...now where did I leave that whip....

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

Hi. I've been hanging around here for a bit, have yet to post anything save for a few comments. No need to introduce myself, I'm not that interesting. Neither is Laurell, but hey, at least she's wankworthy--resulting in my first attempt at a blog-flog. Spare me if I'm bad at this. I'm not clever before coffee. I'm not clever after coffee, either, but the caffiene makes me too hyper to care.

Flog below the cut, LKH in bold, my own flaming lil' self...not-bold. Unbolded. Plain. Outside of those little tiggy-taggies, savvy? Whatever.

Tuesday, August 29: "Bread crumbs through the forest of edit[s]"
http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2006/08/bread-crumbs-through-forest-of-edit.html

I'll try to make this quick.

I'd be happier to hear these words if you were discussing the quick death of the series. Or a sudden desire to murder Jon.

It's been a very distracting morning and I've just gotten to sit down to work.

Am I the only one thinking that I don't want to know what was distracting her? "No, Jon, stupid, you have to wear your hair like THIS if you're going to pretend to be Edward--better. Okay, now go! Oh yeah...oooh....oooooh, I'm so wet....so tight, so wet, so tighty-whitie-wet, tight tight lite-brite ti--" ...okay, I have to stop before I make myself sick. Anyone else remember Lite Brites, or am I showing my age here?

But I realized that I'm using one of my tricks for keeping the plot and things going in a book.

1. If you have to "realize" that you're doing this, there's something seriously wrong with your methodology, though I'm probably pulling a Captain Obvious for saying so.
2. And what's this trick, O Wise Priestess of the Diety? Rearranging your post-its to change the order of events in the story? Keeping a 15-inch vibrator next to the desk? Copy-pasting the same sentence for five or six pages with one or two words changed? Using fucking spellcheck?

I've had a couple of scenes that had to be edited and changed, but were still necessary.

Wait...give me a second, my heart's palpitating. Goddamn woman, don't fuck with my pacemaker like that. We all know you don't edit a damn thing. Don't get me excited.

What I've been doing was to make notes on sticky notes and put them up near the computer so they are like the first thing I see when I sit down.

Like, really? They're, like, you know, the first thing you see, for sure, dude? Like, omgbejeezorz!

P.S. Either they are the first thing you see, or they aren't. Not "like the first thing you see". Dipass.

I don't have to stare at the computer screen and all those words and wonder how do I fix this?

Easy answer: when all else fails, kill it. Kill it with fire.

Yesterday at the end of the work day I knew how to fix it, so I left myself a note about what seemed so clear at the end of yesterday.

And yesterday at the end of the work day, you thought about what you were going to do tomorrow at the beginning of the work day, when you couldn't remember a damn thing you were thinking yesterday at the end of the work day, and reading what you wrote at the end of yesterday doesn't help today at the beginning of, the work day, because by the time the beginning of today comes, you've--oh, sorry, should it be "we've", am I treading on AnitaSue's toes here?--lost, everything, in a haze of, bad, sex.

Can't see the trees through the forest of dicks, hm? (Or "can't see the forest for the dicks", trips off the tongue more smoothly. Look, Laurell, editing isn't that hard. I just edited my post and fixed a few spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Point, click, fix. Come on, now. I'll give you a lolly if you give it a try. ........wait, gods, I shouldn't think about what that implies. Ew. Ewewewewew.)

Smart me.

~raises a hand...opens his mouth....then just shuts it again, shaking his head~ ....too bloody easy.

A few days back I actually made a numbered outline on a large sticky note, so I could follow my literary bread crumbs through the forest of edits.

Just so you know: the Brothers Grimm are, at this very moment, rolling over in their graves. There are wet schlopping sounds. You know, mud and rot and mire and such. Not the sort of wet schlopping sounds you're used to, LKH, so stop looking so eager.

Someone please just mail this woman a notebook. Please. Gods, get me her address, I'll do it. A couple of dollars to send her a clue would be worth it.

I know, I'm breaking that never edit until it's a first draft rule, but I know I will finish this book. I know that somehow I'll muddle through to the end. I won't loose courage or strength before the end.

Oh, Louie, Louie, always whining, Louie...

...wait, wrong hack. Oops, sorry.

You know, I can't say I'm a full fan of the "never edit until you've finished the first draft" rule (which I suppose she was trying to say--again, Laurell, you have serious conflicted issues understanding what is and what will be), but I'm just relieved to see that some editing is going on. Maybe. Possibly. For all we know her idea of editing is to castrate the meat of the plot to leave room for all the waving johnnies.

