{"id":40489,"date":"2022-08-22T06:30:48","date_gmt":"2022-08-21T18:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=40489"},"modified":"2022-08-21T17:08:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-21T05:08:46","slug":"the-wall-of-night-4-the-chaos-gate-update-august-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2022\/08\/22\/the-wall-of-night-4-the-chaos-gate-update-august-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wall Of Night #4 (\u201cThe Chaos Gate\u201d) Update: August 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Update time…<\/p><\/div>\n

So-o, looking back to April<\/a> (yes, I know, where do the months fly away to?), I reported that WALL #4 was in its denouement phase, with end sequences coming together, \u201cbut without being quite there yet.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

On July 11th<\/sup><\/a>,when deferring this update, I advised that I was in the middle of writing \u201c\u2026an important but proverbially thorny passage\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

What I did not say then, was that the writing since April has been consistently stormy and<\/em> thorny. So in fact I know exactly where the months have gone to, even as the days and weeks have ground by.<\/p>\n

Occasionally a reader will ask why the writing of a book, and this book in particular, takes so long. Although I cannot really answer to the why, beyond the story being a complex and multi-layered one, with a large cast of characters<\/strong><\/a>, I can speak more readily to the \u201chow.\u201d<\/p>\n

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USA<\/p><\/div>\n

In this instance, the writing hit a wall (no, not Night\u2019s Wall, though it may have characteristics in common. \ud83d\ude00 ) very soon after the April update. In this case, the \u201cwall\u201d involved the writing becoming increasingly slow and simultaneously starting to gyre \u2013 i.e the writing process was circling the story rather than advancing it.<\/p>\n

\"\"

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

Over the years, I\u2019ve gotten increasingly adept at recognizing the signs early and looking for the cause and solutions. Almost invariably, this involves doing a back-cast to find where the narrative began to go astray. When the glitch is particularly deeply embedded, as it was in this case, it may also necessitate the question, \u201cIs there a way I can tell the story differently?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In terms of the perennial \u201cplanner vs pantser\u201d discourse, the implication is, \u201cIn order to achieve the same outcome, as envisaged by the plan?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

The answer, though, may be that the plan itself must be amended, in line with von Moltke the Elder\u2019s observation that: \u201cNo plan survives contact with the enemy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

While the story is (definitely!) not the enemy, progressing it\u2014particularly knowing publishers and readers are waiting\u2014can sometimes feel like a battle. This was a case in point, since the necessary back-cast took me all<\/em> the way back to the point of the January update<\/a>. \u201cOh, no!\u201d<\/em> indeed.<\/p>\n

In this case, it was<\/em> the plan that needed amending, chiefly that a point in the action I believed I was writing toward<\/em>, needed to come before<\/em> the sections I\u2019d completed between January and April. And, \u201cof course\u201d, once that material was written, the ensuing sections required consequential revision.<\/p>\n

\"daughter-of-blood-by-helen-lowe\"

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

So that, dear readers, is the road\u2014or battlefield\u2014I have been traversing. I am aware this is not good news for all of you waiting for word of \u201cthe end\u201d, but there is, in fact, a modicum of positive tidings\u2014which is that I have now, however bloodied and battle-scarred, but undefeated in spirit, arrived at the final showdown.<\/p>\n

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UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

Yes, \u201cI know!\u201d, after three books\u2014and many years of writing this one! I do hope you will feel, as I do, that this is \u201cnot nothing.\u201d<\/em> However, by way of a caution, I am not 100% certain exactly how much writing will be required to wrap it up\u2014and glitches of the kind encountered over the past quarter are never in \u201cthe plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An Alternative Update, Channeling the Great Dorothy Parker, 1893 – 1967<\/strong><\/h3>\n

(Bowing to 21st<\/sup> century sensibility, I\u2019ve omitted the \u2018all caps\u2019 of the original.)<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026I simply cannot get that thing done yet never have done such hard night and day work, never have so wanted anything to be good and all I have is a pile of paper covered with wrong words. Can only keep at it and hope to heaven to get it done. Don\u2019t know why it is so terribly difficult or I so terribly incompetent.\u201d<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

Here be dragons — but we soldier on!<\/p><\/div>\n

Except in the case of WALL #4, you may rest assured I am<\/em> doing it and as observed in April, as well as in the spirit of Dorothy Parker, the \u201cthe only way to\u2026[reach the end]\u2026is to stay glued to the writing desk and keep going.\u201d<\/em> So I reiterate my commitment to doing just that, and also to \u201ckeep you updated as soon as anything of moment happens.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Otherwise, the next update will be in the first week of December. I\u2019ll advise the exact date closer to the time.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Open for some serious “final showdown” business…<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So-o, looking back to April (yes, I know, where do the months fly away to?), I reported that WALL #4 was in its denouement phase, with end sequences coming together, \u201cbut without being quite there yet.\u201d On July 11th,when deferring this update, I advised that I was in the middle of writing \u201c\u2026an important but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-what-im-doing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40489"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40494,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40489\/revisions\/40494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}