Jesus Rose and So Did I Sunday, April 17, 2022

Some time in the fifth century A.D., the early Christian church needed a way to pair together their growth among newer converts and the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. To accomplish this, they chose a pagan festival of Spring, Easter, and tied the festival with the Christian celebration. There’s not a lot of clarity into how this celebration became noted with eggs, bunnies, and chocolate, but that’s not really a major concern of mine at present.

Easter is a celebration of the renewing of life; our renewed connection with God after eons of separation through sin. This time marks rebirth and overall regeneration after what could usually be a long, dark winter. For me, this year’s celebration is met with a renewed determination to meet my many, many goals.

A couple month ago, I created a “spirit board” that listed my goals for this year and then a few steps on how to reach each goal. Some of the goals are very specific, like Get a new job (Accomplished!), while others require a lot of substeps to get there. One of my larger goals is to complete the “heavy notes” of two different books this year. There was a time when I could complete an entire book in a year, so this isn’t terribly lofty. In order to get anywhere on this goal, however, I’ve got to write, I’ve got to write a fair amount, and I’ve got to write often.

So today, with Easter as my renewal and starting point, I’m vowing to write 500 words a day through the end of the year. I already know that there will be days when I don’t manage to get there, but thanks to technology being what it is, I think I can safely say that I’ll have to be very distracted on the days when I miss this goal. Also aiding in this endeavor is the fact that I’ve actually been doing this for at least the last three weeks. I’ve turned daily writing into a habit, and now I’m just pushing myself a tad further by incorporating a minimum word count into what I’m already doing.

Another goal on the spirit board was to get healthy. Over the pandemic, I feel I’ve let myself just become a slug. Working at home hasn’t helped much there either and it’s getting harder and harder to move the needle in the right direction. So again today, with Easter renewal and reviving of spirit in mind, I rose early and went to the gym. All I did was the elliptical and I’m so out of shape that I had pull my mask back on even though I was breathing hard because I started coughing horribly. But, that will not hold me down. I’m determined to just go to the gym every single day. Some days just cardio, and other days back to lifting, but I’ll be there every day. I don’t have a stopping point for this; I just know loads of people who make this part of their lives and I don’t see why it can’t be part of my life as well.

And so, on I rise! Writing because it’s just what I do to know who I am and working out so that I can be healthy enough to see some of these dreams come to fruition. Onward and upward!

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NaNoWriMo 2015 – Day 2 Monday, November 2, 2015

I’ve decided to take a different approach to NaNoWriMo this year. In previous years, I’ve started by writing and writing, but end up failing to follow through with this venture because, as I’ve learned the hard way over the years, I have a very specific method for constructing my novels.

I can’t simply begin with Chapter One and proceed with the story until all is done. If I start “pure” writing, I will definitely get lost along the way. I get bogged down by the craft because I have no idea where the story is going and, as my short-term memory is shot and I get bored easily, I lost interest in the idea and fail at the NaNo project. This year, as I proclaimed to myself last night, will be different.

I liken my writing process to old scanners. The first wave over the image looks distorted, but has some shape and each consequent wave over the image brings about more and more detail until it’s complete. I’m going to approach this year’s NaNoWriMo the same way I approach any novel, just doing it a bit faster. I’m going to spend the first 15 days of this month outlining my project and then spend the last 15 days of the month filling it out and adding the relevant detail. With this method, unlike past years, even if I fail to reach 50K words by November 30th, I will have a strong outline and partial draft of a complete story. Rather than a chapter or two of a story I can’t bare to even glance at a year afterward because I recognize I’d got lost early in the unnecessarily deep prose, I’ll have a project that I can revisit and even flesh out to completion.

It’s the little experiments like these that make life interesting, I suppose. On I press!

Year 30 Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Do you ever have so much to say that you no longer have anything to say?

A lot has happened recently. I’ve turned 30. I’ve traveled alone to London and returned, safe with no drama. I’ve finished another stage of Anne and I’ve even given this stage its own name: the grave phase. The grave phase of a novel is where I’ve got it to the point where when I ask myself, “If I die tonight, will I rest peacefully in my grave knowing this novel will be posthumously published from its current state.” If the answer is yes, I’ve reached the grave phase and can rest happy.

