Publication day again!

A bittersweet moment for me, as this is not only the final volume in my second trilogy but also the last story set in a world, and featuring characters, I've been working with for almost 12 years.

Part of me is glad it's done, and looking forward to new projects. And part is sad to say goodbye to a cast of characters I've come to know so well.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DB8GL9Y3

#writersOfMastodon #bookstodon #SffWriter #writersLife #fantasy #sff #writingCommunity

I've not posted an update since before we went off to the Lake District for the second week of April. Progress has been severely hampered since then by, among other things, taking 17 days out to watch the World Snooker Championship (pretty much the only sporting event we get involved with in our house).

That's all done now, as of yesterday, so I got back to the draft in earnest today and clocked up almost 3,000 words, reaching the end of Chapter 16 (of 21) and rapidly closing in on 80% complete for this first draft.

I'd already pushed my target end-date back on our return from the Lakes (from end April to mid May) but I forgot to factor in the snooker, so now my tracking spreadsheet is saying I need to achieve another 3,000 words EVERY DAY for the next 8 days if I'm to hit that target.

Unlikely.

But I'm pretty sure I can do better than the spreadsheet's prediction of the actual end date (May 31st) and indeed I have to do better, because building work starts here during the last week of May and it's gonna be utter chaos for three or four months. I really don't want the draft to be affected by all that. Sporadic writing time is fine for editing, but for "the actual writing" I need more focus and near-zero distractions. We'll see.

Current predicted final word count: 108,000.

#writing #fantasy #fantasyWriter #sffWriter #writersOfMastodon
#writersLife #writingCommunity #amWriting

Around 1500 words this morning, so #today marks the end of Chapter 11 and the passing of the half-way point for this draft. I set a notional target end-date of April 30th, and my spreadsheet is now telling me I need to hit 1535wpd to meet that goal. Eminently do-able, although I won't get an awful lot done when we head off to the Lake District next Friday for a week.

Really happy that the graph continues to track very close to a prediction of 100,000 words for the completed m/s, although it usually tends to bloat by anything up to 10% during the first edit, when I add more description.

Giving myself the rest of the day off now. A nice early finish (10.30). Time for an early lunch and a movie day.

#writing #SFF #fantasyWriter #sffWriter #writersOfMastodon
#writersLife #writingCommunity
#amWriting

A bumper word haul #today of almost 4,500 words brings Chapter 8 to a close. Drafting was interrupted by another rehashing of the plot or, more accurately, the scenes.

Chapter 9 consisted of several character scenes that could easily be compressed into fewer scenes overall, at which point it made more sense to move them up into Ch.8 or down into Ch.10. So the overall chapter count has been reduced by another 1 (to 21) and Ch.8 now ends on a nice action sequence for added unputdownability.

All this shifting about has impacted the projected final word count. As you can see from the graph it's now tracking almost exactly to 100,000, which will make it the same length as the very first book in the saga (and between them, the shortest books of the series by some margin).

#writing #SFF #fantasy #fantasyWriter #sffWriter #writersOfMastodon #writersLife #writingCommunity #amWriting

#today I reached the final editing phase of the WIP - running my trusty "Stop Words" macro prior to working through the whole document one last time, correcting any remaining passive voice (where necessary), confirming or replacing adverb choices, eliminating words repeated in too close proximity, and removing noise words like "just" and "that".

Once that's done all that's left is front- and back-matter, and wrangling it into Kindle and print formats. Almost there!

#writing #SFF #fantasy #fantasyWriter #sffWriter #writersOfMastodon #writersLife #writingCommunity #amEditing

It's been a while since I did an update. Last time I posted, having completed the first draft in record time, I was facing a To-Do list of 115 entries comprising things I'd skipped over during drafting.

Those TDs spawn like crazy. By the time I reached the end, it had grown to 135 and took much longer than expected. Mainly due to the larger items:

• Creating the game. I'd conceived this cool game that they play in the port, and aboard ship. All I really needed to do was be able to write about it in a coherent way, but I became fixated on the idea of making something that was actually playable. The prototype is with friends and daughters now - a kind of alpha-test of playability. If it works I still might try to find somewhere, like a maker space, to have it made. At the very least I'll include the board layout and rules as an appendix in this book, because it could theoretically be played on a sheet of paper.
• A deck plan for the ship. I had everyone walking up and down stairs and between decks without having tied down where all these locations were and how they connected. A nightmare of potential inconsistency. It took me about a week to draft a deck plan - something else that I'll include in the book with a high-res version downloadable from my website.
• a town plan. Similar argument to the deck plan, but for the port. In this case I'm not having a street map produced, but I did need that consistency.

I reached the end of the TDs between Christmas and New Year, and yesterday I finished the final Scrivener pass, checking for correct characterisation, speech patterns, and plot.

#today I say farewell to Scrivener for this WIP, export to Word and start the final readthrough before running my "overused, passive voice, and proximity word" macro in preparation for publication. Almost there!

#writing #SFF #fantasy #fantasyWriter #sffWriter #writersOfMastodon #writersLife #writingCommunity #amEditing

I'm feeling a sense of accomplishment #today

I began the second phase of editing last week: working through my "To-Do" list where I capture everything that's more than a "line edit". The more extensive changes, additional scenes, etc, that I discover are needed while drafting. Things were going well, until I hit the entry that said "I really need a deck plan for the ship."

During the draft I'd been throwing in lines describing where this cabin, that mast, or the other pile of sailcloth was located without any confidence that any of it made sense or was even consistent.

I found a cool deck plan for a galleon from a reliable source, and I've spent the last three days hacking it into something resembling the layout I had (vaguely) in mind. Really pleased with how it's turned out, and as an added bonus I've learned a bit more about GIMP. All it needs now is a Key, and to replace all the area, equipment, and deck names with those used in my world.

And then I can finally get back to the edits, and make sure all the scenes on board fit in with the newly realised layout. #Writing is about so much more than the actual writing isn't it?

#writersOfMastodon #amEditing #sffWriter #writingCommunity

The Last Update
I completed the first draft of book No5 last night. A late session (for me - finished at 10:25) delivering 3,700 words and bringing the final total to a smidge over 111,000.

Regular readers will know that's a significant drop on the ~140k that my spreadsheet predicted up to and including the end of drafting Ch5. As you can see from the graph it dropped off significantly towards the end.
Main reason is another large dollop of over-plotting in the final two chapters, which I needed to put right to keep the tension and pace up.

But I'm not worried. I'm still expecting the final thing to end up closer to 125k, which I'll be happier with. My expectation is based on having a to-do list of 115 items picked up during the draft, and also knowing that I need to flesh out the relationships between the old characters and those introduced during this book. I have at least half-a-dozen ideas how to do that, and none of them reduce the word count. 😆​

But for now, I'll leave it alone for two weeks to "steep", while I catch up with several admin tasks I've been putting off as the excitement about finishing the draft mounted. I expect to start editing somewhere around the start of November.

For my stats nerd friends:
Elapsed days drafting 70 (cutting in half my previous record of 142)
Current actual run rate (wpd) 1600 (maintained across the whole 70 days)
Actual completion date 9/10/23 (target was the end of this month)
Number of deleted scenes 24 (but some extras will be added back during the edit)
Final scene count 148 (over 23 chapters)

#writing #SFF #fantasy #fantasyWriter #sffWriter #writersOfMastodon #writersLife #writingCommunity #amWriting (soon to be #amEditing )