Well, a lot.

I finished A Far Sun, finally. Five volumes, with the last one still hovering around 143K words. Each of the other books were around 100K plus or minus. I know there's probably a good 10-15K I can cut, but I'm letting the story mellow in the barrel for a while, while I work on a couple other projects.

I've picked up Rider in the ( Read more... )

I've been gone from here so long, I'm sure everyone thought I must be dead. But no, I'm just busy.

I have just reached the end of the second volume (er, book?) in my story A Far Sun. I split the story in two when it became very clear it wasn't going to end anywhere near the vicinity of 100K words: Book 1 is 117K, and just yesterday I finished book 2 ( Read more... )

I have posted here in ages. I've been incredibly busy at work, and something had to go. This, given I wasn't going to jeopardize progress on my story.

The numbers: 178K words, but we have the ending in sight! I know it's way too long, but it's a really good story (yeah, I know I'm biased). I also know it will get smaller in the second draft, because ( Read more... )

Many of you probably know about Michael Stackpole's newsletter and podcast.

He mentions in a recent podcast episode that you should avoid going back and editing while you are still writing your book. That is, before you're done writing it. He suggests making voluminous notes about the changes you make as you are writing that will impact stuff you ( Read more... )

I've been writing in " A Far Sun" like crazy, though it seems I'm not making much progress on the base story, itself. I wrote a long scene between two of my characters that I knew wouldn't make it into the "final cut" because it contained overt adult-themed content, and I got an inspiration and wrote the ending.

I know, I wrote it out of sequence, ( Read more... )

I just got the latest Holly Lisle email missive. Subscribe or not subscribe--it's up to you. One item she addresses in this issue involves a writer who (quite possibly) over-outlines her work. Yes, I would agree that outlining to that much detail does take all the fun out of the writing. Cripes, I could argue not to outline, much, if at all. I am ( Read more... )

Cross-posted to my other blog.

Let's see if I can summarize what's going on:

• I've been figuring out who the Librarians were/are (as a group). Determining the history of the place, the people who were there originally, and the subsequent 'history' of what happened after. The Librarians call the disease 'the Pathogen.' How nice.
• The pseudo-scientist in ( Read more... )

I originally posted this the other day; I'm un-privatizing it today ( Read more... )

In the process of creating the sun-skin language for my story, "A Far Sun," I ran into a few wrinkles. So, in the interests of passing on what I learned, here are some notes and suggestions that some might find applicable:

• Figure out how you will conjugate the huge category of what I call "helping verbs." I can walk, I may sleep. I should eat cheese ( Read more... )

Cross-posted to my other blog.

It's been a while since I blogged progress on my story, "A Far Sun." But now I'm moving again on the story, and I'm about 20-25 pages into act III. It's hard to estimate exactly, because I have a bunch of pages already written that aren't yet woven into the greater story, yet.

I had a lot to think about, and in the ( Read more... )