In turning 30, I’ve also decided to make some major changes in the way I live my life. I read this amazing post on procrastination the other day, ironically, while procrastinating, and it really got me thinking about my capabilities. Just today, I’ve etched out time to do what would normally take days to accomplish by simply putting post-its all over the place to remind me to keep away from my favorite procrastination hobbies, such as Reddit, Dorienne TV, and the Banished game. Another major change will include changing careers, but I’ve decided to keep the specifics there to myself, as I tell far too many people far too many details about far too many of my life’s plans.

My visit to London was short but lovely. My mother was originally supposed to travel with me, but my stepdad got injured on the job and she had to remain behind to care for him. There was a moment when I considered cancelling the trip altogether, but as nearly all of Year 29 surrounded the actions needed to get me to London for my 30th birthday, the thought of not going depressed more than I’m willing to put into writing today. In the end, I’m glad I went on my own because I had a trip that only I could have. Everyone I mentioned the trip to had all this commentary about where I should go and where I should stay and what I should do on different days, but no one seemed to fully grasp my intentions with the trip.

I’d never left the US and thus, had never experienced an international flight. Now that I have, I’m not enthused about doing it again, especially in coach, but I know how best to prepare myself. I had never viewed the sites of a city via tour bus and I wanted to simply sit atop a double-decker bus and just snap pictures. I had a half dozen people telling me there were better days to spend my first day in London, but I after a nine-hour flight (in coach!), I didn’t want to do much else aside from Ooh! and Ah! and take pictures.

I wanted to visit Bath, England and I did. Everyone I mentioned this to looked at me like I had six heads. Where is that? What’s there? That’s it? Why would you want to go there when you only have four days? Even the car service driver on the way back to the airport had commentary about seeing Bath which was “so far away” when I could have visited Windsor Castle, etc. I, however, wanted to see Bath. I wanted to visit Bath Abbey and walk the 212 steps in its tower. I wanted to pass by Queene Square and marvel at the Royal Crescent and visit the Jane Austen Centre. Specifically, as the Austen fan I am, I wanted to walk the streets that she would have walked two hundred years ago. I wanted to take in the modernized sites that she would have seen. Visiting the Austen centre was an almost religious experience for me, even though, I know she never lived at that site and she didn’t really care for Bath as she got older. I learned that she first started writing a novel at age 11, just like me. I got a deeper understanding of her family and how she lived, the likes of which I’d never received throughout my whole degree in English literature! I had an English tea in the Regency Room and loved everything about it, from the extra sweetener they used to the soft cucumber sandwiches they presented. After this, I went to the Royal Crescent and spent almost an hour, just walking and staring at it as a marvel of architecture and of history. I then visited No. 1 Royal Crescent to see what a house would have looked like during Austen’s day and had such lovely conversations with the staff that I didn’t mind that my feet ached after traipsing across central Bath all day. I loved every moment of my time in Bath and I only got a day to experience it, but no one else understood, even after viewing my Facebook pictures and seeing my little souvenirs, why I wanted to visit Bath.

I saw the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London and saw the African and the Egyptian and just a bit of the Assyrian exhibits at the British Museum. The Tower was interesting, to say the least, but I could have easily spent two whole days in the British Museum. I can’t wait to go back and peruse again when I have more energy. There was something magical about the Egyptian exhibit and fighting my way to see the Rosetta Stone was well worth it. I consider museums to be very personal experiences, not requiring a lot of talk, and I’m glad I got to see what I wanted to see and stare at the sculptures and art for as long as I wanted.

I visit Westminster Abbey and took a “selfie” with Big Ben and then went on to Buckingham Palace to finish my trip. I only visited two sites and had the most wonderful day in doing so, even though I was beginning to get a cold. I walked past Elizabeth I’s tomb in awe of her death mask and I stomped on Dickens’ memorial, though I later chided myself for doing so and prayed for forgiveness for my immaturity (I still hate Dickens, though). Buckingham Palace was everything I expected it to be and the fact that they allow you to view at your own pace was downright beautiful. I spent an entire day marvelling and staring and taking pictures to the point that I hated knowing I had to leave. By the time I got back to the hotel, I found myself even saying my “thank yous” like the Brits I heard all around me.

