OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

State of the book

A quick update for anyone who actually reads this. Right now the beta draft is with readers, I've already had a pile of spelling and grammar corrections from my mum. I have looked into suitable publishers but I'm holding off until I've had plenty of comments from people. Also in February the university Division for Life-long Learning is running course titled 'how to get published' specifically for people like me. So I'm not going to send anything off until I've been on that.

In other news I am now stepping slowly into the world of job hunting.

Printing tomorrow

The beta draft is very nearly finished. I'm going to spend this evening picking through a few crucial scenes just to allay any remaining niggles. It is just over the 160,000 word mark but editing is likely only to bring that down.

Tomorrow I shall print and bind a couple of copies for people can read. As this is still a beta draft it will be going first to those people I know who are avid readers, particularly of the Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre(s). How long these copies last before I feel the need to make all the corrections which will be noted, remains to be seen.

Almost like being at work

My goal was always to finish this draft by Christmas. Well at one point it was a month earlier but we'll brush over that. The editing process has really sped up now I'm working through the later stuff. I've got a few parts which still need significant attention but I've scheduled myself with daily goals to get it all done by Thursday. Giving me Friday to get a couple of copies printed and bound on campus. hmm... I should probably check the printing unit is open on the 21st. So that will be a copy to take home with me and one to hand out. Assuming I keep on track that is...

I don't know, daily goals, schedule, it's almost like being at work.

Out with the old...

The editing process is now well underway. I've finished cutting the old material form the beginning. What was chapters 2-7 is now chapters 2-3. So there's now 25 rather than 29. But the fact is since this can all be cut and it ends with a story which makes more sense is I think good enough reason to remove it. I'm not sure how much that will have reduced the total length by, I'll find out when I get there. That was the only significant change from Kirsty's edits, though now I do need to follow the rest through carefully to make sure it fits the new stuff.

Back at the desk

I'm back at my desk. Kirsty finished the alpha draft last weekend but put me under orders not to do any work for the week. So now I'm faced with a thick pile of paper with red pen scattered throughout it. Though the first third of the book needs quite heavy editing, pretty much everything that's left of the previous draft she wants me to restructure.

There are a few other bits to work on too, I think about 3 to 4 weeks work to be done to form it into a beta draft. That is if I can get myself into gear and actually concentrate on the damn thing. I'm not doing very well at that at the moment, it's taken me two days just to get round to this blog post.

Once I get back into a regular schedule the word count will begin updating again.

Team alpha, go

Huzzah, 'tis all done, the alpha draft of Sibling is complete. Weighs in at 185,450 words in 29 chapters with a prologue and an epilogue. That's 400 sides of A4 with 1.6 line spacing. It took a mighty 2 and a half hours just to spell check.

Throughout the spell check though I saw plenty of dodgy text emphasising for me that is is very much still of alpha quality. How long it will take to improve to beta quality will depend on how much Kirsty destroys in her reading. I'm hopeful of just a few weeks but I thinks rather optimistic.

So close, but yet..

This morning I would have said 2,000 words will finish the draft. Having written over 3,000 today and still not quite getting there I was clearly wrong. Also I've just read some advice online which implies that for first time authors publishers like 80,000 to 120,000 words and anything over that upper limit is likely to get refused out of hand. ho-hum. I'm going to choose to ignore that advice for the time being.

Today I have also learned that when it comes to writing large quantities of combat nothing's better than Nine Inch Nails to keep me in the right frame of mind.

The continuing chapter expansion

Those paying attention will notice the current and last chapter has just jumped from 28 or 28 to 29 of 29. The chapter was just getting so excessively long it had to be cut in two, and since there was quite a good place to do this, I did it. Just the planned ending is plenty enough to make the new chapter 29 a decent length, plus there may be an epilogue I'm undecided so far.

Also today I reached 180,000 words, huzzah, much more than I dared hope. Not sure how much more there'll be, a couple of thousand at least. If I manage to concentrate tomorrow I may get the draft finished, but if I'm honest Thursday's more likely.

Writing is easy...

Finishing is taking far longer than I expected, I've dropped from 3000 words/day to 1500-2000 words/day. This seems to be a combination of the fact that every scene is super-tense with crucial interactions going on and that though I have the intent for every scenes with a start and an end making it all work is very difficult. At this rate I may have the draft finished by Wednesday but even that feels hopeful.

