Writing Update: Beta Readers

This week was pretty productive. I finished Survival Agreement. I'm actually pleased with the turn out and the changes I made to make it more logical. I have one person beta reading at the moment and giving me great feedback. I think I'm going to be looking for another beta reader or two before I schedule a time with my editor. Yay!

One of my goals it to have my brother illustrate parts of my novella. It would be a nice touch to the world and I know a few people who have read the novella would really like seeing parts of it. This is somethings I have to ask him about. He's a very busy man.

I'm currently working on some character development things for Hourglass. Which I plan on finishing the rewrite in July for Campnano. This is going to be a real pain in my ass when it's over and the edits will be awful but the novel will be where it needs to be for the most part. I won't have to do another overhaul. Just revisions and edits.

Well, that's all I have for my update. I'm hoping to have a very productive weekend...I probably won't.

Writing Update: June Goals

May is gone and I managed to complete so many of my goals for May. I'm doing really well on my revisions for my novel, Hourglass. I'm hoping to call for beta readers by the end of next month. The one thing I'm struggling with is coming up with a back cover blurb. This might be due to the fact that I don't have everything figured out yet. I don't have an official outline (which I need to work on) and that's my goal for the weekend. I want to create a formal outline.

On top of the other things I need to work on, the formal outline will be key. I also realized that I was focusing on the wrong thing. Hourglass is my first character driven novel that I have ever written. Usually anything character driven is a subplot. This one is so heavily character focused. I overlooked that. This is all good to know for when create my outline and work on my blurb.

Another story I'll be working on is Survival Agreement. I'm giving the story an overhaul and hoping to polish it up a lot.

Well, I'd better mention my goals before I get a little bit ahead of myself. After this month, I'll only be posting goals bimonthly instead of every month.

June Goals

• Finish Editing Hourglass
• Finish Editing Survival Agreement
• Write the summary for Hourglass
• Look for Betas Readers for Survival Agreement
• Be more active on social media

Well, that looks like a good set of goals. I'll leave it at that for now.

Have a good month of June!

Writing Update: Write, Rewrite, Revise

This whole week has been filled with revisions and rewrites. My first three chapters are being rewritten and it's taking me a long time. I'm probably going to spend the weekend working on creating a new outline with index cards because that's how I work. Hourglass is coming along nicely though. It's a bit slow but I'm taking my time. Beginnings are usually really hard for me to write.

I'm starting on another project - not another novel - and I'm getting pretty far with it. I have a few things that I need to do first though. It's going to cost a bit of money but, it's going to happen.

This weekend, I'm going to be contacting the people who I want to do my cover art with. I already picked out the service and I've been stalking the hell out of their website. I'm so excited to be asking them to do my cover for me.

I'll be looking for Critique Partners and Beta Readers soon. Probably at the end of June. It's strange to be doing this. I've written so many novels but this is the first time I've tried to publish.

Writing Update: Getting Ahead

This has been a good week when it comes to my novel Hourglass. I'm ahead of schedule and want to remain that way. I'm debating over one plot twist at the moment and that it something I'm going to have to layout in front of me to see how the outline will come together. And in order to do that, I'm going to need a large open space to spread out my plot cards. Something to work on this weekend, I guess.

I'm going to be honest, I've been doing a lot of my revisions at work when I have the time and it's been working really well. It's helped me get ahead of schedule and that means I'll be doing the type-ups much sooner.

It's amazing that I'm actually managing to do anything this week. I've been sick but I've been working through it. For the first part of 2017, I've been slacking on these revisions but I'm making up for it. To hold myself accountable, I gave myself a deadline and have put everything in my planner.

The revisions for Hourglass will be done by the end of the summer (type-ups and all). I'm determined to finally finish this. 

Writing Update: Making Plans

Well, I'm back in the swing of things. I just printed out all of Hourglass because I discovered that I can't revise on my computer. I'm not sure why. I just have a really hard time focusing on revisions. So, I printed my manuscript...which took a lot of paper but it was worth it. I kind of like not having to stare at a screen all day and my foot really appreciates me not sitting at a desk all day.

The revisions are going along smoothly. I want to try to finish everything by the end of the month but considering that it's already the 11th of May...It might not happen. I'll keep working on it though. I've been doing some research into some cover artists and I think I found one I really like and could possibly be a good fit for my series. While I'll still be making the cover art for my Wattpad stories, I kind of want my published novels to be professionally done until I get used to the new program I got or until I get better in general...Improvement is always nice.

I've been looking into making my own publishing company and it looks relatively easy. I'm going to look into it more though. I still have to come up with a name for it and do some more digging to figure out if it's what I really want (it probably is). There is just a lot to do for that.

Once I'm about halfway through my revision process, I'll be looking for Critique Partners. I want to make sure that I have something that I can actually give my partner(s) so I want a good portion of Hourglass finished by then.

Since I'm off school for the summer, I'm really hoping that I can continue to work on my novel and start working on my stories for Wattpad (which I've been procrastinating on). I think I'm going to take down my story Spliced until I'm done with my edits for District Pluto: Morality Sentence. Which I want to publish on the site next. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and it's something that I've been really interested in working on.

Another thing I started up again was reading. As much as I would love to go through and re-read the Tamora Pierce novels, I don't have them available for me right now. They are in my dad's basement waiting to be transferred to my apartment. I just need to clean it first. So, instead, I'm reading Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. I will get through this story...I will. This book has been sitting on my shelf for a year now and I still haven't read it.

I'll probably write a review and post it...just to prove I actually read it. 

WriYe Blogging Circle: Editing Isn't All That Bad

What’s your plan of attack for editing? Is it a chore for you? Do you enjoy it? What's the hardest thing for you in the editing process?

Bonus:

What's the best and/or worst editing advice you have ever received? 

