So much for that...
In my last blog post I said I might be writing from my new website when I posted my next blog. Clearly that's not the case, as here you are at this Blogger blog.
Sigh.
I can't really complain. The dude who is putting together my site is a friend and he's basically working for free. That's the case with my whole team, actually. Graphic designer. Editor. They're all unpaid workers, doing me a solid because they love me and vice versa. So I just have to be patient. I'm sure it will all be worth the wait.
This week's big news is that I passed the novel along to my editor (aka critique partner, who is also my friend and a fellow author, JR Pearse Nelson). She's estimating a two week turn around time. Add her to the list of people I'm not allowed to nag :o)
In the meantime, I have plenty of things to do. I have editing for JR to work on -- her new novella (Descent, book 4 of 5 in her Children of the Sidhe series), and a short story (part of her new teen vamp serial). When that's done, I also have another editing project from another friend. (More about that later, maybe.)
Plus I have to work on web content for the web guy, and soon I'll be reviewing drafts from the graphic designer.
Oh, and of course I'm still editing my own novel in the background. Nevermind that it's with the editor and I'm supposed to leave it alone. (I don't think that's possible.)
Looking ahead: The fourth round of ROW-80, the writing challenge that knows you have a life, is coming up at the beginning of October (the 7th). If you're a writer or an author, you should check it out. Participating is a great motivational tool, and you'll have a wonderful community of writers to support your work. As an added bonus, I signed up to be one of the sponsors for the next round, so you'll definitely have me to cheer you on!
Happy Friday. Hope everyone has a fab weekend.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Draft? Done. DONE!!!!!!!!!
I meant to post an update on Saturday night, but trust me, it's good that I didn't. No one need witness my mental state at that time.... because...
I FINISHED THE DRAFT OF MY NOVEL.
Do I need to say that again? I sure as heck want to....
I. FINISHED. THE DRAFT. OF. MY. NOVEL!!!
It's a little bit crazy. When I posted on Sept 1, I said that I planned to complete the draft "sometime" in September. I was thinking it would take until mid-month, maybe longer. But immediately after I wrote the blog post, I added 2,000 words to the WIP. Then on Monday I added another 2,000 words. Ditto Tuesday and Wednesday. I wrote 3,000 on Thursday.
My sweet husband actually slept on the couch Thursday night because I was busily writing in bed. He came in, I gave him one of those looks -- the one that says: I am in the creative zone. Get the hell out or I will hurt you. He sneaked away, and shortly before midnight I typed the words END OF NOVEL.
I'm still in shock.
I told myself I would take a break, but the next morning, I was just too pumped. I started pulling the scenes together from multiple documents in to one full draft and doing a light edit. By Monday night, that was done.
The last couple of days I took some time to write a few scene expansions. Not much -- just another 2,000 words. Plus some cleanup work. I'll have to do another round or two of editing on my own before it goes to my editor, author-friend JR Pearse Nelson.
Also, let's laugh at this sentence from my 9/1 post: "My delusional self thinks I can get the website running and my graphics started this month, and done by October. I know that's crazy."
Right. Well.
I sensed last week that the end was coming, so I went ahead and contacted my graphic artist about getting things started. We worked on the concept for a few days. The more I talked, the more I could envision my banner design and the branding style I want to use for this novel. (It's really cool, by the way.)
I also touched base with my website guy. He assures me that the site will be a snap. Can we get it up fast enough for me to write my next post on the new site, NG? I'll make you cookies. :)
At this point, I'm tentatively going to say the book will be available in early November. If the excitement doesn't kill me first.
Woot, woot!
I FINISHED THE DRAFT OF MY NOVEL.
Do I need to say that again? I sure as heck want to....
I. FINISHED. THE DRAFT. OF. MY. NOVEL!!!
It's a little bit crazy. When I posted on Sept 1, I said that I planned to complete the draft "sometime" in September. I was thinking it would take until mid-month, maybe longer. But immediately after I wrote the blog post, I added 2,000 words to the WIP. Then on Monday I added another 2,000 words. Ditto Tuesday and Wednesday. I wrote 3,000 on Thursday.
My sweet husband actually slept on the couch Thursday night because I was busily writing in bed. He came in, I gave him one of those looks -- the one that says: I am in the creative zone. Get the hell out or I will hurt you. He sneaked away, and shortly before midnight I typed the words END OF NOVEL.
I'm still in shock.
I told myself I would take a break, but the next morning, I was just too pumped. I started pulling the scenes together from multiple documents in to one full draft and doing a light edit. By Monday night, that was done.
