Progress, 5/18/2008

[kaasirpent]

Wrote 1594 more words of suck. I am allowed to suck. I am allowed to suck. I am allowed to suck. :)



Uh...yeah, it's now headed towards 12,000 words. Maybe. Which makes it a novelette instead of a short story. Hopefully, it won't make it to novella. :) I'm sure it'll shrink in the edit phase. Right now, I'm allowing my "Basil Exposition" character to exposit at length. I'll tone her down, later. She's a yappy woman.

Oh, and check out my new userpic. :) I only used the first sentence because I thought it would get too big, but now I think I might be able to get the next few lines in there. I'm talking, of course, about Snoopy's never-finished novel. I can't fit the entire thing, and that's a shame. :)

Comments

[bigmeanie.livejournal.com]

I love your new userpic, of course. :D

Where did you get your word counter?

[kaasirpent]

I unabashedly stole it from Cherie Priest (cmpriest), who uses it, too. It comes from Writertopia and is made of easy:

<img src="http://picometer.writertopia.com/words=x&target=y" title="Whatever">

Where 'x' and 'y' are your current word count and goal word count, respectively, and "Whatever" is the hover-text. :)

[craftsman.livejournal.com]

You probably know this, but the line actually comes from Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, namesake of the opening line fiction writing contest sponsored by San Jose State University.

[kaasirpent]

Oh, indeed. It is also the first line of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle, one of the seminal books of my childhood.

I used to wonder why people thought it was such a horrid opening line. To me, it sounds fine. Then I found out it's only the first phrase thereof. The full thing is truly god-awful:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

P. U. No wonder they named the contest after him.