Pottering

The Potter Party at Children's Book Cellar was well-attended, though the evening was hot, muggy and threatening more rain which was never actually delivered. kinzel and I took turns manning -- and womanning -- the crystal ball, which was...interesting.

The gig went like this: The /v/i/c/t/i/m divinator gazed into the crystal ball and when they felt they were ready, they reached into a specially prepared magic bag and drew out a question. Their powers of divining the future having been heightened by their communion with the ball, they would supposedly know the answer to the question. Since all of the questions had to do with what might or might not or could or could not happen in Book the Last and Beyond, this was an interesting exercise.

I had a spiel: "Gaze into the ball and feel your power rise. When you see that the curtain between Now and the Future has parted, put your hand out and receive a question."

Everybody was good-natured; several -- as you might imagine -- had extremely strong opinions; some questions gave the divinator a new perspective or opened up avenues of further thought. It was kind of cool, actually.

That said, three divinators stand out. One was the boy who wanted to know what would happen if he read the book and found that his prophesy had been correct. I told him that he would have that warm, fuzzy feeling of having been right. He seemed to think that was fair enough.

The second was a woman who barely glanced at the ball, snatched a question out the bag, read it, and looked at me with an expression of goaded betrayal. "I don't know the answer to this question!" I allowed that it was sort of a low-wattage ball, and that sometimes the future isn't clear. She shook her head, clearly baffled. "It's an open-ended guessing game," I tried, "to help you think about what might happen in the next book." She moved away then, but I think she still believes I was making fun of her somehow.

The third stand-out customer was a little girl -- maybe five? six? She sat down in the chair, feet swinging inches above the floor, arms straight down at her sides, fingers gripping the edges of the chair. I gave her the spiel. She leaned forward slightly, stared at the ball, looked up at me out of troubled brown eyes. "I'm not really going to see the future, am I?" she whispered. It was one of those Moments. My usual mode (because I am a light-minded contrarian who thinks there's 'way too little magic in the world) is to say that Of course she'd see the future. So it took a considerable amount of effort for me to shake my head. "No, sweetie. It's just a game." She thought about that for a couple of long seconds, then nodded solemnly and leaned in to gaze deeply into the ball.

We left the festivities in full swing at about 10:30, after handing off the divination franchise to baggette, and that's the last Harry Pottering.

I do wonder what people are going to do to satisfy their urge for fancy-weird-ragged dress-up next year. Maybe we'll have to have a Dress Like a Wizard Day every year?

And now...to work.

Somewhat better

A whole scene done -- a whole new scene. This is Good, and not the least because El Deadline loometh.

Someone had asked how accurate my "target figure" of 100,000 words is on this project. The answer is a bold and certain, Who knows? It must be at least 100,000 words, because that's what the contract says. Since this is the first book in a duology, I'm pretty confident that I'll hit close to the mark.

As for whether I'm using post-it notes or editing as I go along, or keeping a journal, well... Because, ahem, Recent Events have taught me that starting a project before I have a contract (or, even better, an advance check) is Not Wise -- and which is undoubtedly not the lesson I was supposed to have taken from the Whole Unfortunate Mess edited to add: with our previous publisher, but there you are -- I'm world-building on the fly. This means I'm writing straight ahead until something goes CLICK inside my head. This is very likely the sound of the author being whacked with a ginormous clue stick, but whatever it is, at that point I'll print out what I have and go through it in editing mode, mopping up all the stuff that didn't stick to the wall and strengthening and deepening the stuff that did.

In terms of preference of method, this is not, for me, The Way, but it is A Way, and it works perfectly well. Providing the author can stay focused on throwing things at the wall.


Progress on Duainfey

31,092 / 100,000 (31.1%)

Today's Special:
The clock in the entrance hall struck the hour, its chimes reverberating throughout the house. Becca stood, dragging her cloak on, clumsily one-handed, and twisted the brooch shut.

It was time. Whatever doubts and dangers attended this night, she would meet them as they arose.