Editing can be a very daunting task. I tend to get really frustrated once I actually dig into my manuscript and try to fix what needs to be fixed. I guess that would be more of revising. Revision is the biggest pain in my ass to date. I love it and I hate it. 

I love figuring out what needs to be fixed/removed/added in my story. Filling in plot holes and fixing characters are all things that I like...in theory. I guess. I usually read through the entire manuscript first and figure out what needs work. I then rework the outline, make notes on the side of what needs to happen.

After I'm done with that I get into gutting my novel. This is the painful part. Not because the novel is something I worked hard on (it usually is) but because this part is so time consuming and I feel like I'm rewriting everything (though I'm not). Though, in the end, this is where it all comes together and I have something decent to work with. This is where I'm struggling right now with Hourglass. The beginning of my stories are always my hardest and I have to rework them a few times before I'm pleased with it. 

The best editing advise I have ever received is: "Know what you wanted to write." Seems a bit silly right? You should know what you wanted out of the story you've written...but sometimes writers tend to veer off into a whole different kind of novel. That is when the writer needs to decide if the novel they wrote is even better than what they planned, or if the novel they planned is much better than the one they wrote. I tend to lean toward my planned novels. Though, that doesn't mean some good things haven't come out of my out of control novels. 

While they don't venture too far off the path, they do tend to change the mood a bit and sometimes that's okay. Sometimes I find good background information that will help with a plot hole or I find a good dialogue that can work well in a different scene. There are still some little treasures buried in the mess that was created.

Another good piece of advice that goes along with this: "Never delete your drafts." You'll be surprised at what you can pull from a discarded draft. It's also fun to look back from time to time to see that changes that were made and how much it improved over time. 

Writing Update: A Free Semester

I'm finally getting back into the swing of things. I'm typing up my outline and changes on my computer and I'm getting everything ready for when I actually start editing again (tomorrow). I fell behind a lot since the beginning of the year. I'm not even close to being finished. School and work kind of took over my life. I do work full time and I have to maintain my grades for the scholarship I got. I'm 27 and still in school...but I did switch my major. Now I'm working on my degree in Early Childhood Education rather than English (though, sometimes I miss it).

After a really terrible winter/spring semester, I decided to take the summer off of school. It will give me more time to work on my revisions and push toward my end goal. Since I fell behind, I decided to push my deadlines back to sometimes more reasonable. I want to be finished with the revisions by the end of the summer. That is the absolute latest.  I know when the Fall semester rolls around, I'm going to struggled with balancing my time again. Some of my classes are demanding and I have to give them priority.

So, other than that, I'm also going to be working on getting the next chapter of Spliced up and possibly work on the next installment of District Pluto. I don't plan on publishing these professionally. These are just stories that I wrote for a challenge or for experimental purposes. They are still stories I would want to share. Maybe one day I'll take them down and fix them up for publishing but not any time soon.

Update: Revising and About Hourglass

I'm pretty sure I said something about this before, but I put Call of the Piper on the back-burner for a bit so I can break it down a bit better and fix the plot holes and just the big mess I made with it. Instead, I'm writing a novel called Hourglass. Well, it's written, I'm just revising it now (because it's a mess).

There isn't a synopsis right now. I'll be working writing one soon. I'm currently focusing on revising the first few chapters before sending it to my critique partner...but I'm finding a hard time fitting it in. I need to revamp my schedule because classes started up again and the professors this semester aren't messing around. I can't slack off like I usually do. I'm currently working on fitting everything in.

For my WriYe challenges, I decided to jump in on one (like I didn't want to do) and participate in the Genre Challenge. It's Origin Story. It's such a good pick for the month. I couldn't pass it up. I decided to write an origin story for someone in the novel I'm currently working on. It's really good to know the backstory of this character, though I can't tell you without giving some kind of spoiler.

Other than that, I have to say, revising is probably one of my least favorite steps in the process. It's long but it's worth it.

The Editing Process: My Ending Sucks

Does editing ever make you want to rip your hair out? Because that's what I'm feeling this week. I'm still on lesson two of How To Revise Your Novel. This novel is really long and I feel bad for the people who wrote an even longer novel.

Basically, I've come to the conclusion that the ending part of this novel sucks and that it's going to need a massive overhaul. Well, the whole novel needs an overhaul but the ending needs one especially. It's awful. The ending shouldn't be awful. I think I have too many fillers and info dump because I was rushing to get this over with.

This is probably another reason why I don't actually want to publish this novel, Dowsers. I don't think I had much inspiration writing it. Hopefully the editing will go well. I plan on posting the first chapter by 217 on Wattpad.

Second Edits - Done!

Finally! Finally my second edits are done for District Pluto: The Survival Agreement (formally known as The Sacrificial Son). I've even created a checklist for what needs to come next. My third and final round of edits (which is mostly a syntax edit) should be over quickly before I sent it out to Betas. Then I'll be editing two projects at once. The next story in the District Pluto series, Morality Sentence and my stand alone novel Dowsers. I'm hoping to get some of these out to Betas by the end of the year but I have a feeling that Dowers will take me a long time to edit but I really need to get back on it.

One thing I noticed when doing this second edit was that my characters were weak. While typing up my edits, I tried to fix this but I don't know how well I did. I guess I find out when I start the last round of my editing. If not, then hopefully my betas can help me with how they read. It occurred to me that my characters didn't even have the barest of description so I had to add that in. That was a struggle.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome of this short story/novella (possibly a novelette). I can already see the improvements compared to my very first draft. I finally have a name for it too, as I stated above. It's no longer Sacrificial Son, it is now titled The Survival Agreement. I already have the cover art made (and fixed). Actually, I have two. I have one that I picked out but I'll also ask the people who are my betas - if they want to. I'm not going to force that on them. I already have one in mind.