ElSol: Blog

I have returned to using editing help.

I gave it up after a long bout of sitting around and twiddling my thumbs. In the old days my outlines were not very good... They have not improved much but enough for me to continue working on new chapters while old ones are edited. I have also begun to complete or 'near' complete my stories before posting so that gives me other things to do while I wait for editing.

Diederik Rask is my primary editor. He has helped a lot with my Swarm Story. I tend to live in my head when it comes to stories so it helps a lot to have a different set of eye touch the story as it exists on paper. Deiderik's changes helped me see where the reader was going in a different direction. I keep about 75% of his changes, drop about 10% as not something I want to say, and incorporate the last 15% into the story by altering it to be in my Voice. The drops are not because they are bad suggestions. Different cultures and people tell stories differently. I watch a lot of Korean television shows hoping one of them will have a non-tragic ending.

Tom K. From the Swarm List has also been a big help. I change things after Diederik gives it to me and of course break more things, Tom has done a great job of final cleanup.

They and others on the Swarm List have pointed some habits I have gotten into that I will have to change for the last few stories that I will be writing on SOL.

Thank you, Diederik, Tom, and all the Swarm Author's List.

I did not quite believe, or at least was hoping they were wrong, when the doctors said that because we caught it so early things still had to get worse before they got better. Yeah... it would appear these doctors know their shit!

Day 3 is the worst for RSV and tonight is day 3 for my daughter. At least, her body decided to be fucked up and only suffer one bad symptom at a time -- yesterday day was breathing, last night was vomiting, today was diarrhea, tonight it's fever.

There isn't much to do in a hospital when the child is doing the 'healing' sleep thing and you don't want to do ANYTHING to wake her. The hospital also only allows one parent to sleep in the room and that's going to be my wife since I usually stay up until 3am writing.

I submitted another chapter - and sent another to the editor.

That should pretty much be it -- but things may change since she has to be 'good' for 24 hours before they'll let her out, so that's a lot of time sitting around watching monitors to make sure she stays good.

Thank you to all the well-wishers -- it is appreciate and it does help a lot.

On a side-note, babies (and i guess it's possible for adults) poop mucus. The nurse said it's because their bodies don't know how to expel it corrrectly.

I was like "So a baby's body takes the exit it does know about?"

I submitted four chapters to my Swarm Story.

I had originally planned to post them separately but real life has gotten in the way. It still works since these 4 chapters have the same chapter title and sort of lead into the last act of the story. The only reason to post them one day at a time rather than together was to give myself a few days to finish the last two chapters of the story.

At this point due to the family emergency that is pulling me away, I do not know how long it will take before I finish the last two chapters and can post the remainder of the story (4 chapters).

My daughter caught RSV which became bronchilitis (RSV is a very common virus among children bronchilitis is the infant form of bronchitis) and has been hospitalized due to her age. We caught it about as early as we could since I was walking her around the house when she got her fever. Things are looking well, but they have to keep her hospitalized due to her age because they have very strict guidelines as to considering a baby to be okay from this stuff (24 hours with no fever or labored breathing.)

It sucks!

It also means one to two weeks out of day care so in-laws may be visiting unless we play hot potato with our days off and working from home.

I may not get back to this story for two weeks -- Chapter 11 and 12 are complete, chapter 13 is half-complete, epilogue is at zip but it's REALLY short.

Sincerely,
ElSol

The Swarm Cycle canon does not have the rank of Captain in the Confederacy. I have gone back and changed Miranda Jones to be a Lieutenant to reflect canon.