Dragons have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My father told us bedtime stories about an unusual dragon he met while boating in Lake Michigan. My parents were Peter, Paul, and Mary fans, so Puff the Magic Dragon was a common song on our many road trips. Even Elliot made an impression as he tried to rescue Pete from slavery in the Disney movie, Pete’s Dragon.

Since those days, I’ve been introduced to mechanical dragons in real life, the thought that dinosaur bones could have begun the belief in dragons in the first place, wise dragons, horrible dragons, dragons that were brought to life through myth and magic and those crafted by genetic science. I can’t imagine a world without dragons in it, whether you hold to the Smaug image of a monstrous creature that hoards treasure and eats people, the helpmates of Pern, or the wise creatures who try to steer humanity in the proper direction only to fail time after time. (more…)

Belated update? I did finally finish the last steps of But a Pretty Bauble this week. The second draft ending word count is just shy of 80k at 79,841.

In case you’re curious, besides a spell check in which I found some introduced errors as well as a few I just missed going through manually, my list included the following:
Note: These are small enough that they should not constitute spoilers, and it’s a glimpse into my process.

1. Clan not Tribe for the dragonkind
2. Hiba’s eyes
3. What is the side of power for the king?
4. How far is it to the mine?
5. Hiba needs to call her father the king sometimes
6. Make sure the dragonkind never use the term nomad for themselves.
7. Check the frequency of "then"
8. Verify no contractions in narrative?
9. Check for "was not"
10. Check for "had had"
11. Chairs in Kader’s study. Either at the desk or gone from the table.

This list came about because I noticed patterns in my fixes that I may not have been as aware of from the beginning.

Simple ones like 1,2,5,6, and 11 are often items where I started out one way and ended up deciding to make a change. Those I may jot down on the continuity sheet of my world building spreadsheet during writing, or they may be an unconscious change that I notice during the first edit pass. I added this sheet to my process because of my copyediting work as I would have to note down the discontinuities so I could get a preferred value and track whether I’d made the fix. However, that made so much sense and worked so well that I ended up applying it to my work as well.

For word frequency or things like 8, 10, and 11, what I’ll do is a search and replace with highlighted word for the offending item. Then I change the page size to 45% or lower…something that allows me to see frequency across a number of pages. When I find a cluster of the highlight marks, I flip back to readable with my cursor on that page and see what I want to do in context. Sometimes the frequency is appropriate after all, and globally changing anything just leads to jerky writing.

The contractions in the narrative decision was a toughie for me. Yes, I LITERALLY searched for a single quote mark through the whole document and wasn’t that fun. This was something I had never faced, or at least not in a long while, because I do use contractions in the narrative normally. However, something in this particular book called for a more formal style outside of dialogue. I won’t know if that was a good or bad call until I get feedback, but for right now, it’s what I went with.

And then the distance to the mine? That was pure idiocy. This idea came on me hard and fast, I rushed through the prep, and jumped into the writing like a thirsty nomad falls onto the sand before an oasis to cup some of the precious liquid between his hands. Some simple things, like recording the distance where I could find it and prevent continuity issues before they were born, got lost in the mad race to have this story take form beneath my flying fingers.

So, there’s a glimpse into my editing process. But I’ll tell you, the most important part of all is simple: Even after focusing so totally on this draft to get it edited by the deadline I had set, the story still resonates. That spark that drove it into my mind still lingers on the page…for me at least.

Okay, I know it’s been a while since I gave a real update for Coma Wedding. But a Pretty Bauble was the higher priority project and I’m lousy at updating. But here’s the thing. Coma Wedding is rolling along merrily. At the end of last week, I took some time to update the outline so it’s now in pretty much final form (open to change of course as it always is) and now have a reasonable belief that the final length will be around 110k. It’s an interesting length, but within limits of the type of book (so crossover it ends up being mainstream ).

This has been an odd book from the start. First it comes and grabs me when I wasn’t writing anything, then I started NaNo without finishing the outline (and it was in lousy shape for the part I needed then), and when I reached the end of NaNo, I was dead. So I stopped entirely and blamed the book. But it wasn’t the book, it was me. So now here I am racing along at frequent 1500 or better writing mornings, something generally unheard of.

I like this book. I like the characters, I like the tangles, and I even like the fact that it’s a paranormal, time travel, romance, coming of age novel about finding yourself.

So, the big news in my rambling is that the outline is complete, I’m on target for finishing by March 15th, and maybe even early. I have 7 scenes to go and am completing a scene a day pretty consistently.