I’d planned for a year for this trip to London and, though it was technically short, it was everything I needed it to be. I got to view London through the eyes of a writer and a lover of architecture and British literature and history, which I think is what most people fail to understand when they ask me, “Oh, why didn’t you go on the Harry Potter studio tour?” or “You mean, you didn’t see the Downton Abbey place?” when they consider my trip.

Anne is now its grave phase, which leaves me perfectly happy. I had no grandiose plans for finishing a novel this year, considering what I’d accomplished with Damen last year, but I’m glad I’ve even reached this point. There’s lots to do, though at 185k words, it’s in far better shape than I was with Damen starting at 285k words. Anne still has room to take on a life of its own. While I try to quote Austen wherever feasible, this is my novel and at this stage, I’m comfortable in deviating from the parent story enough to tell the entire story properly.

I still think Anne will be my first foray into the self-publishing world, though I think I may wait until 2015 to start pushing Damen on agents again. I have no delusions of becoming one of those self-publishing successes; I just want my story to given to the world. Speaking of giving my story…I lost my beloved Kindle Paperwhite during my travels to London. I think I put it in the seat flap on the return flight and forgot to take it with me in the bustle and confusion of leaving. I’ve already removed my Amazon credentials from it, but I’ve got a version of Damen on there that’s now floating around lost on the device. I doubt I’ll ever get it back and, oh darn, this means I’ll have to get the brand new even more awesome Kindle Voyage, but the fact that Damen is where I can’t reach it, leaves me a little irritated.

These first 30 years have presented me with quite a lot. Oddly, I don’t feel as old as I did last year. On the trip home from London, I was surrounded by a group of people in the security line who were amazed that I was 30, as they all said I didn’t look like I could be older than 22, which just cheered my heart. 🙂 I went into this year expecting an early mid-life crisis, but instead I am rejuvenated for all of life’s possibilities.

So, Year 30. Onward and upward!

Marching Forward Thursday, March 13, 2014

I’m starting to grow weary of Anne, which means I’m in a good place literarily. I only grow bored and tired when I’ve been pushing hard on a project, and I’ve definitely been pushing with Anne. I’ve been setting goals of writing 500 words daily and since I’m so early into Anne, this has included 500 words daily of pure writing.

As March begins to wind down, I recognize that my sabbatical is ending and it’s time for me to begin sending query letters again. I’m in no way discouraged about Damen, as I understand I come knocking at the traditional publishing world’s gates at one of its most tumultuous times in history. The world is reading less; I know this from the number of people I’ve unfriended on Facebook for Liking groups like “I Don’t Read.” Not only is the world reading less, the people who are reading are buying fewer books, and when they do buy, more often they are going for e- rather than traditional. It puts everyone, aspiring authors, agents, publishers, in a tough place, which is why I no longer roll my eyes when I see the same themes of books paraded in front of me by the same authors who have always sold well; I understand why the publishing world does how it does. All this notwithstanding, I go into this round of the agent search a little colder and a little more worldly than I was last July.

Since Anne is beginning to wear on me, this may be the best time to take another look at Damen now that I’m about nine months from it. Perhaps, with some a clearer, cooler mind, I can make some more worthwhile edits to make the novel a little more appealing to those unsure about offering a chance to this author.

Onward and upward!

Turning over my writing engine Thursday, February 13, 2014

I decided on the first of this month that February would be “Finish the First Part of Anne” Month, which involved my writing a minimum of 500 words every day. When I first gave myself this challenge, I thought nothing of it as I’d been able to write as much as a thousand words a day and I’m in the preliminary stages of writing Anne, where everything is pure creation, with little editing. I find myself, however, struggling to meet word count every day.

