Rewrite – Phase I Complete
May 31, 2010 Daily Writing, Novels
I completed the first phase of my rewrite of “Gene Splice” just a few minutes ago, which is great. I focused completely on structural stuff this time–and there were a few things I fixed. As with my last rewrite effort, anything I thought was “just” an issue of the moment I jotted down to remember to come back to.
So I’ve got a list of ten things I want to go back and work on. Two of them will probably take a bit of time, but hey, time I appear to have … er … plenty of. Hopefully a week or two from now I’ll have a third novel ready for market. I think that would be a first for me.
Writing Prompt?
May 24, 2010 Daily Writing, Novels
I’m thinking that if you can’t write a story based on this, you’re not trying hard enough.
Progress Report:
I didn’t mean to go in this direction at all, but I’ve found myself about 60% through a rewrite of another of my earlier novels. This one’s origin was my very first Novel Dare (think NaNoWriMo before there was such a thing).
It started because I opened the file up as a writing avoidance technique, and suddenly found myself 100 pages into it and thinking, “hmmm…this is pretty good.” I ran into the Not So Good part at about page 150, and I think–as of today–I’ve got it pretty well fixed. Still about a hundred pages to read through, but I’m optimistic.
One Cool Morning
May 6, 2010 Daily Writing, Novels
Life is pretty danged cool this morning.
First, I decided I needed to make some small changes to the structure of the book I’m working on. The story involves subliminal travel (as well as some FTL travel, but that’s not relevant to this conversation). This meant I got to spend two hours playing with time dilation math.
While I know some folks would rather dig their eye sockets out with dirty popsicle sticks than do such weird math, I personally find this to be one of the great side-perks of being a science fiction writer.
[An aside: I recently had a small conversation with some friends at work wherein we briefly got into the concept of time dilation as a method for traveling into the future, and I had one of those semi-awkward quiet moments where I realized I had probably gone a sentence or two too far because everyone was just kind of looking at me strangely. "It's all true," was my only defense. "Real math, not made-up science fiction." But I could tell they just thought I was way-too-geeky for my own good.]
Second, I got word that a brief blurb I sent the WotF folks will be included in their 25th Anniversary coffee table book, and I’ll be receiving a free copy. Big Woot! there.
And finally, I’ve got a small project in the works that looks like it’s going to come to fruition. I’ll post more as it seems proper, but I’m quite excited about it…
On to the afternoon — it’ll have to go a bit to be cooler than the morning, but I know it will try its best.
Picking up the Pace
May 5, 2010 Daily Writing, Novels
Things are definitely moving faster now that I’ve gotten through my tussle with the two pilots. I’ve winged through four chapters this morning, and will probably get a couple more before my brain starts to fade. Easily crossed the halfway point of the book, and I now suppose it’s possible I might actually complete the rewrite this week (for those following closely, I’ve been off “vacationing” this week, hence getting considerable progress in).
I’m particularly happy to have resolved one of the sticking points I had upon rereading the thing a month ago. It was a consistency/anachronism thing that has been bugging me for a bit.
Much happier today.
Easy Writing
May 4, 2010 Daily Writing, Novels, Short Stories
Okay, here is a sentence I never thought I would ever type.
I’m finding Frank Sinatra music is easy to write to.
Yes, me. Frank Sinatra. Got a problem with that? I guess it’s all those 4-4 beats and jaunty melodies, but it just kind of keeps the fingers going–at least it did this morning. I write with music on, but the sound down low so that the lyrics don’t jumble my brain too much. Actually, I write to a lot of classical stuff, too. I assume it’s not too unusual to write with music on in the background, but I’m willing to bet that I’m in a pretty big minority with the Voice today.
Just my little Ron-fact of the moment.
Progress: Officially completed the pilot bit as far as the novel is concerned. I think I need to add a small transition scene to it if I want to make it into a true short story, which I may do tomorrow. But for now it feels good to be done with this portion of the work. It grew to a considerably bigger project than I had first envisioned.
