Hey You! I'm Still Here, Don't Give Up On Me Yet

Pic by Cellar Door Films via Flickr: WANA Commons

It’s been too long since I’ve posted a blog. I just wanted to let everyone know, I’m still alive. I’ve been writing/editing, and I didn’t want to bore everyone with the little details of my editing adventures every week. You can’t really call them adventures, more like exercises and self-discovery. I’ve been learning a lot more about writing than I ever knew. I’ve learned more the last 6 months editing than I ever did the 20+ years I wrote and rewrote stories without ever really taking it serious. I have a point, but if you have read this blog, you know I like to ramble randomly sometimes. It’s how my mind works, just random thoughts firing every direction. See, I keep getting off the subject.

*Spanks brain for misbehaving.

Now, back to what I was trying to talk about. I’m still alive. I’ve been a little out of touch lately, and I apologize for that. I’m thinking of starting up the Weapons Weekly in January 2013. By then I should have some more artwork to work with, too. I am hoping to be done with Devil Dog as well by then.

For those of you waiting on Devil Dog, it’s still in the editing phase. I’ve been reorganizing the finale to be more adrenaline pumping than before and I’ve started reworking the beginning under the advice of Kristen Lamb’s blogs on structure. Here they are if you don’t know what I mean by structure.

Anatomy of a Best-Selling Novel—Structure Part One

StructurePart 2–Plot Problems–Falcor the Luck Dragon & the Purple Tornado

StructurePart 3—Introducing the Opposition

StructurePart 4–Testing Your Idea–Is it Strong Enough to Make an Interesting Novel?

I also won a free critique from her and I’m terrified and excited to get that back and continue with the restructuring. I said I wouldn’t bore you with all the writing details, but that’s what I’ve been up to lately. When I’m done; I really believe this book will be movie worthy. It will have romance, action, mystery, conspiracy, tragedy and a really pissed off marine sniper. 

Pic by Lynn Kelley via Flickr: WANA Commons

Devil Dog is getting professionally edited with content editors and copy-editors (Yup there are different kinds of editors, one deals with story flow and structure and the other deals with grammar, punctuation, etc). To be honest, I never realized how much work self-publishing a book by using all the same tools as a traditional publisher would be. Would be so easy to just type up and publish like so many of my self-publishing brothers and sisters. Unfortunately for me, I am pretty tough on those guys sometimes, and I don’t feel I should be any less tough on myself or I’d just be a hypocrite.

It’s a blessing and a curse. A curse because I know the first book will be the hardest to write because I will continuously get slammed into walls as edits and critiques pile up and sometimes contradict each other or my desire for the novel. My desire always wins out, but I feel some incorporation of the advice given is always a good thing if I can figure out how to make it fit. The trouble is making sure the good advice fits in without disrupting the flow or structure already in place.

The blessing in all of this is that after I finish Devil Dog, I will have grown as a writer by miles. All of the stupid little things I was doing wrong, I can fix as I write the first draft. No more wasting money or time on editors who point out things I should already know and have fixed before they ever see the manuscript. Shame on me.

Random Alert! The view I wish I had from my writing desk. Took this picture in Alaska

I’m going to try to get back to posting a blog at least once a week again. It might be about weapons, or a movie I saw or a book I enjoyed. I will probably not babble on again about writing like this until Devil Dog is ready to publish. Thanks for hanging in there with me, and I will try not to be so neglecting of you guys in the future.