Monday, 2 July

Who doesn’t love a blog post that begins with the ubiquitous “wow, it’s been a while since I posted” sentence?

A wee update on progress. I’m currently querying and enjoying the process. What’s that, you say? Enjoying querying? What kind of monster are you?

Personally, I find the hunt for agents and subsequent research to be incredibly satisfying. Because, guys, I’ve written a book—well, I’ve written five books, but that’s not what this “long-time-no-see” post is about. I’ve revised it, sent it to betas, revised it again, more betas, CP’s and then, yep, you guessed it: revised. I’ve changed every sentence, every line of dialogue has been pushed and pulled and I’ll keep doing it forever if I don’t stop. So hooray, after all this time: I’m finally querying! I’ve entered contests, won critiques, lost critiques, had CP’s punch me in the face with notes (I like a good bit of tough love wrapped in a compliment burrito if you’re offering). I’ve had success at Twitter pitch parties like #PitMad and #SFFPit. And, no, my parents haven’t read it.

But I digress.

Querying is a milestone, part of the long road to publishing that so many of us dare to walk. There are high days and lows, but no matter the result that pings in my email, there is always a brilliant light at the end of the tunnel: another book to write.

Segue to… Camp NaNoWriMo! I find Camp to be a great experience, with its cabins and chat rooms and writery conversations. I’m hosting a cabin for a small, eager group of SFF authors of all skill levels, from beginners to sequel writers to people like me who have a few completed manuscripts under their belts. I really wanted to encourage the sharing of pages and cheering on with daily check-ins and writing sprints, maybe make a few new CP’s. I don’t know about you, but in my early days of writing I had created this island for myself with too many cups of coffee and music in my headphones, and to be able to chat with other writers about a character or a scene or a sentence whose cadence is giving me trouble is a gift.

I’ll update the widget thing on the sidebar with my progress. So far today I’ve written a not-completely-terrible 1007 words.

And if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to write more and host a sprint. Happy writing!

… since I’ve not done it in a while, here’s a line I wrote yesterday that I will likely revise within an inch of its life and find a way to kill during revisions in the upcoming months.

Our skiff is made of wind, weaving in and out of colors so bright the other racers may as well be moons and stars.

Goodnight, dear readers. And adieu.

Saturday 1, July

As my just completed WIP languishes in the last looks of my critique partner, I now find myself with some writing time on my hands.

So Camp NaNoWriMo it is. I’ve not done one of these before, usually too slammed with work to even consider a full writing project. But this July’s camp comes at the perfect time, in between finishing line edits and Pitch Wars. Yes, I am subbing my previously complete manuscript to the Pitch Wars mentor gods. I’m looking to continue learning, growing and expanding my repertoire as a writer of long form prose. Should I be chosen, there will be a party where I may even partake in alcohol. Should I not, I’ll move on to the next.

And speaking of: I’m now just over 16,000 words into my newest endeavor, Hunter or Hunted, a YA SFF set on a dying planet far, far away. I blasted through 5,829 words today, cresting the 50 page mark and pulling through that first major story beat without a scratch on me, though if only my MC fared as well. But she’s a badass, make no mistake. She’ll be fine. She’s got a suns-scorched world to cross, after all.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m shattered from all the feelings. And what better, I get to do it all over again.

One of my favorite lines of the day:

The singer on the stage all legs and lips and beautiful in a broken kind of way.

Goodnight, dear readers. And adieu.

 

Tuesday, 6 June

I’ve written a hell of a lot of words these last few days. You remember how a couple weeks ago I marked down on the permanence of the internet that I’d finished my book.

Yeah. About that. I have this thing I do whilst I’m editing. I add words rather than subtract.

At its height, my manuscript topped 113k. Which is nothing in the grand scheme of things. I could take this MS to 140k if agents would take even the slightest look at it. But to be safe, I’d like it to be under 110k.

And wouldn’t you know it. After writing and rewriting the ending about eight times now, I’ve got it to 109k.

