Fair warning, part 2

[mrissa]

For the last several weeks, I've had a blue sign on top of my computer that reads, "You don't have to figure out what novel to write next right now." It has said it in execrable handwriting, because timprov made it for me.

Today I turned that sign around to the other side, which reads -- in equally execrable handwriting, for the same reason -- "You are the road-builder." And -- yah. This is not the one that's a multiple choice test. This is not the one where you can only choose to take or not take that left turn at Albuquerque. This is the one where you look at where you are and you look at where you're going, and if there has to be a machete and a shovel or possibly dynamite and steamrollers involved, you give this quiet little nod and get to it.

Or, to go at this another way, I have a plan, and beyond the plan I have a series of intentions, and none of them are at all the same thing as a resolution, but still, it's New Year's Eve, and it's nice to have some notion of where I might be headed from here, and how much the flamethrower is going to be required on the underbrush. But it is no longer required nor desired to tell me that I don't have to figure out which novel to write next right now. Even though I don't. Because, to first approximation of the timeline, I already know.

Happy New Year.

Comments

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

I love your signs. I need to get myself a timprov to make signs for me.

Happy new year, mris! :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with the timprov you already have?

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

He's 2000 miles away! :(

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Blue signs go well by mail.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I think we have devices for doing things about that.

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

Perhaps some kind of audio-vibratory-physio-molecular transport device?

[arkuat]

I think I saw "Fair Warning, Part 1" back in the day, but I'm not exactly sure I recollect which post it exactly was.

Happy New Year, Mris :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It was the one about Tokay earlier yesterday.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yay for knowing. This is one of the reasons I love LJ: watching other people build roads, right from first principles.

Happy new year.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Happy New Year!

So, would it be appropriate to ask?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, entirely; it's just a bit long-winded, is the thing, and with contingencies based on other people's behavior. So if no one wants me to do anything different, where by no one I mean people who are directly involved with the works' publication rather than friends popping up and saying, "But I liked this idea better," I will:

1) Finish revisions to What We Did and ship them around to smart first-readery people.
2) Finish a draft of Zodiac House. A Very Nice Editor asked me for something less political in this category, and ZH is very short, half-finished, and as unpolitical as I will ever be.
3) Look into how I feel about doing revisions to Copper Mountain. If I feel like hiding under the desk and crying, and no smart editbeing is asking for them, I will go on and do them later; if not, I will do them at this point.
4) Write Eleven Names for Home, with its perfumer and its intentional families and its Oort habitats and its other bits of shiny. It's time for another SF novel for me anyway. I think. Maybe. Unless something comes up.

And you can insert "and write some more short stories" between all these steps.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Please call me for the dynamite bits. Kaboom-y New Year to you!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So you can watch or so you can help?

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Either way. I'm easy.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Wishing you a year of good health and creative discovery.