75k and book is done! How about some editing?

All finished with the book! It was 75,000 words and 25 chapters in the end. Now the editing has started and it has been insane. I've had a lot of interesting moments. Lot's of grammar rules I did not know. I am learning to edit and it's like learning to write again. Anyways, if anyone wants me to talk about my editing more, please leave messages in the comment section. Otherwise, I may not know anyone is interested.

Possible topics might be...

Biggest grammar mistake propagated over 75,000 words.
Most difficult part about rewording sentences.
Sources for help and resources.
How much time and effort does editing take.

Any of those topics I can see writing 700 words or so on. So just leave some comments. Or talk about whatever you want.

If not, maybe I'll be back next Friday for another semi-annoying purposeful blog.

Just read a great Stephen King quote--

"If you finish editing and barely have any marks on your page, you aren't working hard enough"
-Stephan King

Chapter 25 - The End

Books finished! I'm at nearly 75k and I am proud to say, I'm done.

photo by Cremo	via PhotoRee

I'll be writing in some prologues and possibly some character, and scene descriptions which I failed on first pass. But the book seems done now. Now for the editing. There really isn't any point in prolonging the climactic scene any further. It was very epic and satisfying.

I may continue a weekly blog to talk about editing.

How does Friday sound?

Chapter 24 - Avoiding the Shaft

Well, we are nearing the finale of the book. It's been fun. There are now less than 7.5k words remaining. It was my intention to have a long and fantastic ending, but of course a random and possibly interesting thought occurred to me. Once again the book feels like it just wants to swing right back in the favor of our heros. I need to choreograph this ending so that it ends at 80k, but at the same time I don't know what to do. I don't want them to get stuck in an elevator shaft, and have to traverse the cables. That always happens. I want something unique, fun and interesting.

photo by Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL)	via PhotoRee

So once again the white board is in effect. It's a beautiful thing when ideas come together. And I am already seeing some crazy ideas for the finale. In the world of copyrighted metaphors-- the white board is the Lightsaber, the Deathly Hallow Wand, or the Arrow of Apollo. It is the one thing that will take an idea of a magnitude of 1 and turn it into a magnitude of 10. So I've drawn something, and I will draw a bit more to see how this goes throughout the day.

Chapter 24 or 25 tomorrow good friends!

Chapter 24 - Writing groups

I went to another writing group last night. This is a group where we read our work out loud. Interesting. I find it odd to be reading what I wrote out loud. The entire purpose of me writing it is so that others will read it. Reading it myself seems to almost spoil the point. And I do not always favor the sound of my own voice. Luckily I know better than to attempt the voice of my characters. I'm not a talented actor and could easily embarrass myself that way. One of the many traps I must avoid.

photo by Stuck in Customs	via PhotoRee

But the reading went well. My first chapter has seen so many revisions. Being the first thing I wrote has its disadvantages. Mainly being it was probably written to be felt and understood, rather than read. In other words, I've improved a great deal and it's actually quite difficult to transfer what I have learned retroactively to the first chapters I wrote. Luckily I have been learning by leaps and bounds since I started this adventure, so I think what I have now is at least much more readable. Can't wait for you all to experience this. Or throw it back in my face if that's the order of the day. We shall see.

Chapter 24 continues tomorrow.
Four or Five days of writing left. Then my Twitter will no longer be slave to these whims,
this fun and whimsical journey which is a baron wasteland for comments.

Chapter 23 - Who's driving this flying umbrella?

So as I was writing the end of chapter 23, I noticed a pattern. Though I told myself the story would slowly be coming to a close, the end was quickly getting blown wide open. Stakes were rising. Tension continued to build. People were in greater, and even greater danger than I had ever expected. And as I finished chapter 23, in the exactly place I wanted to be, I noticed that my characters were also in the exact opposite place that they wanted to be. It ended in a cliffhanger. Hell, if it ended now, this book would be a tragedy. Alas there are 10k more words to write. It is not over till it's over.

