I had not written anything for about the last two months. This was due to working on the lighting for a couple of plays, increased load at my day time job, not wanting to write the second half of a particular chapter, and I'm sure I can come up with some more excuses.
However, I have been getting back into writing mode over the holidays. I'm close to finishing up my fifth new chapter, and I still have a few more days off from my day job, so I am hoping to get more done. The sequel to Infused is close to 60,000 words long at this point.
Hopefully I can keep writing at a good rate after the new year begins. It would be nice to finish writing the book in the next couple of months. Of course, there's no telling how long editing it will take. That will be cleaning up the grammar and punctuation mostly, but still, that takes time.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Chapter Twenty
I've now finished writing through chapter twenty of the sequel to Infused. Chapter twenty is the longest chapter in the book (so far at least), but it is no where near as long as the very lengthy chapter seventeen from the first book. The word total for the first twenty chapters is very close to 50,000, and I am certain that it will be over 50,000 once I make my first editing pass on chapters seventeen through twenty.
The past few nights, as I have been trying to fall asleep, I've found myself thinking about a scene that is going to happen a few chapters after twenty. Before I was able to complete my writing of chapter twenty, I ended up having to type in a very rough version of the later chapter with all of the specific details that I kept thinking about so that I could get the thoughts out of my head and not stay awake thinking about them anymore. So, because of that, I have most of an additional chapter written, but I will have to go through it line by line and re-write them so that they are proper sentences and in the correct tense and style. I'll wait to do that re-writing until I have filled in the chapters that lead up to those events.
The past few nights, as I have been trying to fall asleep, I've found myself thinking about a scene that is going to happen a few chapters after twenty. Before I was able to complete my writing of chapter twenty, I ended up having to type in a very rough version of the later chapter with all of the specific details that I kept thinking about so that I could get the thoughts out of my head and not stay awake thinking about them anymore. So, because of that, I have most of an additional chapter written, but I will have to go through it line by line and re-write them so that they are proper sentences and in the correct tense and style. I'll wait to do that re-writing until I have filled in the chapters that lead up to those events.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Sixteen Chapters
I've filled in the missing pieces and the sequel to Infused now has sixteen completed chapters. The word count is now up to around 37,400. I have also gone through my first edit pass of the new chapters. In my last post I stated that what I had written as chapter fifteen might be moved to chapter sixteen and that did occur.
With Infused, my favorite chapter was the fourth chapter. In that chapter, Geoff actually talked to a girl (which was a very rare experience for him up to that point in the story), and he lost himself as he looked at (and held) the girl's leg. To me, it just told volumes about Geoff, how he was isolated from companionship and how much he longed for it.
In the new book, chapter sixteen is my favorite. I won't say what happens in it, but it is a very exciting part of the story. I have been reading chapters to my best friend on the phone as I finish them and I was gratified when I heard her gasp while I read chapter sixteen to her.
With Infused, my favorite chapter was the fourth chapter. In that chapter, Geoff actually talked to a girl (which was a very rare experience for him up to that point in the story), and he lost himself as he looked at (and held) the girl's leg. To me, it just told volumes about Geoff, how he was isolated from companionship and how much he longed for it.
In the new book, chapter sixteen is my favorite. I won't say what happens in it, but it is a very exciting part of the story. I have been reading chapters to my best friend on the phone as I finish them and I was gratified when I heard her gasp while I read chapter sixteen to her.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Insomnia
Sometimes I will lay in bed thinking about how a chapter in my book should be written. This will happen night after night until I actually write it down (or type it in actually).
When I went to a a few seminars presented by local authors, they told the attendees that they should make themselves write every day (or just sit in front of the computer if they can't think of anything to write). But that method seems like it would make the process less enjoyable and also lead to writing inferior prose because you are more likely to force something out to feel that you are making progress. However, it is true that if I made myself actually attempt writing more that I would be further along in this book, but since I don't have people clamoring to read my next novel, I don't always have the motivation to work on the story. Still, when I start having problems getting to sleep because of thinking about how a part of the story should be written, I know that it is time to sit down and write.
There were a couple of times when I was writing Infused when the late night thinking caused me to write a few chapters out of order, and that is also the case with the sequel. In this case, it involves skipping parts of chapters to work on parts of the main story line that is interspersed with other story lines.
