First Draft Complete

Finished the first draft last week of the s.f. comedy. Chris Young (who is co-authoring) is now going over it, taking notes, etc. He's going to take the next two weeks to do that and then we'll get back together and review everything.

After that, I'll start working on the second draft and finally the third draft. When the third draft is done the plan is to submit it to The Editorial Department for a full review before we move on to shooting for publication.

But while that's going on we'll be well on our way working on book #2. So far we have three book concepts in the series. The plan is to just keep writing on this series for as long as possible.

I would love to describe the series but Chris and I agreed to keep things under wraps for now. If we're unable to find publication by the end of 2012 we'll start releasing the books on our own, so one way or the other 2013 either marks the release of these titles or marks the release of the information on the titles because we'll have a publisher (crossing fingers!).

50k words on s.f. comedy

Just over two months into the science fiction comedy book and we're less than 2k words away from 50k. I'm averaging about 2-4k words per day when I'm able to give it proper time. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of travel over the last couple of weeks and that's eaten into things pretty heavily.

Proposed scenes in the outline is at 65. We're currently at scene 36. We yanked a couple of scenes along the way and combined a few others, but I'm sure that a number of scene will get squished in as well.

Now, I know what you're thinking: erm...if you're at 36 scenes and already at 50k words, you're gonna have a lot of words when you're done! True, but that's where second drafts come in handy. Possibly. If it's anything like my last book I'll shave about 10k and add about 15k. OOPS. So, yeah, it may end up being a little on the large side as far as page count goes, but a story, to be told proper-like, needs as many words as it damn well needs. :)

At this rate it looks like the first draft will be done by the end of September. Of course we all know that life gets in the way more often than not, so October is more likely.

The main thing I love is that fact that this s.f. universe is just clicking so easily for me. The characters and the world just flow for some reason. I was decently comfy with the characters in my fantasy comedy too, but it's just not quite the same. One benefit of this is that I'm learning a bit more about why these characters work. That's cool because I'll use that information to ask some new questions of my characters in the fantasy book. Fun stuff!

Is he still writing?

I certainly am! More than ever, actually.

Things have been moving ever so smoothly on some fronts and not so much on others. I finished up the second and third drafts of the "A Quest of Undoing" and have now set it aside for a couple of months so that I can get a fresh perspective on it before going forward.

During the downtime of that I've been working with Chris Young on a new s.f. comedy series and we're flying! The idea just clicked perfectly for us. The outline of the first book came together in a week and I've already written the first 20 scenes (first drafts). It's a fun read and we're having a blast working on it. I tend to write a full scene every night and sometimes I get two a day on the weekend.

The main things I've learned thus far is that no matter how many times you rewrite your story it's not enough. At some point I know I have to just bite the bullet and recognize that this is the best it's going to get and ship it off for rejection! haha Fortunately, I've been in the entertainment industry for the better part of my life so I'm used to taking criticism. You have to have a thick skin to be a creative type!

Anyhoo, the current plan is to finish up the first draft of the s.f. book, go back to a final once-over on the fantasy book, and then rewrite the s.f. book again...and again...and again... :)

Rewriting #1 started

I'm actually a few days into the rewrite. This is probably the most challenging part for me because the goal is to make as close to a real piece of work as possible. I can write stories very fast, typically, but polishing them is a bit more challenging. I'm sure that's the case with everyone except for those lucky few.

It's a bit slow-going at the moment. I have like a page a day at this point. Hopefully when I get on a roll that will improve to 5-10 per day, but since I only have an hour each night that may be a bit much to hope for. The thing I want to avoid is flying through again. Flying through (for me) is first-draft writing. So far I've caught myself flying a couple of times and had to slam on the brakes and go back again.

It is quite nifty to see the story turning into something that looks...well...real. Lot's of work, but I'm digging it so far! :D

Writing junk

Was up pretty late last night working on just marking up the story. I'm essentially finding that the majority of my descriptions are going bye-bye while the dialog is mostly untouched.

Why can't I just have a book of nothing but dialog published? :)

Actually, it's not quite that bad. There are a number of places where the description is decent. Some of it even caused that "I wrote that?" awe-based reaction. Most, though, was more of that "I wrote that?" depression-based reaction.

I'm about 50 pages of markups away from being done with that phase. Then it's off to rewrite #1.

On other fronts, the s.f. comedy bit is coming along in its first draft. I'm having fun with that one and I'm also learning to address some of the goofs I'm finding in my Whizzfiddle markups. Hopefully that will translate to fewer issues in the next story. We'll see!

Time to do first edits

I know it's been a few weeks since I've posted here, but that's because I finished the first draft of the book and had to step away from that book until now. I have printed it all out and read it. I like it! There are a number of inconsistencies, typos, and a need to flesh out a lot of the areas, but it's pretty nifty.

I have also been working on the new book, and that's been eating up some of the time as well.

Either way, I've not gone away from doing this stuff. I'm still very much into it and rocking along.

Now with the edits underway on the first book, things will slow down on the progress of the second book...'tis the way it is! :D

First Draft Complete

It's hard to believe, but I actually finished the first draft of the book in right around 30 days. I know that the hard work starts now, but just getting the first draft done is something to be happy about.

Now I take a few weeks away from this one so that I can return to it with a fresh set of eyes. Then the editing and second draft begins. I have to admit that I'm a little worried about this part! It's gonna be quite a challenge. Fortunately, each challenge just serves to make for better writing, so it's a good thing. :)

Tonight I'll start in on the first draft of the next book! (well, okay, plotting a blueprint first, but it's all part and parcel...)