The sensation is akin to starting my car in this zero-degree weather after I hadn’t started it in more than 24 hours. It can take several seconds to turn over and even then, the stereo doesn’t quite pick up the iPod as well as in warm weather and skipping tracks involves some guess work. Once I let the car warm up a bit, though, everything runs as fine as the day I bought it.

Jumping back into my old writing habits after taking a 10-words-a-day-minimum “sabbatical” over the last couple months has proven quite challenging. Once I force it a bit, the creative juices start flowing like old times, but getting started is still difficult each day.

While I’d like to say “no more sabbaticals, ever,” I know that’s not feasible. I’ve been often told the best way to keep the pipes in my house from freezing and bursting is to allow a faucet to drip slowly overnight to keep the water in constant motion. As I continue pushing through various stages of Anne, I may need to keep up my 500-word daily challenge on any project (and the older I get, the more projects I conjure), just to keep the words dripping and keep my literary pipes from freezing in the interim.

Onto Stage…Whatever Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Finally, I’m onto file damen1-13k. Technically, it should be 13h, but I don’t really care for the letters F and J, so they were skipped. This is the 8th edit of Damen and in this version, I’ll be doing a spell check/grammar check that’s not truly possible in the full document. Because Microsoft sucks (though their products are sadly the best currently available), their spell check function stops working somewhere around the 100th page and my only way to catch typos, etc. is to find them on my own or add each of my 36 chapters to their own document and individually review the book again, chapter by chapter, document by document, just to catch if I’ve spelled “thought” as “tohguth.” Mac Office is even worse and stops counting words after 100 pages in addition to jacking up the spell check. Total crap, but my Microsoft rant is best left for another post.

I was a little dazed when I finished the seventh edit yesterday, so I’m not entirely sure if I’m on Chapter 2 or 3 at this point. I’ll pick Chapter 2 because you can’t read through the book enough times.

Current word count is 121,542 which I think is slightly higher than my previous update. Though I told myself that I was through with rewriting anything else in this edit, I ran into the same problems with the middle part of the book that I’ve re-re-re-written more than any other part of the book. What I find is that with each edit, I lose my emotional attachments to specific scenes.

In a previous edit, I’d gone back and retrieved a scene where Jessie Clarke and Brit have a major fight because I wanted so badly to show Jessie’s compassionate side. In the edit I just finished, I realized that Jessie really didn’t need to show that kind of compassion because Brit has enough compassion for the both of them. If I had 500k words to work with, I’d still probably include the scene, but given that it unnecessarily broke up the flow of the book, it had to get cut.

Of course, that scene was wrapped around a more pivotal scene where we see Damen really struggling with his mother’s addictions. What I ended up with was a completely re-written chapter where we see Angel balancing her problems with the love of her son, we finally see some imperfections in Anessa’s character, and we get to see Damen grow a little as he realizes that he’s not the only one in the world handling emotional problems. For the first time since I’d first finished the novel, I can actually say that I enjoy the events and flow of this chapter.

I’d figured I was done at this point since I’d not added to my word count, but then I came again to the chapter where we come to understand the root of Jessie Clarke’s character. I cried through the scene as I always do, but this time around the end was very flat to me. Jessie reveals a very long, painful story about her childhood and then when Damen refuses to divulge anything about himself, she just lets it go without showing the relative crazies Jessie displayed throughout the previous chapters.

Up until this point, I’d made very few changes to Jessie’s part of the story, but this time around, I added another 4-500 words to the book to make sure Jessie went ape-#$%@ when Damen did not do as she said, just as we’ve seen her do throughout the novel. I hated to add 500 words to the book to show all of this, but scene feels complete and really envelopes you in the pain that’s coursing through Jessie.

Apart from those two re-writes, the book felt really done for the first time since I thought I was done 15 months ago.

Now, my next steps will be to review general spelling and grammar through each chapter file and then make this into a Kindle book that I can read either on iPad or Kindle, like I would a normal book. The goal there will be to ensure that I don’t lose my own interest as I’m reading. Anywhere that I feel like it’s time to put down the book is a weak point of the novel and may need to be revised. Further painful revisions notwithstanding, once I do a Kindle-read through the book and print out and mail the whole thing for my Poor Man’s Copyright, I will finally begin my hunt for an agent.

