…and done.

The Schrodinger Paradox is finished (in draft form). It’s currently about 111K words long. I’ve heard back from three out of four of my beta readers. I still need to do revisions from their advice, and decide whether to release in hardback or just a fat trade paper. And format. And figure out how to write the back cover blurb. And figure out cover art (read: beg somebody who knows what they’re doing to figure out cover art).

That’s…not going to happen this week. I’m having to figure out why Molly’s pissed at me. Which means I need to back up a few chapters and figure out where I went off track. Which means I need to find my copy of Appetite for Destruction, so I can play it on repeat when the kids aren’t home…because it’s absolutely inappropriate for their ages. I can listen to it on YouTube on headphones when they are.

So, I do have work to be getting on with. Right now, CPA is sitting at just under 37K. But I’m not sure yet if Molly was throwing a “wrong music” tantrum, or a “trying to go the wrong way with story” tantrum, so that word count is going to change, one way or another–either growing because the music’s right, or shrinking because I’ve got to delete a shit-ton of words. Maybe a chapter or two.

Or I suppose I could see if one of my short story collections will run for me, or one of the other projects. I’ve got a list of stuff I could be working on, after all, and–

–and it was the music. Molly wanted G&R. I guess it’s time to go write.

Updates and oddities

In writing, you’ve got two general types of authors: plotters–the ones who work by an outline–and pantsers (the write-by-the-seat-of-the-pants ones). The plotters are the ones who’ve got it all together: a chapter by chapter outline with well-behaved characters that don’t deviate. The pantsers tend to be the ones with characters walking into their heads, sitting down, and starting to talk. They just take down what’s dictated by the characters, and write to see where the story’s going.

I’m somewhere in the middle. I have a good idea of what the plot is, and where it’s going, but I cannot work to a chapter-by-chapter outline. I’ve tried. My characters…don’t play well with strict outlines. They seem to honestly hate them.

In revising The Schrodinger Paradox, I have had to stop, pull scenes, and completely rewrite them. Mostly because the characters went “That wasn’t what happened, dammit! THIS is what happened!” after the fact.

NEVER MIND that they hadn’t TOLD me that in the first place, just…left me to fill in plot points while they fucked off to do something else.

I picked up to finish the second to last chapter’s edit on part three, this morning, and the characters ALL set up a NOISY fuss. I know what’s going on, I know where it’s going, but I have no idea about what kind of details they’re going to add.

And Molly’s sitting back, cackling, and offering to my other characters to jump over to their story and take care of their road-blocks for them, while giving me the finger when I ask her if she wants me to continue on her story. “Nah, not now–this is way too entertaining,” she said.

I swear, these people in my head are going to drive me insane.

(Schrodinger Paradox is just over 109K words, now. CPA is sitting at about 34K words. I am making progress.)

Huh. Go figure.

I hate editing and revising finished work. Hate it with a bloody, purple passion. It takes longer for me to revise something I’d finished than to write it in the first place, sometimes. Occasionally, I have to trick my brain to actually DO THE DAMN DRAFT! I’ll start at the end and work backwards…or I’ll set a timer and tell myself “you only have to work on this task for half an hour, then you can do something NEW!”

There are times I’ve done housework to the point of autoimmune attack instead of editing.

I really, really hate it.

Usually.

I’m…not hating it nearly as much with The Schrodinger Paradox. I wasn’t expecting that.

It might be the story, the music, or that the unfinished draft I’m working on is at a decent pause point while I consider how to do the next bit. Or it may be the thrill of having gotten Pint out (finally!), and of getting my hard proof copy in. I just don’t know.

I’m done editing and revising part 1 (which, in hindsight, absolutely works as a short novel by itself). I’m done editing and revising part 2 (again, yes, it works). I think both parts are ready for beta readers. I’m debating between seeing if anybody’s got time now, one part at a time, like I’ll release the whole thing sometime later this year, while I work on part three, and waiting until I finish part three and just sending the whole monster.

I’m two chapters through part 3…and while it’s a longer slog, that’s because of how much material I’m adding. I wasn’t kidding when I called it a first draft. So is the epilogue. I have at least a week’s worth of work to do on revising part three. In just two chapters, my word count’s gone from just under 104K words to halfway past the 105K mark. So about fifteen hundred words’ worth of expansion (or more) in two chapters.

There are ten chapters in part 3. Plus the epilogue.

Well, I guess I’ve wasted enough time, here. Back to work on the fiction.

Slow progress

I can’t believe it’s been more than a year since I blogged here. Granted, last year was…a tad un-fun, in the latter half of it. We had…unexpected house repairs. As in, the roofed over patio spent all fall without a roof after the one we had fell off at the end of August. Yes, it did break the house in the process. And yes, we did have to argue with the insurance over how much it would cost to replace it. For almost a month. All that’s left is putting ceiling fans back in.

I finally finished Having a Pint. And I worked through the publication process last weekend. It is live, for sale, on Amazon, now, and has been all week (and not doing badly, all things considered). And their new feature linking books in a series together isn’t an enormous pain in the ass (only a minor one), so I’m mostly satisfied with that.

On to the next projects!

The Schrodinger Paradox is finished, in first draft form (came in just under 102K words). I’ve started revising it and expanding in bits. There’s three parts to the novel, and I’ve got the first and second parts done. I added a thousand words clarifying bits to part 1 (this is a fourth draft for it), and more than two thousand more to part 2 (a third draft). Part 3 is…going to take probably another 10-15K words. It’s still in first draft form. Right now, it’s sitting at just under 104K words. We’ll see what it looks like next week when I’ve gone through part 3.

I think what I’ve decided, since each part can stand alone, is to publish it Kindle-only in parts, then release it as a collection (with an epilogue). I’ll probably do it one part per month, then the full copy (with epilogue) the following month.

The unfinished novel I’m still in the process of writing a first draft? CPA? It’s up to 33K words, and climbing. That one has settled on writing easiest listening to Avenged Sevenfold…or Guns & Roses.

Looks like I may have two collections of short stories this year…themed ones, like Normalcy Bias. One will be Everyday Dragons (that’s my current working title, and there’s four stories so far, with more ideas on the way), and the other will be something to do with faeries. Not always bright and happy stories, either.

Well, that’s what’s in the pipe right now. So long as my health doesn’t nose-dive (again), things may work better for my output this year.