Keep Crawling

So, this finishing the second draft is taking a bit longer than I had expected. I really only have myself to blame as I have been putting off writing for other things. But as of now I only have the final chapter to re-write and then I am done. I know I need to go back through it once more before finding someone else to read it and see if I missed anything and just get some general feedback.

I have come to the conclusion that I probably will not get this out before the end of the year. I still want to believe that there is still some slim hope but as long as I can get it out in the first half of January I will be happy. Either way it will be published within a month no matter what.

Right now I am refusing to let myself see the new Hobbit film until I get this second draft done and now that I am seeing others talk about it I find my motivation returning. Just got to figure out what to use as my motivation for finishing it up should be.

Then I get to start from the beginning with what will be the third book in the Rainstone series and get that first draft done before finally going back to finish up the second book. I think going this way will help in getting into a good pace in getting these books done in a timely basis. So hopefully the second book will be done and released within the first half of 2014 with the third in the second half.

Thoughts as I approach the finish

So I have not abandoned this blog, just felt I had nothing of interest to add to it.

I am still working on rewriting my first book, Never Kiss a Vampire on the First Date, and I keep hoping that I will finish it off any day now. I am well past the halfway mark and feel so much better about it now with what I have written. But because this has meant doing some massive rewriting it has taken me a bit longer than I had hoped. I still want to get it out before the end of the year, but I do also want to have someone read it first at least and do some more revisions to a few parts I am not completely happy with.

That said the next one should not take as long with the rewriting but of course I do want to write that first draft for the third in the series first. But I feel confident that all three will be completed before the end of 2014 and I would love to get out two to three of these out each year. It definitely helps that I am aiming more for around the 25,000 word range and not the 50,000 word range for them.

Because of that length I figure when I get it up on Kindle as an independent published novel I will try to have the price .99USD. I do not think I would feel right to charge more for something so short, and not to mention by a rookie author. I just hope people will be able to find it and give it a chance.

Another first draft done.

Just realized that I was about to go to bed without making sure I congratulated myself on finishing the first draft for the second book in my Rainstone series. Of course it could have been done a couple of days ago, but I got lazy. Either way it is done and I now will be turning my attention to the rewriting process for the first book of the series, Never Kiss a Vampire on the First Date.

I am really glad I decided to write this first draft for the next book, as not only will it help as both books are set to happen at the same location around the same time, just different characters and events they are involved in, but because I figured out how to make the first book better. There were plenty of places in the first draft that I did not feel worked but after mulling over them from time to time as I worked on the other book I figured how to make them work. I feel much more confident about this book being something I would want others to read. Of course I need to get those thoughts written down still, but that is what the whole rewriting process is.

My hope is that Never Kiss will be done so I can publish it sometime in December. Then I want the second book in the series, which I am currently calling Come For the Demons, Stay For the Hell, to be published in the first half of 2014. Of course I am talking about self-publishing as these are only going to be around 25,000 words each and the average novel is 50,000 words. But I am aiming for these to just be light reads and at that length I hope to get two out a year.

I have no idea how long this series will be, I have yet to figure out when I should end it, but so far I have enjoyed writing for it and have plenty of ideas to last me a few years with my planned schedule.

October update.

Figured I should make some kind of post now that it is almost a week into October. I am still mainly working on the second book in what I am calling the Rainstone series. Or the first draft of the second book as I plan on having it sit once I am done with that so I can focus on rewriting the first draft of the first book of the series, Never Kiss a Vampire On the First Date.

I am doing some rewriting already for Never Kiss, and now that I have a much better idea of what I am actually going for with the book it is much easier to write for it. Though I doubt I would have ever figured that out if I did not force myself to finish the first draft and start working on the next book. I am so glad I got over the hurdle of just quitting when I am not liking what I write or I would be forever stuck with a lot of starts for things but nothing finished.

So I feel confident in getting Never Kiss out sometime this year and I hope to have the next out in the first half of 2014. If anything it looks for that one it will be more in the way of shortening things instead of having to do the massive rewriting of the first.

Moving along.

Decided to take a bit of a break from writing the first draft of the next book in the Rainstone series. I will still go back to it afterwards though as I feel like I am on a roll with this.