And now I can begin cutting the fat.

Third draft. This is where I get in and perfect. I’ll spend a week in this place, reading it and taking the pages of notes I made whilst on the second draft and applying them. Maybe I adjusted something later that will require a tweak early on. A character that came back needs a bit of fleshing out. A world-building rule that I needed to change in order to get a character from A to B. And of course making sure that the whole thing is as polished as I can get it. Because after this draft.

I read.

I turn my word doc to a PDF and pop it on my kindle app and highlight all the bad things. The errors I’ve been looking at for months. Like the time I forgot the L at the end of the word pool. Gross. I’ll highlight anything that feels too cliche. Those phrases I see way too often. Like “ran his hand through his hair” or “she bristled” (I use the word bristle a LOT. Such a great word!)

And once I make those changes I’ll dive into the overused words. THAT. ACTUALLY. PROBABLY. REALLY. VERY. JUST. THEN. etc. etc. followed by trying to trim down the “felt” and “thought” tags, though my MS doesn’t use a lot of those, a quirk of my protagonist. Can’t hurt to trim the ones still there. Took a look. I have 105 instances of thought. Not bad! I could probably lose have of those easily.

But in the mean time I’m more than excited it’s under 110k today. But tomorrow?

That’s another story.

Here’s a wee line from my manuscript. May or may not have been written today. The days have run together.

A small access panel opens.

A beam of artificial light straight from mouths of demons.

Goodnight, dear readers. And adieu.

Friday, 19 May

Today will forever be known in my household as the day I finished my 3rd book.

Until I forget, of course, which is why I am posting it here.

I wasn’t expecting to be done today. I’ve gone back and forth on how I wanted to end this lovely little work of speculative fiction. The room I wanted her to end up is now the room she’ll end up in at the very, very end. Book three of the trilogy, should it ever get that far. It turns out, once I let that go, the ending flowed like whiskey. And no my MC ends up in a whole new place entirely. The place she probably should have been headed the entire time.

And no, I won’t tell you. Because spoilers.

I can tell you right now that it needs ALL OF THE EDITING. It tops out at 99,100 words give or take. And I know I need serious character development for the new kids. So the second draft will end up being longer. And since I pulled most of the beginning and many of the middle scenes from the previous polished draft, I feel like at least 1/3rd of this book will require little effort.

This is all just thinking aloud, as my second run through this draft will include the following:

• aforementioned character development
• a timeline to ensure everything lines up correctly
• world-building issues
• subplots – are they there, make sense, resolve?

But first! I am taking a few days off. I will not turn on my computer for anything writing related for at least two days. Then next week I’m going to continue working on a fantasy manuscript I’d started whilst waiting for readers to get me feedback. I’ll deep dive into Feud for a week or two, just to get my head completely out of the Defiant world. And then I’ll jump back in, feet first, a giant cup of tea.

So until then, here’s a line from today’s epic 6,462 writing day.

In my days I was always dying.

Goodnight, dear readers. And adieu.

Wednesday, 17 May

Let’s talk about not having an ending.

I had one. I knew exactly where I wanted my current WIP to end. The very room that the MC would find herself in, questioning just about everything. I was confident. I knew.

Until I didn’t.

Brief recount. Yesterday I wrote 3402 words. And today I undid about 2500 of them.

It hurt, but I had to listen to my inner critic. I’ve been heading down this one path for a few days and not liking where it was going.  The trees were nice and shady, but maybe too shady. I couldn’t see the forest for them. Metaphor metaphor metaphor. That path was taking me further and further from the room. The one where my MC needs to be when the curtain falls. When the last ounce of her story is squeezed out (before the sequel, of course).

So yes, the inner critic. As artists we can be our worst critics. One of the reasons I try my best not to give myself such a hard time whilst drafting. Even during my day job, which is short form writing, I always treat the first draft as rough. In editing I will polish. It might not read very well, but it’s something. It’s words on the page. Heading toward a common goal. The. End. Keep on writing.

