First Draft

More Progress on Marty

It’s been a little more than a month since my last update. On June 9th, Marty was just over 63,000 words. Today, the first draft of Marty sits at 84,018 words. About 21,000 words in the last month. It’s amazing what I can do when I set a goal for myself, isn’t it?

I’ve still got my target set at 90,000 words, though I know, for absolutely sure, I’ll go well over that. The remaining chapters I’ve outlined (which is just creating the chapter with a title, so I remember all the points I wanted to make when I get to them), will surely be more than 6k words. I don’t know where I’ll end up, but I’m sure some of the first draft will end up in the Trash folder of my writing app. It always does.

My goal is to have the first draft by the end of July. If I stick to my daily writing sessions, that should be no problem. Editing usually takes a few months, then all the other nonsense that comes along with a new book, which I’m sure you know so well, if you’ve been following along on my blog here.

And, in case you missed it last time, the tentative title for the book is simply “Marty”. It’s a simple story of two best friends and what they go through in their lives together as they grow up.

Making Progress

I’ve been chugging away at the first draft of my next book, throwing a few thousand words at it a few days a week. I’m trying to find a balance between using my free time in the morning for writing, but also reading. I’m sure it’s been said a million times in history, but it’s hard to be a good writer if you’re not a good reader. So, I’m trying to be a better reader, while still finding time to write.

As of this morning, I’m a little over 63,000 words into the first draft. I’m targeting around 90,000 words, give or take. That’s around the average for a full-length novel, though some of mine fall a little shorter than that.

It’s really up to the story and the characters. Have they said all they wany to say and done all they needed to do for the story to be complete?

For me, a second draft usually adds a few thousand words, as well. I find spots that need to be fleshed out more. Sometimes I find entire chapters that need to be deleted. Sometimes I find something I’d previously written and deleted in the trash and revive it. It all depends on how I feel as I read through the first draft.

Often, the first draft for an author makes little sense. It’s just a way to word vomit everything that you want to get out. Then, in the second draft, you try to make sense of it. For me, though, that’s never been the case. My first draft is usually pretty close to what the final version will be. If you’re familiar with my work, you know I write in a stream of conscious. My characters talk and interact the way I do, because that’s how I see life. If a character thinks something, they say it. And I try to make my dialogue as natural as possible. I write how I think people actually talk, even if that, sometimes, isn’t grammatically correct.

In case you’re curious, I’m revealing for the first time that the tentative title of the book is Marty. It has nothing to do with the paranormal or ghosts of any kind. And, I promise, nothing is haunted this time around. While I recognize not everyone loved the shift in genre from my norm to the paranormal with Dudley Road, I felt it was a story I needed to tell. But, don’t worry, we won’t be going down that route again!

I’m hoping to have the last third of the first draft of Marty done by the end of July. It’ll still be a while to get through additional drafts, beta readers, artwork, editing, etc. etc. etc. But, all progress is good progress!

First Draft of Book Three is Complete and Off to The Editor!

I know what you’re thinking; “about time!” or “you’re still working on that?” or “you, again?”. Trust me, I know. It feels like it’s been eons since I started working on this book. My next book should be about how to come up with excuses and avoid things that bring you joy, which is what I’ve been doing for quite some time now.

I’ve said it before (and will say it again every time I write a new book). Writing the draft is the simple part. That first bunch of hours where you just sit at a computer and blather your heart (and fingers) out until you get everything you want on paper. Those countless hours of typing, deleting, typing something else, deleting it, then going back to the first thing you typed. It’s so easy. It’s easy to just go, just type. Knock out five, six, seven thousand words in a day. I could write what I call “pre-first drafts” all day, every day. They’re more or less just barely structured nonsense, loosely resembling what your final draft will eventually become.

It’s the editing that kills you. Hacking and butchering and murdering everything you’ve written to that point. Rearranging entire chapters, complete sections. Changing your main character’s personality, changing plot points, changing outcomes, even changing the point of view you write in. The editing is the part takes a lot of time, a ton of will power, motivation, and dedication. It’s also the part that almost every author struggles with.

