Bob and I met in Campfire to talk out something we usually don’t get to until the second draft: moving the story. In the past we’ve written our Don’t-Look-Down drafts and then gone back and shaped them. But we’re trying something different this time, a fast first draft, and we’ve got five [...]

As Bob says, “I keep losing track of the days.” Also, he’s started a binder for Wild Ride. When Bob revs up his binder, we’re in serious writing territory. I spent the day running errands and thinking glossy thoughts about the Democratic party and came home to find out that McCain [...]

So today I rewrote Scene One again, fixed a couple of MI things in Bob’s Scene Two, completely rewrote Scene Three, read Bob’s Scene Four but didn’t comment because the poor guy is sick, and moved my old Scene Three to Scene Five, where it still sucks. Doesn’t matter where I put it, it’s [...]

I’m trying to write this book, bask in the Democratic convention where for once the Dems are getting it right, paint all the stuff in the house that still needs painted, clean up my kitchen, and write this blog. It’s time to just focus on the book. Once the conventions is over, [...]

You know, we talked about this book in detail last January when we signed the contract, about placeholders and the amusement park design and I have a ton of notes and quite a few words written–pieces of scenes, first drafts of scenes, etc–and yet we still need to get on the same page. Bob [...]

So moving right along, we got some good work done in Campfire, hammering out some of the inconsistencies, getting the TPs nailed down, talking about characters and setting. Then Bob summarized the notes and posted them there, and I did a setting description complete with photos and posted it there–14.5 MB–and now we’re trying [...]

I just read the comments and immediately googled for “brown recluse spider Ohio.” They are “uncommon” here. Another reason to stay put. I did not google “camel spider,” thank you very much, Amy, but if you have spiders the size of dinner plates over there, you should come home immediately. Tell [...]

Bob’s been tied up with personal matters so we didn’t meet in Campfire today, but he posted his scene, the second scene in the book, for me there and I went through it. Good stuff. Then I went back and looked at my first scene and thought, “Was I on drugs when I [...]

There’s this incredibly stubborn spider who lives on my back deck, and he insists on weaving his intricate and enormous web across the doorway. The first couple times I walked through it and then did that hands waving, batting at the hair thing and after that I just kept a paint roller extender (because [...]

Yep, busy day.
Bob and I campfired and discovered that our plots had a few places where they didn’t mesh. I could tell he wanted to beat me senseless with my new keyboard, but he’s out on Whidbey so he had to content himself with terseness. Since his usual mode of expression [...]