The SFF Writing Check-in Corner

slhuang

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*flops down*

I JUST FINISHED FORMATTING MY EBOOK FOR BOOK 2 OF MY SERIES!!!!

Now I just have to go through my list of a dozen things to check, proofread the whole thing on Kindle, do my ARCs and publicity, and upload it for preorder before the retailers close for the holidays . . .

AAAAAAA "JUST" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
 

WriteMinded

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Hey, congrats slhuang. Sounds like a load of work already done. Is that the half-way point?
 

Verbal

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Really enjoy reading all of the goals and progress. Of course, I'm wickedly jealous of those of you with MORE than 100k words.

For me, 50k of book 1 approaches. Hoping to nail that bad boy down by end of week (I'm at 42k at the moment). It's looking like it'll end up being somewhere in the 85-100k range.

By April. Heh, heh...

*thwack* goes the whip crack.
 

Cavetraveller

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65k into my third re-write but stalled at the moment, hence nosying around here instead of writing.

Just wrote a few shorts for competitions over the last few days, total probably around 2k. Now I really have to get back to proper work. Please can I borrow that whip, Verbal?
 

NeglectedSpace

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Here's hoping I'll hit 34K of my first novel by the end of today. I'm stuck though, having reached a point where something needs to happen, but what I have doesn't feel like it's compelling enough...
 

rwm4768

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I've started listening to the Writing Excuses podcast. I hope it gets my creative juices flowing again.
 

bshane54

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I think i read too many epic fantasies (Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, George R. R. Martin, etc) - i started my very first book last week and am about 20,000 words in... and there are only hints of what's to come. Which scares me. I'm 36, never written or taken courses, just love to read and wanted to give back. I don't want to get bored of it when I know this could be a crazy long series, and fun for me. I have no idea how long I want this book to be, but I know the ending point of the first book. Just not there yet, or even a little bit close. Still starting really. taking on a huge task haha
 
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Spent three days working on an outline of an important chapter, ended up scrapping the whole thing altogether. Which has an unfortunate side effect of throwing off the pacing of the whole novel. This is somewhat of a problem.
 

zanzjan

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Welcome, bshane54 and RC! :welcome:

I'm not an outliner, but I'm a firm believer in not worrying too much about things until the second draft :)
 

Mark Moore

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My sis came down from Illinois with her friend and her youngest daughter (my niece) on Sunday night. Even though they stayed only one night before going further south, they'll be back around Friday for one more night, so my mom is sticking to the temporary sleeping arrangement of the couch in the dining room - only a few feet from me. So I can't exactly get any writing done without her inevitably asking what the heck I'm doing. So I'm outlining the chapters of a planned novel.
 

Dracomada

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I'm a little over 11k into my first novel. I'm just going to throw it up on my blog and never monetize the thing. That way I can come back and laugh at how bad of a writer I was when I'm older and wiser.

I've got multiple short stories in the works right now: one I need to do some serious editing on, one I think will be good, but I'm stuck on it right now, and one that is just an idea on a page.

I have two goals. First one is to finish about 2k words a week on either a short story or the novel. The second id to kick my terrible habit of telling not showing when I write. :p
I'm bad about following through on my goals though, any suggestions?:Shrug:

I've started listening to the Writing Excuses podcast. I hope it gets my creative juices flowing again.
I love writing excuses, I'm sure something in there will help you rwm.
 

WriteMinded

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Coming to the end. I keep saying that. I get closer, then closer, and it gets farther and farther. And the word count keeps climbing, and climbing.
 

krjwrites

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I'm 90k into my first novel, which I hope to wrap up by 120k. For this novel I pantsed it, but I already know that was a mistake. I need to go back and do some heavy revising, which is fine, but I already feel like my ending will be unearned. So, I'm pondering a restructure right now and I've stopped writing while I re-outline, to see if this is something I should do or not.
 

zanzjan

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:welcome: krjwrites!

For many of us pantsers, the first draft serves the same function as an outline for outliners, and there's nothing wrong with either approach unless it's not the one that works for you. :)

Also, 90k is awesome. Even if the words don't work right yet, it's a lot easier to fix 90k than 0. Good luck! You got this far, you can do it!
 

RedWombat

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Unnngh. I'm in the middle of editing this manuscript--which was edited once, self-pubbed, then acquired by a publisher who set it up with another editor and...

Well, it's gotten weird.

The structural edits were great, I was really excited, but the line edits are increasingly strange as I go through. The editor's pulling out whole lines and dropping in new ones that she wrote. And I mean, not just a couple words or a shift from passive to active voice, I'm talking major changes here--at one point she swapped out "it didn't seem to be helping" with her own "while the situation wasn't any less perilous, it ceased to be novel."

That's not at all the same thing, and it's not anything I would ever write!

Her ear for dialog is...let's go with 'different from mine.' Occasionally jarringly so.

