Tag Archives: Netwalk’s Children

July 28, 2013 · 9:45 pm

On revising previously published work

Generally, much as I wince when I see bits and pieces of errors and mistakes in my previously published work, I don’t consider revising and republishing it, for several reasons. First of all, the story I sold was the story the editor wanted to buy. Changing the story would mean changing the collaborative work which is the combined effort of my vision and the editor’s vision and, so far, I’ve had the great good fortune not to have editors who’ve mangled my work. So far. For better or worse, if I’ve sold a story or a novel to someone else to publish, I’m inclined to let it stand (I will probably feel different when I finally encounter the circumstance of having my work butchered. Like I said, I’ve been fortunate. So far).

But self-publication allows the fatal fallacy of re-editing one’s own work. Again, I don’t generally support revising previously published work because it is, after all, the product of its time. Additionally, since I’ve sold this work to buyers, really, in good faith it would require a significant change in the world I’ve created to justify a revision of previously published work.

So why did I just spend several days revising and preparing the copy for what is going to be the revised Netwalk, otherwise known as Netwalk: The Expanded Edition?

One word.

Gizmo.

Or, rather, the creation of the object known as Gizmo, which hadn’t happened when I wrote Netwalk. I created the Gizmo about halfway through my editorial rewrite of Netwalker Uprising, when my editor told me “something more is needed.” I thought on it, and, ergo. Gizmo was born, and with it, a missing major driver for the Netwalk Sequence came into being.

Except–oops. There was an entire novel in the Sequence which did not take Gizmo into account, and Melanie being Melanie, if she hadn’t run into Gizmo before then, she would have done so during the events of Netwalk.

Oops. Big oops.

At first I hadn’t planned to rewrite Netwalk as a result of Gizmo’s creation. Yes, there were glitches in the ebook version. Small formatting pieces that I wanted to fix. But I thought about the tweaks I’d have to make in Netwalk to bring in Gizmo, and my head started hurting with a side dish of minor panic attacks as I contemplated what could be a huge effort. My editor recommended that I didn’t sweat it because the nature of the conflict in Netwalk was such that the absence of Gizmo wasn’t that big a deal.

And then the son and I talked about putting out a hard copy Createspace edition of Netwalk. He recommended (based on his experience in the gaming world) that if I were to go with a second edition, I should not only include Gizmo references in the revised Netwalk but add new material to make it worth the changes and add value. I thought about it, but quailed at the thought of the Gizmo rewrites.

Well. It’s pretty much done. Surprisingly, the work wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. When I went back and looked at the Netwalk MS, there were holes where I spent more time flailing around trying to up the ante and didn’t quite make it work. It seems like my subconscious writing brain was already devising a Gizmo-like device, only my prefrontal cortex hadn’t gotten the message yet. When all was said and done, the additions were maybe about 1000-1500 words. 2000 max. And, in the process, I fixed the formatting glitches that had been bugging me, smoothed out some rough spots in the language, and introduced a bit more nuance in the characters of Sarah and Andrew, nuances which arose in Uprising.

I don’t anticipate doing the same for Uprising. For one thing, Uprising is post-Gizmo. I don’t necessarily foresee the need to create another significant canon change which would require such a drastic rewrite. Nor do I want to create the habit of doing such a thing when working independently. However, Gizmo was such a major change in the game that I finally decided that Netwalk: The Expanded Edition needed to happen. Additionally, I’ve put some effort into creating a series bible which, while not perfect, will hopefully keep me going with a certain degree of consistency from now on out. Though the Netwalk: Foundations pieces blur the edges as I explore my characters even further. That said, another wise writer and editor reminded me that Marion Zimmer Bradley always held that consistency glitches in her Darkover series were things that needed to happen for the integrity of the story.

I already have several notations where the Foundations stories deviate from the main canon of the Netwalk Sequence. At some point in the future (probably when I’ve completed the next three novels which will make up the main body of the Sequence), I’ll publish those notes for completeists but I’m not going to knock myself out trying to reconcile Foundations worldbuilding noodling with published work. Netwalk: The Expanded Edition will be the most significant and only full revision of previously published work in the Sequence. Period.

So what additional material will be in the EE besides the Gizmo updates?

