Writing a book is a lot of work.

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I've never finished a whole book before. Its still a little thrilling that I wrote a book. Granted, its not a very big book at the moment, but it'll grow. Which is what I'm doing now. I got a lot of good feedback on Impervious and now I'm ready to take another crack at it. I'm starting to realize that writing the first draft was the easy part.

One of the problems that I'm facing is that, by in large, I wrote Impervious by the seat of my pants. Minimal outlining, big drastic changes to the story from one chapter to the next, characters who were on one side at one moment, and on another the next. Which is just about the only way that I was able to do National Novel Writing Month.

So, right now, I'm going through chapter by chapter and figuring out just what needs to be done. I've started a new story bible, free of errors and taking into account just what's going to be happening in the final version of the story. The good news, is that the next book is about 80% done, which helps a LOT in figuring out what has to happen in this one. By my estimates, I need to add another 50k to 60k words to Impervious before I'll have a viable second draft. Involved in that, I need to alter whole character arcs, add in plenty of setting, flesh out my magic system, create a couple new characters, kill a few darlings, and add in a bit more humor. No big, right?

One of the difficulties I'm having is that I have to figure out how to play with certain cliches without hurting the story. One of my main characters is the “Evil Emperor” who I have to fit into the role while still making him one of the “good guys”. While I'm doing that though, I have to avoid other cliches even more because I'm playing with others. Plus I've got more writing craft to learn. Did anyone else know that writing a book was a lot of work? I suppose that I knew it was going to be a lot of work, in my head, but now the reality is catching up with me. I mean, not only is there all this stuff I have to do, but once its all done, I've got a completely different set of things I'll have to do. (Formatting, marketing, messing with eBook stores) Am I even going to have time to spend my massive piles of money? I'll pause while you published authors manage to control your laughter.

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So, that's what I've been up to. This month should see some considerable work done on Impervious since I'm doing a 25k month. I'm a little bit behind, but I've made some good progress today. If you're attempting something similar, might I suggest taking a look at WordKeeperAlpha? If you're being extra suggestible today, go take a look at the Edge Of December Kickstarter. We're in our last ten days and almost at our goal. Help us over the edge if you're feeling extra nice.

Have you heard of Van Canto? No? Have a little “Hero Metal”.

You're welcome.

Stalling out

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Well, the 25k month in February isn’t going quite as well as I’d hoped. My wheels are doing a lot of spinning, but my fingers aren’t managing to type the words. Bother. I did get a good bit of writing done for Edge last week, but that doesn’t get me much closer to my goal of finishing the first draft of Impervious. I have been going over the story a bit more to get the ol’ creative juices flowing again and that’s given me a lot of good ideas on what I need to do in the next draft, but not much about what I’m going to do with the ending.

Or rather, I know exactly what I want to do, just not how I’m going to go about doing it. I think that my story to this point has been a little ill defined in its theme and certainly in what powers I’ve assigned to the protagonists and the antagonists and now I’ve written myself into something of a corner. Oh, the set up is great, the ending should be good, I’ve just got to figure out how I’m going to pull everything together at the climax to solve all my problems in a way that’ll make sense.

Granted, this is the first draft, and if any other human being were to read it they’d be completely lost. I’m not sure what other author’s first drafts look like. In my imagination, Brandon Sanderson sits down at his computer, breathes onto the keyboard forming a link between it and the divine word vault, allowing flawless prose to flow between the two points. In fact, given the level of what he does, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. I’m just about ready to let my cats have a go at it. But, they’re far too lazy to do any real work for me, so I suppose I’d better just shut it and get back to writing.

Will a 25k month happen? Probably not. Will I finish Impervious this month like I wanted to? Also, all signs point to ‘No’. Will there be enough progress to get things done by next month and start in on the next phase? I certainly hope so. And if that’s going to happen, it means that tonight, I need to get some actual work done and see where it leads me. So, here’s me, signing off to get some work done and kill some characters…or maim them. I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet.

Wow..this is kinda my bad here people.

