I TRIED, I GAVE IT MY BEST SHOT, I REALLY DID.

So I tried to be all fancy with the revision draft of the WIP.

I had a plan and I swear it sounded like a damn fine plan to me.

First spend HOURS printing rough draft at the day job. I printed it at 14 pt, triple spaced, with pair of HUGE margins top and bottom. This made for a printed manuscript that was exactly 468 pieces of paper.

Then I picked up a snazzy folding pocket thing to put it in and a pair of nice ass red pens.

So the plan was that I would then sit with printed manuscript, read it, and make notes as to what needed to be changed.

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yeah right.

I tried.

I swear I did, but that method did NOT work for me. My notes were way too sparse and simple. I think I will instead just go back in and rewrite in Word.

But in my time away from the WIP (I took a week off.) I did manage to do some reading.

I finished the first Jeaniene Frost book, Halfway To the Grave. It was good. Then I read her second one, One Foot In The Grave, and it was really fucking good. She made a huge leap in writing ability. It was nice to see. I hope I have such dramatic improvement in the next Deacon book. I am excited to get her third book which comes out in Jan I believe. (At Grave’s End)

I am almost done with Magic To The Bone by Devon Monk. I agree with the hype. It is a great concept. But the book does have some first book flaws in the pacing and plot departments. Good read, but the hype around the book puts the expectations higher than they should be for me.

I also caught up on the Buffy season 8 and Angel after the Fall comics. What the hell are they thinking? I will go on record now and say that if they do anything in a visual medium with the Buffy franchise (tv or movie) then this series will NOT be canon. Changes abound, many of which had me going WTF? I am disapointed.

Anyways, back to me and Deacon. Next week, I begin revisions on the the book. First draft is almost 54,000 words. I know I have some scenes to add in and more to change so I expect to hit 85,000 when it is all said and done. It’s good stuff. I am pleased.

Nyteblade: A Deacon Chalk adventure, hopefully I will have the revisions done in about two weeks. That’s my goal, but since I am doing this for me there is no pressure. One of the joys of being an unpub.

ell-oh-ell.

DRAFT ONE DONE

Last night I finished the first draft on my WIP.

It felt really good.

I know it’s rough. I know I will have a TON of polishing to do. But it is DONE!

I was sick as a dog on Thursday which meant that I slept pretty non-stop from Wednesday night at 11 til 4pm on Thursday. That’s 18 hours of sleep. I normally get about 6. With all that sleep though, I felt much better, so when the Missus trotted off to bed I was still up. I quit procrastinating and began to write.

I was just getting ready for the finale, the big battle at the end of the book with the Big Bad. I wrote for over two hours, until I couldn’t see straight. When I was done for the night I had a realization come over me that I could finish this damn book. I really and truly could complete it.

I got up and went to work yesterday, Friday, and began to write as soon as I had nothing better to do. The words were flowing across the page like nobodies business. I KNEW exactly what was going to happen and yet it was all new to me as I typed like a demon.

Lots of things got put to paper (computer screen) in my furious dash to finish this draft. I was able to hurt my characters in a realistic (?) way for the first time. I wrote a shootout in what felt like an exciting read, and I was able to keep the terror of the Big Bad all the way thru the ending. That was the hardest thing to do.

It would have been easy for the Main Character to be the big damn hero and once the chips were down he rallied and kicked the ass of the Big Bad. We’ve all seen it in tv shows. The Big Bad is kicking everybody’s ass and the HERO decides he or she has had ENOUGH. They then rally and dispatch the Big Bad in a matter of moments that look triumphant and easy. Then you think: “well, if it was that easy, why didn’t you just get mad earlier?”

Not in my story. Blood was shed and flesh sacrificed every step of the way. The Big Bad stayed the Big Bad thru the entire finale. Every moment she was on screen she was terrifying.

But, back tot he point, I AM DONE!

So from this point I will give the book a rest for a few days. During this time I will not open the file or look at it. I will instead finish reading One Foot In The Grave by Jeaniene Frost (excellent book BTW) and read at least one more book uninterrupted. Once I have a few days of distance I will go thru the book and spell check it. (Nope, in my first draft I was spewing the book out so fast I did not even spell check.) Then I will print it out triple spaced, and grab my red pen. Then I will read my book and make notes of things I need to revise. I expect red to be on every page.

Once that is done, then I will sit and go thru my book and revise like a bastard. Currently the book is almost 55,000 words, the things that need to be added and removed should push it to over 80,000.

After the revision is done, then and only then will I allow my betas to read what I have crafted.

All that though is work for next week. Today I am just feeling satisfied in the glory of a finished first draft. And I think a GOOD first draft.

All Hail to the King, baby. Now gimme some sugar.