So in the words of Little John from that famous Robin Hood cartoon Disney movie long ago, I dare ask, "Who's driving this flying umbrella?"

photo by naturalturn	via PhotoRee

Chapter 24 continues tomorrow.

Chapter 23 starts. A roller-coaster!

So I guess this happens with every artistic endeavour at one point or another. It ceases to be an uphill battle, and becomes just a little too fun and exciting. So I am of course, as predicted, exactly where I thought I would be. I've written 2.1k today to bring the total ever closer to that 70k mark. The 80k mark will probably come too soon after that. And the experience is that much more like a roller-coaster. In good faith, I'm limiting myself to 2k per day when I feel like I could just ride the rush to the bottom. Then look at the photo being sold to me for $9. Did I really make that face?

photo by Victor Alves	via PhotoRee

Next time I'm gonna flash my man boobs. Ok. I don't have man boobs. But, seriously, that's the world we live in. If I'm gonna have the photo that goes viral on the internet because I stuck my tongue in someone's ear or mooned the camera, I need to think about this. Seriously.

No, really.

:P

Tomorrow chapter 23 continues.

Chapter 22 done. Spilling the beans!

Well, I guess I can say a few things about what I've been doing writing short bursting chapters for the past six posts. It was a planned out saga of six chapters, which was extremely intense and took a lot of planning. I'm proud to say, 'That that part is finished!' It is time to wrap up the remaining parts of the book. I have one or two surprises planned, but 15k words remain which are completely and totally unknown to me. Well. Now that I have spilled the beans on the six part saga, I am not willing to say much more except that it has been fun. The most important thing is always how it is received when it is read by you, so I'll be careful not to drop any spoilers.

Tomorrow the journey continues.

Chapter 12 continues! "Optional comma, or comma be damned!"

Wrote 1800 words today, bringing my total to just under 48k. Which means, of course, a 50k mark for this month is an option I'll be exploring tomorrow. I started writing on may 5th, so it's been a consistent 2k per day any way I look at it.

Other time spent has not been slouching around. I've really been working my printer on double time. I printed chapter 5, 3 separate times today. Each time I found many, many errors. So it's been quite an expedition into the world of "craft".

Other duties included, but not limited to, researching the comma again. I guess it's the occasional "optional" comma which I am wondering about. In the end those sentences will likely be rewritten just to avoid common confusion.

Chapter 21 - Avoiding the rush.

Hit 64k words today. I am certainly enjoying this last part of the journey. The pieces of the puzzle are all coming together. There is a rush of emotion when I see my characters and plots coming together as I had hoped. But this is always when I have to stop, and be most careful. It's all too easy to make mistakes. The best choices and ideas always come with careful planning. I want to approach the material with an eye as skeptic as anyone's.


Tomorrow the journey continues.

Chapter 20... +1 for discovery and exploration.

All the way in chapter 20 now, and I'm still breaking new ground, and silently raising the stakes further. I wrote 1250 words, which had some serious emotionally charged undertones. Dropped a few bombs I did not expect to want to drop, and one or two I didn't even know existed. This is the most seamlessly interesting twist I have written! Plus one for discovery and exploration! My strategy is to write in the repercussions over the next few chapters, as we continue to explore the galaxy at large.

Tomorrow, Chapter 21. Onward and upward. Or in French-- Avant!

Ok, no French in this book, but that certainly makes a good tag line.

Chapter 19 continues, another 1k in the bag.

Wrote some amazing stuff today. Despite being sick, and calling it an 'editing day'-- I suddenly broke out and wrote 1k into chapter 19. I'm in a really good spot of the book. I have a lot of great things to write about in the following less than 20k words. Chapter 14 really took the cake, being the second big climax of the book. So I'm still building up, and threading the story for the next climax. It should come quicker, and faster then before, so I'm trying to do the work to make it work and be surprising. Yes. Surprising. The trick is not putting too much on the plate at once, but slowly piling it all on.

Chapter 20 tomorrow.