It’s where I make excuses. It’s where I put off, dreading how much work it actually is. It’s the least fun part about writing anything, especially a full-length novel. It’s hard, demanding, and mentally exhausting to have to reevaluate what you’ve written, and, sometimes, start fresh from chapter one, rethinking how you’ve done everything. It’s my least favorite part of the process, by far.

But it’s also the most important. You want to make sure you not only get the story out how you want it to be told, but you want to make sure your grammar is correct, any facts you’ve used are factual, your spelling is right, whether you needed an em dash or an ellipsis. There’s so many things you need to get done, where if you didn’t, you’d get ripped apart in the reviews for your book. Which would, guess what, hurt your sales. A lot.

Without editing, most books would be terrible. Especially with how most authors get out their first iteration of their work.

That said, I’m happy to report that my third book — which I’ll reveal more about once the rest of the editing process is complete — is complete and fully self-edited. Well, the completed first draft, anyway. It clocks in at 83,219 words, which is slightly shorter than My Last Days (91,783 words) , but slightly longer than A Sour Chord (78,151 words).

What’s next? It’s off to the editor I’ve hired. She’ll go through everything, check my grammar (which, as you know, is pretty good), find any plot points, tell me whether my main character is a horrid monster who should be re-written, and a hundred other checks. Then, I’ll get it back, incorporate her suggestions into the next iteration (my second draft), then send it out to some test readers. Those “beta readers” will give me their feedback and, based on the outcome there, I’ll either go to press, or do a third draft. The third draft is usually only if the beta readers collectively dislike something across the board, or they hate a character or something. It’s unusual, but not unlikely, to happen.

And while that editing is happening, artwork will be done, blurbs will be written, my author bio will be updated, marketing materials will be prepped, and I’ll decide on if I’ll record an audiobook version.

There’s still a way to go, but this is a huge milestone and one I’m thrilled to have crossed off my list. Checking my recurring task titled “Edit” off my to do list last night felt incredible.

And once everything’s done and you’ve got this new book in your tiny, loving, appreciative, review writing, hands, I’ll get to work on book four. Which I already have a list of ideas to pick from.

Thanks, as always, for coming along on this journey with me. I hope you like this next book. It’s very different from my first two, but I hope in a good way.

First Draft complete!

Hey there!

I know it’s been a while. You may have thought I’ve given up, but I’m still here, chugging away in my free time.

I’m happy to report that the first draft of my third novel is finally complete! It feels like it took forever, but it’s finally done.

It’s just over 80,000 words in its current form, though I think it’ll end up closer to 85k once I’m done editing and adding more to parts  

I’ve moved onto the editing phase now and have been working on sprucing things up as I go along. Adding a chapter here and there, punching up some dialog, adding in some additional color on things.

It’s been so long since I edited, I forgot what a chore it can be. But I’m moving through it.

What’s next?

I’ll finish up the first edit, then do another one. Once that’s complete, I’ll have some beta readers (readers who go into it knowing it’s not done and are willing to offer up their honest feedback). After that, another round of edits. Then a professional editor will have their way with things.

Once the final draft is complete, I’ll get the book jacket designed, write up the blurb for the back, write up the online description, and then get it up for sale.

I’m hoping to have that all done by the end of 2022, or early 2023.

Thanks for coming along on this journey with me. It’s been fun!

P.S. don’t ask what the new book is about or what it’s called. I’ll reveal that all in due time.

All I’ll say for now is that it’s nothing like my first two books. A completely different (hopefully not alienating to my audience) genre.

 

Happy to report, I’m halfway done!

It’s been a hectic last couple of weeks. Between work, having a nearly three-year-old at home, and my wife’s schedule for school, it’s been tough to find time to write. Finding time to write that also coincides with having the mental creativity to write. It’s a tough window to find.

As of this morning’s writing session, I’ve crossed the 40,000 word mark in the next book’s first draft. Which signals approximately the halfway point in the book.

I’m hoping to find more time to write over the next month or two, so I can finish up the first draft before diving into doing my first round of edits.

