Switching

Recently, after finishing my read aloud of MALICE, I realized something: I was sick to death of it. Not that I think it’s bad or I’m giving up on it. I just can’t stand the sight of it for a while. I need a break. Well, from it.

So, this means I’m going back to REMEMBER. Remember that (pun intended)? I started on MALICE several months ago because I realized I was tired of it. One of my goals for this month is to finally get around to doing the read aloud for book R that I made a goal for months ago. I intend to start this week, barring any unforeseen circumstances, like a mysterious bout of laryngitis or something. Knock on wood.

I like having multiple projects to work on for just this reason. Often I get to a point where I need a break from a book I’m working on. What better way to take said break than by working on something else, something completely different? I was so glad to put REMEMBER away for a while—now I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it. Man, I hope this feeling lasts.

Question time: what do you do when you’re sick of your WIP? Do you move on to something else? Take a break from writing entirely? Do you think ending a blog post with questions is a cop out or a good way to elicit responses? I realize that last question is a little off topic, but sometimes I just get curious.

July Goals

Is it just me or do the months seem to be flying by? I wish I was a robot that could work 24/7. Then I’d feel like I was getting something done.

June Goals

1. Read aloud of Malice, including taking notes, and then fixing said notes. I’m fairly certain I can get this done, although reading the entire thing out loud might take longer than I expect.

Did this! It did take longer than I expected, but not by that much. I did start working on some of the notes, and even created a timeline (where I discovered even more problems to fix!), but honestly, right now I’m kind of burned out on MALICE. Maybe it’s looking at those 800+ notes I have to fix and all the rewrites it needs.

2. Sigh…do SOMETHING about my query. Obviously it’s going to need a complete and total rewrite. I may end up having to join some forum or other just to get some opinions, which I’m really not looking forward to. Did I say sigh yet?

Kind of? I did write another query, but I didn’t solicit any outside opinions. I know, there are all these great sites out there where you can post your queries for critiques, but I so hate doing things like that…I guess this one is a partial fail.

3. Two more apocalypse posts! I’ve kind of done zombies to death lately, so I’ll see if I can whip up something about one of the million other apocalypses waiting to take us out.

I got a little derailed by the whole computer thing, but I managed to get both in! Barely. I think I might need a month off from the apocalypse. (I can’t believe I said that!)

Now for this month. Wow, the year is half over…

July Goals

1. Do something about that query and then send out another set. Not that I’m expecting much…

2. Finally get to the read aloud of REMEMBER that I meant to do months ago and never did. If I’m not too distracted by something shiny.

3. Work on recreating some of the projects I lost when my computer crapped out on me. Most of them I could care less about, but there are a couple of things I really liked, even if they’re just for me.

Seriously, I’m so hella pissed that my computer crashed like that. You piece of crap! I gave you everything!

Noted

It took three weeks, but my read aloud of my current WIP is finally done. I made a note every time I found something that needed fixing and…well, it’s not pretty. There are 853 of them. Or, on average, eight per page.

Eep.

Of course it’s an important thing to be able to, you know, make the book readable, but man, is it daunting. Half of them are me yelling at myself for not using enough description or ordering me to get rid of dialogue tags (I can get very bossy in my notes to myself). It’s just plain a mess, but it might be good someday.

So what’s next on my writing to do list? Fixing all those notes, obviously. But I also wrote out the timeline for it to make sure there are no continuity snarls and improve the pacing, so I’m going to do that first, and since that will involve a lot of moving chapters around, I’m probably going to need more notes to fix all the problems shifting things around will cause.

Eep. Again.

But through it all, I really feel excited. I have a plan! I know how to fix (most of) the problems! MALICE is turning into a real book! Although this doesn’t mean those of you who follow me on Twitter won’t be seeing a lot of whining about edits. Complaining is my muse.

So that’s my writing update this week. What are you up to with your WIP? What do you do when you start revisions? Do share!

June Goals

June is here. 2014 is already half over. We march ever onward towards death.

Sorry. That got kind of dark there. So what was I up to last month?

May Goals

1. Send out ten more queries for COLLAPSE. I hope I garner some interest this time…

Yeah, I did it, and I haven’t gotten even a glance. It’s weird how a win can feel so much like a loss. Boo…

2. Finish MALICE. I’m not sure how many words I still have to go, but I should definitely be able to get it done this month.

