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Tag Archives: writing
Apr
25
Up to Speed
I’m at that stage in my revisions where everything starts looking like crap. Part of that is just the pressure of knowing it needs to be finished in the next few days, and part because it’s *all* I’ve looked at for the last two weeks. Not that I don’t love my story…but when you’re nitpicking every little word it can be hard to tell. Is this necessary? Should I put something else in here? Do I need to go back and drop a line or two about something that happened two books ago? Or will the reader just know? And bringing new readers up to speed is probably one of my biggest failings. For one, I usually hate doing it. It always feels a bit false to me. “Let me just drop a summary paragraph….HERE!” It’s can be hard to do it in an organic fashion without feeling like an…
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Apr
17
Review Advice
I get a lot of questions sometimes about my writing methods, such as they are. I always feel vaguely uncomfortable answering them because there isn’t any real big secret. The way I do things may not be the way you do things, and there certainly isn’t any sort of magic pill. Except the Ass-In-Chair-Fingers-On-Keyboard sort. Because really, having all the writing rituals in the world isn’t actually going to write your story for you. Rituals are all well and good if they help you get into the proper mindset to work, but if you’re using them as an avoidance technique? That’s no good. (“I can’t write, right now! I don’t have my special candle/footwarmers/chocolate jellybeans, etc.”) But one thing I can say that I don’t do around revision time? Read reviews. Reviews can be a bit of a mindfield at the best of times, particularly on a site like GoodReads…
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Feb
1
Vision to the Voice
I finally wrapped up the first chapter of something new the other night. I let a few people read it and the overall feedback was good, but the more I looked at it, the less happy I was. So…I’m starting it over. Which is odd, because I’m a big fan of at least getting a full draft done before I start mucking with everything (otherwise it’s way too easy to fall into the habit of the constant edit/rewrite. I don’t want to go there.) But I do think a story has a better chance at successfully being told if the “voice” is consistent with the muse. Part of my issue may be because I’ve spent three years in Abby’s head. It’s hard for me not to look at a new story and not see her in there. As much as I love writing her, this isn’t her story or her…
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Dec
21
Reading My Own Words
So I got a final ecopy of A Sliver of Shadow today. It’s not for public consumption, mind – I can’t go sending it off to people. But it’s useful to have. For one thing, I can fact check against it as I finish up the last of A Trace of Moonlight. (And by finish, I mean…eh, one chapter to go and then revise like the wind? But still – it’s good to have something definitive I can look back on to make sure certain things were included…or not.) Plus, I put quotes on the back of my trading cards, and I need to find some good ones for the latest set so I can get them all printed up. It’s interesting, though. I don’t usually go back and reread my books. I don’t know if that’s just a mental “I’m done with this story now” or some sort of…
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Dec
9
The Last Leg
I’m in the last bits of the A Trace of Moonlight draft. 85k written – about another 15k to go. Though really, 100k is just the ballpark figure. A little more, a little less – it doesn’t really matter. I’ll be fleshing things out quite a bit as I restructure part of the plot, so I don’t worry about final counts until I’ve got something I’m actually happy with. I think the final word count for A Brush of Darkness was 102k when it went to print…A Sliver of Shadow exploded to about 117k at one point, but I narrowed it down to 110k at the end. (And I’d say the standard UF/PNR usually runs 90k to 120k for trad publishing. Epic fantasy can be longer, but it’s also harder to break into if a publisher doesn’t want to spend the extra print money.) When it comes down to it,…
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