Brain-strain is absolutely the worst, isn’t it? I spent possibly a half hour too long concentrating on the dang book, and now I have a wizzo of a headache. All of which argues that I should get some sleep, let the old grey matter relax, and so forth.
Still: got up to Chapter 14 of GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND. About halfway done, and after that I can block out what still needs to be written. Huzzah!
Right now I’m reading the text, noting characters and places on a spreadsheet. Basically, I want to make sure that everybody I introduce gets their status resolved, one way or the other – and since GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND is a spooky science fiction novel, a lot of those statuses are going to be fatal ones. Also, if I need to kill somebody off in the parts I haven’t written yet, who better than a character I’ve introduced already?
Finally, the book has plot holes. I need to fill them, but first I need to see and identify them. This requires a fresh look at the text as a whole… but you can only do so much of that before your eyes start to glaze over.
Two main ones, really. I need to get FALLING WALLS OF LUNACY finished up (that’s the Kickstarter reward from TINSEL RAIN: Lovecraftian horror on the moon!), and I need to get GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND into alpha reader draft form. I think the total wordage necessary would be no more than twenty thousand, which sounds doable in a month, but I guess we’ll find out by December 31st. I will probably be spending the weekend taking a hard look at both, and trying to block out how to handle each job.
Yay. …Sorry. It’s just that this is the non-sexy part of writing.
#commissionearned
It’s not a financial thing, fortunately (the money pools should be refilled by then, no worries). It’s a “this book needs about 10K more words than I expected” thing. I’m going to aim for a new target of 90K, which isn’t really hard but I’ll need time to get in draft shape. So I’ll be integrating what I have for the rest of the month, ‘take time off’ to write the new Tom Vargas novel for NaNoWriMo*, then probably spend December getting the rest of GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND ready for my first reader.
A book a year ain’t bad, anyway.
*New working title: BANSHEE BEACH.
#commissionearned
Gotta start tinkering with what’s left, make it all fit. This book might end up being a little longer after all.
Continue reading 10/26/2022 Revisions, GHOST ON AN ALIEN WIND: 75100/80000Interestingly, that’s 74K words on the nose. It was 73,998 when I finished the section, so I added two more words where they’d do the most good. Just for the look of it, I guess.
Continue reading 10/25/2022 Revisions, GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND: 74000/80000Ehh. Baronial meeting, D&D game, had to check out the youngest’s Halloween costume, had to check out the eldest’s Halloween costume, helped film the eldest’s Halloween home movie, did groceries – today was a busy day. I’m surprised I got in as many words as I did.
We are moving along!
Continue reading 10/22/2022 Revision, GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND: 72600/80000.
