New Project

Not the best day with 2,500 words written.  It was the same for Crusade and Revolution.  The first week was full of false starts and slow days.  I can't put my finger on why yet, but it seems to be the way every time.  It takes me a few days to get up to writing speed.

The good news is that I'm excited about the new story.  I think I'm onto something fairly unique in what I want to tell.  Of course the difficult bit will be making sure I do it justice.  I'm so excited, I wrote the description for the back cover.  It came to me while I was making a cup of tea and I had to get it down. I've also worked out how I'm going to set up the continuity.

This will be one or two books, depending on how it all turns out.  The ideas I'm getting could certainly fill two full novels around the 150K mark I think.  What I want to do is an umbrella name for the world, then have tales of XXXX, book one, book two, etc.  This will let me base the various fantasy story lines I have in one world.  They could either directly connect or be from different times with only the barest references.

From a commercial point of view, I have seen that the five plus book stories do particularly well for indie authors.  I can see why.  People find a story and author they like and stick with it.  I'm guilty of this as mush as the next man, I have all the Terry Pratchett Discworld and David Weber Honorverse novels.

I didn't do this with Dark Vengeance as Valerie had a very definitive story arc.  Once that was complete, the main point of her became mute and had a real chance of becoming repetitive and possibly boring.  Not that I'm finished in that world.  I think I have a couple of other stories to tell.  The origin of Troll being one.

Time for dinner - Total at 4,500 words.

Revolution and the new project

Wow, for someone who has been talking about editing for the last month, I have done a horrendous job on my recent posts.  I had a quick read through some of them and I've missed words out and used the wrong words.  I know I have a habit of rushing them out at the end of the day, but still, I need to pay more careful attention.

Revolution is pretty much put to bed now.  The 50 page read aloud edit went very well.  In those 50 pages/20,000 words, I found a total of eight actual errors.  There were a few other amendments to be made, but they were all tweaks in language and prose.  I could be doing those forever and you have to draw a line under it at some point.  That is exactly what I've done until I get feedback from my friends.

This week my plan was to work on two story ideas and outline them to see which works best.  Then I watched Poldark and a new idea came to me.  This one was so strong it has drowned the other two out.  I started work on it Monday morning and the ideas just kept flowing.  I couldn't put it aside and carried on yesterday.  I even started writing.  Not much, only a couple of hundred words, but it was a start and I haven't been able to get it out of my head.  So that's the plan for today, to write as much of the Prologue as I can.  Maybe I'll even get into the first chapter.

I think the reason it is sticking with is that it combines a few ideas I have been playing with for years.  Since I was thirteen, and bored while doing my paper round, I have been making up stories to keep myself amused.  Back then it was Transformers, followed by Star Wars and moved onto putting my own character into whatever story I was reading or watching.  In the last ten years or so, that character has been having his own original adventures.  Unfortunately I can't use him, he's too powerful and derivative to use in a novel for sale.  I can use those original adventures and that's where this Project has come from.

The really difficult thing is that I can't give any details here.  I wish I could, but I don't want to spoil it.  I can say that it is a fantasy novel and my initial plan is to build a world in which I can write a number of stories.  They'll all be separate with only the barest of connections.  At least one of my original two ideas would work in it so at least that won't go to waste.  The other had Dinosaurs and I can't see them working in a fantasy setting easily.  Mainly as they would dominate the landscape.  How would a peasant village look if it had to defend against a T-Rex?

I've found the first Writing Excuses podcasts so I'm going to listen to Season One, Episode Two and then start writing.  I wonder how far I'll get?

Revolution For Vengeance

3rd edit amendments are complete.  All that is left is the first fifty page out loud read through and the cover.  I've never done a read through out loud so it'll be interesting.  I thought I would start with the first 50 pages and if lots of errors appear, then I'll do the rest.  I know it's going to take me a lot longer than normal.

Also the art work for the Cover has come through, the a lot of you have probably already seen it on the Blog page.  I went to Matt Hubel again and I think he's done an amazing job with Valerie in a real action pose.

I did the word by word edit of my short story today and I picked up a lot of errors.  That gives me hope that my edits on Revolution haven't been skipping too many bits.

I'm off to Karate in a minute so no time for a lengthy post today.  The way things are going though, I could well be putting Revolution to bed this week.  It's starting to look more and more likely.  I still need to wait for the feedback from my friends, but that is outside my control.  Once I've done my bit, I'm going to put it all aside and get to work on the next project.

Revolution For Vengeance - Editing

3rd edit completed and still very few changes needed, at least that's what I think.  I did see somewhere I think I need to add a bit more of a story.  Nothing serious, just somewhere I may have promised more than I delivered.  It shouldn't be much more than 500-1,000 words so I'll get that done tomorrow.

I also did that edit of the short story.  I'll print it off and do a word by word edit tomorrow after the amendments are done.  At this rate I can do my last edit of Revolution, the first 50 pages read aloud, before the week is up.  This can give me the whole of next to devote to deciding which of my top two story ideas I want to go with for my fourth book.

I thought up a twist on one of them that would make it very interesting I think, but will need quite a bit of planning to pull off.  I'm a little worried my skills aren't there yet to do it justice, so it has actually made me shy away from that one.  I'll see what I can come up with next week for them both before deciding.