And I mean, I've trade published...uh...three novels, eleven kid's books, a couple more in the pipeline, I'm used to working with in-house editors, I've hired freelance editors before and worked with them, I'm not inclined to sob about my precious prose, but this is different than any edit I've gotten and I'm kinda sweating at the amount of STETs I'm throwing down, and how frequently I just hit "Reject Change" and put it back the way it was.

I've never DONE that. I accept probably 95% of changes on most manuscripts because they're usually right!

But this is getting kind of ridiculous--just hit a completely new line added, with TWO typos in it--and I've emailed my agent, and I don't know if I've just always had editors with a really light hand and this is within the usual norm or what?

Our deadlines are so tight and I'm nearly done, so there's not much point in asking to be placed with a different editor, I guess. I'm just thinking I don't want to work with this one again.

And then I worry that it's me, not them.

So. Um. Someone reassure me I'm not turning into Anne Rice? Please?
 

WriteMinded

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Unnngh. I'm in the middle of editing this manuscript--which was edited once, self-pubbed, then acquired by a publisher who set it up with another editor and...

Well, it's gotten weird.

. . .

And then I worry that it's me, not them.

So. Um. Someone reassure me I'm not turning into Anne Rice? Please?
It's them, not you. And you don't even look like Anne Rice, not even close. :D
 
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amergina

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Unnngh. I'm in the middle of editing this manuscript--which was edited once, self-pubbed, then acquired by a publisher who set it up with another editor and...

Well, it's gotten weird.

The structural edits were great, I was really excited, but the line edits are increasingly strange as I go through. The editor's pulling out whole lines and dropping in new ones that she wrote. And I mean, not just a couple words or a shift from passive to active voice, I'm talking major changes here--at one point she swapped out "it didn't seem to be helping" with her own "while the situation wasn't any less perilous, it ceased to be novel."

That's not at all the same thing, and it's not anything I would ever write!

Her ear for dialog is...let's go with 'different from mine.' Occasionally jarringly so.

And I mean, I've trade published...uh...three novels, eleven kid's books, a couple more in the pipeline, I'm used to working with in-house editors, I've hired freelance editors before and worked with them, I'm not inclined to sob about my precious prose, but this is different than any edit I've gotten and I'm kinda sweating at the amount of STETs I'm throwing down, and how frequently I just hit "Reject Change" and put it back the way it was.

I've never DONE that. I accept probably 95% of changes on most manuscripts because they're usually right!

But this is getting kind of ridiculous--just hit a completely new line added, with TWO typos in it--and I've emailed my agent, and I don't know if I've just always had editors with a really light hand and this is within the usual norm or what?

Our deadlines are so tight and I'm nearly done, so there's not much point in asking to be placed with a different editor, I guess. I'm just thinking I don't want to work with this one again.

And then I worry that it's me, not them.

So. Um. Someone reassure me I'm not turning into Anne Rice? Please?

It's not you. That's not normal.

I've had line editors suggest a few structural changes... but it's maybe one or two in 70K and accompanied by a comment as to why they're suggesting.

I've never had entire sentences added! I would flip.
 

RedWombat

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After I found a page where she added ADVERBS! (Three adverbs! In one page!) and then a weird section where she thought a simile "like a wall" was a real literal wall and so wrote the wall into the next three paragraphs and changed the archways to gates...

Yeah, I emailed my agent. She called the acquisitions editor because this is Not Done. Editor confirms they did not want this and steps being taken. And I don't have to confront the rogue line-editor myself! Yay!
 

amergina

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After I found a page where she added ADVERBS! (Three adverbs! In one page!) and then a weird section where she thought a simile "like a wall" was a real literal wall and so wrote the wall into the next three paragraphs and changed the archways to gates...

Yeah, I emailed my agent. She called the acquisitions editor because this is Not Done. Editor confirms they did not want this and steps being taken. And I don't have to confront the rogue line-editor myself! Yay!

Yay for you agent!

Yeah, that's.... Not Done.
 

AEHwriting

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Querying for my second completed fantasy novel (the first was a monstrosity I don't want to revisit but somehow can't delete).

To take my mind off the mistake I just realized and had to rewrite in the first chapter I've been writing a new fantasy work that has about 9k words.
 

PeteMC

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After I found a page where she added ADVERBS! (Three adverbs! In one page!) and then a weird section where she thought a simile "like a wall" was a real literal wall and so wrote the wall into the next three paragraphs and changed the archways to gates...

Yeah, I emailed my agent. She called the acquisitions editor because this is Not Done. Editor confirms they did not want this and steps being taken. And I don't have to confront the rogue line-editor myself! Yay!


That sounds horrendous, glad you've got it sorted.

I had my first novel in my UF series accepted by a trade pub back in January, and since then I've completed the first draft of the second one while waiting for my edits to come in on the first.

I'm taking a break for a few days before I hit the first round of revisions on book 2, which I will hopefully get done so I can get it out to my betas before the dreaded edits land on book 1.

Then I get so see what *my* editor is like! This is my first published novel so not really sure what to expect...