Endings and Beginnings

Book four is officially done! The rough draft, in all its unedited glory, has been pushed to the side. As is my usual routine, it will be glanced at in September/October, but otherwise, won't see the light of day until book 3 is with my beta readers or my editor. Book four came in at 107k which is a whale of a book for me. I expect editing will be frustrating as heck as well. Fortunately, that is a problem for future me, so I can safely ignore it. 

Instead, I'm working on book three. Now, the third book came in at 102k when I first opened the document. Fortunately, a lot of that was notes and alternate chapters. See, a lot of my writing process is just me throwing spaghetti at a wall until my mind connects the dots. So, if you were wondering why there was a sudden crab hunt in Hunter's Gambit, I can say that it wasn't planned from the beginning. Instead, I knew what my characters were going to find when they got there, but didn't know how they were going to find it. So, I started writing that chapter and stared at my computer wondering why I was writing about crabs until my mind connected the nodes in my mind. Alternate chapters pop up when I finish a chapter and realize that its bad and I hate it or (more commonly) that the story was being told from the wrong POV and needs to be rewritten. 

So, the good news? Book three is already down to 92k. That's with just easy edits, removing notes, chapters that I'd already known I was going to have to get rid of eventually and that sort of stuff. Some of my chapters that seemed to not fit at the end of book two have been added to three and I have already gone over it once, putting things in order. My next edit is one where I go through and I really look at my plot. I've already found two chapters that are going to be deleted and another seven that will require complete rewrites. While this seems like a lot, its actually less than I was expecting. Between changes made to book two and now knowing where book four is going, I would have been surprised if there were less than that. 

Honestly, what I'm surprised at most this time around is how easy it is to see things like chapters that can be deleted. Knowing that I need parts of those chapters, but not there and not alone, really helps me to figure out how to tighten my writing. Its my hope that figuring this out at this stage will also make my editing go way faster. I haven't hidden the fact that I'm very new to this, which means that I'm still figuring out how to work best and how to speed up so that I can get these books out to you faster. 

The Road Not Taken

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less travelled by, 

And that has made all the difference

-Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

          I don't know if I could honestly say this is my favourite poem by Robert Frost, though he is hands down my favourite poet. Fire & Ice, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Take Something Like a Star, even the old fan favourite, Nothing Gold Can Stay... these are epic poems; beautiful, simple and powerful. Still, the one above is the one that I'm resonating with today.

          As a writer, you want the passion and power seen in Fire & Ice. However for editing... you want something calming and The Road Not Taken has that in spades, as well as the feeling of discovery and that unnameable (or at least, that I know of) feeling that we may have missed out on something great due to our choices, while still being happy with our choices.

          Editing is that feeling intensified. 

          Its my favourite part of the process actually, taking something that sucks and making it great. Though I am left sometimes wondering at the roads I didn't take, the paths I didn't follow. Would they still be there if I went back? The words would be, but I don't know if the same burst would come to me, wavering my conviction. 

          In the end, as Linkin Park says, it doesn't really matter.  You need to choose a path and follow it to the end. Going back to the beginning just to see could-have-beens may be interesting, but you can't live there (though I feel a short story burgeoning through me with that line).

          In my editing this week, I made a decision to delete a character. Inarguably important to the creation of my main character, he no longer had a place in my novel. I replaced him and felt almost fragmented. I will never, except in memory, in past writings, see that character again. 

          And I, I took the road less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.

          Lets go make a difference.

Read Through Editing: 30/110 or 28% completed

Finally Done!

          Yes, you read that right! Things are finally moving! I finished Kitsune-Ken, Book II on Tuesday and celebrated by having a bad movie night and dinner out with my husband. I'm sure that some of you want to know the exact details, so here they are. My final draft came out to 72k and after removing the obvious stuff (paragraphs and pages that needed to be written while I figured out where I was going but are obviously not going to be staying in the manuscript) that total came down to 68k. It is 127 pages in Microsoft Word, written in size 11 Calibri at 1.5 space between the lines. A bit shorter than my other novel, which I believe finished at 71k, but I know I'm missing a chapter or two so that total may get longer when I begin editing.

