Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘revisions’

Deadlines and Promotions

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »

So, I have a new deadline. When I raised my head out of first draft mode and started working on revisions to BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING,

BecomeCover

I realized something. I have five of my books–including the prequel novella to the BECOME series–scheduled for a group promotion over the first weekend in May–a May the Fourth promotion, as in “May the Fourth be with you.”

And that is a perfect time to start getting a little promotion for this next book, specifically by getting buy links for it into my other books–especially the ones in the promotion. Now, fortunately, that doesn’t mean that I have to have all the revisions done. I can get a buy link by putting it up for pre-order. And I always planned to have this book out around May or early June at the latest, anyway. That’s way sooner than the 90 days Amazon permits for a per-order.

What I do need to do is get a really good feel for how long I think these revisions will take and add a bit of cushion, plus the ten days Amazon insists the final version be uploaded before publication. The best way to do that is to get as far as I can in the next week or so. Because I will need a little time to revise my other books to include the new buy link. And I will have to set the release date when I set up the pre-order.

Just in case you’re interested, these are the books that will be free from May 4th thru May 6th:

Because of the complexities of making a book that’s published wide (rather than exclusive to Amazon) free, THE SHAMAN’S CURSE is already free.

So, back into the revisions trenches for me.

Read Full Post »

Switching Gears

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on April 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »

It’s time. I will now be pausing work on BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM

StormCover

in order to start the revisions on BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.

BecomeCover

There’s still one critique outstanding, but I’m going to go ahead and start anyway.

I got BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM to the midpoint and it’s almost certainly a good idea to pause while I’ve got a good idea (and notes) on what’s going to happen in the next couple of chapters. That way, hopefully, I won’t lose very much momentum when I switch back again in a month or so.

Read Full Post »

Characters Part 4

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on April 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Today it’s Merlanan’s turn to be introduced. Well, reintroduced. He first appears, briefly, at the end of BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.

BecomeCover

But, of course he was much younger, then.

Here’s his first scene in BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM:

StormCover

Margan patted Sunbeam’s shoulder as he finished up brushing the palomino warhorse down. The palomino had been a birthday gift, three years ago, brought all the way over the mountains from Versenna by Uncle Alander on one of his regular trips as private courier for secure messages between Mother and her family. The gift had only made Margan more restless.

As long as he could remember, Margan had known that he didn’t belong in Khatar. There was something he was meant to be doing and it wasn’t on this side of the mountains. That feeling had been growing stronger the last couple of years. Well, probably it would have grown stronger anyway, but having his own horse to make the journey with hadn’t done anything to lessen it, certainly. Probably neither Mother, Uncle Alander, nor Grandfather had really expected it to.

He desperately wanted to go visit the place where his father had died, too. Just to feel some connection with the man he’d never had a chance to meet. Not that he was expecting to find anything but the cairn, but . . . .

The spring equinox—and his birthday—was in three days. He’d be eighteen. Margan meant to leave soon after, but he still needed to persuade Mother and the others that he was old enough to undertake this journey. Finally. With the king on their side, they had the power—if not the right—to stop him.

He lifted his face briefly to the sky, feeling for the currents of weather, and smiled. Yes, he was certain the weather would remain good for at least that long.

He gave Sunbeam another pat. “Wish me luck, boy.” Margan’s cat, Mrow, followed, tail high.

As is hinted at the end, there, he does have an ability to sense changes in the weather that will play an important part later on.

In other news, the first of the critiques of BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING has come back. I plan to get the next two chapters of BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM done before going back to revisions. I can see those chapters in my head, so now’s the time to get them out.

Based on that critique, though, I’m also going to have some thinking to do about how to publish these two stories. They’re very closely tied together. And I hate cliff hangers. But it was unavoidable in this case. So, I need to figure out how I’m going to handle that.

Read Full Post »

Forward!

Posted in writing, tagged , , , on February 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I’m now about two-thirds through the first round of revisions on BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.

BecomeCover

I am going to try really hard to get this done–not, probably by the end of this week–but hopefully before the end of next weekend.

One of the things I added will make the next few chapters tighter, so that’s good.

There’ll still be stuff that I left for the next revision pass, but most of that will be minor–I hope.

Back to the revision cave.

Read Full Post »

Whew!

Posted in writing, tagged , , , on February 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Well, I’ve finally finished the section that had to be redone in BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.

BecomeCover

This wasn’t so much a rewrite as completely scrapping what I had in the last scene of Chapter 30 and the first scene or two of Chapter 31. That section, of course, is now effectively a first draft and will probably need a bit more work in the final revisions. But, it’s better than it was.

Now, of course, I’ll need to smooth over the transition into the next scene, which is not coming from the same starting point as it was. But that shouldn’t be too bad.

Hopefully, this draft won’t need any more major surgery like this. I’d still really like to finish it by the end of next week so I can get it out to my beta readers, but I’m not going to do a sloppy job to achieve that. And I do know I’ve got a couple of chapters right before the climax that are going to need fleshing out.

