{"id":17077,"date":"2022-07-28T19:35:30","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T23:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17077"},"modified":"2022-07-28T19:35:30","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T23:35:30","slug":"novel-update-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17077","title":{"rendered":"Novel update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Erling Skjalgsson confronts King Olaf Haraldsson at Avaldsnes. It’s actually this scene I’ve been wrestling with. Illustration by Erik Werenskiold.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So how\u2019s the writing going?<\/em><\/strong>, you ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King of Rogaland <\/em>is very nearly done. I\u2019ve been doing the final polish now, taking into consideration comments I got from several first readers who were kind enough to take the time to look it over. I didn\u2019t follow all the criticism, but some of it, I must admit, is spot on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, a fellow name Phil Wade, whom you might have heard of, pointed out that a particular plot thread had not been satisfactorily tied up. He was correct, blast his eyes. I set out to fix it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are times when you\u2019re writing a book when you need to do something and you\u2019ve got, literally, nothing in your toolbox. Somebody (say, Phil) raises a question and you realize that you haven\u2019t even thought about the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Possibilities suggest themselves. None of them work, because they conflict with stuff you\u2019ve already nailed down. It\u2019s like you\u2019ve got to do laparoscopic surgery on your own body \u2013 there\u2019s lots of important stuff in the way of the part you need to get at. (That\u2019s not actually a good metaphor at all. But I like its vigor. What I was really trying to express was that the rest of the plot elements were already in place, and I had to fit this new extension somewhere in among them without bumping into the existing furniture.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s pretty terrifying, really. It\u2019s a question of faith. Yes, you\u2019ve been through this before. You\u2019ve seen ideas appear in the past, after days or weeks or months of brain work. But you don\u2019t know that it will happen this time. This time the well may be dry at last. (Especially if you\u2019re getting old. Lots of writers run out of steam in their old age.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mixing metaphors is often a symptom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it came to me at last. I think it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King of Rogaland<\/em> is coming. I\u2019ve got to get the cover finalized, and I\u2019ve got to see if my e-book guy is available to help me format the thing and release it to Amazon. So it may take a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So how\u2019s the writing going?, you ask. King of Rogaland is very nearly done. I\u2019ve been doing the final polish now, taking into consideration comments I got from several first readers who were kind enough to take the time to look it over. I didn\u2019t follow all the criticism, but some of it, I must … Continue reading Novel update<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[3603],"class_list":["post-17077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-king-of-rogaland"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17079,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17077\/revisions\/17079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}