Progress has been slow this last year. Book one in Jane and her robots series is close to ready for publication but awaits completion of the second book. Book two first draft is at 30k words (goal is around 60-70k).
My day job is writing-related, and it has taken a toll on my creativity surplus. I have also been troubled with headaches several times a week much of this last year. I have had more success on my writing this last month, and I’m therefore hopeful for the future. My goal is to have the first draft of book two done by the summer of 22 (no promises)
Progress on Jane and her robots book two has been slow the last month (AKA not done any writing), but I have spent some time working on another project (temporarily named sky) that’s in early development.
I wanted some portraits of the main cast of Jane and her robots. I got help from Boomi_art, a freelance illustrator and concept artist, and the result is, in my opinion, very close to what I had envisioned. To begin with, I have gotten portraits of Jane and Mej. And hope to get more made soon.
Today I got a bit of writing inspiration. So I am warming up by writing this post, and hopefully, I can get some actual story writing afterward. Time will show.
Christmas is closing in and it’s high time for an update. The last time I posted was in May and I had just started working with my editor Beth. The process went very well and I got to improve book one in many ways. Beth is a seasoned editor and took really good care of me and my book. I make teaching materials for a living and had lots of problems with dyslexia as a kid. So I’m used to getting feedback and edits on my non-fiction writing. Getting edited for my fiction writing was a new experience and both challenging and a blast to work though.
rendition of Mej made by faith_159
I spent most of the summer revisioning my manuscript and sent it back for proofreading.
The manuscript came back after proofreading and I went through it with a fine-tooth comb. After that my book was done. Well not really, there are always improvements, and as I’m writing book two there are some details that I need to alter to book one. Beth recommended that I not publish book one until I had finished book two, I agreed with her, and since this is a passion project and not my day job it’s something I can do.
After “finishing” book one, I needed a break, and have only worked intermittently with book two since. I have also spent some time flushing out some other related stories, but this is very long term stuff that very well might never see the light of day. With 2020 soon history I hope and believe that I will have more energy and creativity to write more in the coming months. But time will tell. Merry Christmas and hope you are well out there.
With Corona and everything, things have gone slow lately. But I’m now glad to be able to announce that I have found an editor to help with book one. Her name is Beth and she will help me with copy editing and proofreading. She has a lot of experience and I think we will work well together.
A talented editor doesn’t guaranty a successful book. There is just so much they can do if the concept and draft they are given are rubbish. So the question is how good my drafts and story are, to begin with. As you might guess this is both a scary and exhilarating process.
I still have two days to work the manuscript before handing it over for copy editing. So there will be some late evenings to get everything ready.
I will get the manuscript back in a few weeks and will then have some time to work though the feedback and suggestions before the proofreading stage.
Because there are so many that are writing books these days I have not even tried contacting a publisher. I don’t have any delusions about how hard it is to write a good book and get a chance with a publisher. Especially for a new writer like my self, this would be a tall order. So self-publishing is the route I have chosen. I, therefore, pay the editor out of my own pocket. But having seen how much improvement the story got just from my beta-readers feedback and my own revisions. I’m sure that it will be money well spent to get a professional working on it as well.
I will post again when I get the manuscript in return.
I’ve been working slowly towards finishing draft no 3 of book one (sorry for no update in a while). Now that’s complete, and I’m going to send it away to an editor. I’ve got some good leads on freelance editors that I might work well with. I suspect that the next weeks might be exciting.
Self-editing has been useful, but also laborious exercise; it’s so easy to read yourself blind in the text (adding in words that are not there). It’s also a challenge to get it right when the language you write in is a second language. To help me out, I used text-to-speech software. It helped tremendously in sniff out spelling mistakes and also to my surprise to highlight sentenced that were too long or did not flow well. Add on some format cleaning, and it’s a rather significant improvement over the last revision (hopefully). There is still a lot to improve with the editor, but I feel that the project is on the right path.
Keeping track of the characters can be difficult. Character information sheets help a lot.
I’m working on several fronts simultaneously at the moment. This reduces the overall speed I can do each task, but I think that it’s the best way forward. The status on the different fronts is as follows.
I’m working on doing the second draft revision of the first book before I send it to an editor.
I know my draft needs some love and attention from someone more professional than me. So, I have done some research trying to find a suitable editor for my book. An editor is one of the biggest expenses with my writing project, and the external input is so valuable to be able to raise the quality to the next level. So this is both an exciting and scary process.
I’m working on a publication plan to publish the first book this autumn. The work with the editor will hopefully show if that is an attainable timeframe or not. I’m also working to find possible reviewers to send ARK copies to when that time comes.
A good cover is essential to catch people’s attention. As a new writer, this is even more important. So I’m working to find the right artist I think can help me get the spirit of the book out on a single page.
I’m still working with a few beta readers to get more input on the first book.
I’m currently working on the first draft of the second book. I’m about 18 000 words in, so hopefully, the first draft will be done sometime after the summer.
I have sent the first six chapters of the second book to my primary alpha reader. She helped me with alpha and beta reading of the first book and knows the story well. I’m curious to find out what she thinks of the direction the second book will take.
Lastly, I’m collecting character information as I am doing the revisions. There is a lot of details that I’m unable to remember. Keeping track of the most important is something I should have done from the start, but now is better than never.
So that’s the status mid-February 2020. It’s a lot more moving parts now that I’m done with the first draft of the first book. But it’s interesting to learn all the different things that are needed to transition a draft to be a full-fledged book ready for publication.
When I wrote the first draft for book one, I did not have a clear image of how a lot of the areas would look like. I could imagine the specific places that the characters visit in the book very well. But not the spaces in between them.
My story happens within a valley close to a big city. The valley has a big flat area of suburbs and farm areas in the middle. There are villages in the hills on both sides of the valley. At one end, the city propper starts, and at the other is a dam keeping back Twin lake.
So parallel with revisioning book one, and starting on book two, I have been looking for artists to make drawings of the valley. I plan to include the best in the book as a reference. I also wanted it as content on my webpage. And even to help me with visualizing the valley myself (I might have to call it something other than the village. I’m sure that it will sort itself out soon enough). This is the first artist’s rendition of the valley (name pending). And I must say, there is a lot to like about it.
Welcome to this first post on my brand new author webpage. It’s been one and a half years since I started on my little writing project. I started writing mostly to see if I could (and because I read a published book that was so rubbish that I knew I could do better, well I thought I could do better). And it worked. I wrote a book and are now working to revise it.
Since you are here, why not have a look at my first chapter. It’s still very much a beta version. But maybe it can be fun.
