I'm Done!
Two posts in two days! What has come over me? You'd think it was 2008 again.
I finished the rough draft of novel #4 on Saturday. So maybe it's the giddy relief of having finally tied up this monster of a book. It really is mammoth. It came in at a little over 148k words. (Just for comparison, for those who have read my other books, the longest was Corizen Rising at 102k.)
Yikes. And that was after I cut out an entire chapter that I decided wasn't needed.
It's very rough. I'm currently reading it aloud to Terence and wincing frequently at all the typos. But I have some basic structural things to address before I worry about that kind of stuff. Since this one is so long, and I have plots spiraling out in multiple directions, the first step in to make sure I actually tied everything up like I was supposed to and didn't make any glaring contradictions or missteps. That's Terence's job. (So far his opinion is that the story is like a giant plate of spaghetti-- good, but a twisted heap that needs to all work out somehow. I hope that's a good thing. . . .)
The part that I need to tackle next is the title. My files are all saved under the name of Tarentino, but that is just the place where the story opens and it has little bearing on all that follows, so I need a real title and I'm drawing a complete blank. Common self-publishing wisdom says that I should look at similar stories in the same genre and get an idea for what kinds of titles are popular. Plus it should kinda sorta go with the rest of the series. But I stop cold right at the beginning because I can't pigeonhole what kind of book it is.
Space opera? Science fantasy? Suspense? Young Adult? (Well, I probably have to cross YA off the list. Not a single character falls in the 15-21 age group. The trouble is YA is the category it would best fit in tone, and a couple of other books in the series are definitely YA. *sigh* I can't do anything straightforward I guess.)
Yeah.
This is why people like to throw their books at agents and hope that someone will take it. An agent might get you a traditional publisher. A publisher will figure all the nitty gritty hard details out. Best of all, a publisher accepting your book proves that it is finally good enough to be published.
Well, I can see the appeal. But by now I've also read enough to realize that traditional publishing is not the way I want to go. So I'll keep slogging along. And eventually I'll get the books out there.
Hopefully before I'm 80!
I finished the rough draft of novel #4 on Saturday. So maybe it's the giddy relief of having finally tied up this monster of a book. It really is mammoth. It came in at a little over 148k words. (Just for comparison, for those who have read my other books, the longest was Corizen Rising at 102k.)
Yikes. And that was after I cut out an entire chapter that I decided wasn't needed.
It's very rough. I'm currently reading it aloud to Terence and wincing frequently at all the typos. But I have some basic structural things to address before I worry about that kind of stuff. Since this one is so long, and I have plots spiraling out in multiple directions, the first step in to make sure I actually tied everything up like I was supposed to and didn't make any glaring contradictions or missteps. That's Terence's job. (So far his opinion is that the story is like a giant plate of spaghetti-- good, but a twisted heap that needs to all work out somehow. I hope that's a good thing. . . .)
The part that I need to tackle next is the title. My files are all saved under the name of Tarentino, but that is just the place where the story opens and it has little bearing on all that follows, so I need a real title and I'm drawing a complete blank. Common self-publishing wisdom says that I should look at similar stories in the same genre and get an idea for what kinds of titles are popular. Plus it should kinda sorta go with the rest of the series. But I stop cold right at the beginning because I can't pigeonhole what kind of book it is.
Space opera? Science fantasy? Suspense? Young Adult? (Well, I probably have to cross YA off the list. Not a single character falls in the 15-21 age group. The trouble is YA is the category it would best fit in tone, and a couple of other books in the series are definitely YA. *sigh* I can't do anything straightforward I guess.)
Yeah.
This is why people like to throw their books at agents and hope that someone will take it. An agent might get you a traditional publisher. A publisher will figure all the nitty gritty hard details out. Best of all, a publisher accepting your book proves that it is finally good enough to be published.
Well, I can see the appeal. But by now I've also read enough to realize that traditional publishing is not the way I want to go. So I'll keep slogging along. And eventually I'll get the books out there.
Hopefully before I'm 80!
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