84,000 words… the urge to resist rushing the last few chapters

Half of me wants just wants to write “The End” and knock it on the head. But I am currently at a stage where the story simply won’t let me. Sometimes a plot will not allow you to end a book whenever you feel like it. When I began this journey nearly eight months ago I had a very definitive beginning middle and end. Because I intend for this to be a trilogy there are key elements of both character development and plot that have to be told in order to set up the next two books. What I can say with certainty is this. The next book will not take so long to write. There is no better teacher than experience and learning how to write a novel, good or bad, has taught me more in eight months than I could ever have learned on pure theory. I am both excited and saddened by approaching the end of my book. My greatest fear is looking back at the mess that will be the first five to ten thousand words. (Clean up on aisle three). I know that it’s all over the place but I am confident that I can clean it up when the first draft is locked into scrivener. A note on Scrivener by the way. It’s awesome. Simple as that. If you don’t have it. Invest in it. You need it. See you at the finish line !. Colin

77,000 words.. the home stretch

Ok we’re at 77,000 words and counting. At this stage of the novel writing process I am conscious of heating it up. We all love the run in. The last 100 or so pages need to be furious page turners. I love the last 100. Where you can’t sleep or eat or talk until you know what happens. The scene is set, the orchestra rented.. Now it’s time to see if you can dance !.. If you will excuse me I have to get back to work. 😉

Twenty days to completion of the first draft.

2,000 words a day.. lets kick it up a gear

The final third of this book is going to be an intense writing experience. I have set a target of 2,000 words a day which mean that in theory the first draft of the novel will be completed in the next 20 days. Realistically that will probably pan out to 30 days but the end of November was a key target for me to complete it. Blogging is going to have to take a back seat while I tackle this puppy because every word has to count. Finish your novel strong and with determination. I have looked back over the first quarter of it and have to admit.. My spelling is sinful ..

Write on

Colin

64,000 words.. hated characters

One of my characters has turned out to be a real pain in the ass. His arc has gone nowhere and while I could simply kill him off I keep thinking that is just a cop out. I can’t just hide him in a closet for the rest of the book because he had a primary role in the story. Maybe that’s a normal thing when writing a novel. I have no idea as this is my first one. He is currently exploring the surface of a planet with a few other characters. He’s like a third wheel on a date. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the ship will leave him behind… Aha!.. now there’s a thought!… Ah no I won’t do that.. it’s the job of a writer to stick by his characters no matter what personalities emerge from within the pages..

62,000 words and a concept cover

Still on track for a Nov 30th first draft wrap which is great. Starting to get a little fatigued with the idea this week but pushed through some tough writing days. I had a concept book cover sent to me yesterday which I really like but it was pointed out that there is a typo which will obviously need to be attended to before it is sent to agents or publishers.. See if you can spot it!!??… I like the idea of keeping covers simple yet enticing. This will probably be changed quite a bit but seeing a concept cover is a great booster for completing a project..

A few steps back.. more forward

So I got a little side tracked over the last few days after spotting some horrible writing somewhere in the first 10,000 words or so. The word count got sliced up somewhat in the reshuffle, which is disheartening, but life goes on. It’s definitely easier to take out than to put in. When I began this journey the opening few pages were far too wordy. I think every writer who tackles their first novel wants to come off sounding like Shakespeare but in the end most end up going in circles and getting lost in the fray of fabulous vernacular.  Cut to the chase as it were. Nearly at the three quarter mark. Nearly !!

 

 

 

Goodbye Prologue … 56,000 words

So I took a major executive decision. A large literary axe was drawn and brought firmly down on my prologue. It’s been a flab of wordy flesh dangling off the novel for months and although the backstory is important it turns out it can be incorporated later on in the story without much difficulty and besides, agents hate them, readers skip them and every single article I read about them over the past year has been desponding about them. So it’s gone. On the cutting room floor. It was a nice scene to be honest and I always liked how it started but the first chapter is so important when submitting to agents and publishers that I couldn’t risk it. Get to the point in the first few pages. Grab em and keep em…!!!

I love this blog on Writing by Ellen Brock check out her advice on opening chapters

https://thewriteditor.wordpress.com/first-chapter-mistakes-and-cliches/

 

55,000 words : Candy scenes…

There are key scenes called candy scenes that reveal a major plot point. These “reveal” scenes are great to write because you’ve been sitting on them for months. You have to be patient with them. The pace at which a reader reads a book is humbling when you realise how ling it takes to write one. Still it’s one of my favourite things to write is a big plot point scene. A “who done it” type of line that tells all. I am not going to reveal major plot points in a blog. It spoils the surprise but when you do get to a major candy scene try not to rush it. Some of the greatest action scenes in books take place over a huge number of pages. You can play with a reader a little bit to keep the appetite and enthusiasm up to turn the page but eventually they will get tired and just want to know the outcome so be careful with this. I am far from mastering this technique and won’t truly know if it works or not for me until the first draft read through. Which is going to be a nightmare of spelling mistakes, punctuation mistakes and nonsensical  structure. Ah no.. I jest.. Shakespeare ain’t got nothing on me.. 😉

Because my plot points today and yesterday were all about DNA here is a link to some useful information should you ever need it on the topic..

http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/genetics/vgec/schoolscolleges/topics/dna-genes-chromosomes

53,000 inspiration from the TMT

I broke just over 53000 today. Getting in the meat and potatoes of the story now. The blue print for where the story is going still have a few places to go and I am having great debates as to where to take it. I’ll have to have the last third of the plot locked in by the next four or five thousand words otherwise we’ll run into plot holes. Some of which you can fix in the rewrite but I don’t want to end up writing a completely new story because of flakyness.

An amazing project has broken ground on the summit of Mauna Kea Hawaii. The TMT (Thirty meter telescope) is the boldest and most exciting piece of optics in the history of the world. When trying to plan the technology of my novel I took a lot of the potential imaging techniques from this type of observatory. The thirty meter telescope will be made up of a 492 segment 30 meter primary mirror. The potential resolution of the images that will be captured on this could be up to 12 times that of the Hubble Space telescope.

In most science fiction stories there is some form of stellar cartography involved in the story especially when you are telling a tale that involves some form of FTL travel. Accurate mapping of star systems is crucial to my story and so is the theoretical technology that allows humans 300 years in the future to see deep into the universe. For more information on the TMT click on the link below.

http://www.tmt.org/gallery/photo-illustrations

52,000 … going uphill … backwards

Messy writing days are awful. That’s 1,000 words probably consigned to the trash. Maybe maybe not but sometimes it just does’t flow. The tricky part of science fiction is getting bogged down in the tech. Having the flu doesn’t help either. Each word today was a marathon of thought and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Bang smack in the middle of a big reveal about alien DNA… of which no such thing exists .. so much research on DNA variations and how it chemically fits together. My head hurts. When this happens it gets a special book mark. The red mark of “this scene is a piece of shit”. We’ll revisit at the end of the first draft. Right now we’re just laying down tracks. The real writing comes with the rewrites. Get your story out on paper no matter what. Sick, tired, grumpy, no inspiration, no time whatever. Just get it out.