Now go back and edit your blog with the correct spelling of "lose". ~twitches--can we say "pet peeve", people?~

And the rewrite of the scene where we have a death, well, that changed the interaction with the police that had already been partially written. So one change has dictated others.

It's called Newton's Third Law, biatch.

Now stop complaining. Christ. You'd think you were the only author that ever had to rewrite a scene. I do it every damn day. I did it this morning. Look. ~holds up one arm~ My little emo wrists aren't bleeding, now, are they? You'll live. Stuff a sock (or Micah's dick) in it and choke on it.

But if I had to, I could finish the book and simply know that I'd need the dialogue changed in this chapter.

Uh-huh. We get the point. Seriously. Move on.

But I know how to fix it, fix it today, and be back to the action tomorrow.

Maybe this is because I'm rereading Stephen King's Dreamcatcher right now, but I just started thinking we can do it, yes we can-can, yes we can, yes we can...

...whaaaat? It's kind of catchy. Maybe. "I know how to fix it, fix it today! Oooh, I'm jonesin' for a plot, in the very worst way..."

Oh, stop looking at me like that. I'm just trying to distract myself from envisioning what screamity-screaming sexual horrors she defines as "action". ~shudders~

But often when I am having to edit as I go I do lists of changes at the end of the day so that in the morning what seemed so clear hasn't vanished into the haze.

~snaps awake~ Wha? Oh...sorry, my eyes glazed over somewhere around as "as I go I do". Wake me up when that sentence actually makes sense. I tried to think of how to fix it with appropriate punctuation, but my Mighty Mighty Grammar Skills refuse to even process that mess.

I think she's trying to say is, "Often, when I have to edit as I go, I do lists of changes at the end of the day--so that in the morning, what seemed so clear before hasn't vanished into the Black Hole of Anita's Snatch". But she could just as easily be saying, "But often when I am having, to edit, as I go I do lists of changes, only I really do them, at the end of the day, because time, folds, around me, as, the high, frequency of Anita's, screams has disrupted the space-time continuum, so that the haze of this morning, which is this morning's haze, is also, yesterday."

Are sentences like these where she steals all those abused commas from?

Trust me, plotting is like getting ideas, if you don't write it down, sometimes it goes away.

Plotting is like getting ideas.

Plotting.....is like getting ideas.

Well slap my bottom and call me Bessy (though I like it better when you call me Stella, Daddy), ah didn't know that!

Aaaaaand I'm done. ~a little snap, and he's gone~

Comments

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

one of my tricks for keeping the plot and things going in a book

"Keeping the plot" -- WTF? LKH can't FIND a plot, much less KEEP one going. I can't believe she has the nerve to talk about plotting like she knows what it is and does it all the time.

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

How did she ever manage to make a coherent book in the first place?

[thesaneminority.livejournal.com]

Your flog is awesome! I especially liked the line about the forest of dicks. *sporfle*

Do you think we can jail her for grammar and puntuation abuse?

[windiain.livejournal.com]

Now go back and edit your blog with the correct spelling of "lose". ~twitches--can we say "pet peeve", people?~

So much more than a pet peeve. Funnily enough, I just posted to my own LJ about the issue. The bloody woman has got me questioning whether I using the correct spelling each time I write it now. *stabs*

LKH HAS RUINED MY LIFE!!!!

Her sticky note method bothers me. Sticky notes aren't exactly renowned for their stickability, are they? It probably explains the continuity fuck ups. There are all these helpless little plot points and character notes that have fluttered off of her wall and slipped down behind her desk. The poor things now lie there in obscurity, collecting dust, mourning the stories that could have been. Micah's character post-it has ended up there, too. See, once upon a time he had two post-it notes. One for his schlong, one for his character.

Actually, this may explain where Clive Perry vanished to...

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Use of Newton's Third Law = YOU WIN THE INTERNETS!!!

Oh dear god, I heart you so much right now. IF not for the geekery then for the undead Grimm Brothers and a sneaky Usual Suspects reference.

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

I question the loose/lose thing, too, but not just because of her. It's as if half the bloody internet doesn't know the proper usages, and when you're so inundated with the incorrect one day-in, day-out, it makes you stop and think, "Wait...wha? This is right, isn't it?"

My monitor is peppered with post-it notes, but they're all for minor things that aren't intended to have lasting value. A phone call I need to make tomorrow, something I need to fix on my second job before logging on the next day, etc. They're going to fall off. If they don't fall off, I'm going to get sick of the rainbow paper parade and rip the buggers off. I don't see how she can actually write cohesive character and plot points on a 3x3 piece of paper. I've got notebooks coming out the ass for my novels; stacks of them. I take one with me everywhere and jot little things down, then later transcribe them to a DarkRoom document where I flesh them out, save them, and sometimes print them and store them in a three-ring binder in the case of computer failure. That way I don't lose things, and I'm not limited to a tiny space and crabbed handwriting to cover character and plot depth.

