Progress report

Yeah, there have been a lot of distractions lately, but today I was able to get down and focus, and I edited chapters 24-28. I feel like I really improved some inconsistencies in the emotional arc there.

I’m also motivated to get going on Trials because I did a Facebook ad for Trang (it’s free, people are bored, and Facebook is getting a lot of traffic but not a lot of ads, so the click-through costs are low), so now I’m getting more readers, which means MORE GUILT.

(If you’re here because of that ad, you can get my other books for free on Smashwords! Do it! Before the 20th!)

Progress report

Like most people, I’ve been finding it hard to focus lately, but today I decided to give editing a shot, and it went pretty well! I went over chapters 20-23, and I think it went OK—they’ve definitely benefitted from the earlier editing passes.

Quick note

Yeah, Holiday Madness went into Tax Season, plus I decided to bite the bullet and go through the storage units (multigenerational hoarding!). So I’m a bit swamped, but I’m hoping that in March things will settle down and I can focus on editing again.

Progress report

Back at it! Edited chapters 21-25—it’s definitely rougher now, I haven’t had as many passes over these chapters and you can tell. Plus it’s sort of where the aftermath of all the action happens, so the pacing is a little slower—I think that’s something that has to happen by this point, but of course I don’t want the book to drag, so it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

Progress report

Whoo! I went back and fixed a few things that had begun to bother me, and then I edited chapters 15-20. Although actually it was 15-21—I merged two shorter chapters together, which I think works better.

It’s good! I’m enjoying it! I guess that’s the advantage of this taking forever—I have enough distance on the material that I can actually get some pleasure from it.

Hiya!

Yeah, things got really busy, but fingers crossed—I’m hopeful I can now get into a routine that allows for some friggin’ editing to happen!

To that end, today I edited the first three chapters—again, I know, but I thought they actually looked pretty good, and I was able to polish out the things that had been bothering me. So: Yay!

Still chugging!

Yeah, a lot is going on, but today I found some time and edited chapters 3-6. Some things I’m happy with, but I’m not sure how well I’m balancing the need for exposition with the need to keep things interesting—I feel like, OK, you don’t have to explain EVERY last thing….

Behold, I live!

OK! I am now living halfway across the country, but things have calmed down enough that I decided to take a shot at editing Trials some more! I’m starting at the beginning (because it’s been a looooong time), and I did the first two chapters!

An announcement

Obviously I haven’t been very focused on the novel lately—part of the reason is that it’s tax time, but the other part is that my mother (who lives in Texas) has been doing more and more poorly. I’d pretty much decided that I was going to have to move there, and a recent visit has made it clear that I’m going to have to move as soon as possible (i.e. after April 15, for none dare challenge the Tax Gods).

So I’m going to be very focused on all of that for the next few-to-several months. Hopefully once things settle down and there’s a good routine going, I can dive right back in and finish Trials!

Fantasy, race & romance

Via Isobel Carr, there’s an interesting article up about how race is used in the fantasy genre, and how that might be improved.

I’ve read a couple of fantasy/science-fiction romances that I felt were a little…weird this way. The way that they work is that the Protagonist is secretly an X. Then they meet Romantic Object…who is also an X! This means that they are soul mates who will bond and marry and live happily ever after, the end.

I mean, I know I’m a hard sell on romance, but I can’t be the only one to think this is lazy as shit. Why bother trying to generate chemistry between two characters when you can just make them both, I dunno, androids or empaths or Greek gods or aliens from the plant Blorn! Easy-peasy!

Except it’s not very engaging, and it’s got this weird, forced, essentialist element to it. I mean, if I’m from Blorn, and you’re from Blorn…there are probably a billion or so other Blornians back on our home planet, so what makes our relationship so damned special? Maybe we feel a connection because we are two lonely Blornians on Earth, but it’s going to take a bit more than that for our relationship to move past the hot fling stage into love eternal.

ALIVE

The year end/beginning of tax time is a real bitch, huh?

There’s also some personal & family stuff going on, so we’ll see how much I can get done. I’m hoping to resume editing in a few days, so fingers crossed.