Some novel thoughts.
The first edit is done. Oh yes, it is done, and with my editor. Having spent a fortnight doing nothing but prodding the thing, I sat down and did a bit of number-crunching on it.
-At the end of NaNoWriMo and 28 days of scribbling, it was 50351 words. It's now 59906, a whopping 273 Word pages (and if I keep an epilogue I'm dithering over, +1500 or so to that).
- There are 24 footnotes. TWENTY FOUR. Look, if you're dealing with local and foreign historical events, obscure Celtic mythological creatures and two bilingual characters, you'd bloody need them too...
- I count 105 swear words (46 fucks and 59 shits, fact fans). This book is not for your mum.
On top of all that, I have:
- 8274 words of Some Other Story that might be not crap
- 1500 words of writing exercises I've been doing since my editor sent me some very good writing books from her MA course so I could rite gud wurdz better
- 7914 words of slash. Oh come on, it was therapeutic or something.
That whole lot is nearly four times the size of my MSc dissertation. And the bulk of it was done in 28 days. This will never cease to astound me.
Now, I've been thinking about this momentous deed quite a bit, in between the whole 'Pete accepted a job and I might be in Edinburgh househunting next week and oh god stop talking to be about conveyancing my eyes are bleeding' thing.
I'm not an arrogant person by nature. In fact, my lights have been fully bushelled over the course of my life. But, you know, I'm coming round to admitting that I ought to be pretty proud of what I've done. The select few that saw the first draft made approving noises (and constructive criticism!); my editor is confident there's a good book sitting here.
But when you're out and about, you learn to man up quite quickly when people flap their mouths at you. 'Oh, you've written a novel! Great!' is always followed by one of the following phrases: 'So what's it about?', 'When's it published?', or 'Can I have a copy?'. All fairly standard questions, yes? Son, let me break this thing down like some kind of authorial FAQ:
- It's an urban fantasy set in 1980's Edinburgh, involving various supernatural creatures and a kid from the wrong side of town. Yeah, that'll do for the goddamn blurb.
- I'VE LITERALLY JUST WRITTEN IT OMG BET TOLKIEN DIDN'T HAVE THIS 'ARE WE THERE YET' CRAP. (I haven't even doodled stick men for the cover or anything -_-)
- The 'can I read it' thing. As I say, I sent a select few my crappy first draft to read. My editor sent somewhere in the region of 30 copies to people, who mostly treated it like 'yay, free book!'. And there's one problem- it will eventually, hopefully, be something that you need to pay for. Also, the more people you send it to, the more risk it propagates more than it ought to before you've finished it, and the more critical voices swarm around with opinions and then it's just confusing. (There will be a few chapters up online soon, though. Promise.)
Let's also not mention that while Mum will get a PDF of it soon, it's...probably not going to be her cup of tea. Likewise Pete's lovely, well-meaning, very Christian co-worker whose father is a fantasy/sci-fi novelist; he's very keen to read it, but he doesn't like sex or graphic violence. He's...not going to be a happy camper.
Now, in no particular order, other things people have said that I'm hitting the 'man the fuck up' button for:
- 'Oh, so you've just rewritten Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman then?'
- 'So there's a man who turns into a seal? Is that not just a mermaid though?'
- 'Your wordcount went up? Wow, I thought edits were meant to reduce words, not add them.'
- 'Wow, congratulations! All I did today was [tedious details of well-paid regular full-time job].'
Son, I'm going to have to lay down the law here.
- Doing original ideas is hard! A large chunk of this thing owes itself to a prog-rock album, for crying out loud. Also, I have a whole other rant about Gaiman stored up, but suffice to say I read the thing after people harped on about it, and if my book is like that, I kind of want one of my characters to roundhouse kick me in the face until I can write better than that. THERE I SAID IT.
- If people would like to be Comic Book Guy with me over mythical creatures they've not spent months researching, my care cup is officially empty.
- Yes, it turns out bits were thin and needed words added, and some words were replaced with better words. I AM AWARE OF THE CONCEPT OF SIZE. Some would say the line between novella and novel is 60-70k words anyway, but to them I say Of Mice And Men. Yeah.
- How about fuck off.
And here's the big revelation. Every time a backhanded compliment sails into view, or Arsehole McDouche turns up with a lifestyle dick size contest, there's really only one reply: 'yes, but I wrote a novel.' And it feels good.
You just got some overpriced laminate flooring? That's great, but I wrote a novel.
You want to shout in my face at a party about Scottish independence until my husband faints? You're a Tory asswipe who has not written a novel.
You want to turn into Captain Aspergers' Pedant's Corner over something you've not read yet in case it's as pants as 50 Shades (and by Jove, I hope it's not)? Have you written a novel today, good sir?
You want to turn a statement of achievement into open season on dickwaving, because you spend 35 hours a week facerolling code into a machine? That's Kool and the Gang, but I WROTE A MOTHERFUCKING NOVEL.
Oh, and I'm an editor now too, guys, because my editor's second book is out at the end of the month and she somehow trusted me with the virtual red pen of Track Changes and I did quite well. Adding 'editor of wurdz' to the creative writing CV in my head.
So, I wrote a novel, you guys. This year, it will be published. Later this year, there's an outside chance it goes to Malta ComiCon with
pinkapplejam and her wares, as we make a pilgrimage to visit my lovely editor. And that feels pretty good amid all the Project Scotland move.
Incidentally, I've been secretly beavering away on a book blog similar to my editor's, so watch this space. But, y'know, NOVELS, EH.