So, since my last update, I have completed chapters eleven, twelve, and fourteen. Chapter thirteen only has a few hundred words in it so far, and chapter fifteen is half written fully, and half written in notes of what it needs to say. Also, there is a chance that chapter fifteen may become chapter sixteen instead. We'll see.
When I went to a a few seminars presented by local authors, they told the attendees that they should make themselves write every day (or just sit in front of the computer if they can't think of anything to write). But that method seems like it would make the process less enjoyable and also lead to writing inferior prose because you are more likely to force something out to feel that you are making progress. However, it is true that if I made myself actually attempt writing more that I would be further along in this book, but since I don't have people clamoring to read my next novel, I don't always have the motivation to work on the story. Still, when I start having problems getting to sleep because of thinking about how a part of the story should be written, I know that it is time to sit down and write.
There were a couple of times when I was writing Infused when the late night thinking caused me to write a few chapters out of order, and that is also the case with the sequel. In this case, it involves skipping parts of chapters to work on parts of the main story line that is interspersed with other story lines.
So, since my last update, I have completed chapters eleven, twelve, and fourteen. Chapter thirteen only has a few hundred words in it so far, and chapter fifteen is half written fully, and half written in notes of what it needs to say. Also, there is a chance that chapter fifteen may become chapter sixteen instead. We'll see.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
More Editing
I was able to complete the first pass of editing chapters six through ten in the sequel to Infused this week. There will still be more editing passes later on in the process, but the initial one is the one that smooths out the flow of the wording the most. This mainly involves looking for repetition of word usage and then finding synonyms for the words or re-wording sentences to avoid using the same word over and over.
When I have completed the first pass of editing on enough chapters, I format them with Microsoft Publisher and print them out in booklet form so that a few select people can read them at that point and provide feedback. So, I now have the first ten chapters printed in this format.
Now I am at the point where I have to spend time thinking about how the story is going to proceed before I can start writing again. I know the main thread of the story going forward, but I need to decide on what the big tapestry is going to be that my thread is going to be woven into. I don't expect to figure it all out before I start writing again, but I will have to consider a number of things about where the story is headed to ensure that it will provide enough meat to build off of.
When I have completed the first pass of editing on enough chapters, I format them with Microsoft Publisher and print them out in booklet form so that a few select people can read them at that point and provide feedback. So, I now have the first ten chapters printed in this format.
Now I am at the point where I have to spend time thinking about how the story is going to proceed before I can start writing again. I know the main thread of the story going forward, but I need to decide on what the big tapestry is going to be that my thread is going to be woven into. I don't expect to figure it all out before I start writing again, but I will have to consider a number of things about where the story is headed to ensure that it will provide enough meat to build off of.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Vacation Writings
I was able to take some time out of my vacation over the last week to get some writing done. It was nice to have the free time to write another two chapters of the sequel of Infused. I am now up to ten chapters and over 25,000 words. It's getting there!
Writing in a journal instead of directly on a computer does change the process some. Fortunately, I don't rearrange a great deal while I am writing, so I only have a few words here and there that I had to mark out. It does keep me from doing some basic editing of sentence structure from time to time though, but most of the changes that I would have made I'm sure that I will notice when I read back through these latest five chapters for editing. I even made a few changes when I was typing into Word what I had written in the journal, but most of my concentration was spent trying to decipher my scribbles - I don't have very neat handwriting and it was even worse since I did most of it while reclining on a couch in a ship.
I also spent time thinking about some pieces of the story that are going to be spread out through the next section of the book, so I am at least partially prepared for the next round of writing to be done.
Writing in a journal instead of directly on a computer does change the process some. Fortunately, I don't rearrange a great deal while I am writing, so I only have a few words here and there that I had to mark out. It does keep me from doing some basic editing of sentence structure from time to time though, but most of the changes that I would have made I'm sure that I will notice when I read back through these latest five chapters for editing. I even made a few changes when I was typing into Word what I had written in the journal, but most of my concentration was spent trying to decipher my scribbles - I don't have very neat handwriting and it was even worse since I did most of it while reclining on a couch in a ship.
I also spent time thinking about some pieces of the story that are going to be spread out through the next section of the book, so I am at least partially prepared for the next round of writing to be done.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
More Progress
I've been busy with other parts of my life recently and I was a bit reluctant to write the next part of the sequel to Infused, so I didn't make a great deal of progress for a while. The reluctance on my part was mostly caused by my having not thought much about the details of what needed to be said in the sixth chapter; it was my own form of writer's block.