The last couple of days I took some time to write a few scene expansions. Not much -- just another 2,000 words. Plus some cleanup work. I'll have to do another round or two of editing on my own before it goes to my editor, author-friend JR Pearse Nelson.
Also, let's laugh at this sentence from my 9/1 post: "My delusional self thinks I can get the website running and my graphics started this month, and done by October. I know that's crazy."
Right. Well.
I sensed last week that the end was coming, so I went ahead and contacted my graphic artist about getting things started. We worked on the concept for a few days. The more I talked, the more I could envision my banner design and the branding style I want to use for this novel. (It's really cool, by the way.)
I also touched base with my website guy. He assures me that the site will be a snap. Can we get it up fast enough for me to write my next post on the new site, NG? I'll make you cookies. :)
At this point, I'm tentatively going to say the book will be available in early November. If the excitement doesn't kill me first.
Woot, woot!
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Totally rocking it (sorry for the radio silence)
Uhm... I haven't written in six weeks. Are we still in ROW Round 3? :o)
In my defense, I had strep throat at the beginning of August and I've had a cold for more than a week. I've been hitting (usually surpassing) my Round 3 goal, but I haven't had time or energy for writing blog posts. When I sit down to write, I just want to work on my WIP. Why waste a precious half hour doing my ROW update if I could put in 600 words?
Sigh. I'm sure you know the feeling.
And now that I've ignored you all for the last month, I miss my writer friends and the ROW community.
So here's an abbreviated multi-week update: The past few days have been all about editing, having spent the previous week on a writing sprint. The explosion of words was just that -- a messy blowup of stuff. I over-wrote the scenes I was working on. Now I have to cut out huge chunks of text. I've removed about 700 words (yikes!), spent three days of what could have been writing time to do the edits, and it's still not perfect. The length is better, so when I come back around to do a scene-by-scene edit I can get tweak the wording to perfection (ha, ha).
Overall I've been devoting lots of free time to my novel. As of my last post (on 7/20) the word count total was 40k. Now I'm up to 85k. I think the final product will be in excess of 100k, but maybe not to the 115k level I previously thought I would reach. (And that's fine. My editor is still groaning at the "behemoth" coming her way. I'm not sorry, JR! :o)
I plan to complete the first draft in September, then start editing. The delusional part of me thinks I can actually get the novel written and all of my edits done this month. Over-reaching much?
In reality, if I can have the novel to my editor by the end of October, that would be glorious. Then she can spend a few weeks with it and I can start working with my web designer and my graphic editor to build my site and my brand. (By the way, my delusional self thinks I can get the website running and my graphics started this month, and done by October. Again, I know that's crazy. I'm just excited.)
So onward and upward, brave writers! I go now to read some of your blogs.... and figure out when this ROW ends. (Seriously, it's still Round 3, right?!)
In my defense, I had strep throat at the beginning of August and I've had a cold for more than a week. I've been hitting (usually surpassing) my Round 3 goal, but I haven't had time or energy for writing blog posts. When I sit down to write, I just want to work on my WIP. Why waste a precious half hour doing my ROW update if I could put in 600 words?
Sigh. I'm sure you know the feeling.
And now that I've ignored you all for the last month, I miss my writer friends and the ROW community.
So here's an abbreviated multi-week update: The past few days have been all about editing, having spent the previous week on a writing sprint. The explosion of words was just that -- a messy blowup of stuff. I over-wrote the scenes I was working on. Now I have to cut out huge chunks of text. I've removed about 700 words (yikes!), spent three days of what could have been writing time to do the edits, and it's still not perfect. The length is better, so when I come back around to do a scene-by-scene edit I can get tweak the wording to perfection (ha, ha).
Overall I've been devoting lots of free time to my novel. As of my last post (on 7/20) the word count total was 40k. Now I'm up to 85k. I think the final product will be in excess of 100k, but maybe not to the 115k level I previously thought I would reach. (And that's fine. My editor is still groaning at the "behemoth" coming her way. I'm not sorry, JR! :o)
I plan to complete the first draft in September, then start editing. The delusional part of me thinks I can actually get the novel written and all of my edits done this month. Over-reaching much?
In reality, if I can have the novel to my editor by the end of October, that would be glorious. Then she can spend a few weeks with it and I can start working with my web designer and my graphic editor to build my site and my brand. (By the way, my delusional self thinks I can get the website running and my graphics started this month, and done by October. Again, I know that's crazy. I'm just excited.)
So onward and upward, brave writers! I go now to read some of your blogs.... and figure out when this ROW ends. (Seriously, it's still Round 3, right?!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)