And it even has a real title. The title is just as strange as the book, so who knows…it might stick: Once Upon a Coma.

And stats:
New Words: 1488 words
80 scenes
73 complete – 91% of the novel
7 Scenes remain
9457 Remaining word count
108084 Estimated length – with an average of 1351 words per scene.
98627 Current Total

Today signals the end of the first edit pass on But a Pretty Bauble.  All told, it was pretty easy, though I do have doubts about the overall, and about the ending in specific.

Am I ready to release it to critters? No.

I have a couple steps still to do:

1) I have one note of something I need to seed better in the beginning because it becomes crucial.
2) I have 7 continuity elements to check from the time it takes them to get to the mine and back to whether the dragonkind ever refer to themselves as nomads, to an overuse of the word "then."  Those will be fun to squirrel out :p.

Honestly, considering it was a raw rough draft, that’s not a heck of a lot.  I added less than 5k in new text as I edited, though, and some sections were rewritten from scratch.

The oddest part of this was the outline.  Often I’ll update things that change, but there were many scenes that when I read the outline blurb, I expected a continuity nightmare.  The writing didn’t reflect this at all, but the difference between the writing and the blurb gave an interesting peek into just how the story had changed.

Anyway, the point is that it has moved to the next level.  It’ll be interesting to see the reactions.

And stats:
Edited Today: 2,497 words
29 Chapters complete – 105% of the novel
0 Chapters remain
-3,891 Remaining word count
79,483 Current Total
75,592 Original Total
 

As a writer, I find myself gaining comfort in the oddest things. Today, I made myself cry. Not outright balling, but a tightened chest and watery eyes as the words on the page twisted my heart.

Now this is a novel I wrote. This is a novel that I know the ending to and already know that it’ll come out all right.

So I have to wonder at the words affecting me, and hope that they’ll affect all my readers in the same way.

I’m having some difficulty with But a Pretty Bauble. It’s the kind of difficulty most writers claim to want with all their hearts, but facing the possibility in reality is nothing to write home about.

I have made some line-level changes, though there are whole pages that are "perfect," and have caught only one continuity error, a minor one. I’m swept up in the story, and this first draft is so far from raw that it’s unbelievable.

Which is where I get to the problem. Have I achieved the impossible and produced an almost perfect draft (in comparison at least)? Or am I still, after letting it sit for three years, too close to the story to see the flaws?

When I weep, is it because I know how this should be, or because identifying with Hiba in this moment is impossible to avoid with what I managed to get on the page?

I’m not used to being this confident in a book, and at the same time having so little confidence . But only time…and critters…will tell.

And stats (Note that I’ve passed the halfway point ):

Edited Today: 6,301 words

16 Chapters complete – 59% of the novel

13 Chapters remain

30,773 Remaining word count

44,819 Current Total

77,493 Predicted Total

P.S. One of these years I’ll do a complete Coma Wedding update.  As it stands, I’m moving forward and nearer to the point where I haven’t finished the outline .

Umm, did I say less complicated? My goodness I believe in layers. I am now about a third of the way into But a Pretty Bauble. I am finding nothing major (probably a sign I can’t see them without help) and enjoying the story. It’s funny to see how the story mutated away from the outline though. Hiba was supposed to be a spoiled princess with nothing but fluff between her ears, sort of a Middle Ages chick lit heroine. Well, that didn’t work. She’s innocent and ignorant, but mostly because she’s led a sheltered life, and boy does she try hard . And Bab is full of himself and so confident, right up until he’s proved wrong. He accepts the correction well, while holding himself to blame for failing to realize it in the first place.

My absolute favorite parts so far? I’d have to say Bab and Faysal arguing, but Hiba and her father runs a close second, and heck, I like it all. Even the bad guy is…well…bad .

So yes, while the uncomplicated part might not have worked out as well as I’d hoped, it’s funny and fun.

I’m taking Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways class (http://howtothinksideways.com/members/?rid=190), which is a lot of work and definitely worth it. One of the things she has us look at is our interest areas. If I hadn’t done that just a couple of months ago, I might not have noticed, but But a Pretty Bauble has a lot in common with Shadows of the Sun, as crazy as that may sound.