Someone once said that you should find something to do that you love, so I’m going to try to devote more time to write this first draft and get it finished! I’m very excited to finish it up and get some feedback on it.

If you’re interested in being an early reader to offer your feedback, drop me a line!

I’ve started my next book!

If you’re not following me on social media, you missed an important tidbit from last week. I’ve started my first draft of my next book.

In fact, I’m over 10,000 words into it after just three writing sessions (totaling a little shy of five hours.) For comparison, My Last Days is around 92,000 words. So I’m chipping away at it pretty quickly.

As is typical of how I write, I’m just going and going and going. I don’t like to spend a lot of time outlining and creating character personas. Particularly since most of my characters are rooted in reality. They may not be exact clones of actual people in the finished product, but they are as I’m writing. For me, that makes drafting much easier and quicker. Does it make a better end product? Probably not. But it’s how I enjoy writing and I fear when this feels more like a job than a passion, I’ll not want to do it anymore.

So far, I’ve exposed two hints about the book. In case you missed them, I’ll share them here, too:

  1. In takes place in 1996 – so much nostalgia coming your way!
  2. It takes place in Billerica, Massachusetts.

I don’t have any goals around when the draft will be done. I didn’t want to impose any additional self-apposed stress on myself until life gets back to a closer semblance of normal (namely, daycare re-opening.)

For now, the goal is to write a few chapters a day until I feel comfortable with the first draft. Then work on tightening up the main plot points, the characters, and the entire premise before shipping it off to beta readers. If you want to be a part of the beta reading process (you read an early draft and provide your honest input), sign up for my mailing list. It’s the best way to get the inside scoop on the new book, as well as exclusive discount coupon codes for future books!

Back on Track!

I’ll admit that I’ve been feeling a little defeated lately. The lack of sales of A Sour Chord – though mostly my fault for not really marketing it – have me questioning why I’m even doing this. Not because I want the money, that’s not – and never has been – what this is about. I just want people to read what I write.

If I could make it completely free all the time, I would.

I’ve started diving back into My Last Days now, reading it aloud, to try to get to a second draft. I’ve been making notes as I go along, hoping that I can refine the story and get to a better place with it.

It’s such an arduous process to read and re-read and re-read something over and over again. Well, reading it’s not the problem. Trying to separate myself from it to the point where I can constructively criticize my own work is what I’m having a tough time with.

I was hoping that I could have outsiders do that for me, and provide objective criticism, but a lot of those people who offered to read the first draft and provide feedback flaked out for whatever reason. That, in and of itself, had me questioning whether or not the book was so bad that those people didn’t even want to finish reading it.

Though the few that did said they enjoyed it, so it’s tough to say.

Regardless of what happened with those people (maybe they’re just flakey people, who knows), I’m pressing on and going to get through this first draft re-reading by the end of the month. Then I’ll move on to a second draft before sending it to my editor to run through.

My goal is to have this completely done and ready for publishing around the same time that A Sour Chord went live in the bookstores, which was mid-May of this year. So, fingers crossed that I’ll get it done on the same schedule.

Spinning My Wheels

I’ve got a handful of people reading My Last Days right now. Not to tell me that I missed a comma or a closing quote or the like, but to tell me what they think of the story. I read through it twice when I finished the first draft and I’m not fully sure that I love it. I like the idea, I like the message I (think I) conveyed with it. But I’m just not sure that I’m in love with the whole thing.

So I’m hoping for some good feedback from those folks that are reading it now. So far, nothing either way, but hopefully soon I’ll get some feedback.

In the meantime, I feel a lot like I’m spinning my wheels. I feel as though if I’m not writing anything, I’m wasting time. Which is a weird feeling, given that this is not only just a hobby, but it’s not like I have a drove of fans waiting for my next book, or a publisher that’s hounding me to get something written.

I just feel like if I’m not doing something, I’m wasting the day.

Sure, I’m working my day job, I’m working on a website or two for fun. But other than that, every day feels more of the same. I wake up, eat breakfast, sit at my desk for eight hours and then do some chores and tasks, make dinner and watch TV. It feels very repetitive lately and I don’t know why I’m in this rut.

