Preparing for the next race

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Entry: Preparing for the next race
Link: http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2008/07/preparing-for-next-race.html

I left a plot point hanging at the beginning of SWALLOWING DARKNESS. A big enough plot point that I couldn't read it at the last Wolf Howl, because I needed to make those changes.

Don't you need a plot to leave a plot point hanging?

I left it because I thought I might follow through with it, but in the end, it didn't work. But it has hung over my head, so that when I typed THE END, I knew I had to change it. It was like finishing a marathon and realizing that I'd dropped my car keys somewhere along the route, and until I found them I couldn't go home. It made the end, not really the end, because I knew even as I typed it, that I had more work.

So the whole bit about "But I’m done, I’m really done. Wow. Thank you God and Goddess, and I mean that" didn't mean anything, huh?

Advice I give to new writers, and that I followed myself for years, and many books, is not to edit as you do first draft. Catch all that on the second draft.

This really depends on the person. Some people edit as they go, others edit after the first draft. I don't think it actually matters which way you do it. Whatever works for you.

Good advice when you're new, but now, I just hate finishing the book and knowing that things are hanging around outstanding that will have to be fixed. When I cross that finish line, I want it to be a true finish.

Translation: "I don't want to do editing after the manuscript is finished! That's BORING!"

In the interest of this, I edited the beginning of the next Anita book this morning.

Please note that she didn't edit the Merry book, even though she knows it needs to be edited.

I've got the changes that were going to bug me the most smoothed out.

I love how she can arrange things. Existing errors don't bother her, but they were GOING to bother her. So, knowing that they were going to bother her, she fixed them, even though she didn't care whether she'd made any errors or not.

The only change I'll have to do after more research is the bit about phosphorus gernades.

Like learning that they're spelled "grenades"?

And why is she doing research AFTER the book is done?

But I've fixed the things that were niggling at me, and would have needed changes not just at the beginning, but throughout the middle part of the book. That is no longer hanging over my head.

Didn't she just say that the things that she fixed were GOING to bug her, but weren't bothering her yet? Make up your mind, woman!

Also, I don't think she realizes it, but this is a good argument for editing as you go. If you fix what's wrong at the point where it starts to go wrong, you don't have to fix an avalanche of errors for an entire book.

But part of this editing, is that I did something I've never done before.

::without much hope:: Looked up the proper use of commas?

I started the next book, before the other was finished. I couldn't seem to force myself to write more pages on Merry, but my muse and I weren't done.

"I was bored with Merry, and I wanted to write about something I enjoyed!"

So, I started on Anita. I got Merry done, and I'm well on my way to Anita. But, I had to stop working on it at some point and put everything I had into SWALLOWING DARKNESS. Not so I could do more pages a day,

Although really, that's all she's been talking about for the past month--how few pages she's been doing.

but so my imagination and my muse, and all of me could think, sleep, dream, of nothing but Merry. (Okay, I didn't actually dream of Merry, but you get the idea.) I reached a point where even thinking too deeply about anything else was distracting from DARKNESS. So I gave myself over to that book, and only that book.

January 24: "So, do I give up on Merry for now, and write on what my muse is most interesting in, or do I keep hitting my head against the brick wall."

February 7: "Goddess, this is going to be a really hard book for Merry.

"Hard book for the main character means a hard book for the writer. I'm still down, and no amount of sunshine is going to change that. One of the hardest things about writing for me is leaving the book at the computer, and not carrying it with me through the day and night."

March 31: "Well, it's the first day back after a real vacation. I did try to write, but not sure I did myself any good. I kept having to go back in the scene and expand it, because I was telling, not showing. I finally gave up writing on the book for the day when I told myself out loud, "Be in the scene, Laurell, not just talking about it.""

April 24: "I've had to step back from Merry for a few days. I'm lost. I just can't seem to get perspective on the plot."

May 20: "SWALLOWING DARKNESS seems to take more energy, more something out of me, then the last Merry book did."

June 18: "I find that if I try and force the Merry books on paper before the idea is ready, it does me no good. I just end up rewriting the next day."

July 6: "Writing is so different from other jobs. It really is about filling up that well of ideas and energy. Right now, I’m shoveling from the bottom, and I need a fill up."

July 9: "...the longer I sit and force myself to work, and get nothing done, the harder it is to get anything done. Writing, unlike some work, is really effected by the mood of the worker."