First of all, I plan to republish two previously published stories in the Sequence, exactly as they were originally published. For the record, those two stories are “The Ties That Bind” (Random Realities # 3, Summer 1993) and “Cold Dish,” (M-BRANE SF 9, October 1, 2009). In addition there will be two new short snippets to go with these two stories, “Some Words,” and “To Walk Toward Your Doom.” All four of these pieces happen either just before or simultaneously with the early part of Netwalk. “Ties” and “Cold Dish” are pre-Gizmo and to some extent pre-date a lot of my later thinking about Netwalk processes. Nonetheless, both stories will be reprinted exactly as they were originally published, with no revisions.

I also plan to insert a foreword talking about the changes in vision that happened between the publication of Netwalk and Netwalker Uprising.

Projected publication date is late August. Stay tuned for more information.

And once I’m done with this (and a few more Foundations pieces, to carry me through the first months of Ye Olde Day Jobbe resumption in September as well as help me create some more pieces of crucial backstory), it’s off to write Netwalk’s Children. I’ve not done the formal plotting for Children yet, but I’ve been thinking hard about both it and the book to follow, Netwalking Space.

Are we having fun yet? I sure am.

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July 4, 2013 · 9:17 am

Busy, busy days.

Do I have any other sort of days? Sometimes I wonder. In any case, three weeks into summer break and I am busy taking online classes, riding Mocha almost every day, doing projects around the house, and writing. The heat of the past few days has sidelined me but that’s the usual state of affairs, especially when we have this rapid transition from cool to hot. Needless to say, I’m a typical west-side Pacific Northwest girl. I know that when I start struggling, the smartest thing is to go flat and read. So I have been. Problem is also that the heat causes my gut to make sad noises at me and go into random spasm modes. Not fun at all!

Today starts the Waterfront Blues Festival, which is one of DH’s favorite events. He’s already down there waiting to get in early and snag a shady place to sit. Because I struggle so much with the heat, I come down later in the day and join him. This year I’m hoping to be able to coordinate smartphone and tablet so I can do some writing work using Dropbox. We’ll see how that goes. Worst case scenario, I get stuck with writing longhand. Not that big a deal either–after I file down my nails today. I’ve already broken one, damn it.

I’m grappling with some of the issues coming up in Netwalk’s Children. I have several murky things I want to address–the nature of parental influence and control, the effect of prenatal and immediate postnatal virtual exposures (one symptom is a tendency toward extreme sensory overloads which create meltdowns that look a lot like autism), just what the hell Gizmo is and what its goal ultimately will be, matriarchal concerns across generations, matriarchal dynastic behaviors…oh yeah, this book has some interesting potential. Any book at this stage of development is full of potential, but this one in particular has me contemplating some big issues–and how to make it a whopping good story. We will be seeing Bess making a huge mistake which has monstrous consequences that will alienate her from her grandmother Diana (but will have the effect of endearing her to her great-grandmother, the Netwalker Sarah). We’ll see a more human side of Andrew (so far we’ve really only seen him fail). But the biggest piece is that we’re looking at the third/fourth generations to interact with Gizmo and the consequences thereof–not just to the humans but to Gizmo itself.

And space. Bess functions well in space, she adapts well to it and her children will be even more so.

So yeah. Good stuff ahead.

Mocha has also gotten into the regular work mode. I’ve been riding her in the bareback pad with a snaffle during these hot days (well, and also waiting for the farrier to trim her hooves, I don’t like working her in complex fast stuff when her feet get too long. Too easy to torque joints that way). She chuckles at me when I walk in the barn door and is right there ready to go out, even with fresh alfalfa in her manger. There’s been some interesting adventures in bareback pad world, including a moment where the cinch came off and I only discovered that because the pad was sliding back underneath me (a strange feeling when the pad is sliding but you are not). We’ve been working on spins, extension and collection at walk and trot, and I’m slowly working my way up to rollbacks and flying changes. So far Mocha’s let me know SHE doesn’t think I’m ready, mainly by doing simple changes and trotting the first steps of the rollback rather than her usual fast stop, whirl and run. In this case I’m respecting her choice, but we are revisiting it under saddle because I don’t want these behaviors to become habits.

The routines of summer. I still need to work on losing five pounds. I need to get more fit for skiing this winter. I went into skiing with poor fitness and hip problems last year, and it made the season not fun. This will not happen this coming season, not if I can help it!

The fourth of July really is the beginning of summer, at least summer in my world. What are other people doing for summer this year?

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February 11, 2012 · 10:25 pm

OMG! Forgot Ski Day #10!

Yeah, I  know.  Y’all don’t wanna hear about skiing.

Too bad.  You’re gonna hear about skiing.