Now to be clear, Shadow of the Sun = sociological science fiction novel in which two sapient species conflict in a bloody and fatal manner when unaware humans breathe on the embers of a centuries-old conflict that has slipped largely into myth. So, aliens, another planet, jungle, islands, water, fish, humans, scientists, linguistics…

But a Pretty Bauble = fantasy novel where a small time kingdom fights with nomads over the right to mine jewels in the desert. So, humans (mostly ), this planet, desert, limited water, no fish, pre-industrial.

They sound like the spitting image of each other, don’t they?

Except…both are clashes of culture with lives on the line. Both have misunderstanding built out of secrecy started for protection, and while in one the third party is ignorant and in the other he knows exactly what he’s doing, in both there’s someone outside of the conflict who eggs it on.

Some day, I’m going to be great fodder for a literature class .

And stats:
Edited Today: 5,491 words
11 Chapters complete – 38% of the novel
18 Chapters remain
46,538 Remaining word count
29,054 Current Total
76,836 Predicted Total

It’s been a while since anyone has seen this title cross my posts, but I thought a short, fun fantasy might be just the ticket before I tackle another big one.

I went back to reread my early posts about But a Pretty Bauble, and they make me tremble for what’s to come.  That said, at least this time I can feel the shape of the novel, the weight of it pressing against my hands.

So far I have edited the first four chapters.  The main characters have all been introduced, the main conflict and major secondary conflict have floated across the page…umm, make that two secondary conflicts…and I’m certainly not hating it.  I think this is a novel I’ll require outside feedback on before I can tell if it works or not.  We’ll see.  I may be able to see major issues as I get further in.

At one-seventh of the way, though, I’m tweaking, clarifying, and cleaning up some truly horrendous NaNo prose, but seeing no major changes at all.  Oh, and I am faithfully murdering sentence-level darlings that still resonate, but just don’t work with what surrounds them.

Whatever happens, I think it’ll be a fun excursion from my normally more complicated texts.

And stats:
Edited Today: 4,644 words
4 Chapters complete – 14% of the novel
46 Chapters remain
64,714 Remaining word count
10,878 Current Total
76,253 Predicted Total
 

Hmm, I’m leaving the original post below the same because I think it is funny. Just went back to check my journal and I never blogged The Great Selkie at all. I was thinking about it, considering starting my LJ as a novel process journal with Selkie, but ultimately I didn’t get around to it. So I have no idea what my process was besides this:

Selkie appeared fully formed in the shower one morning, inspired by Judy Collins’ version of The Great Selkie, a traditional folksong…and therefore not a happy go lucky one. I wrote the synopsis, and like But a Pretty Bauble, ended up with a novel pretty quickly if I remember correctly. The comments I made were enough to interest several of my writing friends who have been plaguing me for the chance to crit it. So finally, I’ve come full circle and Selkie is on my editing plate.

I’m currently in the first read through state, which is what I describe below. The plan is to read the whole novel in two weeks, take a week off, and jump into editing with the ultimate hope of completing the edit by the end of February. Don’t know how realistic that is, but it is the goal.

Original post:

Okay, it’s been a while, but it is finally time to revisit Selkie. It’s up for my next big edit pass. Right now I’m rereading it and I’m happy to say it isn’t awful. Actually, it’s pretty darn good to my eye . The odd sentence makes me laugh or cry, which is a good sign.

But what’s funny is that I’m so removed from the story that it has the ability to surprise me. I remembered the generals, but not that it had sex scenes (oh my!) and a strong thread of religion. I’ve had a busy time since I wrote Selkie and maybe that whole thing about a minimum of three months or writing another novel works really well. Of course I’ve written a number of novels since Selkie, but it make me wonder if all of them will come as a surprise.

Anyway, I don’t know how frequent the posts will be, but it seems only appropriate to continue blogging the very first novel that ever showed up here.

Well, thanks for playing folks. Ride’s over. Exit is to your right (and yes, I wrote “write” first).

This has been a wild and crazy run. I had this idea mid September, I managed to forget it existed, and still the novel has gone from conception as a synopsis to outlined to written in just about 2 months time. Do I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written? Well, who knows, but it’s certainly a fun tale. I guess I don’t have to worry about percolation time. I thought Selkie was a fluke simply because the song has been part of my life since I learned it out of my Judy Collins song book when I was in my early teens. But a Pretty Bauble throws that out the window. It also tells me that the ton of old ideas waiting for me to come up with time to bring them to life may just have to wait. The ones that screamed to be done are largely finished and I’m getting new ones that apparently don’t need to sit around for 2+ years before they’re ready to cover the page.