July 11: "I long for the end of this book. I beat against these last few pages like the bars of some cage. I want out! I’ve been trapped in fairie long enough, and I want concrete under my feet, and buildings looming above me."

Amazing how deeply immersed in that book she was, and how completely she gave herself over to it.

That meant that I had a couple of hundred pages of a book that I hadn't looked at in a while. So, I read it back over, and am editing as I go, just to get back in the swing of things.

I'd feel better if she hadn't said the exact same thing in January.

I'll be editing the next few chapters for police procedure, before I continue on. I'm pretty sure it's not right yet,

See, LKH, this is why you research ahead of time.

and some of the things that happen in these next chapters will potentially effect

I think she means "affect"--"to have an influence on"--rather than "effect" as a verb, meaning "to cause or bring about" as in "to effect a change."

things deeper into the book, so now is the time to catch it. One of the reasons I can leave the grenades scene to be fixed later, is that nothing will build off of it.

And it's not like you'll forget to fix that scene if you don't do so when you're thinking about it! Not at ALL.

Rewrites get to be a bitch when the foundation that you've built the rest of book on has a crack in it.

Again--this is why you do the research FIRST. And not from calendars, either.

So, foundation first, then you build up.

Or do it the way you do it--write the book first, check a few details, send the poorly researched and scarcely edited book off to the publishers and then complain that anyone who sees any flaws in your masterpiece is a hater and a negative reader. (See also: fanbrats on FFnet.)

Now, having said that, if you are working on your first book I still think it's more important to finish a rough draft, no matter how rough, first, before doing any rewriting. It's so easy as a new writer to get caught up in perfectionism and polish those first few chapters until they shine, but you can get so busy shining up the beginning that you never finish the book. Finish the book, the rest can be fixed.

I think this used to be good advice. Nowadays, however, editors are far more likely to run into writers who are products of the self-esteem movement and who have never been criticized in their lives. They're not as likely to spend years polishing and refining as they are to send off manuscripts that haven't been polished at all because "that's the proofreader's job!"

But for me, I need to crawl back into this book, and tuck it around me. I need to feel the sheets, clean and fresh against my skin. I need to remember where I was, and what we were doing.

You're naked and wrapped in sheets. I think we can guess what you were doing.

Mentally, it's all there, but I don't write from just the thinking bits of myself.

I never doubted this. The brain is not located below the waist.

I write from deeper in than that.

Like I said...

So, this week to find my path again. This week to straighten up, and get things in order, before I open the spill gates and let chaos into my well-ordered fictional world.

So she's going to straighten things up and create ORDER before admitting CHAOS. Riiiiight.

First to find out where I've been, then figure out where I'm going, and if it's still the right destination, then the race is on.

Where LKH has been: Elf porn.

Where LKH is going: More elf porn.

Is this the right destination?: If you like elf porn...

But this time when the race is done, I want to make sure my keys are in my pocket, and my car is waiting to take me home.

Comments

[mizmalice.livejournal.com]

Why would you carry your keys with you if you're running a marathon?

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I guess she wants a shortcut back after running the marathon.

[viridian5.livejournal.com]

So she can drive the car she's scared and ill equipped to drive once the marathon is over?

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

I would like to be sympathetic. I've been slowly drawing myself out of the place of perfecting the first chapter / making sure I have every possible angle of research down and into finishing a first draft and telling myself it's ok the first draft isn't perfect satisfactory; it's a FIRST DRAFT for a reason.

So I'd like to be sympathetic. But this woman has what? Twenty something books under her belt? Maybe something closer to thirty? She KNOWS she can write a book beginning to end. So wtf? When you have proof you can finish, then editing as you go, or boning up on research etc has a different context.

Still at least I'm merely unsympathetic unlike the post that drove me away from the comm temporarily where Princess She-Ra Sparkle Tiger Fuck was being homophobic and racist all wrapped up into the guise of 'delicate blood red flower'.

Meanwhile, for going 'STOP. LAURELL TIME' this blog so wins and shines and earns tiaras. It really HAS been a half a year of non stop whining.

*boggles*

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Hey, I loved She-ra when I was younger! Not Adora, I hated her voice. Eh eh. ^___^ Go Mary-Sues! Then again, I liked My Little Pony and the Care Bears too... those were way cute! And Sailor Moon... totally.