Phew! It’s been a long ride. Onward and upward!

14 Months and 5 Edits Later Thursday, May 16, 2013

So, I attempted to post something yesterday, but I hate just posting for the sake of posting. The good thing is that I’ve actually got something worth capturing today.

I finished a “final edit” of Damen, meaning that outside of anything that irks me as mind-blowingly wrong when I read through this twice more to catch missing words, grammar issues, etc. this book is as done as it can get.

The current word count is just shy of 122k at 121,944. I highly doubt I’ll find 2000 extra words somewhere in the text to excise, so that’s probably the best that I can do. The rest of this month will surround reading the whole book twice, or even thrice more.

I do something a little odd with regard to my paragraph indentations as I write. For some reason, my brain doesn’t switch into “write” mode unless I’ve got the first line of a paragraph flush with the margin and the remaining lines indented as below shown.

I’m not entirely sure why I can’t really tell my brain to write, not read without the proper indentations, but it is what it is.

So, I’ll need to read through the book at least once with its current indentation and once with the indented paragraphs of a normal book. If I’m feeling really good about it, perhaps, I’ll Kindle-ize it (yep, that’s a word now) and read it as if it really is a normal book before I begin the agent search.

As strange as it might sound, this point in the process is feeling a little anti-climatic. I don’t know if I was expecting resounding horns and bells or something, but I think all the overabundant joy I had March 18, 2012 melted away once I realized that since no first time author gets published at 290k words, I had a good year’s worth of work ahead of me.

Maybe at this juncture, I’m sensing another year’s worth of agent searching and a lot of disappointment/rejection as I work towards my dream.

I suppose it could be worse. I could have given up on all my writing dreams and settled on “good enough,” but…This is my one and only life (as far as I know) and the last thing I want is to always wonder “What if…” What if I had kept writing? What if I had kept pushing towards my dream?

I don’t want to become the next Rowling or another King at this point. I just want to be a simply published author who can do what she loves.

And so, as I’ve got another two read-throughs of this book to do before I finally start Part 4 of this journey, I suppose I’d better get started. Onward and upward!

The Last Ten Thousand Thursday, March 21, 2013

March 18th marked a whole year since I first had a complete edit of Damen. A year later, I’m still snipping away at it with these flimsy editorial scissors of mine. Unlike past months, however, I’m within 10k words of my word count goal. I’ve cut the equivalent of two complete novels out of this thing and yet, I’ve still got a complete storyline that resembles the original.

True, I’ve had to cut some characters and I’ve rewritten the third and fourth to the last chapters over a dozen times in the past year, but now, I sit with just ten thousand words to excise before I can begin Part 2 of this adventure.

The other day, I did what I normally do when I feel there’s no way I can ever get this book down to an acceptable word count; I searched for “typical” novel sizes. What I found on this trip, however, was that there are lots of people who sit at 30 or 16 or even 9K words and worry about how to make the book stretch. What I wouldn’t give for that! To be able to just shut the heck up to the point where I’ve said too little…my God! What a wonderland!

Anyway…As of this writing, I’ve got 9,589 words left to cut before I can begin the hunt for an agent. I’ve probably made more progress in the last 20 days than have in the time since last March.

I suppose cutting 10K may sound like a ton, but when you’ve already cut 160K, another 10K is like living a million years: when you’ve lived a million years, 1 day is really nothing.

Edit: The Last Ten Thousand sounds like an awesome name for a book, no? 😀

300 words Tuesday, August 21, 2012

I suppose I could say I made up for lost time from the last few days by spending the majority of today editing. I cut a little more than five thousand words today bringing me down to 158K; it’s almost like deleting an entire chapter.
What’s further gratifying is that I still managed to cut 5K words while adding a scene that helped explain a few things without spending another 10K words to “tell” it.

I jumped into Chapter 16 as well, but hit a road block with exactly 300 words that I winced to delete and eventually just hit Ctrl+Z until I had them back.