However, after writing parts of the seventh chapter, I was able to come back to chapter six finally and finish it up. I then went through and brought together the pieces of chapter seven that I had written. After finishing those two chapters, I went on to write one more chapter which I just finished up today.
So, currently I at eight chapters and about 21,500 words. I feel very good about the story so far and I have heard positive feedback from the couple of people that have read parts of it so far. Hopefully I will be able to continue to let the words flow.
However, after writing parts of the seventh chapter, I was able to come back to chapter six finally and finish it up. I then went through and brought together the pieces of chapter seven that I had written. After finishing those two chapters, I went on to write one more chapter which I just finished up today.
So, currently I at eight chapters and about 21,500 words. I feel very good about the story so far and I have heard positive feedback from the couple of people that have read parts of it so far. Hopefully I will be able to continue to let the words flow.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Editing Part of the Sequel to Infused
Over the past week I have spent time editing the first five chapters of the sequel to Infused. Mainly I was looking at sentence structure and the flow of the wording.
When I write I will sometimes drop out a word or two while I am typing in the rush to get the sentence written, so this was the most basic thing that I was looking to clean up (as well as other typos).
I also read each sentence individually to ensure that they are not confusing and that what I am trying to say comes across. This is the main cause of additional verbiage being added during editing. In total I added about four hundred words across these five chapters while editing them.
One other thing that I pay close attention to while editing is the repetitive use of words across multiple sentences. For instance, in one section I found that I used the words "used to" three times in two adjoining sentences, so I found alternatives for two of them.
A friend of mine that edits for a living helped perform a final edit of Infused for me. Seeing the changes that she suggested has helped me to write from the beginning on this novel using some of those guidelines, so editing will be less of an effort. However, for some of the standards that she used I will wait until the book is completed and ready for final formatting. An example of this is adding spaces to ellipsis, so "..." will become " . . .". Those types of changes will be easier to do en masse, (since the process will only have to be done once instead of multiple times).
When I write I will sometimes drop out a word or two while I am typing in the rush to get the sentence written, so this was the most basic thing that I was looking to clean up (as well as other typos).
I also read each sentence individually to ensure that they are not confusing and that what I am trying to say comes across. This is the main cause of additional verbiage being added during editing. In total I added about four hundred words across these five chapters while editing them.
One other thing that I pay close attention to while editing is the repetitive use of words across multiple sentences. For instance, in one section I found that I used the words "used to" three times in two adjoining sentences, so I found alternatives for two of them.
A friend of mine that edits for a living helped perform a final edit of Infused for me. Seeing the changes that she suggested has helped me to write from the beginning on this novel using some of those guidelines, so editing will be less of an effort. However, for some of the standards that she used I will wait until the book is completed and ready for final formatting. An example of this is adding spaces to ellipsis, so "..." will become " . . .". Those types of changes will be easier to do en masse, (since the process will only have to be done once instead of multiple times).
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Making Progress
It's been a hectic few weeks. I've had to work late a good bit at my daytime job on a project and I was tied up with designing the lighting for a local community play in the evenings for a week. I usually end up designing lights for three or four plays a year. I have also worked on set construction a number of times and I have even helped sew costumes.
Even with all of these "distractions" I have managed to get some writing completed for the sequel to Infused. I am now up to over 13,000 words. I still have a long way to go; so far I've really only (mostly) completed the introduction to the setting. Soon I'll get into the actual story and we'll see where it goes from there.
A little over a week ago I added some information about myself and Infused to GoodReads.com. I had not realized that the book had been listed there since May of last year (with barely more than the name presented), but now the cover can be seen and there is also a brief insight into the story that I wrote. Also included is an automatic link to this blog.
Even with all of these "distractions" I have managed to get some writing completed for the sequel to Infused. I am now up to over 13,000 words. I still have a long way to go; so far I've really only (mostly) completed the introduction to the setting. Soon I'll get into the actual story and we'll see where it goes from there.
A little over a week ago I added some information about myself and Infused to GoodReads.com. I had not realized that the book had been listed there since May of last year (with barely more than the name presented), but now the cover can be seen and there is also a brief insight into the story that I wrote. Also included is an automatic link to this blog.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Writing and Character Names
I am making headway on the sequel to Infused, I've written about 7,500 words now.
One of the things that authors have to deal with when writing any story is the character names.
When writing Infused, I only had a few of the names selected before I started writing, the rest I just came up with as they were needed. In the fantasy novel that I was writing last year (and is currently on hold), I researched medieval English names and created a list of names to use before I started writing. I also spent time coming up with appropriate town names in for that story.
In this story I had to make a different kind of decision about the names as I started writing. Although Geoff understands any language, the story itself is actually written in English, so, the question was what to do about proper names for people on another planet. I could have decided to "translate" the names to something that Geoff would have been used to, but it would have felt odd to introduce an alien named Betty or something similar. I instead decided to have the names (for the most part) be completely made up but without making them difficult to say.
I know that if I am reading a book and a character is given a unique, hard to pronounce name, I tend to make up a short substitute for it and automatically swap the name out as I read. This has caused some confusion when talking with someone else about a book because they would refer to one of the characters that has a twelve character long name by that name, and I would not have a clue who they were referring to (because I thought of that character as Matt).
So, you can expect my aliens' names to be short and pronounceable.
One of the things that authors have to deal with when writing any story is the character names.
When writing Infused, I only had a few of the names selected before I started writing, the rest I just came up with as they were needed. In the fantasy novel that I was writing last year (and is currently on hold), I researched medieval English names and created a list of names to use before I started writing. I also spent time coming up with appropriate town names in for that story.
In this story I had to make a different kind of decision about the names as I started writing. Although Geoff understands any language, the story itself is actually written in English, so, the question was what to do about proper names for people on another planet. I could have decided to "translate" the names to something that Geoff would have been used to, but it would have felt odd to introduce an alien named Betty or something similar. I instead decided to have the names (for the most part) be completely made up but without making them difficult to say.
I know that if I am reading a book and a character is given a unique, hard to pronounce name, I tend to make up a short substitute for it and automatically swap the name out as I read. This has caused some confusion when talking with someone else about a book because they would refer to one of the characters that has a twelve character long name by that name, and I would not have a clue who they were referring to (because I thought of that character as Matt).
So, you can expect my aliens' names to be short and pronounceable.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Writing Again
After I made the tweaks to the printed version of Infused recently I think that I finally felt that I was finished with that book. It's been quite a while since I have written anything, but in the last week I started working on the sequel to Infused. I've written a little over 3,000 words so far, and I feel that it is going pretty well. I have the basic story mapped out (which is quite a bit more than I had for the first book when I started writing it since I really only knew the beginning and the end). For comparison, Infused is about 90,000 words long.
Hopefully I will be able to maintain writing at a good pace. My plan is that if I get stuck or just feel that I need to think a section through more before continuing that I will switch to writing on a fantasy novel that I started before Infused was published. After all, I do have over 16,000 words already written on that one.
I don't tend to follow the method of "just getting it on paper". With that method, writers tend to just get the story written down without really paying close attention to grammar or sentence structure or paying attention to details in general. To me, that seems like writing a very detailed outline because you really have to go back and re-write the entire thing again at least once (and probably multiple times). I tend to try and get very close to the final product on the first pass. I will go back and fix grammar some (and punctuation quite a bit) and tweak sentences a bit (usually replacing words that have been used too often), but I don't go back and restructure or re-write sections. This of course means that I am not the fastest writer out there, but it also means that there should be less effort in the editing process later on.
Now that I have gone through the process to publish Infused in paperback and have made it available in the three major ebook markets, hopefully the post writing process in general will be much shorter the next time. That is if I can figure out what the cover art should be and I can figure out how to make that happen of course.
Hopefully I will be able to maintain writing at a good pace. My plan is that if I get stuck or just feel that I need to think a section through more before continuing that I will switch to writing on a fantasy novel that I started before Infused was published. After all, I do have over 16,000 words already written on that one.
I don't tend to follow the method of "just getting it on paper". With that method, writers tend to just get the story written down without really paying close attention to grammar or sentence structure or paying attention to details in general. To me, that seems like writing a very detailed outline because you really have to go back and re-write the entire thing again at least once (and probably multiple times). I tend to try and get very close to the final product on the first pass. I will go back and fix grammar some (and punctuation quite a bit) and tweak sentences a bit (usually replacing words that have been used too often), but I don't go back and restructure or re-write sections. This of course means that I am not the fastest writer out there, but it also means that there should be less effort in the editing process later on.