I am generally happy with all the chapter 27/28 material so far, it's just proving to be quite a slog getting it onto the page.

"Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." - Gene Fowler

end on the horizon

Got back into the word progress today hitting 3,000 words again which is great, probably half of chapter 27. The more important thing is I think I've finally got the ending all fitted together including all the elements I wanted. Looks like finishing the draft by the end of October is fairly unlikely now but so long as I can keep on track with by current plan it shouldn't be by much.

For now though I have more important tasks at hand, such was watching Due South dvds.

round blocks and round holes isn't always enough

So I've not written anything today yet and I'm not likely to. I'm currently trying to piece together the closing two chapters. I've got a number of events and scene ideas but making it all fit together in a way that works and has everything developing at the right pace is rather difficult. I won't be able to look at it this evening so I wouldn't be surprised if it takes tomorrow and the weekend to get it all together.

I currently find myself staring at my list of thoughts and waiting for the ah-ha moment where I see how to fit it all together... still waiting...

160,000 wordcount reached

Today I reached my goal of 160,000 words for Sibling. I'm still only half-way through chapter 26 with two more to go after that, so I'm a happy bunny.

As a user of compiz fusion I couldn't think of a better way to highlight this occasion other than to surround it in fire :)

Mammoth chapter

Ho-hum it's been another very slow day for writing. Sure the daily word count is just shy of 3,000, normally a very good figure, but I actually wrote about half of that yesterday evening. Maybe this is telling me I probably shouldn't work at the weekends and still expect full productivity within the week.

The other thing about these 3,000 words is most of them were on finishing chapter 25, which now weighs in at just under 9,000 words, longer than any other by a significant margin. This may get broken down in edits or I may actually end up re-organizing so that more chapters sit at around that length, it will depend I guess on how well it reads. Chapter 26 however looks likely to be a much shorter one so hopefully I can get it sewn up by Wednesday, but then I've said that before...

The Death Report

139,020 People

A brief triumph over some of the voices

Huzzah, I've just finished a scene I've been struggling with basically since Thursday. It had been the last scene of chapter 23 but got pushed into the first scene of chapter 24. It is a rather tense exchange between several significant characters and it's taken me this long to piece together exactly how each of them views it and how they feel throughout it.

The good news is I can now get on with the rest of chapter 24. The bad news is that there is at least one scene of this kind in each of the remaining chapters as the story really starts to close on its conclusion.

Finale on a postage stamp...

Another day down, another 3000 words, and I've still not completed chapter 23. It's turning out to be somewhat more massive that I'd first thought. This it definitely good as some of the last few chapters are I think going to be much shorter than the average length I'm hoping for. Maybe they'll turn out to be longer than they seem too, or perhaps I'll be able to write the big final chapter on a postage stamp. I guess I'll find out when I get there.

Funky Gibbon

Well I've worked out how the new ending fits together. I've mapped it out in a way that so far seemed consistent and without any problems. Though I'm sure there are still a few to be discovered along the lines.

Also I upgraded my PC to Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon today, all is going pretty well and the integration of compiz fusion if rather nice. And for a fantastic example of bad lip-syncing see The Goodies - Funky Gibbon

It turns out there is such as thing as too many ideas

Last night I decided, 'you know what, this book needs a different ending' when in this case ending refers to the last 8 chapters...

So I've spent today reorganizing everything to fit ny initial thoughts, which has gone okay. But now I'm stuck on something which is quite important, so I've not written an actual word today other than lots of notes. I have however eaten a lot of sweet chilli pistachios, yum.

Hopefully I'll be able to sort out this out in conversation with Kirsty this evening, talking about these things always seems to help my thinking process.

Chapter of Violence

I've just completed chapter 20, or as I'm now calling it, the 'Chapter of Violence'. The first 5,000 words of it are almost solid action, which is nice. It's good to liven things up again especially as it's the first big scale action there's been since chapter 11.

Finishing 20 means I've kept to my 3 chapters a week goal. So in 7 days I should have completed 21, 22 and 23. Hopefully I'll be able to focus a lot more than I have over this past week. Maybe I'll get some cake... that's sure to help :)