Chapter 18 today finished

Turned out to be a chapter just over 1k in word length. It is on these days that I must do double work on editing, because I certainly need it. One thousand words is also good because it means less words to edit.

Chapter 19 tomorrow.

Chapter 17 done today. Less is more!

Finished (and started) chapter 17 today.

My new philosophy for these coming chapters is to create more chapters with less words. This will end the book at maybe 25-27 chapters. These short chapter bursts will hopefully let me write the last 20k words carefully. I am cutting back from 2k words (per day), to write the chapters in short 1k bursts. I will then write an additional 500-750 words on the chapter, to squeeze out whatever flavor or interests me most about those scenes, as the book draws closer to the dramatic conclusion. So in essence, they will be roughly 2k chapters for a while. I'm hoping this will give the last chapters symmetry, and a poetic feel.

Chapter 18 tomorrow!

Chapter 16 Rumble in the Jungle, or Opera Enchilada

Just polished off 1500 words in chapter 16. By polish off, I mean I immediately went back and edited what I wrote, while I was fresh off of finishing.

I am super excited for these last few chapters. Without spilling the beans, it's a totally revolutionary experience. If the first 55k words were a rumble in the jungle, this last part is a opera enchilada. Just kidding.

Anyways, can't wait to continue this story tomorrow. Kind of feeling like continuing to edit chapter 8's words. I really have to go back. I have been learning the ropes this whole time, and I feel like a lot of my words have been rushed, and lack polish.

Chapter 16 continues tomorrow!

Chapter 14 finished, Chapter 15 on the board

Finally finished chapter 14. Even as a short chapter, it was quite a challenge due to the complications of losing it at one point. I'm proud to say, I've trashed the outline. In the end it was too vague, and I needed more diversity. I'm back to using the whiteboard with some seriously awesome stuff on there already. Though the outline still exists, it's more in my head, with the world wide open for the ending.

Very excited to share this work with people. Tomorrow is another day. Also, thinking of doing shorter more interesting chapters so that the last 10 end with a bang, at 80k words. We'll see how it goes.

Chapter 14 again, writing is re-writing, when you delete a chapter accidentally

Not sure how this happened, since I was a programmer at one point. But I deleted chapter 14 yesterday when moving from writing at my moms, to my apartment in Camarillo. Luckily, it's just a first draft. Still, I often have unique thoughts which come to me while I'm writing a rough draft, and its tough to lose touch with those.

The rewrite, as it were, ended up being slightly watered down version of the same scene. That's what I'm guessing, but I don't know. Maybe it's better!

Tomorrow, I'll be pushing to close out chapter 14.

Chapter 14 begins. Writing is rewriting? Writing is not magic.

Wrote another 2k today, fantastic writing day. But I keep hearing this one saying. It seems to be popular among writers.

"Writing is rewriting"

As magical as my writing may seem to me at times, I know, in the end, it is hard work, not magic, that will make it readable.

So I have a new saying.

"Writing is not magic."

If you get tired of someone telling you writing is rewriting, tell them about this new saying. Who knows? Maybe it will become popular. It certainly makes more sense then saying "Writing is rewriting", which seems to suggest that writing is not magical. It is, but its just not magic.

Magic is magic. Writing is writing. Rewriting is rewriting.

So says the 32 year old guy who has been doing this for a month.

Chapter 13 continues. Inspiration. Homages : A Necessary Evil.

Chapter 13 continued today. Yesterday, I was in transit, not able to add much to the word total. About 300 words. Today was business as usual. Well, almost.

Today I'm in South Redondo Beach, at my mom's place. It's a huge change in environment, which forces me to look at things a bit differently.

For one, I've been working on small homages, very slight, to real things. Some of which were common to both my home town in Redondo, and place where I'm going to college, Camarillo. Homages really are the necessary evil of writing. Some people like them, others are confused by them, but for a writer it's the brass that writes the checks.

So, once again, I find myself heavily steeped in one particular homage or another. It's been quite reflective.