I gather you're talking about Miss I'm-too-sexy-for-one-man. Which post was that again? I hope I left a very snarking and mean comment on that one. If not, linkie, please, I want to rectify that!
I really don't like hypocrites. I don't hate racist and homophobic people per se (it's a free world, you can have whatever opinion you want, even if I don't agree with it), but people who say they are open-minded and then show their true colors... hypocrites. BAH!

[swiftgold.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to do the same thing, and it's hard! I'm still in the fanfic mindset where you put up a chapter at a time and try to make it as complete as possible before going on to the next. So, yeah, no sympathy, it's not exactly like she she's a brand-new published writer struggling to meet her second book deadline, baah.
And yeah, that recap of the past year was totally hilarious. Great flog :D

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Is it just me or this post doesn't make a lot of sense... erm, might be that I'm not very good at making sense of English, although I do manage to read entire books fairly quickly... :p

What's wrong with editing as you go? *blinks* It seems logical and pratical. If you see something wrong, correct it. And with Laurell NOT doing research (other than watching CSI and thinking DNA tests can be done in less than 24 hours and that all the high-tech crap they show on the show is real), it is the best way to go. She should actually have an editor sitting in the same room, 24/7.

[joereaves.livejournal.com]

might be that I'm not very good at making sense of English,

That's OK, neither is Laurel.

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

Well, there's the school of thought that says some writers like to just get a story on paper, then edit, correct details, check story flow, and some prefer to get everything down perfectly first time to avoid doing multiple drafts (I'm one of these).

Then there's the Laurell School of Thought, which says "ALL WRITERS MUST WRITE THE WAY I WRITE BECAUSE ALTERNATIVES ARE NOT ACCEPTED".

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Some writers like to just get the whole thing on paper and edit it after that-- but those writers also usually write their drafts a lot faster than the edit-as-you-go types. Which Laurell... isn't. I'm talking, they might finish the draft for a novel in a month.

[rosencrantz23.livejournal.com]

The danger that most often comes with "edit as you go", is that you get so caught up in editing and polishing what you've written that you stop writing new material.

It's one thing to do quick (or simple) changes to your existing material in rough draft, but the big rewrites and other edits should rightly come at the end of the drafting process.

[gothgoddessrhia.livejournal.com]

I used to edit as I went along until all I ended up doing was editing and could not write anything new.

I finally broke my internal editor on the first draft by setting three weeks aside to write a new book. And I did just that. A brand new novel in three weeks at a pace of 20 pages (5,000 words) a day. It was a huge accomplishment and I felt very good about it.

I set it aside for a few weeks then went back in and edited.

But before I set out to write the book, I did work on character sheets for my "cast" and major plot points in the story. I had a basic map of where I was going. I did research BEFORE the first fast draft.

I also learned to use yWriter, which is too awesome for words.

I think what is so abrasive about this entry is that LKH does act like she is the ultimate authority on how to write a book and that anyone who disagrees with her is just stupid.

Her arrogance is what makes me nuts.

Her bad writing is what made me a Negative Reader.

I would never take her advice in a million years.

[wonderbink.livejournal.com]

Every once in a while she accidentally spouts out some sound advice, and I think this is one of those times. If you have never written a complete novel before, you're more likely to succeed if you just write a bad one just to prove to yourself that it can be done and then work on fixing it.

(Do I ever shut up about NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org) in this comm?)

The important thing to remember (as I try to) is that reaching the point of 'complete manuscript' is, to borrow a line from Winston Churchill, not the end, or even the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning.

[deadroman.livejournal.com]

OoOok, the part about LKH needing to tuck the book around her and feel the sheets against her skin does not provide a nice mental image.

And: I think every single person has his/her own special way to write, so saying "Listen, this is the BEST way to write!" is completely pointless.
For me, on the first draft, I like to concentrate mostly on getting all the facts straight, the events and scenes in order, the descriptions and locations set. Basically, all the more solid stuff in a story.
In the next draft I focus on perfecting dialogue, working on the more subtle parts like mood, tone, logic, themes, and tightening everything in general. It works for me really well, but of course somebody reading this might be wondering if I'm crazy or not. :P

your writing style

[cherose.livejournal.com]

Hi:

I find that I do best when I first do an outline and head up chapters when I think of something that will trigger the flow of thought that I had while I was doing the rough draft. I'm a jotter, ALWAYS with a stenobook and a pen, and I write down EVERY idea that I think of, because sometimes, while the particular idea isn't one that I can use at that time, I DO find that I can use it somewhere else. I edit as I got on re-writes, though. Usually, when I'm writing, I pretty much do as you say YOU do: get it all down, and THEN go back and re-work it. Oftentimes, I find that I have more and BETTER ideas when I'm doing the re-write than I did in the rough draft - and THEN it's fun to tighten everything up and go forward.