Maybe it’s because subconsciously I wanted A Sour Chord to do better than it has done. Maybe I wanted someone to email me, call me or write a review online telling me how much they loved it. Maybe, on some level, that’s done some damage to my mentality and it’s starting to hit me. Maybe the book’s not as good as I wanted it to be.

When I first started working on A Sour Chord, I didn’t tell anyone. I did that on purpose because I’ve, many times in the past, started things and not finished them. That’s sort of my motus operandi. I’ve started and quit so many things in my lifetime, I didn’t want to get anyone excited about this until I knew I was done.

Then when I finished, lots of people were excited. Friends and family wanted to read it. So I, foolishly maybe, started sending it out. I realize everyone’s busy and have their lives to think of, but some people that were so excited to read it still haven’t. It’s been almost three months since it was entirely done and for sale, and some of those folks still haven’t read it yet. Am I being sensitive about that?

I’m wondering if I should start working on something else while My Last Days is being read. I don’t know how long that whole process will take this time. From the end of the first draft through editing, through artwork, through re-reading, through reader feedback until publishing for A Sour Chord was more than a year.

I’m hoping, based on what I’ve learned from last time, My Last Days will go faster. I’m also hoping that once it’s published, I’ll sell some copies. While it’s not — and never has been — about making money for me, it’s sort of nonsensical to spend thousands of dollars on editors and artists to create the finished product when it’s only going make a couple of dollars.

Maybe I need to hire a marketing person. I’ve learned, quite quickly, that I have no idea how to market anything. I was hoping that I’d publish and people would just find the book, but that appears to be the wrong way to think about things. Maybe it’s time to regroup and rethink my strategy.

That’s all I’ve got for today. I realize this is mostly me rambling the thoughts I’ve been trapping in my head for the last couple of weeks, so I apologize.

My Last Days First Draft is Complete

It seems like it flew by once I started working on, it really did. Once A Sour Chord was published and for sale, I started hitting My Last Days again. And hit it hard I did.

The total word count is just over 92k, and the story seems to all warrant such a word count. I’ve read through it twice now since I finished writing — to do a rough edit for punctuation, grammar and spelling — and I think I enjoy it. I’ve got it out with a half dozen people to read and give me their feedback, so hopefully they’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

When I first started writing it, I was lost. I didn’t really know where it was going or what I was trying to say, but as I progressed the story sort of unfolded on its own.The characters told their own story and I was just their narrator.

One of the most interesting things about My Last Days, at least to me, is that it’s in first person. I don’t often write in first person, but it was a fun and unique challenge to do so.

From here, we begin the process of gathering feedback from people, incorporate any feedback into the story and then move on to the editing process. Once that’s done, we do artwork and then we publish. It really is pretty simple.

The hardest part, from here, will be the editing. It sucked my will to live last time and I really didn’t enjoy it much. Not even a little bit. But it’s necessary and has to be done, so we all do it, right?

If you’re interested in reading My Last Days to give some pre-edit feedback, I’d love to have you check it out. Just drop me a line either on Twitter, Facebook or via the Contact page and let me know which format you’d prefer (Kindle, PDF, Nook, iOS) and where to send it and I’ll get it over to you.

I look forward to finishing this up and picking what I’m going to write next. I’m thinking, after two of them, maybe it’s time to write something a little less dramatic. Maybe a suspense novel? I’m not sure I can pull that off, but I have an idea and am willing to try.

The End is Near!

Perhaps that’s not the best title for a blog post, but it’s true. The end is, in fact, near.

The end of the first draft of My Last Days, that is. If all goes according to plan, I should finish this week and start my first round of edits either this weekend or early next week.

I’m really excited about it and think that it came together quite nicely, though I fear it’s going to need quite a bit of editing. When I write, I tend to just go and go and go without thinking too much. Sometimes that works in my favor, sometimes it means I have a lot of word chopping and scene re-arranging to do.

The story, as a whole, really works. I think I can say that honestly without any bias. But I think there’s some reworking that needs to happen and some more emotions that need to be put into the story near the beginning and middle (the bits I wrote in late 2013.) When I picked it back up again this year, I had a really good sense of where I was going, so I think that helped me stay on the right track.

