{"id":5482,"date":"2021-04-30T20:57:34","date_gmt":"2021-05-01T03:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/?p=5482"},"modified":"2021-04-30T21:00:50","modified_gmt":"2021-05-01T04:00:50","slug":"viiictory-twenty-nine-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/30\/viiictory-twenty-nine-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Viiictory, Twenty-Nine Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"camp<\/p>\n

SO! Once again, I have written more than 50,000 words in a month – this time, on Dakota Frost #7, SPIRAL NEEDLE, which is close to being finished. (Yes, yes, YES, I know, Dakota Frost #4-#6 and Cinnamon Frost #1-#3 are not edited yet, editing is harder than writing, and pays less than teaching robots to learn. I’ll get to them, I’ll get to them, I promise). I can’t figure out the new Camp Nano interface to make it cough up the usual winner banner, so you’ll just get that screenshot instead.<\/p>\n

\"camp<\/p>\n

This is my twenty-ninth victorious Nano challenge and thirty-first attempt overall. That’s great stick-to-it-ness, but I was behind for much of the month, not getting my feet under me until the 10th, but I managed a big pushes two weekends a go and a huge push last weekend, leading to me briefly getting ahead of the game right around the 28th, making today an easy coast (1500 words finished me off, though I wrote through to a notch over 1,667 words just for completeness). According to my records, that 8,154 word push on the 25th was the second most I’ve ever written in a day, topped only by my 9,074 word mad push to finish PHANTOM SILVER, Dakota Frost #5, on July 30th, 2016.<\/p>\n

\"camp<\/p>\n

Overall, a bit behind this month, which was pretty rough OKR (Objective \/ Key Result) planning at work. I love the IDEA of OKRs – say what you want to do (Objective, for example, write roughly 1\/3 of a novel) and how to measure it (Key Result, for example, 50,000 words in the month of April), but this time it took us until almost the 20th. 3 weeks is way too long to spend on planning for a quarter’s worth of effort.<\/p>\n

OH, almost forgot, an excerpt:<\/p>\n

The questing metal fingers of the Plague Witch’s “broom” branched and lunged at me. The Salzkammergutschwert\u2019s black blade swept through the metal spikes, as cleanly as a Larry Niven variable sword through tissue paper. The Plague Witch recoiled, whirling the broom-thing, striking its black kettle end on my overextended sword hand. The Salt Chamber Sword sang out across the street, slamming into a fire hydrant in a hiss of water.<\/p>\n

But that movement naturally carried me forward, as I thought it would, and the moment the Plague Witch raised her head, I shoved my free hand at her, jamming onto her pointed beak a magical silencing wreath made of glowing vines and Technicolor feathers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, shaddap,<\/em>\u201d I said, drawing the wreath tight just as she tried to scream. The Plague Witch squeaked\u2014she had a mask, not a beak, so the wreath couldn\u2019t actually shut her mouth, but it could effectively gag her, and as she flailed her head, I kicked<\/em> her. \u201cAnd siddown!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

And as she stumbled back, for a moment, I thought it was going to work.<\/p>\n

The Plague Witch writhed. I seized the Waystaff. Nyissa seized my arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suggest retreat!\u201d she cried.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo argument!\u201d I yelled back\u2014but retreat was not so easy. The silencing wreath wasn\u2019t a free design, like my bluebirds or butterflies, but was an ad-hoc construct made from\u2014and attached to\u2014my vine and peacock tattoos, which tugged at me. \u201cSome difficulty!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDakota!\u201d Nyissa cried, pulling me away. \u201cLet go!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s got<\/em> me,\u201d I said, my feet slipping on the street. Oh, this had been a bad idea: as the Plague Witch struggled, the wreath self-replicated, drawing more and more silencing power from her own strength\u2014but the design was imperfect, and was reeling me in towards her. \u201cNyissa!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then things happened very, very quickly.<\/p>\n

Nyissa\u2014my bodyguard, my bride-to-be, my love\u2014darted forward, seized the Salt Chamber Sword in a burst of spray, and swung wildly at the tattoo vine connecting us. But the Plague Witch, flailing, swung her damaged broom at Nyissa\u2014impacting her stomach.<\/p>\n

Nyissa didn\u2019t even scream: she just doubled over in a splash of blood. The broom swept through her as the Plague Witch stumbled away, her body taken through a forward tumble, the lethally sharp sword falling from her hand\u2014and severing the magic-tight tattoo connection.<\/p>\n

My vine snapped back to me, hurling me to the pavement. My wind went out.<\/p>\n

The Plague Witch tore off her disintegrating crown of vines, and screamed\u2014<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

-the Centaur<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SO! Once again, I have written more than 50,000 words in a month – this time, on Dakota Frost #7, SPIRAL NEEDLE, which is close to being finished. (Yes, yes,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,197,198,202],"tags":[6,4,91,5],"class_list":["post-5482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challenges","category-fiction","category-urban-fantasy","category-writing","tag-dakota-frost","tag-dragon-writers","tag-nanowrimo","tag-we-call-it-living","ratio-2-1","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5482"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5491,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482\/revisions\/5491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}