Unlike Never Kiss this draft I have been able to keep ahead of the word goals I have set. I was hoping to have it done by the end of October, but if I keep the pace I have been I could finish before then.

I can only assume this is going easier than the last time because I have had more time to mull over what I wanted to do with the characters. With Never Kiss so much changed with the characters as I was writing it the first draft looks a mess with how things were switched up to match my later ideas. I have yet to run into that issue with this other draft and I think it is that which is making the difference.

I have also begun to do a little bit of re-writing for Never Kiss. Nothing major yet as I do want to focus on one book at a time but I already feel better about it with what I have done so far.

The first step completed!

I actually finished up the first draft for my first book, Never Kiss a Vampire on the First Date, last night but was too tired to write up a blog post. Not that I am all too awake currently either as I am about to turn in for the night.

In any case it is finally complete so I can move onto the next step, writing the first draft for the next book in the series. This is partly because I am having both books set in the same time frame and location as each other and partly to ensure that I take a good break from looking at Never Kiss' first draft before I set to start rewriting it. So for the former it would be good to get them both going around the same time so I can figure out how and when they should overlap with each other and the latter is just a must for the writing process.

Hopefully I will not take as long with the first draft for this second book as I do want to get Never Kiss out before the end of the year.

Not Forsaken

While I have not been updating this blog for quite some time it is hardly because I have not been writing. I am actually getting close to finishing off the first draft of what I am aiming to be the first in a series of short novels, Never Kiss a Vampire On the First Date.

That said I already know that the next draft will have some massive changes to it, as it stands right now this draft is bad. But it is a necessary step and honestly without keeping it moving without going back immediately to re-write anything has lead me to come up with ideas that I love that I had not thought of before.

So far this has been a great learning experience when it comes to writing but I hope to finally move myself past this step for a book and do the whole rewriting process.

Not letting a crack turn into a ravine

Over the past few days I have been more busy than I had planned and missed my goal of writing on my book for a couple of days. In the past this would have made me loose focus and/or faith in writing this book and I would have tried to have shifted to the next. But I have learned since then not to worry so much, even if I think everything I am writing is terrible.

I like to research things I am interested in doing and writing has been no exception. I have combed through the internet to glean some knowledge about the subject and have learned two very important things: you should write daily if you are serious about writing and never worry if your first draft is terrible, because you will re-write it.

Though I did miss two days on writing on my story I did write for the two blogs that I keep about some of my other interests. In fact I cannot remember a day that has ever gone by where I have not written anything. But I do know the only way to get the book I am writing done means I need to treat it on the same level as my blogs: this means writing for it daily.

I can already see parts of my first draft that need to be re-written. A part of me wants to stop and do it immediately, but I know I will never get anywhere if I do so. Instead I force myself to slug on so I can get this draft done. It is better to know where things will end up going before rewriting than otherwise.

This also helps prevent the dreaded writer's block, as if all you care about is putting words on a page rather than fretting if they are any good then you will get somewhere. And the great thing about writing is that it is up to you if you want to share it, so if it is dreadful you can hide it away from others' eyes until you have made it less so.

Keeping these things in mind the writing process becomes much easier.

And I better get back to writing that book now.

Excel to Self-Motivate

One of the issues I have with writing is that I will make a start on something but then get distracted by an idea and leave what I was working on to move onto that new idea. One thing that has been able to keep me on track the few times I have finished something has been keeping daily stats of my progress.

Since I have recently taken a class on Microsoft Excel I figured I could kill two birds with one stone by using the program to not only keep stats to keep me on track but to also help reinforce some of the things I have learned to do with the program.

As I only began writing daily for this first project yesterday the stats are not much to look at, but every time I get to change them makes me happy to see numbers increase. I may not be very good at math but seeing numbers get bigger and knowing it means something positive is not that difficult to follow.

Perhaps when I have finished the first draft I will post the full sheet for my progress for this, but until then I need to go back to writing so I can have some better numbers to show for that.

Typical First Post

In an attempt to get more serious about my writing I decided to open this blog for it so I have something tied to my name as an author.

This blog will be updated from time to time about various topics about my progress in writing. I do have the goal to have something completed this year, which means having the first draft done and rewritten/edited a few times over so I feel confident in having strangers read it. So it will mostly be about that story and my writing process for it.