So Friday was ski day number ten this season.  Not too great for February 10 to only be the tenth day, even if I’m only skiing weekends.  But that’s just a reflection of the sort of season it’s been.

Day 10 was decent enough.  I was able to park right next to the Day Lodge and get some interesting shots.  Not a bluebird day…rather one of those moody, wispy fog days that turned to first rain and then snow.

Kind of like this:

And this:

Turned into this:

All the same it was around 36 degrees F and a mix of rain and snow showers.  For the first hour I had the runs on Jeff Flood to myself and got four solid turns in on Kruser, Uncle Jon’s Band, Jojami and Brother Beau.  A nice relaxed set of runs with photo ops.

Folks started showing up after ten o’clock.  I got three more runs in on Kruser, UJB and Jojami, and by then it was ten-thirty, lines starting to form, and time to head down the Mountain to work.  Nonetheless it was a nice quiet morning with moody fog wisps, fast but slushy snow, and I got to happily bomb down that last pitch into the Flood chair.

I even passed folks.  Me.  The slow skier.  Passing people.

Granted, it was lousy conditions in some respects.  Before I left the lodge I was yakking with the Ski Patrol associate hanging out to check in with folks before they headed out.  We started talking about waxing our own skis (I’ve started doing my own wax, turning into ski geekess here), and opined that this would be a wax-stripping day.

Oh yeah.  At one point I looked down to see about a quarter-inch of ice hanging off my inside edges.  When I see that, I know that means I need a wax job at the end of the day.  Instead of dropping off my skis, though, I hauled them home, wiped, cleaned and waxed last night.  Winced at the level of stripping.  In past seasons, I’d probably have skied one more day, then dropped them off for waxing.  Instead, this evening after last night’s waxing, I spent a half hour scraping and buffing.

OMG.  I am so turning into a ski geek.

I even came up with a Netwalk’s Children backstory vignette idea tonight while scraping and buffing my skis.  Might even write and post it tomorrow–unlikely it’ll ever make it into the book, but it’s a nice little backstory setting mood piece.

That is, Melanie resorts to old-fashioned waxing, scraping and buffing of her skis when she wants to think about stuff.  And guess what…the children she’s helped raise do that too.

Yeah.  I might just do that.  Tomorrow.

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February 9, 2012 · 8:03 am

Writing blather

I don’t have much this morning.  Generally I have a topic in mind that I think about throughout the day, then post.  But there’s been a lot stirring at work, to the degree that it’s pretty much work, horse, house, ski and that’s just about it.  Well, except for Netwalk’s Children.  That writing process is fascinating me even as I’m going through it.

Ironically enough, I got a batch of rewrites back from my series editor for The Netwalk Sequence (purchasing info here) for my latest planned upload, Netwalker Uprising.  Uprising is–uh–turning into a larger story.  It’s reflective of the greater arc of the entire Sequence, and I’m finding myself having to rethink the dang book as well as what I’m trying to do in Children.  Let’s just say that Children answers some questions that Uprising brings up, while bringing in a few bombshells of its own.  I–uh, well, there’s been some worldbuilding pieces I’ve been consciously avoiding and now I can’t.  Or, rather, I’ve been gathering data for several years and suddenly it’s starting to coalesce.  Fascinating how that happens.

OTOH, it’s interesting to be plotting one and creating the underpinnings for that connected story while working on this next one.  I already see the need for a transition story that will explain a couple of pieces between Children and already published stories as well as the book that follows Children.  It’s very fascinating doing this sort of building and creation on my own and hopefully something good will come of it.

Meanwhile, I have other writing tasks to do, a deadline to meet, etc.  I suspect that this month I’ll put up a short story, perhaps a prequel to the “Cold Dish” story published in M-Brane 9, that tells us a bit more about Kathy Miller and a bit about Melanie and Andrew’s backstory.  That one might be a freebie.

Thinking about it…and now, onward!

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February 2, 2012 · 7:21 am

On the writing process

Not a long post today, but I’ve been thinking about changes in my writing process as I go about getting ready to work on Netwalk’s Children.  For one thing, this indie publishing thing?  Means I have NO EXCUSES about delaying getting to the work.  Doesn’t write itself, doesn’t put itself up, can’t mutter about editors taking a long time to hold up the work while they decide whether it fits their line/publication.  I’ve gotta write it and send it to my copyeditor.  Then it gets rewritten and sent to my formatter.  And somewhere in there I’ve got to think abut stuff like, oh, covers and publicity and all that good pile o’stuff that is part of the whole process.