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Alright. I haven't posted on this thing since … uhm the end of October. That's pretty bad, granted, but honestly, I don't feel as bad as I should. Near as I can tell I'm the only human being who pays any attention to this so the only one I've been letting down is myself. Ok…now I feel worse, but not all that much.

Needless to say, things have happened since October. November happened for instance. The only period of time that I really don't feel guilty about not updating since I was neck deep in participating in and finishing National Write a Novel month. Technically, I didn't win, since I didn't actually start a novel but rather continued writing Impervious. What I did do was write 50,100 words in one month, and I feel pretty damn good for that. I completed the whole second arc of Impervious and got into the third and final act of the story.

Then I took a break in December. And most of January. So, fantastic success followed up by laziness. In my defense, I was getting used to a new work schedule that includes an hour commute. I'm getting into more of the swing of things now, but I get home late enough that I don't have loads of time every night for writing like I used to. I'm not making excuses here, just relating how my minds been working on things.

So, there's not going to be any more excuses. This month I'm doing a 25k word month and that should be more than sufficient to finish the first draft of Impervious. Following that I'm going to do a second and third draft of The Hard Truth, then start in on the second draft of Impervious. The first draft is so rough that I don't know how long it will take to finish, but when I'm pretty excited for what its going to become. Next November I plan on doing NaNoWriMo right; starting a brand new novel and pounding out whatever I can on it, probably an urban fantasy that I've had bouncing around in my head.

Today though, I'm getting the blog started back up, and doing some writing for Impervious and for Edge of December. We're going to have some Edge news coming up pretty soon here, so stay tuned. You know, if anyone can hear me.

If you don’t succeed…

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You know the rest. I didn't make last month's goal of 25,000 words. If you want excuses I have plenty; my computer dying, my own distractibility, and others. Honestly, the self destruction of my computer probably did more than anything else to stop me from reaching goal. My computer is one of the things that can destroy my concentration more than anything else. The silly thing died and I just couldn't focus on anything else until it was up and running again, which destroyed what would have been two of my best days of writing. This, boys and girls, is why I try and write away from home. Less distractions often leads to more productivity.

That being said, I'm starting another 25k word month, this time I'm getting started before the 10th of the month. With a good start, I should easily be able to reach goal and its going to be some very good writing. Edge is just about ready for a new chapter to be written, Impervious is right in the middle of an awesome action scene where the main protagonists finally meet (and possibly get in some really good fights). I've got a little momentum going again, so I should be able to jump right in and get to work.

In other news, big things are happening over at Edge of December as we're gearing up for our first Con's. Glenn's going to be going to Tuscon Comicon while I hold down the fort at Anime-Nebraskon. We're busy putting together various things to sell, new art, posters and biggest of all, new physical books! Though they aren't widespread, there is a physical, Edge of December Volume 1 that is full of pretty, wonderful art and extras that you just can't find on the site. Our goal, audacious as it is, is to hold a Kickstarter, get funded, and then get books two and three back from the printers before the Cons in November! Crazy! Ambitious! Perhaps undoable… but y'know what. Screw that undoable noise.

One of the reasons that I admire Glenn is because he dreams big, he thinks big. I tend to be more conservative in my goals, and that, perhaps, hampers what I am able to accomplish. So, though it'll be a ton of work, I'm dedicated to seeing Books 2 and 3 available to the fine people of the conventions by November. Just doing that will do more for Edge than most of our efforts over the last year or so since I started writing. Its scary, thinking of everything that we're going to have to do, but its also exciting as well. Its rather trite and and a cliché, but “Those who dare, do.” So, I'm off to dare, and in so doing, accomplishing what we set out to do. Away!

25k month update

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Wish I had better news for you guys this time around, but we're at July 24th now, with seven days left and I'm only at 12k words. I officially have 1 week left to get 13k words done….which means writing 2,000 words a day, consistently for the next seven days. The odds aren't exactly in my favor, but I think I still chance of making it.

That being said, my words for tonight are better spent on Impervious and Edge than on a blog no one is actually following. Thus, away I go to return next week and tell you how it all worked out. Later!