Getting Back to Work: Dominant Race Progresses, New Fate Stalls

Christmas was wonderful. I got a lot of jewelry as well as a 3DS, complete with Pokemon Black. All is well in the world, especially since that 3DS is nice and red and shiny. My husband also did well on Christmas. He got the new Halo game as well as two Wii games and a whole bunch of TV show stuff (Battlestar Galactica and the first season of The Walking Dead specifically). We felt really blessed, we spent a lot of time together, and it’s been great. Today we’re making (belated) Christmas cookies and almond biscotti. Pictures will definitely be posted tomorrow.

In terms of writing, Dominant Race is out to beta readers and nearly done. I’ve gotten great feedback so far, especially from the ever-wonderful Natasha, and I’m excited to go forward with the final touch-ups within the next two weeks. The cover art for both Dominant Race and New Fate is nearly complete, too. I hired a wonderful artist from Russia, via deviantART, who charged me $230 for both, making it around $115 per cover. I don’t want to argue price here, but given the quality of the pieces, I’d say it was money well spent.

New Fate isn’t cooperating with me, unfortunately. It’s a lot shorter than its predecessor, at around 22,000ish words at the moment and nearing the finale. I’m betting it won’t be over 25,000 words for this draft, and the final draft might be a little more than that, or it might be a little less. Dominant Race surprised me by being around 34,000 words, and it looks like New Fate surprised me by being around 10,000 words less than that. Still they’re novellas, not novels, and their length is just right for that category. I’m hoping they do well as ebooks.

The other project I’m working on is a short story collection, temporarily (or permanently, depending) titled Beings of Myth and Fancy. All of the stories are about mythological creatures, and you’ll see some posts around here dedicated to interesting finds that might or might not wind up in the collection. We’ll see.

Anyway, how was your Christmas? Got any plans for New Years?

Reading More Books Boosts My Writing Speed

I know many writers say to read as much as you write. Like most writers, I do read quite a bit more than the average Joe, but since I moved back to Texas (or really, since I moved in with my husband), I’ve had very little space for books. Most are packed away in boxes, and it’s stressful to rummage through them to find a good read, so I haven’t read much in the last two or three years.

When I got my Kindle, I bought three books within the first two days. Later, I checked, and all of them were around 300 pages, which isn’t too bad but not exactly long, either. Throughout the month, I bought four more, also quickly devoured. It felt good to gobble up an entire plot, to become immersed in a finished product of someone’s imagination.

Then, yesterday, I wrote four thousand words within four hours. Later that night, I realized not only was I still able to write and write well, I also knew where I was going with my plot. It didn’t take me a long time to sit and ponder, if that makes sense, as if the reading helped my natural sense of how a story should flow. At least, I think it helped — and then some. New Fate’s first draft is nearly completed now.

I know some writers who say reading doesn’t help and others who say it really does. What do you think?

Some Thoughts on a Novel’s Beginning

I have a black casing for mine and it goes with me everywhere, seeing as it easily fits in my purse. Brilliant design.

Recently my husband bought me a Kindle as an early birthday present. Beforehand, I figured it wouldn’t change how I read much. Man, was I wrong. I’ve read three books in the past week, which is more than I’ve read in the past three months alone. It’s made me really happy to get back to being a voracious reader, and I’m excited to read indie novels as well as traditionally published ones. However, I’ve noticed an interesting difference between the two types of ebooks. I’ve bought two traditionally published novels so far and no indies yet, though I’m reading four samples of indie ebooks at the moment. None of the indie samples I’ve read so far strike my fancy.

Why? Because they have killer-boring beginnings.

Yes, killer-boring. As in, the beginning is a prologue, or a play-by-play of how the soon-to-be hero’s parents tragically died. Or how the main character came to be in such a loathed place. There were a few variations of this, but you get my point. I don’t necessarily want to be thrown into the middle of the action, but I don’t want to be thrown so far away from the actual plot that, every chapter on, I’m re-reading little bits about the prologue or the first chapter.

Here’s a brilliant idea: Cut out that information. Just start with the hero working with his dad at the forge and mention the dude’s not the main character’s real father. Or, better yet, have that come out in the action or hinted at in dialogue. The town bully can sneer at the main character for being no one special — and what’s worse, the bully says the main character’s probably a bastard, seeing as he doesn’t know his parents. Cue conflict, cue interest. Where’s the parents? And then, five pages later, a dragon lands and bows to the main character as the Dragon Prince. Bam. Now you really want to know what the hell happened to his parents.

I’m not an expert on writing. Really, I’m twenty. I’m not that great at it, but I study it like crazy because I want to be the best I possibly can be. When, as a reader, certain books are annoying the crap out of me, the writer in me wants to find out why so that I can avoid repeating those mistakes.

Now, the two traditionally published books I bought didn’t start out with a rambling prologue that explained what happened to the parents (they were the mythic Dragonlords, wyverns being their hated enemies, and the good parents fell in a bitter, epic battle. A dragon saved their son, let him grow up all normal-like, then called him when the time came. Voila! Plot’s fully explained and is now boring). In The Forever War, you’re thrown into the main character’s training. But not at the beginning of the training, back on Earth. Nope, you’re started off on a foreign planet in 1997. Seeing as the book was written in 1975, that was still far in the future, but for me, that was like, woah, wait, what happened in 1997? What the hell? What kind of planet are you on? I’m hooked, I have to know.

Now I’m not using this an example of traditional is better than indie. Please don’t go there. What this is an example of is good editing and good understanding of how to hook a reader. Also, this might not hook all readers. In fact, maybe I’m a strange example and prefer a strange type of book. Maybe I’m too picky. All I know is that’s what I personally prefer, and what I personally think writers are missing out on. Don’t give all the plot secrets away in the prologue. Honestly, don’t even have a prologue unless it’s gripping and leaves the reader with more questions than answers.

NaNoWriMo: Day 14

The past few days have been annoying. I got food poisoning or some sort of evil stomach and flu-ish bug that made getting out of bed next to impossible. Still recovering from that, too. But today I managed to get it around 1,600 words. Not too bad. I’m telling you, word wars are awesome for motivation. Natasha McNeely has been a great influence with word wars. We’re going to do them daily for the rest of the week — that should be great.

Anyway, I’ll be more consistent about posting from now on. Promise.

Total words written today: 1,679

Total word count: 12,772

Something felt off. There were other presences in the room. Edwin, Samuel, Claudia of all people, and one other. Someone without a distinct smell. Marcus shot up, and his broken nose screamed at him. But there he was. Sanders. The sixth clone — Six. The liminal sat next to Claudia with a relaxed, almost sadistic smile that somehow seemed so polite yet corrupted. No one seemed particularly comfortable, but they weren’t worried, either, and that troubled him.