As of 1/6/08, I’m considering the first draft of Black Hole Son complete. All 167,000 words of it. And there’s still more to write. I still have to do a revision 1.5, add in all the bits that I considered, but I’m not going to do that for about six weeks or so. My kid will be born by then! But that’s why I haven’t been here. Had to concentrate on it. So, in the meantime, I’m revising Blood 2. I originally was going to work on some short stories, but I figured I owed it to finish this monkey on my back. I’m not sure who I owe it…
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Harry Potter and the Depressing Writing Career
Two events in the past few days. One, my wife finally finished Blood 2: The Unforgiven. Does this mean I can jump into revising it now? Hell no. In fact, I’m not even sure if I want to revise it. It seems like it would be too much work. Lost story threads, unconcluded plot elements, underdeveloped characters, overdeveloped drama, copyrighted characters, and the whole thing’s just depressing. Who would want to read it? I wonder if I’m better off focusing on publishable works and advancing my career, amateur as it is. The second is I got my Harry Potter books yesterday. A box set of all 7 that came in…
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Good News and Bad News
The good news is I’m very close to the end of Part 1 (Character A) of my novel. The bad news is the reason for the good news is that I feel like I shouldn’t write the ending yet. That’s because this is a zipper story (two separate storylines where they come together), and I’ve written one guy’s storyline first. Character A begins and ends the story, and that’s how I originally intended to write it. But then I thought, if I do that, I’m going to be writing part of the story where the two characters mesh, and I’m not going to be in Character B’s head at all.…
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Monday’s Token entry
Friday, I felt like I was getting burnt out by my writing. Nothing felt like it was flowing, it was all just a bunch of stuff that I needed to put together to set up plot points in the future. I’ve got 2500 words down on it already, and more to come. The problem is that what I need to have happen doesn’t flow well, and doesn’t sound super-plausible. And that’s something I need to watch out for cause I got a good dressing down on all the stuff in Blood 2 that doesn’t make sense. And I was like “Oh, god, I’ve got so much to fix in that.”…
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I Can Critiques Blood 2?
I think I might have found someone who’s actually going to give me a fair and complete critique of Blood 2. I’m doing a novel exchange with someone who contacted me through Critters, and I’m looking at her story right now. I feel a little bad cause her story is near half mine’s length. I’m also worried I might be too harsh on her, I’m not trying to be, but I’m trying to teach some lessons here. Not that I really have the authority to do so. But her writing sounds a lot like me when I was first starting back in high school, so at least it’s not drudgery…
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Critters – You’re up to bat. Don’t strike out.
BTW, I forgot to mention that Blood 2 – Unit 5 (of 30) is on Critters now. No reviews yet. This is the last of my Blood sections that will be going up there, at least for now, because I calculated at this rate it’ll take two and a quarter years before the full story is up there. I could break into bigger chunks, but nobody’s reading it as it is. Thank god for my wife, patiently treading through the murky pose. This is one of the downfalls of Critters. People get to review what they want, and they usually review whatever’s the shortest. I think once something gets enough…
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Next Section, Please
Yay, I finished my chase scene. I still think it’s too light, too quick, not up to my standards of what the story should be, but half the battle is getting shit on the page. That’s why we revise. Now that I’m done with that large chunk of sequence in my book, let’s look at the word count so far. 4,802 + 2,110 + 3,520 + 4,375 + 4,479 + 3,303 + 3,169 + 5,755 + 4,094 + 3,494 = 43,903 Ten chapters, 44,000 words written so far, and average of 4,390 words per “scene” or “chapter”. This is pretty good, cause in Blood 2, my average per scene was…
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Update
Nothing to report today. Writing is going fine and smooth, which we like. My wife a.k.a primary peer-reviewer, is on chapter 5 of Blood 2, out of… well, I don’t know of what. 73 scenes, and maybe 40 or so chapters, I guess.
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Writing Advice #10
Description is best when it involves all five senses. Especially smell, if its appropriate. The trick is knowing how much to reveal. Skimp on physical descriptions of people. Use the mind’s eye to see the key details and write those down. Leave the rest to be filled in by the reader. I learned this one in 10th grade English, and employ it myself. When I have to write a description of something, I try to run down the list of five senses. The two most underused ones are smell and touch. Taste usually doesn’t apply, unless you want to have someone lick the mystery thingamajigger for some reason. Smell is…
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Friends Who Want To Read Your Work
You ever have someone who wants to read your story? This is why I have a hard time telling people I’m a writer. None of my friends are writers, or are much of readers (except Janet Evanovich novels, which are all the same). So I get a book in the mail and say it’s research for a story I’m writing, someone says “Oh, can I read it when you’re done”. Maybe I’m just being a moron, but I don’t think they really mean it. I think they’re just being polite. Why? Well for one thing, not everyone’s favored genre is the same, and moreso, favorite authors and styles. So it’s…