Lots of work.  But, on the other hand, one really cool thing?  I can jump directly from revisions on Netwalker Uprising to planning Netwalk’s Children.  I CAN HAZ KEWL WORLDBUILDING WHILE WORKING ON CONTINUITY!!!

Yeah.  Got a little excited there.

I’m also getting a bit excited about Children.  It’s been a while since I’ve done new drafting/planning for a novel.  In fact, it’s been two years since I’ve done new novel work (shudder, why so long?  Inventory and all that good stuff.  One reason The Netwalk Sequence came about was the opportunity to get niche material out of inventory, experiment with consciously putting together a whole sequence of related stories/novels, and get that whole world out for people to find and enjoy).

To that end, I’m finding myself spending more time outlining and preplanning than I have in the past.  In the past, I’ve been a pantser about long form writing.  I knew kind of where the story would end up, knew the main points of a two-page outline, but the details?  Nuh-uh.

Not so with Children.  One reason for that is a hard self-imposed deadline–I want it ready to go up in late April or early May.  That means that when I do start writing, I need to be able to start writing.  Hard and fast.  It’s something I know I can do, but I’m realizing that to keep the pieces together without having to do tons of rewriting for continuity’s sake/fixing plot holes/etc, I need to have a more detailed writing plan than I’ve done for past books.

Additionally, Children is the first Netwalk story to be written since I started studying Interpersonal Neurobiology.  It’s the first significantly neuroscientifically informed Netwalk story, which means I need to identify where I go out and do more research.  Plus, I want to try doing this sort of detailed outline to see how it affects my actual writing process.  Ideally, I’d like to get it up on Scrivener and use that tool to help me put things together.  I need to integrate more technology tools in my writing work simply because otherwise I’m drowning in paper, and I need to simplify everything so I’m not lugging around a ton of reference materials.

However…the initial outline is going on paper.  Annoying, but given the time constraints of the Day Jobbe, that part of the process has to happen this way because of learning curves and all that.  After Children, perhaps even with Netwalk’s Descendants, I’ll be putting together stuff on Scrivener or some other like tool that I can find to port hopefully across to my tablet as well as laptop and desktop.  I’m starting to integrate materials for my nonfiction writing in that manner; it would be awfully damned nice if I could do the same for fiction.

I’m still not sure what the next project will be once I finish the Netwalk Sequence.  I have three short stories outlined, plus ongoing nonfiction projects.  I have portions of half-finished novels lying around the hard drive.  I also have the Peter McLoughlin Weird West sequence that is crying out to be written.

We shall see what the summer brings.

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February 1, 2012 · 8:31 pm

Catching up with things, getting back to Mocha work

Sheesh.  One busy week and a girl gets left behind on the blogging front.  Not that I haven’t been busy or anything…just running a lot of errands.  And going to SFWA readings.  And all sorts of other stuff.  Including working on a detailed outline for the Netwalk’s Children novella.  Children will be the most recent of all the work I’ve put up (well, except for Netwalk’s Descendants and I haven’t got that story in place yet).  With this novella I’m moving past things that are three to six years old and am really breaking new ground with this series.  I’m excited.  Hopefully others will get excited about it, too.  Given where it comes in the publishing schedule, I should have enough backlog already up that I can get aggressively behind promoting it.  It might not be ready for Norwescon, may be ready for Miscon promotion (still debating about going to Norwescon but thinking I may need to do it).

Mocha’s now settled back into the regular working schedule.  Monday afternoon she was still just a wee bit edgy and not quite back into her working head space.  We needed to Have Discussions right off the bat when I was stretching her forelegs.

Me: Give me the right foot, please (actual, me placing myself next to right foreleg, clucking).

Mocha: How about this one instead (actual, picking up left foot)?

Me:  No.  This foot.

Mocha:  I really would much rather pick up this foot.  It’s–ew–full of dirt and I don’t want to stand on it.

Me: This foot.

Mocha: Pick this foot out first, please?  I’d much rather do this foot.

Me: Look, Princess, it’s not going to hurt you to stand on that foot.  Hundreds of thousands of poor, deprived horses do this ALL THE TIME.  WITHOUT A FUSS.  THIS FOOT.  NOW.

Mocha: Le sigh. (picks up right foot).

Besides that little bit of entertaining nonverbal exchanges wherein the Princess was being The Princess (how can I stand unbalanced on a dirty foot!!), she was off in her balance and I was off in my back, dang near shot out of the stirrup in pain when I mounted.  However, throughout the course of the ride I figured out how to ease the pain and ended up feeling pretty good at the end.