It doesn’t have to be perfect to go to the beta readers, of course. But it should be at least close.

Well, it takes as long as it takes to get it right.

Read Full Post »

Lesson 1: Revisions Are Unpredictable

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on February 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »

In my last post I optimistically stated that I thought the most of the rest of this revision pass on BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING would go smoothly and more quickly.

BecomeCover

Yeah, well, the thing about revisions is that they don’t always follow the script. I’d already done the read-through and marked up the chapters I thought needed work. There are a couple near the end the need to be filled out more, for example. Right now they read more as summaries. And a couple of chapters that start out more as summaries that will need to be fixed, too.

But the second pass, for me, is still a complete read-through. And sometimes it’s not until the second or third time that I notice something. Like where I’ve just discovered that I let myself take the easy way out of something with a bit of magic–magic that should be more . . . restricted. It’s really supposed to be limited to only certain people–not that only they can work it, but only they can benefit from it–with very rare exceptions.

So, I’m going to stop and rework that bit. And not taking the easy way out will not only make the magic work better, it will also make that part of the story better–better complications, better character development. Just . . . better.

My plan has been to finish these revisions by the end of this month–which isn’t that far away. But I’d much rather get it right than fast, so . . . we’ll just have to see what this does to my overall publication plan.

Read Full Post »

Through the Rough Part

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , on February 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I think.  Still working on the first round of revisions on BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.

BecomeCover

That very rough chapter needed almost a complete rewrite. And the next one needed quite a lot of work, too. Then I added a new scene to the chapter after that and went back and added a completely new (short) chapter. Oh, and in the process I made a change to the timeline, moving one major event up by a year.

I’d hoped to be half-way through this revision pass by now. After all of that, I’m closer to one-third. Still, from this point on I hope it will go more smoothly. Whether it does or not, though, I’m much happier with the story now than I was. So it was all worth it.

Read Full Post »

When Revisions Get Hard

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on February 11, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Revisions on BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING are progressing.

BecomeCover

I mentioned in an earlier post that the read-through had revealed that the first few chapters were the roughest. Nevertheless, I’ve been getting through two or three chapters a day. Until now.

Now I’m up to the one chapter that is the roughest of all. There’s almost as much red text(revision notes) as black (normal). This one’s going to need a lot of work, almost a rewrite. This one may take a while.

Part of the reason this one is so rough is that it was copied from a much earlier version of . . . well, it wasn’t exactly this story. But from an earlier (never-to-be-published) story that was eventually rewritten into part of this one. That one had a character very like my main character in the BECOME series, but he wasn’t the main character in that version, though–which was a mistake. He always was the most interesting character.

A few more chapters after this one, though, and things should get easier. I’m aiming to get at least half-way through this pass by the end of the week. There’ll be one more revision pass after this, although that won’t be a full, look-at-everything pass. Just going back to the notes I haven’t addressed or the new ones I’ve made in this pass, such as:

  1. A possible change in the timeline–and figuring out what that would mean down the line.
  2. Some adjustments to emotional blocks my character suffers from. He still needs the block, but I need to tweak the cause a bit.
  3. Considering altering certain units of measure. Miles or something else more world-specific. Same with weeks and months. Well, months work, since they’re based on the moon cycle and calling it a moon pass is sort of silly. But weeks are arbitrary and I may want to use something else. The trick is figuring out what.

 

Read Full Post »

Revisions Started

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on February 7, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I’m writing this blog a little late today . . . well, tonight. But I have a good excuse. I’ve been working on the revisions of BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.

BecomeCover

I’m only a handful of chapters in so far, but I am loving the changes. Those first few chapters were . . . not rough, exactly. But they were heavy on information. Now, some of that is unavoidable in fantasy. But this wasn’t, shall we say, as artfully done as it could have been. Now it feels much more organic. And, in the process, I think I’ve given a much better characterization of my main character.

Headed back into the editing cave.

Read Full Post »

Read-Through

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , on February 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I’m about 60% into the initial read-through of the first draft of BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.

BecomeCover

Making a few minor revisions as I go, but mostly notes on things that I need to change or add.

Here’s what I know so far:

  1. The first chapters are going to need the most work. No surprise there. As a discovery writer, I’m often feeling my way into the story at the beginning. Also, that’s the part that’s going to need the most in terms of bringing out the internal conflict.
  2. I need to bring that conflict forward throughout. But I knew that already.
  3. Some minor geographical changes need to be made. Partly, this is to accommodate what I’ve written in the sequel, but it works better for this story, too. I’ve made one change, but I’ll need a second read-through to make sure everything is consistent. Well, I’ll be re-reading this at least three or four times before it’s published, anyway.
  4. There are, unsurprisingly, things I need to go back and add. That’s normal.
  5. No matter how hard I sometimes struggled to get this first draft out, I really do still love this story. Whew! That’s the most important one.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »