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| 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.
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
Glad to hear things are going well on the writing front and that you're learning so much about editing and revising. That's a sign of a GREAT writer. Hard work, challenging one's self, and pushing to be the best you can be. But I never expected any less from you, so it's no big surprise. :-)
ReplyDeleteGOOD LUCK, my friend!
Haha! Thanks Kendall. You've been an inspiration as well. Your books are amazingly written. I strive to reach the bar you and other professional Indie writers have raised.
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