So tonight, she was all working horse.  No-nonsense, back to her usual self.  She did appear to have herding on the mind, tracked one of the dogs who didn’t move out of her way at a trot until the very last moment, and then a crabby young horse in schooling on the lunge brought out Irritated Cowhorse Mare Ready to Herd Bad Behaving Kid.  Lots of energy, definitely wanted to finish out the ride with galloping thunder around the arena, head low and relaxed on the long rein.  Mellow flying changes–I hadn’t planned to do them, but she was moving smoothly so we tried them, and she executed them in flawless, relaxed mode.  Yay.

I wuv my horsie.

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January 10, 2012 · 7:47 am

Sliding back into the groove

It’s surprising how quickly some things can change, almost overnight.  I’ve gone from being completely blocked on writing and professional fronts, flailing about to find solutions to–what is probably making me feel best of all–the ability to be creative again.  Funny how that works.

It’s not that things have magically improved in my work life, which is the biggest negative  at the moment.  Right now everything is conspiring to make this the craziest, most twisted and positively most awful year I’ve ever had in this job.  I got slammed with a couple of things yesterday that, if I’d been hit with them sooner in the year, would have either sent me out the door screaming or dictated a resignation letter.  Instead, I buried my head in my hands for a moment, took a deep breath, then said, “Okay.  What next?  What else can happen that will make this year worse?”

(Because trust me.  This year really is the sum of every bad teaching experience I’ve had on an individual event basis all wrapped together.  I have no illusions that the universe will stop dealing me crazy cards.  Dear Universe: I GET IT.  MESSAGE IS RECEIVED.  I’M WORKING ON IT. KTHXBYE.)

Is the turnaround because I’ve come to a point of no return?  Or is it because I’m finally seeing my way out of things?  I don’t know.  I do know I bottomed out a bit over the weekend, thanks to the utter misery of this damn cold added to whatever is going on with my gut, and then started clawing my way out of it.  I made some decisions and took some actions.  I dumped a bit of the physical chaos in my home office and started making lists and a schedule.  It’s amazing how rewarding the act of being able to cross off things on a list can be.  It’s amazing how forcing yourself to impose structure, to take the time away from the crazy din of twenty different tasks that SHOULD BE DONE INSTEAD OF IMPOSING STRUCTURE and making that structure happen instead simplifies life.  How much the little structural things end up solving all the other tasks.

So yesterday morning I was able to be creative.  I spent the morning writing time productively crafting worldbuilding outlines and plans for Netwalk’s Children.  I think this novella might end up being the best piece in The Netwalk Sequence yet, just because I’m finally able to articulate some of the core issues that have been slinking around undercover about the whole damn thing for so many years.  We shall see if my writing is able to stand up to the ideas.  I know how when I wrote something significantly affects the quality of the story, and the sad fact of much of the Netwalk stuff is that it has not been written in sequential order.  It’s been bits and pieces pulled here and there, and even deft rewriting can’t cover up the differences in craft, at least not to my eye.

And I channeled my inner Sarah Stephens.  I know that character very well, god knows I’ve lived with her for twenty-three years.  I still don’t know all of her life and the things that twisted her into the brilliant but manipulative bitch she became in Netwalk and later stories.  But I know what the initial twist was, her ultimate soul-searching gut check that damned near killed her.  And occasionally it’s helpful to pull on aspects of that personality to help me get through the day (like, say, last night’s snark.  Which was more about work than about the rejection letter.  I can be very good at displacement).  Sarah is a construct but she’s a useful construct for those moments when it’s damn the revolution, bring on the apocalypse.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be things that won’t utterly shred my soul and bring me to my knees.  I know that.  There’s no way escaping how some deaths will eventually do that to me.  One death will do that for certain and is statistically likely to happen before mine (Mocha).  The other is a statistical probability but one of those things that you never know (DH) who goes first (and will definitely shred me to pieces), and the other (DS) would be a tragedy.  Those things just are.

So yesterday was a day for blowing up logjams and getting things done.  For moving on issues I needed to clear out of my head, and facing new obstacles with a grin.  I’m not quite up to a Rolex 4-star cross country course when it comes to the crazies, but it’s getting there.

I know where I’m going.  How that path happens, I don’t know.  But the way is starting to clear.

And meanwhile, it’s off for more plot noodling on Netwalk’s Children.  Oooh, I can hardly wait to start writing this one now!

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