...literally.

Now that we've moved downtown, I've been riding my bike two and from work. Today is day three . . . ouch!

Still no DSL, but it's supposed to be hooked up tomorrow. We'll see.

I've finished chapter one of Tiopa rewrites. 3k in 3 days. Definitely back in the saddle here, as well.

Changes – Anpo's birth is not portrayed. The mother would have her babies and present them to her husband later. I kept the scene between Anpo's father and the shaman, however, and showed more of the family life.

New family members – Wanbli’s (Anpo’s dad) uncle, Wakinyan, lives with them. Gi’s (Anpo’s mom) mother, Sunka, is visiting to help with the baby. And Wanbli has a second wife named Hwa Wazi. When I originally wrote Tiopa, I gave them a very nuclear family unit – two parents, kids, nobody else. The Lakota lived with a very wide extended family. Wanbli’s family would have more than one lodge (ti ikceya). Hence, not only is there the main lodge of Gi’s, but also his second wife’s lodge and his mother-in-law’s lodge. When the children grow up and have their own, that will expand to Kathleen’s and Hca’s, as well, making Wanbli’s family owning a total of five ti ikceyas.

Plus there's always Wazi's potential children, elder parents, cousins, etc, living with her, Hca and Nupa's family moving in with them, Stewart arriving and visiting at Kathleen's, adopted kids, additional wives, etc. Makes for quite a number of potential storylines, doesn't it? Once I completely flesh out the characters, I think I'll have plenty to write about in a sequel.

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Fortitude Press is pleased to announce that we will be participating in DC BardFest. The convention will be held in Washington, DC, October 4-5. All of Fortitude's titles will be available for purchase at the Con, including two new releases: The Wrong Trail Knife by Jane Fletcher and Castle Walls by D. Jordan Redhawk.

If you are attending the DC BardFest and would like to pre-purchase any of Fortitude's titles, you may do so now through September 30 (or while supplies last). We'll have your books set aside for you to pick up at any time on Saturday. You won't have to wait in the regular line. Save time, save money by avoiding shipping costs, and be assured that the titles you want are there. Pre-purchase your titles today! Go to: www.fortitudepress.com.

If you are attending the DC BardFest and would like to purchase any of Fortitude's titles while there, we will have a table set up and will be accepting cash, checks, money orders and credit cards. However, as we will only be taking a limited quantity of each title to the event, we cannot guarantee your favorite book will still be there when you drop by. We urge you to make use of our pre-order website.

We look forward to seeing you there!
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Yeeeeehawwwww!

Work's been a bear, and we're packing like mad people. We move next weekend. I work right up until Thursday night. Friday my plan is to clean the refrigerator, defrost the freezer, and scrub the bathroom down. After the move (and Sunday lazing about the house in exhaustion,) I return to the house to do the final cleaning. Whew!

After we signed the lease, I went into the apartment with a tape measure. Made a sketch, figured out what the sizes were, and returned home to put it all into my Architecture program. Measured all the furniture and plugged it in, too. Now I know exactly what we can keep and what we can't. It's still going to be cramped, but not near as bad as it could be. The only thing I'm regretful to lose is the matching chair to our futon. There's just no way we can keep it – the apartment is far too small.

Major kewl discovery on my way home from work tonight. A block away from work, a bookstore went out of business a couple of months ago. Whoever has leased the space is completely trashing the fixtures. My wife currently utilizes a card table for her 'desk.' The problem is, her Mac kinda sags into the middle of the table, making it lopsided. Tonight as I passed the store, I noticed a pile of old shelving – particle board with white laminate – sitting in front of the door. It's 9pm, the doors are locked, no one about. So, I scarfed one. It fits my wife's table perfectly. Now she'll have a firm surface to park her Mac so it'll remain stable.

No writing to be done. In my spare time, I've been packing, sorting, shredding. Plan to do more tomorrow before work.

Sort of…

I went from an original outline of 112 scenes to a professional outline of 60. And I honestly didn't cut a whole hel of a lot. Got read of earlier scenes more than anything, and combined scenes wherever I could. The original story line has many scenes of only a few paragraphs, maybe two pages or so. I've blended those with longer scenes to flesh it out. Let's see. I deleted the early Cinski scenes of an attacking band and the death of her older sister. It really doesn't have much bearing on the overall story. I also dumped scenes of Kathleen's birth and as a child. It's rather evident she's an immigrant by what I wrote when she was a teenager on the frontier. I think that's all that didn't survive the cut. Oh, yeah. I cut Cinski's original vision seeking when she attempts it using the feminine way instead of the warrior way.