But knowing when to let it go is also helpful. So I cut out those festering words and started over.

And yet again my main character surprised me. She’s steered me back toward that room. And now, at just over 90k words, I know how I’m getting to the end. I think!

So today’s final count, not including the one’s removed, is 1770. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but I’ll take it. With all my procrastinating and hating on my words, I’ll bloody take it.

Here are a couple of lines from today that aren’t the worst.

Everything smelled like so many roses. But our time was running out.

Goodnight, dear readers. And adieu.

Monday, 15 May

Short one today. I just got off a marathon call with a critique partner and want to get a few ideas written down. Before then, just a little update on this writer’s life.

Wrote 3,554 words. Some of them bad. Rather, most of them bad. But it’s moving forward. I anticipate at this pace that I’ll be finished with this first draft within the week. A little behind schedule, but not the worst. I’m expecting this to exceed 100k words, which for a debut YA is not ideal. I’ll have to go through and do some judicious editing to keep it at that 95k sweet spot. That means edits will go into June.

Why so fast, you ask? It takes me months to edit! you say. For all intents and purposes I have been editing for months. I don’t think there is a right or wrong length of time to be working on a novel. Some can write a first draft in six weeks. Others it takes years. I fall into the former category. Six to eight weeks to draft, then editing until I read more than I change. Then I stop. Why?

Because at some point you just have to.

I went to Yallwest this April and saw a panel where an author said he still picks up his book ten years later and finds things he wants to change. Sentences he’d tweak if he could.

At some point, you just have to give it to the world and hope for the best.

Plus, I work much better if I have a deadline. Doesn’t everyone?

And on that note! I have dinner to make and notes to scribble down and a Mark Lawrence book to read. So here’s a line from today:

Familiar blue lights lit the way. This time I wasn’t interested in their friendly twinkling.

I had no patience for stars.

Goodnight, dear readers. And adieu.

Sunday, 14 May

Drafting. Should be a dirty word. I mean, there is only one way to start one’s work in progress, and that’s just to write. I have taken the VE Schwab method on this particular revision. First version of my WIP, Under the Northern Lights, I plotted. I allowed for changes throughout, but I stayed fairly rigid to the outline. And then ended up not liking the book as much as I probably should have. Good experiment, and what is it they say? Practice makes perfect? Sure. I’ll buy that.

So on this rewrite I’ve kept the first part of the book pretty similar. Then mildly plotted the second act, in as much as I knew what was happening to the MC and where she physically needed to go in her world, but not how she was going to get there. And I know where she ends up. I know the last scenes. But the in-between is kind of a mystery. A connect the dots, if you will. Here’s what Schwab has to say about it.

I suppose I’m blathering about this because I just spent the last couple of hours writing a massively pivotal scene and it is horrible. In the way that it’s rough as a draft should be. Everything’s all “eyes this” and “his face that” and there are no metaphors. No description other than serious bare bones “walked into the room” malarky. But the dialogue. I don’t know. I did something right. It’s heavy. Full of all the emotions I may have expected after a couple rounds of polishing. At 318 pages in I know my characters. Or at least I hope I do. And wouldn’t you know it, the crappy first time out of my head dialogue actually made this author tear up.

Or maybe it was this song I’ve been listening to on repeat made the emotion come: Eptesicus – Batman Begins Soundtrack. Hans, James, you’re killing me guys.

This scene is one I’ve been looking forward to writing for days. It’s a foothill en route the peak, a dot to connect to on the way to that big final hurrah. And I actually still don’t know who the villains truly are yet. I thought I did, but one of my characters may have just given me a better idea.

Don’t you love it when that happens?

There are my thoughts for today. It’s just past 6pm. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to put a disaster flick on and try not to think about my MS for a couple hours.

Until then, here’s a line I wrote today that I’ll probably edit later:

I was only aloft for a second. But in that second I was flying.

Goodnight, dear readers. And adieu.