Trying to work at these things I've decided are the problems of my Epic Fantasy which must be fixed before the whole thing can be cleaned and released. Problems in this case means plot holes or anything else I think breaks the story, not merely the bits that are badly written.

The first one was easy, needing only the swapping of two scenes' order, plus some slight text tweaking there for and action described twice that only needs once. Haven't done that yet, haven't decided how I want that done, and the current problem is likely to decide that one for me in its resolution.

I feel disappointed in myself for today, because despite an excellent opportunity with many hours available I became distracted and did not use today for editing.

I am trying to remind myself I have a right to some sense of accomplishment, as I did manage to fix the first item on my checklist of items that need dealing with before I am done with the story. It turned out to be again simpler than I expected, mainly because with yWriter I just had to drag and drop one scene so it was before another, instead of after. There.

[abrupt post beginning because previous topic changes 'enough' here to warrant separation]

Perhaps I will find out if I can reconcile those, since last night (two nights ago, now) when I could not sleep I started work on a new story and slowly realised this could be the cross-genre erotic work I've been saying I'm unable to write.

Recently I posted a piece called In Sleep which seems a good illustration of what I have been trying to say about finding erotica incompatible with other genres.

I labelled the story as containing 'unsolicited sex', but were those events to occur in a story of a different genre, or to actually occur, I would have labelled them rape. I think that points neatly to the source of the genre conflict I perceive in myself.

I let enough time lapse between finishing Part 2 of the story and moving on to refresh Part 3 that it seemed best to start over again. Tedious and a bit annoying, but I couldn't manage the last stretch without fresher context.

I dusted off the word metering last week because I got it into my head to finish off an erotic short from the end of last year. That took a single night, but then the story demanded a coda and I'm still struggling with that. It needs a different voice, maybe realist in a way I don't normally do. Unless I'm misusing that term, going by associative meanings picked up casually. Sometimes I wonder if I'd ever do a cross-genre piece, combine erotica with some serious work in a different genre.

This is May and maybe the first time since November last year that I've had cause to look in my writing logs. Mainly because I haven't been writing since then, and when I have been writing I've been editing. But this week I have been writing a bit of something different and brief, so it has finally been time to throw together a spreadsheet for 2010 and tidy some loose ends for 2009.

A long while ago, reading the dc20 Modern System Reference Document I was struck by the section on Incantations.

For a while now I have not done much at all. My activities for the past month or more have been looking for work and trying to get on top of that, making a manageable task of it, and playing World of Warcraft in a stress-relieving, hiding-from-the-world sort of way. Which is not always successful, as the game itself is often fairly stressful and upsetting for me.

I saw her from about a block away. She was hard to miss, squatting by the sidewalk and leaned forward over something interesting on the ground.