Two new scenes, most definitely. One is Anpo's naming ceremony after her vision. The other is the scene when Kathleen confronts her family with the intention of returning to the Lakota. (You all can thank Advocate for that one. She's been harping at me to put that scene in from the beginning.)

Now I get to start the official rewrites. I've got the first scene up on my today.doc. gulp

I’m also going to post Angels Deserve to Die on my mailing list today. It’ll be available through archives for a month before I delete from there.

Finally!

The outline is complete. More issues to take care of regarding the mixed points of view. There are a couple of scenes that will have to be divided as they hop from one character to another.

Now, to sketch out a professional outline and plug the scenes into it so I can see what can be safely dropped or kept. (Plus, it'll help me know where scenes need to be added, to flesh things out.)

.

Halfway through plugging Tiopa Ki Lakota into an outline. Lots of chaff here. Lots of changes, as well. The culture would not have allowed Teca to be a temper tantrum throwing child, nor would Anpo or Kathleen doted on him in quite the manner of the book.

Additionally, Kathleen’s original arrival into Anpo’s tiospaye (family unit) would be as a slave, not an equal. I’m going to have to add a bit there to indicate her difference in status until she learns the language. I’m going to keep Hca (Anpo’s sister) as a sweet and kind person, but I’m also going to extend Anpo’s family to include some not so sweet people to portray the differences in Kathleen’s status.

What else?

Anpo, as a winyan akicita (woman warrior) would be honored quite a bit more than others. Once she kills the white buffalo, it’ll be through the roof. I need to beef that aspect up. Not only will it cause better treatment from others, but it’ll also cause more jealousy from some who are less giving.

And last, Kathleen is going to live a few seasons as a ‘buried woman.’ I really doubt she’ll have enough skins, etc to make her own lodge so soon after their coming together. She’ll have to be subserviant to Anpo’s mother and live in that ti ikceya for a year or so.

but now it's time to get back to work.

I’m a quarter of the way through Tiopa Ki Lakota. Currently, I’m taking the manuscript from .html to .doc format (i.e. deleting the extra spaces between paragraphs and such,) and plugging the scenes into an outline. When this is completed, my next step will be to do a scene by scene rewrite.

One thing I'm looking for are Point of View errors – I wrote all over the place when I first penned it. I need to put each scene to ONE point of view.

Another will be looking at each scene with the fresh eyes that I've acquired after more research. The Lakota characters will act a bit differently on the basis of the new information I have. Now that I understand the culture a bit better, I'll have more to toss out to you.

Third, I'll be cutting the language a bit. I'll still use all the words, and will still have a glossary in the back, but I think I'll use them a little less often to make reading a bit easier.

Finally, expect some new characters, maybe a couple of scenes. There's always the chance that some scenes will be deleted from the final manuscript. We'll see how it goes.

On the home front, we have a definite move in date – the 19th. WOOT! The utilities have been ordered and I've put in for a transfer of my DSL account. They say 2 to 4 weeks for the order to complete. I don't know if that's after I made the order, or after the phone line is active. If the latter, I may be offline for up to a month! Thank gods for email at work! If this happens, I won't be updating this journal for that amount of time. (There are limits for computer use at work, ya know. Don't want to get into trouble. Checking personal email's going to be a big enough issue.)

More on that later.

YAAAAY, ME

Writing a psychic battle with no personal experience ain't easy.

It's almost as difficult as writing a sex scene.

Finished Castle Walls and returned it just after midnight last night (this morning?) This should be the final go through! YAY!

Went to bed and had a rude awakening a few hours earlier. Food poisoning. Blech. Laid in misery for about an hour, uncertain in which direction I'd lose whatever was in me. I sincerely hoped for one and got the other instead. I hate throwing up. shudder

Much better today. A bit of acid on the stomach, but nothing else. So, just a touch. Whew! Still haven't figured out exactly what it was, as my wife and I had dinner at a buffet place and pretty nearly had the same thing. Who knows?

So…very late start today. Didn't even begin writing until almost 1pm. Stared at the screen for an hour and did dishes instead. (Good thing, too. Haven't done dishes in three days. We were beginning to wonder where the hel the kitchen had gone!) Now I've got just over four hundred words. I'm slowly getting back into the swing of the scene.

I think I'm closer to the end than I thought. Maybe even before this 1k is finished. We'll see.

My goal for today is not 3k, due to feeling tired and uninspired from feeling icky. I'm going to do 1k, take a nap, and see what happens later. If I'm close enough to the end, I'll probably slog through it.

And then READ, READ, READ! I've got three library books and a book on full time RVing piled at the end of my desk for my perusal.