Blessings,

-,'-,'-,'--@

Cheese with the WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE

[cherose.livejournal.com]

One COULD wish that she would just get down to the business of RE-LEARNING how to tell decent stories rather than talking to potential new writers about how awfully AWFULLY hard it is to get down to WORKING at her craft.

Guess that it's more fun to play god and tell everybody how to do it, rather than GO and DO it herself, to show us all how it's SUPPOSED to be done. As for finishing the race with the car keys in her pocket (and, presumably, the car 26 miles away with boytoy in all his flabby glory patiently waiting for her): Girl, puh-LEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE. If you're running a marathon, you GIVE the keys to someone to MOVE the car to the finish line.

As for where she's been: reading BOOKS about elf porn.
As for where she's going: STILL reading books about elf porn
As for the "right destination": Deciding that elf porn is boring, and going to the Marquis de Sades' and Kraft-Ebbings' textbook on truly beastial and murderous sexual practices of the truly insane.There are a minimum of 6 sex practices, for example, that she lifted straight out of the Kraft-Ebbing textbook on abnormal sexual practices, which I find very disturbing.


IF lkh spent as much time researching, both in book form and in person, as she does whining about how her Muse isn't working with her, or, in reality, whining about any and EVERYTHING that's going wrong in her alleged life,she would be a FAR better writer as well as a FAR better story teller.

Nervous breakdown, anyone?

Blessings,

-,'-,'-,'--@

Re: Cheese with the WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

There are a minimum of 6 sex practices, for example, that she lifted straight out of the Kraft-Ebbing textbook on abnormal sexual practices, which I find very disturbing.

Now I am deeply curious. Do tell!

And yes, research is VITAL. Just last night, I bugged my husband and roommate with all sorts of questions about life in psychiatric institutions (they've both visited committed friends and ex-lovers), and I kept asking for more and more details. What the rooms looked like, if the beds could be moved, how many bathrooms on each floor, were there locked doors on both ends of the halls, where the kitchens might be, how large the grounds were, which floors most likely held the dangerously psychotic patients, etc etc. I am not about to write something I don't know about without first understanding everything about it. Laurell seems to think she can just write whatever the hell she wants and readers will believe it.

[pandorasblog]

I love the part where she says that writing, unlike some jobs, is affected by the writer's mood. Show me the job that isn't affected by the worker's mood! Having a terrible tendency to procrastinate in my own writing, I suspect that writing is surprisingly similar to most jobs in that sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and DO it...

[slayra.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's pretty much it. She makes it sound like writing is a noble profession, above all others and we should bow to her, because she is doing such an amazing job. Well, I'd tell her I sometimes, don't fancy digging holes with tools that are about as heavy as me (I'm 5'1) in the scorching heat of summer but it's my job, I chose it so I'm not going to complain that "I'm not in the mood" even if I preferred to go to the beach instead.

[snipervalentine.livejournal.com]

Pfffft. Most of her so-called editing process for Swallowing Darkness is going to be spent padding the sucker. My math says she's around 338 printed hardback pages. The pre-orders have been selling with it advertised as 384 pages, so the final printed version cannot have less than that. That's roughly a 50 page deficit. That's HUGE.

Either that, or this one is going to be printed in easy-to-read type.

[christraven.livejournal.com]

Either that, or this one is going to be printed in easy-to-read type.

And don't forget the double-spaced paragraphs, with two-inch page margins. Hell, I'm surprised that she hasn't had the damn thing printed single-sided.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

Damn, I shouldn't read Laurell's blogs when I'm very cranky (cramps do not a pleasant dreamstrifer make). I just got this overwhelming urge to drive over to St. Louis and kick the crap out of her.

*facepalm* Someone needs to buy her a clue.

[morriganscrow.livejournal.com]

*hands you hot water bottle, Advil, hot chocolate and wraps you in a warm blankie*

[pith]

Like learning that they're spelled "grenades"?

