I got some pretty encouraging feedback yesterday on station keeping, and that was quite good. I think SK exists in a somewhat fragmented sort of way in the tychoish.com archives, but I have a PDF file that I'll be posting when I get TealArt relaunched.
In any case, that's a good thing. I've been doing a lot of writing lately that I've either known is kind of crappy (eg. academic papers) or that needs to be very sharp and polished (eg. graduate school statements.) While this kind of writing has it's place, it's not something that I can do without having people looking over my shoulder and saying: "no really that's not the word you mean to use." Which isn't at all like my fiction process, but the systems feedback into each other.
I don't think it's a problem that my fiction is less polished than my statement of purpose. I mean, I want it to be clear and pretty clean, but I don't feel like I need to be flashy in a structural/syntatic/lexical sort of way. Or at least not any more (and sometimes less), than I am in these entries.
While I was out west, I got another review of the novella which told me that my little running list of changes in my head is pretty much exactly what my reader said I need to do to make it better (stage the ending better; clarify a couple of characters and dynamics). So I'm close. I'd like other reviewers to read (you know who you are!) but I'm also pretty ready to just whack this thing for good.
Also yesterday, I wrote a goodly amount on breakout (the novel), and I'm realizing that I need to do something to pep up the beginning. The novella opens with an action sequence, my hope is that because it's short, there needs to be something that says "keep reading me," early on. In the context of the novella, it totally works, but it was something that I went back and added, when I realized that it started on a rather dry note.
I'm thinking that the new one needs a similar trick at the start. I open with a light hearted scene, at the moment, but I don't know if it's has the feeling of plot movement that I might otherwise want. We'll have to see, I guess. I the mean time this weekend will see more breakout writing and some serious time working on the new tealart site. And of course, you'll hear from me over here.
Onward and Upward!