It’s just 300 words and exemplifies Damen and Brit’s characters so well…It’s just 300 words…

I find myself in a familiar predicament because these 300 words are really the bulk of the 38K I’ve left to cut. I keep telling myself, “It’s just X words. I’ll wait until I finish this edit and, if I’m X words over my limit, I’ll cut them then.”

Three hundred here. Two hundred there. Four hundred in this chapters, but I’ve already cut so much there as it is! It’s the same story every few thousand words.

I think what’s got me doing a complete 180 on where I was a few days ago is that I, against my better judgement, researched the industry’s standard on newbie author’s again, and it hit me: I may never even come close to publishing this thing if it’s not below 120K. And, that’s a discouraging thought when I’ve got 20-some chapters left and almost 40K to delete.

Today, as I was getting my braids done, I wondered about which of three storylines would have to get the axe. On the gallows stand Dana Barrington’s story that has, on multiple occasions, received the governour’s call the moment it had the rope around its neck; Amber’s story that was once supposed to be a focal point of the book; and Corey’s backstory who, while not new to the rope, believes that the pardon is inevitable.

I’ve considered dropping Dana Barrington’s story so often that searching for her name in this blog actually yields its own page of results. Amber and Corey, however, are relatively new considerations.

Corey is supposed to just take off randomly some day and return with a tale of his father’s hypocrisy. His story keeps the strain between Damen’s dual friendship with both Corey and Brit going. Amber is supposed to attempt suicide because of Jessie Clarke, which makes her story really more of an extension of Jessie’s character. At one point, this was the climax of the novel, but now I find myself completely lacking a climax at all, except for the very, very end.

If I cut any of these three stories, I may be able to save almost 20K words, but I’m still at a loss here. I feel like a spoiled brat whose favorite horse has had foals, but I have to give up one of them. Yes, I’ve a dozen other beloved horses in the stables, but I want all the ones that belong to me!

Brilliant Movie Night Monday, August 20, 2012

Yesterday evening, I took down my braids which is normally a 4-6 hour event. I awoke from my usual Sunday afternoon nap to find The Miracle Worker playing on my so-called Dorienne TV and from there, after crying at the end like I always do, I queued The Silence of the Lambs and after that watched The Godfather. Throughout these cinematic adventures and humming the tune to The Godfather through half the night, I completely forgot to post anything. All this notwithstanding, I didn’t really write anything yesterday, so there was nothing about which to even write.

I’d hoped to get the book down the 150s by today, but I’m either experiencing my first real migraine or I’ve got an emergency trip to my ophthalmologist coming in the next week since I’ve not been well all day and my eye has been in constant pain. While this does pose a few problems when it comes to staring at a bright laptop screen to create, I’ve worked through worse pain, so I’ll just chalk up today to simple sloth.

I’m off tomorrow as well and the night is not over, so if I can push forward to write here, I can at least begin the re-write of Chapter 14.

I’ve got to see you again Saturday, August 18, 2012

Norah Jones ~ Come Away With Me

I’ve not done a song-titled post in a while and since I was little stumped on a title for today, this fits. I think I miss the days when I just had “Mission of the Month Post #12” posts, but anyway…

I’m finally starting to face the realization that I may never get this novel down to 120K. Firmly into 163K as I start reviewing Chapter 14 again, it occurs to me that unless I completely cut a storyline (i.e., I’ll probably have to nix Amber MacDonaugh’s part of the tale), I probably won’t come anywhere close to 120K words.

That said, I have got quite a few chapters to go and I’ve been averaging around 800-word deletions per chapter. My Chapter Details (I’m soooo glad I made these) shows me that I’ve got a lot of deleting and rearranging to do as well, so maybe I’ll pick it up to 1500 words removed per chapter, but it’s quite likely that I’ll not get this finished product down to 120K; this doesn’t upset me as much though. I think I’d rather have a 500-paged great story than strip it down to 300 pages of bilge.

Again, though…I’ve still got more than 20 chapters left to go and Chapter 14’s probably got at least a 3K cut in its future to bring me within 40K. I may still get there…maybe.