Yep, done. At least this one feels like a win. Draft one is done and ready to be ripped to shreds and put together as something readable. Maybe.

3. Update my blog’s etymology pages. I have a feeling this is going to be more complicated than it looks (it sure was last time!).

Did it! Did you see? Well, it’s kind of hard to notice since there’s like a million words there (that might be exaggerated a tad, but whatevs), but I updated it. If I’ve etymologized it, it’s up there.

And now for June…

June Goals

1. Read aloud of Malice, including taking notes, and then fixing said notes. I’m fairly certain I can get this done, although reading the entire thing out loud might take longer than I expect.

2. Sigh…do SOMETHING about my query. Obviously it’s going to need a complete and total rewrite. I may end up having to join some forum or other just to get some opinions, which I’m really not looking forward to. Did I say sigh yet?

3. Two more apocalypse posts! I’ve kind of done zombies to death lately, so I’ll see if I can whip up something about one of the million other apocalypses waiting to take us out.

Okay, so that’s what my June looks like. What about you guys? You up to anything this month? Any writing goals you want to share?

The End, Part 1

I finished another book. I don’t know how many this makes. I could count, but the number would be depressingly high considering how many I’ve had published (a big, fat goose egg, by the way, although considering some of my efforts, that’s probably a good thing :P).

So it’s the end, but not the end. Draft one is done, but it’s, well, not something I’d share with anyone. Ever. Not that it doesn’t have the potential to be better—far from it! I really love this story, even if I’m not sure how popular a future-fiction-action-adventure book would be with readers. It’s still great though. Or it will be once I get through with editing.

Editing is a big process, bigger than writing the book itself. Right now, MALICE is just under 100K, longer than it should be, full of subplots that went nowhere but are in because I thought they would (outlining! <shakes fist>), and words I just stuck in there because I could figure out exactly what I was trying to say (anyone else have writing moments like that?). Plus I think the book has unacceptable levels of telling instead of showing. And all the things I need to research, world building details I have to add, and, what’s it called? Descriptions.

So. I have my work cut out for me. It took something like two and a half months to write. Editing is going to take considerably longer. I need to do a read aloud, take notes of what needs to be fixed, fix said notes, about a billion other things. Then beta reads. And more notes to fix. Always more notes.

I can honestly say I don’t know when I’ll be able to write “The End” and mean it, or if that will ever be the case. All I can do is keep typing.

What do you do after you finish draft number one? What’s your editing process like? Please share, and don’t skimp on the details! : )

Confessions

I have a confession to make. When I wrote my last book…I used an outline.

Wait, don’t make me turn in my pantser badge! Which sounds like it means something way more inappropriate than I’m intending!

See, four books ago, I only wrote by getting ideas and typing them out (known in the vernacular as “by the seat of one’s pants”). I certainly saw the benefits of outlining. In fact, I got in the habit of typing them up after I finished with the book, if only to be able to look at the story from a wider perspective. For the most part, I nodded along when others spoke of the joys of outlining, for some reason feeling proud of myself for not using one. Yeah, it’s kind of weird.

Then COLLAPSE came along, and I blame it for this abundance of outlining. My idea for the story was that it took place over a year—each chapter is a different day along the timeline. In order to execute it without tripping over continuity, I needed to (shudder) outline what happened, on what day, and make sure things were happening at an appropriate pace. It’s not my fault. I needed the outline.

My next book was REMEMBER, and I told myself I wanted to outline it because I didn’t have a clear idea for the ending and besides, it would be easier to get it out of the way ahead of time (seriously, that’s what I told myself). Same thing for MALICE, my current WIP. I just want to know the ending.

Am I an outliner now? No, but that’s only because I don’t like to label myself (it restricts my ability to completely change my mind about something in the middle of doing it). I’ve just…realized that people were right. It does help to have it all out there. Not like it completely solves all writing problems. I still throw in new ideas as they come to me, and some of the ideas that I wrote in because they were in the outline didn’t pan out the way I want them to and will probably be cut when I’m finished with draft 1. So while I like having an idea of what I’m supposed to be writing, sometimes it kind of gets in the way, too. There are goods and bads to outlining…and I’ll probably be doing it for my next book.

Seriously, it hooks you.

Any thoughts about outlining? Have you ever radically changed your mind about something?