When I read her typo, I thought she meant "gonads", and had horrible visions of new baddies who throw weaponized genitals at people.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Never fear! Merry can disarm the explosive penii by leaning back and spreading her legs!

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

I'm just shocked that she edits at all.

As for the gernades, shouldn't you know all about a weapon if your going to use it? I mean what if she misses something vital, like an after effect of using gernades is that pink kittens fly out of your butt? Imagine all the editing she'll be forced to do.

[longtail.livejournal.com]

Now I honestly can't wait for this book to come out, wait for someone here to read it, and flog it. It's going to be horrendous.

I'd do it myself, but I simply do not have the mental strength to read her drivel anymore. There are so many here who are far, far, more mentally tough than I.

[morriganscrow.livejournal.com]

Mentally, it's all there, but I don't write from just the thinking bits of myself.
I never doubted this. The brain is not located below the waist.
I write from deeper in than that.
Like I said....

A lovely bit of flogging, dear. I do so enjoy your work!

Latest in her NEVER-ENDING series of WHIIIIIIIINES - and not a CRUMB of cheese in SIGHT!

[cherose.livejournal.com]

Hi, all:

Didn't mean to do it, but went and checked lkh's blog. I can't HELP it, it's too much like NOT looking at the train wreck!

EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

The newest impassioned drool is now up, and it doesn't disappoint. As a matter of fact, it's probably one of her BEST self-MarySues' yet!

lkh says: "I finished editing the older chapters, and now have nine fresh pages on the newest Anita book. The post book blues are getting a little better. Today was the closest to a normal mood that I’ve had since I finished SWALLOWING DARKNESS on Saturday. Still moody, still tender to the touch emotionally. Despair still nips at my heels, but it’s more like some yappy ankle biting dog. A few days back despair was more like a huge tiger that threw me to the ground and savaged me. It felt like a kind of death."

I SAY: wow . . . YAAAAAAAAAAAAWN . . . what a vivid image? Too bad the yappy little ankle biter didn't stimulate a few new brain cells. Even more to the point, haven't you just about done the "tiger savaging me" metaphor to death and FAR beyond? Find a new way to say it, mmaybe like "I felt like I'd eaten broken glass and it was tearing meup to get rid of it". That's probably closer to the truth to begin with, wouldn't you agree?



lkh says:" "I said, "This feels worse than usual." Jon and Darla both, separately, said, "You always say that." Every emotion I’ve had, no matter how dark, they all individually confirmed, "You always do that." Hmm."

I SAY: GET THE FUCK OVER IT, sweetie. Isn't is HORRID to be so predictable????? Maybe "THEY'RE" tired of your nonsense as well....oh, WAIT. They CAN'T be tired of your nonsense. YOU'RE paying the bills!

lkh says: "Darla says that it’s like baby amnesia. You forget how awful it is to be pregnant. You forget the pains of childbirth. You forget, until it all happens again. But, I didn’t get baby amnesia. One of the reasons Trinity is an only child is that I never got that rose colored glow about the process of how little human beings get here."

I SAY: WOW, what a wonderful thing to write and put up where your child can see it. I'll bet that Trinity is REALLY grateful that you NEVER had any more children, because that would mean that she would get 1/2 of whatever attention you throw at her when you remember her existence. I bet Gary is grateful as well - 1 less child for your warped perceptions of the world to ruin.

lkh says: "Frankly, I don’t get a rosy glow about the process of books either. I’m a pessimist. That means that I remember the bad stuff. It’s the good stuff that fades for me. The positive that I have to work hard to remember. Bad stuff remains carved in crystal for me. The sound of screams, the sound of metal twisting against metal, the look in someone’s eyes . . . I collect the terrible like snapshots in my mind. I take the happy moments, and part of my mind thinks, what if? What if it all went horribly wrong? What if this happened, instead? My mind has worked that way almost as far back as I can remember. I was like this at five or six. A life time of looking at the dark, and seeing it even in the brightest sunshine. God, I’m still depressed. But it comes and goes, and as time goes on it will go more than it stays. According to everyone here, "I always feel like this after a book." How the f**ck do I stand it?"

I SAY: GIRLFRIEND! who the fuck CARES how you stand it? You SERIOUSLY need help, NOT enablement. There's a limit as to how long you can use your books as intervention journals before EVERYBODY quits buying them. Even the troos are starting to question what was NEVER questioned before.

