The Darkest Day
February 7th, 2010
I’ve uploaded a new section of William Morris’ Sigurd the Volsung, unabridged. This latest scene is the one I find most wrenching in all the poem.
Later: I have uploaded two more scenes also. We are nearing the end of Book III.
Work proceeds on The Winds of Winter. I’m working on adding a scene to the mid-section of the story. After that, I have only the ending left to write.
The Will of the Norns is Accomplished
January 24th, 2010
I’ve uploaded a new section of William Morris’ Sigurd the Volsung, unabridged. I find this one of the two most painful sections of the story. (The other is coming up.)
The pneumonia is interfering with my work a lot, but I’ve made some progress on The Winds of Winter. I’ve begun the last interpolated scene. I have some minor editing for tone to do, and the end scene(s) to write. I’m pleased overall.
I’ve got pneumonia
January 13th, 2010
Things are moving slowly around here because I’ve got pneumonia, and I don’t have the spare energy to write elaborate posts. I’ll keep uploading new parts of Sigurd, however.
I’m making pretty decent progress on the poem, and on some projects unrelated to fiction-writing.
The Disaster Deepens: Sigurd the Volsung
January 8th, 2010
I’ve uploaded a new section of William Morris’ epic poem Sigurd the Volsung, unabridged. In this, Sigurd, forgetting the past, woos Brynhild for Gunnar.
The Wedding of Sigurd
January 1st, 2010
A new section of the unabridged version of William Morris’ epic poem The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs.
Microsoft’s Broken CSS
December 26th, 2009
I uninstalled Internet Explorer 8, and I’ve just noticed that the journal pages don’t look right in IE 7. I’m too busy writing to feel like fixing it now.
In fact, I may be too tired of Microsoft’s weird inability to write browsers that handle normal CSS to fix it, period. The page looks fine in Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Chrome, and it was OK in IE8 when I had IE8 installed.
But I’ll have a look at it, sooner or later, just to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid with the journal CSS.
Writing vs. Writing About Writing
December 23rd, 2009
In spite of having emergency dental work that included two root canals, and in spite of a persistent case of influenza and the perpetual headaches it seems to have left me with, I’ve made a highly productive time out of the last couple of months.
I’ve done a lot of work on The Winds of Winter:
- I finished three scenes near the end of the poem. That leaves me with the last scene (or perhaps two more scenes) to write. I now know how the whole plot develops, and it’s only a matter of execution.
- I’ve rewritten two scenes at the beginning of the poem, to improve the story setup.
- I wrote another scene that belongs in the revised beginning — either the whole thing, or the guts of it. Maybe I’ll decide it needs a few lines of fleshing out, but I’ve got most of it.
All of this means that I’m well on track to finishing the first draft of The Winds of Winter this year — probably early this year — after ten years! (I started writing it in 1999.)
And that’s why I’ve been quiet. I write about writing when my story is stalled — when I’m too tired to keep writing metered verse, or when I’ve hung up on the plot, or don’t know how to approach a scene. When my story-writing is going well, I don’t want to interrupt it for complicated essays about writing.
So I’ve been story-writing.
Merry Christmas, all.
Sigurd: the Turning Point
December 22nd, 2009
I’ve uploaded a new section of the unabridged version of William Morris’ Sigurd the Volsung:
Book III, part 6. Of the Cup of evil drink that Grimhild the Wise-wife gave to Sigurd.
‘Tis the story’s dreadful turning-point.
Downtime because of hack
December 19th, 2009
I got on today to find out that the page was down because of a hacking attempt. Quick action by my hosting service, Inmotion Hosting (whom I recommend), prevented any serious damage. I’ve now restored my files from local backup and updated Wordpress, as well as receiving an update from Adobe. With any luck, this will take care of the problem.
It’s just started to snow. We’re going to have a blizzard, it seems. I hope everyone is having good holidays.
Another New Sigurd Section
December 18th, 2009
Another new section of William Morris’ Sigurd the Volsung.
The flu doesn’t want to let go. I’ll be posting more when I’m not so exhausted.
