Re-writes

Starting in on the refining of the story now, and there's times when it gets rather difficult. Some days words don't come to me easily. It's like trying to run through clam flats, rather slow and sticky. But if I stand still I'll start sinking, and get even more stuck.
Time to go draw on inspiration.

Details.

Now that I have 98% of the plot worked out, I can now start going into details. Like adjusting the voice for each section, adding more details, delving into the imagination...
I sat in my car in the parking lot at Borders last night waiting for my daughter to pick up her midnight release of Stephanie Meyers' book Breaking Dawn, (which is her latest book in the Twilight series) and I worked on revising the manuscript from the beginning, on my laptop with one of those USB powered LED lights so I could see the keyboard. It was getting rather exciting, but then my arms got kind of uncomfortable from the side position, as it wouldn't fit in front of the steering wheel, it was too high, and people could see me obviously working on my laptop on my car, and it attracted too much attention. So, it was on the passenger seat. Then I played with my phone and learned to surf the web and type using the phone keypad. Rather tricky, but interesting to learn.

Book splitting. :)

I sat and looked at this manuscript and felt overwhelmed. Then I thought, why not go ahead and publish book 1 separately instead of trying to publish both book 1 and 2 in one published tome? I realize book one does have a beginning, a middle and an end to the degree that it can stand alone as one published piece. I had initially thought that otherwise book 2 would need to have a synopsis of book one, and I realize it doesn't really need it.
You know, I'm not really a writer, per se. At least it is not something I want to do professionally. I just want to tell some stories, and hope people are willing to read them. I would like to consider myself a Latarikhin, a storyteller. Buuut, I think I'm more of a Vakhar Latarin, a seeker of words. Ha. Haa! (Nobody is going to get that except me, sigh...)

Oh yes, word count for the rough draft (2 books) is 103,658. :)

Taking a break.

Reached a point where I have another plot snag, so it's going to take some thinking and note taking to work through it in a satisfactory way. Plus, I'm rather tired from writing.
Word count: 87,201

At the canter...

Putting in a whole new section that closes a lot of plot gaps. I'm enjoying this part, but I'm starting to feel the weariness of so much writing lately. Not much left over to go online and and do much interacting at the moment.
This section focuses on the school aspect of Imerh Tarkhah, and how Arinatos interacts with some key characters, who will become major players later in the story. Plus, he's in the process of getting educated in the ways of the Tarkhah, which is the Anyatin word used for the Officers. They are not so much the privileged class brats he thought they were. The Junior officers have to go through many years of arduous training with hectic daily schedules that left him exhausted when he was allowed to participate.
Word count is at 84,450. :)

Also, I rearranged my room so that I can use the drafting table as a desk. I sit there with the laptop, and my notes, and I get a lot more done this way.
A couple times a week when I'm in town, either at community college library or the church building, which is next to the town library. I either use the MPC library or one of the church's classrooms to work, and mince over to the town library if I want to look something up. An ideal setup for writing, I'll say.

Book 2

Well into Book 2 now, filling in more of the story plot, from copious amounts of notes from many months of note-writing. It's a nice feeling to be actually writing new bits for the story, at this point. Trouble is, there's times when I don't want to do anything else, until my typing fingers get tired. I love being in writing mode, though.
Word count: 80194. :D

Update...

Back in actual writing mode.
Added a number of new words to the main manuscript for Fall of the Onyx, and it's going well. Word count now at 71213, at this moment.
Writing fiction is a lot like looking for gold. Sometimes one has to dig around a bit and do a lot of backbreaking work, in a manner of speaking, and sometimes you just sit quietly by a stream and pan and the stuff just appears, gleaming, from among the grains of sand.
This is all about putting the bricks together, and pressing them into the mortar to add to the building. So that the story looks less like a pile of bricks, and more like a proper structure. :)

Plugging away.

Still working on the storyline, filling in the gaps. These things take time, and often days of just ruminating on different elements. But it's progressing, and I'm still pleased with what's happening in the story. I'd better be! :D

A couple of personal book reviews...

Time for another break from writing, to catch up on other things. I read a couple of Anne McCaffrey books, one was Dragonsdawn, the other, The Dolphins of Pern. The first book was interesting in that it showed how the first people to land on Pern established the settlements on the planet, and how they developed the first dragons. That was enjoyable reading, and obviously involved a lot of research, being a heavily sci-fi book as opposed to more fantasy oriented as the other Dragonriders of Pern books are. The second book, Dolphins, was fun in that the earth dolphins that were introduced to Pern's world could speak, and the scenes involving them were charming, but overall, it wasn't a very well written book. It seemed to lack detail in some of the scenes, so that I was not immersed in them. The momentous death of a main character of the Pern books was skimmed over to three paragraphs, and while it was from the perspective of the settlers of a southern hold, there was little mention of anyone else's reaction. I dunno, it was a bit scattered and rather disappointing. Not sure why that is. I'm not that great at literary criticism, but instead judge whether a book is readable for me, or not. Having a lousy attention span borne from long years raising a couple of challenging kids, I'm hoping that I can improve on that.

The introduction of new scenes in my book has been good, because finally finally finally, after ears of pondering and working things out, it's getting knitted together. Yes, it's taken me that long.

There's a storm blowing in from the Pacific today and lasts until the next morning, and hopefully the power will stay on. It's blowing pretty hard out there already, and the real winds are supposed to be in until 4 or 5 this afternoon. Sheesh.

Writing again...

There's nothing better in the world of wording, than plucking a new idea, like a succulent ripe fruit, from the tree of the collective consciousness, and feeding the hungry plot monster. Which also paves the way to finding the more viable solution to the protagonist's problem, further into the story. It doesn't change the story much, just makes it better. Ah, to ride the crest of a creative wave... it is golden, just golden.