Racing through revisions

Wow, so when I said I thought revising A Broken Race would go quickly, I was right! It's done. Granted, that's about all I've been doing for the past few days, but I've really enjoyed getting back into these characters and the story again. Having only spent 30 days with them before, and that, a couple years ago, I was surprised at how much depth of character I'd crammed into 50k. Darn it, I even made myself a little teary a few times.

Since I've been plowing through NaNo rough drafts, I thought I'd share a few faults I keep finding.

• I do not use contractions. There must be some subconscious 'it counts as two words instead of one that way' thing going on.

• I repeat myself. I rephrase what I've just written, sometimes right after saying it. I get stuck on a particular thought and go at it until I've achieved total anvil status. Sometimes I rephrase a thought several sentences later. It makes for some confusing clean up work. I had to go back again and again to keep those spots straight and it got confusing. Hold on, didn't I just say that?

• I change people's names. In this year's NaNo novel, Nervo became Neko. In A Broken Race, Miranda became Emelda, and Violet who was dead twenty years suddenly was reborn. Oops! I do make notes as I'm writing, but its the secondary characters that sometimes miss out on being included in my orderly efforts.

• Consistancy. There's twelve women. Yet, there are more like forty of them. It was morning, now its suddenly night. When did that character get clothes on? He's only wounded a little. No wait, he's almost dead!

For you fellow CC folks, A Broken Race will be going up for critique very soon. Please feel free to tear into it as I know you love to do.

Onward into a new old writing project

With Trust and it's sequel finally off my writing plate, I'm finally able to give some of my other novels in progress some attention. Yes, I know, that's a lot of finally, but that's how it feels.

After waiting patiently for its turn, fantasy short: Children of the Leaves got a turn in the revision chair. It's up for critique in early next month. I can't believe it's been almost a year since I had a chance to submit anything to CC. And that last thing? It was the first version of Children of the Leaves. It's like I've been stuck in my writing cave or something.

Next up is A Broken Race, a dysotopian novella that was NaNo 09. I haven't touched it since I hit my 50k. The wonderful thing about this project is that it's the first NaNo I actually wrote from beginning to end. There are no sudden blank spots of doom. I set out to write a novella and I did! There are some troubled areas, namely the ending, but for the most part, I'm thinking this shouldn't be a massive undertaking to get it from rough to first draft status. Famous last words right?

So what's this new story about?

In fortress ruled by impotent men and protected by testosterone-ridden powerhouses, One-fifty-two is one of many, a simple man, a worker. But he's not quite as simple as the others thought, and when he sneaks into the the vault where the precious few healthy women are kept, he discovers the nasty secret the breeding masters have been hiding. And it's been hiding in the garden where his food is grown, no less. Emboldened by his new knowledge, One-fifty-two takes back his childhood name, Joshua, and vows to set the women free.

A single resolution, an edit, and a treat

A couple of my NaNo buddies latched on to this idea so I hopped on the boat (yes, a few days late). Pick one word for your 2012 New Year's resolution. It might sound a little odd, but my word is: Less.
Yes, I want to be less this year.
Less busy
Less distracted
Less obligated
Less stressed
I made some good steps toward this at the end of the year. Now I just have to keep going.

The first round of Untitled Sequel edits is finished! Wow, that went fast. Mostly it was cleaning up all the little notes I left to myself when charging through NaNoWriMo. Things like: go back and verify number of days between A and B. Or my favorite: Might want to give MC at least a sheet else he's fighting naked. Oops! Or maybe not... Ok, ok, I'll get him something to wear. Maybe.

There were also a couple typo-heavy sections that I obviously typed with my eyes closed while visualizing a scene. Untitled Sequel (nice title isn't it?) is now going onto the shelf. But, you can tune in to Flogging the Quill very soon and weigh in on the first page.

For the first time in seventeen days I was home alone all day. My beloved silence, how I've missed you! I treated myself to a viewing of the new Conan the Barbarian. As I wasn't expecting anything spectacular in the plot department, I found it entertaining. If you like good-looking, half-naked muscular men cutting each other up with swords, a little sex and generally watching Jason Mamoa do anything, you'd probably enjoy it too. Having watched the 1982 version a good dozen or so times over the years, I can easily say the effects, dialogue and general plot were much improved. There was a lot of blood, violence and the sound effects people obviously had a great time with wet, squishy blood sounds. So yes, pretty much what you'd expect from a Conan movie. I'd call it Spartacus lite. Speaking of which, I can't wait for Season 2!

Year end writing goal met!

I'm happy to say that as of this evening, I've wrapped up this year's NaNo novel, the sequel to Trust. The rough draft came in at 95,000 words and its actually complete from beginning to end. I'm so bad about leaving gaps to fill in later, but this time, no sir, its really, really done. And I like it. I'd toss out that I love it, but it's a rough draft so that would be a little extreme. Let's just say I'm pleased.

I'm also pleased to announce that I found a role for Chuck. I know, he said he was happy here in my last post. I had great plans for him, mentoring him in how to actually be evil and all, but something came up and he was perfect. And no, I didn't kill him. He did get punched in the face, but the medic assures me he'll be fine once the swelling goes down.

This means I can start polishing a few of the shorts floating around on my hard drive and get Trust back into Query land in the coming months. Hooray for starting the New Year without a half finished editing or novel project looming over me!

Hey, there's a first time for everything.

Victims of the Knife: A late Christmas gift

This year, rather than throw myself into the holidays, I've assumed my Gollum-self and hunkered down in my writing cave. Yes, I filled the stockings, baked the cookies, hosted the extended family, cleaned the house, did the tree and presents thing with the kids, but then I ran back to my cave where only the tip tapping of keys could be heard throughout the day. It helps that my family got a Kinnect for Christmas and have been heavily occupied with it, which means more writing time for me.

My goal is to wrap up Trust's sequel, which was my NaNo novel, by the end of this year. Yes, that means there are only mere days left, but I'm almost there!

Which brings me to this announcement from Chuck, the Barthromian captain.

"We're ready for me now?"

I nod. "Go on. The others are listening."

Chuck clears his throat. "As many of you know, Bulky-short-haired-hot-tempered-violet-ex-partner-who-sold-out-Ms-MC-and-caused-her-serious-emotional-harm-before-she-hunted-him-down-and-killed-him vanished a couple days ago. Many of us thought he'd wandered back into the wastelands behind the desk after our plan to get our beloved writer to write us back into novels failed. We were wrong."

Nekar shouts, "Well where did he go?"

Chuck looks at me. "She wrote him into the sequel."

Protests fill the air.

"Now, now, I know this doesn't seem fair, but trust me, we should be grateful."

He leans close and whispers, "And thank you for not keeping your word to write me into that novel."

"You just weren't right for it. I'll find somewhere else for you."

"No, really, that's fine. I'm happy here." He plants a huge grin on his face. "See, really happy. No need to send me elsewhere."

"Suit yourself." I direct his attention back to the angry throng.

Chuck steps to the edge of the desk. "I've seen where he went. We're better off here. Way better off. She may have let him back in, and even given him part of his name back, but he was crazy and she killed him."

"That's right." I eye my suddenly silent characters one by one. "So next time you fill out your Christmas lists, keep in mind that I might give you what you ask for, but I won't guarantee you'll like it."

"This is the part where you laugh evily," Chuck whispers.

"I'll let you take that part. You need the practice. Now get out of here, I have a novel to finish writing."