Now that I have gone through the process to publish Infused in paperback and have made it available in the three major ebook markets, hopefully the post writing process in general will be much shorter the next time. That is if I can figure out what the cover art should be and I can figure out how to make that happen of course.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Print Version of Infused Updated
Since it was originally published, I have found (or been told about) a few typos and grammar errors in Infused. Recently, when I converted the novel over to iBooks on a Mac, the document editor on that system pointed out a few more issues to consider (although not all of the things that it pointed out were actually incorrect). So, with the accumulation of a number of minor tweaks, I decided that it would be a good time to update the print version of the book.
With CreateSpace, when you update a book, it becomes unavailable for purchase until the process has been completed and approved. So, the print version of Infused has been unavailable for the past few days. Luckily I live one state over from one of their printing shops, so the proof of the book only took a couple of days to get here. I found a minor formatting issue and resubmitted the change online, but it will not require me to have another proof shipped to me since it is in the interior of the book - those type of changes can be proofed very well online. I have approved the new changes and am now waiting for their systems to verify that everything is in order. So, it will hopefully be available for purchase again tomorrow at some point.
During my rush to finally get Infused published last year I found that I had not put any thought into the design of the back cover of the book. What I ended up doing was putting together a quick introduction to the story using a graphics program to produce the text. This meant that there was no spelling or grammar checker, so, right near the beginning of the text there was a typo. I really wanted to fix that with this edition, so since I was modifying the cover anyway, I decided to add a picture of the author to the back cover as well. Although I love the way that the front and spine of the book turned out, the back is still pretty bland - but at least people get to see my (somewhat) smiling face now.
With CreateSpace, when you update a book, it becomes unavailable for purchase until the process has been completed and approved. So, the print version of Infused has been unavailable for the past few days. Luckily I live one state over from one of their printing shops, so the proof of the book only took a couple of days to get here. I found a minor formatting issue and resubmitted the change online, but it will not require me to have another proof shipped to me since it is in the interior of the book - those type of changes can be proofed very well online. I have approved the new changes and am now waiting for their systems to verify that everything is in order. So, it will hopefully be available for purchase again tomorrow at some point.
During my rush to finally get Infused published last year I found that I had not put any thought into the design of the back cover of the book. What I ended up doing was putting together a quick introduction to the story using a graphics program to produce the text. This meant that there was no spelling or grammar checker, so, right near the beginning of the text there was a typo. I really wanted to fix that with this edition, so since I was modifying the cover anyway, I decided to add a picture of the author to the back cover as well. Although I love the way that the front and spine of the book turned out, the back is still pretty bland - but at least people get to see my (somewhat) smiling face now.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Infused Available on iTunes
The iPad version of Infused is now available. I used the iBooks Author tool from Apple to create the iBook version of the novel. It took this long for me create this new version simply because I did not have access to a Mac. Last week I bought a Mac Mini to be able to format books and to play around with writing iOS applications.
The iBooks version of Infused has the added feature of titles for each chapter, a bit fancier page layout, and a few minor edits.
After getting the iBooks Author tool installed, it just took a few hours to import the text from the original Word document and then go through it with the built in proofreader and spell checker to look for things that should be touched up. Once I was ready to publish the book I found that I needed to register with iTunes. It took a few days for my account to be setup. Then after installing an additional piece of software (and having to guess how to fill out several pages of forms) I uploaded my book to Apple. Next came the review process by Apple. I checked several times the next day to see if it was available in iTunes, and it appeared about a day after I had uploaded it.
The iPad version of Infused can be found at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/infused/id593767688?ls=1
The iBooks version of Infused has the added feature of titles for each chapter, a bit fancier page layout, and a few minor edits.
After getting the iBooks Author tool installed, it just took a few hours to import the text from the original Word document and then go through it with the built in proofreader and spell checker to look for things that should be touched up. Once I was ready to publish the book I found that I needed to register with iTunes. It took a few days for my account to be setup. Then after installing an additional piece of software (and having to guess how to fill out several pages of forms) I uploaded my book to Apple. Next came the review process by Apple. I checked several times the next day to see if it was available in iTunes, and it appeared about a day after I had uploaded it.
The iPad version of Infused can be found at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/infused/id593767688?ls=1
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