See, once upon a time he had two post-it notes. One for his schlong, one for his character.

Bad you. You made me snort into my coffee. That's a waste of caffiene, dammit.

As far as Clive: we all know that at this point, if a character disappears, it's because Laurell/Anita lost an imaginary argument with her imaginary friends, and she couldn't force him to fuck Anita--not even in her head.

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

...I...er...aim to please? ~chuckles~ Thanks, I think?

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

Well, you have to remember that a few synapses in her brain got crossed and now she thinks that plot = bad sex.

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

Thanks. ~laughs~ I'm just trying not to picture a forest of dicks. You'd think that'd be heaven for an out-and-out queer, but the idea's just giving me the willies (no pun intended). It's like the Pink Elephants on Parade song and animation (which gave me nightmares as a child), but sub out the prancing cocks of Anita's harem with their single gaping, hollow black eye.

...aw, fuck, now the nightmares are going to come back.

I'd love to jail her for something, but the idea has two flaws:

1. She's going to say that she likes the handcuffs, just to try to appear goth and hardcore. And we'll keep hearing about it for months.
2. Lots of prison inmates write novels. She'll start another book in which Anita is set up for murder and sent to jail, and her mystical sex-fu turns all the hardened prison dykes (and even the not-so-hardened prison lasses) into men with giant cocks and special magic powers that they absorbed from having sex with her. They'll have orgies up against the bars. The guards will be overcome by that-fake-French-word and will join in, thus giving Anita an opportunity to escape and ruining any chances for plot that the story might have had.

....maybe I should Flock this so she doesn't get any ideas.

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

You're asking the wrong guy, because I have no fucking clue.

[lucilla-darkate.livejournal.com]

Brother's Grimm *snort*

That was fantastic.

[dinsedaledarby.livejournal.com]

Trust me, plotting is like getting ideas, if you don't write it down, sometimes it goes away.

like getting ideas and like writing them down and then like losing said ideas and then like replacing like the ideas with like teh sex and like calling it a day. *twirls hair*

yep, that's about how it goes.
What else would you need besides that.

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

My guess is the good books came prior to her lobotomy.

[thesaneminority.livejournal.com]

I'm all for multiple cocks myself, but that many just makes me clench up down there and start hunting for a chastity belt -- preferably one with spikes on it.

I'm sorry for the bad imagery. D:

[dwg.livejournal.com]

It kinda helps if I write other praise for the snark itself before I hit post. Really. Just a bit.

Since I didn't say it before - awesome post. *thumbs up*

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

~half-smiles~ Thanks. That was less you than me. I'm bad at taking compliments in any form, even light-hearted ones. Trust me, you're lucky I didn't start stammering (well, I did, a little) and hiding under the desk.

[tyger-raven.livejournal.com]

Don't you mean prior to her Jon-otomy?

[moonbeamdancer.livejournal.com]

"And I Mojo Jojo..."

God, she really does sound like him, only Mojo's cooler.

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

*snicker* You are so right.

And I love your list, too, btw.

[tyger-raven.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I appreciate hearing that. Plus, I appreciate knowing that someone read it. :)

[persephone-thea.livejournal.com]

OMG! You are sooo funny! I wish that we could have your little inserts right in the books!

[ladyravana.livejournal.com]

Don't be so modest! This was a great blog flog! You get awesome points for slogging through the mind-numbing idiocy.

It's been a very distracting morning and I've just gotten to sit down to work.

Apparently she was distracted by something shiny.

Wet, tight, and shiny.

~raises a hand...opens his mouth....then just shuts it again, shaking his head~ ....too bloody easy.

That line made me literally laugh out loud.

And also, BTW, bonus points for the AnitaSue reference. It seems to be catching on. :D

Look. ~holds up one arm~ My little emo wrists aren't bleeding, now, are they? You'll live. Stuff a sock (or Micah's dick) in it and choke on it.

That was another great line. :D *snickers* And also, you win the intarweb for that, and also, much love for the Brothers Grimm reference.

Trust me, plotting is like getting ideas, if you don't write it down, sometimes it goes away.

Plotting is like getting ideas. No way! You don't say! I'll jot it down on one of my many sticky notes to keep that in mind! Thank you SO much for that little nugget of wisdom Laurell.

*jots it down on sticky note* "Plotting is like getting ideas."

