughter U. is a very loving sister and daughter, but she gets stir-crazy pretty easily, which means she needs pretty regular amusing. And their naps are out of phase, which makes it very difficult to get out of the house until mid-afternoon as a rule. Anyway, this all makes for a weekend where everyone gets wound a bit tight. Definitely a relief to return to Metu and Jagaag today.

Work is still slow, but not nearly as bad as Friday—I took an hour for lunch and exercise (kettlebell swings, pushups, goblet squats) and still was done before 4:00. Possibly that’s down to resting my writing brain on the weekend, possibly due to using the Noisli productivity mix? I didn’t make up my 800-word arrears from Friday, but I hit quota for today. Tomorrow is going to be a shitshow—we have stuff at the kids’ school until 10:00, then dentist appointments at 3:00. I may or may not get up at 5:00 and see if I can cram a thousand words in before sunrise. I really want to keep the ball rolling.

Most of my process thoughts are notes today. I’m noticing that my diction varies wildly, even (especially?) in the characters’ speech—sometimes they sound quite contemporary, sometimes they’re using standard Western diction, sometimes they’re in Charles Portis-esque heightened Western diction. The latter is what I’m striving for, but I’m not sure I can do it at this pace. I’m also not sure I can go back and paint it on like varnish. Que sera, sera.

Chapter 3 is maybe just a little over budget? I’ve got 4900 words in it now, but probably Kem and Esker’s conversation from Chapter 1 will go in, which will add a few hundred words. I deviated from the beats here—ended on Mayet’s disappearance, rather than on Ruth arriving. This may necessitate an edit of my “outlining” post.

I think I like “prefectures” better than “provinces.” I still haven’t figured out how Esker gets his swordspear back from Ma Sennu. I should get the math texts mentioned in Ch. 4 to Esker in Ch. 1 or 3. Ciudad is feminine and none of you fuckers loved me enough to tell me.

I honestly can’t believe I’ve sustained my output this far. One part of me is saying “What a great start to 2015!” The other part is saying “Why didn’t you do this for a whole year back when you didn’t have kids or a wife or expenses?” I suppose it’s a psychological necessity to be a bit fatalistic about this stuff. Maybe I wasn’t ready for this level of planning and commitment when I was 23, or 25, or whatever. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like this has always been in me, waiting.

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