Every morning, every evening, don't lkh have FUN? I'd LOVE to be able to be so self-obssesed and, at the same time, have so little self-confidence that I have to turn to a public journal to garner sympathy for my struggles.

SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH

WISH she'd DROP all this bullshit and start WRITING again, although, at this point, THAT hope is getting dimmer and dimmer!

Blessings,

-,'-,'-,'--@

[jdemorae.livejournal.com]

The only change I'll have to do after more research is the bit about phosphorus gernades. and One of the reasons I can leave the grenades scene to be fixed later, is that nothing will build off of it.

Having just finished John Ringo's Unto the Breach, with its careful description of the effects of white phosphorous, I gotta wonder what kind of crack this woman is smoking. (BTW, Ringo names his book sources for his combat info, and even recommends some titles for anyone who wants to write modern combat.)

According to the military folks I know, white phosphorous is one of, if not THE most terrifying things for a combatant to face, barring biologicals. It makes napalm look like boiling water. Nothing puts w.p. out. It's basically boiling lead, spread by a grenade explosion. It will burn down to the bone, where it may be stopped by sheer density. And if your victim somehow survives that, death by shock is likely--and ugly--and *survival* leaves hideous scarring.

And nothing builds off that? It has no effect on the characters who use it? Oh, wait, it'll be used in defense of Goddess-in-training Merry, so it's okay. It's all part of the Fae Jihad.

Plus it *sounds* really cool! It makes Team Merry look so bad-ass! And it shows Laurell's complete failure to grasp the destructive power of the weapons she writes about. These sources she talks about...does she even ask what this stuff is, or is it all along the lines of, "Would XYZ take out a group of GHJ?"

I don't care that vampires, weres, fae, and magic can't work according to known laws of biology and physics. I care when you take stuff that *is* real, with *real* consequences, and treat it like it's just a string of firecrackers you bought in Chinatown.

Oh, wait. She treats rape, addiction, and extortion the same way. She waited until the last day to double-check that a gun she mentioned in BN actually *did* have an ambidextrous safety, then gave us all a shrill lecture on gun safety, the danger of misusing guns, and the horrors she's seen of crime scene photos. I guess she skipped any photo documentation of the effects of w.p. My bad.

(This icon is almost becoming my standard for ranting about LKH.)

[beloved828.livejournal.com]

I think she's talking about using the "gernades" in her next Anita atrocity. Merry doesn't get weapons that didn't m fall magically out of her bed after a particularly vigorous session of mattress-tag. I could be wrong, though. As we all have pretty much figured out, LKH doesn't really do research. She decides that Anita needs use a bad-ass weapon for no reason other than for her to look cool, and she watches some old Schwarzenegger flick and uses what she sees. She then might look the weapon up until she finds just enough information to perhaps spell the name right. Why LKH bothers to write about things she obviously doesn't care enough about to get right, I'll never know. Looking at crime scene photos and going to a shooting range occasionally does NOT make someone a weapon's expert. LKH has ignored or broken every law of magic that she has created on a whim, so why wouldn't she break the rules of our reality to fit into her books? Anita is omnipotent, after all.

[beloved828.livejournal.com]

LKH editing! *falls over laughing*

Great flog, Gehayi! The year in review was the best. ^_^

Personally, I do research before I write if I know that something is going to play a big part in my story. I'll do some more as I go, but I always look things up before I write, not after. I think it allows me to start off from the right place, rather than have to either scrap what I wrote or ignore my research and just use what I have. I try to edit every few chapters, and I edit it the whole thing again when I'm done. It keeps the monotony down to a minimum for me while allowing me to make sure I got everything right.

No wonder why Anita always sounds full of shit whenever she talks about her guns,police work,fighting ability,etc. You'd think that with so many AB novels under her belt, LKH would remember some of the police procedure that she's written so much about. She doesn't, because she doesn't really do that much research. My dad was Special Forces, Green Beret. He spent 39 months in Vietnam, and his hands and feet are registered weapons. I've heard a TON about warfare and weaponry from him, and there's tons more that he knows. He always picks apart action movies when the weapons and techniques are used wrong. I've learned a lot from him(though certainly not enough to be an expert), and I can kind of point it out when a writer or director has no clue when it comes to fighting or warfare, but tries to sound like they do. He's one of many war vets out there, and a lot of those guys would be more than happy to talk to LKH about techniques and weaponry if she really wanted to learn. I don't think she does.