...Seriously, this woman is such a mega-twit.

Sorry for the long comment. This was very well done! *gives you cookies*

(For some reason, I thought you were a "she" because of your name...oops. Heh. Sorry.^^ My mistake.)

[firesongvx.livejournal.com]

Bwahahaha, ohhh, this flog was *excellent*! Seriously, I can't even think of anything else to add to it, you've covered all the bitchy bases. XD I don't want to rehash what everyone's already said, so we'll just leave it at this: you made me laugh my ass off, snarked LKH good and proper, and therefore you are teh awesome. ;)

Oh, and I have that same habit with the notebooks, heh. Handy. ^_^

[temperance22.livejournal.com]

"No, Jon, stupid, you have to wear your hair like THIS if you're going to pretend to be Edward--better. Okay, now go! Oh yeah...oooh....oooooh,"

Oh GOD!!! Sadly, I started to actually think about that....and I became very scared. If that is what my middle aged role play will come down to, sex wise, I will just do the honorable thing and off myself.

"Keeping a 15-inch vibrator next to the desk?"

And I just had to comment on this because...well...just a 15 inch vibrator, hunny? Oh no no no!! She would loose it up there and wouldn't be able to find the sticky note that says where she put her spare. This mysterious sticky note would most likely read...."Jon has it".

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

Apparently she was distracted by something shiny.

Wet, tight, and shiny.

...glow-in-the dark metallic-sheened condom. With glitter.

I don't mind the long comment. Thanks. By the way, don't worry about the "she" thing. I tend to give off a feminine vibe just from the French in the user name, especially "belle"...plus most see the "Lady" in the rest of the name and miss the "One Sex Change Away" part.

...you should have seen me in real life before I cut off my hair. It was down to my knees (yeah, some men do grow our hair that long, and then go insane trying to maintain it and chop it all off once we come to our senses) and even with a face full of stubble and big freakin' coatrack shoulders, I got called "miss" all the time. I still do every once in a while, even though I keep my hair at shoulder length now, give or take an inch or two. Doesn't bother me.

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

Thankee kindly.

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

~chuckles~ I couldn't resist. Anne Rice has been driving me batty for far longer than LKH, and since they do seem to be infected with the same kind of crazy...

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

Oh jeez, don't picture it, you'll go blind!

o.O I didn't think anyone, not even LKH or Anita, could lose a 15-incher up there.

~pauses, considers, rethinks....and then turns green~

...oh....ew. ~disappears to toss his lunch~

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

Aren't notebooks great? I have this bad habit, though: I'll buy one notebook and say "okay, this is going to be specifically for this story" and it just doesn't work out that way. I try to keep separate notebooks for my stories but end up writing whatever comes to mind in the nearest one available. It's pretty much a lost cause keeping everything separate, so I've started using little color-coded post-it flags to mark the pages--a different color for each story. But at least that's just to tell me what file I need to open when I'm typing it up, and not intended to be permanent. (They fall out all the time anyway, if I leave them in for more than a week, and end up littering my floor like a carpet of leaves in a multicolored autumn.)

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

~sweeps a bow--then trips and falls~ ...ack. Um. Ow? Anyway, thanks!

[ladyravana.livejournal.com]

~chuckles~ I couldn't resist. Anne Rice has been driving me batty for far longer than LKH, and since they do seem to be infected with the same kind of crazy...

If that's the case, could Anne Rice's lunacy have been contagious and been passed on to LKH?

...All the other vampire authors should stay far, FAR away from them.

Those two should be quarantined.

And well, at least Anne Rice had the sense to leave the genre and jump on the Dan Brown bandwagon.

LKH has yet to get the memo, apparently...

[moonbeamdancer.livejournal.com]

Very, saw the movie, have it and love it. :)

"Obey me!" Cute monkey.

[firesongvx.livejournal.com]

Yes, notebooks kick all ass. There's something about when you open a new one to that first crisp, fresh white page...that's *potential*, baby! ::laughs:: And I gave up long ago on ever keeping my stories separated into different ones...just like you said, I always end up scrawling in the closest whenever an idea hits me. So, I end up with character notes, fragmented outlines, entire scenes, etc. from all these different projects crammed into the same notebook. I tell them apart by the color of the covers; I always try not to have two of the same shade in use at the same time, heh.

I never thought of the little post-it flags to mark different stories, though...that's actually a pretty good idea! Multicolored autumn aside. They could just join the multicolored *feathers* that I already have all over the damn place. ;)

Link Fix

[naeko.livejournal.com]

The blog being flogged here can now be found at http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/index.php/site/comments/bread_crumbs_through_the_forest_of_edit/