          Since finishing it, I've been taking time off from the books, instead working on more mundane things... designing business cards, registering my Press company name and such. As soon as I've purchased the cards, I'll save a picture and post them here! If I may say, they totally rock. It will probably be a week or two before I can post the picture. I'm holding off until I have registered my name and have created an email address.

          I can, at this point, let you guys know some of my good news. I will be attending When Words Collide in Calgary again this year. In fact, I may even be one of the presenters of a workshop dealing with uncommon world mythologies and how to incorporate them into your novels. Although nothing is set in stone just yet, my name is currently set with the workshop, barring limited interest or scheduling issues, I should be a presenter this year. I will also be attending the banquet this year! The theme is steampunk and if you haven't made a decision on whether the banquet is right for you, consider it!

          I think I'll have to stop here though and tell you more later. I can say that I have begun editing Kitsune-Ken, Book I and as soon as I have figured out how much work it should take, I'll update you on how long editing will be taking. If all goes according to plan, I may have it all finished for an early fall release date... Keep your fingers crossed!

When do what you must is all you can do...

          I'm sorry I missed my Sunday post... Another bout of flu is going around the city and this one is kicking my ass. I got everything; cough, trouble breathing, sore throat, fatigue, excessively runny nose, lag(ie-my head is stuffed with cotton). I will say that from Friday till Tuesday I did not get a full nights sleep; waking up multiple times each night to blow your nose or change position because you can't breath is a bitch.

          Anyway, it means that I've only gotten an extra 1000 words or so finished, bringing my total up to 57,221 words. I did try to write... the results were laughable enough that I just decided to concentrate on getting better. My doctor has said that I can try going back to work tomorrow, so hopefully tomorrow or Friday I'll be able to get started again. 

          I did realize I had a few extra scenes to write so the sick time hasn't been a total waste. And three months to write a book while working full time is entirely reasonable, so I'm still very proud of myself. 

          One thing sick time as been good for is reading. I've now read 37 books this year with another two on the go and a few books in my to-be read pile. In particular, I've found an urban fantasy series that I have to share with you. It's called the Fated Blades series by Steve Bein. 

          The first novel, Daughter of the Sword, is about a female detective in Tokyo working in the narcotics department. Her new boss, a misogynist, assigns her to a case from another department when they ask for help; an attempted theft. The sword in question is undoubtedly worth quite a bit of money, but its most important quality is that the sword has become imbued with kami(spirit). When she finds a link between the attempted theft and her current case(a massive shipment of cocaine being brought into Tokyo by an unknown dealer), its up to her to solve both cases before time runs out.

          If you're at all interested in Japanese culture, history or just want to read an urban fantasy that isn't your typical werewolves/vampire fare this is it. A solid four star read. Here are some links to pick it up on Kindle or Kobo, if you're interested. (Before you ask, nope, I'm not getting any money from this, I just really enjoyed the book. I mean, just look at that cover!)

Finally Better!

          Bleh. That cold was horrible. Even after I was finally better, I still spent the next week feeling tired for no good reason. Fortunately, my strength is back now. I've even started writing again (though I have not managed a thousand words in a day yet). However, despite February being so miserable, I did manage to finish some significant things accomplished.
          First off, during February as a whole I got about 13,000 words written. Considering the tendinitis and then getting seriously sick, that still means that I was writing whenever I could. I have reached 44,000 words and even hit page 100. Since the first novel only got to 175 pages on the rough draft, I can say that I'm more than half way through this novel. I'd say I'm probably approaching the 60% mark. My characters who had split off to go their different ways have found each other again and the story is progressing quite well.
          One thing that is making this novel a bit more difficult to write is that this novel originally was plotted more as a travelogue than anything else. Now the story seems to be coming together as a lot more than that. It means that I'm finding some parts that hardly get mentioned and that some places end up seeing a lot more care put to them than they received in the outline. It's pretty awesome though.
          I think I have another 30k to finish up this rough draft, which means that if I dedicated March to finishing it, I could conceivably finish this month, though most likely it will be finished the first week of April.
          I will say that half a month of not writing has been good for my reading. I'm read 30 books this year so far. According to Goodreads, that's 13 ahead of where I need to be. I'm glad for the extra though, It means that when I have weeks of no reading (or an insanely long book), I'll have a bit of a cushion to rely on. The full list is below if you're interested.