Is it just me or are the BBC pushing the anti-Jeremy Clarkson rhetoric a bit too far?  He took a number of hits on Red Nose day.  I thought that was fair enough as it's coming from comedians, but they then reported those jokes in the news.  It was brought up in Question Time, again fair enough as it came from a member of the public and they mentioned it would be a topic on This Week.  I watched that episode and they really went to town on it.  Now like him or hate him, this seems a bit much as he is meant to be innocent until proven guilty.

Either Clarkson has pissed off a lot of people in the BBC over the years, which is a possibility, or someone high up in the corporation really wants to put a nail in his coffin.  Personally, I'm a big fan of Top Gear, if not all of his personal views.  It is one of the few programs I make a point of watching the night it's shown.  The only other show I do that for is the Blacklist.

It's karate time again.

Revolution For Vengeance

I can tell I'm editing.  Not so much to report.

I started the 3rd edit today and I'm a little concerned.  When I did my word by word edits of Reason and Crusade, I averaged 15 pages an hour.  It was slow painstaking work as I had to make a number of amendments.  For Revolution, I'm running at 30 pages an hour with very few changes.  I found the same thing with the 2nd edit so I'm paying even more attention this time and still I'm seeing very few errors.

Either my writing is just that good now or I'm missing loads of things.  I don't really know which.  I've sent Revolution off to my friends to look through and warned them about this, so hopefully they can see if I have missed stuff.

My writing has certainly improved immensely.  I read through a short story I wrote in April of last year.  The difference in quality is astounding.  I still like the story and characters, but the way I've written it means it needs a lot of work.  I'm going to finish the 3rd edit tomorrow, so I'm going to drag out that short story and edit it.  It'll be a good exercise at least.

I edited 180 pages today and stopped a little early so I can catch up on a few things, like this blog and listening to Writing Excuses.  I normally do this over the weekend, but my little girl was ill Saturday, it was the Grandprix and Mother's Day so I was down in Essex on Sunday.

I was really excited about the Formula One opening race in Australia.  I didn't get up at 4.30 am to watch it, but I was up at 6.00 am so I could see it before leaving for Essex.  A bit of a boring race from a pure racing point of view.  I still thoroughly enjoyed it with all the technical stuff going on.  Who was going to drop out next?  Only fifteen started the race out of twenty and eleven finished, only one due to a crash.  Sauber are actually third in the championship.  Sauber?  Can you believe it?  It's been a while since they were there.

Malaysia is in a couple of weeks’ time and I can't wait.  In the meantime I have Saturday's Formula E race to watch and the BTCC kicks off on Sunday.  I love the fact my sports are back!

I've got a belt test Friday so I'm going to go and practise my Karate before dinner.

Terry Pratchett

Wow, I just saw the news Terry Pratchett died yesterday.  I'm generally unaffected by the passing of famous people.  I feel sorry for their family and friends certainly at their loss, but I don't know these people, I've never spoken to them or met them.  I always feel it's a bit false to care so deeply for someone you have no personal connection with.

Two of my other favourite writers have died in the past, David Gemmell and Robert Jordan, both masters of their trade.  All three I have read since I was fifteen/sixteen and I have all of their works.  When Gemmell and Jordan died I didn't really feel much personally.  For Pratchett it is different.  I feel a real loss at his passing.  I think it was due to his unique prose, turn of phrase and how he would boil complicated real life concepts into simplicity itself.  From the Carpet People to his latest works, his books are full of them.  It's commentary like we need to believe in Father Christmas as children to learn to believe in Justice, Mercy and fair play as adults, that puts him head and shoulders above other writers.

Terry Pratchett will be missed, not just because he is no longer here to entertain us, but because he is will not be here to educate us.

Revolution For Vengeance

Another successful day.  I think I might be making a habit of this.  First edit is complete and all the amendments have been completed.  Nothing structural I could see that need changes and only a couple of plot points I had to tidy up.  I did see a description that would fit in and a scene that looked interesting.  Neither are necessary, but the 140K word count is bugging me.  I would have much preferred for it to be closer to 145.

I'll see how I feel tomorrow.  If I don't write them, I'm going to do a few odd jobs tomorrow and start edit two on Thursday.  This will be the full word by word check.  It's much more stringent and time consuming.

Something I have enjoyed the last couple of days is sitting in my lounge with the winter sun coming through the window.  If I positon my chairs just right, it feels like I'm out in the garden on a hot summer's day.

I like watching Hawaii 5.0.  It's fun no thinking entertainment.  I don't mind that is basically a giant advert for Hawaii, but what has been bugging me lately is I think it may be sexist.  The character Kono is always given the talk to child, look after the witness, etc jobs.  The whole team went into action the week before last and Kono was the only one who didn't shoot a bad guy.

This weeks episode kind of woke me up to it as we actually see Kono fighting someone and guess what?  It's a woman.  They also had Kono doing the run and hide option rather stand and fight as the male characters in the show do.  There was one scene where Kono sets up a perfect trap and then uses it to get away rather than shoot the bad woman in the back.  A second strong female character has been in it since the beginning.  She wasn't a major character, more someone to turn to if the team can't work something out.  Last season they made her part of the team and then send her off at the end of the season.  Very annoying.