Also available at cryptogirl.dreamwidth.org :D
-At the end of NaNoWriMo and 28 days of scribbling, it was 50351 words. It's now 59906, a whopping 273 Word pages (and if I keep an epilogue I'm dithering over, +1500 or so to that).
- There are 24 footnotes. TWENTY FOUR. Look, if you're dealing with local and foreign historical events, obscure Celtic mythological creatures and two bilingual characters, you'd bloody need them too...
- I count 105 swear words (46 fucks and 59 shits, fact fans). This book is not for your mum.
On top of all that, I have:
- 8274 words of Some Other Story that might be not crap
- 1500 words of writing exercises I've been doing since my editor sent me some very good writing books from her MA course so I could rite gud wurdz better
- 7914 words of slash. Oh come on, it was therapeutic or something.
That whole lot is nearly four times the size of my MSc dissertation. And the bulk of it was done in 28 days. This will never cease to astound me.
Now, I've been thinking about this momentous deed quite a bit, in between the whole 'Pete accepted a job and I might be in Edinburgh househunting next week and oh god stop talking to be about conveyancing my eyes are bleeding' thing.
I'm not an arrogant person by nature. In fact, my lights have been fully bushelled over the course of my life. But, you know, I'm coming round to admitting that I ought to be pretty proud of what I've done. The select few that saw the first draft made approving noises (and constructive criticism!); my editor is confident there's a good book sitting here.
But when you're out and about, you learn to man up quite quickly when people flap their mouths at you. 'Oh, you've written a novel! Great!' is always followed by one of the following phrases: 'So what's it about?', 'When's it published?', or 'Can I have a copy?'. All fairly standard questions, yes? Son, let me break this thing down like some kind of authorial FAQ:
- It's an urban fantasy set in 1980's Edinburgh, involving various supernatural creatures and a kid from the wrong side of town. Yeah, that'll do for the goddamn blurb.
- I'VE LITERALLY JUST WRITTEN IT OMG BET TOLKIEN DIDN'T HAVE THIS 'ARE WE THERE YET' CRAP. (I haven't even doodled stick men for the cover or anything -_-)
- The 'can I read it' thing. As I say, I sent a select few my crappy first draft to read. My editor sent somewhere in the region of 30 copies to people, who mostly treated it like 'yay, free book!'. And there's one problem- it will eventually, hopefully, be something that you need to pay for. Also, the more people you send it to, the more risk it propagates more than it ought to before you've finished it, and the more critical voices swarm around with opinions and then it's just confusing. (There will be a few chapters up online soon, though. Promise.)
Let's also not mention that while Mum will get a PDF of it soon, it's...probably not going to be her cup of tea. Likewise Pete's lovely, well-meaning, very Christian co-worker whose father is a fantasy/sci-fi novelist; he's very keen to read it, but he doesn't like sex or graphic violence. He's...not going to be a happy camper.
Now, in no particular order, other things people have said that I'm hitting the 'man the fuck up' button for:
- 'Oh, so you've just rewritten Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman then?'
- 'So there's a man who turns into a seal? Is that not just a mermaid though?'
- 'Your wordcount went up? Wow, I thought edits were meant to reduce words, not add them.'
- 'Wow, congratulations! All I did today was [tedious details of well-paid regular full-time job].'
Son, I'm going to have to lay down the law here.
- Doing original ideas is hard! A large chunk of this thing owes itself to a prog-rock album, for crying out loud. Also, I have a whole other rant about Gaiman stored up, but suffice to say I read the thing after people harped on about it, and if my book is like that, I kind of want one of my characters to roundhouse kick me in the face until I can write better than that. THERE I SAID IT.
- If people would like to be Comic Book Guy with me over mythical creatures they've not spent months researching, my care cup is officially empty.
- Yes, it turns out bits were thin and needed words added, and some words were replaced with better words. I AM AWARE OF THE CONCEPT OF SIZE. Some would say the line between novella and novel is 60-70k words anyway, but to them I say Of Mice And Men. Yeah.
- How about fuck off.
And here's the big revelation. Every time a backhanded compliment sails into view, or Arsehole McDouche turns up with a lifestyle dick size contest, there's really only one reply: 'yes, but I wrote a novel.' And it feels good.
You just got some overpriced laminate flooring? That's great, but I wrote a novel.
You want to shout in my face at a party about Scottish independence until my husband faints? You're a Tory asswipe who has not written a novel.
You want to turn into Captain Aspergers' Pedant's Corner over something you've not read yet in case it's as pants as 50 Shades (and by Jove, I hope it's not)? Have you written a novel today, good sir?
You want to turn a statement of achievement into open season on dickwaving, because you spend 35 hours a week facerolling code into a machine? That's Kool and the Gang, but I WROTE A MOTHERFUCKING NOVEL.
Oh, and I'm an editor now too, guys, because my editor's second book is out at the end of the month and she somehow trusted me with the virtual red pen of Track Changes and I did quite well. Adding 'editor of wurdz' to the creative writing CV in my head.
So, I wrote a novel, you guys. This year, it will be published. Later this year, there's an outside chance it goes to Malta ComiCon with
pinkapplejam and her wares, as we make a pilgrimage to visit my lovely editor. And that feels pretty good amid all the Project Scotland move.
Incidentally, I've been secretly beavering away on a book blog similar to my editor's, so watch this space. But, y'know, NOVELS, EH.
Also available at cryptogirl.dreamwidth.org :D