Setbacks

          Bleh, its been too long, though I do have an excuse. A few year ago, I developed tendinitis. While February is always a bad month, I had hoped that this year would be an exception. And while its been a light month for pain thus far, tendinitis is one of those things that you can't just medicate away. It takes rest and that means not using your wrists for things. Which you wouldn't think would be difficult.
          Just don't write is what I hear all of you saying. How hard can that be?
          First off, I will respond to that by asking you to look at what you do right now during your evenings for fun. Now imagine you can't do it. Watching TV? Imagine you have a migraine for weeks that even Tylenol 3's don't fix. Music? Imagine you've fired a gun without the proper ear protection making you all but deaf for a while. Regardless of what your hobby is, being told you can't do it for a week or two is hard. (You runners or workout buffs know exactly what I'm talking about. Everyone slips or pulls a muscle eventually.)
          Secondly, if it was just my writing, it wouldn't be too bad. But I can't use my wrists. No cross-stitching, no reading, less house cleaning since lifting plates can be too heavy and hurt. No hours web-surfing... using a mouse hurts too, since it's primarily wrist movements.

I can't want to finish my current books to start reading this.

          One that has been enjoyable in the last week or so is my Goodreads book total. When I first developed tendinitis I found that having an e-reader saved by wrists. Thus, I can still read while (mostly) resting. Anyways, I'm up to 20 books so far. 16 novels and 4 graphic novels with 4 more novels in various states of "currently reading". Even at just 16 books this is a great total. It means that when I hit those weeks when I read absolutely nothing, I have a few novels already read to cover it.
          At any rate, I've taken about a week off, so I'm doing much better now. Still not pain-free, but I am when I'm not using them. As a trial, I wrote last night. Only until I started hurting, which ended up being about 400 words. I finished laying out the thought I was on and got to around 500 words.I consider that a complete win. I figure I'll now start adding writing back in to my daily schedules again. Only until I start hurting and then I rest for the rest of the day though. I'll work my strength back up slowly that way and still get stuff done.
          As an update, the Kitsune-Ken, book 2 manuscript is up to 38,318 words, around halfway through the novel, already, so I'm doing rather well. Considering that amount is just since January and I've been working full-time, I don't consider that a total to laugh at.
          So, that's been me (and my wrist is starting to feel it after all this work), so I'll sign off here. What have you been doing? Do any of you have any fixes for tendinitis beyond resting it?

What I've Been Up To (Part One)

          It has been too long since I was last here! Which, unfortunately, is what happens when you get sick and are sure that you must have updated just before you got sick... Bleh. I must admit, most times I get sick, I just get a bit annoyed for a day or two as my muscles all ache and I don't get enough sleep. This time, I was actually laid out for a day and the only reason I didn't end up taking time of work was that I was able to hold off until my I-Day came up.

          Enough about me being sick though, since that isn't a fun conversation. Lets do an update! I've been writing, pretty darn consistently this year. I did end up having to lower down my weekly goals though. I had originally set myself up for 10k a week, which while awesome, was way too much to sustain while holding down a full-time job.

          Your mileage will vary, since we all write at different speeds, but I looked at how I was feeling at the end of the first week and I was miserable and behind in my count. So, I did the adult thing and looked at changing my goal to something more reasonable. I finally settled on 7k a week. A thousand words a day is still challenging while being reachable. If I'm truly on the ball, I can do 1k in an hour generally... but lets face it, much more often, it will take me double that or maybe even triple that on a super bad day.

          I know many friends of mine will look at that goal and think, "Wow, so low?" but the truth is that I am a really slow writer. And this is about creating a schedule I can follow and achieve my goals while this reaching. This weekly amount, does it.

This is a picture I drew years ago. She came from the idea of a kitsune onmyiodo dressed like a miko.

          Just to let you guys know where I'm standing right now, my new novel that I'm working on (Kitsune-Ken II; the sequel to the book I wrote for Nanowrimo - more about the plot for the new book later as well) is currently at 21,224 words. Since today is January 23th, I should hit 23,000 today. As you can see, I'm still a bit behind, but I'm going to try to get myself completely caught up today! I'll let you know in my next post if I succeed!

          This blog post is going a little bit long, so I'll cut off here and do the rest of my updates in a future post (probably on Wednesday). Until then, tell me how your goals are going? Are you holding to your resolutions?