Chipping away Wednesday, August 15, 2012

I’ve brought the book down by another 1100 words tonight. To be honest, I’d hoped to be into the 150s by now, but I’m chipping away at these chapters little by little. Since I’ve still got 30 chapters left to scrutinize, hopefully I’ll find a way to keep up the 1000-word cut per chapter for a while longer.

I remember reading somewhere (a blog or an article, or it’s possible I just made it up) that cutting parts of my story should hurt (maybe it was something about editing films…). The more I love it, the more it should get cut. I immediately shook my head when I saw read heard came across this because it just sounds too hard.

How can you cut something you love? I love the fingers on my left hand because they’re double-jointed, but I can’t imagine the pain of cutting those either. So, I’m left to wonder what I’ll do when I starve this novel down to almost bare bones, but I’m still over 120K. And 120K is still far over the upper end for most first-time authors. I’ve read that the book should really be no more than 100K, but I knew I’d never get this down to 100K from the moment I thought up my protagonist.

I suppose I can just pray that someone, somewhere will want to pick up this long-winded book and, perhaps, between the lengths of your Twilights and your Fire and Ices and the fact that eBooks are thriving, no one will really care about the length of my story when I’m done, as long as I’ve written well.

48K to go Saturday, August 11, 2012

I managed to halve Chapter 7 and as I’m left to consider whether I should split Chapter 8 and include the first part with Chapter 7, the novel now stands at 168K words. I’ve got just 48K words to cut before I’ll have an actual, publishable novel. The thought of it gives me chills.

That said, there’s a chance that even at 120K, I won’t be able to find someone to pick it up, but at least I’ll have accomplished something few have.

I’ve got three free days coming with and given that I’m more or less caught up with first-job, I’ll have this entire to write. While it’s unlikely that I’ll have this novel ready with my latest 1st of September deadline, I’m really, really pushing for it. My first novel, Flight, was supposed to be complete on my 22nd birthday and wasn’t truly finished until the day after it and with all the edits and additions, wasn’t actually complete until about a year later, but on I press.

I’ve got 20 days to get this thing ready. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’ll do it.

Surprises Thursday, August 9, 2012

I brought the book down another thousand words today and now, if I can figure out the “point” of Chapter 7 without loosing too much ground, I may even break into the 160s before the weekend.

I had lots more to say tonight, mostly surrounding first-job and how it surprises me how much other people surprise me, but I’m not going to rant tonight. It’s been a long hard day which only means that tomorrow will bring even harder and longer one with it.

But still…I’m down another thousand and I still haven’t broken my monetary and Minecraft fasts, so…all is well.

Retro Wednesday, August 8, 2012

I retroed back to a far earlier edit today to find the best way to rewrite the ending of Chapter 5. This excites me because I’ve never before done anything like that. Usually, if I find it necessary to delete something, it stays deleted or I create something better in its place. Today, the only replacement that worked was what I’d had before my edits.

With each new edit of Damen I create a new file. The current file is “damen1-9e”. The 1 is still the first draft and e is the fifth version of the first draft, but the 9 is a mystery to me. The previous file was “damen1-8d” and before that “damen1-7c” and for the longest time, I had a file called “damen1-6b” which is what I called my “heavy notes,” but I don’t remember ever having just a “damen-1a” somewhere. I think I just started naming them to keep all the notes straight.

Anyway, I went back to 7c which is the first complete version of the first draft to find some prose about Damen and Tabitha. I remember hating the idea that this scene needed to get cut in 8d, but in 9e, I’m so excited I’m the digital packrat that I am. Of course, I jazzed up the original text, but just knowing that I’ve got my safety net is a comfort.

I’ve got the book down to 171K and I laughed as I told myself this morning, “If I can just cut 5 thousand words every five chapters from here on out, I’ll be set!” This novel is turning into an algebra problem: Dorienne needs to delete 50,000 words from her novel. If Dorienne has 30 chapters and 150,000 words remaining to review, how many words per chapter does Dorienne need to delete?

Still, 171K word isn’t the 175K I had at the start of July and it’s not the 289K I had back in March; any movement forward is still progress…