The novel I’m thinking of starting to finish out NaNo (so I can keep my 2nd to 3rd page ranking ) is one that came to me a long time ago. A romance novel that was supposed to be my NaNo anyway so it’s appropriate to tack it on the end. I’m sure I won’t finish it, but I’ll have a nice jump for next year.

And stats:
61 scenes
61 complete – 100% of the novel
0 Scenes remain
0 Remaining word count
75592 Estimated length – with an average of 1239 words per scene.
75592 Current Total

Hum, I guess I’ve been a little frantic preparing for NaNo and cleaning up a bunch of lose ends, so I forgot to post about this novel.

A quick update then.

First off, the outline is complete and currently at 54 scenes. It was only 53, but one scene has already split into two as often happens. The word count for the outline stands at 9846 and the total world building including the outline is 14,611. As this indicates, I tend to do the majority of my world building within my actual outline. One reason for so much extra is the character building marathon I mentioned in the original post. I took Holly Lisle’s Character Clinic and started working through it for my characters. I normally let the elements of the characters come out in their own sweet time, but as an experiment, I found this very interesting. Some things came out that I didn’t know, things that helped the novel immensely.

In my original post, I mentioned my concerns about the spoiled princess. Though I didn’t explicitly state it, she came across to me as a chic lit type character full of flash and sarcasm. That image became harder and harder for me to hold onto for good reason. She isn’t spoiled at all, not in the traditional sense. She’s had her father’s complete attention for most of her life, but this is because he clings to his memories of her mother, who died when she was two, and she tries to make up for that loss by being his helpmate, his comfort when the sorrow overwhelms.

This didn’t change the essential events she undergoes in the story, but turns the nature of certain scenes from a temper tantrum to anger held as a shield from despair. The original thought still comes into play, but it’s not true to her, it’s how others perceive her. This makes it easier to bond to her as the main character and helps make trouble where things could have run quite smoothly, so I’m happy.

Based on the outline, this novel is running in the 65k-78k range, and based on the content, I’m thinking a YA fantasy. For NaNo, this is ideal because I can bring in a novel that exceeds the goals but not by so much that I’ll be drained trying to finish it off in one month. So far, I’m about a third done and the story is moving along nicely. Another character has popped up just to be obnoxious and managed to wend his way through as somewhat of a bad guy in a novel about misconception and culture clash. It was a bad enough situation, but Prince Chori is there to make it worse .

The question of POVs has been resolved and Faysal is doomed to find his voice in another novel. I love his character, but this novel does not play to his strengths, nor does he play a critical part. Instead, his brother gets the voice as both the Romeo to Hiba’s Juliet and the one willing to reach out despite differences that seem overwhelming.

Finally, what makes this novel an interesting experiment is its timeline. As I said above, I don’t normally do much world building, but part of the reason for that is because the world becomes alive to me as it stews in the back of my mind, sometimes for a significant number of years. Not so But a Pretty Bauble. No, this story came into being and whipped its way to the front of the line in less than 2 full months. As if that wasn’t enough, those two months were chock full of “must completes.” For the first time, I look at a scene and wonder what’s the taste of it, the feel of it. The room, the people, don’t exist until the moment I put my fingers on the keys. This has proved annoying for sure and is making the act of writing more difficult than expected. Still, it’s something I need to know. Can I successfully complete a new story in this kind of timeline? Only time (and not a lot of it ) can tell. I will say so far with this experiment that it has made my confidence shaky. I know the overall shape of the novel, but not the heft. Without that, I can’t see whether or not it’s working, something that is frustrating to the extreme.

Anyway, enough blathering. Since I posted it at the NaNo site, I might as well share one small, very raw, snippet for your enjoyment. And the stats are at the bottom of course .

Faysal = elected nomad leader and brother of the love interest.
Bab = love interest

Faysal shook his head. “This is an old argument, but its time is past. It’s too late for talk. They’ve intruded on our desert and spilled our blood, taken our lives. Now we have to teach them a lesson not even their descendants will forget.”

Cloaked in the aura of clan leader, Faysal strode back to the nearest entrance, his moment of grief and weakness cast aside. Bab stared after him, a bitter, sick feeling in his chest. “But what if that lesson costs us everything, brother? What then?” He asked the questions to the wind, for Faysal had already gone back to planning his next attack, the one that would cripple the land-churners forever…except nothing seemed to do that.

And stats:
54 scenes
23 complete – 43% of the novel
31 Scenes remain
37483 Remaining word count
65293 Estimated length – with an average of 1209 words per scene.
27810 Current Total