Tim Melody Pratt

Probably if I made a movie I’d hibernate for a year

Oh I meant after writing a book

the woods are the witch's house

Today's essay takes me to 110,000 words for the year so far, lol

I have historically written about 250,000 words a year. Funny how not having a full-time job anymore has altered my output

Yesssss, I'm around that many myself! Likely to stall there for a bit since I finished a book and have a couple of weeks with a lot of travel coming up. Still, I used to do about 250K a *year* so the trends for my full-time writing thing are looking good

I wrote a 1300-ish word essay today about poetry so I feel slightly less like a volitionless blob perched upon the edge of a howling void

After I finish a book, I like to lay sprawled unmoving on the floor for a couple of days, whimpering “whither meaning? whither purpose?”

It’s part of my process

Even if AI could write a novel what problem has been solved? The problem of knowing what you’re reading was written by another person? Who loves reading novels but hates the part where your mind briefly and mysteriously touched another?

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Since I finished a book yesterday I’m going to take the day off

*turns around and immediately trips over piles of dirty laundry and dishes that piled up while book was being finished*

See also “we’re basically the same, you don’t believe in thousands of gods, just like me! I just also don’t believe in that one you do”

My family weren’t super churchy though I did go to Sunday school for a while. In 5th grade I read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology and was like “those people believed just as firmly in Zeus and whatnot back then and now basically nobody does, huh” and that was it

Hmm which book should I write next tho

I finished a book and now I got pudding brain

You guys are getting your books in hardcover?

(first appearance of Orgalorg when we knew it was Orgalorg rather)

I am engaged with a rewatch now, just past the first appearance of Orgalorg. It's such a good, moving, heartbreaking, inventive, weird, uplifting show

Oh, wait, 43 days? Oh well. I'm bad at counting. Anyway!

Those 21 days I didn't work on the novel were either travel days, weekends (I take those off now!), days I worked on pitches/outlines/copyedits for other projects, or, in a few cases, days when the buses just weren't running and I did housework or baking or reading or wandered around instead

That said, I have been planning this book for literally years and had lots of notes and even an actual chapter-by-chapter outline before I started, which isn't something I usually bother with

Still. I don't think I've ever written a book this quickly. Writing full-time agrees with me

7000 words, and that's a draft of my romance novel, tentatively titled Getting Out There

First draft is ~70,000 words long. I usually add about 10% in revision so that's fine

I began writing January 26, finished March 9, so 42 days

I actually wrote on 21 of those days, averaging 3300 words/day

I have about half of this chapter left to write and then an epilogue that'll probably run 1,500 words or so

I did 3,500 words on the romance novel this morning.... but another 3K or so will finish the book... and I have good momentum... so I'm going to take a lunch break and then return for a few more pomodoros and complete the draft

In one book I had a character encapsulate their memories into a pill then feed it to the protagonist so he could relive her experience, and he gave a first-person account of experiencing her experience, with all the attendant strangeness and alienation. PoV is my favorite playground

I also do nested first person PoVs sometimes, where someone tells the narrator a story (and then sometimes someone tells THEM a story and I shift level deeper)

I wrote a series that was third person limited PoV for 6 books, then switched to the protag’s first-person viewpoint for book 7, then back to third for book 8, BUT book 8 was the only one with no scenes at all from the protag’s PoV, it was all how others saw her

Do a) what works and b) is fun

describe your plot in five words or fewer:

Weirdos help weirdo find weirdo

"slay the spire"? u mean bottom surgery?

Leiber was so good. I watched Burn Witch Burn last month, it's very weird but enjoyable

An homage to a panel from the Achewood web comic. Phillipe, a young and eager otter, who is wearing a shirt and tie and a helmet for some reason, is happily singing a song to himself as follows: Born... in the USA! I went to school and I got an... A! I ate a hamburger and said hooray! Maybe it will happen today! The final line is obviously my addition. The art was redrawn by me and is not just a copy of the original panel. Done in black lines and halftone shading on a toned paper background. You do not need to trouble Chris Onstad about this.