I’m really stoked to finish this up and get on to the second draft. I hope you’ll check it out when I’m done! In the meantime, grab a copy of A Sour Chord if you haven’t already. It’s on sale everywhere for just .99 cents and that’s a bargain you can’t beat!

Back to Work on My Last Days

Now that A Sour Chord is fully done and for sale in the various market places, I’ve decided to put off all of the other real-world tasks that I have to complete and get back to work on My Last Days.

Last week I started re-reading everything I’d written so far, so I can be familiar with my characters again, as well as the story lines I’d written. I probably could have skipped this process, but it’s actually pretty beneficial for a few reasons. Primarily because I’ve already found mistakes and inconsistencies in the first draft, but also because I’m getting back into the head of my main character, which is important for this particular work.

My goal is to finish reading the last 40 pages by Wednesday and get back to writing later in the week or early next.

This is such a fun journey and one that I’m glad that I’m able to do without very much effort or money. (Though, let’s be honest, I spent more than I thought I would on A Sour Chord, but that was worth it.)

I’m shooting to finish the first draft, first round of edits and a second draft by the end of the summer before turning it over to an editor. Then, this time, I’ll do a bigger group of beta readers than I did with A Sour Chord. Hopefully that’ll spark more interest.

I’m also hopeful that a second book will inherently draw more attention than the first anyway, now that I’m not an “unknown” anymore.

If you grabbed a copy of A Sour Chord, thank you! If not, it’s still on sale for 99 cents through the end of June across all platforms. Grab a copy before the sale ends and read it whenever you’d like. Once it’s yours, it’s yours! Also, if you have grabbed a copy, thank you so much. I hope you enjoy it enough to leave a review on the site you purchased from. I’d love that very much!

My Last Days on Hold, Back to A Sour Chord

I didn’t realize it had been so long since I’d updated the progress blog here.  Over the last three weeks, a bit has changed with things.

My new (wonderful) editor, Lauren, sent me her initial feedback earlier in this month, which I’ve read at least half a dozen times by now.  I agreed on most of what she said and will work a lot of her feedback into the story as we go through the (hopefully) final rewrite in the next month or two.

In order to get back into the mindset of A Sour Chord, I’ve ceased working on My Last Days.  Not for good, just so that I can get my mind back into that of my characters from A Sour Chord.  I don’t know of many (if any) authors that write two books at the same time and it’s probably because it’s so difficult to jump back and forth between sets of characters, stories, locations, etc.

As of now, I’m waiting on Lauren to start sending me detailed feedback on a chapter-by-chapter basis.  That’ll allow me to go through and either edit or flat-out rewrite parts of the book to get to the goal that we’re setting out for the ending.  The overall ending won’t change (I stood my ground on that, despite her recommendation to change it), but the story that gets us there will change a little bit.

What I’ve learned during the editing process

  • It’s difficult to find an editor — I didn’t factor cost into this at all, I’d gladly have spent whatever it took to find someone that I felt would take this seriously — despite just being something I’m doing on a whim.  I counted my emails and I emailed back and forth with 15 editors before finding something that I felt took me seriously enough to want to do the project. Many of them were either outrageous in their pricing, didn’t want to offer me a sample edit (why would you pay someone when you don’t know what their style of editing is?), or said they’d get back to me and never did.  A very frustrating process.
  • Go with your gut — if an editor comes across as pushy or difficult during this process, they’re probably going to be pushy or difficult to work with too.  I’m glad I didn’t go with a handful of them that were really unpleasant via their emails.
  • It takes a long time — I finished writing the book nearly six months ago, hoping to have it published by now.  It’s left me feeling somewhat defeated that I missed my own (admittedly completely arbitrary) goal.  Having friends read it and give me their input as well as the actual editing process has been mentally draining, but hopefully worth it in the long run.

From here, the final edit/draft will be completed. The cover will be designed. The book will be on sale.         And hopefully, just hopefully, at least a couple of people will buy it.

Then I’ll finish My Last Days and start this whole horrible process all over again.

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