What began as a short story quickly morphed into a novelette. I finished the first draft of the story today with close to 13k words. The revision process will begin tomorrow and I hope to have it mailed out to the Writers of the Future contest by the December 31st deadline.

I began research for the story right around Thanksgiving, so the entire process for the first draft took almost a month. Not bad, but I should have been able to hit those 13k words much sooner. The revision process at least should be easier since I think the opening will need the most change in order to have it mesh with the events occurring at the end.

I’m a bit of a pantster. Oh, I have a pretty good idea of where the story is headed, but a lot of what happens comes to me as I write. I’m not by any means an outliner. I feel too constrained by it, but I can see the merit in using an outline as well. I had a few ideas for the ending of the story, but it came to me today while I showered (the ideas always come when I’m not in a position to do anything about them, like when I am jogging or working out). I couldn’t get out of the shower fast enough and down to the computer to begin putting down the ideas. Once I started on the end, the final 2.5k words were easy.

Anyway, I’m excited to be done with the first draft and look forward to this story joining my last one as entries into the Writers of the Future contest.

Alistair

Revising.  I love the idea of revising.  So, I let my completed manuscript sit for about a month. I did absolutely nothing with it, I didn’t even think about it.  What did I do during that time?  I wrote a short story in a different genre.  I wrote the short story, let it sit for a week or so and then I revised that.

Why did I not go back to my 115k word novel? Well…for one I had a contest deadline I wanted to meet for the short story.  Plus, I figured revising the short story would be excellent practice for when I started on the novel. I learned a lot during the revisions on the short story, and I also learned that I had to let it go.  No matter how many times I read it after a revision I always found things I could fix or tinker with. Finally, I had to stop. I read it through after I don’t know, nine revisions and said that’s it.  I checked it for obvious errors and just sent it away to the contest.

I think the process of editing the short story was important for how I was going to tackle the 115k word novel. Seeing the short story grow with each revision excited me and I actually started to believe I could write an engaging story and craft interesting sentences.  Those sentences came to life and the characters became real.

So, now I’m revising my novel and it is still daunting. I’ve restructured the opening and believe it is much stronger this time. I know though that once I make it through the whole novel it is going to take a few more passes before I think it is anywhere close to being ready for me to query agents about it.

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While revising the novel I thought I’d write the second book of the series, but I’ve decided to write something entirely different. After I write this book I’ll go back to the series, but for now I think it’s a good idea to try writing something much different than the first book.  It’d be so easy for me to continue to write the series since I know the characters and setting so well, but I don’t want a comfort zone at the moment. In the end I think this will make me a better writer. Once I get the world built and some characters to inhabit the world I’ll post more on it.

Anyway, off to revising the Progeny manuscript.

Alistair

I spent the 4th of July in Pennsylvania with my girlfriend.  She’s been a faithful alpha reader from the beginning of the project.  Without her input and enthusiasm, my journey through the process would have been difficult, if not close to impossible.  Thank you, my lovely alpha reader.

So, after spending a little over five months on this project(piecing together the story, researching, writing, etc), I’m happy to write that I finished the first draft this evening!

I’m looking forward to digging back into the novel and seeing what worked and what fell flat, or was just plain awful.  I suspect there may be some sections that worked really well, and those will be a pleasant surprise.

I had originally planned on this book being 200k words, but based on current trends I decided to cut it down to about 115k words.  I know I’ll be able to cut quite a bit in the revision, but I may need to add as well.  I bet I’ll end up with around 110k, but we’ll see.

I don’t want to start the second book in the series until I’ve had time to do a macro edit on the first one.  So, with that in mind:  I belong to a writing group called:  book-in-a-week, it takes place once a month(usually the first Monday of each month) and lasts for, you guessed it:  one week.  The goal of the group isn’t for critique, nothing that is written gets turned in, it’s simply a way to get motivated and just type away.  You post your daily totals and also get to see how many pages other writers are cranking out each day.  It’s a great group.

Anyway, since I don’t feel comfortable starting the second book in the series, I intend on using the upcoming week to write a science fiction short story that I intend to enter into the Writers of the Future Contest.  So, between now and Monday morning when book-in-a-week starts, I’ll be piecing together my ideas for the scifi short story.

Tomorrow night my girlfriend and I will be celebrating the completion of my first draft with a bottle of champagne!  I can’t wait!  This draft is significant since I haven’t finished a novel since about the 8th grade back in 1984, so it’s a big deal!

Anyway, happy writing and happy living!

Alistair